September 14, 2007
Making change happen faster in Adland
It seems like a lot of blogs ramble on about things that the author thinks should happen or their opinion on what did happen.
This role of reporting or offering opinion is all well and good, but in some ways I think it's follows traditional journalism a little too closely. For those of us interested in being agents of change, what if we put a little more effort into writing in such a way to practically help the process of change actually happen.
Got your client to make the leap to skip TV in the ad budget and plunk it down on online? How about sharing that with the rest of the group.
I find that anecdotal stories are often more persuasive than a stack of research, especially if it's a story about a recognizable brand and the story ended well. And if the client is leaning towards it, it just might the nudge to get them to take the leap.
So, here' my short list of ideas:
1) Make plans when you are budgeting to allocate to online advertising well up front of developing the campaign media plan.
Halfway through the year or the campaign is not the time to come up with some brilliant strategy for the use of online. In fact, it may take you a couple of years to win the battle, but keep bringing it up. Change takes time.
The best conversation I ever had with a client in terms of results of getting more focus in online advertising went something like this in a budget meeting:
"I'm thinking this year I'd like to spend half our ad budget in online media. Whaddya think?"
And there's been no looking back since then. It's been a wonderful success all around.
2) When you're pitching that big online media plan in the planning meeting, have some strong creative concepts to go with it.
Let's be honest. Budgeting is a rational process but like any decision, it's also emotional. If you're pitching an idea, be excited about it! And have a really good idea so other people can get excited about it too!!
Everyone loves to work on new and interesting things as long as they don't feel like it's putting them in a risky position. You need to create enthusiam and be able to make it happen.
If you can't do those two things, you're not going to be able to move the yardsticks.
3) Allow yourself extra time to execute the new big idea.
If it's a big idea or novel, you probably haven't done it ten times already. So, allow yourself some extra time to make it happen. The last thing you want is be late on delivering the big idea you got everyone so excited about. It's nice if it's a positive experience all around.
4) Make a big deal out the results once they come in.
We're trying to change old patterns of doing things. It needs to be crystal clear to all involved that this new way of doing things works so that it ultimately becomes the way that things are done.
You can tell a lot about an organization's priorities by where the resources are allocated. Go and fight for you piece of it. Once you do that, you can make all your best laid plans come to be.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 1:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
Massive Opportunity - An In-Game Advertising POV
I'll be candid.
I am really tired of a lot of advertising out there.
That might sound like something odd to say for someone in advertising, but I feel that way for the most part because I know most conventional advertising is largely ineffective at reaching me - a high-value demo (if I do say so myself). As an example, I watch a high-definition channel from my local cable provider that is programmed out of Toronto instead of locally. I listen to very little radio - only a few minutes a day in the car. Other than the music I listen to is from iTunes. I don't read the local newspaper. The most news I get is from the Globe and Mail RSS feed in Google's Gmail.
One thing I have been excited about is the in-game advertising offering available through Massive Incorporated, one of Microsoft's recent acquisitions. I became acquainted with this company before all that and I really like what they are doing for advertising.
Here are some thoughts on why I think in-game advertising is such a good media placement.
Perhap the biggest merit of in game-advertising is that the ad is placed in an environment where the user's attention is extremely focussed.
Have you every talked to someone playing a video game? You don't exist. And God-forbid you walk in front of the TV! They will freak out/or try to look past you to continue what they were doing before the interruption. There are no potty breaks or PVR fast forwarding as there is with broadcast television. And it's hard to ignore because it's embedded in the game environment - unlike convential banner advertising that we have all learned to ignore because it's existence on the page in no way supports our agenda as a user and is generally placed on the periphery of the content.
It's the most measurable placement in it's delivery of a quality impression.
Massive counts an impression once it has been on screen for a cumulative 10 secs. A 9 second impression doesn't count or cost anything. So when you pay for an impression you know it has been seen. This is its biggest advantage over any banner ad (it's closest sibling to an existing media choice by technical definition). You can not measure how many times a consumer has looked at your banner ad. You only know when the web browser has requested it from the server and placed it somewhere in a webpage. There is no way of know if the user has scrolled past it on the page or more than likely not paid a bit of attention to it because they are looking at the part of the page that they are interested in (which I'm sorry to say is not the ads). In this way, I would argue the length of the impression and the placement of the impression are far superior.
