TechPresident notes and Jeff Jarvis shows a new Bill Richardson TV ad that’s designed to send traffic to his site. As Josh says on techPrez,
Bill Richardson has a new TV ad up that smartly points to the limitations of, um, TV ads. It’s promoting his clean energy plan, and opens, “On clean energy, a 30-second TV ad isn’t enough time. But my website can show you why the Sierra Club called my plan much more aggressive.” In the next 20 seconds, Richardson takes us through his website to promote his energy plan (look, he’s on the Internets!), which calls for lowering demand for oil, raising mileage standards, and reducing greenhouse gases.
Offline-online tie-in time! Not that this is the first time anyone’s ever used a TV ad to drive traffic to a site (hello, Pets.com), but it IS a nice use of the strengths of one medium (TV’s in-your-face ability to catch viewers who might not otherwise know you exist) to capitalize on the strengths of another (the web’s ability to hold and present information in great depth and detail). I bet we’ll see more ads in this vein.
– cpd
This indirectly reminded me of Jerry Brown and his 1-800 number, he was so ahead of the game on this stuff that the internet wasn’t ready for him.
You should do a proper homage, lest you be taken away in shackles by the suede denim secret police.
Always a danger in this line of work, my friend. — cpd