You've all seen it but have you ever read it? Almost every TV commercial these days comes with its small print, often just a line of text saying "conditions apply", but sometimes paragraphs of obscure regulations and caveats. What follows are a few of the bits of small print found on the weekend of the 11th-13th November 2011 on British TV. Some of it gives health warnings or usage instructions; some reveals the less-than-impressive details of the money-off offers (the high original price may have only been in place a week or two); other texts explain the methodology behind grandiose claims; or reveal the extra cash you'll have to spend to get something useful.
Screens simulated. Sequence shortened. High speed internet, webcams, mobile plan, additional programs and fees required for some features. (Microsoft OS and web services)
7% fibre. Enjoy as part of a healthy balanced diet & active lifestyle. 30g serving = 9% of sugar GDA. (Coco Pops breakfast cereal)
Scale speed 770 kmh. (GX Buggy toy)
Sold separately. Battle fortress around £40. (Zibits toy)
Batteries not included. Adult assembly required. (Elefun game)
Subject to availability. Selected UK Stores. (Clarkson Powered Up DVD)
Not game footage. Game sold separately. (Elder Scrolls V game/X-Box console)
Annual global sales 7/09 - 6/10. Ends 22/11. See in store for details. Selected stores. (Olay beauty product/Superdrug store)
£50 with any Estee Lauder fragrance purchase. While stocks last. (Estee Lauder Beautiful fragrance)
A few rules apply. Ofcom Market Report. (3 mobile phone plan)
At participating restaurants only. Drinks may vary. Oreo is a registered trademark of Kraft foods used under licence. (KFC meal options)
For the facts: drinkaware.co.uk (Press 81 liquor)
Antibacterial handwash. Use biocides safely. Always read the label and product information before use. (Dettol handwash)
12 place setting tested. uSwitch.com prices used. On selected Bosch dishwashers at participating retailers. Ends 20th January. Terms & Conditions apply. (Bosch dishwashers)
16+. Prices include VAT & P&P. Cost of bid varies. Cost of bids included. Savings against RRP. Pay to bid auction site. (Madbid.com auction website)
Active City Stop is active at speeds up to 19mph. Optional features available at extra costs on selected models, see your Ford Dealer for details. (Ford Focus)
Excludes Trax bikes. Selected bikes only. (Halfords stores bicycle department)
18+ (Daily Mail newspaper reader offer)
£349. (struckout) £649. Higher price 1st - 10th Nov. Ends 16th Nov. £269. (struckout) £449. Higher price 3rd - 9th Nov. Ends 17th Nov. (Comet stores)
UK residents and 16+ only. Competition closes: 13/11/11. Full terms at tvterms.co.uk. (Gillette razors)
Associated with dandruff. (Head & Shoulders shampoo for itchy scalps)
Based on December 2010 survey. Funds sent within one hour, if approved between midnight and 10 pm. Maximum of £1,000 for first time customers. 25% off finance charge from which APR is calculated. Approval subject to status. Approvals take less than 30 minutes in most cases. Representative 1734% APR. Online discount. Cannot be combined with other offers. Terms and conditions apply. (QuickQuid money lending service)
While stocks last. Mystery product also available at larger Boots stores. (Boots beauty product promotion)
Selected products and stores. Subject to availability. Enjoy wine responsibly. Offer runs Thursday to Tuesday. (M&S meal offer)
18+. No deposit necessary. Non-withdrawable £10 free bet. Standard network charges and terms apply www.gambleaware.co.uk (Sky Bet gambling)
Fairy, Flash & Febreze will donate £150,000 to Make-A-Wish foundation this Christmas. Charity registration numbers (England & Wales) 296572 (Scotland) SCO37479 (Ireland) CHY15267. (Fairy/Flash/Febreze cleaning products charity appeal)
With dry food always give your cat plenty of water. (IAMS dry cat food)
Toys shown £4.24 to £77.24. Selected lines. Ends Tuesday. Some batteries excluded. Ends Tuesday. NPD Customer Survey, 200 transactions, 2010-11. (Argos stores toy offer)
(C) 2011 Kodak. Based on lowest total ink replacement costs, inkjet printers. Q3 2011 pricing. See printkodak.co.uk. RRP August 2011. (Kodak printers)
Keeps on working for up to 12 hours. Research results - 80% of 130 women. (Simple beauty product)
£659 total separate selling price from 5/8 - 10/9/11. £649 from 17/9 - 12/10/11 AMD Dual Core E2 3000M Accelerated Processor with AMD Radeon HD6380G Discrete-Class Graphics. Currys only. £199 from 20/10 - 9/11/11. (Currys/PC World electronics stores)
Selected UK stores. Subject to availability. Delivery charges may apply online. Toy prices from £34.16-£90. tesco.com/direct. (Tesco stores games offer)
Youth Code day + serum tested on 194 women. (L'Oreal beauty product)
18+ only. Terms and conditions apply. (uniformdating.com dating website)
In taste tests 181 like Lindt. 86% of them also liked Aldi. (Aldi supermarket own-brand chocolate animals)
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Compare the compare the market.com: UK insurance comparison website commercials compared
Compare the Market
The pinnacle of insurance comparison advertising, they have amusing, well-produced adverts featuring a meerkat upset by people confusing the words "market" and "meerkat" and accidentally alighting on his dating site "compare the meerkat.com". These adverts are copied from American commercials for GEICO, an insurance company, which for 10 years have featured a gecko in a similar case of confusion. Despite this lack of originality, the quality of the meerkat adverts is striking, particularly a recent recreation of the "Battle of Fearlessness" in which the meerkats were driven out of their homeland. The animals have become cult favourites, with rumours of lead meerkat Aleksandr Orlov releasing a single and a range of merchandise on sale.
Ad quality 9/10 (gorgeous production values, humour, cute fake animals)
Ad memorability 9/10 (see above)
Useful information about product 2/10 (they compare something?)
Spin-off potential 9/10 (only docked a point for the failure of Orlov's pop career)
Total 29/40
Go Compare
One of the best ways to get a new business's name in the costomers' mind is to be as annoying as possible. This is certainly the case of the Go Compare jingle, which features Welsh tenor Wynne Evans playing faux-Italian opera singer Gio Compario, who pops up in strange situations with his enormous fake moustache to sing his "Go Compare" song extolling the virtues of the insurance company. In some way, this recalls woman-only insurance company Sheila's Wheels which hit the scene a few years ago with a memorable song performed by three 60s-style singers in pink dresses. It is uncertain whether Evans will follow the Sheilas into a failed pop career with Pete Waterman. He has played Alfredo in La Boheme for ENO and many other roles for different companies, while frequently singing before Welsh rugby games (much as Russell Watson has done for England), so unless there is a severe reaction against his ad appearances, his career seems assured.
Ad quality 5/10 (well-made, just intensely annoying)
Ad memorability 10/10 (Go compare! Go Compare!)
Useful information about product 3/10 (They do put the words of the song on-screen so you can read about the cheaper insurance)
Spin-off potential 4/10 (good for Evans, but unlikely to see the character go on)
Total 22/40
Money Supermarket
The other most striking advertiser in the past year is moneysupermarket.com. They have enlisted Anglo-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili, a rising star of British television, to give an ethnically stereotyped performance of a middle-easterner skilled at haggling. In the adverts he berates members of the public for accepting overpriced insurance quotes and tells them if they're not prepared to bargain the price down, they should get to his website. The ads are cheaper and less impressive than Compare the Market or Go Compare but have a more coherent message.
Ad quality 3/10 (a certain cheapness, dependence on stereotypes, Djalili confuses shouting a lot for being funny)
Ad memorability 4/10 (fat bloke shouting is not original and the product name isn't really integrated)
Useful information about product 3/10 (they save you money, right?)
Spin-off potential 7/10 (possibly some kind of consumer show for Omid?)
Total 17/40
Confused.com
The most established company in the insurance comparison market is also the one to promote itself on the quality of its product rather than its wackiness; its ads feature members of the public enthusing about the ease of use of its website, which apparently allows you to easily customise your search. Competitors offer similar products, but Confused.com is the only one to rely on a low-key explanation of its merits. On the other hand, its name is rather more memorable than the others.
Ad quality 3/10 (talking heads are the last refuge of the desperate "creative")
Ad memorability 5/10 (apparently lots of people like Confused.com - some might even look like your annoying colleague or neighbour)
Useful information about product 6/10 (it actually shows the webpage and explains how you can select things)
Spin-off potential 1/10 (maybe they'll find a future cult star, like that guy from the mobile phone advert who wanted to start a band)
Total 15/40
uSwitch
This brand initially started with comparisons of gas and electricity suppliers at a time when the energy market was becoming increasingly competitive and fragmented. As another old player, they also offer a less in-your-face experience. The latest round of commercials feature a man and a woman in smart-casual fashions stepping into a computer screen to see what is on offer; it may be inspired by the Matrix, but not in a sexy or violent way. It will be interesting to see whether uSwitch, as a long-time player, can hold on to their market share.
Ad quality 3/10 (bland)
Ad memorability 4/10 (bland)
Useful information about product 4/10 (you can compare prices apparently!)
Spin-off potential 2/10 (the couple could be trapped inside their PC in some kind of Tron/Matrix thing, with added romantic comedy potential, but it's unlikely)
Total 13/40
The winner, unsurprisingly, is the meerkat.