There is a certain caché of the in-game the placement by positioning your brand as a peer with the other advertisers currently doing placements in this channel.
This one is hard to quantify but would you rather have an ad in Fortune or the local chamber pub if the same amount of people would see it? Would you rather appear beside an ad for some other global brand or appear alongside a local restaurant or auto dealer? Placing an ad in a game has the benefit of placing you alongside other global brands that are placing ads. In the process, I think this demonstrates a higher brand value and esteem because of the company you are keeping as an advertiser.
First mover advantage.
This stuff is new. It's good positioning for a brand to be where the new things are happening. And if you place localized ad (that they can offer by measn of IP geotargetting), it's going to be noticed by users - especially now when it's new.
It's a more modern & immersive type of placement.
The usual "content you like" then "ads to pay the bills" then "content you like" then "more ads to pay the bills" is getting a bit old in places. Branded content and product placement is a big growth area in advertising (some would argue the future of advertising - I hope to goodness it'll be tastefully done) but it makes it difficult for local brands to play the game because their audience and brand is geographically constrained. While no character in the game is going to interact virtually with your product in the game (today anyway - tomorrow maybe), this is an opportunity to secure a more immersive ad placement than the usual fare and I think that makes it a little more palatable to a cynical and advertising-weary public.
It's skews towards the elusive 18-34 demo which is often identified as a key audience but is hard to find in conventional media placements.
They've fled radio. They multitask on the computer (likely chatting on MSN) while watching television. Forget most print. Gaming has become a social hub with new web-networked consoles and voice communication connecting you with your friends during game play. And if they've left conventional media, it's been to come here.
It's a media placement that gives access to early technology adopters and influencers.
Find someone who gaming on an XBOX360 console and you've got someone at ease with technology, an early adopter and very likely someone who influences the technology decisions of those around them. Take me as an example - since buying an Apple computer in the spring - two other Apple computers have been purchased by members of my family because of my influence. Influencers are a worthy target when promoting technology-based products or services.
It's inexpensive to get in the door and an excellent value in comparison to other electronic placements.
In my opinion, it's a very modest investment for chance to delve into and gain some experience in an emerging online marketing opportunity alongside the big boys. The CPM may be higher than a conventional banner ad but it's well worth it. Industry click-throughs on banner ads are well below one percent. Banner ads are much weaker in terms of recall. (I'd defy anyone to recall a half dozen they saw yesterday). Frankly, I'd value an in-game ad at 10 times a conventional banner ad for all of the reasons above.
So, it's been interesting to see the brands that are placing advertising. It's generally the leading-edge clients and agencies with larger budgets that are pushing forward. I know Taxi has been placing ads for BMW Mini (good on ya!). I know some telcos and cellphone providers are advertising. As more agencies and clients figure out the value proposition here, it could get pricey and exclusive. But depending on how game title developers react to the demand for an 18-34 male demo, they may add a bunch of ad inventory opportunities into the game (but at the risk of gamer backlash). This is a delicate balance for them and I expect this will change something in terms of the consumer model for game pricing.
I'm going to be talking more about this. It's the most interesting and worthwhile ad product I've seen in a long time.
Advertising NEEDS more of this kind of thing...
Check out the Massive website at:
Posted by Derek Leverington at 10:08 PM
January 10, 2007
One Louder - 3D Outdoor for Brown Communications
Here's some 3D outdoor we did at work outside our building. What do you expect when a bunch of people in the industry are musicians?
I think I like this perhaps better than the last 3D we did. I think we should leave this outdoor up for good.
I put this photo up as hi-res as well as another one up on Flickr too.
And yours truly with a little Marshall loudness of my own.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 4:18 PM
September 11, 2006
Interactive in the Agency - Rekindling An Old Flame
Saw an interesting post today on the Hill & Knowlton blog about Interactive getting rolling again around the ad agency / PR world.
http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/lisawalker/archive/2006/09/08/4515.aspx
Good stuff. My stock is up then.
