Prometheus live(ish) Twitter ad

Just a quick word about Prometheus, the new Ridley Scott film, which featured heavily in the ad breaks for "Homeland" this evening, and featured a TV first - viewers' tweets about one ad being featured in the second ad a break later.

Though I was mostly trying my best to calm my shattered nerves (that program makes you feel like you're actually holding explosives in your hands), I just about held it together to make the following observation:

This seems like the classic example of technology for technology's sake. Was there really anyone in the educated, tech-savvy Channel 4 audience who felt MORE persuaded to see the film because some people said nice things on Twitter? And are they really too stupid to realise that these people may well have said nice things entirely in the hope that they might achieve fleeting fame?

It's all very well being clever with media. But there's got to be a purpose for the cleverness. Just like the Old Spice "ad invasions" backed up their power angle, and the Virgin Media "buffering" ads neatly demonstrated a product feature.

What did this do? If they'd just booked the space, found some tweets, and made them into an advert, what actual difference would there have been?

It's just really lazy thinking.

As the new Old Spice ad isn't very good...

...at least, not by their own high standards*, I thought I'd talk about a much better piece of work they did during the "Smell Is Power" campaign (but one I missed out on as it never got shown in the UK).

It's worth mentioning because it covers similar territory to the recent Virgin Media ads, which showed ads for other products being interrupted by streaming video style buffering. In this case, the interruption is somewhat more dramatic - although as both products are Proctor & Gamble, it probably wasn't that hard to set up.

But just like the Virgin ads, it does a great job of making people pay attention to, and more importantly remember, a commercial.

*It's ok, but there's nothing laugh-out-loud funny, the line is contrived rather than inspired, and the horse racing scene was weak (and a little too reminiscent of that Weetabix advert).