I am fascinated by user experience. I take note of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm not a guru. I just know when something works well for me, something is intuitive to me, and when something feels right to me. While the integration of advertising into a web experience is not always pleasing, I really think Pandora has done some things right, for me.

Pandora is one of my favorite online experiences simply because I love music. I was a bit late to get on that bandwagon, but I signed up right around the time they were seemingly experimenting with interactive ad experiences. One of the first ads, I remember, is the Pepto Bismol ad, which appeared to cover the viewing area of the browser with a soothing coating of pink bismuth. Many people were annoyed, as if Pandora were a sellout to the "future of web advertising." However, I enjoyed the idea that advertisers were stepping up to more creative methods just to get my attention.

Personally, I don't dig the audio ads nearly as much as the visual ones, but my favorites are the interactive ads. Starbucks, for instance, clothed the Pandora experience in an ad, resulting in a ten-minute tangent from what I was working on. First, let me admit that I love Starbucks. I briefly worked a second job at one in Memphis, and I found it to be a really good company to work for. I also love coffee. So, I'm a bit distracted by anything Starbucks anyway.

The Starbucks ad, serving as an introduction to the new "however-you-want-it Frappuccino" promotion, consisted of a "Create your own musical taste" slider ranging from "light" to "heavy." You could, in turn, create a station based on your selections. While not convincing enough to make me stray from my musical selection already playing, I opted to not let Starbucks create a station for me. But, I was impressed by their intent and the extent to which they went to encourage my interaction. I felt it was a great blending of a brand that I happen to love into the Pandora experience that I also love.

Among others, there were also ads for Amazon, Amstel, AT&T, Canon, Fancy Feast, The American starring George Clooney, MasterCard, Oreo, Samsung, and Seasonique.

The Canon ad was nice as it created a mood to showcase one of their latest camera models. These ads are also a great way to reinforce visibility of a brand motto or tagline, like Canon's "Click to see beyond the still," which was integrated in both the framed experience and within the song panel.

I find the Fancy Feast ad interesting, since I assume cats generally don't use Pandora. But, their owners do, so they wrapped the page in an elegant atmosphere of cat-owner pride, focusing on those mornings your feline friend wakes you up into a happy, life-loving morning. How do you reward your friend? By buying Fancy Feast Appetizers for Cats! And, by creating a Pandora station for you and your beloved feline.

Seasonique is a brand of female contraceptive. They wrapped the page in a girl-friendly, teal color and used strong wording to empower their female viewers. In much the same way that Starbucks offered interactive components in their ad, the Seasonique ad offered the ability to create stations based on mood, time of day, and genre.

While I focused mainly on the ads that stuck out to me from a feminine perspective, check out screenshots of the other ads, which have a more general appeal.

 

If you're like me, you are probably wondering about the effectiveness of these framed experiences, and how this style of advertising came about for Pandora. Check out this interview between Hollis Thomases of ClickZ and Cheryl Lucanegro, VP of advertising sales at Pandora.

I also found another article about Pandora's Advertising Model by Byrne Reese, and his perspective on Pandora's advertising model. It's interesting, and I think he hit the nail on the head when he wrote: "They do not think of a rectangle on the page as an ad, they think of the whole page as an ad. And in this format, which maybe considered to be by some to be more invasive is actually not. The ads do not pop out at you. They do not autoplay video. They do not interrupt or disrupt the user's experience, they simply frame the experience."

I love Pandora. Aside from the occasional audio ads, which are very brief, I mostly enjoy the framed experience they have created. For the amount of time that I use Pandora each month, I can enjoy it for free while learning about new products and appreciating new creativity from familiar products. It's a great service, and an excellent integration of advertising, creativity, and the web.

SEO VS a Play

On-page = Stage

• Both the on-page content and source code page are important because a page that is viewed by both people and search engines must make sense.
• A play must make sense for the people watching the performance, as well as make sense to the people backstage, so they know when to cue the actors and have successful costume changes.

• Text or images on a webpage must be clear, precise, and interesting to read, providing the viewers with an enjoyable experience and encouraging them to return.
• There is a similar understanding for a play; if extravagant costumes, settings, and effects are used, the audience receives more visual stimulation which increases excitement.

Source Code Page = Backstage

• Search engines spiders must be able to easily crawl a webpage to determine what content is on the page, so it is easily searchable by people. It’s also important to tell exactly what is on the page — don’t lie — otherwise, people will click away from your page and most likely not return.
• The backstage crew and director must also be able to know when to use certain lighting or sound and always know what parts of the play are going on to cue the actors. If the wrong actor is cued backstage, then the play won’t make sense and will have the audience very confused.

