Saturday, December 20, 2008

Real-Time PCR, More Than Meets the Eye

I have already written about two high-production value, web-only, musical advertisements for the tools of science. Well, now Roche Applied Sciences has taken it to the next level and produced the eagerly awaited sequel to Transformers. And in a huge twist, - SPOILER ALERT! - the Decepticons have apparently taken on the shape of the DNA double helix. Although, if that is the case, why would the Autobots take the shape of a machine that makes more DNA? So many questions. I guess we will just have to trust the genius of Micheal Bay and wait until the official release date to get all of our answers. For now we will have to make due with this Roche-sponsored trailer. I don't know if this CGI-heavy advert makes me want to spend several thousand dollars on a PCR machine, but it does make me want to watch WALL-E again. And it continues this new tradition of spending a ton money on commercials that noone other than the dedicated nerdy will see.



For a point of contrast, let me also offer-up this truly awful example of attempted viral marketing by Promega. Matching this effort with the four I previously presented is an insult to the other four. They look to have had $5 and a Big Mac as their production budget. Even by YouTube standards this is sad. Heck, I am not entirorly sure that some undergrads didn't do this to fill time between running gels and pirating movies. I wouldn't even embarrass my blog by including this commercial if it weren't for an OCD-like drive for completeness. So in the interest of cataloging all of the efforts of the biotech giants to use new media to sell their wares, here is "Vlad in the lab".



This blog post is sponsored by the Ajira Airways
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