Most online advertising is lame. Yes, the idea of a click-through ad is great, but let’s be honest, a lot of time that involves tricking people into clicking on your ad. Whatever happened to building brand awareness through compelling advertising? I think someecards is pretty damn good at that — and they’re going to get better.
You probably know someecards as the startup that makes those hilarious online greeting cards with the oddly black and white, and usually outdated pictures. If you don’t know what I mean, just look around at any of the examples I’ve included in this post, I’m sure you’ve seen them before. But what you might not know is that the company is also doing branded advertising on some of its cards. For example, they offer cards branded by the hit Showtime show Weeds, the show Bridezillas, the shoemaker Puma and Jose Cuervo.
And the branded campaigns are genius because they include the same witty text as regular cards, but tie it into the campaign in some way. They popped onto my radar a couple weeks ago when I saw a few circulating around the web for the show Weeds, and I immediately saw the appeal of advertising this way, because I actually recalled the Weeds promotional part of the card. Most people, when they look at something online now, simply are trained to not even look at the ads. But when the ads are a part of the content, you have to look.
Obviously, this approach won’t work for all types of content, but for these cards it does. “You’re getting a lot better affinity for the brand if you’re doing things this way,” someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell tells us.
And while someecards also wraps more traditional online ads around the cards on their main pages, the company realizes that a lot of times those ads that surround content or appear as interstitials in videos, violate the content in some regards. So why not work the ad into the content someway because, “what’s funny is funny,” says co-founder Brook Lundy.
While most advertisers are still obsessed with the idea of click-throughs in online ads, they’re “reluctantly moving” beyond that a bit, according to Mitchell. One thing someecards offers for its cards is the immediate share numbers, through the URL shortening service bit.ly. Mitchell says that advertisers like to see when a card is virally spreading on services like Twitter and Facebook. And they’re starting to acknowledge that this kind of word-of-mouth spreading on the web by way of the share is a powerful tool.
The next step in the branded movement for someecards is to get into video. In the next few weeks, the company will launch its first video campaigns, promoting a new show made by Comedy Central. The clips, like the someecards, will be brief (around 15 seconds) and will feature the actors of the show performing some dialogue outlined by someecards writers.
Someecards has a bunch of other branded campaigns in the pipeline, including some in the pharma area and PSAs, which should be fun. Embedded below find some great branded someecard examples.
I LOVE these ads
Great ads, fits the site very well.
Engaging, genuinely funny content works? Who would have thought? They also helped me add “full-throttle insanity” to my vocab.
I’d buy a product from a clever advertisment over a down-your-throat pop-up any day. Humour sells.
Priceless…just what I want in a card.
these are good but not as good as rubberchickencards.com although I d think rubber chicken needs a better UI
Lovely site. I’ve already started using some of the e-cards. Great!
*Showtime, not Sometime.
thx. fixed.
Yea, well, someone already spammed an internal email address at my company from this site.
Onto the spam filter it goes.
Amazing creativity at work! Although I do not dig e-cards that much, I just might start using some of these!
wish they had an affiliate program…
I may start printing these bad boys and use them as cards. Oops! Does that count as copyright infringement?
Let’s all get together and give a HUGE prop up to ads like this.
On TV, the best ads are those that are actually fun to watch, or evoke some strong reaction.
On the internet, ads are just flashing banners meant to make you click on the link.
Ads like these are great for the internet. Let’s bring back some creativity on the net.
Awesome site, this btw. Shows once again that good things done right can be so profitable.
Wow… very cool ads. Simple like monopoly cards.
Awesome – I really like these ads. Cool and effective.
Someecards has incredibly witty content — this is awesome that they’re exploring ways to monetize via branded cards. That Bridezilla card is hysterical! I have a total crush on Someecards.
It’s tough these days to survive on a model that mainly relies upon advertising. someecards has come up with a good solution. but ads are ads – are people going to send these to each other? tweet the funny ones? I’m curious where someecards goes from here – but kudos to them for thinking out of the ordinary banner ads which are ugly and dont make much money.
i had seen most of the cards mentioned in this article, and i never noticed the ads at the bottom. i think this only works if people realize it’s an ad. though maybe everyone else online is more observant than i.
These are some great ads … in the world on display advertising, these will kill it.
It’s good to see the more savvy brands are starting to realize there is actually value beyond the click in online advertising.
According to this April 2009 study (http://bit.ly/JCGBw), people are more likely to respond to brand mentions within content rather than ads. Duh.
These remind me of Married To The Sea:
http://www.marr...edtothesea.com/
Forget Hallmark. These cards are the future.
They spammed my mail account with a newsletter I couldn’t unsubscibe anymore! Blocked Sender. Priciples before content!
They also spammed my work account. For witty content, I like their crazy little brother
wrongcards
and the venerable
married to the sea