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
Post World Cup, fashion brands are tapping soccer stars like Bellingham and Yamal for partnerships
Three months after the World Cup ended in a Spanish victory, the partnerships with marquee players keep coming.
How Lush quit social media ads and still drove growth
Quitting Meta, TikTok and X seemed like a gamble, but Lush was returning to its marketing roots. The results reshaped their entire approach.
In Graphic Detail: What Apple’s identity block means for the ad money
How Apple’s identity block hits publishers’ wallets, and why Apple can afford it.