Let’s be honest – there’s sod all going on in the world on New Year’s Eve. Everyone else has gone to the pub, so to pass the time before 2010 arrives, I’ve been watching German pornography classic Screenwipe from Charlie Brooker. It’s a little bit sweary, ladies and gentlemen:
He only wanted to listen to the new JLS album...
Dodging advertisements is as easy as falling off a log these days. If you want to avoid commercial breaks in your favourite TV shows, just record them then sit down to watch 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, before fast -forwarding through the ads.
When it comes to the 30 second ads that increasingly crop up at the start of online videos, we just use the time to see how long we can hold our breath for. Much more fun than being forced to listen to someone jawing on for half a minute about the benefits of owning a Nissan Qashqai.
But now, a major company have filed a patent application for technology that will force consumers to watch ads, using what they’re calling an ‘enforcement routine.’ The technology will apply to almost anything that has a screen – computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices etc etc.
If and when the new technology is introduced, messages will crop up on the screen, demanding clicks from the consumer. Questions about the advert may be asked, ensuring that you’ve been paying full attention to the message being delivered by the advertiser.
A patent application has also been filed for a version for music players, where an audible prompt will ask the listener to press a specific button to move on to the rest of the ad. In both cases (audio and visual) if the demanding gizmo doesn’t get the answer it wants, the device will freeze until it gets a satisfactory response.
If you’re a bit thick or aren’t paying attention, you could be in for a rough ride – the patent application says that the tests “can be made progressively more aggressive if the user has failed a previous test.” Woop-de-doo!
If this disgusting little piece of technology does come into play, advertisers will be delighted and most right-thinking humans will be livid. But the inventors’ soft-soap claim is that the intention is to offer electronic products for lower prices, knowing that the advertisers’ message is being delivered as required. Purchasers of such equipment would do so willingly, knowing that for a lower price they’ll be expected to play ball with the advertisers’ whims.
Oh, we forgot to mention the name of the company that has pioneered this vile-sounding piece of technology. It’s Apple. Fucking Apple.
Which?, the long-established consumer champion has admitted to Bitterwallet that it accepts pay-per-click advertising on its website, allowing companies to increase the visibility of their products above others.
While the reviews of the products themselves are not in question, the fact that Which? is profiting by promoting them to consumers is surely a concern for an organisation famous for the edict “no advertising, no bias, no hidden agenda”.
Most product reviews on the Which website are hidden behind a pay-wall; Which? is famous for solely generating income through subscriptions to maintain editorial independence. However, there are several instances where users can access Best Buy information – those products and services that Which? recommends above all others. Plenty can be found within the Money section of the Which? reviews; in some sections (such as the car insurance section), the information is presented in a plain text grid:
Click on some and the associated URL re-directs straight to the company’s website. However, others will re-direct you through an affiliate link, such as this link for Hastings Direct:
The same is true of Best Buy recommendations in other sections, such as the URL for American Express in Which’s list of recommended cashback credit cards:
Furthermore, there are Best Buy recommendations where certain products have the company logo displayed beside them, such as the section on Personal Loans:
There is no doubt that those deals with a logo are far more prominent than those without. So why do some Best Buy recommendations display a logo while others don’t? It seems Which? are showing bias towards particular products without explaining why.
Clicking on the “Go To Site” button of all the deals without a logo, and you’ll be directed straight to the company website in question. But visit the site of all those companies with a logo displayed, and you’ll be directed through a series of third party URLs that track your progress.
