adverts
Bing TV Advert
June 18, 2009
Microsoft recently re-launched their search engine business with their Bing “decision engine” which they’re hoping will start to make dent into Google’s current overwhelming market share – Bing is already more popular than Yahoo!
Although you can use Bing wherever you are in the world, some of the main features are only being targeted towards the US-based users to begin with and as such Microsoft have been running a Bing TV advert on some of the American TV networks.
Continue reading »Google Chrome TV Advert
May 12, 2009
Have you seen the Google Chrome advert? Yes that’s right Google have stepped into the medium of TV advertising for the first time in an effort to publicise their Google Chrome web browser which they launched in September 2008 stating that they wanted their own custom browser developed to allow the optimal, high performance running of all of Google’s online services and applications (as well as all the other websites on the Internet).
Many saw it as the pre-cursor to a Google O/S (now perhaps more in conjunction with Android) to challenge Microsoft and Apple at their own O/S game or even move beyond it, however given Chrome’s current very low market share of the browser market (just 1.4%), this is perhaps why Google are now starting to more aggressively push their custom browser – just the other day I spotted a big graphic advert for it on the frontpage of Google.co.uk.
Continue reading »Anti-Gaming Advert Stirs Up Controversy
March 10, 2009
I think that it’s fair to say that adverts are getting, at least, more diverse. Not only do people now advertise their religion, there are also sickening anti-smoking adverts, disturbing keep-to-the-speed-limit ones and, in more extreme cases, telling your husband that you want a divorce. But as of yet there hasn’t been much controversy with the gaming world.
But the Change4Life active lifestyle campaign, in their infinite wisdom, decided to put out an advert implying that gaming led to an early death: shown by a young child on a sofa with a mindless expression and a console game controller in his hand. As good as their aims may have been the campaign has angered two fairly important groups of people.
Continue reading »A Strange Advert? – On 11/02/09 New York Became My Canvas
February 15, 2009
We’ve covered some funny adverts here on Zath before, but here I think this is quite a strange one which doesn’t directly show what it is advertising or publicising…that I can discern at any rate!
Take a look at the video for it below in which is shows people planning things on maps, the use of GPS devices and marking pavements and posts with chalk – what could this be about?
Continue reading »World of Warcraft Adverts (Ozzy Osbourne)
December 6, 2008
To coincide with the recent release of the second World of Warcraft expansion pack – The Wrath of the Lich King (which incidentally it is now officially the fastest selling PC game ever), Blizzard have done a couple of new adverts showing another two celebrities talking about WoW.
Apparently the celebrities who feature in these adverts are actually celebrities who play World of Warcraft…I’m not sure to what extent that is actually true, perhaps they only had to be sat down in front of a computer and get to level 2 to qualify for that statement, or perhaps I’m just being cynical! 
iPhone TV Advert Banned
November 30, 2008
Apple has had another of their iPhone 3G TV adverts banned here in the UK for apparently being misleading and exaggerating how fast the actual speed of the device was when trying to access the Internet-based features. There were 17 viewers who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The advert claims that iPhone 3G offers “really fast” performance because you can “download pretty much anything, really fast” – Apple argued that it was only meant in comparison with the first generation iPhone which only used the 2G mobile network and as such the internet speeds were much slower.
Continue reading »I’m a PC! (Advert) Are you a PC?
October 8, 2008
I’m a PC! Well I use a Windows PC anyway. After seeing Microsoft’s first couple of “funny TV commercials” starring the “comedic” double-act of Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in which in true Seinfeld-style, they appeared to be ‘adverts about nothing’, you may have been scratching your head about all the potential hidden meanings!
However, perhaps the marketing worked, because at least they made people talk about Microsoft again and not in a Vista-bashing kind of way neither. The third TV advert now seems to have gone more mainstream with only a quick one-liner from Bill Gates and no appearance at all from Jerry Seinfeld – although Microsoft have said that he will return in future adverts.
Continue reading »Funny TV Commercials for Microsoft?
September 18, 2008
Microsoft have recently released some new adverts in the form of some funny TV commercials featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Now anyone would think they are really trying to capture the spirit of the Seinfeld show, they seem as though they are “ads about nothing”, even stranger given that Microsoft have historically done very little in terms of advertising, so actually spending money for very little is rather odd.
Microsoft are paying approximately $300 million for this funny TV commercial ad campaign (supposedly around $20million of that is going to Jerry Seinfeld himself), so they presumably hope that they will do something to hit back at the Apple ads over recent years that compare PC and Macs and the ‘trouncing’ they have received because of them.
Continue reading »
