I just wanted to make a super quick post. I don’t really have too much to say, but I wanted to share the video of the new Smart Water commercial that is being called “Jennifer Aniston’s Sex Tape”. The commercial is a parody of other viral videos. I really like the spot. They didn’t try to make a super clever viral video hoping that the general public wouldn’t realize it was a commercial for Smart Water. They were open and honest and created something cute and funny. Not to mention, who doesn’t just love Jennifer Aniston?!?
Without further ado here is, “Jennifer Aniston’s Sex Tape”
Airports are no strangers to advertising. Tons of traditional advertising can be seen inside any given airport. A few years ago, Zappos.com even started advertising in security bins. Now the bathrooms are going to be taken over. Clear Channel Airports has partnered with Mirrus to create bathroom mirror advertisements. The ads are starting to appear at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, and are already in sports stadiums in Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Soon the ads will be everywhere. Once finished, the O’Hare airport will have 150 40’’ digital advertising mirror displays that feature HD stills and/or videos.
Current advertisers include Pepsi, Geico, Illy Coffee, Microsoft, Pledge, Zappos.com, Spanx, and Dove Men. The ads are complete with sensors that track in real time which ads are being seen, how many times they are seen, and for how long. Before a consumer walks up to the mirror, the ad takes up the entire mirror. As the consumer approaches the mirror, the ad minimizes to the upper left hand corner.
While some are complaining about the new mirrors, they have been in Japan since 2006 and no one has been harmed. In fact, since you already have to be a Jedi Master to work a public bathroom, the shrinking mirror ads only make sense. To flush a toilet, just move away from the sensor. As you approach the mirror, the ads shrink. To operate the faucet, soap dispenser, and paper towel dispenser simply wave your hand. Now, if someone finally installs automatic doors we could have a completely touch free experience!
Below is a video of a man testing out the new mirrors in a football stadium.
Regardless of whether people hate the ads or love the ads, they get people talking. They create word-of-mouth, which can be more important than the actual ad itself.
Now that you know how Google makes their money, how do you feel about it? Google does a great job of identifying their ads. They are clearly highlighted in yellow, and say Sponsored Link.
Other search engines are not as transparent. They seldom used MetaCrawler recently received a failing grade in a poll about their transparency when it came to advertisements. Below is a picture of the MetaCrawler search page for Canon. This is the same search term used in my last blog about Google’s billons. As with the last post, the advertisements are circled in red.
As you can see, they laced in with the actual search results. The advertisements say Sponsored by: below the link. However, they are not as well labeled as Google’s ads. If a user was not pay attention, they could click on an ad without ever knowing. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that.
Ads are a necessary part of life, and can sometimes be helpful. After all, if you search for Canon camera as I did, you possibly want to buy a Canon. Therefore an ad for Best Buy, or a similar site, would be very helpful.
I have a two part question to you guys- Do you notice advertisements on search engines? Do you think there is a problem with the way MetaCrawler lays out their ads?
As of October 5th, 2009, Google was worth $153.4 BILLION! So, how is that possible? How does Google make their money?
When I go to Google, I type in the search terms I want and hit Google search, or if I am in a particularly frisky mode, I’m feeling lucky! Let’s say for example I want information about digital camera, more specifically a Canon digital camera. I go to Google and type in Canon. I get back a page of search results, and start looking at webpages. So how does me doing that translate to Google being worth BILLIONS of dollars?
Google charges companies to put ads on their page. Wait… what? I’ve never seen ads on Google… or have you? Below is a picture of Google search results for “canon”. The ads are in a red box. They are at the top and the side of the page.
These companies pay Google based on the number of clicks on their website. So if Best Buy purchased ad space on Google when someone typed in Canon, and I clicked on their site, they would have to pay Google for that click.
So how much do companies pay per click, you ask? Well, it depends. Google makes companies bid for it. The highest bidders get closer to the top of the page. Say Best Buy bids $0.15 a click, and Radio Shack bids $0.10 a click. Best Buy would be at the very top of the page. Radio Shack may be pushed over to the side of the page, where people rarely look.
In Sarah's Mind 