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Old 12-22-2004, 10:46 AM   #413 (permalink)
Cynthetiq
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from today's NYTimes.com
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Quote:
December 22, 2004
Entertaining Web Sites Promote Products Subtly
By NAT IVES

MARKETERS usually try to slip their names into every conceivable venue - like cellphone screens, bathroom posters and TV shows via product placement. But there are times when an ad that almost disguises its sponsor can be more effective.

Many of these ads have taken the form of specialty Web sites, like www.subservientchicken.com, which is intended to entrance visitors with humor, video or games.

Subservient Chicken, perhaps the year's most prominent example, allows visitors to type orders to someone dressed in a chicken costume, who is seen obeying, as if on a live Webcam.

The site, a promotion for the TenderCrisp chicken sandwich sold at Burger King, says little about Burger King or the sandwich, although there is a discreet link to the Burger King site.

Other marketers have moved into specialty Web sites, including Alaska Airlines, which operates a parody site at www.skyhighairlines.com, and Best Buy, the retail chain, which is creating specialty sites tied to particular campaigns, products and audiences.

At one site, Best Buy depicts a fictional Slothmore Institute (www.slothmore.com), which brags of "enabling greatness through sedentary living."

A note from the institute's fictional founder, Dr. Harvey Funkel, explains. "Here at Slothmore we believe that everyone deserves to achieve one's dreams and aspirations," he says, "especially if one's dream is to never achieve a thing."

The idea is that stay-at-home sloths may as well surround themselves with a stereo system, which, incidentally, visitors can check out by clicking on a Best Buy banner ad at the bottom.

Michael Borosky, vice president and creative director at Eleven in San Francisco, said specialty sites enjoy technical and creative support from the marketers, but do not have to observe the conventions of the corporate site. Eleven has created sites for companies like Barclays Global Investors and Eastman Kodak.

"I do consider them kind of like pirate radio stations," Mr. Borosky said. "You're kind of borrowing some bandwidth from the brand, but it allows you to do things the brand may not be comfortable with on its own corporate site."

Another site, Digital Joy (www.digitaljoy.com), advertises the benefits of a partnership between Microsoft and Intel to sell digital entertainment technology, like personal computers that can record television programs. Microsoft and Intel hired Deutsch in New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to create advertising promoting their products.

"Clearly these guys want to be players in the digital home entertainment world," said Fred Rubin, a partner at Deutsch and director of its iDeutsch and directDeutsch divisions. "There's this big idea you want to get out there. It also is different things to different people."

"A television commercial alone would not have solved their problem," Mr. Rubin said. "A Web site alone would not have solved their problem either." It took commercials to drive consumers to the site, he said, and the site's abilities and narrow focus to show them what is available.

At www.comeclean.com visitors are asked to type in confessions, urging, "Start the new year fresh by coming clean." Entered confessions then appear on a hand over a sink, where it is washed away with soap that you can buy at an online gift shop linked to the site.

Visitors can also peek at previous visitors' anonymous confessions. "I haven't changed my sheets in about a month or two," one palm reads. Other confessions are not appropriate for a family newspaper, but all go down the drain in the end. Even confessions of criminal acts are washed away - after an advisory on the site that says they have been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The site was created by the same agency that is behind Subservient Chicken, Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami, to promote Method, the San Francisco marketer of the soaps used to wash away the confessions.
I was thinking about this as I was playing Need For Speed: Underground 2. As I drive around the city I see lots of Best Buys....
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