While watching the Oscars last night, I was struck by something said. No, it had nothing to do with the pronouncement of winners (though I have my own questions concerning that). During a montage leading up to the award for best documentary, a director (I believe it was Werner Herzog who was nominated for “Encounters at the End of the World”, but don’t quote me) indicated that modern technology had enabled almost anyone the ability to shoot a film, so as time continues on, it becomes ever so much more important that you have a good story.
I couldn’t agree with him more, and I’m afraid this sentiment isn’t limited to film industry. With the ever continuing trend of technological innovations allowing an end user to become more effective and professional looking with minimal background and training, the resulting marketplace “noise” has increased by leaps and bounds. Anyone can endeavor to make their message and work heard, and so the actual ability to connect effectively has invariably become diminished.
On the other end of this train of thought is the current economic climate. Businesses struggle to make it through their own budget requirements, and this has resulted in a belt-tightening across the board. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, it’s almost inevitable that when budgets are being reviewed, one of the first areas people look to hack into is marketing and advertising. Since it is seen by many as a secondary product of their business, promotion dollars are easily pulled to the side in an effort to maintain more “primary expenses”.
This logic, of course, is flawed. The fact of the matter is, no product or service is capable of selling itself. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, one has to get out there, and be heard in a manner effective enough to sell. But this brings me back to the earlier point that with any individual now being empowered to reach out and touch the world, the resulting cacophony your ads are competing against means that there is a larger chance to be drowned out. So there is a chance that even if you maintain advertising dollars, they won’t be effective in the modern landscape, and you’re not only competing against direct competition, but every other bit of fluff, personal rambling, "clip of the day" and of course, the corporate giants who can spend more for a single ad than you’ll have available in an entire flight. Targeted advertising only helps to a degree, but even there, your competition is doing the same. So what is one to do?
The key is in your story.
This may or may not mean your company history, or a list of accomplishments and attributes. What it does include is a consistent, well-focused voice, and messaging able to cut through the surrounding muck to connect with the person who is willing to buy. Despite the overcrowding of the various media, there is a rare portion of the population that is truly able to tell that story effectively. If you can’t easily think of who that person is in your employ, or have one under contract, then it won’t matter how much money you throw into advertising. Effective communication, and by proxy, effective communicators are becoming a commodity in a world where everyone can have a voice, and most people have increasingly little to say.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
My blog, revisited…
Last week, I wrote about the Super Bowl headache maker known as the Sobe halftime 3-D craptacular. I called out brand guru and director Peter Arnell for his involvement in the unfortunate spot, and left it at that, but upon further investigation, I discovered that he was also responsible for a set of spots that struck me a brilliant over the Super Bowl weekend, and so I figured it was only fair to give credit where credit is due. In fact, I figured it might be wise to revisit some of the things I’ve mentioned earlier, and bring the blog up to speed.
The set of successful spots was for Pepsi, who appropriated the recent Saturday Night Live skit, MacGruber. For those who don’t know, MacGruber is similar to MacGyver, in that he’s supposed to be a genius who gets out of sticky situations using household materials. Every skit has roughly the same premise, placing MacGruber and companions in a locked room with a bomb that’s about to go off and only he can disarm. The problem (and the humor) is that he’s usually preoccupied with something more trivial, such as a mid-life crisis or being hung up on office place gossip, and he never gets around to diffusing the bombs. Well, on the Saturday before the Super Bowl during the SNL broadcast, MacGruber became a bit too preoccupied with Pepsi.
They looked and felt like the SNL skits that came before, but they had one major difference. They were actually commercials. Many viewers might have been fooled a bit by this bit, since SNL has made believable spoof advertisements in the past, and these ads and their placements could have been more of the same.
But on Super Bowl Sunday, another MacGruber (now to be known as “Pepsuber”) was aired.
