A man pulls up to a crowded sidewalk café in a black Volkswagen Polo, wearing a black-and-white checked scarf indicative of PLO fighters and an olive suicide bomber's bomb-belt. He presses the detonator button, and the inside of the car fills with a fireball, but the car contains it, and the people sitting at the café are unharmed and unaware--then the Polo's tagline appears onscreen: "Small, but tough." Lee and Dan, a London-based Independent agency, has taken credit for the spot, which treads the line between edgy and offensive, but the U.K. agency has not yet publicly stated who--if anyone--funded the spot--which has high production values and appears to be professionally made. Dan, who did not give a last name, stated in an e-mail: "We've had quite a lot of media attention and we're trying to keep a low profile at the moment." He declined further comment. VW vehemently denies having anything to do with the effort. "Volkswagen dissociates itself absolutely from a hoax advertisement that has recently been accessible via the Internet," a VW spokesperson said. "Neither Volkswagen nor any agency acting on behalf of Volkswagen was involved in any way with the creation, production, or distribution of this material." Still, the buzz generated by the hoax, which first appeared as early as Tuesday, raises the question of how much companies can control what consumers are saying about them on the Web. Some industry Web logs speculate that the spot might be a black-bag ad produced secretly by VW and leaked to the public. Pete Blackshaw, co-founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, finds this idea implausible. "I have a very hard time seeing Volkswagen even considering this," he said. "The Web is a danger zone for taking risks like that. The propensity for getting caught or outed or exposed is huge." JupiterResearch analyst Niki Scevak added that regardless of whether VW had a hand in creating the ad, it's hard to know for sure how the company brass really feels about it. "The nuances and the truth behind that are often hard," Scevak said. "The same stance will be taken from a PR standpoint, but the truth behind their actual happiness with the ad will never be known." Viral ads that take company's brands and put them in compromising positions are not at all a new phenomenon. Ads for the Ford SportKa depicted the car's hood smacking a pigeon out of mid-air and its sunroof decapitating a curious cat. Ford denied any connection with the ads. And in early 2003, a fake Puma ad depicted a woman and a man in a sexually suggestive position. That ad, which was very popular among bloggers at the time, showed a woman in a short skirt on her knees in front of a man. Both members of the couple were clad in Puma sneakers, and a Puma bag with the logo prominently displayed was in the foreground. Despite the appeal that the ad may have held for the coveted young male 18-34 market, Puma's executives were not amused. Puma sent cease-and-desist orders to Web sites hosting the ad, and threatened legal action to anyone posting the ad, which the company termed "defamatory." New York, N.Y.-based pop culture Web log Gawker quipped at Puma: "It's the best ad that's been done for your company in years, and you didn't design it." Blackshaw predicted that this kind of rogue advertising will become more and more prolific. "You're going to see that all over the Web. It's going to be irresistible," he said. "One of the biggest stories of 2005 is going to be the evolution from text to multimedia in consumer-generated media. You can see it in vivid Technicolor on the blogs." Much like Puma, Volkswagen has said it is investigating legal action against the creators of the ads. According to Blackshaw, this will be an uphill battle. "Certainly if the brand is being deliberately besmirched or damaged, there's some legitimate cause for corrective action. I think it's naïve for companies to think that they can put out the fire for expression that they don't agree with," he said. In the case of the controversial Puma ad, bloggers continued to post the images despite Puma's legal threats. And it's likely that people will continue to view the VW ad even if they go through with legal action against Lee and Dan. "It's naïve for companies to think they can control what people say on the Web, but it's predictably naïve," Blackshaw said. "A lot of companies are in the very early stages of getting the Net. It takes a lot of education." Ultimately, Blackshaw said, these "hoax" viral ads are simply an expression of how consumers feel about a company. "Is there really that much difference between someone tweaking the brand to create an edgy ad campaign and someone writing a review online?"
