Yahoo! is extending two TV commercials from the “Be a Better __” campaign it launched April 30 with online video ads that allow viewers to take the spots further with alternative endings they can select online and plug into the spots.
Visitors at http://better.yahoo.com can go to “Be A Better Editor” and “Be A Better Director” to choose new endings to the TV spots. They can drag and drop alternative clips to change the commercials.
“It’s like turning the TV spots into a choose-your-own-adventure,” said Mark Svartz, a copywriter at Soho Square, a WPP Group agency. The TV :30s features situations with two separate endings, so viewers can see what happens with or without Yahoo. There are a variety of alternative endings online, so viewers can take the idea of different endings further.
“After a three-day shoot we had another day to work with the director, Matt Aselton (with bicoastal Epoch Films), so we came up with a few various endings for use in the online experience,” Ogilvy art director Josh Rosen said. “The interactive team was also there on the fourth day to create some filmic banners to go along with the TV spots.”
One of the banners works like the online video ads with a sidebar showing a man looking at a wall full of crooked pictures with the banner offering two possible resolutions to his dilemma. Click on one and see the wall explode (without Yahoo) and click on the other to see the man use a laser device to straighten all the pictures quickly (with Yahoo).
“Innovative interactive ads online play off the TV creative to further integrate and extend the campaign on and off the Yahoo network,” said Nick Chavez, Yahoo‘s senior director of brand advertising. He said the online elements represent 60 percent of a campaign that also includes TV, print, radio and cinema ads. The campaign promotes Yahoo! Answers, a feature that can answer any question and Yahoo! oneSearch, a mobile search product.
The campaign demonstrates how online video can be created from a TV shoot and used to extend a TV campaign. “We took two TV commercials and all the alternative endings and made all the footage available online,” Chavez said. “Users can watch the ad and choose the footage to insert in the ad and play the revised combination.” It could make the ad better, which is the theme of the campaign.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More