By Jessica Roy 10/10/12 1:43pm

Ad-versity

(Photo: YouTube)

Clean Water Charity Uses ‘First World Problems’ Meme to Guilt You Into Donating

If those save the children infomercials are any indication, drawing on a guilty conscience is one way to compel American audiences to step off their cushy couch and cough up a donation. Waterislife.com and its ad agency DDB NY both appear toave a pretty solid grasp of this phenomenon.

In a video released last week, the clean water charity urges people to donate to poverty-stricken Haitians by capitalizing on one of the Internet’s most widespread memes: First World Problems. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 11:41am

Fun with GIFs

Miami-Yoga-280_small

GIFs Infiltrate Advertising in Relentless March Toward Total Domination of All Communication

Is there any dusty corner of the Internet isolated from the fervor of the GIF craze? Now it appears that these mesmerizing mini-movies have crept into advertising. Take, for example, an email that the Standard Hotel’s Miami outpost just sent, which employs the best tool for the visual communication since the advent of the emoticon to trumpet its yoga offerings.

The email contains little besides four GIFs, two of which we’ve provided here: Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/20/12 12:42pm

Badvertising

(Photo: Duke.edu)

Startup Gives People What They’ve Always Wanted: Ads to Wipe Your Butt With

Perhaps disgruntled Yammer CEO David Sacks was right. With so few good ideas out there to execute on, perhaps we really are in the twilight of Silicon Valley. And even if a company does have a good idea, don’t even mention the M word (monetization, spoken in a whisper), lest you incite the rabid boos of the NYC tech set.

But we have to imagine that this end-times mentality is what led a Michigan startup to hinge its entire business on getting companies to advertise on toilet paper. It’s a more literal take on the term “crappy advertising.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/01/12 12:39pm

Privacy Police

Mr. Lynch (blogs.technet.com)

Microsoft’s Surprising Move to Protect User Privacy

We’re pretty sure that the vast majority of Betabeat users not only don’t use Internet Explorer, but also passionately despise it. But we’ll give props when props are due, and despite Microsoft’s one out of four star rating from the EFF on privacy, the company now appears to be taking a stronger stand on the issue.

Microsoft announced on its blog yesterday that Mozilla’s Do Not Track feature would be automatically implemented within all copies of Internet Explorer 10. The move, Microsoft says, will empower users to make more informed decisions about the way third parties handle their data. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/01/12 7:50am

Facebook Faceoff

(madcowramblings.com)

Do Not Share a Link to Personal Lubricant on Facebook Unless You Want It to Become an Ad

For avid Facebook users, it’s become second nature to “like” a brand or political position or angsty emo group like “When I say ‘I hate you’ I mean ‘I love you but you hurt me.’”And most informed users know that in the court of Facebook, your likes can be used against you–mainly, as ads displayed to your friends in some dystopian form of peer pressure: “Jessica likes Betabeat! You should too!”

But did you know that the links you share on Facebook can also be served to your friends as ads? As the New York Times reports today, that’s what happened to Nick Bergus, who jokingly shared an Amazon link to a 55-gallon barrel of lube. Read More

By Jessica Roy 5/24/12 12:15pm

Be Like the Virus

Nihal Mehta, CEO of LocalResponse (twitter.com)

Creepy New ‘Intent Advertising’ Means You’ll Soon Be Served Ads Based on Your Tweets

Oversharers, beware: if you’ve recently tweeted anything embarrassing–say, how much you drank last night–be prepared to confront ads that directly address your tweets. For example: If you’re browsing a website even without being logged into its Twitter functionality, you might get served a banner ad about a hangover cure, or deals on Stoli.

It’s a new form of big brother-esque hyper-targeted advertising from New York-based startup LocalResponse that, according to a press release, “delivers more relevant ads across all platforms by learning from public consumer intent expressed over public social media channels.” Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/18/12 4:43pm

Foursquare Be Hustlin'

Mr. Rosenblatt. (LinkedIn.com)

Foursquare Hires Ad Man As Chief Revenue Officer

Go back to your lives, citizens! The markets are now closed, and so we can all quit talking about Facebook for at least a couple of hours. Instead, let’s turn our attention back to another white-hot one-day IPO candidate attempting to monetize: Foursquare.

Ad Age reports that, on the heels of that paid media platform and those personalized coupons, the company has hired Steven Rosenblatt (already a consultant) as chief revenue officer. Previously he was director of ad sales and strategy at iAd and before that, SVP ad sales at Quattro Wireless, which pretty much cements our expectations, monetization-wise.  Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/16/12 12:25pm

Tumblr's Very Own

Mr. Karp (via livestream.com)

This Is the Kind of Advertising David Karp Likes

Once upon a time (by which we mean a few months ago), Tumblr CEO David Karp outright rejected the idea of ads. The scorn has lessened since the advent of sponsorship packages to the Tumblr Radar, but that doesn’t mean Mr. Karp has entirely come around to the inherent worthiness of advertising as a discipline.

This morning’s Internet Week keynote offered a little more insight into what he likes and what he doesn’t. To wit: None of your tacky traditional advertising, thanks. Tumblr wants “creative experiences.”

In a conversation with Internet Week founder David-Michel Davies, Mr. Karp elaborated on the kind of promotional content that doesn’t turn his stomach. As an ideal, he offered up the example of the Hunger Games promotion Capital Couture. Rather than registering hungergames.tumblr.com and slapping up the trailer, the film’s marketing team created a Panem fashion blog and invited fan submissions. Read More

By Jessica Roy 5/09/12 7:31am

Extreme Couponing

Mr. Crowley (flickr.com/seeminglee)

Foursquare Hitches Its Wagon to the Coupon Trend

It’s been a tumultuous past few weeks for New York startups, some of whom are scrapping long-held ideals in order to seek profitability. Looks like it’s time to finally make some money.

Last month, Tumblr announced it will now offer paid ads, a reversal from founder David Karp’s prior opinions about advertising–mainly, that it kind of makes him sick. And today, Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley told the Wall Street Journal that the location-based social network is planning to offer personalized coupons, tailored to each individual user, beginning in July. The news builds on earlier reports about Foursquare’s new paid media platform, scheduled to launch in June. Read More