All these companies have a similar business model; they act like insurance brokers or financial advisors in a bygone age, pointing people towards a policy and taking commission. It's worth noting that some insurance companies are refusing to appear on price comparison websites. The reason is not clear; it may be that for a large brand it is cheaper to appeal directly rather than pay commission, or it may be because they don't want their prices compared (Ryanair took legal action to prevent their prices appearing on price comparison websites, not to save their commission but perhaps because once you add on their additional fees their product is far less competitive than the headline price they themselves quote).
Insurance companies Aviva and Direct Line each boast of cutting out the middle-man in their commercials. Aviva have amusing ads starring comic actor Paul Whitehouse (The Fast Show) in a variety of heavily disguised roles. Direct Line have loud and annoying commercials featuring the voices of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton. Fry in particular has appeared in a series of terrible commercials (previously for Twinings) but perhaps his pursuit of a quick buck is supposed to subliminally encourage the audience to pursue the best deal.
But which is the best comparison service? Consumer ratings site dooyou.co.uk gives Confused.com 5/5 on a large number of reviews. Based on a far smaller number of reviews, Go Compare.com and uSwitch get 5/5, Money Supermarket 4/5, and Compare the Market 3/5. With many of these sites there is bias due to people being more likely to report bad esperiences, and alternative site reviewcentre.com gives almost everyone poor reviews, with Go Compare coming out best.
The pinnacle of insurance comparison advertising, they have amusing, well-produced adverts featuring a meerkat upset by people confusing the words "market" and "meerkat" and accidentally alighting on his dating site "compare the meerkat.com". These adverts are copied from American commercials for GEICO, an insurance company, which for 10 years have featured a gecko in a similar case of confusion. Despite this lack of originality, the quality of the meerkat adverts is striking, particularly a recent recreation of the "Battle of Fearlessness" in which the meerkats were driven out of their homeland. The animals have become cult favourites, with rumours of lead meerkat Aleksandr Orlov releasing a single and a range of merchandise on sale.
Ad quality 9/10 (gorgeous production values, humour, cute fake animals)
Ad memorability 9/10 (see above)
Useful information about product 2/10 (they compare something?)
Spin-off potential 9/10 (only docked a point for the failure of Orlov's pop career)
Total 29/40
Go Compare
One of the best ways to get a new business's name in the costomers' mind is to be as annoying as possible. This is certainly the case of the Go Compare jingle, which features Welsh tenor Wynne Evans playing faux-Italian opera singer Gio Compario, who pops up in strange situations with his enormous fake moustache to sing his "Go Compare" song extolling the virtues of the insurance company. In some way, this recalls woman-only insurance company Sheila's Wheels which hit the scene a few years ago with a memorable song performed by three 60s-style singers in pink dresses. It is uncertain whether Evans will follow the Sheilas into a failed pop career with Pete Waterman. He has played Alfredo in La Boheme for ENO and many other roles for different companies, while frequently singing before Welsh rugby games (much as Russell Watson has done for England), so unless there is a severe reaction against his ad appearances, his career seems assured.
Ad quality 5/10 (well-made, just intensely annoying)
Ad memorability 10/10 (Go compare! Go Compare!)
Useful information about product 3/10 (They do put the words of the song on-screen so you can read about the cheaper insurance)
Spin-off potential 4/10 (good for Evans, but unlikely to see the character go on)
Total 22/40
Money Supermarket
The other most striking advertiser in the past year is moneysupermarket.com. They have enlisted Anglo-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili, a rising star of British television, to give an ethnically stereotyped performance of a middle-easterner skilled at haggling. In the adverts he berates members of the public for accepting overpriced insurance quotes and tells them if they're not prepared to bargain the price down, they should get to his website. The ads are cheaper and less impressive than Compare the Market or Go Compare but have a more coherent message.
Ad quality 3/10 (a certain cheapness, dependence on stereotypes, Djalili confuses shouting a lot for being funny)
Ad memorability 4/10 (fat bloke shouting is not original and the product name isn't really integrated)
Useful information about product 3/10 (they save you money, right?)
Spin-off potential 7/10 (possibly some kind of consumer show for Omid?)
Total 17/40
Confused.com
The most established company in the insurance comparison market is also the one to promote itself on the quality of its product rather than its wackiness; its ads feature members of the public enthusing about the ease of use of its website, which apparently allows you to easily customise your search. Competitors offer similar products, but Confused.com is the only one to rely on a low-key explanation of its merits. On the other hand, its name is rather more memorable than the others.
Ad quality 3/10 (talking heads are the last refuge of the desperate "creative")
Ad memorability 5/10 (apparently lots of people like Confused.com - some might even look like your annoying colleague or neighbour)
Useful information about product 6/10 (it actually shows the webpage and explains how you can select things)
Spin-off potential 1/10 (maybe they'll find a future cult star, like that guy from the mobile phone advert who wanted to start a band)
Total 15/40
uSwitch
This brand initially started with comparisons of gas and electricity suppliers at a time when the energy market was becoming increasingly competitive and fragmented. As another old player, they also offer a less in-your-face experience. The latest round of commercials feature a man and a woman in smart-casual fashions stepping into a computer screen to see what is on offer; it may be inspired by the Matrix, but not in a sexy or violent way. It will be interesting to see whether uSwitch, as a long-time player, can hold on to their market share.
Ad quality 3/10 (bland)
Ad memorability 4/10 (bland)
Useful information about product 4/10 (you can compare prices apparently!)
Spin-off potential 2/10 (the couple could be trapped inside their PC in some kind of Tron/Matrix thing, with added romantic comedy potential, but it's unlikely)
Total 13/40
The winner, unsurprisingly, is the meerkat.
All these companies have a similar business model; they act like insurance brokers or financial advisors in a bygone age, pointing people towards a policy and taking commission. It's worth noting that some insurance companies are refusing to appear on price comparison websites. The reason is not clear; it may be that for a large brand it is cheaper to appeal directly rather than pay commission, or it may be because they don't want their prices compared (Ryanair took legal action to prevent their prices appearing on price comparison websites, not to save their commission but perhaps because once you add on their additional fees their product is far less competitive than the headline price they themselves quote).
Insurance companies Aviva and Direct Line each boast of cutting out the middle-man in their commercials. Aviva have amusing ads starring comic actor Paul Whitehouse (The Fast Show) in a variety of heavily disguised roles. Direct Line have loud and annoying commercials featuring the voices of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton. Fry in particular has appeared in a series of terrible commercials (previously for Twinings) but perhaps his pursuit of a quick buck is supposed to subliminally encourage the audience to pursue the best deal.
But which is the best comparison service? Consumer ratings site dooyou.co.uk gives Confused.com 5/5 on a large number of reviews. Based on a far smaller number of reviews, Go Compare.com and uSwitch get 5/5, Money Supermarket 4/5, and Compare the Market 3/5. With many of these sites there is bias due to people being more likely to report bad esperiences, and alternative site reviewcentre.com gives almost everyone poor reviews, with Go Compare coming out best.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Brand new you're retro
The Citroën DS3 is according to Wikipedia a "luxury supermini", a small car being produced by French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroën. It is being advertised with the slogan "anti retro" and a variety of advertisements promoting the idea that the car is a dramatic new innovation on a par with The Beatles or punk: the antithesis of the backward look. This assertion of novelty includes a TV ad with footage of John Lennon (who died 29 years before the car was launched) speaking of newness and modernity and destroying all that came before, and an online project in which bands such as Editors take a break from producing 1980s-influenced indie rock to nominate a selection of ground-breaking epochal tracks. Other bands participating include new wave-influence power-pop group Ash, aging stadium dance act Faithless, soundtrack favourites Zero 7, up-and-coming indie band Temper Trap, and traditionalist rockers Stereophonics.
There is nothing new in artistic movements rejecting the past: punk, Lettrism, Dada, Futurism, and many other movements did exactly this thing, whether by declaring a hatred of Pink Floyd or promising "We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind" (Futurist manifesto, 1909). But just as the Sex Pistols recycled Rolling Stones riffs and a long tradition of rock 'n' roll rebellion, the DS3 takes its name from one of the most iconic cars in Citroën's history, the DS, launched in 1955 and still coming very high in polls of the most beautiful and well-designed cars of all time. The DS3 costs from GBP 11 700 in the UK, looking brutal and bottom-heavy with bulky squarish front, low sides, big air intakes, and streamlined top. According to Autocar it is intended to compete with another design classic, the BMW-owned Mini: perhaps the DS3's rejection of the past has one particular legend in mind.
There is nothing new in artistic movements rejecting the past: punk, Lettrism, Dada, Futurism, and many other movements did exactly this thing, whether by declaring a hatred of Pink Floyd or promising "We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind" (Futurist manifesto, 1909). But just as the Sex Pistols recycled Rolling Stones riffs and a long tradition of rock 'n' roll rebellion, the DS3 takes its name from one of the most iconic cars in Citroën's history, the DS, launched in 1955 and still coming very high in polls of the most beautiful and well-designed cars of all time. The DS3 costs from GBP 11 700 in the UK, looking brutal and bottom-heavy with bulky squarish front, low sides, big air intakes, and streamlined top. According to Autocar it is intended to compete with another design classic, the BMW-owned Mini: perhaps the DS3's rejection of the past has one particular legend in mind.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Negatives
Brian Duffy was one of the greatest British photographers ever, standing alongside David Bailey and Terence Donovan as one of the creators of the image of Swinging London. He shot the cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane, created iconic Benson & Hedges adverts, shot the Pirelli calendars for 1965 and 1973, and helped produce the film Oh! What A Lovely War.
