Samsung burns Apple & iPhone fanboys in a new ad for the Galaxy S II.
“I could never get a Samsung, I’m creative.”
Well done, Samsung.
New Old Spice ad - “Motorcycle”
This is just a really entertaining ad, the latest in a seemingly never-ending string of hits for Old Spice (fresh-scented kudos to their agency of record Wieden + Kennedy). That bear is incredible.
I see these Old Spice ads as the burritos of the advertising world. Burritos are consistently delicious, not insanely earth-shattering, and still outside the food box enough to make you say, “Oh yeah, I forgot about burritos!” when deciding what to eat.
That being said, I can personally attest that Old Spice’s recent advertising resurgence has absolutely turned me into a proud customer. What can I say? I want to be the man your man could smell like.
30-Day Challenge #17
(daily posts may be brief this week due to me being back home in the great state of New Jersey, and my inability to balance lengthy blogging with GTL-ing)
“It’s a known fact in advertising circles that only idiots click on ads — and yet advertisers still think that click-through rates mean something, and that a higher click-through rate means a better ad.”
- Wired’s Felix Salmon, “The Future of Online Advertising”
That picture above is how I’ve trained myself to see Google search results over the years, and I know I’m not alone. My selective visual filter carries over to most websites, too. The upper edges and right-side columns of content-heavy sites are almost always just piles of useless ads, moving or dancing or automatically playing audio meant to distract me from the real reason I’m on the site in the first place.
Classic paid online ads are at best unengaging and easily-ignored. They are at worst severely irritating and intrusive on my reading experience (you know those ones that start out normal sized then unexpectedly grow to engulf the entire page? Great strategy, guys). But as Felix Salmon’s excellent article above points out, they’re still the most-frequently used gadget in the online advertising toolbox. Why?
Okay, it’s true. They’re fast, easy, relatively cheap, and easily measured. Paid online ads are a great way for a brand to feel like its doing “something” online, without having to commit too much time or too many resources to the endeavor. But you reap what you sow. Like I mentioned before, consumers have trained their online eyes to ignore what they know to be of no use to them, and they’ve gotten really good at it. So what do brands do online now that paid ads are losing their luster? Simple.
Social media. Yes, the go-to. But there’s a reason for that. It’s not costly, it’s a direct pipeline to consumer feedback, and it’s still new enough that it can provide a real edge when done right. For more information on the uses of social media in marketing, see every blog online anywhere.
Third party content. In his article, Salmon mentions the ad he places for his site Counterparties. It’s not a moving picture, antiquated call to action, or dancing alien. It’s a simple widget that provides links to related content on other sites. He provides a useful service to the reader, manages to not annoy him or her, and still gets to make a good impression and track click-throughs for measurement. Example: You’re reading an article about some new feature in Photoshop. There’s a box with a Counterparties logo in the column, but it’s just displaying links to relevant creativity/software/photo-editing content elsewhere online.
Micropayments. Early in the internet’s existence, it was determined that most content would be free to access, but revenues would be derived from ads where possible. Hence the rise of the paid online ad. But we’ve since seen a different system of content support that could work: paying for good stuff in small, bite-size chunks. Look at the relatively new world off apps. It’s been proven that people are willing to pay a few dollars for something useful or fun, or download something for free and then pay to improve it (just ask Zynga). This method is beginning to leak onto the internet as a whole, with Hulu Plus and Netflix and periodical paywalls like that of the New York Times’. I think we’ll be seeing more of this in the future, as traditional online ads continue to lose effectiveness.
Online is still fairly new as an advertising medium, especially when compared to TV or print. But just as those channels have changed and evolved significantly over the years, the internet will evolve and grow and require new approaches. There’s no permanent, silver bullet, eternal solution to effective advertising. This is why branders and marketers need to constantly be driving, experimenting with, and exploring the latest innovations.
Wait, I remembered one silver bullet marketing solution: be damn good, all the time.
30-Day Challenge #17
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - “The Virtuous Cycle”
Brief, well-designed, and very impactful short narrated by Bill Gates that was played at the recent G20 summit. It holds a number of important truths.
