Join us at the Digiday Publishing Summit from March 24-26 in Vail
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
Digiday+ Research: TikTok usage and spend fall as U.S. ban looms
Brands’ TikTok usage and — more importantly — their marketing spend have both fallen off as of the first quarter of this year.
Why one exec thinks 2025 could be Pinterest’s most pivotal year yet
Pinterest’s vp of performance Matt Crystal caught up with Digiday to discuss the platform’s 2025 plans.
Amazon’s expanding ad platforms casts shadow on ad tech cottage industry
As Amazon continues to expand its ad platform, it’s casting a greater shadow over the cottage industry of ad tech that’s grown around it.