And then in 1979 he gave it all up, burning his negatives, and not taking another photo for 30 years.
His path into photography was unconventional - he came from a working-class north London background, but thanks to a radical project run by London County Council, he was exposed to art galleries, ballet, opera, and other art forms as a child. This took him to art school where he initially studied painting before switching to fashion design (he claimed because he wasn't the best painter and he wanted to meet girls). With this, he got work at Harper's and then London Vogue, getting sent to take photos and helping redefine the look of fashion photography.
BBC4 recently showed a documentary, The Man Who Shot The 60s, about Duffy, with contributions from David Bailey, Joanna Lumley and other people who know or knew him. He's still alive (though not in good health) and friends with Bailey, and he held an exhibition of old and new work in London in late 2009.
The TV program included Duffy visiting the house that held his old studio and talking about the moment he burned his photographs.
In the 1970s most of his work was for advertising. Although he loved the technical challenges of creating complex images, he didn't seem to view his work as art and was slightly bemused by the way that a camera is an art-making machine that can be used by anybody. Photography is the closest of all art forms to advertising, even more so than filmmaking. This post follows another entry on lost books, TV, and music.
And then in 1979 he gave it all up, burning his negatives, and not taking another photo for 30 years.
His path into photography was unconventional - he came from a working-class north London background, but thanks to a radical project run by London County Council, he was exposed to art galleries, ballet, opera, and other art forms as a child. This took him to art school where he initially studied painting before switching to fashion design (he claimed because he wasn't the best painter and he wanted to meet girls). With this, he got work at Harper's and then London Vogue, getting sent to take photos and helping redefine the look of fashion photography.
BBC4 recently showed a documentary, The Man Who Shot The 60s, about Duffy, with contributions from David Bailey, Joanna Lumley and other people who know or knew him. He's still alive (though not in good health) and friends with Bailey, and he held an exhibition of old and new work in London in late 2009.
The TV program included Duffy visiting the house that held his old studio and talking about the moment he burned his photographs.
NARRATOR: Throughout the 70s Duffy was still in demand, but his 20 years at the top were beginning to take their toll.(Transcribed from TV by myself)
DUFFY: 99.9% of my work was advertising: putting cream on babies' bums and rubbing it on; people putting toothpaste in their gob and doing this; putting something on their hair and doing that. That was 99% of my work. Crap.
HIS FORMER ASSISTANT: I think certainly by the time I came to work for him I think he was getting bored. He was still interested in trying new techniques, but there weren't many jobs that we did which I would say extended him.
DUFFY: The people who were hiring me I didn't like. You know it's like being on the game, disliking the men who are fucking you.
We're going to King Henry's Road because that's where I had the studio. And we're going there, which of course will be very exciting for you and for I guess the inhabitants of King Henry's Road.
Now this story might be absolute crock of shit and lies; it's the way I've been able to put it together in my cranium. I came in to start work and the assistant said we haven't got any toilet paper and I realised in a moment, in a flash, a trice: I was now commander-in-chief, managing director, senior partner, making decisions about toilet paper. And I thought, this has got to end: either by me murdering my staff, killing myself, or setting fire to the whole fucking thing.
I asked them all to leave and during the course of that morning decided to burn my negatives. My career went down the bog with a piece of paper.
So here we are, Linda. I set fire to boxes of negs which burned very inefficiently and I stoked them. And finally somebody turned up on the other side of that, that was a wooden fence, said, "What are you doing?" It was obvious what I was doing, burning stuff, and they said, "You can't do that. We're from the council." And so I put it out.
INTERVIEWER: I understand that as you were burning your work that Bailey played a part in all of this. What role did Bailey play?
DUFFY: Absolutely useless. I guess he was driving up the road, so he came in. I think he stood there like a spare dick at an Italian wedding and then said, "Oh, I could look after that for you." I said, "Don't bother," and then - went. Somebody later said or he said to them he helped me save them. He did no such thing. See that's the sort of turd he is.
INTERVIEWER: It was an incredibly significant moment in your life, wasn't it?
DUFFY: Not really, no. Just one thing I didn't want to do any more, that's all. When anything's destroyed people will wonder what was there. Well, it could have been a crock of shit that I left, worse than the stuff we've still got. Everybody think it might be full of gems.
In the 1970s most of his work was for advertising. Although he loved the technical challenges of creating complex images, he didn't seem to view his work as art and was slightly bemused by the way that a camera is an art-making machine that can be used by anybody. Photography is the closest of all art forms to advertising, even more so than filmmaking. This post follows another entry on lost books, TV, and music.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Sic ASA Parrot 2
More Advertising Standards Authority adjudications from the end of 2009.
Britvic, who make Tango orange drink, had "no intention to imply oral sex with a bull and they were concerned about any distress caused to those who had interpreted the ad in that way. They had carried out qualitative research groups with 17-20-year-old men before producing the campaign, and none of the respondents had interpreted the ad's headline as referring to oral sex with a bull." In what context would 17-20 year old men admit thinking of oral sex with a bull? The advert said: "Too much Tango made me suck a bull's udder." Another ad, "too much tango made me shave my nan", had "definitely no intention to imply the shaving of vaginal hair".
Press TV, the Iranian government's English-language satellite news channel is truthful! Well, truth is relative. The ASA said, "We considered that '24/7 TRUTH' would be seen as the station's opinion of the information it provided rather than an objective claim." As long as they "provided the full story as they saw it" there is no need to prove the reporting actually was true. This will surely be a comfort to TV news organisations everywhere.
If a company's response to a complaint starts like the following, you can probably guess the outcome:
liverock.org.uk advertised a fake Dionne Warwick concert on Magic FM. One punter "paid £296.00 for four tickets to the concert and subsequently found out that Dionne Warwick was not performing".
British Airways advertised the delights of Guangzhou (Canton), despite not actually flying to Canton - they suggest you can fly to Hong Kong or Shanghai and go from there. Complaint upheld.
British Gas will phone ahead to warn you before they come around. Except if they're coming to read your meter.
Car dealer Stoneacre Motor Group gets in trouble for advertising a scrappage scheme but not scrapping the cars.
Daily Mail misleading over a promotion for "free bulbs".
It's ok for Peta to say that eating meat gives you man-boobs.
Virgin Media in trouble for being rude to ginger-haired people!
The same presenter appeared on 2 different TV shopping channels at the same time, but this was found "unlikely to materially mislead viewers".
Best product idea of the bunch: Extend-A-Room offer to make your house bigger by constructing a new room in just 1-2 days (basically, it's a conservatory). Sadly, it seems they're not quite that fast.
With any recession come recruitment scams, such as the unimaginatively named JK Data and DH Data, and escort agency First4Companions. Meanwhile recruitment firm Pro-Tax was caught exaggerating its influence. And it strayed over into training: Redwood Futures were misleading wannabe accountants and The Ensign Group taxi drivers. Belmont Sporting's gambling system isn't any use either.
Martini won't make you beautiful! An event at a Pitcher and Piano bar promised "Stay beautiful with Martini". According to the ASA code, alcohol does not enhance attractiveness.
Digital Satellite Warranty Cover Ltd seem to have some method of getting hold of Sky customers' addresses and sending them direct mail. (Admittedly they could find out simply by looking at someone's house that they have Sky.)
Dating site eHarmony was criticised for claiming "2% of American couples who had married in 2007 were likely to have met through eHarmony" - their evidence doesn't show that - and because 20% of applicants got no matches at all.
Mobile Phone Xchange Ltd will exchange many mobile phones for cash! But not all.
Products and services that don't work as claimed: Easylife Pelvic Back Pain Belt; Dore program for treating dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome; Estee Lauder's "wrinkle-fighter" Perfectionist CP+ Wrinkle Lifting Serum; killyourstutter.com; Lloyds Pharmacy hay fever reliever; Advanced Hair Studio; Gymform Vibro Max; Larsen Health Care's chiropractic treatment for IBS, colds and asthma; Pain Ease electric patch; jennysweighlosssuccess.com; Omega XL artery cleaner; and Direct Beauty Products' silk anti-aging pillowcases. In all these cases, advertisers failed to produce evidence of claims (although the Estee Lauder stuff does work as well as any cheap moisturiser).
Britvic, who make Tango orange drink, had "no intention to imply oral sex with a bull and they were concerned about any distress caused to those who had interpreted the ad in that way. They had carried out qualitative research groups with 17-20-year-old men before producing the campaign, and none of the respondents had interpreted the ad's headline as referring to oral sex with a bull." In what context would 17-20 year old men admit thinking of oral sex with a bull? The advert said: "Too much Tango made me suck a bull's udder." Another ad, "too much tango made me shave my nan", had "definitely no intention to imply the shaving of vaginal hair".