Have you ever been to a play that went horribly wrong? Actors forgot their lines or weren’t cued at the right time? Or how about the spotlight wasn’t on the actor at the correct time or the sound wasn’t loud enough? If a website isn’t correctly optimized through the use of correct keywords, then the user will be confused and unsure where to click next. The search engine won’t be able to distinguish what is crawled on the page from what is shown to the user if the content is different. If you thought you were going to see a play about two families, and it ended up being about a girl’s journey through a strange land, you most likely would be confused about the subject, mad that you spent you money, and upset about the time wasted. You wouldn’t trust going back to see another play at the same place, would you?

There you have it, a few examples of how SEO and a play are related. I didn’t want to get too technical, but I believe my explanation will help anyone who doesn’t do search engine optimizing, to better understand what exactly it is… at least, I hope it does.

This new trend to grab consumers’ attention while walking down the aisle has become a great annoyance to me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. Again, at Sam’s club the constant blaring of the benefits you’re depriving your body of because you’re not drinking Acai berry juice , or how much excess weight your body is storing because you’re not using a cleansing system to help get rid of the “nasties” in your digestive system. These do not scare me into buying these products; in all reality, they scare me out of the aisle and eventually out of the store.

If there was a way for me to do all essential shopping online, including groceries, etc., at this point, I would. Just so I wouldn’t have to listen to all the extra noise about products while trying to work my way around the hectic maze and crowds already in these types of stores.

Maybe next time I’ll sneak up on these “infomercial” type machines popping up everywhere and try to trick them into not detecting my presence. But for now, I’ll just live with my old toothbrush and all the “nasties” that come along with it.

Do you think “it produces icy, typhoon-esque gas” is more of a feature or a benefit?  Let’s ask a penguin.

If that doesn’t make you want to chew Vigorsol, I don’t know what could.  But do you know what’s even cooler than squirrels and penguins?  Walruses!  If I could only meet a walrus that would play a game of patty-cake with me, my life would be complete.

I can now die happy.  Not since the Lolrus has a pinniped been granted a real shot at pop culture stardom.  And while I know walruses are pretty big, this particular one reminds me of Jabba the Hut.

Other Vigorsol commercials aren’t any less bizarre.

After watching these commercials, I don’t want to chew Vigorsol, but I sure want to work on the account.  Unlike GoDaddy, I’d actually like to see what the rejected Vigorsol concepts are like.  If this stuff makes the cut, just how outlandish would a concept have to be to get shot down?

Focusing purely on name recall is an interesting strategy.  I doubt I’ll ever be able to forget Vigorsol’s name, but does name recognition alone sell a product?  When we watch a commercial for something as well-known as Coke, we already know everything we need to about the product, so the commercial is there just to get people thinking about Coke.  But I don’t know anything about Vigorsol, and I can’t find the homepage to learn more.

Nice commercials, guys—but you do need to improve SEO on the website.

I’ve never seen any data that says having your kids in the spots works. For all I know, there’s a huge market out there comprised of people who buy vinyl housing products once they see a commercial with a three-year old girl saying something only a lip reader could decipher. Either that or the people that shoot these spots are really good at selling business owners the idea of having their families in the commercials.

I’m all for free enterprise and people building their businesses the way they see fit. It’s the American way and all that. But can they please run some sort of warning before the spots air, like networks do when a show or movie with potentially objectionable scenes of violence, bloodshed or sex is about to come on? That would give me enough time to grab the remote and change the channel. Either that, or I’ve got to take lip reading classes.

So I’m thinking about getting the new iPhone 4, antenna problems be damned. I can rationalize it because I own Apple and AT&T stock, so it’s in my best interest to buy one. The latest iPhone’s problems remind me of new car models. Never buy a new model or the first year of a model change. Too many problems waiting to be ironed out, just like the new iPhone.

Apple has announced that a new software update will fix the problem. But Yahoo Tech News sites Gizmodo, the iPhone-scooping tech blog, that it has checked three times with the AppleCare support line, and every service tech they’ve talked to says the update won’t solve the problem. If you touch the outer steel band, which houses the antenna in the lower left hand corner, you’ll interfere with the antenna’s reception abilities.

But there’s hope, sort of. AnandTech has found that the iPhone 4’s new antenna delivers the best reception yet for an iPhone, as long as you use Apple’s $30 bumper case. Or take the low cost option and don’t touch the lower left hand area of the steel band.

