Farmer uses viral campaign to test hybrid earth/online advertising medium

Today the Reg has gleefully carried a great story on a farmer in the North of England who, for reasons best known to himself, carved the word *** into a field of crops (clearly the word *** doesn't get past our automatic censor, so see the image below). Then along comes Google Earth, immortalises his artwork and serves it up online to a potential audience of millions.

The questions are:

Has this probably bored, slightly rude agricultural worker stumbled onto something?

Is this a sly viral test run for a brand new advertising medium? 

Will it develop beyond mild obscenities into big money brands? 

How can Google monetize it?

And does the IP belong to the Nazca indians?

That farmer's huge *** in full

Published 01 Jun 2006 by Steve Ellis
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Comments

 

student said:

this is a new media opp. companies are creating viral campaigns online, which get past the adv standards agency and cost considerably less than traditional adv. The most clear example of this is vw (see link). With yahoo and google monopolisation of growing online communities it is likely that this will become a more frequent - but more regulated medium.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=znoCcy7-M4M


November 13, 2006 16:18
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