Claire Beale on Advertising

It sounds like a good idea. An achingly fashionable, oh-so-21st-century idea. It's got all the latest marketing buzzes. Digital? Tick. User-generated content? Tick. Sponsorship? Tick. It's even got Steve Coogan. Sort of.

It's Ford Motor's latest communications wheeze, and utterly à la mode. So why is it so far looking a little like the emperor's new clothes?

You've probably just heard about Where are the Joneses?. You might even have seen it. If so, congratulations; you're part of a very select band. For the ignorant, here's the lowdown. Where are the Joneses? is a new online comedy series commissioned by Ford and the communications agency Imagination, and made by the TV production company Baby Cow. If it's a sitcom you want, Baby Cow is a good bet. It's owned by the comedians Steve Coogan and Henry Normal and it's made some nice TV programmes, such as Nighty Night and Marion and Geoff.

So now it's making a nice digital show sponsored by Ford. A brother and sister, Dawn and Ian, discover that their dad is a rabid sperm donor who has cast his seed wide around Europe. Our heroes decide to go in search of their lost relatives and the sitcom charts their adventures. And wouldn't you know it, they go on the hunt in Dawn's car, a rather lovely can't-ignore-it purple number. Yep, it's a Ford S-MAX.

The show's all shot documentary-style, and the story unfolds in short vignettes. There are 34 of them on YouTube as I'm writing this, but more go up all the time as the trail to find siblings hots up. Each film ends with a credit for Ford.

The interactive bit comes in because viewers are now being asked to come up with some new storylines. There's a wiki, which – like online encyclopedia Wikipedia – allows users to amend content. And those who supply script ideas have the chance to appear in an episode. Go to wherearethejoneses.com to see the story so far and find all the links.

It's actually an extremely neat idea for an otherwise rather boring and conventional car advertiser. The vignettes are funny enough and the Ford branding is pretty subtle (or as subtle as you can be with a bright purple car) and there are plenty of add-ons (Flickr pics, Facebook entries, blogs etc) if you find yourself getting hooked and wanting more.

The trouble is that not many people seem to be hooked. Or at least - benefit of the doubt – not many people seem to actually know about the series. Twelve hours after the most recent video was posted, it's been watched just a couple of hundred times.

What Ford is really hoping for are some cool credentials and a fresh dialogue with younger drivers. The tricky thing is making sure your target consumers see your commercial message (or digital comedy series) without feeling that they're being manipulated or harangued into viewing it. Seed a film on YouTube and if it's good enough pretty soon there will be a bit of word of mouth and people will seek it out for themselves, feeling part of a knowing club of cool finger-on-the-pulsers. If you're lucky they'll feel some ownership of your brand, too. It's all a far cry from simply broadcasting a TV commercial into the ether and hoping that someone's listening.

Getting that word of mouth going, though, is far from easy. Ford's campaign clearly hasn't done so yet. There are very few comments about the videos on YouTube, and although the hype's building and the series is finally getting some traction, at least in terms of PR, it has had a very slow start. An old-fashioned ad campaign finally launched last week to drive people to the site, so we'll see. So much for the "seed" effect, though.

Cynics will see all of this as at best a gimmick, at worst a foolhardy ride on the digital bandwagon. But for Ford, there's no doubt that this is an interesting experiment, one that has valuable lessons to teach about seeding, interactivity, sponsored digital content and user-generated content. All of which will come in very useful as the worlds of television and the internet collide. Who knows? It might even sell an S-MAX.

* Talking of digital lessons, have you ever wondered why you see some strangely placed advertisements on the websites you're surfing? You know: you're looking at properties for sale in the Cotswolds and up pops an ad for acne cream.

The answer is simple. Advertisers – or rather the agencies handling their digital campaigns – buy a package of sites that are supposed to appeal to their ideal type of customer. The trouble, however, is that advertisers don't always know what sites are included in these packages and thus where their ads are actually ending up.

Take one particularly nasty American site, psfights.com. It's full of home videos of streetfights and "happy slapping", and it's violent and disturbing. It seems that some UK advertisers have unwittingly appeared on the site because of this package approach to buying digital campaigns. Imagine: venerable brands like Marks & Spencer and Orange parading their wares alongside gang warfare.

The advertisers' trade body, Isba, last week sent its members a warning about the practice and alerted them that it will be the subject of an upcoming Panorama show. "We believe Panorama will be monitoring psfights.com and other dubious sites to see how many brand advertisers are out there, seemingly sponsoring violent or obscene content", Isba said.

Now the search is on for the digital sales house (or houses) selling advertising packages that include such distasteful sites. Expect more controversy over this one.

* Controversy was in the air at the Houses of Parliament last Monday evening when the Debating Group met to scrap over the motion: "Advertising does much to improve the quality of life in the UK."

I was seconding the motion, proposed by Thinkbox's Tess Alps, and can smugly record that we won in a landslide, despite stiff – and a little rabid – opposition from professor Gerard Hastings, a director of the Institute of Social Marketing at the University of Stirling, and Willie Sullivan, the chair of pressure group Compass Scotland.

Consider all the things that we would be deprived of if there was no advertising: consumer choice, lower prices, a free press, most of our TV and radio stations, most of our magazines, etc. And consider the extremely important initiatives that depend on advertising to raise awareness: charities, cancer research, teacher recruitment, anti-child abuse, adult literacy help, etc. So I don't find it in the least surprising that the result was a walk-over.

But although we won our little debate, the Government seems rather less inclined to listen to rational argument, so let me leave you with a few sensible words from Tess Alps: "Without advertising our economy would be stagnant and uncompetitive. Our democracy would be weakened with a less-informed population. Our creative life would be much reduced, constrained and limited."

Case rested.

Beale's best in show: MFI (by m&c saatchi)

Yes, I've pinched myself. I am awake. And my faculties are in top form. And yes, I am still going to pick an MFI ad as Best In Show this week.

I'm not going to pretend that the new MFI campaign will trouble the advertising awards juries much. It might not even be a pure original. But is there any category of TV advertising as dismal as the furniture one? God spare us from another fourth-rate actor reading an autocue and stroking a naff leather sofa. Full marks to M&C Saatchi for some furniture store ads with spunk.

You can't ignore these domestic dramas. The latest has an old couple getting ready for bed as the wife accuses her tired, baggy husband of flirting with a fancy woman all night. The camera pans out and we then realise that they are in the MFI showroom - the personal service means they feel right at home.

If these are typical MFI customers, then it's not the store for me (durh). But they're fun, bold, engaging and have real impact in a dire advertising market.

Claire Beale is editor of 'Campaign'.claire.beale@haynet.com