Press TV, the Iranian government's English-language satellite news channel is truthful! Well, truth is relative. The ASA said, "We considered that '24/7 TRUTH' would be seen as the station's opinion of the information it provided rather than an objective claim." As long as they "provided the full story as they saw it" there is no need to prove the reporting actually was true. This will surely be a comfort to TV news organisations everywhere.
If a company's response to a complaint starts like the following, you can probably guess the outcome:
The Watermark Club Ltd (the Watermark Club) said the word "holiday" originated from Holy day, used to describe a day of festivity or recreation where no work was done. They defined other words, for example "second home", "residential property" and "holiday lodge". They said a "second home" plainly meant a place where one did not live as ones permanent home no more or less and underlined that in all probability if you were away from your primary home you would be on a break or on holiday.A complaint was upheld against holiday home property company Watermark Club, which was told that it had to make it clear you couldn't live in your new waterside home between "January 6 and February 5 of each year", amongst other restrictions.
liverock.org.uk advertised a fake Dionne Warwick concert on Magic FM. One punter "paid £296.00 for four tickets to the concert and subsequently found out that Dionne Warwick was not performing".
British Airways advertised the delights of Guangzhou (Canton), despite not actually flying to Canton - they suggest you can fly to Hong Kong or Shanghai and go from there. Complaint upheld.
British Gas will phone ahead to warn you before they come around. Except if they're coming to read your meter.
Car dealer Stoneacre Motor Group gets in trouble for advertising a scrappage scheme but not scrapping the cars.
Daily Mail misleading over a promotion for "free bulbs".
It's ok for Peta to say that eating meat gives you man-boobs.
Virgin Media in trouble for being rude to ginger-haired people!
The same presenter appeared on 2 different TV shopping channels at the same time, but this was found "unlikely to materially mislead viewers".
Best product idea of the bunch: Extend-A-Room offer to make your house bigger by constructing a new room in just 1-2 days (basically, it's a conservatory). Sadly, it seems they're not quite that fast.
With any recession come recruitment scams, such as the unimaginatively named JK Data and DH Data, and escort agency First4Companions. Meanwhile recruitment firm Pro-Tax was caught exaggerating its influence. And it strayed over into training: Redwood Futures were misleading wannabe accountants and The Ensign Group taxi drivers. Belmont Sporting's gambling system isn't any use either.
Martini won't make you beautiful! An event at a Pitcher and Piano bar promised "Stay beautiful with Martini". According to the ASA code, alcohol does not enhance attractiveness.
Digital Satellite Warranty Cover Ltd seem to have some method of getting hold of Sky customers' addresses and sending them direct mail. (Admittedly they could find out simply by looking at someone's house that they have Sky.)
Dating site eHarmony was criticised for claiming "2% of American couples who had married in 2007 were likely to have met through eHarmony" - their evidence doesn't show that - and because 20% of applicants got no matches at all.
Mobile Phone Xchange Ltd will exchange many mobile phones for cash! But not all.
Products and services that don't work as claimed: Easylife Pelvic Back Pain Belt; Dore program for treating dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome; Estee Lauder's "wrinkle-fighter" Perfectionist CP+ Wrinkle Lifting Serum; killyourstutter.com; Lloyds Pharmacy hay fever reliever; Advanced Hair Studio; Gymform Vibro Max; Larsen Health Care's chiropractic treatment for IBS, colds and asthma; Pain Ease electric patch; jennysweighlosssuccess.com; Omega XL artery cleaner; and Direct Beauty Products' silk anti-aging pillowcases. In all these cases, advertisers failed to produce evidence of claims (although the Estee Lauder stuff does work as well as any cheap moisturiser).
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Follow the dead celebrity: more Twitter advertising
In June, furniture store Habitat published tweets with tags related to the protests in Iran. Twitter users are encouraged to mark the topic of their posts with a hash-tag such as "#iran", and twitter.com keeps a chart of the most popular ("trending topics"). Users often click on tags in the top ten to find out what they're about, being taken to a sampling of Twitter posts (tweets). If you can get on this list, there's the chance that a lot of people will read you - Twitter seems increasingly popular as a news source whether you're interested in the latest celebrity death or political protest. Habitat's Twitter feed displayed messages tied to the protests over Iranian elections, such as: "HabitatUK: #MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a £1,000 gift card." Habitat apologised and claimed they had no knowledge of this promotion but refused to say who was responsible. (BBC; Register)
According to The Register, One Riot (a Colorado-based search engine for Twitter and similar social media sites) is offering Habitat's morally-dubious strategy to everybody, with its new idea: "trending ads". Described as "a stream of ads that are related to trending topics as they emerge across the social web", the idea is that a company provides a marketing message (like "win a gift card!") and One Riot links it to trending topics. A spokesman for One Riot linked his service to dead actress Brittany Murphy, telling the Register "As an advertiser, you have no way of knowing that the everyone is going to be searching for Brittany Murphy. You can't build ads ahead of time. We index your site and then build the ads for you."
One of the risks of any open medium is that people will try to use it to make money, and that the advertising messages may overwhelm the content, destroying the utility of the original source - many people feel this way about email, faced with the endless spam. In a method similar to that of One Riot, each big news event (the death of Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods' infidelity) is accompanied by unsolicited email whose subject line or content promising salacious video or images, only to lead you to some dodgy online store or compromised website, or trick you into downloading a virus. It's a battle that web search also has to fight, with Google constantly tweaking its systems to remove scraper sites and link farms.
Already, the majority of Twitter users seem to be selling something: Twitter does allow you to exchange messages with your friends in a little closed world, but plans for Twitter to be used as an advertising and market research platform require people to continue to interact more openly, to use hash tags and see what other people are writing about. Without people like One Riot, Twitter will go bankrupt, but with them it may not have any genuine users. Twitter has shown signs of being the conscience of the internet; it will be ironic if it starts making money from dead celebrities and political protests. Mainstream news media always sell more copies when it's bad news, but they don't promise to put a photo of the latest corpse in the middle of your press ad.
According to The Register, One Riot (a Colorado-based search engine for Twitter and similar social media sites) is offering Habitat's morally-dubious strategy to everybody, with its new idea: "trending ads". Described as "a stream of ads that are related to trending topics as they emerge across the social web", the idea is that a company provides a marketing message (like "win a gift card!") and One Riot links it to trending topics. A spokesman for One Riot linked his service to dead actress Brittany Murphy, telling the Register "As an advertiser, you have no way of knowing that the everyone is going to be searching for Brittany Murphy. You can't build ads ahead of time. We index your site and then build the ads for you."
One of the risks of any open medium is that people will try to use it to make money, and that the advertising messages may overwhelm the content, destroying the utility of the original source - many people feel this way about email, faced with the endless spam. In a method similar to that of One Riot, each big news event (the death of Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods' infidelity) is accompanied by unsolicited email whose subject line or content promising salacious video or images, only to lead you to some dodgy online store or compromised website, or trick you into downloading a virus. It's a battle that web search also has to fight, with Google constantly tweaking its systems to remove scraper sites and link farms.
Already, the majority of Twitter users seem to be selling something: Twitter does allow you to exchange messages with your friends in a little closed world, but plans for Twitter to be used as an advertising and market research platform require people to continue to interact more openly, to use hash tags and see what other people are writing about. Without people like One Riot, Twitter will go bankrupt, but with them it may not have any genuine users. Twitter has shown signs of being the conscience of the internet; it will be ironic if it starts making money from dead celebrities and political protests. Mainstream news media always sell more copies when it's bad news, but they don't promise to put a photo of the latest corpse in the middle of your press ad.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Screen-scraping from Wikipedia to Google Books
Most people will have had this experience: you go to a search engine and type in a search term and up come a host of results with what looks like encyclopedic entries. But you click on them and they all have exactly the same text.
This practice is known generally as data scraping. For online data, it's web scraping or web harvesting. When you're reading webpages and taking the text from them, that's screen scraping, but it's also possible to use RSS feeds, databases, and other sources to get text. Why? Well, once you have text, you can get people reading it, and once you have readers, you can get money from advertising.
Thanks to Google and other less reputable ad brokers, it's easy to stick ads on your webpage and make some money. For this reason, many people thought Google would never remove screen-scraping sites from their search, but recently they seem to have taken action and such sites have fallen down the rankings.
answers.com is perhaps the leading example, reproducing Wikipedia pages, though other sites do the same - wapedia reformats Wikipedia for mobiles; astrology site astrotheme.com combines star signs with Wikipedia biographies. Sites such as fullbooks.com display uncopyrighted books - their edition of Emma serves Google ads asking "Looking For Rich Women" and offering "Inside A Boyfriends Mind". Anyone can display an out-of-copyright text, and because of the licensing of Wikipedia content, it can be reproduced as long as you credit or link back to the source. Wikipedia does not show advertising but many of the sites reproducing its content do.
Some companies attempt to increase their value by adding extra functionality. The now-defunct LJ Find, for instance, scraped LiveJournal (based on RSS feeds) and offered a search facility - something the site itself didn't offer - as well as displaying the entire contents of people's journals with ads alongside. Other sites offer fully-searchable novels, or attempt to package content from multiple sites onto one page.
