sneaky but likeable advertising

I love the fact that it’s really entertaining and well shot and funny, then it’s an ad for helping people out.

Along similar lines…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wGN-lbd7Ss

Very good: you get to enjoy the back and forth between the Pres and Zach, then there’s a message about healthcare.

If I were Dave Trott, at this point I’d mention something about predatory thinking. The problem: young people aren’t engaged in the process of Obama’s online healthcare thingie, so how do we slip that message to them in a way they’ll enjoy, pass around and respond to? Answer: (oddly) Between Two Ferns. Then they actually went and did it (can you imagine David Cameron trying to pull off something similar?).

Usually I think I’d feel a bit cheated about these ‘sneaky’ messages but they’re both for great causes and work so well (healthcare enquiries went up 40% after the BTF thing was shown) that I’m happy to be violated in the above manners.

While I’m here, another blogger has explored honesty in advertising.

Update: there’s also sneaky and not likeable.

But there’s an enjoyable counterpart to such deceit: