isheep say baah!!<< The broadening adoption of engagement tactics | Main Julian Smith | May 26, 2006, 05:10 AM On my tube ride into work today I was intrigued by an ad I happened to glance at whilst trying not to read someone else's Metro. It simply read: "isheep say baaah!" accompanied by a picture of a sheep wearing white headphones and "idon't.com". With my analyst receptors sufficiently stimulated, first thing I did when I arrived at my desk was go online and type in www.idont.com! As it turns out this is a brave attempt to challenge the iPod hegemony. Alongside a number of links to anti-ipod blogs and consumer posted comments, under "The Alternative", the site visitor is revealed the real advertiser - SanDisk offering their Sansa e200 mp3 player . I love the concept of this ad campaign; it is an intriguing and clever, tongue-in-cheek challenge to the category leader, has that potential 'buzz' factor about it and is well integrated. I just wonder whether it is a little too clever for most, a little too esoteric. As an analyst I was interested to find out more, as Joe Bloggs in the tube, with his shiney new nano in his back pocket, would I have been?! Will the non-specific, subtle call-to-action lead to high or low response rates? What will be the bang for the media buck?! Also having responded to the call-to-action and visited the site I was really disappointed at how difficult and clunky it is to find "a store near you"! Nice effort, but somehow I doubt this will impact iPod's dominance or eat into their market share. |