“Sometimes it seems like all the reblogging and reposting and retweeting is a bit of a Ponzi scheme… On Facebook, for example, there’s a huge amount of pressure to amass sheer numbers of “likes.” And that leads to a lot of ideas that are all about getting Facebook likes and less about doing anything truly valuable for the brand or fascinating for your audience.” - Benjamin Palmer, Facebook makes brands stupid – Ad Week
The commentator said that, although all the traffic stats indicated that TV, and not Facebook, was the more obvious channel to reach the target audience, the simple fact was these days ”clients are tired of making TV commercials, Radio Spots and Billboards. They want something new, different and exciting”.
This I think captures the Zeitgeist and provides a real insight into why Facebook, So.Me and even mobile phone Apps are so popular in advertising and marketing circles the moment. As the industry emerges from the economic downturn Mad Ave’s creatives are using the new growth as an opportunity to once again experiment online.
If you think about it this is a great time to be in Advertising. The industry probably stopped evolving back in the early 1960′s after David Ogilvy wrote the industry’s play book. So although we are not quite seeing waves of “Creative Destruction” washing of the industry these are, none the less, interesting, and potentially very rewarding, times to be active in the industry.
By my reckoning there has already been three creative waves in online advertising over the past 15 years. The first was the dot-com boom where the media industry discovered much to it surprise that the old “Browse with us, buy from them” didn’t translate online. The eBusiness and the eCommerce revolution delivered a new model “Browse with us, buy from us” and experience proved that the easiest way to get them to browse with you online was to promote your site offline.
Then came the second much bigger revolution when Google reinvented the “Browse with us, buy from them” model by turning the network (i.e. the web) into the database and making the model content agnostic. Google planted the seeds that grew into a movement: SEO and the gaming of Google.
As they say in the classics… In the beginning there was the word and the word is what you where looking for… but who cares if you find it, so long as you click on the AdWord to begin your journey.
The third wave is of course So.Me (Think YouTube, WordPress and Facebook), Destination Me and the explosion in digital nests, my life as an advertising billboard and the somewhat paradoxical idea that if you are paying for advertising online today then your creative has seriously failed you.
It’s nice to be liked but does it move the stock off the shelves?
As I have said before, the advertising industry is comfortable with Facebook and So.Me.
Unlike Google, Facebook and So.Me doesn’t represent a quantum leap in traditional advertising thinking or methodology. If anything putting your latest Ad on YouTube for most media planners is nothing more than a line extension for a successful TV campaign.
The problem I see for So.Me however is it doesn’t appear to represent the next logical step in the evolution in the old media “Browse with us, buy from them” model. If anything it is a step backwards. More akin to a “DIY – Do It Yourself – Yahoo!” than an exploration of how the ”Browse with us, buy from them” model can be reworked and remodelled into something that really does deliver on its promise for retailers.
For So.Me to survive, thrive and ultimately revolutionise advertising it has to evolve into much, much more than just the conversation economy. It needs to provide advertisers with a new set of tools to reshape how we – the customer – see and interact with the retail world.
“[Mobile] Apps are a classic example of this shift from broadcast to multifaceted engagement. They enable brands to connect with consumers at numerous touchpoints, whether at home or in the shops … It opens a lot of opportunities for our clients, but also challenges.” - WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell at last week’s MWC (Source: The Guardian)
The interesting advertising experiments are now being conducted with Mobile Apps and Augmented Reality technologies.
Here we are seeing the next generation of interactive product games like the virtual bathing suit demo developed by ImmediaC, BMW’s Z4 Virtual Paintbox campaign, Skoda Rally Car or IBM’s virtual make up kit.
Yes, they are in reality little more than the next generation of interactive “branded” games that have been pumped out by the industry since the early days of the floppy disk but, never the less, they continue to be interesting experiments in how customers can interact and play with the brand.
Emotion leads to Action
and Action leads to Transaction
Beyond the simple online experiments in customer attraction and interaction we are also seeing the emergence of exciting new customer engagement platforms.
I’m thinking of 2 to 3 year old start-ups like Polyvore and ShopSavvy.
Polyvore with its delightful “Create with me and buy from them” online fashion retailing model and ShopSavvy with its mobile phone bar code scanning app that is the foundation layer for a truly revolutionary “Browse with them, Buy from Us” – or alternatively ”Browse with them, Buy from Others (Through Us)” – retail platform.
These are the platforms that represent the most exciting experiments in advertising today and who knows they may well prove to be the next big step in the evolution of advertising.
August 3rd, 2011 → 9:31 am
[...] The key to the e-commerce equation was the simple idea that people shop online to save time. At the moment that idea is more attune to the future of Mobile Shopping (Mob.Shop). So looking past this year’s So.Biz fashion parade it will be interesting to see what happens when the So.Biz converges with the Mob.Shop. When the Feedback Loop meets the Time Wallet. You don’t have to look very hard to discover the signs that this is already happening. (e.g. How So.Me and mobile is helping advertising to evolve). [...]