Outside of live televised events, advertising is easy to avoid. People can skip ads, and 46% of American homes are now equipped with DVRs. The on-demand life is only becoming more on-demand. Dish Network’s Hopper with Sling DVR lets you skip ads entirely, and technically won Best in Show at CES this year. Netflix just released David Fincher’s new original series, “House of Cards,” to much fanfare, and instead of following the traditional release model, made all thirteen episodes available at once: when, where, how you want it, and ad-free.
As Mary Meeker pointed out in her presentation on the state of the internet, digital is disrupting virtually every aspect of life — from photography to entertainment to education to transportation to shopping to publishing to the very concept of ownership. You name it. Advertisers have to imagine more and more scenarios in which traditional ads just don’t have a place anymore. We need to invent new models and find new ways to connect with consumers around the content they love.
We’re not pivoting fast enough towards the new marketing normal. I love a great commercial as much the next person and am in awe of the creative and strategic minds that create them, but modern marketing success requires a whole lot more than great ads. It demands that we think and act more like inventors. That we’re capable of creating new products, constantly experimenting with new ideas, technologies, content formats, and are more prolific. This requires significant but not insurmountable cultural and organizational change.
First, agencies need to prioritize the hiring of Chief Digital Officers: people whose sole mission is to evangelize digital, build and implement process, hire the right people, develop capabilities and business, and consult C-level clients and partners. It’s not a “nice to have.” It’s a requirement.
The present day digital marketing ecosystem is more complex than ever, and it demands specialization and focus. Brands like Starbucks and agencies such as Arnold Worldwide, Havas, Ogilvy, CP+B, Made Movement, to name a few, have recognized the need and invested.
Secondly, it’s not enough to hire a few technologists and call it a day. Nor should you outsource everything. If you’re serious, you need to build things yourself. It’s not an easy process. Things break, and it takes time. But you’ll see great dividends if you make the investment.
Technologists are creatives, and they not only make the work better through the production process, but come up with and make ideas smarter. Having an internal team allows you to move fast and test ideas early through prototypes. That’s an important thing in advertising, because our timelines are notoriously short. This year our Volkswagen Super Bowl team had three weeks start to finish to develop a social experience, getingethappy.com, and companion digital media campaign. It wouldn’t have been possible if we had to rely on an outside partner for development.
Third, brands and agencies need to be freed up to experiment if they are going to work in the product space and have any chance against more nimble start-ups. Experimentation is too rarely rewarded in our industry. Work with your clients to carve out space for experimentation in your budgets and clearly define your objectives and measurements of success. Start small. The great thing about digital is you can do a lot with less.
One of our clients, Pop Secret, doesn’t have the luxury of big TV budgets. We worked with them to define a new approach. Instead of putting the majority of the dollars into paid media, we put it into the production of ten lightweight digital experiments designed to connect the brand with home movie watching in pop culture. The campaign is only two months old, and we’ve only released a couple of experiments, but we’ve received $322 million of mostly earned impressions and 1 out of 10 mentions of the brand online are connected to movies. Previously it was 1 and 100. Additionally, we hit a 12-month organic search high in January. We’ve already seen that there’s power in small, PR-worthy, experimental utilities and content.
Fourth, blow up your creative department. Literally. Tear walls down, orient your space around collaboration, and introduce new thinkers. Build a culture of creative misfits. The definition of the word “creative” in advertising is way too narrow for the times. As I mentioned, technologists or internet creatives are creatives. Make room for idea people of all types, even if they don’t write copy or art direct.
Last year we started a new creative discipline at the agency called Invention Strategy. The Inventionists prototype, develop strategy, and ideate. It’s a work in progress, but a year in, this small team has proved itself among our top creative performers. They’ve helped us sell in our best digital work and are making a difference on big brands such as Volkswagen and Target. Make room for internet kids and inventors in your creative department. If you don’t, Google or Facebook will hire them.
Fifth, agencies need to make a greater case with clients for authenticity. Last year, our Super Bowl teaser for Volkswagen, “The Barkside,” featured a bunch of dogs barking the theme to Star Wars. It didn’t include any product and received 14 million views in two weeks. There’s still a need and place for product-driven advertising, particularly when introducing something new to the market. But if you want people to love your brand, don’t over sell. We are competing with the internet. If you want to make highly shareable content, be authentic as possible and ditch the sales pitch.
Sixth, get into the digital education business. There’s nothing that will help you get to more innovative work with your clients and partners quicker. Exposing them to the digital possibilities, showing them what great looks like, and giving them the right tools to evaluate innovation should come before you present any ideas. We do what we call ‘DSchool’ sessions with all of our clients and have found them to be hugely transformative. After one recent session a client told us, “it was the best new business pitch you could have done.” So there’s that, too.
Seventh, find a way to move faster in all stages of development. There’s still a time and place for big productions and events in modern marketing, but we need to fail faster, and get better at creating quick pieces of content. The Oreo Super Bowl case study is a great example of what real-time and agile marketing can do for a brand, but outside of the social sphere, most agencies are not set up for it.
Finally, as you make these changes don’t forget that you’re still in the business of marketing. It’s not about being digital at the expense of story or creativity. All of it’s important. In my experience, great things happen when you bridge the gap between left and right brain thinking. There’s tension in it. It can be a street fight and raging mess. But that’s creativity, and I believe advertising and marketing people have the potential to not only tell great stories but also make lasting inventions. And from where I sit, our future as an industry depends on us doing both well.
The Future of Advertising
An HBR Insight Center
Select developers already have access to Google’s futuristic glasses, but now the search giant has launched a competition giving ordinary American citizens the chance to buy a pair before they’re launched, and become a “Glass Explorer” (as Google terms those “bold, creative individuals who want to help shape the technology”).