MARKETING MIX: News of the world

Clued up

In our age of information overload, many advertisers have taken to playing games with consumers in order to engage their attention. Here are three examples Mix has spotted recently.

Readers of glossy titles like The Face may have been intrigued by these pages of silhouettes bearing no apparent marketing message at all. Closer inspection reveals a small device containing the legend PSII - yes, it's a highly cryptic ad for PlayStation 2. But then, they would know all about playing games.

These unmarked little stickers have been all over London for some time now. And being made of highly adhesive thick plastic, they will probably remain so for a good while yet. They are for iCrunch.co.uk, a web site devoted to less than mainstream music - clearly aiming for cult status rather than mass recognition.

Not only trendy youth brands resort to these playful tactics. For its 20th anniversary, Absolut has created a series of portraits (here it is Gore Vidal), each of which has a 'historic' Absolut ad half-hidden somewhere on the page. That's Absolut for you - playful and self-referential to the end.

This article was first published on Marketing