Innovation. Each individual person, the US as a nation, and the entire world at large really only has one long-term solution to global economic woes: We must innovate our way out. I would hazard a guess that we are already in the early stages of our next major age of innovation, spurred by the foundations and information networks provided by the rise of the internet. Now we need to create. Where is the next cotton gin, Model T, or television? For the first time ever, we can collaborate with our fellow Earthicans instantaneously. What are we making? More than sweat shop sneakers, I hope.
Good begets good. The Japan/Brazil/Mozambique example discussed in the short is a great story, and incredible support for those of the “expand the pie” mindset (rather than “take their slice”). The more information and opportunities flow through the economic channels of the world, the more we will see them grow and return in new ways. By helping developing nations with education, running small businesses, and establishing new industries, developed countries can forge important partnerships that are beneficial to all. Developed nations may even observe new innovations or ways of doing things that spring forth during these initial stages of economic development.
Keep moving forward. Things will never be what they’ve always been, and that’s been true every day since the beginning of time. We need to embrace the turns of the global tides that have already begun and figure out what’s next. But there is one important benefit in this era that humanity has never had before: the whole world is in this together.
30-Day Challenge #16
The Creative Agency as a Supplier (and what it means for Supply Chain Management)
In many large firms, the supply chain management function spends an enormous amount of time managing suppliers. This includes things like negotiating contracts for raw materials, maintaining inventory and order timelines, and measuring efficiency and costs. Keeping such a close on the supply side of the business is proven to pay big dividends.
For companies with manufactured products, the cost savings created by an efficient supply chain can often contribute more to the health of bottom line than increases in revenue yielded by marketing efforts.
These meticulously-designed supplier management processes have proven to be incredibly valuable to the firms that implement them, increasing efficiency while lowering total costs in essential areas of the business. But which department is most often labeled “inefficient,” frequently has its effectiveness called into question, and is first on the chopping block when it comes to cutting costs? Marketing. Which is why we need to start treating marketing providers like suppliers.
Manufacturing-heavy companies should take the same supplier management concepts applied to the back end of their supply chains and apply them forward to creative suppliers like internal marketing departments, creative consultants, and advertising agencies. Here’s why:
Supply chain as a marketable advantage. The sourcing function within a given supply chain management team can work with creative suppliers to highlight back-end benefits and supply chain advantages that are unfamiliar to the marketing functions.
Advertising campaigns are often based on a unique component of the production process that separates the product from its competition. This difference is then highlighted as a benefit or a “reason to believe” in marketing communications. Budweiser’s beer is “beachwood aged,” and other beers aren’t. Who knows what it means, but it’s a unique aspect of Budweiser’s production. Wendy’s burgers use ”fresh, never frozen beef patties.” This tagline emphasizes a success of the restaurant’s supply chain, while also implying that other restaurants do freeze their meat.
What gets measured, gets done. Supply chain management teams evaluate all suppliers using scorecards with standardized metrics for success, costs, efficiency, and more. Marketing suppliers can be evaluated on these same principles, which can help to alleviate the long-standing grievance that it’s almost impossible to ever tell if the marketing team is doing anything. The creative scorecard could include a number of relevant metrics:
•Number of staff members/hours/other resources devoted to account
•Awards won by agency / “creativity” metric
•Increases in revenue thanks to marketing efforts (difficult to measure, but becoming easier if promotions and sales are tracked online)
Applying supply chain management principles to creative suppliers can clearly help to better measure effectiveness and manage costs. There is one major problem, however: Marketing doesn’t like it.
Members of the marketing team, advertising agencies, and other creative suppliers will almost always resist being treated like another node in the supply chain. “You can’t rush the creative process, it’s about the work, etc.” These are valid complaints, but they are only self-defeating in the end.
Creating a good ad campaign is really different than providing raw wheat gluten for processing. But if creative suppliers want to stand up for themselves, demonstrate their value, and stay off the table the next time budget cuts come around, they need to be willing to join the supply chain and prove their worth.
30-Day Challenge #15
