Tom Carroll, president/CEO of TBWA Worldwide, was one of the industry leaders who spoke at the recent American Association of Advertising Agencies conference on the rise of digital media. In this week’s iChat, Carroll discusses how digital media has become the central element in advertising campaigns, how TBWA personnel have become digitally focused and how the agency is using broadband video advertising for its clients. Ultimately, Carroll says TBWA is “media agnostic,” and will use the format that is best for any client, but he says all digital formats, including mobile, are now prevalent in TBWA agency campaigns.
iSPOT: At the recent American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Leadership Conference you were quoted as saying, “It’s all digital, everything we do is digital.” As far as TBWA goes, how much digital advertising actually goes on?
Carroll: I think my point was simple, which is everything used to start with a brochure and all things emanated from that as to how a company explained itself, what it stood for and what its products were. Today’s brochure is a website. All things start from the web. To me it starts from your web site, with our web work, our interactive stuff and our YouTube stuff. Everything we touch is digital and more importantly it’s a false separation, this thing called traditional and digital. It’s all touch points in terms of brands so everything we do is digital. How you talk to consumers and reach consumers is all digital, so there’s no traditional media and digital media, there’s media.
iSPOT: As far as agencies are concerned, there’s still traditional work to do.
Carroll: And now they’re all integrated. Most of our work, particularly targeted to a younger audience, ends up on YouTube, is that digital? It’s an objective of our work, particularly when you talk to 15-year-old boys for Skittles or Starburst–you want it to end up on YouTube. A TV commercial has a digital life after it airs on broadcast. It’s more a point of the world starts digitally and we go from there. Most people access companies via the web, 70 percent go to the web first. That’s a pretty significant number.
iSPOT: Are there separate divisions at your agencies where some work on traditional media and some work on digital?
Carroll: It’s all one. Ten years ago you started with television commercials and you went from there. Rarely does anyone start a presentation with a television commercial anymore, nine times out of ten you start with something digital, then you can talk about TV, outdoor and print. There’s more and more people who have grown up in the TV or print world who find it easier to generate digital ideas. The teams are the same, some people have more digital background than others but nine times out of ten you’re coming off the same insights and strategy to do the work.
iSPOT: Can you talk abut the use of broadband video advertising?
Carroll: I’m not the best expert on that but I just walked out of my office after seeing an ad that was specifically shot for broadband airing, we don’t have a TV schedule yet. It was for Absolut Vodka. Someone showed me a rough cut of an ad that was shot and it’s specific use is broadband. It has components attached to it that will play on the web. It’s a broadband web-based idea that has a promotional component attached to it. My first question was where will I see it? What network are we running on? It’s very exciting.
iSPOT: Do you think there are any challenges to using video, such as what formats work best?
Carroll: It’s all a challenge. It’s new so you get some good stuff and stuff that’s a little weak. YouTube has a low percentage of things that are good. Eventually we’ll get to the point where the only things that are going to be viewed are well produced, interesting and unique.
iSPOT: What is the agency role in advancing the use of broadband video?
Carroll: Our role is to guide our clients to find their customers wherever they are. If the best way to reach them is broadband video, that’s where we’ll go. If the best way to reach them is television, that’s where we’ll go. We’re totally media agnostic. It’s where are they and how do we touch them. The example I gave you is we found the audience online and that’s why we produced the broadband spot.
iSPOT: How do you determine what is the most effective way?
Carroll: It’s tough. We have more and more data and we’re getting better at understanding that data and translating it into strategic thinking about how to reach customers effectively. Data isn’t always right. It’s only right if it motivates the consumers and leads to a sale. For the data to be right is irrelevant if it doesn’t sells stuff.
iSPOT: We’ve recently been writing about mobile video. Will TBWA go there?
Carroll: Without question we will. When you look at the iPhone and the quality, at first many people were cynical about the idea of using mobile because of the size of the screen and as a place where you would see much video. I would argue that now when you look at the iPhone, there’s much higher resolution, so you can download TV shows. You realize at once there’s a future.
Copyright © 2008 DCA Business Media LLC. All rights reserved. All text, photos, graphics, artwork, and other material on the SHOOTonline.com site are copyrighted. All copying, reposting or reproduction, especially for commercial publicity use or resale in any manner, form, or medium, requires explicit, prior, permission from the publisher. If you have any questions regarding copyright or use of the materials on this site, are interested in article linking, reposting, pdf creation, or any form of rticle re-distribution contact permissions@shootonline.com, we will try to address your needs and concerns. SHOOTonline.com may, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, terminate the accounts of users who infringe the intellectual property rights of others.
