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We’ve just discovered a new Windows 7 ad by Microsoft featuring a little girl, Kelly, talking up the new OS. In the ad, Kelly finds Windows 7 reviews on her dad’s Sony Vaio notebook and proceeds to make a slideshow about the awesome new operating system, complete with a unicorn, a kitten, and a piggy with huge ears. If you look closely, the slideshow displays four quotes from positive Windows 7 reviews (Gizmodo, Maximum PC, CNet, and ZDNet) all to the tune of Europe’s The Final Countdown.. The ad concludes with Kelly saying, “I’m a PC and more happy is coming.”
Perhaps that last part is referring to the Zune HD and a the much-anticipated Windows Mobile OS?
Maybe you’ve seen some form of the 230 ads. If you haven’t, we’ve embedded it below. The ad – in its various forms – features a bouncing, smiling, and winking electrical outlet that ends up representing the number “zero” after numbers 2 and 3. All of these appear above the numbers “8-11.” So what the heck is it all about?
Apple has aired two new iPhone ads: “Share” and “Travel.” The two commercials are in the familiar “There’s an app for that” format, featuring iPhone apps for file sharing and navigation. Videos and our take after the break! Read more »
Choreography has always been an art form appreciated by most. In fact, it’s frequently the wonder of observers, prompting many to ask, “how did they do that?” And this time, it’s no exception: Matt Robinson and Tom Wigglesworth did the synchronized thing with a bunch of HP printers, which won them a D&AD Student Award. While the video’s main focus is on printers, the product that is being promoted is HP workstation computers. Perhaps the logic goes behind all this is that “something must drive these printers, why not HP workstations?”
it’s probably a good thing that the piece contains such great musical accompaniment, since the sounds that most printers make would certainly scare some. Whatever the case may be, this is simply awesome. We love it!
Over the last few months, I have been a regular visitor to ABC.com – primarily to watch awesome ABC shows such as Lost and The Unusuals. While the content is great, I can’t help but notice one thing: pop-ups. That’s right, ABC.com feels that – on top of the ads they are serving inside of the ABC free-episode player – I should also be presented with at least one unwated pop-up advertisement while on the network’s website. Every time I navigate to the ABC.com site, followed by clicking on the Free Episodes link, and then picking a show to watch, I am presented with a pop-up containing an advertisement of some sort. Note that this pop-up is not the ABC.com player itself, but another window entirely.
I thought we have moved away from pop-ups. I thought people understood that pop-ups are not the most effective way to get people interested in whatever is being advertised in a pop-up. In fact, unwated pop-up windows are probably the least effective types of online advertisements. Think about it: what’s the first thing you do when you see a browser window open that isn’t supposed to be there (read: an unwated pop-up window you didn’t initiate). The first thing I do when I see a pop-up? Look for the close button. I don’t even look at the ad. In fact, I would go so far as to say that any company that attacks me with unwated (uncalled-for) pop-up windows immediately loses credibility with me: if you think your website is important enough to interrupt my browsing experience (and override my pop-up blocker), I will think less of you and/or your company/organization.
But that’s me: how about the rest of the web-browsing world? What’s their opinion, reaction, and experience with pop-up advertisements? Usually, people respond to pop-ups by dismissing the (unwanted) window by using the close or cancel feature of the pop-up itself, or by interacting with the close window button of the user’s browser. By clicking cancel or a similar function on the actual pop-up can lead to the user launching the “simulated cancel” option – where the button does not perform the action it implies it will perform, but rather executes an unwated function (such as opening another pop-up window or executing code on the user’s system). Read more »
Over the last few months, I have been a regular visitor to