Chips allowed in class after 4:30p. (Taken with instagram)
Poster ads for the latest season of AMC’s Mad Men (which has been some year and a half in the making) have been appearing all over New York City. And like any large, white space in the city, the posters have been promptly covered in tags and graffiti. But as you can see in the pictures, many of the street art additions have actually improved the ads.
I find it hard to believe that AMC execs purposely left the ads big and blank as an invitation for would-be Sterling Cooper Draper Price creatives, but I also think they had to know that people wouldn’t be able resist leaving a mark. Whether intentional or not, this ad campaign for a show about advertising has in itself become a commentary about the nature and effectiveness of advertising.
Genius. Meta. A little bit pretentious. Just like the show.
From “Social Media Explained,” via the Forbes Marketshare blog:
SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLAINED:
Twitter: I am eating a #hotdog
Facebook: I like hotdogs
Foursquare: Here is where I eat hotdogs
Hipstamatic: Here’s a vintage pic of my hotdog
YouTube: Here, I am eating a hotdog!
Linkedin: My skills include eating hotdogs
Spotify: Listening to Hotdog
Google+: I work at Google and eat hotdogs
I’ve been seeing this joke make the rounds for the past couple of weeks now, each time with a different main activity (“eating donuts,” “taking a pee,” etc.), but the idea still rings true. It’s a neat little package to help define and describe the “point” of social media that still somehow manages to elude so many. Plus, it good-naturedly mocks the inherent narcissism and self-promotion that goes along with so many of our digital portals… he said on his blog that was named after him.
But— I think we need to also take a look at how other, non-social forms of media might convey this same hot dog-eating idea:
TV: BUY THESE HOT DOGS! Attractive people eat them! HOT DOGS!
Radio: For your FREE hot dog, call 1-866-HOT-DOG. That’s 1-866-HOT-DOG. That number again is 1-866-HOT-DOG. Again, 1-866-HOT-DOG. Call now!
Yellow Pages: AAAA-Brand Hot Dog Sellers! “Look for the quintuple A!”
Spam: Incre@$e Y0ur H0+ D0g $ize in tw0 week$ FREE!
Telemarketer: Are you currently satisfied with your hot dog provider?
Billboard: Hot dogs.
See? These are a lot more annoying. That’s why I’ll take Instagram’s vintage hot dogs pics any day.
Ok Go - “Needing/Getting”
Latest visionary video from viral kings Ok Go, this time playing a drive-through song. I seriously think we’ll look back on all these videos years from now and marvel at how this band truly embraced and embodied the dawn of digital media. Rock on, guys.
