While recently researching a review of Steinlager Pure I came across a disturbing practice by one of the biggest alcohol companies in Australia and New Zealand, if not the world. It is certainly one of the coolest television ads on New Zealand television, but Lion Nathan has managed to severely limit it’s reach by not allowing it to be displayed on YouTube. The advertisement I’m talking about is the Steinlager Pure ad where Harvey Keitel talks about how cool New Zealand is and how much he loves Steinlager Pure. Yet through a big company mentality it has been pulled down from YouTube and thus pulled down from a range of websites who would have embedded the ad on their websites. I have contacted Lion Nathan about this asking for their comment, but have not received a reply yet.

Companies nowadays spend vast amounts of time and money trying to get videos to go “viral”, the idea is to get enough people to watch the video that it starts hitting the “most viewed” lists. This becomes self-perpetuating with the high traffic of the featured lists causing more and more people to see it, if the video has become truly viral before long every man and his dog has seen the video. This is the sort of exposure that companies would love, but obviously not Lion Nathan with there Steinlager Pure. I would definitely reccomend they read the ClueTrain manifesto, but maybe they are too cool, that’s certainly what the advertising would have you think.

The advertising potential within social networks is enormous but there is a fine line between what is deemed acceptable and what is intrusive. One site that does it very well is Facebook. Some people I talk to say they have never even noticed the small ad appearing on the left hand side of their profile. Others have said how pertinent the ads are and in fact some have said they even clicked on the ads; Michael Gall from Wakeless even recited the last three ads he saw to me – all music to the advertisers ears.

Obviously Facebook has massive user numbers and page views and therefore can still be making great money from less advertising, but how much advertising is too much? Bebo once tested Google ads within profiles and was met with outcrys of NO! What would be the reaction if Facebook started showing two ads or more on your wall – would it be considered intrusive?