Burger King turns Digg search errors into ads. What's next?

Josh Smith
Updated

In what might prove the future of advertising, Burger King is taking its "small hands" campaign to the Internet by sponsoring searches that return no results on the incredibly popular Digg.com. The ads, which feature a man with tiny hands too small to grasp a hamburger, had appeared briefly last week are expected to go live again later this week -- BrandFreak.com reports that they will blame the spelling mistake on tiny hands. BrandFreak calls the new campaign "404 Marketing" referring to the common Internet page shown when content cannot be found.

The error page is reported to say, "No results for 'Your Search Error' were found. Looks like your search had a typo. Blame it on your tiny hands. The beefy $1 Burger King Double Cheeseburger gives tiny hands some trouble, too." and will likely feature images or video of the new small hands BK ads that are in continual play on major networks.



While companies and sellers have taken advantage of misspellings in search results for Google and search engines, this is one of the first times we've seen this type of sponsorship in the U.S., and leaves us wondering where else Web sites could sell ads.

There aren't many places left on social news sites like Digg that don't already have ads tied to them, but we found a few places that the company could use to boost revenue.

  • New User Signup-- This signup brought to you by VW where you can "Sign and Drive" today.

  • New Submissions -- This submission brought to you by Subway, the perfect meal for sub-mitting your way to the top of Digg.

  • Digg History -- Brought to you by the History Channel and Pawn Stars.

  • Bury this Story -- Brought to you by NickelBack, "Please click cancel!"

  • New Fans -- Brought to you by Match.com - Find your fans IRL now.

  • Friend Recommendations -- Brought to you by eHarmony -- based on 29 Digg Dimensions.

  • Comments -- Sponsored by First National Bank, Second Life and the exclamation point from Yahoo!

While we're looking at "404 marketing," it's only right to include a few of our favorite 404 error pages like A-R Marketing's Oh Fudge 404 page and Heinz's empty ketchup bottle 404 page.

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