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I can imagine that Jane magazine's creative minds spent more than a little time devising a promotion that would do what advertisers want: make consumers look at their ads (Advertising: Taking Pictures of Magazine Ads). But is taking a picture of an ad in a magazine with a mobile phone and sending it to Jane for a contest the kind of "looking" that ads value to the advertisers' efforts?
Frankly, I doubt it. The idea assumes persisting value in repetition. Although certainly one of the ways psychologists know that people remember, the question here is, "Remember what?" The ad's message or that it was used to enter a Jane contest?
Young consumers are proving that the advertising and promotional method of message saturation and high "impression" counts is, if not bankrupt, then ineffectual. If an advertiser is going to engage with a skeptical audience and bring them to what they really want (a sale), they need to engage with the consumer in a meaningful way that draws out a "conversation" and creates interest in an evolving and increasing way.
I don't think this promotion does that. But what the hell, stupider things have worked.
Posted by Grayson at August 25, 2004 07:08 AM