Contextual ad network adMarketplace this morning launches a new initiative designed to give publishers an incentive to solicit advertisers for the network--even if those advertisers ultimately abandon the publishers who brought them in and instead advertise with competitors. The plan involves paying publishers residual fees on all ad revenue generated by advertisers they refer. Jim Waltz, founder and CEO of adMarketplace, said that the program gives publishers "a chance to create a long-term annuity with advertisers they introduce to adMarketplace." To sign up advertisers, publishers place a link on their company Web sites that redirects the advertisers to a co-branded registration page for adMarketplace's network. If the advertisers eventually sign up for the network, the referring publishers will receive a commission on the revenue generated from that advertiser throughout the entire network. Waltz declined to state what percent of ad revenue the publisher would receive. JupiterResearch analyst Niki Scevak called the program "smart," saying that adMarketplace should expect to gain more advertisers through the "risk-free" publisher program. Still, questions remain about whether publishers will adopt the program, said Scevak. He added that a publisher who refers advertisers to the program runs the risk of cannibalizing his own ad revenue if those advertisers desert him for another competing publisher in the network. Like Google and Overture, adMarketplace is an auction-based cost-per-click network. But adMarketplace distributes graphical ads, and unlike text-based ad networks, displays only one ad at a time--making the top spot all that much more competitive. Top ads are shown first, and then the second-highest bidder's ad is shown after a user lands on a matching content page, then the third, and so on. The process continues in the same fashion, so lower bidders receive less exposure. Currently, there are approximately 100 publishers and 1,000 advertisers in adMarketplace's graphical, contextual network, which launched in early December. Ad units are available in banners, leaderboards, skyscrapers, pop-ups, and pop-unders. Waltz declined to name any publishers or advertisers in the network. Previously, he said that many of the publishers were of travel, dating, or finance sites. adMarketplace's advertisers can target their ads by keyword or content category. The minimum bid is 30 cents a click, and advertisers must commit to $100 once they open up an adMarketplace account. In the adMarketplace network, advertisers can view competitive bids, ads, and linking URLs. adMarketplace technology also powers eBay Keywords, an on-site search marketing program for eBay buyers and sellers that lets them bid on search terms for top placement on eBay's search engine.
Internet ads pushing consumer electronics appear to have a bigger influence over buying habits than those trading in apparel, household products, or home-improvement goods, according to a study released Friday by BIGresearch. For its "Simultaneous Media Usage Study," BIGresearch surveyed more than 14,000 multitasking online consumers to determine which types of ads actually influenced spending--as opposed to just stirring awareness. "We're really the only firm that has taken seriously the concept of cross-platform, or simultaneous influences that consumers are subjected to," explained Joseph Pilotta, vice president of research at BIGresearch. Web-based media, reported BIGresearch, was influential to almost 36 percent of consumers looking to purchase electronics, cited by more respondents than any other media. Some analysts are hesitant to draw conclusions right now. "Consumer electronics have certainly grown very popular, but I don't subscribe to the notion that the Internet is better at selling one thing than another," Patti Freeman Evans, JupiterResearch analyst, said. Evans questioned the methodology of reports that compare the advertising effectiveness of such disparate products as iPods and heads of lettuce. "Electronics experience trends and seasonal shifts that other sectors do not," Evans added. The study, dividing Internet advertising and e-mail advertisements, found that 16.7 percent of U.S. consumers said e-mail has an influence on their electronics purchases. In contrast, 12.7 percent said the same for apparel; 8.7 percent for grocery-food, cleaning, and beauty products; and 6.8 percent for home improvement. Similarly, 19 percent of consumers said the Internet influenced their electronics purchases, while just 11.4 percent said the Internet affected their apparel purchases, 8.9 percent said it affected their grocery purchases, and 7.9 percent considered it to be a factor in purchasing home improvement goods. Although a total 24.1 percent of respondents said either e-mail or the Internet influenced their decision to purchase clothing, the e-mail/Internet outlet trailed other media as an influencer for grocery shopping and home improvement. Online was weaker in products directly related to the home, but as strong as TV for electronics and clothing purchases. The majority of surveyed consumers said their shopping habits were influenced more by word of mouth that by other TV, or coupons, or news inserts. BIGresearch's Pilotta said that non-traditional word of mouth--text messages, e-mails, blogs--was definitely a factor here.