Twitter launched its first-ever television ad campaign during the World Series on Tuesday night in an attempt to solicit new users after a quarter of languishing growth.
The 30-second spot capitalizes on the hype surrounding the baseball season’s climax to advertise a new feature called Moments, a real-time anthology of popular tweets on topical subjects. It’s manic and upbeat and laden with memes, all in an attempt to solicit a younger, hipper user base, The Verge reported. The timing and theme of the commercial isn’t incidental: Twitter identified sports fans as one demographic conspicuously absent from the social platform, along with women between the ages of 18 and 24.
It has been a difficult few months for the company. In July, co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the helm as CEO — he lost the position in 2008 after consistently leaving work early to attend yoga classes and drawing lessons — only to supervise a less-than-fruitful third quarter. Between July and September, the site attracted only 4 million new monthly active users, falling short of company expectations. Its stock price has tumbled.
The new ad campaign seems intent on halting that slide. The commercials are the creative brainchild of the advertising agency TBWAChiatDay, a descendant of the company that crafted Apple’s now legendary “1984” ad, which introduced the Macintosh to the world during the Super Bowl 31 years ago.
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