It's in this context that I come to Google Books. While Google have removed many of the web-scraping sites from their search results, the world's leading ad broker has another way of making money from other people's content. They have digitised a huge number of books and now serve them up online with appropriate adverts displayed both when you search for a book, and in a side panel when you read the book. I'll be interested to see if anyone can screen-scrape the books that Google has scraped from the world's libraries, and put up their own advertisements - or even better, ads supplied by Google.
This practice is known generally as data scraping. For online data, it's web scraping or web harvesting. When you're reading webpages and taking the text from them, that's screen scraping, but it's also possible to use RSS feeds, databases, and other sources to get text. Why? Well, once you have text, you can get people reading it, and once you have readers, you can get money from advertising.
Thanks to Google and other less reputable ad brokers, it's easy to stick ads on your webpage and make some money. For this reason, many people thought Google would never remove screen-scraping sites from their search, but recently they seem to have taken action and such sites have fallen down the rankings.
answers.com is perhaps the leading example, reproducing Wikipedia pages, though other sites do the same - wapedia reformats Wikipedia for mobiles; astrology site astrotheme.com combines star signs with Wikipedia biographies. Sites such as fullbooks.com display uncopyrighted books - their edition of Emma serves Google ads asking "Looking For Rich Women" and offering "Inside A Boyfriends Mind". Anyone can display an out-of-copyright text, and because of the licensing of Wikipedia content, it can be reproduced as long as you credit or link back to the source. Wikipedia does not show advertising but many of the sites reproducing its content do.
Some companies attempt to increase their value by adding extra functionality. The now-defunct LJ Find, for instance, scraped LiveJournal (based on RSS feeds) and offered a search facility - something the site itself didn't offer - as well as displaying the entire contents of people's journals with ads alongside. Other sites offer fully-searchable novels, or attempt to package content from multiple sites onto one page.
It's in this context that I come to Google Books. While Google have removed many of the web-scraping sites from their search results, the world's leading ad broker has another way of making money from other people's content. They have digitised a huge number of books and now serve them up online with appropriate adverts displayed both when you search for a book, and in a side panel when you read the book. I'll be interested to see if anyone can screen-scrape the books that Google has scraped from the world's libraries, and put up their own advertisements - or even better, ads supplied by Google.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sic ASA Parrot
The first edition of what will hopefully be a regular roundup of adjudications by the Advertising Standards Authority, the British ad industry watchdog.
Danone not so good for you? The yogurt manufacturer failed to show Actimel is "scientifically proven to help support your kids' defences". Referenced studies were on hospitalised Indian kids or children under 3 years, neither of which featured in the TV ad.
Peta falsely imply that eating meat causes swine flu. Rearing pigs might get you, but fortunately most bacon-eaters never see a real live oinker.
Male drivers ARE dangerous. A government campaign warned women not to get into a car with a man if she didn't trust his driving. A viewer felt this was offensive to male drivers, not all of whom are crazed careless killers on wheels (allegedly). The ASA felt the ad "highlighted the statistical risks to encourage prudent behaviour" - who could ask for anything more?
Abtronic? Abysmal. Sellers of an electronic muscle-stimulation belt were picked up by ASA monitors. Oh dear: it's not the easy path to a sculpted six-pack, no substitute for going to the gym, and the ASA doubted claims that it was relaxing, suggesting there's no pain no gain: "We acknowledged that the 'relaxation' setting on the Abtronic X2 was likely to feel relatively comfortable, but considered that to achieve the claimed muscle-toning, the Abtronic X2 would need to be set to the exercise programme, which was likely to cause some pain or discomfort." Ouch!
We Buy Any Car vindicated. They'll buy any car, even a limo, but not your pick-up. Because it's not a car. Sorry, complainer!
Tesco and Asda are at war. The casus belli: who has the cheaper prices. Asda tries to prove it's better with an independent price comparison website checking a wide selection of products. Tesco has a different plan. They select random people's shopping baskets (I assume they store details of everything each person buys, rather than grabbing a random shopper as he heads for the tills with two fillet steaks, a bottle of Cava, and a twelve-pack of condoms), and they check the price of this randomly selected basket against what Asda would sell it for. Someone complained, objecting that this is biased as it doesn't take account of the fact that 95% of Tesco products could be overpriced, but if people walk in the door, see the prices, refuse to buy the bad-value stuff and just take the buy-one-get-one-free spinach bags and the half-price wine from a country you've never heard of, then Tesco will look really cheap (assuming ASDA doesn't have deals on spinach and Bolivian Merlot). The response: "Tesco said it was generally accepted that advertising sought to present companies in the most favourable light. Price comparison ads were, by their very nature, highly biased in favour of the advertiser." The ASA said: victory to Tesco. Also cheaper than Boots, by slightly better reasoning.
Park's miracle mattress won't help you concentrate or relieve your pain.
Coke in trouble over Vitaminwater. Viewers may confuse Jean-Claude van Damme and Brussels sprouts, and that's just the beginning of their problems, as the ASA dispute their health benefits and suggest 4.6g sugar/100ml is a lot of calories for a drink that claims to be water.
Something about frying-related franchises. Purifry Ltd challenge FiltaFry's uniqueness. Purifry offers franchised deep-fat fryer care, cleaning, and oil disposal. FiltaFry do much the same but their website has exciting videos! There are business opportunities here! It's war of the fryers! This could get messy!
talkSPORT offer pre-pay Maestro cards? And don't tell you that there's a fee for topping them up? Naughty.
Penis pump maker deflated.
Chinese buffet ok. Anyone can call themselves "world famous" even if nobody's heard of you - it's a meaningless subjective phrase not a statement of fact.
Mercedes not so environmentally sound.
Leona Lewis in trouble: apparently if you call something your "new album" it shouldn't just be a bunch of old tracks in a new cover.
Guthy-Renker beauty products - this web page offers ASA highlights, but it seems that most of their adjudications are against utility companies, made-up religions, and French cosmetics with dubious scientific claims.
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God's blessed oil probably won't save your life, even with the disclaimer "The UCKG does not claim to heal people but believes that God can through the power of faith."
The Queen is in trouble: truly the ASA fears nobody. The Duchy of Lancaster making unjustified claims in an attempt to build new houses in the ancient village of Cloughton.
Danone not so good for you? The yogurt manufacturer failed to show Actimel is "scientifically proven to help support your kids' defences". Referenced studies were on hospitalised Indian kids or children under 3 years, neither of which featured in the TV ad.
Peta falsely imply that eating meat causes swine flu. Rearing pigs might get you, but fortunately most bacon-eaters never see a real live oinker.
Male drivers ARE dangerous. A government campaign warned women not to get into a car with a man if she didn't trust his driving. A viewer felt this was offensive to male drivers, not all of whom are crazed careless killers on wheels (allegedly). The ASA felt the ad "highlighted the statistical risks to encourage prudent behaviour" - who could ask for anything more?
Abtronic? Abysmal. Sellers of an electronic muscle-stimulation belt were picked up by ASA monitors. Oh dear: it's not the easy path to a sculpted six-pack, no substitute for going to the gym, and the ASA doubted claims that it was relaxing, suggesting there's no pain no gain: "We acknowledged that the 'relaxation' setting on the Abtronic X2 was likely to feel relatively comfortable, but considered that to achieve the claimed muscle-toning, the Abtronic X2 would need to be set to the exercise programme, which was likely to cause some pain or discomfort." Ouch!
We Buy Any Car vindicated. They'll buy any car, even a limo, but not your pick-up. Because it's not a car. Sorry, complainer!
Tesco and Asda are at war. The casus belli: who has the cheaper prices. Asda tries to prove it's better with an independent price comparison website checking a wide selection of products. Tesco has a different plan. They select random people's shopping baskets (I assume they store details of everything each person buys, rather than grabbing a random shopper as he heads for the tills with two fillet steaks, a bottle of Cava, and a twelve-pack of condoms), and they check the price of this randomly selected basket against what Asda would sell it for. Someone complained, objecting that this is biased as it doesn't take account of the fact that 95% of Tesco products could be overpriced, but if people walk in the door, see the prices, refuse to buy the bad-value stuff and just take the buy-one-get-one-free spinach bags and the half-price wine from a country you've never heard of, then Tesco will look really cheap (assuming ASDA doesn't have deals on spinach and Bolivian Merlot). The response: "Tesco said it was generally accepted that advertising sought to present companies in the most favourable light. Price comparison ads were, by their very nature, highly biased in favour of the advertiser." The ASA said: victory to Tesco. Also cheaper than Boots, by slightly better reasoning.
Park's miracle mattress won't help you concentrate or relieve your pain.
Coke in trouble over Vitaminwater. Viewers may confuse Jean-Claude van Damme and Brussels sprouts, and that's just the beginning of their problems, as the ASA dispute their health benefits and suggest 4.6g sugar/100ml is a lot of calories for a drink that claims to be water.
Something about frying-related franchises. Purifry Ltd challenge FiltaFry's uniqueness. Purifry offers franchised deep-fat fryer care, cleaning, and oil disposal. FiltaFry do much the same but their website has exciting videos! There are business opportunities here! It's war of the fryers! This could get messy!
talkSPORT offer pre-pay Maestro cards? And don't tell you that there's a fee for topping them up? Naughty.
Penis pump maker deflated.
Chinese buffet ok. Anyone can call themselves "world famous" even if nobody's heard of you - it's a meaningless subjective phrase not a statement of fact.
