By Jane Friedmann
Let's talk about media placement.
Sometimes ads are placed in a specific locations to accentuate the message. Other times, media placement evokes accidental humour. But the truth is, often the placement of ads is just overlooked altogether. During the FIFA World Cup 2022, “flavours of Qatar” ads for a sandwich chain popped up all over my neighbourhood. The funny thing is, there isn't one of these sandwich shops for tens of miles. So even though the ad looked good, and I liked eating there when I lived in Montreal and the chain was all over the place, I’m not gonna drive out to the suburbs for a relatively generic sandwich. I think it’s safe to say that ad wasn’t generating any additional sales, simply because of inefficient media placement.
Image Credit: corwall live
Ad placement can sometimes generate unintended laughs…
This ad above depicts a McDonald’s McCrispy sandwich, pretty innocuous one would think. I’m sure the media buyer didn't even think twice about it. But it’s placement at a bus stop next to a crematorium had some folks laughing and others offended. McDonalds ultimately took the ad down. While gaffs like this are often entertaining and give good food for thought, I want to talk about the other media placement scenario, the one where we use the location of the ad to enhance the impact of our image and copy.
Other times, media placement is your best friend!
When I was in ad school, I made a spec campaign that relied heavily on ad placement. Obviously there was still an overarching insight that fuelled the idea, but I got creative with some of the executions. It’s still one of my favourite campaigns to date and Car2Go like it so much they hired me to do a paid campaign.
Adjacent Billoards
For those unfamiliar, Car2go is a share care service. Vehicles are parked throughout the city and you open the door and rent the vehicle by the minute using their mobile phone app. It’s a fun way for drivers to get around without investing in full-time car ownership. The campaign tagline we wrote was “The Best Car is the One You Don’t Own.” Each line was a slight dig at the pitfalls of vehicle ownership, while some went the extra mile (pun intended) to make digs at popular car related brands, like Geico car insurance, and car related activities, like fuelling up at the pump (the share cars are pre fuelled).
Fuel Pump Ad
adjacent posters
We even went after auto repair shops on Google Maps, since when renting a car with Car2go you aren't responsible for making the repairs or doing regular maintenance like oil changes.
Google Maps ad
The moral of the story?
Why let good media placement go to waste? It’s a fun additional way to have your message stand out and get talked about. Get creative with us, and have your brand turn heads in a unique, possibly cheeky ;-) creative way. Chat to us!