Online+Advertising+Critique

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Polar Tweets is a Twitter app sponsored by the Toronto Zoo. In support of the Wildlife Conservation, this campaign encourages Twitter users to “Tweet with Purpose” (Polar Tweets 2009); to tweet about something environmentally friendly. The campaign further explains that since, “25% of Arctic Sea ice has already disappeared, without action, the polar bears could disappear too” (Polar Tweets 2009). ======

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To interactively engage users in this campaign, a visually attractive animation of a polar bear standing on an iceberg made of these environmentally friendly tweets is presented on the home page of this campaign. The ice is created by the environmentally friendly words that users tweet and the level of ice actually does change over the course of the day to actively reflect the amount of related tweets (Mellow 2010). As everyone makes an effort to tweet together, the iceberg that the polar bear is standing on will grow, but will melt if we stay silent (Polar Tweets 2009). This app works by pulling out any environmentally friendly #tagged words in tweets (Hepburn 2009). It concludes that, “our little tweets can make a big difference to the future of the polar bear” (Polar Tweets 2009). ======

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The ultimate goal of this campaign is to raise awareness about the effect that melting Arctic Sea ice has on polar bears and the environment in general. This is targeted towards the social media generation, who are always or often attached to using Twitter. This gives regular Twitter users an opportunity to turn daily tweets towards a good cause involving very minimal to no effort. Its target audience is restricted to only Twitter users as a Twitter login is required to participate in this campaign. However, non-Twitter users can still freely view all tweets on Twitter because a login is not required to read tweets. ======

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Its well designed website is kept simple with the gradient light blue colour and the animation of the polar bear as the center of attention. A small text box on the left side introduces users to its campaign and enables direct interaction from the site via the ‘Tweet’ and ‘Donate’ buttons. The ‘Tweet’ button allows a variety of pre-defined tweets to be made when clicked on, such as a tweet stating, “Read about how the Polar Bears are on thin ice: http://bit.ly/TnAzX #polarbear”. This is a creative approach for users who might be interested but are not sure what to tweet about at that very moment. The donation proceeds would go towards the Toronto Zoo to sponsor the website and other programs (Osborne 2009). ======

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I believe this is an effective campaign due to its simplistic approach. It successfully attracts attention, which leads to awareness being raised. The fun animation is definitely the main attraction in this campaign as the polar bear moves up and down depending on the number of tweets being made throughout the day. It is also a clever decision to collaborate with the popular social media, Twitter. Overall, this is both an interesting and creative campaign created in efforts to help save polar bears from melting Arctic Sea ice and time has proven its effectiveness as this campaign started in 2009 and is still active today. ======

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This is an IKEA banner ad for the BENNO tower; CD shelves that can stack up to 180 CDs. IKEA has successfully turned their online banner into a personal music player. This interactive banner allows the user to play an mp3 through the banner by just clicking the banner and selecting an mp3 from his/her own computer (Ads of the World 2010). This banner is definitely eye catching as it draws the users’ curiosity to click through and to watch the banner till the end to see what product it is advertising. ======

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Their target audience are the selected market of music lovers who still like to buy CDs. Specifically for the people who upload bought CDs onto their computer for the convenience of carrying it around via mp3 players and laptops. This is because real music lovers do not only listen to and store music tracks on their computer, but also own the physical copies of the albums. This selected target audience explains the reasoning behind selecting digital music to play through their CD shelves. Of which many might consider ironic for selecting a digital mp3 in a CD shelf ad. Thus, their main purpose is to recapture this market of users. ======

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I believe this is an effective banner ad. It is both simple and innovative to engage the user in having some fun. It has a clean look, concise instructions, and short slogan in which successfully carries out the message to its users, without much said. I really like the idea of matching their CD shelves with the music it is supposed to store (the physical albums). In fact, this was the most shared banner on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs in July 2010; further proving its effectiveness when it was first launched last year in January (Louise 2010). ======

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I feel that this ad fully portrays the approach IKEA has always been known for; a simplistic approach. As with the design of most of their products, it is kept simple and clean. This is why the design of this banner ad is well matched with IKEA’s style. ======

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Yet, some may argue that it is asking the user to do a lot just to view the product IKEA is advertising. However, that is the point of this ad; it is the interactivity it offers that differentiates itself from other ads. I was totally drawn into it when I first saw it and was fascinated about the whole idea and the use of technology behind it. ======

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After reviewing comments people have made pertaining to the design and effectiveness of this ad, people have been put into doubt about the true idea this ad is attempting to portray. Different opinions have been brought up regarding whether there is really a need for this product if people already have a place for storage of music files on their computers. Stating that there really is no need for a CD shelf used for storing music. Additionally, it is believed that this idea has been reinforced through this ad - the selection of digital music to be played from the computer. Many have concluded that despite the cleverness and creativity in the design of this ad, there seems to be a misplaced idea. However, despite the contradicting views people may form about this ad, overall, I believe it has been executed well to target the specific market of music lovers who have not replaced the habit of buying physical albums with the downloading of legal digital mp3s online. ======

**Works Cited **
ADS OF THE WORLD (2010). //IKEA: Musical Shelves//. Online at: <[]>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

HEPBURN, Aden (2009). //Polar Tweets: By Toronto Zoo//. Online at: <[]>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

LOUISE (2010). //Ikea Music Banner//. Online at: <[]>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

MELLOW, Glendon (2010). //Metro Toronto Zoo trip & Polar Tweets//. Online at: <[]>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">OSBORNE, Brian (2009). //Polar Tweets allows you to tweet for the environment//. Online at: < []>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">POLAR TWEETS (2009). //TWEET WITH PURPOSE//. Online at: <[]>, consulted on February 5th, 2011.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Image Sources **
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