Is Digital the New Advertising?
by asi
The rare white tiger, image via
I’ve been thinking of this one for some time now and although I don’t have any robust conclusions, I thought I’d post my unstructured pondering and to ‘tag’ some much cleverer people to respond.
Read some end-of-year reviews and analyses and you’ll quickly acknowledge the fact that “2006 was the year that digital was fully embraced by brands and marketers”. Just a year, year and a half ago this whole web 2.0 phenomena and trends were really novel (can you remember the world before YouTube??) new-marketing ideas were fresh, daring and exciting, User Generated Content used to arouse and not make you yawn or cry in despair and viral was something that happened not something that marketing directors demand from their agencies.
So now that digital is a reality rather than an emerging trend, every brand is online, everyone’s trying to build a community, everyone’s got something on YouTube, my granny considers getting a ning for her knitting mates and FMCG brands are trying to engage housewives with UGC competitions to win one year of free mr. muscle supply, what do you get?
10% of really bad stuff that makes you want to kill, 85% of mediocre stuff that leave you indifference at best and slightly annoyed at worst, and 5% of really brilliant stuff.
Wait. that crude statistics sounds familiar….isn’t that exactly like advertising? (OK, perhaps the stuff that makes you want to kill in advertising is 25%)
Now, obviously (and thank god for that) the key difference is that digital as we all know, is not mostly-totally-irrelevant-shit-stuck-in-your-face-in-the -middle-of-[your favorite TV programme here]. The invitation/permission vs. interruption/in-your-face model is what will keep digital relevant for many years to come because people can choose to interact with marketing messages and brands on their own terms, whenever and wherever they want – and I will never underestimate that.
But my point is regarding the creative works.
Ask yourself – when was the last time you saw truly amazing online campaign?
Now that digital is so ubiquitous, the ability and possibility to innovate, excite and stand out from the crowd is damn hard. To go back to the crude numbers, even if the majority of the works in digital are rather OK , still the fact is that truly amazing digital marketing communications are increasingly a rare commodity.
I’d really like to hear your views on that.
Especially Richard, Iain, Russle, Faris, David and Dino (no obligation guys, really) but of course everyones more than welcome.
Hmmmm,
I think you should go easy on digital.
We have had 50 years to perfect TV and rather longer to get Print and cinema right. Bizarely of course the newest orthodox advertising medium is radio (1973 in the UK) and we are only just working out how to get that right. So if digital is a bit rough and ready that might be the reason – we need more practice.
That said here are a few provocations:
- digital is more obsessed with the ‘how’ than the ‘what’ – why wouldn’t it be this stuff is cool and sometimes, just sometimes magical
- digital has suffered from low production budgets and values and been animation bound for years
- digital agencies are teaching us all a can-do philosophy and the value of speed but sometimes time helps you craft the work you love
- many digital agencies are from a design tradition not a marketing tradition
- digital agencies feed of other people’s ideas and so end up activating stuff they didn’t create – they are therefore dependent on the old tat from the above the line agency
- when this isn’t the case the work is often tactical rather than working to a proper brand idea
- clients still look to digital campaigns for budget basement CPR and so an obsession with quality can be lacking
- there is an over supply of work in the digital arena so you don’t have to be brilliant to make a living
How about that for starters Asi?
great run through. I think online is interesting when most clients cant event get their own websites to a usable state yet. I wrote a post on this a few days back
post: http://thingsdonotchangewechange.blogspot.com
I love Rich’s comparisons to the current media and how they are developed. A couple of problems though. That was in a world where agencies and media companies somewhat controlled creativity within the channel.
Ask Bill Gates or the boys at Google what there number one threat is. They have all said, some little guy or girl in a garage somewhere who will create something tomorrow and gain traction online quickly.
Its no longer a comment in a research group or ticking a box in brand tracking. They have a computer full of programs, a channel with a mass audience and a little creativity. So in turn it should all drive creativity even and agencies be it digital or not. Agencies just need to do even better work
Thanks Richard for a very insightful reply!
I guess that the pace of change in digital is roughly 10 times faster than TV but perhaps we do need some time…
I didn’t mean to go harsh on digital- after all its the well I’m drinking from but I guess that my point was that when you move from niche to mainstream, from novelty to ubiquity you loose something and it was perhaps a kind of a wake-up call…
I think that the only way to keep it exciting is not to think of this medium/space through the narrow lenses of marketing comms and advertising but to think about utility interactivity and pure fun that can be delivered.
We are now at times where brands are both interactions and interfaces and in agencies like poke (which gladly are rare) we think about and do both.
As Iain recently comment “It’s not just about creating content, it’s about designing and building the platform that the content exists on too”.
I’ve got more on this but Sean needs some help. later.
[...] [Update Note] One of the challenges in working in a creative shop (whether interactive, advertising, film or food) is that looking at dozens of works everyday you grow numb and over-judgmental. Your “delight threshold” is quite difficult to charm. Perhaps that’s why I wrote this one recently. And perhaps I should have stayed with my initial delight from this experience and not searching for the nitty-gritty of stuff. It’s beautifully done, It’s funny and surprising – isn’t that enough? [...]
Hi Asi. Great blogging, keep on going.
My name is Fikret Sahin and I’m working for adinteractive, an online “marketing” agency in Istanbul, as Managing Director responsible for Creative & Marketing teams.
I needed to underline one sentence of Richard. (Hi Richard!)
“- many digital agencies are from a design tradition not a marketing tradition”
Yes, yes, yes!
Creativity in the “marketing idea” is much more important then creative design.
Creative and nice-looking design just makes you look good. This is like a shiny Ferrari. Is there an engine in it? Yeah, this is content.
Digital agencies have to switch their point of view and think much more marketing oriented in order to do things right.
What people do with their TV’s? They watch it and (mostly) kill their times (by doing nothing or self-entertaining).
Ask the same question yourself for internet. There’re several reasons and numerous different online paths associated with these reasons. I mean if they want to find a specific thing, the path starts with Google. If they want to read (and/or) watch news, the path starts with favourite news sites, and so on.
Brands and online marketers have to understand online people’s needs and know these online paths well in order to choose the wisest place to stand. I think there’s another thing to remember: Online advertising and online marketing are two completely different issues. Good and attractive banners may boost brand awareness for a while but they mean nothing without an experience after click.
Online Marketing is very deep subject, lots of things to say…
Methodology is crucial. I have some recommendations:
- Do not use the web like magazines. Web sites are not billboards.
- Position yourself on the everyday (online) path of your target audience. Don’t push them to be seen. Simply look smart, nice, different and offer them something interesting.
- Give people strong reasons to interact you.
- Instead of words, try to use interactive experiences to communicate your message.
- In today’s world, people have a good nose of ad. Do not over-smell like advertising. Try to be a part of their online path as an interesting and never seen side-road, worth for a short walk.
Thank you.
Fikret S.