Mercedes not so environmentally sound.
Leona Lewis in trouble: apparently if you call something your "new album" it shouldn't just be a bunch of old tracks in a new cover.
Guthy-Renker beauty products - this web page offers ASA highlights, but it seems that most of their adjudications are against utility companies, made-up religions, and French cosmetics with dubious scientific claims.
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God's blessed oil probably won't save your life, even with the disclaimer "The UCKG does not claim to heal people but believes that God can through the power of faith."
The Queen is in trouble: truly the ASA fears nobody. The Duchy of Lancaster making unjustified claims in an attempt to build new houses in the ancient village of Cloughton.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Long-running newspaper advertisements
The Guardian has a feature on the world's longest-running newspaper ad, for Bowden Hall College's Practical English Programme. The ad features a slogan such as "Why Does Your English Let You Down?" in a style resembing a newspaper heading, next to a black-and-white photograph of one of various models, and text promoting an easy technique to improve your English. The most famous of the photographs was of accountant and part-time model Derek Derbyshire who posed in 1963 for the fee of three guineas. When Derbyshire died in 2000, the Telegraph carried a little note remembering him and an obituary.
This led to a discussion in the comments of another much-posted and famous ad from the Guardian (previously discussed by the non-newspaper-affiliated Guardian Work blogger who attempted to apply to every job in one issue of the Guardian). This ad reads:
This led to a discussion in the comments of another much-posted and famous ad from the Guardian (previously discussed by the non-newspaper-affiliated Guardian Work blogger who attempted to apply to every job in one issue of the Guardian). This ad reads:
Home helps required by Female Writer in Notting Hill Gate.It has been running for about a decade. A slightly longer version from citykids.co.uk reads:
Housework, shopping and whatever comes up. Over-qualified people welcomed. A sense of humour helps and you'll need to be reliable, practical, keenly helpful and able to commit to a minimum of six months.
E-mail (no attachments please) with brief résumé and full contact details.
PART-TIME HOME HELPS NEEDED BY SLIGHTLY DISABLED FEMALE WRITER IN NOTTING HILL GATE. One, two, or three mornings a week or other morning hours neg: £9.00 per hour. Work includes housekeeping, shopping and whatever comes up. A sense of humour helps and you'll need to be RELIABLE and well-organised, genuinely enjoy helping people and have excellent references. Ongoing opportunity, positions available immediately. Ideally for a minimum of 6 months.It's like something by Elizabeth Taylor. When people talk about classic advertising they often think of Guinness ads, or maybe Cointreau, but the history of the little advertisements, those that don't have a huge design budget or vast creative team involved, is the true history of our culture.
Email: XXXXX@tiscali.co.uk
Phone: - Send very brief email about yourself (NO ATTACHMENTS PLEASE!) with your PHONE NUMBER and the area of London you live in to XXXXX@tiscali.co.uk
Monday, July 27, 2009
Swords! Breasts! Dubious online business model!
Accused of salacious and misleading advertising, spamming, plagiarism, and possibly filling your computer with identity-thieving software, the online fantasy strategy game Evony is heavily criticised online (Guardian; Bruce on Games more; Coding Horror). It's "free forever" and therefore needs to advertise on the cheap and get your money other ways: its tools are breasts and comment-spam. If you've been on a website carrying ads in the past few months, particularly one aiming for a geeky/technology-savvy/teen market, it's hard to escape its exhortations (examples here) to rescue a buxom wench from some unnamable evil. It also offers "play discreetly now", which makes it sound like a porn site; early ads included images of lingerie models but now they are using drawn fantasy art that looks like it's cut out from the cover of a romance novel. Bruce On Games claims these ads have no relation to the game content, but teenage boys like boobies, is probably the advertising strategy.
The game is free to buy, but almost anything you want to do in the game (get equipment, speak to other players) costs money. It was produced by Eric Lam, a Chinese businessman who specialises in gold farming (definition: paying people pennies to play online games and selling the items and in-game currency they earn by playing; Wikipedia). According to the Guardian, Microsoft is suing its Chinese owners Universal Multiplayer Game Entertainment for click fraud (definition: exaggerating views to increase advertising revenue; WP again). It's being promoted by comment spam, the practice of posting irrelevant comments on blogs and discussion boards (Popehat.com; Bruce on Games).
But is it a good game? Free online gaming is becoming popular with games like Runescape, Habbo, Maple Story, and Free Realms, so there is a market here. People like free things. Bloggers say Evony is buggy and rather derivative, copying games like Age of Empires and Civilization (Arksark.org) - it was nearly called Civony - although not all reviews are bad (The Big Critique). Bruce On Games reports that its downloadble iEvony client may be doing evil things to your computer, possibly installing malware.
The game is free to buy, but almost anything you want to do in the game (get equipment, speak to other players) costs money. It was produced by Eric Lam, a Chinese businessman who specialises in gold farming (definition: paying people pennies to play online games and selling the items and in-game currency they earn by playing; Wikipedia). According to the Guardian, Microsoft is suing its Chinese owners Universal Multiplayer Game Entertainment for click fraud (definition: exaggerating views to increase advertising revenue; WP again). It's being promoted by comment spam, the practice of posting irrelevant comments on blogs and discussion boards (Popehat.com; Bruce on Games).
But is it a good game? Free online gaming is becoming popular with games like Runescape, Habbo, Maple Story, and Free Realms, so there is a market here. People like free things. Bloggers say Evony is buggy and rather derivative, copying games like Age of Empires and Civilization (Arksark.org) - it was nearly called Civony - although not all reviews are bad (The Big Critique). Bruce On Games reports that its downloadble iEvony client may be doing evil things to your computer, possibly installing malware.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ryanair: The Simon Cowell of transportation
Ryanair has agreed to change its advertising strategy after been referred to the Office of Fair Trading. (The Register) To mark this historic day, here are some of Ryanair's greatest hits in advertising and public relations:
Apr 2009: Ryanair claims to be considering a surcharge for overweight people on its flights. (Ryanair)
Feb 2009: Ryanair does away with check-in desks in airports and allegedly considers charging customers to use the toilet on its planes, although many people suspect the latter is a PR stunt by the company. (BBC; The Register)
Feb 2009: Ryanair staff post abusive comments on a blog after the blogger claims to have found a bug in their website. A Ryanair staffer claims "you're an idiot and a liar!!" (The Register; Jason Roe)
Dec 2008: The airline is found to flout regulations by automatically adding insurance and checked-in baggage to transactions on its website, both of which carry extra costs. (The Register)
Sep 2008: The Irish Times reports on a dispute where Ryanair is allegedly instructing pilots to carry less fuel for use in emergencies. Ryanair wholly deny the allegations. (Irish Times)
Oct 2008: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline for the third year running in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Travelmole)
Aug 2008: Ryanair announces it will cease to honour tickets booked through aggregators, such as price comparison sites. (The Register)
Jul 2008: Newspapers report that Ryanair was unable or unwilling to help a disabled passenger onto a plane, forcing her husband to carry her onboard. (Sun; Daily Mail)
Apr 2008: The ASA upholds a complaint over a misleading promotion, finding Ryanair offered insufficient evidence to prove the cheap flights advertised were available. (ASA)
Feb 2008: A French court awards 60,001 Euros damages to Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy after Ryanair used images of them in an ad without their permission. (The Register)
Jan 2008: Ryanair is censured by Advertising Standards Authority for a sexually suggestive press ad showing a woman in a schoolgirl costume. The ASA said the ad "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Ryanair refused to withdraw this ad and said, "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising." (BBC; ASA)
Jan 2008: Further ASA criticism over the wording of ads, as Ryanair fails to insert the word "from" before the figure "£10". (ASA)
Oct 2007: The ASA ban a Ryanair advert which falsely accuses lastminute.com of "robbing" and overcharging customers. (The Register; ASA)
Oct 2007: Ryanair voted least favourite airline again (Glasgow Evening Times)
Aug 2007: While Ryanair claims to be faster and cheaper than Eurostar from London to Paris, the ASA differs. Complaint against Ryanair upheld. (ASA)
July 2007: A Ryanair campaign encouraging people to write to the UK government over climate change policy is criticised by the ASA. (ASA)
May 2007: Complaints upheld over ad about promotional flights from Stansted. (ASA)
Apr 2007: The London Evening Standard reports that a "boy of 14 in a plaster cast from his ankle to his thigh was forced to stand for nearly two hours on a Ryanair jet." Ryanair subsequently apologised. (Evening Standard)
Apr 2007: Ryanair named in an Early Day Motion by British parliamentarians for "refus[ing] to provide an email address for the purposes of making complaints and direct[ing] its customers to use either a telephone number which costs 10 pence per minute or to post or fax complaints to its head office in Dublin". They call upon "online-based companies such as Ryanair to improve the ability of their customers to communicate with the company after sales by at least publishing an email address for this purpose so that redress for poor service is made less complicated and expensive", and publish a phone number for the airline. (UK Parliament)