In the daily Marketing Mag email, I see there's a posting for a "Web 2.0 Evangelist" at Kamelio. (It must all the rage again, techy terms that confound clients are starting to flourish ... old habits die hard I guess.)
Myself, I'm partial to well-executed interactive coming out of the agency where a lot of the creative marketing thinking gets done. But that's easier said than done. Interactive hasn't paid many bills for agencies and more often than not it's been the other way around so it's kind of fallen off the radar in favour of focussing on other avante-garde service offerings. Better off figuring out how to ward off strategy-slinging management consultants vying for the ear of brand-conscious VP of Marketing.
Ah... interactive...
The rage came, the agencies bolted on the services thinking the world would change overnight, there was more integration theory than practice, superlatives abounded and everyone lost money. Integrated advertising with strong digital components are a tall order and it's the reason that really smart, well-rounded & strategic interactive shops are going to be able to take work away from agencies for the foreseeable future.
I need to post on this again, but I think the right structure is a very important ingredient in getting good integrated marketing out the door. Don't treat interactive as a separate thing. Get it inside the agency.
In the meantime, as the web comes back into vogue again (and it is and will continue to) it'll be interesting to see if we've learned anything from the last time around.
I did...
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:25 AM
June 24, 2006
Senate Committee Prefers Tax Dollars to Ad-Revenue on CBC
I know there are lots of people out there who think that Canada needs the CBC so we don't lose our "unique Canadian voice". Whatever. It's just too bad that it has to cost a billion dollars a year in government support to do that.
I, like a lot of other people much younger than the people who made the recommendation that CBC go ad-free, don't really watch much TV and tend to get my information from the internet.
So, I'm quite happy that advertisers pay for my grandparents to have a Canadian network to watch than me having to via my tax dollars.
This kind of thinking just kills me. Government regulating things that they don't seem to genuinely understand is a pain and just disrupts the flow of business for the people who do.
The whole media space is just going to keep getting more and more fragmented. As long as they don't start horsing around with trying the regulate the internet I don't much care.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 8:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
I (heart) the Canadian Tire guy...
...no, not in the Brokeback Mountain kind of way (not that there's anything wrong with that) but this whole issue just lights me up because it's a perfect example of where just because the guy isn't funny, blessed with a great smile and the looks of the more handsome of the two surgeon guys off Nip & Tuck, he's gets turfed and Taxi gets hired to add some "personality" to the brand.
Guess what? I'll best most of the people that watch those ads are no more handsome, cool or less annoying than that guy!!!! Hey Canada, sorry about this but I've got news - THAT'S YOU!!!!! Sitting around on your weekends farting around with your house, trying to figure out how to solve relatively meaningless problems in your quest to make your house appreciate marginally faster because it's more fun than RRSPs and give you an excuse to get away from your wife and kids in the garage and drink some beer!!!!!
So, the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Let's bring in the hot agency that does work for Telus and Mini. Rather than having TV that demonstrates how a product can solve a practical problem, we're going to get more clever advertising. Because that's what we need, more clever advertising.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Taxi. I like their stuff and they do a lot of good work but in this case, I think this one is going to go the wrong direction.
It's going to start with the objective. And what is it? Make Canadian Tire cooler? Add some "personality"? Sorry, it's named Canadian Tire and it's called just as often "Crappy Tire". How cool can it be? I'm going to have the same mediocre experience with the staff the next time as I did last time. Can anyone do anything about that? The cheap white tile floors will have the dull anti-lustre that comes from being walked on by balding, middle-aged, overweight Canadians all through our long winters.
More time should be spent on the in-store experience where the brand rubber hits the road rather than more advertising.
I already know for the most part what they sell because I've gone there every fourth Saturday since I was born. What these old commercials did is show some new innovative products that I wouldn't otherwise know about. That's a pretty good outcome when you think about it.
So, here's what will happen. No one will complain about the ads anymore. In fact, no one will really talk about them that much because they'll just be ads like a lot of other ads. They'll be well art-directed, cleverly written and make Canadian Tire seem a tiny bit cooler but they won't sell much if any more stuff because everything else about the experience of shopping at Canadian Tire will stay exactly the same.