For example, the link for Alliance & Leicester initially forwards to:
http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/loans/index.aspx?urlgen=y&exp=30&cm_mmc=int_invpt-_-ptr-_-ec01097000276991al_loans-_-app3
Which then forwards to:
http://cg1.maxymiser.com/CG2/?fv=dbg%3D0%3Bdmn%3Dalliance-leicester.co.uk%3Bcok%3D1%3Bref%3Dhttp%253A//www.which.co.uk/reviews-ns/personal-loans/best-buys/index.jsp%3Burl%3Dhttp%253A//www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/loans/index.aspx%253Furlgen%253Dy%2526exp%253D30%2526cm_mmc%253Dint_invpt-_-ptr-_-ec01097000276991al_loans-_-app3%3Bscrw%3D1280%3Bscrh%3D800%3Bclrd%3D24%3B&cv=LMb_1%3D%3BLMb_2%3D%3BLMb_3%3D%3BLMb_e%3D%3B&jsver=4.0&ri=1
And is finally resolved as:
http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/WebResource.axd?d=1pb0XaGoyb6wKtHmTrhRyA2&t=633493707888503454
Alliance & Leicester are a client of Maxymiser.com – a company that specialises in conversion management - they ensure that a client’s marketing campaign delivers the best possible results for their spend. The natural conclusion is that companies are paying Which? to display their logo, thereby increasing their product’s visibility.
We couldn’t find any literature on the Which? website that explains the nature of these URLs or why some products receive undue prominence, so we told the press office of our findings and asked for an explanation. A spokesperson told us:
“Which? includes links on its website to help consumers by making their online product search as easy as possible.
“Any company with their logo next to their name in these tables pays us a small admin fee each time a customer clicks on the corresponding “Go to site” link.
“These payments do not influence where a product appears in the table or whether the product will remain in our tables going forward. Our Best Buy tables are compiled by our independent researchers. The only way for companies to appear in these tables is to offer the very best products on the market that meet our stringent Best Buy criteria.
“As a not-for-profit organisation, all revenue raised from these tables is reinvested in our research and campaigning work on behalf of all UK consumers.”
What Which? refers to as an “admin fee” everyone else will recognise as the very definition of pay-per-click advertising. Where a product is placed in the table, or whether it’ll still be there in the coming months isn’t the issue. While operating under the code of “no advertising, no bias, no hidden agenda”, Which? is being paid to promote particular products without telling the consumer why they are doing it.
It’s childish and puerile, so ripe pickings for Bitterwallet then. We can’t figure out what the advert might be for, so we can only assume it’s for special trouser kisses. Any better guesses?
[BuzzFeed]
Most adverts are irritating flecks of minutiae that do nothing but present a very clear reason why the product in question is the last thing you’d want in your life. Some, on the other hand, are very clever indeed. It’s not always a question of what the product is or what the advert says about it, but where the ad appears.
Here’s another great example. The building on the left is the renowned Haitong Securities building in Shanghai, famous for looking like it’s been caught in a draft. On the right, a giant tarpaulin for Midea fans. Brilliant:
The Advertising Standards Authority has received over 100 complaints about Ryanair’s ads over the past year. But they’re not investigating them. None of them. The reason is because Michael O’Leary knows where the head of the ASA lives and has threatened him with an atomic wedgie if any adjudications go against the insufferable airline.
Of course, that last part isn’t true. The atomic wedgie has only ever been achieved on three occasions so it’s probably an empty threat. No, there’s a different reason why scores and scores of complaints about Ryanair are being sat on by the ASA. It’s because the Office Of Fair Trading are busy sticking their beaks in instead.
You see, back in April 2008, the ASA referred Ryanair to the OFT for persistently breaching its rules on misleading advertising. Since then, the OFT have been carefully and diligently… well, we’re not entirely sure what they’ve been doing. It’s been almost 14 months and no conclusions have been drawn as yet, with no date scheduled for the end of its investigation.
In the meantime, Ryanair continue to advertise in a manner that has led to 121 grumbling mumbles from disgruntled punters. With no sign of any impeding reproach from the authorities.
It’s kind of like arresting someone on suspicion of arson then getting him to go an lurk in the middle of an industrial estate with a big box of matches for a year while you have a think about what you’re going to do with him. Ryanair eh? We’re almost starting to admire their huge brass balls.