The fallout wasn’t just exposure for the product in a humorous and memorable ad, but a flock to the internet to find out if the spots shown on SNL were actually skits or a commercial. This is impressive because creating this sort of intrigue generates action on the part of the consumer, and helps invest them in the product. Unlike other Super Bowl commercials that may only be able to point to impressions to justify the cost of the spot, Pepsi could actually measure certain actions, and they didn’t even have to ask directly. It was well done, and for that, I have to give it up to Mr. Arnell and his team. I guess there is a reason he’s a CEO and widely regarded branding genius and I’m… blogging. Also, excellent call in having Richard Dean Anderson reprise his role as McGyver.
Speaking of pretty good ideas, I wrote previously of Warner Music pulling it’s recording artist’s videos from Youtube in an effort to renegotiate profit systems, and how much that can stink for quality musicians like Amanda Palmer who relies so heavily on the net to communicate with her audience. Well, apparently this has been resolved (see the press statement here) in what they call an innovative partnership. Really, it’s not as bad as having the music removed altogether, but it’s still allowing for very heavy restrictions which limit the consumer’s ability to interact and consume the media openly, in hopes of protecting the record label’s interest. But that’s the way it has to be, right?
Well, not exactly. In my blog “Shared music and big results”, I wrote about how the band Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV had managed to rank as the top grossing MP3 album on Amazon for 2008, even though the songs were held under a creative commons license which allowed free sharing and consumption of the music with relatively few restrictions at all. Well, thanks to my friend Steve, I came upon this presentation by Techdirt's Mike Masnick, which is a brilliant summation of how the TRULY innovative marketing and distribution techniques used by Nine Inch Nails might be a preview of where marketing is likely to go in the next few years. Please enjoy.
The set of successful spots was for Pepsi, who appropriated the recent Saturday Night Live skit, MacGruber. For those who don’t know, MacGruber is similar to MacGyver, in that he’s supposed to be a genius who gets out of sticky situations using household materials. Every skit has roughly the same premise, placing MacGruber and companions in a locked room with a bomb that’s about to go off and only he can disarm. The problem (and the humor) is that he’s usually preoccupied with something more trivial, such as a mid-life crisis or being hung up on office place gossip, and he never gets around to diffusing the bombs. Well, on the Saturday before the Super Bowl during the SNL broadcast, MacGruber became a bit too preoccupied with Pepsi.
They looked and felt like the SNL skits that came before, but they had one major difference. They were actually commercials. Many viewers might have been fooled a bit by this bit, since SNL has made believable spoof advertisements in the past, and these ads and their placements could have been more of the same.
But on Super Bowl Sunday, another MacGruber (now to be known as “Pepsuber”) was aired.
The fallout wasn’t just exposure for the product in a humorous and memorable ad, but a flock to the internet to find out if the spots shown on SNL were actually skits or a commercial. This is impressive because creating this sort of intrigue generates action on the part of the consumer, and helps invest them in the product. Unlike other Super Bowl commercials that may only be able to point to impressions to justify the cost of the spot, Pepsi could actually measure certain actions, and they didn’t even have to ask directly. It was well done, and for that, I have to give it up to Mr. Arnell and his team. I guess there is a reason he’s a CEO and widely regarded branding genius and I’m… blogging. Also, excellent call in having Richard Dean Anderson reprise his role as McGyver.
Speaking of pretty good ideas, I wrote previously of Warner Music pulling it’s recording artist’s videos from Youtube in an effort to renegotiate profit systems, and how much that can stink for quality musicians like Amanda Palmer who relies so heavily on the net to communicate with her audience. Well, apparently this has been resolved (see the press statement here) in what they call an innovative partnership. Really, it’s not as bad as having the music removed altogether, but it’s still allowing for very heavy restrictions which limit the consumer’s ability to interact and consume the media openly, in hopes of protecting the record label’s interest. But that’s the way it has to be, right?
Well, not exactly. In my blog “Shared music and big results”, I wrote about how the band Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV had managed to rank as the top grossing MP3 album on Amazon for 2008, even though the songs were held under a creative commons license which allowed free sharing and consumption of the music with relatively few restrictions at all. Well, thanks to my friend Steve, I came upon this presentation by Techdirt's Mike Masnick, which is a brilliant summation of how the TRULY innovative marketing and distribution techniques used by Nine Inch Nails might be a preview of where marketing is likely to go in the next few years. Please enjoy.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Super Sunday, not so super spots... now in 3-D!!!
Super Sunday
It’s well known that the NFL Super Bowl has become one of the most widely watched television events each year, with a heavy viewing audience not only coast-to-coast, but around the world. This is part of the reason why companies would spend 3 million bucks for a 30 second slot… and in some cases that doesn’t even begin to touch the cost for the spots themselves.
Over the years, we’ve seen some really great ads come through, and though most spots are more flops than successes, it’s been enough to keep the eyes of people who don’t even like football stuck on the screen.
Again, this year's ads offered a handful of greatness, a giant spoonful of OK, and some ads that left a lot more questions than they did the inspiration to purchase. I’m going to try and keep this blog simple and not try to break down every nationally aired spot. That would be rude and largely unreadable. Instead, I’ve decided to focus instead almost exclusively on a single issue that came up for me.
In this blog, I have attempted to communicate that creativity is often king, but if it’s not backed up with a sound strategy, it is bound to be more of a failure than anything. This was shown in the advertising fizzle that was the 3-D halftime extravaganza provided in partnership by Sobe, NBC, and Dreamworks pictures Monsters vs. Aliens. It seems that 3-D is all the rage again, and that’s fine, save for one major issue. Most of us don’t have 3-D glasses lying about.
The concept probably started strong. 3-D, while not a new invention, hasn’t really been used in a while and is likely to draw many viewers to the small and large screens. The horror romp My Bloody Valentine probably found much greater success in offering up the scare and gore in all three dimensions than it could have ever found based on storyline alone. Add to that the future releases of Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar’s Up, and you’ve got the possibility of a real phenomenon on your hands. It’s a nice place to start. The problem then isn’t in the initial thinking, but in the execution. The lead-up to what could have been a truly super Sunday event was vastly under-promoted, leaving many would-be viewers in the dark, or "in the flat" as it were. I had only managed to come across one TV ad promoting the 3-D showing in the days before the Super Bowl, and the mention of where to get the needed glasses was incredibly brief. Offered at Sobe display cases nationwide the day before the game, or with the purchase of a specialty pack of Sobe Lifewater, the window to get in on what could have been a major event went largely unnoticed by the larger population and left the majority of viewers feeling cross-eyed. Then there were the spots themselves.
The preview of Monster’s vs. Aliens was pretty straight forward, offering those with the glasses only a brief taste of what was to come from the full length feature, which is fine except the old “paddleball coming at you” trick probably didn’t justify the effort of getting the glasses for many.
Then there was the Sobe addition to the mix. Last year, Sobe left many viewer questioning what the hell they had just seen. A team of lizards not promoting “Geico” danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a model. This year, director Peter Arnell opted against trying to make any sense at all and featured football players dancing ballet poorly, animated lizards wearing shoulder pads or spinning records at a DJ turntable, and characters from “Monsters vs. Aliens” popping in and out as time would allow. The 60-second period of madness hit a crescendo as the lizards, Monsters and fedora-adorned Ray Lewis starting dancing in a choreographed number, the music having evolved from a classical piece to some unmemorable original bit of music which asked the listener to “SoBelieve”.
And then… Ray Lewis turns into a lizard.
It felt like the ideas were picked by securing fractions of thought to a dartboard and then throwing those darts while blindfolded and drunk, but knowing you'd have to involve Ray Lewis. It had all the chaos of Careerbuilder’s screaming, crying, seal-riding, koala-punching romp without any of the absurd humor.
And Sobe’s spot was only in 3-D for a small percentage of the viewing population, making it twice as likely to evoke migraines.
Again, this all had the makings of a great idea, but without a proper lead-up, a coherent message, a quality concept, and appropriate event management, a great idea doesn’t mean much. For Sobe and friends, let’s hope it’s worth the 6-million plus dollars spent.
