Monday
Resuscitate Integration
The apparent disconnect between television and the Web is just one expression of the lack of integration in today’s day and age. This simply has to change.
By Joseph Jaffe
Right at the beginning of this Best Practices series, I covered both cross-media blitz and cost-efficient incremental reach and frequency as two leading best practices. Then it dawned on me that there was an even stronger best practice that essentially precedes both of these – integration itself.
Next time you watch a pod of television advertisements (force yourself), try this little experiment on for size. Try and assign a numerical value between 1 and 30 for the portion of each piece of communications which dedicates itself to some kind of Web presence. The numbers should be dismally unsurprising.
The apparent disconnect between television and Web is just one expression of the lack of integration in today’s day and age when the term itself is as commonplace as “a”, “the” or “Coke.” In fact, the full extent of the application of the notion of integration seems to vest wholeheartedly in the hands of the art director and copywriter combo (look, feel, style sheet, tone etc.). Quite clearly the surface applicability of a common set of design principles as the means to harness the synergies of cross-media integration is woefully inept.
“Many of the multi-national holding companies have kluged together service organizations that theoretically are built to deliver on 360 degrees of marketing,” states Glen Sheehan, Executive Creative Director of AKQA. “However, they often (just like independent models) are fighting for a piece of the pie. All have separate revenue goals, and that creates competitiveness to push more weight to their solution as it means more business for them. On the client side, it’s often not much different -- marketing groups are built around above-the-line and below-the-line, often with sub departments, and often all with their own budgets and numbers to deliver up the chain.”
In other words, talk is cheap. Real integration requires real infrastructure, real commitment and real execution.
“Clearly there is benefit to brands to be able to bridge their message across an increasingly disbursed media landscape,” explains Adam Guild, President of Interep Interactive. “Time was when a buy on any one of the broadcast networks would reach most of the country. This is hardly the case now. Ad programs that match up with the way audiences now multi-task (such as listening to radio while they are online) can help restore some semblance of reach to advertisers. Integrated programs can be infected by the ‘we own it, you need it’ virus.”
In a tissue-session with CNET Networks a while ago, we mused and conceptualized the five stages of integration, where 1 denoted the token Website.com URL that appears fleetingly at the final end frames of a commercial, 4 might have referred to the Nike “Whatever” campaign, and the ultimate 5 would be awarded to something like BMWFilms.
Unfortunately in today’s times, the 1s seem to outweigh the 5s by vast multiples. This simply will have to change (and quickly), if companies are to resist being swept away by the rapidly evolving media landscape.
The good news is that there are signs of a truly integrated pot of gold at the end of the multi-media rainbow.
The ING work springs to mind as one campaign that works real hard online to respect and fulfill on the overall integrated strategy and creative idea.
In addition to exploiting the unique and differentiated best practice tactics that the medium has to offer (see below), there’s also the more literal application of one of ING’s key brand identifiers – the color “orange.”
Objective: The primary objective was to introduce a new brand name to the target audience. Secondary objective was to do this in a way that reinforced key brand attributes like innovative and refreshing without overtly saying anything about the brand.
Approach: Primarily by communicating in bold ad formats that relied heavily on the color orange. Initial research showed that the competitive set was overwhelmingly blue, and that the use of orange would make the brand stand out, and would strongly communicate ING’s core attributes.
Results: Nearly 50% aided awareness in less than a year, on a relatively small budget. Dramatic increases in attributes related to innovation and refreshing, though they were only communicated by use of the color orange.
Here’s another integrated success story: Visa’s ideasHappen campaign. “We were given a target (18- to 29-year-olds), and a business objective by our client Jon Raj and the rest of the Visa marketing group to (position Visa top of mind as the credit card that can best allow them to achieve what is important to them),” says Sheehan. “We were looking for an idea, not a program. The distinction being, many times we rage towards tactics of contact before we have an idea that determines the relevance and opportunities of the tactic. And that may point to the biggest change that needs to be addressed for integration.”
“Procter & Gamble’s BeingGirl.com is an information Website targeted to teenage girls,” explains Guild. “P&G is always looking for new ways to drive traffic to the site, and so in conjunction with Interep Innovations and Interep Interactive, they developed an integrated radio/online campaign to bring Teenage girls to BeingGirl.com. The effort centered on a Web-based sweepstakes, offering a prize of a trip for three to Chicago to see ‘N Sync in concert. The sweepstakes was promoted with live DJ reads on one radio station in each of eight top markets. To enter, girls were instructed to visit the BeingGirl.com Website. Other promotional elements included online advertising across a variety of targeted Websites, as well as targeted emails to over one million teenage girls. During the four-week promotional period, BeingGirl.com counted nearly 200,000 visitor sessions, with nearly 50,000 people entering the sweepstakes.”
Integration as a buzzword will fold like a house of cards; as a superficial application of design principles will be both transparent and ineffective; as a way to win business without the means to execute is a surefire fast track to the “Accounts in Play” section in the weekly trades. But if properly understood, objectively built around the consumer and executed to do justice to the campaign idea, the results are self-evident.
Some believe that the term rich media is both redundant and should be done away with entirely. I would dare say that integration as a philosophy, approach or concept is also high on the favorites list to be either marginalized or reborn.