Of course marketing and advertising doesn’t affect you. In fact you never pay attention to adverts you see on television, billboards, petrol pump caps, telephone boxes – you only buy what you like, and nobody will persuade you to do otherwise. In which case, why the hell did you buy what you’ve bought in the first place? If you’re not a mindless drone soaking up every marketing message you’re exposed to, why are you a slave to particular brands of products?
An annonymous blogger and advertising creative called Jane Sample created a day in her life, illustrated by the brands she used at home and work:
Other bloggers have since joined in to create these brand timeline portraits, that drill home exactly how habitual we are regarding particular products. We thought we’d have a go, so we pooled together our collective exposure to brands in the Bitterwallet office over the course of a routine day, and came up with this: (more…)
Aside from been old, everything in the past was also sexist, racist or catastrophically stupid. It’s a wonder we made it out the 20th Century to become the sophisticated society of intelligent humanitarians we are today.
As if further proof was needed as to far we’ve advanced, Guidespot has created a portal into the past, where you can freely gaze upon the horror of historical advertising. Woman especially, take note as to how well you done out of life:
Google don’t advertise. And why should they? They’re Google. It’s like having to advertise air. Something has changed, however. Perhaps the G-Men were expecting that once they launched their Chrome web browser last year, they’d rule the world as they so often do. Except it’s yet to happen – Chrome is used by just 1.42 per cent of internet users. It’s failure to make a quick impact isn’t helped by the fact that nearly nine months on from it’s Beta launch, there’s still no version available for Macs.
So Google has launched a television advertising campaign. That’s right – as traditional media collapses, Google starts spending money on it to promote Chrome, with this commercial appearing on American networks:
How take-up of Chrome be helped by an advert that fails to explain what it’s advertising is unclear. The point of utilising television is to reach a mass-market that is less tech-savvy – in which case surely you need to tell them what it is you’re pushing? Otherwise it just looks like you’re sponsoring a retro-version of Breakout.
Anybody who works is advertising and marketing is undoubtedly a social pariah or a bunch of organs that’ll hopefully be donated sooner rather than later. But occasionally such sub-humans manage to pull off some subtle yet entirely brilliant campaign that suggests there may be more to their whore-mongering minds than simply robbing you by every legal avenue possible.
For instance, when the smartarses at Audi’s marketing HQ decided to stick it to BMW on a billboard in LA, some bigger but altogether cleverer smartarses at BMW’s agency literally beat them at their own game:
Taxi for Audi.
[BMWblog]
If you’re a typical Bitterwallet reader, you’ve probably got a ring binder filled to bursting with your favourite stories from the site that you’ve diligently printed off from your desktop computer. Don’t be shy – we know you do it – we’ve got the stats.
But in 2009, we take the humble printer for granted, and if we come across one that doesn’t also scan, photocopy and send faxes to taxis we’re inclined to want to bring a hammer down upon it. Wasn’t always that way though.
Here’s a great feature we found that looks back at some of the gigantic pioneering printers from back in the day and how they were advertised. Take the Xerox 4000 (pictured). Looks like it would double up as a old-fashioned twin tub washing machine, but if it did, it would probably need to be 50 times the size it already is.
Take a look at the rest of the printers in the feature and have a long hard think next time you swear at your own 21st century machine next time it has a paper jam when you’re trying to print out one of our hilarious supermarket mis-price pics.
Go on, go and see your printer now. Give it a little kiss and tell it you love it.
[via Presurfer]
If you think about it hard enough, it’s conceivable that the Costa Brava region of North East Spain does in fact start in the Bahamas. Of course, you’d have to raise the temperature of the Earth several dozen degrees so the oceans boiled away and you could walk the 4,578 miles between the two (it is, we’ve checked). Or lower the temperature so you could walk across the Atlantic. Or grow gills.
Ok, so the Costa Brava is nothing whatsoever like the Bahamas, and certainly doesn’t start there. Unless you’re the Costa Brava Girona tourism board, and you use a photograph of the Bahamas to advertise your beaches in Lloret de Mar. The advertising strapline “Where does the Costa Brava start?” doesn’t quite make sense when accompanied by a photo taken nearly 5,000 miles away.