My suggestion is that next year, they should look for something really innovative options… like Miller Highlife.
It’s well known that the NFL Super Bowl has become one of the most widely watched television events each year, with a heavy viewing audience not only coast-to-coast, but around the world. This is part of the reason why companies would spend 3 million bucks for a 30 second slot… and in some cases that doesn’t even begin to touch the cost for the spots themselves.
Over the years, we’ve seen some really great ads come through, and though most spots are more flops than successes, it’s been enough to keep the eyes of people who don’t even like football stuck on the screen.
Again, this year's ads offered a handful of greatness, a giant spoonful of OK, and some ads that left a lot more questions than they did the inspiration to purchase. I’m going to try and keep this blog simple and not try to break down every nationally aired spot. That would be rude and largely unreadable. Instead, I’ve decided to focus instead almost exclusively on a single issue that came up for me.
In this blog, I have attempted to communicate that creativity is often king, but if it’s not backed up with a sound strategy, it is bound to be more of a failure than anything. This was shown in the advertising fizzle that was the 3-D halftime extravaganza provided in partnership by Sobe, NBC, and Dreamworks pictures Monsters vs. Aliens. It seems that 3-D is all the rage again, and that’s fine, save for one major issue. Most of us don’t have 3-D glasses lying about.
The concept probably started strong. 3-D, while not a new invention, hasn’t really been used in a while and is likely to draw many viewers to the small and large screens. The horror romp My Bloody Valentine probably found much greater success in offering up the scare and gore in all three dimensions than it could have ever found based on storyline alone. Add to that the future releases of Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar’s Up, and you’ve got the possibility of a real phenomenon on your hands. It’s a nice place to start. The problem then isn’t in the initial thinking, but in the execution. The lead-up to what could have been a truly super Sunday event was vastly under-promoted, leaving many would-be viewers in the dark, or "in the flat" as it were. I had only managed to come across one TV ad promoting the 3-D showing in the days before the Super Bowl, and the mention of where to get the needed glasses was incredibly brief. Offered at Sobe display cases nationwide the day before the game, or with the purchase of a specialty pack of Sobe Lifewater, the window to get in on what could have been a major event went largely unnoticed by the larger population and left the majority of viewers feeling cross-eyed. Then there were the spots themselves.
The preview of Monster’s vs. Aliens was pretty straight forward, offering those with the glasses only a brief taste of what was to come from the full length feature, which is fine except the old “paddleball coming at you” trick probably didn’t justify the effort of getting the glasses for many.
Then there was the Sobe addition to the mix. Last year, Sobe left many viewer questioning what the hell they had just seen. A team of lizards not promoting “Geico” danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a model. This year, director Peter Arnell opted against trying to make any sense at all and featured football players dancing ballet poorly, animated lizards wearing shoulder pads or spinning records at a DJ turntable, and characters from “Monsters vs. Aliens” popping in and out as time would allow. The 60-second period of madness hit a crescendo as the lizards, Monsters and fedora-adorned Ray Lewis starting dancing in a choreographed number, the music having evolved from a classical piece to some unmemorable original bit of music which asked the listener to “SoBelieve”.
And then… Ray Lewis turns into a lizard.
It felt like the ideas were picked by securing fractions of thought to a dartboard and then throwing those darts while blindfolded and drunk, but knowing you'd have to involve Ray Lewis. It had all the chaos of Careerbuilder’s screaming, crying, seal-riding, koala-punching romp without any of the absurd humor.
And Sobe’s spot was only in 3-D for a small percentage of the viewing population, making it twice as likely to evoke migraines.
Again, this all had the makings of a great idea, but without a proper lead-up, a coherent message, a quality concept, and appropriate event management, a great idea doesn’t mean much. For Sobe and friends, let’s hope it’s worth the 6-million plus dollars spent.
My suggestion is that next year, they should look for something really innovative options… like Miller Highlife.
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