GLOBAL – JUNE 2011 – UM Chief Innovation Marc Ruxin ruminates on the new creative department, followed by the findings of the UM-AdAge online survey.
Today, consumer preference and attention extends infinitely and across multiple devices and the definition of content has been wildly expanded in new directions. While it’s nothing to panic about, and it is quite possible to navigate, it does spark the need for a new type of creative department.
It’s a creative team that can manufacture content in an age where news feeds, social games, Pandora, daily deals, photo sharing, on demand or time-shifted video competes with live television, magazines, movies and radio.
Therefore, we must acknowledge the innovators and entrepreneurs who create these new platforms where people now spend an increasing amount of their time: 150 million tweets a day, 32 minutes per visit and 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook, 40 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, 300 million global players of Zynga games, 200 million Daily Deal subscribers and XBOX Live and Netflix have as many subscribers as Comcast.
The creators of these platforms and the product innovators who design user interfaces and anticipate peoples’ usage habits magically become a new type of creative department.
Advertisers do not need to rely on Don Draper alone to sell you a big idea; they need Farmville to allow General Mills to sell 310 million Cascadian Farm organic blueberries as a natural part of game play. Not surprisingly, these new types of creative execution trigger vastly better brand recall and purchase intent than a traditional Cascadian Farms banner ad.
When Demand Media allows advertisers to create or sponsor query-specific custom content to accompany articles that sit on the end of long-tail organic search queries like "How to apply a smokey eye makeup," what appropriately follows is a video from L’Oreal that provides clear and helpful instruction and demonstration. When Bing wanted to get consumers using the product instead of just seeing the ad-version of it, they created a module in partnership with the Huffington Post that pulled headline data in into a Bing search box that was part of the page and reflected additional relevant video and text search results at the end of the article.
On Facebook and Twitter, when a brand wants to sample a new product, they leverage peer influence to help a brand like Starbucks give away a new coffee product, or help Ben and Jerry’s sample a new ice cream flavor. Pandora allows a brand to create stations and playlists that by understanding and harvesting the actual tastes of their audiences.
Each of these examples represents the new creative paradigm. Each idea represents a new algorithm, which harnesses intent and layers on custom ingenuity, and another part anticipates and integrates an authentic and mutually beneficial way for brands to enhance content experiences.
It is a new world: Brands + Skillfully Placed Media Investments + The Right Platforms + The Right Partner + The Right Offer = Creative Success
We live in an age where channels, screens and new behaviors are complemented by the emerging companies and innovators within the mobile, social, local, data, online video and music spaces. These now become new versions of yesterday’s creative departments.
Today, more than ever, consumers have all the power. Brands that recognize and appreciate this point and find ways to reward and activate influencers with experiences that augment these new behaviors will win the hearts, minds and wallets of this savvy, time-shifted, cross-platform consumer.
UM and Advertising Age Research
UM and Advertising Age conducted an online survey to assess opinions and attitudes among marketer respondents about the impact of new technologies and start-ups on their businesses.
The sample consisted of 10,086 email addresses supplied by both Advertising Age and UM, as well as another group consisting solely of email addresses of UM partners and clients. When the survey closed for tabulations on May 4, 2011, there were 427 usable responses. 76% of the respondents from the U.S. and 24% from 44 countries outside the U.S.
Here are the key findings:
-25% of marketers reported that they are willing to use media dollars to make investments in startups.
-The majority (57%) said their organization is ready to shift budgets in to riskier activities in the next year, including becoming a publisher (77%)
-To embrace this new reality of new technologies and start-ups, 64% of marketers believe they should have a “proactive response”by educating their teams and empowering them to be curious.
-25%of respondents say they would consider using media or ad dollars to make new media venture investments while half (50%) say “maybe, as business demands require.”
-Over two-thirds (67%) indicated that their advertising/marketing teams see the impact of technology and start-ups as a positive thing for their business.Only 4% say it’s a negative thing.
-Over three-quarters (77%) of respondents say they are open to making an investment in their brands to become content publishers with the prominence of Twitter, Facebook and blogs. This is comprised of 51%who say they are already making the investment while another 25%say they want to, but are uncertain of the exact skill sets needed.
