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INTRO: Advertisers pay millions of dollars to distribute their messages, but now some advertisers are finding ways to get ordinary people to distribute their messages for free. Spongebob Squarepants has a role in this story, but first, reporter Tom Randall investigates the case of a robot on a British research website.
NARR: The 15-foot robot is made out of remanufactured Mini-Cooper car parts. It can walk upright like a human at almost 20 miles an hour. It can reach down with its steel hands and stop a speeding car in its tracks. The videos on the website are amazing. The only problem is, the robot isn't real. That's because the website is an elaborate scheme designed by an advertising company. There is even this interview with the robot's supposed inventor, Dr. Colin Mahew:
SOUND: MAYHEW: I think the biggest thing is the power. You need a lot of power to do what we're trying to do. Of course we had the Cooper Mini engine there, and we thought, "Well, let's build it around that." [fade out] (14.5)
NARR: Did you notice the mention of the Mini Cooper? The robot on the website isn't real, but the message is. Here's how it works: A company designs an interesting video clip or website and posts links to it on chat groups and Internet discussion boards. People find the clips so interesting they pass them along to all of their friends. They don't realize or don't care that subtle product placements are embedded in the clips. Because of the way it spreads, some people call these campaigns "viral advertising." Steve Marchese (Marcasey) works for an organization that gives awards for creative ads.
AX: MARCHESE From the first time I got it, I probably received five different emails that day from five different people. (5)
As senior producer for The One Club, Marchese helps organize the advertising world's big prize: the Golden Pencil Awards. This year The One Club added a new category of award for "innovative unpaid advertising" to reflect the growing influence of the new ads.
AX: MARCHESE: Some of the more successful viral campaigns are worldwide emails that end up in inboxes in 50 to 60 different countries.
[ambi up]
NARR: In a ballroom-sized open loft space in Soho, designers for an advertising company called Wieden and Kennedy stretch out on angular purple couches and shoot hoops with a nurf basketball. It's in rooms like this that some of the most innovative ads are created. Andy Carrigan helped write a new kind of interactive ad for a high tech model of Sharp television sets. Here's how he did it: First, Sharp aired three television commercials showing a car crashing into a swimming pool without any kind of explanation of what was going on. The commercials directed viewers who wanted to find out more to a website called moretosee.com. Carrigan designed the website as an entry point to a complex puzzle of interwoven web diaries and clues to solving a mystery treasure hunt. Winners received Sharp entertainment systems.
AX: Carrigan: The campaign was very successful. We had all-told seven websites. We had over a million new users to moretosee.com. In addition we had an entire community of hundreds of people that were online every single day. (15)
NARR: Carrigan used to write for a Miami-based advertising company named Crispen Porter and Bogusky. Crispin Porter has a reputation for pushing the boundaries with these kind of ads. They have the account with Mini Cooper. They also make ads for Burger King, and some designers suspect Crispen Porter of an ongoing advertising hoax involving Burger King and its licensing agreement with the cartoon movie Spongebob Squarepants. After the Spongebob movie release in November, Burger King inflated huge Spongebob figures on top of over 6000 of its stores nationwide. In the weeks afterwards, the Spongebobs began disappearing. Steve Marchese of The One Club (Markasey):
AX: Marchese: I was up at about 11 pm, just flipping through local news, and I noticed that on three different local news stations -- there were stories about the inflatable spongebobs being stolen, and knowing Crispin and knowing the real sort of marketing blitz that they've done for Burger King, immediately I thought that this was staged. (18.5)
NARR: Burger King reported up to 100 of the giant inflatables stolen, and it began offering press releases and quickly set up an information line where callers can leave tips in hopes of receiving a reward of year's worth of Whopper sandwiches.
SOUND: Burger King: Thank you for calling spongebob squarepants missing line. If you have any information leading to the safe return of a spongebob squarepants inflatable, [fade down] (9)
NARR: Crispin Porter did not return five phone calls for this story. Marchese (Markasey) and Carrigan say that even if Crispin Porter did not arrange the disappearances, the way their PR team handled the situation still qualifies as an innovative ad campaign, where unpaid carriers, including the spongenappers and the media, transmit the Burger King / Spongebob promotion message for free.
Tom Randall, Columbia Radio News
SOUND: Burger King: [Fade up] Our reward only applies to inflatables that were spongenapped during the month of November. Thank you very much, and we appreciate your call (9.5)