Category: COMM 296

Just the other day, I was wasting time on youtube like all of us do. And then I came across video that was just AMAZING. It was an INTERACTIVE youtube video! It’s hard to explain, but basically…its like one of those “choose your own adventure” books that we used to read “back in the day”, but on youtube! It’s definitely worth your time to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M.

But to make it even cooler (aka more viral) the youtube video is set up in such a way that there actually aren’t boundaries to the video. Ok, that sounds extremely confusing but the screenshot below explains it really well:

Anyways, I’m gonna keep this post short and sweet because I’m sure you wanna get back to the youtube video and try to see all the random stories that can come up. But, all in all, what an amazing campaign…viral AND slightly addictive!

So today I was commuting to UBC from Surrey and while I was waiting at the Commercial-Broadway Station I saw an ad for Scion cars at the bus stop. Normally I would just glance at an ad like that and not think twice about it. But I’m guessing that learning a bit of maketing in comm 290 got me thinking more about the simple ad. I started to realize that the ad was probably not just randomly placed at the UBC bus stop.

1. Since the ad is at a bus station, people see it while inconveniently waiting in line for a bus. So, it seems to be in a place that really helps create value as cars are the convenient alternatives to buses!

2. Scion is a car company that targets young adults, like the students of UBC, and the 99 bus stop at Commercial-Broadway has tons of students waiting there due to the “bottleneck-like” properties of it. A perfect place to target their ideal customers!

All in all, It’s just amazing how marketing/advertising seems so random sometimes when, in reality, it is a well-thought out and researched process. I definitely see the importance of researched promotion as it is the link that connects consumers and producers; that Scion ad was placed in such a strategic way that it managed to truly create value–arguably one of the most important parts of marketing. In honesty, after waiting 10 minutes to be squished into 30 minute bus ride the Scion sounded quite nice!