The director of the tourism board can’t see what the problem is, since each of them has sand, sea and sky, saying: “Our intention is not to lie, nor to suggest that the Bahamas are really better than the Costa Brava.” Before you accuse her of talking through her agujero, test your powers of deduction with the Guardian’s gallery of beachy pics for you to guess the location of.
NB In the spirit this story, we’ve published a photo of the Costa Brava, too. Except it’s really Brighton Beach. And that’s Brighton Beach in Melbourne, not Blghtly. We’re wild, we are.
[Guardian]
Placing the most popular products furthest from the entrance; impulse purchases at the tills; ensuring that whatever you went in for, you walk past as many products and up all the bastard aisles before you find it – we’ve all know that millions are spent by supermarkets on researching new ways to brainwash us while we mosey on through.
There’s point-of-sale material too, in-store marketing such as the legendary Tesco yellow labels. Because they have physical stand-out and represent a financial saving to us, we’re effectively trained by Tesco to become sensitive to their presence and more susceptible to purchasing the item on offer.
The same is true of all retail stores; point-of-sale material is there to teach us what the shop would prefer we bought. Eventually, we come to trust these offers because as beneficial as they are to retailers if we make a purchase, we make a saving too. Everyone’s a winner it seems, unless the trust is abused:
Bitterwallet reader Stuart Ashton found the above example and sent it to us – the sticker promised a saving and the customer saw no reason to doubt it, so he trusted it and bought the item. Another “pointless” offer from the high street or against the law? According to Consumer Direct when we asked them earlier, most certainly the latter. It may have been a one-off mistake, but advertising a product as reduced in price when it isn’t would put a shop on shaky ground with Trading Standards.
How does the situation differ with our recent example of the Argos sale? In that case, though some goods were available for less before the sale, a comparison to previous prices was provided. Even while we may think that’s very confusing for the customer, Argos played by the rules of consumer law. in the example above, the retailer appears to have marked an item as reduced in price without bothering to reduce it, and without providing any evidence that the item may have been sold at a higher price in the past six months.
If you find any examples of the high street abusing your trust during the sales, send them to us at bitterwallet@gmail.com. If you’re not too busy calling Trading Standards, that is.
The first round of Microsoft’s bolstered ad campaign was odd, vague and as opaque as Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea but at least it was distinctive with a positive vibe. In the second round of the advertising battle Microsoft took the gloves off and hit back at Apple directly with their I’m a PC television ads.
Not happy with slagging Apple off on TV, Microsoft has taken it to the streets, as they say, by setting up a booth outside of the Apple Store in Birmingham. AppleInsider reader Tom sent them the following info and picture:
“It’s a friggin booth where you can record your own I’m a PC video,” he said. “This is outside the Apple Store, Bullring, Birmingham, England.” He added that a trio of Microsoft staffers will be on hand to turn patrons off from the Mac for the next three days.
How do you know if a statement is true or not? Either a) Ron Burgundy says it, or b) it’s printed in a newspaper. Unless it’s a press advert for easyJet, then all bets are off.
Bastions of truth and justice British Airways weren’t too happy with easyJet claiming that on selected flights and at selected times, the budget airline was “up to 65% cheaper than BA”. The root of British Airways’ upset was that easyJet had seemingly plucked the number out the air.
The ASA found that while several of the prices quoted by easyJet represented savings, nobody could make them add up to 65% without substantially revising the laws of mathematics. At least easyJet kept all the paperwork concerning how they’d reached the figure, so it wouldn’t appear they’d launched an aggressive marketing campaign and simply made up the headline to drive sales.
easyJet said, as a result of human error, they had been unable to trace the relevant substantiation for the ad. They said appropriate steps were being taken to prevent such occurrences in future.
Oh. Balls.
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