With the current slowdown in advertising and the crash of the dot.com merry-go-round, I have begun to wonder if we are witnessing the dying day of an industry. Will history look back upon this time and point a finger at those of us who could have made a difference? By this time we all have to realize that production, advertising and entertainment (content) share a symbiotic relationship. If one dies, the others follow.
What would television be like without advertising? News, weather and public bulletins, more than likely. Regardless, it would never have reached the level of ubiquity that it has today. Television has in 40 years changed the way we look at the world and perceive ourselves. It wasn’t until Procter & Gamble started producing soap operas that television really took off. Without advertising we never would have seen entertainment on TV.
And then came the Internet. We all swooned over the boys from get-rich-IPO skyrocket valley. When it was over, we too took a fall. If the Internet and interactive TV are our future, then we have to look at our part of the equation. We as an industry have failed the Internet. Our offering to the success of content on the Internet has been the banner ad. How long would TV last on the level of creative represented in the banner?
If as much effort were put into Internet advertising as has been put into broadcast, we could propel content on the web. Creative companies should be more willing to consider these new forms of revenue. The truth of the matter is that advertising agencies fail to adequately support their brands on the Internet.
As marketers, we should be capitalizing on media forms that we overlook. In order to compete in the new global economy, companies will need to consider cross-media production capabilities. It just makes more sense to establish a one-stop shop approach—those who consolidate will be the survivors.
Interactive flash advertising has been on the Internet for several years, yet agencies aren’t embracing it, despite its ability to be a vehicle for quality, high-production value advertising. Streaming video has been used to limited success, with examples like the whatever.nike.com campaign leading the way. Advertisers still mostly under-utilize these areas. Moreover, we must look further to branded content where the brand drives the content.
Why don’t we see Budweiser branded with an animated Internet series based on its popular lizard characters? As an industry, advertisers are not maximizing the Internet for their brands. The agency is the caretaker of the brand; it is the agency’s responsibility to push the Internet on the brand. No one has considered the medium appropriately, or has completely integrated a cross-media message.
Where traditional advertising production companies are locked into traditional mediums, we try to take a more strategic approach, looking for ways to extend a campaign across the boundaries of mediums. In a recent two spot broadcast campaign, we extended the campaign by producing a series of four interstitial Internet ads that utilized both content and concepts developed for the broadcast. These ads run in larger pop-up windows, are animated and play sound very much like a spot.
This approach of looking at a campaign from the 10,000-foot level led us to a recent client pitch where we went in with an agency to suggest a campaign that stretched from broadcast to online flash animated ads, online streaming video documentaries, theatrical advertising, CD-ROM mailer and point-of-purchase kiosks. All of these mediums would be supporting the same brand message. Our goal is to extend the traditional 30 seconds of brand exposure to 10 and even 20 minutes. This is the sort of big thinking that will continue to push the creative in advertising production forward.
So, what will we be remembered as—innovators who drove advertising and entertainment to new levels, or guardians of a crumbling empire? So far, we have only taken baby steps in interactive advertising. We have much to learn before we can emerge from the chrysalis. Yet I believe that the best is yet to come for the advertising industry, the Internet and entertainment. Together we can all make a difference.
