Today’s post is brought to us by the Hall of Famer, Kris Olin. If you would like to join Kris on DIYBlogger.NET Hall of Fame wall, contact me for your Guest Post Invitation.
It is not often that you get to start two blog posts with exactly the same opening paragraph, but here it actually works.
Where should I go to escape being bombarded with advertising messages? Asked Morgan Spurlock in his latest documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. To which Ralph Nader replied, “To sleep”. Source.
Mr. Nader was definitely wrong, as my story will reveal.
Ad to Sleep
You can’t escape commercials even in your sleep anymore.
I had a dream last night where I was working in a publishing company with my brother in law, Harry. We were having our monthly meeting with our boss about ideas for the upcoming month.
I was pleased to show the boss my plans; however my brother in law didn’t have much of anything to show.
I thought that my plan was actually quite good. It was something about using an amoeba growing up and developing it into an octopus for gourmet food, or something similarly weird.
Unfortunately Harry didn’t share my positive view about it, so I decided to wrestle him there and then in the conference room. You know like WWF style.
The boss didn’t seem to mind as he is quite a cool. His name was Max, but that’s not important.
The Big Bang Commercially
All of a sudden in the middle of our wrestling match comes in this commercial! (Remember, I’m still dreaming.)
Are You Feeling Stressed, Hungry or Even Famished? Get Yourself a McYouToo Burger!
The burger had a sesame seed bun and it looked like a cross between a McFeast and their skinny ass cheese burger. It didn’t have any fries or Coke or anything else, so it was definitely not a McMeal commercial, just the burger by itself.
The length of the ad was only about 15-20 seconds. Pretty much like a reminder ad to a main ad.
Back to Dream
When the burger ad was over I returned to the main feature, which was of course the wrestling match with my brother in law on the office board room floor.
After awhile our boss suggested that we’d stop fooling around and get back to work; to which I replied incoherently that he’s my brother in law, and I can wrestle him if I want to! … and then I woke up!
Back to… Reality?
What was that all about?
That must have been the greatest innovation in visual advertising since the first TV-commercial released in 1941. In 2011, the Dream Commercial was born!
The main point here is obviously not the crazy dream I was having, but the commercial break in the middle of it! It must have been the world’s first dream commercial as I certainly haven’t seen (or dreamed in this case) anything like it. Ever!
The name of this new McDonald’s burger advertised in my dream was McYouToo. Yes, what a silly name… I thought so too.
And it was definitely not a YouTube branded burger nor was it in collaboration with the Irish rock band. It was McYouToo; I saw the logo and everything. (See the Photoshop mock-up I made the following morning at the head of this article.)
So, the name of this new product was actually pretty lame but maybe this was one of those target restricted advertising trials where they test names and other aspects of the ad with a limited audience – in this case, me.
Or maybe there had been others last night as well? If you have seen the same ad lately, please let me know.
Perhaps I will get an email later on today from the McDonalds’ advertising department asking me to fill in a questionnaire or something.
The Aftermath
I wonder how much does this kind of advertising cost.
I know that a lot of social media advertising is quite cheap or even free, but if this one was run into a database of highly networked people from the satellite station or something then it would be pretty expensive.
The effect of the ad so far has not been that great as I don’t feel like having a burger yet. However it is still 9.30 in the morning so we’ll just have to see what happens at lunch time.
- Is this the ultimate step in highly targeted advertising?
- Or should I seek professional help?