iSIGN- Mobile Advertising at its Best

iSIGN is a media company based out of Toronto. The companies new focus has been to "marry" digital and mobile advertising. I found this March 29, 2011 article through Google News, and I was truly interested in its contents.After reading through this article, I followed the link to iSIGN's website, where I learned about much of the following:

iSIGN is focusing on bringing advertising to individuals at the right time AND place. For me, the only advertising that seems to truly work comes from the fast food industry. (Something about those golden arches seem to inevitably draw me in and force me to eat double cheeseburgers.) Other than that, however, I feel that most advertisements are ineffective. iSIGN's new idea of combining digital and mobile advertising is very appealing on a number of levels, and helps to combat the ineffectiveness of some advertisements.

The ability for businesses to reach out to their consumers in a timely matter while they are actively buying their products is extremely beneficial. The following quote is a quick bit of information from iSIGN's website:

All individuals within relative proximity (up to 300ft) of a particular location, retail store, or area can receive media-rich messages just by enabling their Bluetooth® on their handheld device. Customers are open to interacting with us because our permission-based marketing tool requires customers to opt-in before receiving their first message.

Doesn't that sound fantastic? (Yes) The best part is that the consumer must first give permission to the retailers to gain access to their mobile devices. This protects the consumer from overload and unwanted advertisements. I want to be able to go into the best store ever (Best Buy) and receive all of the coupons, sales, bargains, and any information that will help me gain as much knowledge I possibly can in order to make informed decisions about my purchases. Not only that, I want it to come to my phone. iSIGN is making this possible. In the first link I referenced above, I think the CEO of iSIGN says it best:

"With technology that allows digital signs to 'talk and interact' with mobile devices that are in proximity, advertisers can deliver relevant incentives at exactly the right time," said Alex Romanov, CEO of iSIGN. "It represents a powerful union of digital and mobile technologies."

This new technology is good for both advertisers and consumers. Win-win situations are great. These new ideas will make money for businesses and allow consumers to spend it effectively. Go iSIGN!


The following video is an example of how this new form of advertising is working in the "real world".

Charlie Sheen: a Tweeter

According to a March 2011 Sparxoo article, Twitter has 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets and more than 800,000 search queries per day. Given this kind of traffic, Twitter has inevitably become a huge advertising target for companies. Due to all of this traffic, advertising ideas are beginning to evolve, and Charlie Sheen (of all people) is getting involved. 


An article launched from The Atlantic on March 11 stated that, in less than a day after creation, @charliesheen’s Twitter account had more than 1 million followers, a new record for the micro-blogging service. He now has greater than 2.5 million followers. 

According to a 2011 TechCentral article :

"Sheen’s now very public mid-life crisis has become a potential cash cow. Internships.com reportedly paid him to drive traffic to its site, with Sheen tweeting he was looking for an intern with “tigerblood” and providing a link to the recruitment website. Almost half a million people have applied for the job."

Charlie Sheen has now become the first person to be paid to advertise for a company on Twitter. This will open up new doors and opportunities for celebrities of all kinds to make even more money. Wouldn't it be nice to make significant amounts of money for simply tweeting!? Sheen didn't even have to write the advertisement for Internships.com. All he had to do was copy and paste.

 
Twitter has been a social media phenomenon. Now, with even more advertising opportunities coming to the surface, who's to say how crazy this may get? It's going to be very interesting to see who is next to advertise for companies on Twitter. My guess is that Oprah will be getting involved very soon.

Using celebrities for advertising will allow companies to target very specific audiences. Examples: athletes advertising for Nike, Musicians advertising for Fender guitars, Actors advertising for Mountain Dew. The list is literally endless! I can't wait to see the "tweets" that are going to surface. Advertising on Twitter is going to be exciting, hilarious, effective, and at times, probably offensive. My hope is that we can all get involved and enjoy this new form of advertising.

Here is a quick video showing how much buzz Sheen is getting on news networks. This is one of many on YouTube:

In-Your-Face Advertising

It is easy to say that the connection between advertising and social media is now firmly embedded into society. It used to be difficult to go anywhere without being subjected to some form of advertising, but now it is impossible! We are surrounded by advertising constantly. Think about how many advertisements you see a day. As I sit in the computer lab at the library, I can literally count 100's of advertisements in front of me. Pop labels, coats, computers, cell phones, clothing, not to mention the multiple tabs I have opened on the desktop of my computer with thousands of advertisements screaming, "CLICK ME" inside of them. Oh yeah, and my smartphone just received an Email saying, "Your Playstation Update is available".

We cannot escape the world of advertising. Well, I guess we could lock ourselves inside a basement somewhere, but you couldn't have windows, visitors, gadgets, and certainly not television. Our inability to control the amount of advertising we take-in leaves me with a question: Who controls advertising standards? Someone or something must protect the general public from advertisements, right?

The answer is yes. The easiest and most current example of how standards are changing comes from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Even though they are the UK's regulator of advertising, their recent actions are a fine example of how advertising standards are changing. According to a March, 2011 fresh business thinking article:

 In a press release, the ASA stated that "The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, which includes rules to make sure advertisements do not mislead, harm or offend, will be applied to all UK based company websites regardless of the sector or size of business or organization.

This means that businesses will need to apply the same standards to the content they distribute on their own site or through social media feeds as they already do to more traditional forms of advertising. We will continue to see these changes in the regulation of advertising. The need for advertising to be regulated increases daily. Without these regulations, we would be constantly (even more than we already are) hit with advertisements. Our lives as we know them would be wasted by exiting pop-ups, deleting texts, and waiting for 30 second advertisements to disappear so we can watch our favorite YouTube clips.

Thank God (or the ASA) for advertising standards and regulations!