Commercials as Entertainment AdAge's AdReview talks about the Sonic commercials and the well executed jokes and humor in them. The Sonic commercials are an example of commercials that you might not want to fast forward just because they are actually entertaining. (If you TiVo everything, then you might not know that..) But as I've been saying for a while now, the 30 second commercial is dead. So what do you do?
ABC.com allows one advertiser to purchase the entire ad portion during its commercial breaks. It really pains me when I see the advertiser using that time poorly, meaning it simply shows the same non engaging commercial every single commercial break. However, Fidelity had an interesting ad where they asked you very simple questions and showed a simple animation based on your answer. And thus you could do the same with your commercials. Depending on the ad time (still 30 seconds), why not shoot a variety of different commercials that all wove together into one story line? Interruption advertising is no longer working. It could actually detract from the brand. However, we've all grown up watching commercials so we actually tolerate them. But our recollection is virtually zero. Don't think that commercials have to inform. Look at the buzz created by JJ Abrams new film tenatively titled Cloverfield. It didn't tell us anything about that film yet people are Googling and speculating about what it could be. Let the audience decide whether they are interested enough to find out more from the quick teaser that you give them. If we can make our commercial actually become water cooler talk we've done our jobs.
There are just some moments in your life when for once, you just don't want to be marketed to. And for Greg Verdino its when he's updating his blog. In his marketing blog, he makes a good point about interruption advertising and how it sometimes brings about bad will to a given sponsor and media outlet.
We've seen that the most successful advertising and media company out there Google lets you choose when you want to be marketed to. And that is the model of the new millenium. With all of the tools that we have to bypass commercials (i.e. Tivo), with all of the conditioning to ignore that we've grown up with, we need to find times when people want to be interrupted with a certain ad.
A tool that I saw last night is really cool. It's called UpNext and right now only works in Manhattan. But its Google Maps on steroids and while it basically launched last night, it is addictive. I surfed around the virtual streets and buildings of Manhattan for a few hours last night looking at all of the buildings and finding out all of the restaurants and bars that I never knew about in my neighborhood. I was happy to entertain that there was a Cuban restaurant a few blocks from my apartment and actually clicked on it to learn more.
Interruption advertising doesn't work. It's an annoyance. If we click on it, its an accident. I read an AdAge article this morning about relevance. Why is Netflix blanketing the world with its pop ups? Sure everyone watches movies, but don't you think real movie buffs would want the 10 discs at a time plan? Why not advertise on IMDB, Yahoo! Movies and other relevant sites? As this blogger said, its virtually riskless in this online space where there's lower production costs and media buys are not as expensive as television. Take a risk, go out there and find a niche and appeal to them. Or else feel the result....Since by now we already know about Netflix and as they continue to interrupt folks like Greg Verdino, they may lose more and more subscribers.
Everyone's a Star
The ever popular live webcast Justin.TV has turned Justin Kan into an overnight web celebrity. He's opened his life up to the entire world, everything from police raids, landlord eviction, even things in Justin's personal life. Justin Twitters his goings on and keeps everyone in the loop about what he's doing. At just two months old, the site has really gotten some great traction. So, what's next for Justin? They are opening the site up for other live webcasters to become the next Justin. Via TechCrunch, you'll be able to create your own URL's, broadcast your own Twitters, real time chat, calendar, everything.
This idea is really really interesting. I'm not sure how much traction it will gain, although as hardware costs continue to drop a decent webcam attached to your hat (ala Justin) would set you back about $50. Further as we are already impatient enough when you don't respond to an email immediately (and hence IM is so popular) we can actually see what you are doing as to why you aren't responding. Could Justin.tv be the next MySpace?
I don't know about Justin, but I know that the majority of us can't stand to be "on" all the time (like in the Truman Show). Even some stars need their alone, quiet time. Justin is really sacrificing his life by broadcasting 24/7. I think college kids could probably get away with putting a webcam on your head, but what about when you "grow up" and get a real job? I don't think your employer would be too happy.
But the real value in this then becomes who we are putting our webcam on top of. While the rest of the magazine industry has been shrinking, we've seen growth in celebrity gossip magazines. We've seen "glimpse" type shows like Curb your Enthusiasm (look into a day in the life of Larry David), or Entourage (look into a day in the life of a movie star) really take off. However, these are things that are made to entertain. Could you imagine the laws that would be broken if we put a Justin.tv on Donald Trump's head? All of the deals that he would be doing would be known before they were announced. Sergey Brin's head? You'd be able to know what other medium sized company he was going to buy next, run up the stock price, and wait for the official announcement (although I'm sure GOOG traders are watching Sergey's Justin.tv page too). So it really comes down to celebrities and Hollywood celebrities at that, otherwise I'm sure alot of information that we don't want out there will get out when we forget to turn off our Justin cam.
Product Placement Rears Its Head Online
Someone is finally listening! In an announcement yesterday (via Mashable) VideoEgg announces their exclusive syndication strategy with The Burg an online series about life in Williamsburg. The Burg which aired in June 2006 and is available at theburg.tv started as a twenty minute sit com like series. However VideoEgg appears to be syndicating four minute episodes that are sponsored by Motorola and therefore featuring Motorola products.
