This week’s series focuses on interactive ad agencies, and to that end SHOOT surveyed a sampling of creative execs at shops that specialize in creating online work. The questions asked were: What will the interactive landscape look like in the coming year? How is interactive advertising growing creatively? What do you think of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s new guidelines from its broadband committee that suggest that video ads should be no longer that 30 seconds for spots that run prior to and within content? Creatively, what are some of the best online campaign you have seen this year–from your own agency and/or from others?
Below are the responses:
Michael Aimette
Executive creative director
Atmosphere BBDO, New York
Interactive creative will become as sophisticated and conceptual as technology allows. Of course, simple banner ads will always be there, but will be somewhat supplanted by richer, more sophisticated communications.
This will start to happen within the next year–more video shoots, higher impact ads and much less of a DR nature overall. That’s the idea–to make interactive another piece of the branding puzzle. Of course, it’s our job to present clients with creative executions they simply can’t turn down–and ideas that they can’t get in offline media.
Some of the best online ads I’ve seen this year are www.snickerssatisfies.com, [work for] Discover, General Electric, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Brawny, and Mini Cooper. Much of the best work is coming from only a few places, but I think that will change as more agencies embrace the medium.
Jeff Benjamin
Interactive creative director
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami
There was so much great work done last year: creativity and ideas were back on the Web. We saw innovation take us onto new platforms, and we inspired consumers to create content for us–but all of this was just to set us up for 2006. Next year, things we’ve talked about, like podcasting, video on demand, viral, user-generated media, interactive billboards, video, cell phones, video game integration–all of this stuff will become common practice. And the clients and agencies that can master these platforms–and bring great ideas to them–will be the ones that succeed.
In general we don’t like guidelines. The genius of the Web is that there are no limits. I can see situations where 30 seconds is too much, and other times when it might not be enough. It’s important for media properties to remain flexible enough to embrace great ideas that may be unique.
Here are five of my favorite things that were done this year (I’ve shamelessly included some of our own work): www.sithsense.com; www.weddingcrashersmovie.com/crashthistrailer; www.7daysleft.com (for The Ring 2); www.counterfeitmini.com; NikeID in Times Square.
Kevin Flatt
Executive creative director, interactive
Fallon, Minneapolis
The interactive landscape is wide open and getting really interesting. Technology is always improving. Bandwidth is abundant. Audience is growing and much more savvy. Clients know how important this space is to their bottom line. Creatives are gaining confidence with pushing ideas to new places. The most interesting work seems to be happening online.
Creatively, interactive advertising is growing as more effort is being focused in this space. With more clients needing this medium’s power to attract, you can no longer just focus on traditional communication means. To grab the attention of today’s audience, you have to be creative. To keep their interest, you have to be willing to engage with them in a meaningful way. It requires you to understand the audience even more than ever.
I’ve been a believer in establishing useful guidelines for online ad spaces. Fewer variations on size specs across sites allow your production dollars to work harder. The IAB broadband guidelines seem to be headed in the right direction, but are limited to in-player streaming advertising units. It doesn’t apply to other video streaming ad units.
One of my favorite campaigns was for the Nike San Silvestre Vallecana Race. It featured the city’s bear statue, which came to life in numbers to chase a runner. The bear became the driving force for the runner to run, and it captured everyone’s attention, encouraging them to sign up for the race.
Warren Park
Creative director
FCBi, New York
There will be more of a push for rich video advertising in the interactive space. With the recent launch of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (which improves the video compression), there will be more effective and innovative ways to incorporate video content onto the Web via banners, special advertising units (like eye blasters) or Web pages. Also, watch out for “user-generated” advertising–advertising that allows users to create and virally share their creations with others. A good example was Cingular’s “Make Me Dance” campaign for the iTunes Phone.
More people are asking what can the technology do for my creative? The great thing about interactive, there is always new technology or usage for technology coming into our lives. By incorporating the latest findings, we can use it to spring new creative ideas or concepts onto the world. For instance, Web “mash-ups” is the latest cool thing going on in the Web. It’s taking one’s technology (a la Google Maps) and mashing it with the data from another company (al a Craigslist) and thus creating a new viewpoint of content (www.housingmaps.com).
I think it’s a case of old-world thinking mapping on top of new world paradigms. It’s funny they suggested 30 seconds, considering that’s the length of a TV spot. While I agree that video content should usually be short and quick on the Web, I think it should really be left to the creatives to determine by the project what is an appropriate length.
As mentioned before, I like the Cingular’s “Make Me Dance” campaign (www.makemedance.com). Other highlights include the online campaign for the movie Wedding Crashers. They allowed you incorporate your face within the original movie trailer and send it to a friend. I thought it was hilarious (and the movie was funny too). I’m a huge Audi fan, so I always watch what they do, and their recent Audi A3 “Art of the Heist” campaign was brilliant. And I always have a place in my heart for Buddy Lee, from Lee Jeans. His Guidance Counselor microsite was light and fresh (www.buddyleeguidancecounselor.com).
PJ Pereira
Executive creative director
AKQA, San Francisco
The interactive landscape is reaching our mobile phones, TV, and billboards as upgraded technologies are more common in our daily lives. It’s been said that it was about to happen for a while now, but the fact that there’s less hype about it now means it’s actually here.
As a guideline, it is useful, because anything that protects the consumer against over-shouting advertising is good. The problem is that IAB guidelines sometimes become unbreakable rules in the hands of lazy people that don’t like to think. An example: there is nothing more annoying than those fast-blinking banners that became fashionable among cheap brands a while ago. Then they decided to create a “guideline” restricting the number of loops on a banner ad.
Then, when you have a brilliant idea that requires an infinite loop, like some of the best banners ever made, you just can’t do it because someone lazy on the publisher’s side doesn’t even want to look at it. [They say] “It’s against the IAB rules”–a publisher told me once. That’s ridiculous.
I’m getting excited about this anti-marketing style that is getting popular among youth-driven brands. Things that instead of giving you information make you work hard to earn it. This is advertising backwards and I love it! An example: the XboxHalo 2 Web site that was written in an alien language (the game was about aliens invading Earth and the site was like an Earth Report from their perspective). The client was bold enough to allow it to happen, and in the end it worked better than expected. In 48 hours, the gaming community had already broken the entire code on an amazing worldwide collective effort against those alien bastards that want to steal our planet.
