{"id":136,"date":"2010-07-26T14:08:47","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T14:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/?p=136"},"modified":"2010-08-08T00:43:06","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T00:43:06","slug":"a-few-thoughts-on-product-degrees-of-closeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/a-few-thoughts-on-product-degrees-of-closeness\/","title":{"rendered":"A few thoughts on product &#8216;degrees of closeness&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am in the process of thinking how to collect into an e-book or something what I&#8217;ve been observing regarding product simulations in advertising.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not thrilled with the term &#8216;degrees of closeness&#8217;, but the idea is to have some measure to evaluate a product demonstration or exposition with respect to a real experience with the product.\u00a0 Today, there seem to be a number of product advertising sites that simulate the experience in a somewhat static way, stitching together product photos (or 3D recreations) with selections such as color.\u00a0 For example, I came across the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fordvehicles.com\/suvs\/explorer\/2011\/\" target=\"_blank\">2011 Ford Explorer&#8217;s site<\/a>, which, in the 3D view, lets one navigate from position-to-position, and change the exterior and interior colors.\u00a0 Done in a professional way, it doesn&#8217;t give any interaction with the car.\u00a0 Maybe the &#8216;degrees of closeness&#8217; would have various categories, two for example, might be functionality and physical presence (the Ford example being closer in the physical presence category).<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I&#8217;ve been a bit preoccupied with one demo for the Sony Cyber-Shot TX7 camera that features Taylor Swift.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t seem to find the link anymore, but the idea is that the camera lets you stitch together photos to make a panorama shot.\u00a0 The demo lets you take pictures of Taylor Swift in a few situations, and I think you can &#8216;save&#8217; those snapshots somewhere.\u00a0 On the surface, it seems like a product demo that lets one &#8216;try out&#8217; the camera.\u00a0 After some reflection, I see that the functionality demo&#8217;d really isn&#8217;t terribly useful, from an &#8216;understanding the camera&#8217; perspective&#8211;it doesn&#8217;t really use the feel of the camera to give me any more information than if it were briefly explained with some static photos.\u00a0 Certainly one &#8216;uses&#8217; the camera to take the photographs, but there doesn&#8217;t seem to be anything interesting one learns from that demo as a result of being able to &#8216;use&#8217; it.<\/p>\n<p>This reminds me of another type of &#8216;simulation&#8217; which I think falls short on the advertising side.\u00a0 This happens when manufacturers are sold the &#8216;product placement&#8217; concept, without a corresponding specific product use.\u00a0 There seems to be an aura around the product placement concept of &#8216;if I simply put my product into an ordinary situation, people are going to subconsciously want to buy it.&#8217;\u00a0 I have seen it in games that use branded equipment, presumably as advertising (or adver-training).\u00a0 If the training (or problem presented to be solved through the ad\/training) does not accentuate unique features of the product, then it might be a good training piece for that type of equipment (or it might not even be a good training piece), but certainly it&#8217;s advertising effectiveness is questionable without a direct tie-in to the specific product&#8217;s specialness.\u00a0 Ultimately, this makes it of questionable value as an advertising vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am in the process of thinking how to collect into an e-book or something what I&#8217;ve been observing regarding product simulations in advertising. I&#8217;m not thrilled with the term &#8216;degrees of closeness&#8217;, but the idea is to have some measure to evaluate a product demonstration or exposition with respect to a real experience with\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/a-few-thoughts-on-product-degrees-of-closeness\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}