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/features/072103.asp
The apparent disconnect between television and the Web is just one expression of the lack of integration in today’s day and age. This simply has to change.
By Joseph Jaffe
Right at the beginning of this Best Practices series, I covered both cross-media blitz and cost-efficient incremental reach and frequency as two leading best practices. Then it dawned on me that there was an even stronger best practice that essentially precedes both of these – integration itself.
Next time you watch a pod of television advertisements (force yourself), try this little experiment on for size. Try and assign a numerical value between 1 and 30 for the portion of each piece of communications which dedicates itself to some kind of Web presence. The numbers should be dismally unsurprising.
The apparent disconnect between television and Web is just one expression of the lack of integration in today’s day and age when the term itself is as commonplace as “a”, “the” or “Coke.” In fact, the full extent of the application of the notion of integration seems to vest wholeheartedly in the hands of the art director and copywriter combo (look, feel, style sheet, tone etc.). Quite clearly the surface applicability of a common set of design principles as the means to harness the synergies of cross-media integration is woefully inept.
“Many of the multi-national holding companies have kluged together service organizations that theoretically are built to deliver on 360 degrees of marketing,” states Glen Sheehan, Executive Creative Director of AKQA. “However, they often (just like independent models) are fighting for a piece of the pie. All have separate revenue goals, and that creates competitiveness to push more weight to their solution as it means more business for them. On the client side, it’s often not much different -- marketing groups are built around above-the-line and below-the-line, often with sub departments, and often all with their own budgets and numbers to deliver up the chain.”
In other words, talk is cheap. Real integration requires real infrastructure, real commitment and real execution.
“Clearly there is benefit to brands to be able to bridge their message across an increasingly disbursed media landscape,” explains Adam Guild, President of Interep Interactive. “Time was when a buy on any one of the broadcast networks would reach most of the country. This is hardly the case now. Ad programs that match up with the way audiences now multi-task (such as listening to radio while they are online) can help restore some semblance of reach to advertisers. Integrated programs can be infected by the ‘we own it, you need it’ virus.”
In a tissue-session with CNET Networks a while ago, we mused and conceptualized the five stages of integration, where 1 denoted the token Website.com URL that appears fleetingly at the final end frames of a commercial, 4 might have referred to the Nike “Whatever” campaign, and the ultimate 5 would be awarded to something like BMWFilms.
Unfortunately in today’s times, the 1s seem to outweigh the 5s by vast multiples. This simply will have to change (and quickly), if companies are to resist being swept away by the rapidly evolving media landscape.
The good news is that there are signs of a truly integrated pot of gold at the end of the multi-media rainbow.
The ING work springs to mind as one campaign that works real hard online to respect and fulfill on the overall integrated strategy and creative idea.
In addition to exploiting the unique and differentiated best practice tactics that the medium has to offer (see below), there’s also the more literal application of one of ING’s key brand identifiers – the color “orange.”
Objective: The primary objective was to introduce a new brand name to the target audience. Secondary objective was to do this in a way that reinforced key brand attributes like innovative and refreshing without overtly saying anything about the brand.
Approach: Primarily by communicating in bold ad formats that relied heavily on the color orange. Initial research showed that the competitive set was overwhelmingly blue, and that the use of orange would make the brand stand out, and would strongly communicate ING’s core attributes.
Results: Nearly 50% aided awareness in less than a year, on a relatively small budget. Dramatic increases in attributes related to innovation and refreshing, though they were only communicated by use of the color orange.
Here’s another integrated success story: Visa’s ideasHappen campaign. “We were given a target (18- to 29-year-olds), and a business objective by our client Jon Raj and the rest of the Visa marketing group to (position Visa top of mind as the credit card that can best allow them to achieve what is important to them),” says Sheehan. “We were looking for an idea, not a program. The distinction being, many times we rage towards tactics of contact before we have an idea that determines the relevance and opportunities of the tactic. And that may point to the biggest change that needs to be addressed for integration.”
“Procter & Gamble’s BeingGirl.com is an information Website targeted to teenage girls,” explains Guild. “P&G is always looking for new ways to drive traffic to the site, and so in conjunction with Interep Innovations and Interep Interactive, they developed an integrated radio/online campaign to bring Teenage girls to BeingGirl.com. The effort centered on a Web-based sweepstakes, offering a prize of a trip for three to Chicago to see ‘N Sync in concert. The sweepstakes was promoted with live DJ reads on one radio station in each of eight top markets. To enter, girls were instructed to visit the BeingGirl.com Website. Other promotional elements included online advertising across a variety of targeted Websites, as well as targeted emails to over one million teenage girls. During the four-week promotional period, BeingGirl.com counted nearly 200,000 visitor sessions, with nearly 50,000 people entering the sweepstakes.”
Integration as a buzzword will fold like a house of cards; as a superficial application of design principles will be both transparent and ineffective; as a way to win business without the means to execute is a surefire fast track to the “Accounts in Play” section in the weekly trades. But if properly understood, objectively built around the consumer and executed to do justice to the campaign idea, the results are self-evident.
Some believe that the term rich media is both redundant and should be done away with entirely. I would dare say that integration as a philosophy, approach or concept is also high on the favorites list to be either marginalized or reborn.
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/features/072103.asp
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