You guys probably already saw this great story in last weekend's NYTimes magazine but if not, check it out. It highlights some of the critical aspects of developing ideas for today's brands and consumers. And during the course of the article they actually come up with some interesting ideas, unprompted and (presumably) without preparation (the Facebook overalls idea is pretty awesome).
Participants in the roundtable: BENJAMIN PALMER is the C.E.O. of the Barbarian Group, an Internet advertising and marketing firm based in Boston. He helped create the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ online campaign for Burger King. LARS BASTHOLM is a chief creative officer at AKQA, where he has worked on campaigns for Xbox, Coca-Cola and Motorola. ROBERT RASMUSSEN is the executive creative director of the Nike account at R/GA, an agency that specializes in digital media. He has created campaigns for ESPN, Sega and Jet.
Loved this quote: Most media, like television, used to be a kind of flow. You’d sit down, you’d turn it on and you’d watch. The reason advertising is completely broken is that the flow doesn’t exist anymore. There’s no prime time. There’s no such thing as must-see TV. Everyone’s composing their own flow. And once you start becoming the composer of your own flow, you can’t go back. You’re like, Why would I have somebody dictate to me what I watch when I’m used to programming for myself?
Also loved this riff on how to take Katie Couric at CBS and actually make her relevant:
Palmer: What Katie Couric is not giving us, as a mainstream evening-news anchor, is an invitation to participate. So what if we changed the format of her show? Every day she gives us a sneak preview of whom she will interview over the next week. And you can go online and post your own questions. Maybe two or three user questions end up on the evening news, and you’re like a big star if she uses your question. She says your name: “This is Robert Rasmussen’s question.” You’re totally psyched. You feel awesome. And then on the Internet we post the other 17 user questions and their answers. We put those on the Internet, so there’s actually like an hour of content. A half-hour is on TV, and the other half-hour is on the Internet. You start involving people in the conversation. You start using television as the theatrical component to the Internet. Because what TV offers that the Internet doesn’t offer is a guarantee of fame. You know that millions of people saw that bit of you on television.
Also:
Bastholm: She also needs to change from being a persona to being a person, and that’s what digital is best at. I’d begin with a Twitter feed where she’s talking about what she’s actually doing during the day. She’d talk about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that you don’t see when she’s interviewing, say, Sarah Palin. Talking very openheartedly about how she experienced that the second after she’s done with the interview. So you kind of start to feel you know the person who’s doing the interviewing versus just the anchor posing the questions.
And:
Palmer: There’s a difference. A Super Bowl ad is broadcast and everybody sees the same ad, and it comes from a single source. And so you may have a preference as to whether you liked this ad in comparison to this other ad in the block of ads that you just saw. But when you feel like you’ve discovered something on the Internet, it’s a different relationship to the brand. Say I was one of the first thousand people who saw that Cadbury gorilla ad — where he drums along to Phil Collins — and I send that out to all my friends. There’s a pride that I have in having discovered that, a connection that you actually can’t get with broadcast advertising.
A few key takeaways for me:
- Benjamin Palmer had the best comments; interesting, considering he runs (what I consider to be) the most forward company represented. Would love to see how he'd respond to leading a scale agency. Will his ideas and way of working become mainstream, or will big holding companies resist?
- Ideating at its best is free form - people build on each other, based on insights. It's not arduous, it's fun. But it starts from an understanding of (and empathy with) the consumer and brands' reality in connecting with them
- Yet another reminder that what makes an old school TV-led campaign "go" can be very different from what drives campaign success these days
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