Well this was what I've been talking about for a while. The integration of product with content in order to convey lifestyle messages to an audience. The cool hipness of Williamsburg residents should cross over well with the audience that Motorola is trying to attract. Now I guess the big question is if Motorola is willing to split the sponsorship or if The Burg producers are willing to up the ante and not only have a cell phone sponsor but also a clothing sponsor, sunglasses sponsor, watch sponsor....
Survivor made television history as being one of the first reality shows on primetime network television. (I think The Real World on MTV was the first real reality show, but who's keeping score?) Since Survivor and Richard Hatch's win, television has gone on to produce hundreds of reality shows and rekindle the game show as a source of prime time entertainment. While many cited reality television as simply a fad, others have noted the strength of reality not simply in the economics (sometimes 20% of the production budget on a scripted show) but also in the fact that the audience has an opportunity to determine the outcome sometimes (ala American Idol). It appears that audiences want more and more power and when you hear someone in the theater screaming "Don't open that door!" they really mean it.
Well that's great that reality is here to stay, and there's been a bunch of horrible shows out there in the genre and there's been a few that have become part of our culture (The Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, and of course American Idol), but what does this have to do with marketing? You may remember LonelyGirl15 the YouTube vlogger that was outed as being scripted, and racked up hundreds of thousands of hits all the while. There's been the Subservient Chicken, where you can control the chicken via a text box. Recently I noted a "Text Your Own Adventure" Spiderman video on YouTube. And even more recently, the Diesel Underwear marketing campaign, where two "Heidies" capture a Diesel salesperson and lock themselves into a hotel room for five days. Visitors to the site were able to communicate directly with the girls by asking them to write their names on the guy's flesh, singing a song, and just about anything, similar to Subservient Chicken. There was no explicit branding but a lot of Diesel underwear as product placement. Reports were cited that traffic to the site spiked to five times its normal traffic. So that's it. A reality interactive commercial, creating an interactive event (you can communicate LIVE) without any scripts (clearly since you can ask them to do anything) with a great branding campaign (all of the beautiful people in the video in their Diesel underwear). The two hottest trends out there reality and interactive combined into one. Will we see more of these campaigns? Absolutely. But I think we'll also see more combinations of interactive commercials scripted or reality using the Internet as enabler. We'll see....
Widgets Everywhere!
Widgets are the hot new thing of Web 2.0 - everything from YouTube embeds to mashups to music players and so on. Widgets are basically Flash or javascript code that authors can simply place on their site and users can interact with them in some way (whether its answering a poll, e-commerce, watching a video, listening to music, etc.)
The e-commerce aspect is hot topic now on widgets since the interactivity of them and the portability of them allow for some really interesting applications. WidgetSense (coined by Steve Rubel) allows for Flash or javascript enabled Google Adsense to be embedded into widgets. Two new companies, Tumri and Mpire, (via Techcrunch) have announced e-commerce widgets. Coupled with eBay's widgets and the plethora of other widgets out there, it appears as if we have a widget revolution.
Marketing wise, what does this mean? Well, I think that we can now have those interactive, flashy (not Flashy if you get the difference), and interesting ad campaigns that we've always wanted to. Targeted and completely relevant to the content of the page, these new widgets are more catchy than Adsense and hopefully will provide more value to the advertiser. Time to rethink your SEM strategy!
Video Game Spending Up In today's eMarketer, the report stated how video game spending pegged at about a billion dollars for 07 will nearly double in four years. I think marketers are realizing the potential of video games and the power of product placement, especially interactive product placement. A few months ago, Microsoft bought Massive, an advertising company specializing in billboards for video games. We've seen the success of Burger King's XBox Games. I attended the King Kong premiere last year and instead of a goodie bag they asked me if I wanted a Playstation or XBox Game of King Kong. We've seen the launch of PS3's take on Second Life. And speaking of Second Life, we've seen the massive (no pun here!) press that it has gotten for being an interactive world where real money is transacted.
All of this points to a slow integration of products and services into the content that we consume. Interactivity is the key to building a strong brand. While celebrity and character endorsement is powerful, nothing is more powerful than experiencing something first hand, even if that is through YOUR avatar or video game character (or even yourself through Wii's new interface). I don't think as marketers we give people enough credit. I think they would very much like to be engaged with your brand, if your brand has something compelling to engage with. For example, watching ABC's prime time shows online, some of the commercials that are shown are simply TV commercials repurposed for the web. I can't wait to click on that Continue button. However, commercials that have a story line, or allow you to click to play a game or something that engages you with the brand during that mandatory thirty second break are more likely to be successful. You are actually interacting with that brand as opposed to mindlessly watching a 30 second countdown. In Second Life, you experience (or at least your Avatar experiences) the difference between regular shoes and Nikes. Likewise in video games (which if you think about it, Second Life is one big video game). Point here: keep your eye on this space and begin to develop your own branded content and allow consumers to use your content on their avatars or characters and they eventually may use them in real life.
