advertising - Tag Archive

Holidays are coming!

Leave a reply Christopher Roberts

The title of this article is a reference to the historic Coca-Cola advert. Whilst I’m not sure I’d class it as the Christmas season yet, it’s pretty clear that retailers think it is.

Coca-Cola Christmas trucks

The Coca-Cola Christmas ad – what isn’t Christmassy about HGV’s driving through the countryside?

Here in the UK, many shops have had Christmas stock on sale for over a month now, only taking it down for a brief interlude to replace it with Halloween and bonfire night stock. In just over two weeks, it’s the infamous Black Friday, which is meant to be when the Christmas shopping rush really gets started.

One of the key moments in British Christmas is now when the main Christmas advertisements start showing. I’ve yet to see the iconic Coca-Cola ad, but last Friday saw the launch of the festive John Lewis ad.

Over the last decade, John Lewis’s Christmas adverts have become rather famous and somewhat of a seasonal event. Each year the public sceptically awaits the ad to see if it’s going to better last years. This year’s tells the heart-warming (as always!) story of a little girl and an elderly man who lives on the moon.

This years attracted the usual attention. #ManOnTheMoon was the number one trending topic in the UK for most of ads release day (last Friday) and it was instantly parodied. Here are some of my favourites.

Firstly a Royal Mail undeliverable note.

What about The Martian, Matt Damon?

Maybe if the little girl had seen the film Up…

So the real question is: is this excitement just retailers trying to encourage us to spend more money? I’m not sure many people would argue in favour of Black Friday being an event that spreads Christmas cheer, but is there anything wrong with a festive advert pulling at your heart strings?

Genuine happiness creation, or just a clever marking ploy?

P.S Next time you’re in a food retailer, why not ask an assistant if they have any Christmas spirit in stock!

Sponsored: Christmas is on TomTom this year!

Leave a reply Christopher Roberts

This is a sponsored post on behalf of TomTom. To find out more about sponsored content on Technology Bloggers, please visit our Privacy Policy.

Navigation systems manufacturer TomTom has just launched a Christmas campaign entitled ‘TomTom Gives you More’. Most advertising campaigns usually have a flashy advertisement which costs a large chunk of the budget, but this year, TomTom are taking a different approach.

If you live in the UK, you may know that food retailer Waitrose has decided that instead of spending tens of thousands on a Christmas advert this year, they are going to have a simple, cheaper ad and donate more funds (funds from the advertising budget) to charity.

TomTom are doing something similar to this, they haven’t blown the entire marketing budget on advertising, so are spending the remainder of the funds on prizes!

Don’t believe me? Check out their attempt at making a viral online ad – with their very limited budget!

%CODEUMTC1%

Despite the limited budget, I really like the video. That said I am not sure that mashing together some of the greatest YouTube virals will make a new one… I guess we will have to wait and see!

I suppose you could say that TomTom are taking the role of Santa’s helper this Chrismas, giving everyone the chance to win some extra Christmas presents!

The ultimate prize is six unforgettable driving adventure experiences for four people. The locations of the driving experiences are: Ruta 40 (Argentina); the Garden Route (South Africa); the Grand Alpine Tour (Europe); the Malaysian Roundabout; the Australian Coastal Route; and the Pacific Coastal Highway (California).

The routes all sound amazing, and I know from personal experience that the Garden Route in South Africa is the trip of a lifetime! I went last summer and was taken aback by the amazing scenery and diverse wildlife. I really loved my time in South Africa, it was a great experience.

There are also thousands of other prizes to be won, including navigation smartphone apps, Nike sports watches, gift vouchers, and state of the art TomTom sat navs.

So, how do you go about winning your extra Christmas presents? Well, if you go to TomTom’s website you can visit the competition page, where you get the chance to ‘unwrap’ a continent from the world map, which is festively ‘wrapped up’.

Unwrap the world - TomTom

The world, wrapped up for TomTom’s Christmas competition!

Once you have unwrapped a continent, you can upload a file, telling TomTom why you should win! The file could be a video, a song, short story, poem or anything else you feel you could do to persuade TomTom you should win! If your entry is judged as original and fun, you could win one of the trips on offer!

The competition runs until the 15th of January 2013, so you have plenty of time to enter and be in with a chance of winning 🙂

If you decide to enter and play the TomTom Christmas game, you can get extra coins (in the game) if you enter this code: Bloggers_TomTom which is unique to Technology Bloggers!

Ads online – you have a choice

2 Replies Christopher Roberts

The internet is full of ads. There is no escaping that fact that despite it being a free web, the word ‘free’ probably means you will have to put up with an awful lot of adverts. People who work online have to make a living, and ads is one of the most popular ways to do so – fair enough.

Sometimes you have to accept that we need ads to help keep so many free services on the internet running; information on blogs, free emails, forums and search engines just to name a few.

Many people believe that the ads are there, and that is the way it is going to stay. Useless information will get in your way when you are looking for useful content, but that is not entirely correct.

Advertisers advertise, ultimately because they want to boost their or their business or organisations income. Advertisements may drive sales, increase donations, raise awareness, promote a brand, offer freebies, or do a whole number of other things.

Most consumers (that’s people like you and me) think that adverts are an inconvenience, but need they be?

Advertisers are now getting clever, cookies are being used to track what you look at online, and are then used to present you with ads that are relevant to you, which you might actually find interesting.

Many people may find that a daunting prospect. Advertisers are collecting information about me in order to try to ‘improve my ad experience’ and at the end of the day get me to spend more money. Is that right?

Enter AdChoices.

The AdChoices IconThe Digital Advertising Alliance have founded a site called Your AdChoices, which gives you information about the choices you have about the adverts that you see whilst browsing the internet.

Would you rather the ads that you see online were relevant to you, or random? Now, for the first time, you have the ability to choose.

Hundreds of advertising hosts now use AdChoices, to let you personalise the way you view the web. Google, AOL, Adobe, Disney, Kraft, Microsoft, News Corp and Yahoo are just some of the big names that participate in the AdChoices scheme.

Here is an extract from the AdChoices website:

“The Advertising Option Icon gives you transparency and control for
interest-based ads:

  • Find out when information about your online interests is being gathered or used to customize the Web ads you see.
  • Choose whether to continue to allow this type of advertising.”

Still not understanding the concept? See if watching this video helps.

So you have a choice. You can choose to receive personalised ads, which could potentially improve your browsing experience, or you could choose to opt out. Your choice.

For more information, or to opt out, head over to YourAdChoices.com.

Sometimes, Technology Bloggers writers will choose to display an AdSense Ad in there articles. These all have the AdChoices button on them. I rarely add one, but for your interest, look below. Can you see the ‘i’?


What will you do, opt out or stay in? Do you think it is good that we are now offered personalised ads, or is it an invasion of privacy?

With regard to personalised ads I am undecided, but am slowly warming to the idea.