Advertising format: By showing rather than writing

For decades, high school English teachers have been in the composition class to emphasize a phrase to students, "Needless to listen to me, just show me." This, of course, means that describing an event, a place, a person, and so on, in a way that allows the reader to experience the event, is much better than simply telling them what they need to know.

In the area of digital advertising, the same applies. If you follow this statement, then it is easy to see whether the advertising campaign is very attractive or relatively flat. A brand can advertise its brand's core performance through a copywriting banner, but wouldn't it be more interesting if it could be advertised in a way that shows its performance in real terms?

You may remember the 2008 YouTube ad for the Nintendo Wii game Wario, "Shake it! ”。 Almost when all the text is out of the screen, the whole site page is so real shocking. Since then, a number of brands have used a similar approach, using rich media to develop creative advertising positions, the consumer's various expectations of their products through this visual his way to show.

The new dimension of product marketing

One such event happened this week: Sony showed people online what is the 3D world. The 3D world includes all the images from video games to movies and home entertainment, and its value lies in its three-dimensional imaging technology. Sony has displayed these images on its 3D version of its product Web site, and consumers can access it. And Sony also displayed its 3D effect in an ad on the home page of a website.

After buying an ad for the Wired.com homepage, the homepage of the site is converted into a page with a 3D effect and a similar overlay of ads. Each content section has placed a series of stacked three-D effect screen. Of course, the page does contain ads, but is deliberately blurred ("in the three-dimensional world created by Sony, everything will be better!") ") to incite users to dig further. The experience of visiting the site is sufficient to highlight the benefits of the product.

Create customer base

Earlier this year, the History Channel wanted to promote its special TV series "America: Our Story". The documentary depicts a critical moment in American history, most of which is about innovation, manufacturing and modern technology. To describe these priorities, the channel uses an overlay ad for the MSN home page to advertise.

After the MSN.com home page, users can see a rich media banner ad: In the Statue of Liberty in the assembly process, a person stood on the high spot to witness the festivities. Then the entire page goes down, showing the process as a whole. The move seems to have been a real witness to the move, as if it had come to a construction site. The resulting full-screen ads are very influential, memorable and versatile. The ads include a link to a video banner that provides more information, and links to numerous social media sites.

Shock Mobile Media

Last year, Levi's brand Dockers casual "Shakedown 2 Get Down" ads linked its costumes to a particular lifestyle-inviting users to shake their mobile phones and watch street dancers show off. According to research institute Mobile marketer, the average user spends 42 seconds interacting with the ad. Readers can imagine the effect that the "shake" ad might have on products such as home salad dressings, bottled juices and those that need to be shaken before use.

Of course, this concept can be extended further. Last year, for example, an application successfully passed the approval of the Apple App Store. Baby Shaker describes the crying baby, which encourages users to keep shaking their phones until the baby stops crying.

The above marketing has proved that the use of advertising format to reflect the brand and product performance is very valuable. The more you use rich media to create a web version of your offline product, the better you can deliver the information you want the potential users to have.

(Original: July 15, 2010, compiled: Zeng Cui)