So, I'll keep going to Home Depot for home stuff because I can find a sale associate that seems to want to help. I'll go to an auto parts shop for the stuff for my car because the parts are better and the guys at the parts shop know what they are talking about.
(And for the love of all of what is good, never buy a thermostat from Canadian Tire. You'll be changing it in 3 months and I don't care that much about the warranty considering the total pain in the butt it is to install them. At least the guy at the one near here has the decency to not sell them to people because they are so prone to fail!)
I'll buy my tires from a tire shop because the last set I took to Canadian Tire were overinflated by about 20 psi (I'm very fortunate they didn't blow out since they were at 50 psi). And generally Canadian Tire will continue to be as much a part of the Canadian fabric as Quebec separatism and life will go on.
Honesty time...the ads bugged me too sometimes, but they were effective and it's too bad that someone didn't steer this thing in the right direction and keep the good elements of it before it got to this point where everyone bitches about them. In concept they were really good, the execution needed some touching up.
So, here's to you Ted Simonett. You're one of us, whether we'd like to admit it or not. If someone needed an infomercial that needs a normal guy doing normal stuff, you're the man for the job.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)
November 8, 2005
Yahoo Think Tank
Yahoo launches their Think Tank project.
http://www.yahoothinktank.com.au/
I love these kinds of creative experiments. I can't decide whether it glorifies or demystifies the creative process.
Either way, I think I am going to start wearing a toque to work more often.
This via Smart Mobs.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
Introducing Ads
For a guy who works in advertising, I should have done this a long time ago.
You've likely already noticed the addition of Google Adwords on the site.
Honestly, I don't have big profit ambitions. What I am more curious about is just the use of the program as a site operator/blogger.
I'll share any relevant findings/experiences as I go along.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 1:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 5, 2005
Scary Viral
http://www.schooliscoming.com/
There's a first time for everything and this viral is particularly scary.
Not that the content is frightening, the scary part is that my 8-year old daughter heard about it before I did, RSS-bearing interactive geek that I am.
Now that's scaring me.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2005
Tobacco advertising - I'm not sure who's worse . . .
the tobacco companies or the pharmaceutical companies.
They both want to sell you nicotone and they both profit off of people's addictions . . .
Yes, this is one man's opinion, and not an expert one at this, but this really bothers me.
I read today that Pfizer, with the help of JWT, are launching another campaign in Canada to promote their Nicorette product.
Here's the problem I have with using Nicorette or any other like product to quit smoking. It's a fundamentally flawed idea. Cigarette smokers are addicted to nicotine, not cigarettes. And those who quit are the ones who break their addiction to nicotine.
I don't see anyone chewing cocaine gum or heroin gum to quit those addictions. Why is this treated any different? The whole idea of easing off of any addictive drug but substituting one form for another is simply not going to work. It's a misguided notion that preys on the the mind of nicotine addicts.
"Maybe rather than quitting all at once, I can ease off of it . . . "
Nice thought. Not reality.
Pzizer had sales of $1.78 billion in 2004 on it's consumer products. I couldn't find a product-level breakdown in their annual report but Nicorette would make up part of that figure. That's not chump change.
Look at this video clip on the Nicorette site - the falsehood is evident right in their ads.
I understand the latest ad by JWT represents the nicotine addiction as a green creature, but still positions Nicoderm as the way to make it go away.
http://nicorette.quit.com/files/New_Guy_30.wmv
Ya, the guy felt better but what did Nicorette do to help this guy break his addiction?
Nothing.
It perpetuated it and but made him think he was making progress on the path to recovery. He's not. He just took another hit of the drug - but just through a different delivery mechanism.
Give them all a month and they'll all be standing out there having a cigarette break.
If you want to break the addiction, you have to face it and break it.
Buddy should find some new folks to hang out with while he's dealing with it and keep away from the smokes and the damn gum.
In my opinion, the tobacco companies and Pfizer should both butt out of trying to act like they want people to quit. They both make money on this stuff. And I don't know why government and health agencies who must know better don't do something about this. I can only speak anecdotally, but I personally don't know anyone who got into a quit with nicotine gum or a patch who stayed off. The only people I know who quit are the ones who went cold turkey or did a few days on non-nicotine based meds.
