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Content Is Advertising: Free Local Commercials, Sponsored By Another Company
from the get-yourself-a-home.-or-don't.-i-don't-care. dept
Via Adam Savage, I heard about a fun project that highlights the advertising is content, content is advertising concept in multiple ways. It's a site called ILoveLocalCommercials.com, which features two filmmakers going around the country making (free -- and awesome) TV commercials for local businesses that are nominated on the site. As mentioned, the commercials are really quite impressive, such as the "brutally honest" commercial for Cullman Liquidation ("get yourself a home, or don't, I don't care") or for Ray's Midbell Music that involves a rap about how being in the school band is cool:
But why are these guys doing this? Well, the whole thing is actually part of a promotion from another company, MicroBilt, that's trying to promote its own line of small business services. So it's paying for the whole thing -- showing how content is advertising. None of the videos are actually about MicroBilt, but in sponsoring the entire site and the whole process, it's helping to get its name out there in a fun (non-intrusive, non-annoying, non-sneaky) manner. It's not about product placement or trying to "sneak" a brand into something. Everything's totally upfront. But it's a fun project, with highly entertaining content that shows both how advertising is content and how content is advertising.
Oh yeah, and it appears that Cullman Liquidation has also picked up on the whole "looooooooooots of t-shirts" concept. On the Cullman Liquidation website, the company is selling t-shirts based on the commercial...
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Yeah, I saw that a few weeks ago. Those guys are hillarious.
I really liked the furniture store and the "Cuban Gynecologist turned car salesman".
Hilarious stuff.
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What??? You mean selling loooooooots of T-shirts actually makes money?
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Love these Guys!
I never thought of it that way. Excellent observation!
I religiously watch their commercials and even the making of videos. They were all very entertaining.
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Sweet!
I'm from Sioux City!!! I've been to Midbell!!!
This is awesome, thanks.
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Yes. But do the ads sell the flipping products?!?!
Are the companies selling shirts, or their primary product or service?
It's plain you like the ad. Did the basic business model actually work? Or is it your contention BMW, Proctor & Gamble, and Norfolk Southern, all the way down to the Mom & Pop grocer turn to selling shirt in lieu of their primary product?
The site is heavy on Star Trek, shoddy on workable revenue and improvements upon old business models. I'd simply like to know whether any of these "examples" produced a resulting sale, comparable or superior to anything else they could have done?
Selling shirts when your product isn't shirts notwithstanding, but I'd even take that -- if the income was comparable to plain old selling your product the sneaky, "Hey I gotta eat" way of getting the thing the company is actually trying to sell sold.
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