Effective Marketing is an occasional series about uniquely clever, remarkable, or, just plain effective marketing campaigns.

Last month I attended the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival, presented by the local Seattle treasure EMP/SFM. The Cinerama theater has thankfully chosen not to bombard its customers with a loud stream of commercials like so many other movie chains; they instead opt for the less intrusive pre-feature slideshow.

As you can imagine for such an event, the audience–including me–was a crowd of geeks, which made us especially receptive to the Battlestar Galactica ad that came up on the screen. After seeing it, the two guys to my right began talking about the show; one was a big fan, while the other knew of the show but hadn’t seen it yet, and wondered aloud if he should rent it from the beginning. I chimed in that it was indeed an excellent show, and we all started to talk about it. While we were chatting, the guy who hadn’t seen the show took out his iPhone, logged on to Netflix, and added the first three seasons of the show to the top of his rental queue. Attention, interest, decision, action — all right there from our seats!

Effective Marketing is an occasional series about uniquely clever, remarkable, or, just plain effective marketing campaigns.

Industry analyst and techno-journalist John Battelle recently presented to McDonald’s on the power of social networking, during which he demonstrated the power of crowdsourcing by asking his Twitter followers to give their feedback on the McDonald’s brand.

My own response was in appreciation of a recent McDonald’s ad campaign—specifically, 140 billboards in Western Washington that poked fun at Starbucks:

Clever advertising during a recession

Perhaps noting that discretion is the better part of valor, Starbucks has chosen not to respond in kind.

Everyone knows you’re supposed to go to the bathroom during the game itself, not during the Super Bowl commercials! But just in case you missed them, the national ads that ran during Super Bowl 43 are now available online—including this clever Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin.

Other fun spots included:

• CareerBuilder.com (much better than the competing entry from Monster.com);
• Bud Light featuring Conan O’Brien;
• Hyundai’s Angry Bosses;
• and the new Star Trek movie teaser (because I’m a nerd).

(Incidentally, how great/terrible/crazy is it that the ads themselves are preceded by short ads?)

If you were watching the Super Bowl on KING-5, the local NBC affiliate in Seattle, you also may have seen the shortest-ever Super Bowl commercial:

• Ivar’s half-second spot (don’t blink, you’ll miss it!)

And finally, for posterity’s sake:

• Apple’s 1984 Macintosh commercial

Football season is now officially over. Only two weeks until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training!