Funny and Smart Uses of Google AdWords
The Royal Pingdom blog create a nice compilation with funny and smart uses of Google AdSense. I had seen some of those in the past, but not all of them. The ASCI art ads are particularly interesting, and the car rental company that came up with the idea claimed that the click-through rate increased by 47%…
Last year we had also seen John Chow sending text messages to specific bloggers using AdWords (read How To Use Site-Targeted Google AdWords for more info on that).
Do you remember any other clever use of this advertising tool?
Daniel Scocco on May 24, 2008
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I came across these yesterday when I was mashing on my stumble button. Quite a coincidence.
I got to say, you got to be a weirdo to come up with these kind of ads.
MrCooker, yes I was the one discovering the page on StumbleUpon
.
ASCII art is more eye-catching than a plain-text banner. It isn’t too strange that the hit rate is higher.
Note to anybody who has had the idea planted in their head: Don’t make your ads with ASCII art.
The whole reason they work is because they are something new — unique. As soon as you copy that idea, it is not unique anymore, and it loses its appeal.
The point I’m trying to make is that if you want to run an ad campaign, you have to think of something nobody else has thought of before. You cannot simply copy someone else’s idea and expect it to work. This ASCII art is a great example of somebody that thought of something unique and had it work wonders for them.
If you want your own successful AdWords campaign, you need to think of your own unique thing for the campaign. If you can’t be unique, you probably don’t deserve to be in business.
(Apologies for the flame-like nature of my comment — I hope my point gets across without getting distracted by the negative bits.)
I understand Google took down these ads due to an all-too-obvious attempt at setting themselves apart from other advertisers. I mean you can’t even so much as place an exclamation point on your ad copy. The best Google AdWords ads I’ve seen have: 1.) a clever play on words, 2.) the ‘fear factor’ (don’t get left behind) and 3.) the ‘desire for gain factor’ (act now and make a bazillion dollars tomorrow).
I don’t remember, but I would like to see this kind of ad:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
http://www.somedescriptivedomain.com
Now, given such an untypical ad (at least here in Finland I haven’t seen such ads) reader should be slightly puzzled possibly even curious. Click would then take to a landing page depicting classic copy writing formula, present a problem, and then introduce a trustworthy solution to fix it.
Bit like those washing powder commercials, “Oh dear, yet again some red wine on my skirt, well, luckily I have my trusted REDWOP (would be nice domain to own, but now back to example…) washing power, which has tiny glass pieces mixed in it to enhance the efficiency. REDWOP has never let me down!”
PS. Lightning Powder Company, Inc. owns REDWOP dot com domain. Naturally there is first of everything.
Since you are my expert on all things blog, I wonder if you can tell me how to create a little heart sign and a little musical note sign. I’d love to be able to say “I (heart) you,” or indicate a song title with a little eighth note. Does anyone know how?
Awesome…Haha…Sure lure me to click o those ads if I see one. =)
Yeah, I ♥ those things. Look up “Character Map”.
@Jeremy, I am not sure if I agree 100%. Sure you have to be unique and innovate, but sometimes it is a good idea to take a look around at what is working, and incorporate some of those principles.
@Chuck, yes sometimes it is annoying the amount of limits that they put on AdWords, but you can see that some people get around them
@Jerko, problem with that ad is that the traffic would not be targeted.
@Travelinoma, I don’t really know how to create those signs, but the idea of google “character map,” as Jeremy is suggesting, might work.
That is a really neat idea. I might have to give this a try.
ASCII art is more eye-catching than a plain-text banner. It isn’t too strange that the hit rate is higher. they present a new an unique concept and that’s a step in the right direction.