|
Technology
Much has been said about the use of technology in brand communication and how it is already impacting on the future of brand communication. Little however is said about what is possible now, how is it best used, what should be avoided and what we need to prepare for in the near future. The first day’s session addresses key issues facing agencies and clients NOW, and provided some common-sense solutions and ideas. The second day’s session focused more on the actual technology and how it is being used. Also, Luanne Calvert (Creative Director, Google), and Hashem Bajwa (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) shared their thoughts on a few of their projects.
Technology Day 1
Technology Panel Members:
Moderator. Tori Winn - ECD Interactive, StrawberryFrog
• Cindy Gallop – ex-Chairwoman, BBH New York
• Tamara Giltsoff – Partner, Livework
• Stefan Olander - Global Director of Digital Media, Nike
• Chris Colborn – EVP Worldwide Creative Director, R/GA
• Johan Eidhagen – CMO, Nokia N Series
Technology has three misconceptions.
1. That it’s separate from the world of creativity and communications. The truth is that there are insanely creative things happening in the technology world which will affect our world.
2. Technology people are hard to relate to and understand and work with. Creative thinkers are creative thinkers regardless of where they work at.
3. Technology is not a critical part in all industries. This is also not true
Things are moving so quickly that the old agency models are really no longer relevant. Clients are confused and simply doing what they see other marketers doing. For example, company A is doing viral, so company B wants to do it as well, sometimes with no rhyme or reason.
Stefan from Nike pointed out that we as ad agencies are not pushing clients enough, not challenging clients to embrace the future. Perhaps agencies are assuming that clients won’t notice the changing ad industry. But we must challenge clients to create great brand value. A good example of technology creating legitimate value and establishing a relationship is the Nike iPod combo. Link: http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/How do you stay up on trends? Everyone should be encouraged to try to test different sites and technologies, to try making a blog or playing with social networking. You need to experiment with these online tools to understand them. You need to live it, experience it. Don't just read about it in your local magazine.
Technology itself is giving us a new set of human needs. You don’t buy an iPod because you love technology. It’s a behavior and emotion-based need.
What about control? How will clients relinquish control of your brands? No brand wants to create a corporate blog where consumers can write openly about their products. They are scared that a rogue commentator will go online and shred the product and brand.
But you need to see the flip side of this! Marketers have more insight into what consumers are actually thinking. It’s like a big focus group.
When companies go on the web and talk they A: start a dialogue and B: show a personality. Don’t be afraid, look at all the latest PR disasters that companies have experienced on the web as a result of not establishing a dialogue with consumers in this medium. You can only control it by participating.
What the heck is a swf?
Technology Panel Members: Moderator: Barry Grieff, CEO, brand experience lab, Jason Kaufman, CEO, Gumspots.com, Michael Buzzell, CEO, New Buzz Tv
For some people in the audience this session might have gone a little over their heads, with words like “SWF”, “Flash Lite”, etc.. This session could have had a day on its own, to basically talk about what new technologies are out there, and how to use them.
Text messaging is nuts, and it's going to get more nuts. They predict that by 2008, 89% of everyone that uses a cell phone will text message. This should not be overlooked by advertisers. But, as a member of the audience pointed out, what happens if text messaging becomes like spam email? The only way to prevent that is to learn from the spam mail problems and hopefully not repeat them. Text messaging needs to be done cautiously, carefully, and with consumer consent. Humans are generally polite people; you wouldn’t invite yourself over without asking, would you? Well why then do that with your brand message?
The panel went on to talk about mobile and how it should be looked at as another great place to engage their audience, but not a new fix for a campaign in trouble. No bad campaign will be saved with mobile, it still needs to have a great campaign to back it up.
Consumers are demanding more quality from new technology, whether it be mobile, the web, or any other new media. Previously if your product or services weren’t good, it was hard for an individual to really make an impact. Now consumers have many channels in which to voice their displeasure.
The panel left us with three valuable points:
1. Just because it’s been done that way before, it doesn’t need to be done the same way
2. Learn from other channels
3. Except no absolutes – example: the record industry, who thought ten years ago the record industry would look like this?
Integrating Technology & Freeing Creativity
In this session Luanne Calvert (Creative Director, Google), and Hashem Bajwa (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) spoke briefly about a few projects they had done. As they were speaking the key thing they said was EXPERIMENT, and then once you’ve experimented, experiment again. They also said a great thing is now with places like Future Marketing, companies are willing to share their stories of new experimental ideas that worked, and those that didn’t which helps everyone find out what works.
With the gmail project that Google did, Luanne said they received feedback very fast, and were able to listen and adjust very fast where appropriate. Google used the gmail project to bring creative and technology people together.
What is Google excited about? Widgets, or “adgets” as someone called them. Little programs that can bring two key things together: entertainment, and practicality.
One very good question that came from the audience was for Luanne and Hashem to speak about the measurement of effectiveness of their campaigns. Both agreed that there are good and bad parts of being able to very accurately measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. You can receive accurate, fast feedback about campaigns that you couldn’t get with traditional advertising. You can even change strategy or creative during campaign, and even show clients proof of why an idea can work, or why it probably won’t. Of course on the downside, being able to measure things so fast, also allows the client to see if you are meeting their requirements. “Fast measure, fast fire”.
|
| |
|  |
|
|
|
Issue #2.1 - NY Summit Special
|
|
|
