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Reinventing
advertising
B y
now you’ve heard all of the abuse of Iraqi POWs in Abu Ghraib
prison, and seen the stark images in print and on TV. These horrific
images fly in the face of so much PR that the U.S. undertook post
September 11th, 2001. In a previous column I referred to the famous
‘Shared Values Initiative’ crafted by Madison Avenue’s own Charlotte
Beers, to combat the bad press America was getting in the Arab and
Muslim world. Even then, a Gallup poll had found that despite the
campaign, the negative opinions of 9 Muslim countries were twice as
high as favourable ones. So much for image building. Worse, I
checked the ‘Open Dialogue’ Web site that supplemented this effort
(at
www.opendialogue.org), and found that it has not been
updated since Ramadan 2002!
But
it’s not just the PR folk who handle Middle East foreign policy who
make Madison Avenue look so out of touch. It’s the tactics they
still use to market baked beans, detergents and sneakers. Rance
Crain, Editor of Advertising Age, recently questioned “why are
advertising agencies turning out to be the weakest link in the
marketing chain?” Many marketers have been waking up to this fact,
and issuing an ultimatum.
Proctor & Gamble,
probably the most risk-averse of marketers, suddenly realized that
TV advertising was a waste of money. At a 4As media conference in
February this year, Chief Marketing Officer Jim Stengel announced
that “there must be and is life beyond the 30-second TV spot. We all
say this but most of our spending and activities systems revolve
around that.” He then declared that the company was replacing its
‘media planning’ account with something called ‘communications
planning.’ P&G, it must be noted, spends over 70% of its $2.5
billion ad budge
Stengel’s call to action sent tremors throughout the media-centric
ad world. It was felt by people who have watched the mass media
campaigns being usurped by the guerrilla tactics such as creative
use of outdoor, social networks, and viral marketing.
Take the case of Ikea, the Scandinavian furniture store, now
expanding rapidly in Europe and Asia. Ikea, as you may know, has
produced some endearing TV commercials. But to ‘advertise’ their
product in China, Ikea went out to twenty low-income apartment
complexes in Beijing and refurbished the interiors of their
elevators.
Inside the lifts, as Advertising Age reports, Ikea built small
cabinets, hung drapes and posters, and placed tea cups and crockery
in the cabinets. Likewise in Germany, Ikea refurbished train
stations, making very public places suddenly their own venue for
advertising.
One
does not need much imagination to know the effect of a spanking new
interior in a lift of a run-down building. It is not ‘synergistic’
as they say in ad-speak! It doesn’t blend in. It screams for
attention. Precisely the goals of ads placed in traditional media,
with much more relevance. It’s a case of thinking outside the prison
of TV-Print-Radio!
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P&Gs media shift, while it marks the beginning of the end of
TV-centric advertising, wasn’t the tipping point. It’s more
symptomatic of the new media mix that’s working harder. Toyota, and
Mazda in the U.S. have been creating viral marketing campaigns
designed to create buzz outside the mainstream media. The Mazda ads
are short TV commercials, but only released on the Internet, via
their Web site. There are ‘his and hers’ versions, too, so as to
make sure they get spread ‘virally’ by men and women.
Just like P&G, Steve Heyer of Coca-Cola also threw the gauntlet to
ad agencies this year, urging them to take risks. He spoke at a
‘Madison & Vine’ conference – a event touting the necessary
integration of the techniques of Madison Avenue and Hollywood.
Product placement in TV and movie scripts isn’t working hard enough,
apparently. This is the age of TiVo, the much feared personal video
recorder, and marketers want advertisers to get in on the format and
the production, rather than in the pretty ads. The call to arms was
for advertisers to start thinking more in terms of entertainment and
context.
Heyer warned that “marketers will not reflexively turn to TV
advertising” when seeking a “consumer connection.” A good response
to that is Adidas’ use of ‘live action billboards’ in Tokyo, with
stunning entertainment value. What’s a live action billboard? As the
term suggests, these are billboards where live actors dramatize the
brand. In one, a basketball player jumps off a trampoline below him
to sink a ball in the basket some two stories high. It’s more like
street theatre. A commercial break –for motorists, at least--minus
the media. How cool is that!
One of the agencies creating such ‘advertising’ is Mediaedge:cia.
It speaks of its work in Heyes’ terms, as “creating effective and
durable connections.” Its goal is to create “connections that engage
consumers with brands and influence their behaviour thereby
delivering measurable business results.”
The words ‘connections,’ ‘engage,’ and ‘measurable’ are not there
by accident. These are the touchstones of the new advertising, that
the traditional media planners of old seldom touched on in their
PowerPoint presentations. A similar ‘un-agency’ called BrandBuzz, (a
division of Young and Rubicam advertising,) talks of ‘deploying
multi-discipline communications specialists to create programs that
merge traditional, non-traditional, and new media solutions for
long-term business impact.” The accent is on ‘programs’, ‘long term’
and ‘word of mouth’ not 5-part print ads, or 30-second spots. This
may be the new blood of Madison Avenue, and the rush is on to
involve the customers, big time. It’s about time.
Let’s just hope they remember to update their Web sites! |
