We’ve all seen ads that appeal to a specific target or segment such as baby ads for parents, phones for the technological savvy, household products for housewives, gym equipment for men, toys for little children and the list goes on.

However, what truly qualifies as a global marketing ad? Is it effective? Can it be played in cities all around the world? Taco Bell came out with a new 2013 marketing commercial titled “the world’s most obvious idea”. You can view the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=koAGOyJ28dM

The ad starts with teenagers eating their new product called the “cool ranch tacos” followed by businessmen in a board meeting and then convenience store owners, news anchors,  soldiers, representatives in global conferences, monks, astronauts, taxi drivers and old people all enjoying and eating their new “cool ranch tacos”.

The new marketing ad that took off like a wildfire garnered over 300,000 views on youtube within 2 weeks, clearly wants the general public to know that fast food is for everyone — the old, the young, white collar and blue collar workers alike. The ad aims to re-position itself and its target market to separate itself from other fast food businesses by showing that they have created a product that is meant for everyone (low – high income).

The commercial seems to employ a undifferentiated marketing strategy as people from all walks of life are seen to be enjoying tacos. The ad also seems to portray an intensive distribution strategy as it shows people from very different and diverse backgrounds (ranging from the urban to suburban, fancy boardrooms to convenience stores and global conferences to jungles) enjoying tacos, explicitly implying that Taco bells are convenient, easy to find and there’s always one near you no matter where you are in the world.

I recently chanced upon this interesting marketing ad “Elevator Murder Experiment” on AdFreak to promote an upcoming movie called Dead Man Down. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it was quite stunning but shocking at the same time. It’s hard to imagine what I’m talking about so I shall start with the marketing video:

The first thing that I thought of from watching the video is the danger(s) that are associated with this one-of-a-kind marketing campaign. Even though the video creators (Viral Marketing Agency Thinkmodo) claimed that “every precaution was taken to ensure the safety of all parties involved”, it’s hard to believe considering that the bystanders/strangers in the video were using fire extinguishers, flowers and bags to attack the actors.

With that said, the marketing campaign was obviously a success with over 4 million views on youtube alone. This form of marketing – which involves strangers and bystanders is relatively new and we can see more and more companies trying this form of bolder marketing campaigns despite the risks associated with it. To viral marketing agencies like Thinkmodo, perhaps the fastest way to get the word out there is through the use of effective social media (like youtube) because of the hundreds of millions of users browsing it daily.

In terms of costs, I also think that it is much cheaper than conventional/traditional forms of advertisements. A budget is used to produce the simple video which involves bystanders in a contained environment and it’s then uploaded to youtube which is completely free. This budget is tiny compared to the millions of dollars needed to air commercials on TV, physical advertisements on public transportation and walkways and door-to-door advertisements.

Here is another video by Thinkmodo to keep you on your feet: