I keep discovering new variations on the subject of the New Advertising that I cover. Two classic examples are the Honda ad that is all about the people who buy the car, and not the car itself, and the Amazon.com short films now running on the ‘Amazon Theatre’ -er, the Amazon.com landing page. In case you haven’t heard, Amazon Theatre has been screening these films from November 9th for a 5 week stint.

First the neat trick about the Amazon films. They are billed as a ‘Fallon Worldwide production’ meaning they are produced by an ad agency. This has all the makings fo what  the Madison & Vine concept was all about –a marriage between hollywood and Mad Ave. One film, Be careful what you wish for’  is about a married couple, a confession, and an insect, with flashbacks to their youth. You bet it’s got wacky suspense.

Then there are the rolling credits, a great indicator of where things are headed in ad land. The CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE has the wife listed at the top, ad the husband listed 5 credits below. Inbetween are –I am not maing this up- blankets and lamps.

Fallon throws in some star power by having Daryl Hannah play a tiny part. But it’s the storyline, and not the stars that matter, because you are always wondering what the catch is. No the products cannot be clicked on, and no there is no overt selling in the storyline. It is even –perhaps deliberately– slow moving story for a short film, but has a neat punchline/kicker.

The real deal turns out to be in the Credits. You can click any of the Credits and they turn out to be links to the the lamps and jewellery in the film. In another much more pacy film, ‘Agent Orange’ with a boy-meets-girl theme, credits for the Fossil watch, Diesel jeans, camera etc are also linked to items on sale on Amazon.

As a technique I can see where this is going. Amazon knows exactly who its shoppers are, and can nicely target the films at each demographic. A man buying CDs of Barry manilow, probably doesn’t need to be targeted with the Agent Orange film. The products listed could be someday worked in with more interactive features, rather than to pages where they are listed. Fallon is one of the few agencies following up with work that reflects the passing away of the dumb TV commercials.