I’ve Seen The Future of Advertising

Posted on January 13, 2007
Filed Under Advertising/Marketing |

The dismaying aspect of Web 2.0, which I take to be a democratising of communications, is the perversion of how we think and discuss by the very existence of gatekeeper sites and the recent legacy of celebrity culture. For newbies it works like this. Want recognition for your site: be seen in the TechCrunch comments, submit a list blog to Digg (theTop Ten Things You Never Knew About Gaming Gatekeepers), mention a celebrity in a blog title, or blog a subject already up on aggregation sites like megite and techmeme. Each has the effect of concentrating debate around subjects already in train. It is anti-innovative. But who cares, you might say? That’s how the system is structured. Go with the flow.

The same tricks are coming to advertising. It had to happen of course. The PR companies got here earlier. The idea behind the latest blog “game”, link bait, google rank trick is brilliant. I’m talking about Love To Lead.

Love to Lead is advertising over at technoratai tags, which makes you even more in awe of its inventors. What is it? At Love to Lead, as far as I can make out, you, the blogger, blog your views on a selected issue. Readers vote. And the winner, the one with the most votes, walks away with a new Toshiba laptop. Yes, it’s a Toshiba initiative.

What’s so brilliant about it? In these aspirational times there are plenty of boggers looking for any way to make their blog, blogging pay. Inevitably bloggers will blog about Love to Lead. Here am I writing about it too. Bloggers will write about it, link to it, write on the site, and take a punt on winning. Love to Lead gets link love, brand recognition for Toshiba and its new laptop, builds an e-mail database of interested parties and potential influencers, and it gets traffic. All for the cost-price of a new computer. Excellent economics. Cashing in too on the modern craze for creating and participating in competitions: user generated design competitions, Lego product development competitions, blogging competitions. User Generated Content has spawned competition as the new lick-ass modus of consumer relations.

Here’s what L2L have to say:

Welcome to LoveToLead!

Each week for the next 16 weeks L2L will pose a question designed to stimulate debate between bloggers. Visitors will be able to vote for their favourite article and the blogger whose post receives the greatest number of votes each week will win a Toshiba Portégé R400 laptop (as demonstrated by Bill Gates at CES 2007 - watch his presentation here). Voters who submit email addresses will be entered into a prize draw to win a Toshiba Portégé R400 (the winner of which will be announced at the end of the competition) - so everyone gets a chance to win!

Advertising on technorati ensures L2L picks up blogger attention at a sensitive time - when we’re in pursuit of the ego massage moment when we look up the link stats and technorati rank.

All round, L2L has worked out just about the perfect way to make use of an imperfect system.

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