11th Hour Brilliance

Forrester analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, asked the question tonight, “how many ads in an hour can you spot that don’t have a URL.”  OK, this geek is up for a good challenge – afterall, Mark is out of town, so I’m home alone.

Verdict?  In one hour I saw 36 commercials – 16 of which DID NOT have a URL in their ad.  I was surprised to see which ones did not: Revlon cosmetics, Claritin sinus medication and Bailey’s liquor, among others.  I would think that above all else, Claritin would have a URL associated with their ads.  As a drug company, wouldn’t you want to be the one to explain how your product works and possible side effects?!?  I thought that it was possible that Claritin couldn’t advertise via a website, but that’s not the case – they have claritin.com.  

On the other hand, I can’t dismiss the fact that 55% of commercials that I saw in one hour (on cable) did have an associated URL.

Interesting challenge.  I think I’m going to watch for more ads that don’t have URLs.