add it up.

So often in advertising we praise the brilliant, the creative, and most importantly, the successful. But for almost every ad worth praising, there is also one that makes you step back and say “WTF?”

When I started this blog, I intended to write a series of posts along the lines of “My Top 5 Ads of the Month.” The main reason that hasn’t happened is my major slackitude when it comes to updating this blog. (And yes, slackitude is a word. In my dictionary.) I’ve decided to change direction; I’m introducing what (hopefully) will become a series of posts entitled “Advertising That Annoys Me.”

Please note: These are ads that annoy me. I’m not intended to bash them and call them ineffective, uncreative, or bad. These are ads that I’ve aired seen too many times, never really enjoyed, and thus are now victim to a small tirade.

Here we go:

1. Kia Soul – Hamsters

I know a lot of people who love this ad. I respect it for bringing back some seriously old school hip-hop (the track is “The Choice is Yours” by Black Sheep, circa 1994.) Other than that, this ad annoys me. I understand the general creative point behind the ad, but it just doesn’t resonate with me.

2. Skittles – Tube Sock

Skittles commercials are always weird, and this one is no exception. I’m generally not a fan of Skittles’ advertising in general, but this one in particular bothers me. A giant tube shock zapping an old man’s tongue from friction created by the carpet. What?!

3. Kraft Sandwich Shop Mayonaise – Tastemakers

Kraft’s campaign for Sandwich Shop Mayo features sandwich makeovers created by well-known personalities from HGTV design shows, including Candice Olson (above), Vern Yip, and Genevieve Gorder. I find these ads incredibly annoying, yet I think they are very creative an on-point for their target. There is certainly are people addicted to home design shows (cough cough, my mother) who will be reached by these ads. But they annoy me to no end. Would anyone get that excited about a sandwich? (Except for maybe Joey from Friends?)

That’s all I have right now. What ads annoy you?

Last night, I attended the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association’s event “Advertising and Social Media.” The event was very entertaining and featured a panel that had diverse experience and, thus, a wide range of information to share. All too often, these types of panels can result in the same information being shared over and over again.

The panelists were: Carol Kruse – VP Interactive for The Coca Cola Company, James Wilcox – Interactive Media for Tuner Media Group, Michael Tchong – Founder and CEO of Ubercool, and Kevin Ertell – VP Retail Strategy for Foresee Results. Dave Williams, the CEO of BLiNQ Media, moderated the panel.

Michael Tchong opened the event by sharing many interesting, and at times humorous, statistics about the impact technology and social media has on our daily lives, such as:

“2/3 of Americans spend more time with their computer than with their spouse.”

“Social notworking is the act of updating your status at work when you’re not supposed to be.”

Tchong’s biggest advice was to “catch the next wave before it catches you.”

Carol Kruse from The Coca Cola Company had a very different story to tell. Coke reluctantly entered the social space when Facebook forced them to take over a fan page that had been created by two Coke fans. At the time, the page had over 1 million fans. Since then, Coke’s strategy has been “fans first,” which means Coke will be everywhere their fans are, including Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace, and YouTube.

Kruse shared a piece of advice that I wish that many of my advertising comrades would abide by:

“Being a fan, friend, or follower does not mean one has opted in to receive unsolicited advertising messages.”

Kruse said when Coke has used their social channels to advertise has been one of the few times they saw a significant drop in fans/followers.

James Wilcox from Turner Media Group shared information on how Turner effectively used Facebook advertising to precisely target specific markets. Advertisements for The Closer, for example, only showed to female users age 24–29. This type of specific targeting allowed them to reach the show’s demographic and drive traffic to the website or fan page.

Kevin Ertell of Foresee Results shared information on how retailers are using social media to increase offline sales from their fans and followers. For retailers, Facebook is the place to be. (Not surprising, Ertell wrote a book entitled The Key To Driving Retail Success: Focus on Facebook. Ertell said that 69% of survey respondents had friended a retailer online, and 81% of those people did so on Facebook.

Lots of great information was shared last night, but it was certainly clear that topic at hand was “Facebook, Facebook, Facebook!” I counted only one mention of FourSquare (none of Gowalla, MyTown, or BrightKite) and shockingly enough, only a few nods at Twitter and YouTube. All hail, King Facebook!

In the end, I think Carol Kruse offered the best advice to anyone in the audience who was new to social media (if there were any), and that was to listen first, and don’t dive right in. She compared social media to a cocktail party. If you were new to the crowd, you would not instantly (or drunkenly) approach everyone and make conversation. Instead you would listen, survey the crowd, and learn how to best approach someone and make a positive impression.

All in all – great event. For a further recap check out some live tweets from the official AiMA live tweeter, Tessa Horehled, or myself.

(Oh, and I sincerely apologize to Carol Kruse for misspelling your name in my tweets all last night.)