Want to know what worked for me and other people I know who have stayed off? Educated cold turkey. Visit www.whyquit.com with my strong personal endorsement.
It's free.
At least with the cigarette companies, you know what they're up to. With the pharma companies, it's harder to see them coming.
I think someone should pay to advertise cold turkey.
Addition: just located this link to the JAMA site.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/288/10/1260
Notice the conclusion:
"Since becoming available over the counter, NRT appears no longer effective in increasing long-term successful cessation in California smokers."
Posted by Derek Leverington at 1:09 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2005
Edgy Creative Lands Walmart in Hot Water
We've all heard the story of how Walmart got themselves in trouble with Nazi-era imagery in their ads.
Edgy creative is often a recipe for problems. Some brands, especially large established ones like Walmart, shouldn't go anywhere near this kind of stuff and their agencies should know better.
Long story short - don't let "breaking through the clutter" come ahead of other important marketing disciplines i.e. research on customer needs, product development and a well examined customer experience.
The notion of being able to dream up the magical ad that is going to change everything is a romantic thought for creatives. However, agencies should remember that the world is not sitting out there waiting for some ad to unleashed on an unsuspecting public spurring skyrocketing awareness of a product, rapid growth in market share and peace in the Middle East.
Walmart is naive to expect a flood of public support based on what amounts to a play in creating fear and frankly the similarities between the U.S. and Nazi Germany are a stretch. Although even in a free market economy, the biggest and most successful players seem to get their share of backlash and punishment along the way, this kind of tactic isn't going to get anyone on side.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2005
Use of Web with TV Advertising - Do it!!!!
I'm amazed that more tv ads don't make better use of the web as a response mechanism.
Everyone keeps talking about the death of the :30. Does it have to die or can it transition to a part of a multichannel approach.
There's lots of opportunities here. Continue interesting creative (hello beer companies), drive a transaction hard right then and there (space foam something or other) or more exhaustive production eduction for more complex products (like health products or consumer technology).
Take the last one for example, it used to be that you had to do something like an infomercial if you wanted to be able to communicate extensive product information. A well integrated :60 to push an online component could accomplish similar results with a more primetime buy. Better yet, the consumer could actually interact with the product demonstration site and potentially learn more about the product than they could watching an information.
Want a spokeperson? Bring them along. In fact, build them into the online component. Macromedia Flash's video compression has come along way from what it used to be. Using high quality motion video along with full user interactivity is now a possibility. And it can look really good.
Maybe there's life before death for the :30 after all.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)
Use of Web with TV Advertising - Do it!!!!
I'm amazed that more tv ads don't make better use of the web as a response mechanism.
Everyone keeps talking about the death of the :30. Does it have to die or can it transition to a part of a multichannel approach.
There's lots of opportunities here. Continue interesting creative (hello beer companies), drive a transaction hard right then and there (space foam something or other) or more exhaustive production eduction for more complex products (like health products or consumer technology).
Take the last one for example, it used to be that you had to do something like an infomercial if you wanted to be able to communicate extensive product information. A well integrated :60 to push an online component could accomplish similar results with a more primetime buy. Better yet, the consumer could actually interact with the product demonstration site and potentially learn more about the product than they could watching an information.
Want a spokeperson? Bring them along. In fact, build them into the online component. Macromedia Flash's video compression has come along way from what it used to be. Using high quality motion video along with full user interactivity is now a possibility. And it can look really good.
Maybe there's life before death for the :30 after all.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
Product Placements in Video Games
I blogged about this a few days ago and saw this article today on product placements in video games.
We are already used to big name brands showing up in video games. I wonder how long it will be until this kind of benefit can be rolled out in a localized fashion. For example, instead of Pizza Hut, the local pizza joint down the road shows up in Grand Theft Auto. Not that this kind of placement is going to be for everyone, but for youth marketing, it would be pretty hard to mass media as we know it today to compete with it.
It's not really even a technology problem anymore, it's more a challenge of an ad program to manage the minutiae. At a base level, it is really just a glorified banner ad except with a more sophisticated display engine - a video console instead of a web page.
Who knows? Maybe someday video games will be entirely subsidized by contextual ads.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 10:27 PM | Comments (1)