Then there’s all the coverage issues and lack of bandwidth to handle the huge amount of data now flying through the air. (Here’s a stock tip–buy the cell tower companies like American Tower, because they’re getting orders for new towers as AT&T upgrades their network) I’ve never had many problems with coverage problems with AT&T. When I bought my house five years ago and had the entire inside gutted and redone, the decorator had Verizon as her carrier and the only place she could get reception was by the front door, so go figure.

I could always go with an older iPhone version, but the cost of the iPhone 4 is only $100 more than the last model. So now I’m in a tug-of-war between needing/wanting the IPhone4, and heeding the lessons of new car models – better to leave them on the lot until they get the bugs out. Right now, I’m not sure whether sense will win out over want.

1. How to find more time to make media
2. “Somebody has to say it” post
3. What brands do poorly and possible remedies
4. How men and women use social media differently
5. The Internet application I haven’t seen
6. Fixing conferences
7. Who says what about your brand
8. How to handle critics
9. Building brands (interesting examples)
10. Giving it away (the benefits of free stuff)
11. LinkedIn as your business card
12. Getting the most out of small marketing budgets
13. Tutorials (with video/podcast)



14. Interesting trends in advertising and marketing
15. Debunk myths
16. Respond to criticism posted elsewhere
17. Expand and critique old blog posts from other bloggers
18. Generally unknown secrets in your niché
19. How marketing has evolved over the years (strategy, budgets)
20. Post about something good, not great, and describe how it could become great
21. Run a poll and post results
22. “101″ ideas post
23. Interview an industry leader and post it
24. Comment on cool videos and embed the video in the post
25. Comment on cool creative campaigns, websites, etc. and include examples in the post

I would love to expand this list with more “sticky” blog ideas. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments or complain about another list.

For my money, the best moments are when the panda angrily swats the flour, the keyboard rampage, and the threatening look the panda displays after pulling the IV tube loose.  There’s something a bit sinister in the panda’s fixed expression.  At times it seems like a smile, but there’s an underlying, implied anger that’s rather unnerving.  The cheesiness—excuse the pun—of the costume really helps to sell the overall theme.  CGI just wouldn’t be as much fun here.

I hope I’m not the only one, though, who initially thought of something much different when I heard the words “Panda Cheese.”  Goat cheese comes from goat milk, and so just for a second I pondered the obvious next question.  I know the idea is patently ridiculous, but just imagine being the guy who has to milk the pandas.  They’re not really the cuddly creatures we imagine them to be.  Google “panda attack” and you’ll get 952,000 results.  Just for reference, Google returns only 353,000 results for “Rottweiler attack,” and I’ve never heard anyone volunteer to milk a Rottweiler.

The website for The Arab Dairy Products Co. offers no evidence as to why the company branded its Mozzarella, Feta and Parmesan cheeses as Panda Cheese.  A Chinese animal selling an Italian food—no, I still don’t see the connection.  California’s happy cows make sense, as does The Laughing Cow.  Since mozzarella is properly made with buffalo milk, that animal would also make a fine mascot.  A marsupial doesn’t strike me as an ideal mascot for cheese, though.

But who cares about the logic of it all when the commercials are so much fun?  It’s a shame we won’t see them on TV in this country.  And to answer that initial question: Panda Cheese comes from Egypt, of course.

I wonder at what point Dockers will stop these commercials? Is there a timeline or will they stop after getting a certain number of people to the site or selling a number of pants, or maybe until they run out of ‘man.’ shirts? If a customer purchases cargo pants today, the free man shirt offer is still in effect. Who doesn’t like something free?

The Dockers’ ad does an excellent job of turning a simple message into a deeper one. After looking further into the Dockers’/Levi Strauss & Co. website, I realized that the subliminal message is for men to actually wear the pants, meaning for men to embrace their masculinity and to “be a man.” The campaign is meant to act as a reminder that it is masculine for men to wear khaki pants. It reminds them to take a stand on strength and sensitivity, and encourages them to be men.

The commercial does a great job of using humor and a plain folks appeal to effectively get TV watchers to remember the ad at a later point in time. Men without pants is funny and using ordinary “non-model type” men in the ad gives it a unique appeal. My initial reaction to the video is that the commercial is brilliant and very entertaining, although after watching it time and time again, it becomes quite irritating. To be honest, even though this commercial was intended to get men to go to the Dockers’ website, it got my attention too, but it took several viewings of the commercial before it got me to go to the website.

Although I’m not sure if Dockers’ is selling a lot more khaki pants, I am quite certain that the commercial is driving traffic to their site, even if it takes a while. So, pants, are they optional? Yes and no… I’ll let you decide that for yourself.