US advertises on Google to snare surfers

This is an interesting article, so far we have been learning about various marketing strategies for “for profit” companies. This article speaks to one of the marketing strategies for the government, in this case the government of the United States. Where the article is discussing how the US state department, with a help of Google’s AdWords service , draws various internet users searching for words like “terrorism”, “Middle East peace”, “food aid”, etc. and redirects them the America.gov website in order to introduce/educate them with the country’s foreign policy, culture and society. Is there a place for marketing in “every home”!?!

HP and Jumper mixing it up

This is another dual advertisement that I think is very interesting, especially since it was the first dual advertisement I can recall ever seeing. It's a 90 second commercial for the movie Jumper and HP computers. It starts with Jumper, then has a character from the movie turn on a TV to start watching an HP commercial, then it goes back into Jumper.
I thought it was very interesting how and why this was done. Both the Jumper portion and the HP portion could easily be their own commercial, and to an audience, I don't see how Jumper and HP would be related to each other. So what's the connection?
I figured that perhaps one was sponsoring the other (probably HP sponsoring the movie) so I checked and found nothing. It's clear that Meridian and Apple are both sponsoring Jumper, but I couldn't find anything linking it to HP. I also checked for product placement. Although I haven't seen the movie myself, it appears that both Meridian and Apple had product placement involvement, but apparently not HP. Is there anyone who has seen this movie and could tell me if they saw anything related to HP???

I want to point something else out about this ad. If you pay attention to it, you'll notice that it's more than just a dual ad. There's a promotion for a music artist, Nike, Windows Vista, Mercedes, and Serena promotes her new video game, her acting interest, and her clothing line. 9 promotions in one. Maybe even more.

One last thing. During the video game part when she hits the tennis ball toward the camera, there is text on the ball. I can't make it out so if anyone can, please let me know because I'm interested in knowing what it says.

eBay's use of ads bothers sellers.

As everybody here knows, eBay is a place where people buy and sell. The company makes money when somebody puts up an item for sale and when the item sells. Now, the company has been trying to make money through another route- online ads. The problem is that this drives away potential buyers from the site making sellers mad. Here is the original article discussing this and here is a discussion of the article on Slashdot.

Hilarious German Commercial

Apple vs. Mac Ad Compilation