

Ask HN:  Why don't ads put you inside them (e.g., as the driver in a car ad)? - amichail

Wouldn't that get your attention?<p>Facebook for example could use pictures/videos of you and some advanced image analysis to construct such commercials automatically.<p>Taking it further, Facebook could use pictures/videos of your friends for other characters in the commercial.  Logos for organizations that you have been associated with could be used as well (e.g., as stickers on that car).
======
caioromao
A similar marketing campaign was attempted by a bank here in Brazil once and
backfired badly.

When a client logged into his online account page, instead of showing "Banco
do Brasil" (the bank's name) it'd show "Banco do <Client's-First-Name>"
(Bruno's Bank -- if the client was called "Bruno", obviously).

A few hours after this seemingly clever personalization, there were _several_
national news sites talking about the new feature and how people were reacting
to it: Some people couldn't understand this would only be visible to their
session, they thought their name was showing up to everyone and wanted it
removed ASAP.

Bottom line is: marketing acts should take into account how savvy the target
audience is.

~~~
herval
Tech savvy or not, that campaign was absolutely terrible idea, from beginning
to end, online and offline (they even changed the bank name on the entrance of
the agencies!). That said, I wouldn't say the online bit was such a big
culprit for its failure...

------
andrewjshults
Not quite as advanced, but they did this in the past and there was a huge
backlash against it, so they stopped doing it:
<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2008/01/facebook-ads-ma/> .

From the wired article, it looks like there were a number of legal issues with
reusing photos without permission
[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2007/11/08/facebook-
soc...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2007/11/08/facebook-social-ads/)
not to mention it's kind of creepy.

------
chrisaycock
Probably for the same reason athletic apparel companies sponsor athletes
rather than average joes. I don't aspire to my own running talent; I aspire to
Usain Bolt's talent. It makes the brand something to look up to.

------
rads
The best example of this I've seen is the Arcade Fire's "interactive film"
called The Wilderness Downtown, which asks for your hometown address and…
well, you'll see:

<http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/>

------
corin_
a.) The cost to get these adverts looking better than terrible flash games
would be pretty huge, and very difficult to automate.

b.) The impact would be one of novelty, viewers wouldn't pay any attention to
what the advert was trying to sell.

c.) Why bother, advertising is already able to sell products without placing
the viewer inside the advertisements

~~~
ThomPete
Wow, you probably couldn't be more wrong.

a.) It's trivial to make it look good in fact it have been for quite some
time.

b.) The impact is normally pretty big exactly because people pay attention
once their friends or themselves are involved.

c.) Advertising as you seem to refer to it doesn't work nearly as well. Why do
you think adwords work? They work because they communicate better by being
closer to what you care about.

I shall see if I can make a list of examples but there is tons of great great
examples looking stunning and having a huge impact.

------
Groxx
I think you'd be fighting people's visual cortexes.

On the bad-end, you see a mostly-accurate copy/paste of your head in a random
expression slapped onto a car. On the good-end, you start fighting with the
uncanny valley[1], and people start rejecting it because there's just
something _off_ about it. Then you've got people who won't know how you did it
and will freak, as caioromao points out.

Will it happen _eventually_? I'd say absolutely, definitely. Minority Report
shows a half-decent means of doing this, loathe as I am to cite sci-fi movies
as future predictors. But doing it _correctly_ , at all times, will take _far_
more sophisticated visual analysis tools than we have right now.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley>

------
ephermata
The film "Daybreakers" did a promotion which used this technique in late 2009.
The film's premise is that a vampire virus has swept through humanity,
converting most people to vampires and leaving only a few surviving humans.
These remaining humans are hunted and captured to provide blood for the
rapidly starving vampires.

The ad was a site <http://www.capturehumans.com> , which pulled your Facebook
picture and pictures of your friends. The site then showed a short video on
the origins of the vampiric plague, with you as Patient Zero. Your friends
showed up as other early vampires or as humans to capture.

The site isn't loading for me now, but this description gives this idea:
[http://www.movieviral.com/2009/12/15/daybreakers-gets-a-
vira...](http://www.movieviral.com/2009/12/15/daybreakers-gets-a-viral-site-
that-claims-youre-patient-zero/)

------
360citiesnet
They do :-)

<http://www.renault.fr/espace-experience/index.jsp>

an awesome licensing deal we made with our panoramic photos.

-Jeffrey Martin, Founder www.360cities.net

------
jankassens
A Swedish advertising agency did just that. You could upload a photo of
someone and this picture would appear all over the place in a video.

<http://www.draftfcb.se/info/thehero/en>

------
revorad
Beacon, which was a much watered-down version of your idea, backfired. So I'm
not sure if this would fly. Although it would be pretty whacky.

------
Retric
Legally don't don't own the rights to your likeness. So they can't use your
picture without your permission.

~~~
sorbus
Not really a problem for facebook:

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and
videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission,
subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-
exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to
use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP
License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your
account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not
deleted it"

~~~
hackerblues
Out of interest, what would this mean if I don't have a Facebook account but
my friend posts a picture of me?

------
meadhikari
Will it not be violating my privacy by taking me as a object for advertising?

~~~
amichail
The ad starring you would only be shown to you, although it may contain images
of your friends.

~~~
mooism2
So does it violate my friends' privacy?

~~~
amichail
Perhaps it might be safer to not include your friends in the ad although the
ad would be cooler if you do.

------
d3x
I made something similar to what you are describing.
<http://www.socialadmanager.com> I kind of abandoned it though. What I found
is that people hate ads no matter what and most people dont recognize people
e.g.: Facebook friends in pictures.

