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Can Someone Explain This Facebook Ad? Is Something Going on With The Sheep?
While walking around Times Square this morning, I noticed several signs for Facebook. Finally I grabbed one and the ad is embedded below. Can someone help me understand what this ad means? It appears not to be an ad for Facebook, but an ad for Fuser. Fuser apparently is a emailbox aggregator, reviews here, here and here.
I assume that in the ad, I am Andy and I am reading a message from William. Clearly I got the message since I am reading it so I don’t get the tagline of "never miss a message". Or is there something going on with the sheep that I am clearly missing?
As a side note, I love the idea of hitting the streets to market. What’s great about working Times Square is that not only can you push your message to the NY crowd but with all of the tourists, who knows what state or country your message may be spread to. As an aside, today marked the opening of the new TKTS photo and seating area near 46th street. This looks like a perfect place to push your startup.
well, the subject of the email is “Frat Initiation” don’t you know what a frat initiation is? well, heres a tip, it has to do with sheep and well, its not something you would write home about, or for that matter write anywhere about!
I get the idea of frat initiation and what could be done with a sheep :)
But what I don’t get is how does this tie into Fuser. If Fuser is an email aggregator, then the message should be something more to the effect that the person missed something.
If Andy is a pledge, he already knows about the sheep.
I think these ads have appeared with other sites besides facebook.
Hi Allen -
I’m so glad you noticed our campaign and took the time to post about it! Allow me to explain…the idea is that this message never made it from William to Andy – it was lost (you finding it lying around somewhere is our kitchy attempt at a metaphor). Imagine the consequences of Andy never figuring out the initiation prank and, well, maybe you should just watch the companion video here: http://nevermissamessage.com/?msgid=92
The idea is that because Fuser.com pulls all your email, MySpace and Facebook messages into one online inbox you’ll never miss another important message again! http://www.nevermissamessage.com is a microsite we put together for our new campaign, and what you saw was the second street marketing effort we’ve done (the first one was for Fleet Week in San Francisco).
We’re hoping nevermissamessage.com will go viral, and we’re working on giving people more ways to spread the word about Fuser.com in a fun way. Right now you can forward any of the three videos (in addition to “Initiation” we also have “Found One” and “Night Shift” – my personal fave), forward any of the messages posted on the first page or in the archive, and submit your own “lost message”.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on the campaign, and any feedback you have on Fuser.com as a product. By the way, we will be cleaning up after ourselves – the same team who posted these will go through and clean them up after the campaign ends.
Betsy Chase
Director of Marketing for Fuser.com
Betsy,
I for one think the campaign idea is a great concept. Maybe it needs a little bit clearer execution but the idea is excellent. And as Allen said, getting out there, on foot, in NYC is an excellent way to spread the brand and to teach people about the product. Keep up the great work.
Funny as hell. Missed messages. I get it. Just went to their site. Even better.