Feb 2007: The Times reports that Ryanair has been criticised by air accident investigators for pilots flying too low over houses and other safety concerns. Pilots blame pressure to turn around planes in only 25 minutes; Ryanair declined to comment. Incidents include (1) a plane landing in Cork that "exceeded the normal operating limit for tilting the Boeing 737's wings" and set off its ground proximity alarm twice, flying as low as 425 ft above houses, (2) a near-accident in Knock, Ireland, that was not reported for almost 2 weeks and some evidence deleted in the interim, and (3) a co-pilot having to take control of a flight approaching Rome when the captain "suffered a breakdown". (Times)
Dec 2006: Ryanair fails to take consumer rights website ryanaircampaign.org offline for trademark infringement when the World Intellectual Property Organisation Arbitration and Mediation Center rules against the airline. (The Register)
Nov 2006: Ryanair advertisements that promise free flights but fail to quantify taxes and airport fees are criticised. (ASA)
Oct 2006: Ryanair cuts baggage allowances by a quarter while passengers are on holiday: "a family of four could end up paying £110 just to bring back the same amount of luggage they took." (This Is Money)
Oct 2006: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Guardian)
Aug 2006: Another "misleading" comparison in press ads. (ASA)
May 2006: UK statutory body the Disability Rights Commission criticises Ryanair for imposing a 33 p levy on each ticket to pay for transporting disabled people; the DRC feel 0.02 p would be a fairer price. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary is quoted as saying "The DRC wouldn't f***ing know how much it costs if it jumped up and bit them". (Daily Telegraph)
May 2006: Complaint upheld for imposing too many conditions on cheap flights that weren't mentioned in ad. (ASA)
Feb 2006: The Irish Independent reports that the Irish Aviation Authority has "engaged" with Ryanair after "getting dozens of letters from pilots worried about their professional status with the low-cost airline. The pilots warned that they may no longer be able to comply with the conditions of their licences because they may, in effect, be compelled to fly while it might not always be safe to do so." Ryanair claim they respect the authority of pilots but refuse to comment on a pilot allegedly demoted for refusing to fly due to fatigue. (Irish Independent)
Feb 2006: A documentary for Channel 4's Dispatches series claims to expose "inadequate safety and security checks, dirty planes, exhausted cabin crew and pilots complaining about the number of hours they have to fly". (Channel 4)
May 2005: Complaint upheld when Ryanair promise cheap summer flights, but none are available after May 26th. (ASA)
Dec 2004: Both Ryanair and Stansted found to have jointly discriminated against a disabled passenger by charging £18 for a wheelchair rental. This overturns an earlier ruling that found Ryanair solely responsible. (Out-Law)
Dec 2004: Complaint upheld for claiming Girona airport serves Barcelona; Girona is 112 km (70 miles) away. (ASA)
Sep 2004: The International Transport Workers' Federation criticise Ryanair for staff's long working hours, hiring eastern European crew on lower wages, and intimidating workers who try to join unions. (ITWF)
You could draw up similar lists for other airlines, such as BA and Virgin's price fixing (BBC), and EasyJet's reluctance to offer refunds (Guardian) and automatically adding optional surcharges to flights (The Register), but Ryanair's is almost certainly the longest.
Apr 2009: Ryanair claims to be considering a surcharge for overweight people on its flights. (Ryanair)
Feb 2009: Ryanair does away with check-in desks in airports and allegedly considers charging customers to use the toilet on its planes, although many people suspect the latter is a PR stunt by the company. (BBC; The Register)
Feb 2009: Ryanair staff post abusive comments on a blog after the blogger claims to have found a bug in their website. A Ryanair staffer claims "you're an idiot and a liar!!" (The Register; Jason Roe)
Dec 2008: The airline is found to flout regulations by automatically adding insurance and checked-in baggage to transactions on its website, both of which carry extra costs. (The Register)
Sep 2008: The Irish Times reports on a dispute where Ryanair is allegedly instructing pilots to carry less fuel for use in emergencies. Ryanair wholly deny the allegations. (Irish Times)
Oct 2008: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline for the third year running in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Travelmole)
Aug 2008: Ryanair announces it will cease to honour tickets booked through aggregators, such as price comparison sites. (The Register)
Jul 2008: Newspapers report that Ryanair was unable or unwilling to help a disabled passenger onto a plane, forcing her husband to carry her onboard. (Sun; Daily Mail)
Apr 2008: The ASA upholds a complaint over a misleading promotion, finding Ryanair offered insufficient evidence to prove the cheap flights advertised were available. (ASA)
Feb 2008: A French court awards 60,001 Euros damages to Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy after Ryanair used images of them in an ad without their permission. (The Register)
Jan 2008: Ryanair is censured by Advertising Standards Authority for a sexually suggestive press ad showing a woman in a schoolgirl costume. The ASA said the ad "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Ryanair refused to withdraw this ad and said, "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising." (BBC; ASA)
Jan 2008: Further ASA criticism over the wording of ads, as Ryanair fails to insert the word "from" before the figure "£10". (ASA)
Oct 2007: The ASA ban a Ryanair advert which falsely accuses lastminute.com of "robbing" and overcharging customers. (The Register; ASA)
Oct 2007: Ryanair voted least favourite airline again (Glasgow Evening Times)
Aug 2007: While Ryanair claims to be faster and cheaper than Eurostar from London to Paris, the ASA differs. Complaint against Ryanair upheld. (ASA)
July 2007: A Ryanair campaign encouraging people to write to the UK government over climate change policy is criticised by the ASA. (ASA)
May 2007: Complaints upheld over ad about promotional flights from Stansted. (ASA)
Apr 2007: The London Evening Standard reports that a "boy of 14 in a plaster cast from his ankle to his thigh was forced to stand for nearly two hours on a Ryanair jet." Ryanair subsequently apologised. (Evening Standard)
Apr 2007: Ryanair named in an Early Day Motion by British parliamentarians for "refus[ing] to provide an email address for the purposes of making complaints and direct[ing] its customers to use either a telephone number which costs 10 pence per minute or to post or fax complaints to its head office in Dublin". They call upon "online-based companies such as Ryanair to improve the ability of their customers to communicate with the company after sales by at least publishing an email address for this purpose so that redress for poor service is made less complicated and expensive", and publish a phone number for the airline. (UK Parliament)
Feb 2007: The Times reports that Ryanair has been criticised by air accident investigators for pilots flying too low over houses and other safety concerns. Pilots blame pressure to turn around planes in only 25 minutes; Ryanair declined to comment. Incidents include (1) a plane landing in Cork that "exceeded the normal operating limit for tilting the Boeing 737's wings" and set off its ground proximity alarm twice, flying as low as 425 ft above houses, (2) a near-accident in Knock, Ireland, that was not reported for almost 2 weeks and some evidence deleted in the interim, and (3) a co-pilot having to take control of a flight approaching Rome when the captain "suffered a breakdown". (Times)
Dec 2006: Ryanair fails to take consumer rights website ryanaircampaign.org offline for trademark infringement when the World Intellectual Property Organisation Arbitration and Mediation Center rules against the airline. (The Register)
Nov 2006: Ryanair advertisements that promise free flights but fail to quantify taxes and airport fees are criticised. (ASA)
Oct 2006: Ryanair cuts baggage allowances by a quarter while passengers are on holiday: "a family of four could end up paying £110 just to bring back the same amount of luggage they took." (This Is Money)
Oct 2006: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Guardian)
Aug 2006: Another "misleading" comparison in press ads. (ASA)
May 2006: UK statutory body the Disability Rights Commission criticises Ryanair for imposing a 33 p levy on each ticket to pay for transporting disabled people; the DRC feel 0.02 p would be a fairer price. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary is quoted as saying "The DRC wouldn't f***ing know how much it costs if it jumped up and bit them". (Daily Telegraph)
May 2006: Complaint upheld for imposing too many conditions on cheap flights that weren't mentioned in ad. (ASA)
Feb 2006: The Irish Independent reports that the Irish Aviation Authority has "engaged" with Ryanair after "getting dozens of letters from pilots worried about their professional status with the low-cost airline. The pilots warned that they may no longer be able to comply with the conditions of their licences because they may, in effect, be compelled to fly while it might not always be safe to do so." Ryanair claim they respect the authority of pilots but refuse to comment on a pilot allegedly demoted for refusing to fly due to fatigue. (Irish Independent)
Feb 2006: A documentary for Channel 4's Dispatches series claims to expose "inadequate safety and security checks, dirty planes, exhausted cabin crew and pilots complaining about the number of hours they have to fly". (Channel 4)
May 2005: Complaint upheld when Ryanair promise cheap summer flights, but none are available after May 26th. (ASA)
Dec 2004: Both Ryanair and Stansted found to have jointly discriminated against a disabled passenger by charging £18 for a wheelchair rental. This overturns an earlier ruling that found Ryanair solely responsible. (Out-Law)
Dec 2004: Complaint upheld for claiming Girona airport serves Barcelona; Girona is 112 km (70 miles) away. (ASA)
Sep 2004: The International Transport Workers' Federation criticise Ryanair for staff's long working hours, hiring eastern European crew on lower wages, and intimidating workers who try to join unions. (ITWF)
You could draw up similar lists for other airlines, such as BA and Virgin's price fixing (BBC), and EasyJet's reluctance to offer refunds (Guardian) and automatically adding optional surcharges to flights (The Register), but Ryanair's is almost certainly the longest.
