PJA Blog: The Complex Brand

Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the Best (and Worst) Ads of ‘06. The author claimed that “marketers’ top priority is no longer selling but simply getting the public to watch an ad” is a completely legitimate observation that addresses our constant challenge of getting our clients heard through the clutter. We need to be entertainers as well as strategists in our approach.

As I nodded in tacit approval of the WSJ’s apparent good taste in advertising, I began to notice a trend in all of the winners: if each one wasn’t Web-based, it at least had an interactive component to the campaign, which in some cases required or encouraged audience participation. This is a significant step toward consumer generated media. These advertisers weren’t ceding control of the message, but they let their customers in on the fun.
Among them:

• CareerBuilder.com’s Monk-E-mail spot that began as a Super Bowl ad but ballooned into a 80 million email (and counting) send-to-a-friend fiesta
• KFC’s spot, created specifically to circumvent DVRs by inserting a “secret phrase” in a single frame of the ad - requiring viewers to actually watch the ad and slow it down frame by frame to find the phrase which could be entered at the KFC Web site to download a coupon for free food. Results: 103,000 downloads and 40% more pageviews on the Web site.

• The ubiquitous ShaveEveryWhere.com from PhilipsNorelco that used the Web to convey a rather edgy message about personal grooming. With over 1.8 million site visits and sales 300% over projections, it’s being hailed as a success.
• Apple’s series of Mac/PC ads, which were clever in their personification of the technology we all know. The full series is available here.

Those that didn’t fare so well included Wal-Mart’s flog, which served as a very public lesson on transparency in social media efforts; Gillette’s lame Fusion ad (also a Super Bowl effort); and DaimerChrysler’s “Dr. Z” ads. There are countless others out there, but these are the ones which stood out.

After the above article ran on December 22, I noticed that OfficeMax had done an impressive job over the holidays with an entire suite of interactive sites - each with a “send to a friend” component. The first was Elf Yourself, which was tied into the TBS broadcast of “Elf.” Then I was introduced to the tie-in withe “A Christmas Story” called Don’t Shoot Your Eye Out. There are 18 others like this, each featuring a tab at the bottom of the screen “more fun from OfficeMax.”
We’ll be seeing more of the above best practices in 2007, but with additional twists. I think there’ll be an explosion of enterprise-generated and branded tools and widgets for users to download or install on their desktops. But in order to stand apart, the successful ones will (1) provide a service that no other entity can provide, (2) develop something so sleek or so simple that it stands out, or (3) create an entertaining element that is easily shared.

Were you dazzled by 2006? Expect to be blown away in ‘07.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 am and is filed under Advertising, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.