The Quisenblog

It’s certainly not news that all ads are not created equal. Some grab us by the throats (or the funny bone) the very first time we see them. We remember them. We tell others about them. We might even look them up on YouTube. Other spots? There are many we have been exposed to dozens of times but never paid them any mind. Such is the nature of creativity in advertising.

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that ads that do a better job of engaging or entertaining us also do a better job of selling. Yet there are some in this business who still tend to discount creativity in advertising to be somewhat of a commodity. They see “entertainment” and “selling” as somehow being mutually exclusive. These folks for whatever reason have yet to buy into the notion that the quality of creative corresponds directly to the success of a marketing program. As support, they may point to the success of spots such as the infomercial-esque “as seen on TV” ads as proof that it’s what the ad says, not how it’s said that matters. And they have a point: interrupt people with $30 million in paid media, and the needle will move.

But more and more, we are moving to a model of opt-in content. Less are we able to interrupt the consumer with whatever message we feel like and expect them to pay attention to it.

The dynamics of Social Media illustrate this perfectly. There are no multi-million “buys” on YouTube, Facebook, blogs or the like. The barrier to entry is non-existent. Access to Social Media platforms has been democratized. Anyone can post anything. And the success of that content isn’t how much the creator puts behind it. It’s on how many users feel inclined to pass it forward and to talk it up.

In the opt-in world, you’re only as good as your content. A great illustration of this point would be to compare the results of a recent Social Media success (The Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”) to one that’s not-so-successful (Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series).

In the Old Spice campaign, Social Media users were invited to correspond with The Old Spice Guy. Old Spice’s agency (Wieden & Kennedy) then shot nearly 200 “personalized web videos” addressed to fans (and Social Media heavyweights) over a couple of days and posted them online. The resulting buzz generated an estimated 1.4 BILLION views, hits and mentions over the period of a few weeks. (Oh, and sales were up over 100% over that period.) You can view some of the spots here.

On the other hand, Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series was launched as a web series in hopes of going viral.

Response to the web videos was less than overwhelming (fewer than 10,000 views, despite a huge PR push). One commenter on their YouTube page summed up reaction to the campaign this way: “I am embarrassed for your marketing department. This is the sad result of a poorly orchestrated attempt at some sort of viral leaching by a room full of middle aged guys, who’s (sic) kids saw something on YouTube that they thought would be a good idea to copy.”

Ouch.

Granted this is hardly an apples-to-apples comparison. The Old Spice campaign started as a mass media campaign and extended to include the digital component. But while “Ted in Accounting” didn’t have that mass media lift, my bet is that you could have put millions behind it and viewers’ reactions wouldn’t have been any different than the YouTube poster above.

The digital world is proving what we who have developed offline content for years have always known: people aren’t going to waste their time with boring content.

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey Creative, Media, New Media, On Customers, Social Media cisco, old spice, Social Media, success stories, ted from accounting, viral video

Chances are if you sat through an agency creative presentation back in the days BSM (Before Social Media), you probably heard your fill of the importance of “breaking through the clutter.” The idea being that because the consumer is exposed to as many as 4,000 marketing messages (primarily via mass media)  per day, we need to create something amazing that is going to be among the 12 or so he will remember the next day.

Funny how you don’t really hear much anymore about “breaking through the clutter.” Today, we preach the gospel of “going viral.” No longer is the high-bar creating content our audience sees, remembers and likes, but creating something that folks actually pass on to their own personal networks.

So how do we approach the creative challenge when our goal is to not only have our audience remember our messages, but spread them as well?

My take is that not much has changed. The messages that we lauded as “breaking through the clutter” have way more in common with today’s “viral campaigns” than you might think. In both cases, successful messages can be described as being both “sticky” and “slippery.” The “sticky” part is pretty straight forward—it means there is an idea or concept that captured the audience’s imagination and helped them remember the message. It made an impression with them, got them involved in the message.

The “slippery” part is a little trickier to understand. It relates to the ease at which that idea is spread to others. It’s easy to describe (or pass on) to someone else.

“Hey, did you see the E-Trade spot with the talking baby?” “What do you think of that Old Spice spot with the guy on the horse?” “How about the FedEx spot where the company tried to save money with Nordic Tuesdays?” (see below) These conversations are viral. They’re an opportunity to share something you like with others. Conversations like this are nothing new.

What is new are the tools of Social Media. You don’t have to meet at the water cooler or wait for some sort of invitation to join a conversation. You can simple post it on your Facebook wall, for all your friends to see.  You can even link the spot as part of the conversation. And everytime one of them reacts to it, that messages gets even more slippery.

Content that is both “sticky and slippery.” This is where your emphasis should be. These are the filters you should use when creating or evaluating content.

My advice is, don’t get so hung up on the tools you’re relying on to spread the message. Get hung up on the message itself.

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Mickey Creative, New Media, Social Media content, e-trade, FedEx, old spice, slippery, sticky, strategy, viral video

If there were a national holiday to honor those of us in the ad biz, it would have be Super Bowl Sunday.

It’s the one day of the year where 100+ million people sit in front of their TVs IN EAGER ANTICIPATION of seeing our handiwork. They dare not miss a commercial, lest they be out of the loop during the water cooler discussions that inevitably take place starting on Super Bowl Monday.

Too bad this isn’t how folks view advertising the other 364 days of the year. Most of the time, it’s seen as an intrusion. Something to be avoided, either through channel surfing, the DVR fast-forward button, a trip to the kitchen, hitting the mute button or just by flat-out ignoring it.

So what makes Super Bowl advertising so different? How did we get to this point where viewers actually go to the bathroom during the game action so they won’t miss a commercial?

In a word, the content.

Since the Apple “1984″ spot more than two decades ago, the Big Game has been a showcase for engaging and entertaining spots. Marketers figured out early on that to maximize impact with a diverse audience that size, you don’t run the same old tired focused-grouped-to-death spots you’d run on “Desperate Housewives” or “Dancing With The Stars.” No, you needed something outrageous. Something that was “more” than what was considered acceptable on network TV. Something that translated well to the office water cooler patter. Here’s one of my favorites of recent years, for Ameriquest.

In short, Super Bowl marketers were thinking in terms of viral video, even years before that term really existed.

Of course, over the years, there has been quite a fair amount of “Creative Malpractice” done in the name of Super Bowl advertising. Just as many attempts at viral videos fall flat and fail to resonate, so do some Super Bowl spots. GoDaddy comes to mind. So does some of the more recent Budweiser work, for example the spot featuring the marketing guy getting tossed out the 5th floor window because he dared suggest the company cut back on its Bud Light budget. And, in the soulless quest for being named “the top-rated spot”, advertisers have resorted to some questionable examples of borrowed interest, such as shooting gerbils from a cannon.

Inevitably, there are some spots that will show up Sunday that will engage us and be talked about for quite a while to come. And there’ll be some (too many, I’m afraid to say) that will warrant no more than a collective, “Meh.”

The good news is, all these marketers are reaching. And on the national day of advertising, that is a good thing.

Come back Monday and let us know what your favorite spot(s) were.

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Mickey Media Ameriquest, audience engagement, Budweiser, Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, GoDaddy, Super Bowl advertising, Super Bowl commercials, Super Bowl Monday, Super Bowl Sunday, viral video, water cooler