In papers, September 24 & 26

Dust storms, that blanketed NSW and much of Queensland last week, lead to a deluge of topical ads in newspapers.

While NSW woke up to a thick fog of red dust the morning of September 23, many of Australia’s biggest advertisers were wide awake to the unique tactical advertising opportunities offered by newspapers.

Major brands, like Telstra, Visa, Bankwest, Subaru, and cleaning products like Omo, NapiSan, Windex and Viva, seized this unique tactical opportunity to promote their product in context of a one-in-a-lifetime event.

Most of the ads ran the day after storm, in context of editorial that illustrated the one-off weather occurrence. In Queensland, press ads also ran in the weekend; the Queensland Government alerted the public to special clean up provisions while  BP took advantage of a flood of consumers with unusually dirty cars.

These ads are a perfect example of how newspapers stand out as the best medium for advertisers to leverage their brand upon major news events to deliver smart, relevant messages that can be turned around literally overnight.

Omo dust storm topical newspaper ad (1m, JPG format)
Subaru 'Whatever your adventure' dust storm topical newspaper ad (2m, JPG format)
Telstra 'Time to call your mum' dust storm topical newspaper ad (1m, JPG format)
Viva dust storm topical newspaper ad (241k, JPG format)
Visa 'Go' dust storm topical newspaper ad (2m, JPG format)
Windex dust storm topical newspaper ad (1m, JPG format)
Bankwest dust storm topical newspaper ad (1m, JPG format)
NapiSan dust storm topical newspaper ad (1m, JPG format)
Copy of QLD Govt "Dust storms" newspaper ad (702k, JPG format)
Copy of BP "Dust off for free" newspaper ad (130k, Acrobat (.pdf) format)