Have you ever wondered how social networking ads would look like back in the 1940s?

Brazilian ad agency Moma Propaganda has just added a Twitter ad to their collection of retro future posters for social media services as part of the ‘Everything Ages Fast’ campaign for Maximidia Seminars. The viral campaign has become something of a hit over the past few weeks.

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Recently the government released a safer sex campaign aimed at teenagers, which has been branded as ‘gimmicky’ and a waste of taxpayers money! The ‘Want respect? Use a condom’ campaign (initiated by the NHS Leicester viral banned from YouTube) was based around a custom made drama series which cost over £250,000 to film and create… and when launched only 5,576 people signed up to the series (over the past 4 months) meaning so far it has cost £45 per subscriber…

According to the government the campaign has been a success so far, but tax payers argue that “too often the government engages with gimmicky marketing and advertising because they think they are going to reach a new audience”.

Now, in this instance, I don’t necessarily think the government are trying to be too ‘alternative’, hoping to reach a new audience, but instead they are taking a more obvious route, hoping to appeal to the desired target market through known (and tested) social media marketing, such as Facebook, YouTube, mobile phones, etc… which makes perfect sense. However, I wonder if these methods of marketing are becoming over saturated.

Where they may have fallen down in this instance is simply through lack of (or the wrong type of) exposure… although saying that, we’re talking about it now! Even though the campaign seems to have had a negative response amongst tax payers and critics, it could have all been part of a cunning plan to simply get some exposure… and it could be argued that any exposure is good exposure!

Marketing methods such as these can generate great results, especially if the campaign is seeded and pushed in the right direction – but if incorrectly deployed they can remain unseen in an ocean of campaigns, all fighting to get pushed through to your inbox or txt to your mobile phone! Besides, it’s obvious that tax payers aren’t happy with the government taking this ‘risky approach’ – so maybe they should stick to more conventional methods… or finish the job they started and make sure it’s effectively fulfilled.

As creatives, it’s our responsibility to ensure that creativity helps create change, define future thinking and help towards shaping the way people absorb, understand and interact with the information they’re given. That way we can ensure that our marketing & advertising solutions will continue to grow ever more inspirational, more engaging and most importantly of all… successful!

It would be good to hear some other opinions and let’s see if we can help boost those stats! Go and visit www.thmbnls.co.uk, sign up and watch the series… maybe you’ll learn something