Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
IBM is the latest brand to make advertising that is actually useful.
With the help of Ogilvy France, IBM made a series of outdoor ads that are functional and helpful to passersby. One is a poster that swoops out as a bench; another ad forms a canopy to provide shade and shelter; and one ad acts as a ramp over stairs.
The ads are part of IBM’s “People for Smarter Cities” campaign, which is an initiative and ideas sharing platform that encourages people to come up with and share their ideas about use technology to improve their cities.
These useful IBM ads are the latest in a small wave of ads recently that provide actual value and utility to the public. Scrabble recently brought free Wi-Fi to areas of Paris as part of an ad campaign, and Nivea created solar-powered phone-charger ads for people on the beaches of Brazil. Hopefully, this is a trend that continues. In the age of real-time marketing and branded content, beyond entertainment value, it’s nice to see ads that truly are functional, helpful and free.
More in Marketing
The case for and against AI token capping
Apple is placing strict limits on its staffers’ AI token consumption. Should the marketing sector take a similar path?
Reddit dangles seasonal ad credits but advertisers still want better proof it works all year round
Q4 credits may bring advertisers to Reddit, but concerns about measurement and its ad capabilities make it harder to secure year-round spend.
Amid a difficult transitional year, The Trade Desk posts a rare quarterly revenue decline
The Trade Desk’s Jeff Green hints at potential M&A, while rival DSP Viant buys Waymark.