A brief history of Flash mobs
Originally intended as a joke on stupid hipsters, co-opted by advertising men, and to many observers completely pointless, the Flash Mob seems to be one form of silliness that will not die. Typically it involves somebody posting on a website "let's meet at X and do Y" where X is a public space and Y is something very crazy.
Early flash mobs involved pestering sales assistants or random street performance, but there are also subgenres like pillow fight flash mob, flash mob bang, and mobile clubbing. It also links to more political phenomena like guerrilla gardening and guerrilla knitting. And even more bizarre ideas appear: "we thought we'd try a 'flash-mob' cataloging party! A bunch of LibraryThing members show up with laptops and barcode scanners in hand and see how fast we can enter an entire library into LibraryThing." (Dutch library website)
Arguments
Pro: Thomas Kerrigan, commenting on article, London Evening Standard:
Flash Mob time-line
Prehistory: Protestors at the G8 conference in Seattle in 1999 made extensive use of websites and internet technology to rapidly organise demos. Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution was published in 2002, a year before the first flash mob. In one scene in Terry Gilliam movie The Fisher King (1991) everyone in Grand Central Station spontaneously starts ballroom dancing for no reason. Wikipedia also points to Larry Niven's 1973 story "Flash Crowd", while Ray Bradbury's 1943 story "The Crowd" describes a group of people who appear with suspicious speed around accident scenes. Flash mobs are also perhaps connected to the ancient joke of standing in the street pointing at something non-existent, which can reputedly attract a large crowd also pointing and pretending to see what you are pointing at.
May 2003: Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine, organises the first flash mob. "I created an email address - themobproject@yahoo.com - and forwarded an email to myself, and then I forwarded it to about forty or fifty friends on the premise that they would think, 'Oh, Bill's heard about this interesting thing.'" Planned for the street outside Claire's Accessories, Astor Place, New York City, they fail to go through with it due to a police presence nearby. (Stay Free)
3 June 2003: In the second mob organised by Wasik, the first successful flash mob, 100 people gather in the rug department of Macy's, New York City, confusing sales assistants with bizarre questions.
24 July 2003: First European flash mob, in Rome: members enter a shop and ask for non-existent titles. (CNN)
7-8 August 2003: Mobs planned for Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Zurich and Vienna. In Berlin on the 7th "about 40 people in the middle of a busy street took out their mobile phones and shouted, 'yes, yes!' and then applauded". (CNN)
3 April 2004: First computing flash mob at University of San Francisco, an attempt to get lots of people to bring computers to create a temporary supercomputer. (Flash Mob Computing)
6.53pm, 4 April 2007: Over 4000 people attend a silent disco at Victoria Station, London, the largest event in Britain up to that point, which lasted 2 hours. This is one of a number of events organised by artists Ben Cummins and Emma Davis, in which people arrive at a venue and dance to music on their headphones. The silent disco phenomenon also enjoys brief popularity in clubs and at music festivals. (Evening Standard)
Summer 2007: The world is gripped with flash mob water fight fever, with events in Leeds, Vancouver, London, and many other places. (Daily Mail; Channel 4; Vancouver Sun)
25 May 2007: Zombie flash mob, San Francisco. (cnet)
5 August 2007: First Chinese flash mob, with 14 people gathering to sing songs in the street in Changchun, Jilin province. (china.org)
22 March 2008: Possibly the largest flash mob ever is the New York event of Worldwide Pillow Fight day.
27 March 2008: Flash mob protesting against Heathrow Terminal 5, London. (T5FlashMob)
5 May 2008: A flash mob water fight in Leeds causes thousands of pounds worth of damage. A similar event was held without incident in the city on 5 May 2007. (The Register)
15 January 2009: T-Mobile stage a fake flash mob in London's Liverpool Street station for use in a mobile phone commercial.
7.00pm, 6 February 2009: A flash mob is held in Liverpool Street station in tribute to the T-Mobile advertisement. One participant says "The T-Mobile advert was brilliant and I thought it would be really fun to join so many other people just to dance." (Daily Telegraph)
1 March 2009: Flash mob of plasticine figures mourning TV presenter Tony Hart, outside Tate Modern, London. (BBC)
6pm, 26 June 2009: Mass moonwalk at Liverpool Street station, London, in tribute to Michael Jackson who died the previous day. (B3ta)
Additional data from the internet version of the flash mob, Wikipedia.
Early flash mobs involved pestering sales assistants or random street performance, but there are also subgenres like pillow fight flash mob, flash mob bang, and mobile clubbing. It also links to more political phenomena like guerrilla gardening and guerrilla knitting. And even more bizarre ideas appear: "we thought we'd try a 'flash-mob' cataloging party! A bunch of LibraryThing members show up with laptops and barcode scanners in hand and see how fast we can enter an entire library into LibraryThing." (Dutch library website)
Arguments
Pro: Thomas Kerrigan, commenting on article, London Evening Standard:
I love the whole concept of flash mobs. The anonymous nature, the spontaneity of hundreds of people suddenly coming together, becoming united for a brief moment where otherwise people pass each other by in silence. It offers everyone a unique story to tell loved ones about a break in humdrum routine.Anti: Author James Harkin (Cyburbia, Adam Curtis's The Trap, Director of Talks at the ICA in London):
'Why not turn up at Grand Central Station wearing underpants in a big Flash Mob?' But I don't think 'Why Not?' is good enough. Things need to have a purpose. If you have a project or a purpose, you can use the medium to achieve that. With no ideas, no project, you have nothing. The evangelists simply believe can use this metaphysical glow of this medium to woo people. People forget the world's first Flash Mob in 2003, organised by Bill Wasik, was a joke. It was a joke on the gullibility of New York hipsters who would react to any kind of electronic information, and do anything you told them. What's fascinating is that the 'Why Not?' ethos of Web 2.0 people started as a joke against them.Rather than decide on its merits here is a...
Flash Mob time-line
Prehistory: Protestors at the G8 conference in Seattle in 1999 made extensive use of websites and internet technology to rapidly organise demos. Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution was published in 2002, a year before the first flash mob. In one scene in Terry Gilliam movie The Fisher King (1991) everyone in Grand Central Station spontaneously starts ballroom dancing for no reason. Wikipedia also points to Larry Niven's 1973 story "Flash Crowd", while Ray Bradbury's 1943 story "The Crowd" describes a group of people who appear with suspicious speed around accident scenes. Flash mobs are also perhaps connected to the ancient joke of standing in the street pointing at something non-existent, which can reputedly attract a large crowd also pointing and pretending to see what you are pointing at.
May 2003: Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine, organises the first flash mob. "I created an email address - themobproject@yahoo.com - and forwarded an email to myself, and then I forwarded it to about forty or fifty friends on the premise that they would think, 'Oh, Bill's heard about this interesting thing.'" Planned for the street outside Claire's Accessories, Astor Place, New York City, they fail to go through with it due to a police presence nearby. (Stay Free)
3 June 2003: In the second mob organised by Wasik, the first successful flash mob, 100 people gather in the rug department of Macy's, New York City, confusing sales assistants with bizarre questions.
24 July 2003: First European flash mob, in Rome: members enter a shop and ask for non-existent titles. (CNN)
7-8 August 2003: Mobs planned for Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Zurich and Vienna. In Berlin on the 7th "about 40 people in the middle of a busy street took out their mobile phones and shouted, 'yes, yes!' and then applauded". (CNN)
3 April 2004: First computing flash mob at University of San Francisco, an attempt to get lots of people to bring computers to create a temporary supercomputer. (Flash Mob Computing)
6.53pm, 4 April 2007: Over 4000 people attend a silent disco at Victoria Station, London, the largest event in Britain up to that point, which lasted 2 hours. This is one of a number of events organised by artists Ben Cummins and Emma Davis, in which people arrive at a venue and dance to music on their headphones. The silent disco phenomenon also enjoys brief popularity in clubs and at music festivals. (Evening Standard)
Summer 2007: The world is gripped with flash mob water fight fever, with events in Leeds, Vancouver, London, and many other places. (Daily Mail; Channel 4; Vancouver Sun)
25 May 2007: Zombie flash mob, San Francisco. (cnet)
5 August 2007: First Chinese flash mob, with 14 people gathering to sing songs in the street in Changchun, Jilin province. (china.org)
22 March 2008: Possibly the largest flash mob ever is the New York event of Worldwide Pillow Fight day.
27 March 2008: Flash mob protesting against Heathrow Terminal 5, London. (T5FlashMob)
5 May 2008: A flash mob water fight in Leeds causes thousands of pounds worth of damage. A similar event was held without incident in the city on 5 May 2007. (The Register)
15 January 2009: T-Mobile stage a fake flash mob in London's Liverpool Street station for use in a mobile phone commercial.
7.00pm, 6 February 2009: A flash mob is held in Liverpool Street station in tribute to the T-Mobile advertisement. One participant says "The T-Mobile advert was brilliant and I thought it would be really fun to join so many other people just to dance." (Daily Telegraph)
1 March 2009: Flash mob of plasticine figures mourning TV presenter Tony Hart, outside Tate Modern, London. (BBC)
6pm, 26 June 2009: Mass moonwalk at Liverpool Street station, London, in tribute to Michael Jackson who died the previous day. (B3ta)
Additional data from the internet version of the flash mob, Wikipedia.
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