Net’s Best Ads, 2002

Everyone knows that some of the best commercials on U.S. television are aired during the Super Bowl. Heck, there are plenty of people who tune in just to watch those commercials. How about the Net’s best ad campaigns? In 2002 there were plenty of winners (as chosen by industry organizations) so we thought we’d tell you about a few of them and why we liked them. You’ll find links to all of the examples in this issue listed at the end of this newsletter.

Mediapost, a publisher about interactive media, honored “Best of Net” winners by industry category (e.g. automotive, beverage, financial, packaged goods, etc.). Winners of the @D:TECH 2002 Awards were judged on the following categories:

- Audience Building Campaign
- Banner Ad
- B to B Campaign
- Branding
- Broadcast Streaming
- Consumer Campaign
- Direct Response
- E-Mail
- Large Format
- Overlay
- Pop Up
- Rich Media
- Viral Marketing Campaign
- Wireless Ad or Campaign

Geo-Specific Audience Building

Organic Inc., one of 2002’s @D:TECH award winners, created an audience-building pop-up campaign for Washington Mutual’s home mortgage division. Not only did they make it eye catching (colorful with just enough activity), but they also used two different pop-ups, developed for and delivered according to the location of the user.

One pop-up’s scene resembled Times Square in New York while the other resembled Los Angeles. Located within the pop-up ad itself were clever ads along with two interactive sections. The left hand side of the pop-ups allowed surfers to view additional scenes from the cities and the bottom right hand corner of the pop-ups gave users a way to find the “WaMu” Home loan center nearest them.

Not Your Grandma’s Documentary

“Just when we thought it was safe to surf the web,” came interactive agency i-traffic’s rich media promotion of the Discovery Channel’s “Celebrity Shark Week,” customized for several highly visible web sites and a Mediapost winner in the Entertainment category. At UGO.com, the site appeared to be under water and a shark circled and then bit the screen. On the E! Online homepage, a porthole-shaped ad gave viewers a glimpse of a circling shark supported by other animated skyscrapers and banner ads featuring the shark attack. And in an effort to gain viewers who may not normally watch documentaries, the 18 - 34 age group, the agency placed ads on gaming and entertainment sites and called attention to the celebrities who would be featured on the program.

Wit Wins the Day

Leave it to financial institution, ING, to use clever and creative online advertising. Far from boring and stuffy, ING’s Internet ad campaign, produced by ING’s agencies Tribal DDB and Euro RSCG Circle, reinforced their television campaign by featuring the same man and dog. On the TV commercial, the man kept asking the billboard worker what “ING” means only to be kept from hearing the answer by a herd of baah-ing sheep. Online, one of the ads with the man and the dog features a counter which counts down the number of people in the U.S. who don’t know what ING does. Each time the ad is shown, the number goes down, so if you had seen the ad when the campaign started running and then again towards its end, you’d have seen the counter number had substantially decreased.

Another clever ING branding ad concept involved manipulating the editorial content of the web pages on Fool.com and Smartmoney.com. During the ING campaign, you would have noticed that every occurrence of the three letters “ing” on the page were highlighted in orange. The orange “ING’s” would turn back to black after about 20 seconds, resulting in an obvious but unobtrusive method of advertising.

The ING campaign featured another kind of inventive ad, placed on sites with a satirical and humorous editorial tone like Fool.com. A skyscraper ad looking like a newspaper column screamed with the headline, “Financial Services Company to Acquire 3 Letters of the Alphabet.” Is there any wonder why we found this one amusing? So did the judges — this campaign won awards from both groups.

Daypart Wake-Up Call

With their “New Tastes Menu” campaign, McDonald’s, a Mediapost winner in the Restaurant category, took full advantage of one of the latest forms of online ad targeting: daypart advertising. Using flash ads, complete with sound and the McDonald’s jingle, run during the breakfast hours, McDonald’s compared their new Ranchero Bagel to a boring, plain old egg. The campaign, produced by Tribal DDB, not only served to help brand their image, but also create impulse buys.

What made advertising efforts like these successful? Well- developed strategies that targeted audiences as specifically as possible and captured their attention with innovative, compellingly interactive ad creative. All the while, these campaigns integrated off-line and online efforts — sounds simple, right? ;->

Related Links:

WebAdvantage.net’s “Daypart Advertising - New to Online”
Organic’s ads for Washington Mutual”
i-traffic’s Discovery Channel “Celebrity Shark Week”
Tribal DDB and Euro RSCG Circle’s ING ads
Tribal DDB’s McDonald’s “New Tastes Menu”
View Super Bowl ads
View all @d-Tech Finalists & Winners
View all Mediapost Best of Net Winners

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