A friend of mine, a re–s-pected adman, told me over dinner recently that he had an “Ah-ha!” mo–ment at Cannes last summer after watching the Cyber Lions (Interactive category) Grand Prix winner-a video depicting graffiti artists breaking into Andrews Air Force Base and tagging George Bush’s airplane, Air Force One, with the words “Still Free.”
Until last summer, my friend had not paid much attention to the web. But as he sat in that theatre in Cannes and watched the year’s Interactive winner, he came to the grand conclusion: “Interactive advertising is the same techniques of good communications we’ve been using for the past 30 years. The only difference is the delivery vehicle.”
The “Still Free” web video for fashion label Ecko was a well-crafted linear video narrative that could just as easily have been edited down to a 30-sec–ond spot and aired on MTV. Instead, it was distributed for free on the web, far from the scrutiny of broadcast censors. An entertaining viral gimmick for sure. But that’s about it.
The good news about broadband Internet is that rich media can finally blossom on the web. The bad news is that advertisers think rich media equals entertainment and that entertainment means we want to watch more ads. Not that entertaining ads are a bad thing. But there are a lot more interesting things to do online than watch an ad.
It seems the only people who get excited watching video ads on YouTube are the same people who read this magazine. The only branded video that makes it on the first page of YouTube’s “All-Time Viewed” list is a Nike soccer video of Ronaldinho trying a new pair of shoes. Not even in the top 10, this Nike video of one of the most popular athletes in the world is less popular than some girls singing “hey!”
In a recent AdAge article “Consumers to Brands: Make Yourselves Useful,” Ben Palmer from The Barbarian Group sums it up perfectly: “I believe the next stage of brand advertising is going to be in the realm of ‘branded utility’… For the same budget and energy as we expend on current forms of advertising, we could be making something more tangible, useful and reusable that plays a more integral part in the consumer’s life. This is ‘interactive,’ which is not synonymous with ‘online,’ by the way.”
Here is another way of looking at “branded utility.” An ad that says “milk is good” has no value and gets ignored by consumers. An ad that shows you 20 ways to get your family enjoying and staying healthy drinking milk is valuable. That is exactly what the California Milk Processor Board did with the gotmilk.com and Planet In Need web campaigns-a fun, engaging, and useful brand experience.
Here at home, my agency CloudRaker recently created a website, championsplanet.com, for Heineken Worldwide’s sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League (sort of the equivalent of the Super Bowl for soccer in Europe). Beyond the site, we provided fans with a useful little Heineken branded desktop widget delivering real-time scores, updates and photos so they could follow the action even when they are supposedly hard at work at the office.
A winning local example is Sid Lee’s work on MGMGrand.com. Not only does it use the full sensory punch of video to engage the browsing customer to discover the MGM Las Vegas experience but it also allows the user to seamlessly dig deeper into the video to discover the shows, restaurants, rooms etc. It’s a great branded tool to plan a Vegas trip. Another winner is Henderson Bas’ catchy and useful Mackenzie Financial “Burn Rate” web campaign that shows customers how much money they waste.
Most people don’t want to watch video ads on the web. Consumers are so swamped with slick sales pitches these days that they are simply tuning out. If marketers don’t offer something real on the web-something that will make people’s lives better-consumers are “still free” to change the channel.
Thane Calder is co-president of Montreal-based agency CloudRaker
