POST DIGITAL

ON: Digital Just Does It Better

Today I was playing catch up on my reading.  Three great articles jumped out at me.  First was the TNS Media Intelligence report on US Advertising Expenditures for 2006.  In the report it cited that Internet display advertising grew by 17.3% in 2006, vs. a modest increase of 4.1% for the industry as a whole.  The trend shows that marketers continue to shift budgets towards targeted, digital media.

In my most recent experience I have seen marketers turn their existing upfront dollars to digital advertising that is measurable. The TNS's report also showed that Network Television grew only 2.5%, although total spend was off-set by a big jump in Hispanic TV ads.

As you know I have written much in the topic of how Digital is still be considered by marketers who fear change or are to lazy to educate themselves as "below the line".  That is not to say that a handful of executives on Madison Avenue have now caught on that consumers are skimming past their expensive ads.

Ad Age has just released its second Digital Fact Pack,  as well as has launched a separate Digital Channel on AdAge.com.  Why launch a separate channel?  As the consumer's behavior has made the shift to Internet from TV unavoidable, traditional agencies and the marketers that they advise have glued their feet to the gas pedal with no other choice but to keep on going. (i.e. the current 2008 upfront buys)

Now the PR guys are singing a sad song (great read by Matt Shaw, VP of the Council of Public Relations Firms: Advertising Posing as PR: Why They Want to Be Like Us (and What to Do About It) because their budgets have dwindled due to the fact that social media has been capitalized and tracked by digital agencies.

The fact of the matter is that great ideas are consumer centric - not channel specific.  Our job as creative marketers is to change and influence human behavior not make TV ads or glossy spreads.   Moreover, the high spending 18 to 35 year old consumer is online and engaging with brands as filters to their passions.  The creative marketers who have realized this are seeing a direct correlation in sales and consumer loyalty.   

ON: Streaming Social Media

Mosoto is a new way to share and connect with your facebook friends. In playing with it, I found that I could share files, chat with friends and discover people and media in your social network. After doing a bit of research I found that Mosoto is built ontop of Facebook which could be very interesting if you were to brand this ans skin it for a branded application. Mosoto is all about streaming social media.

ON: Digital Content + Broadband Television

Media Post has a great series of panel discussions on Broadband Television.  See platform creators, media giants and advertisers talk about their opinion on Broadband Content.

Check it out here: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid464120922/bclid823367507/bctid823354485

ON: Prison Break's Locate The 8

Some great marketing for an intense show! In the UK, have had their thinking caps on recently for a campaign to promote the second series of Prison Break, the hit US drama, on its appearance in the UK. Instead of resorting to the standard ‘new series’ approach of gigantic billboards and a few half-hearted trailers, VCCP opted for a more dynamic approach to engage the tricky 18-34 year-old target audience.

The solution? An online ‘manhunt’, drawing inspiration from the plot of Prison Break itself. The eight fugitives were ‘hidden’ deep in various web 2.0 sites: Bagwell and Patoshik were captured on CCTV footage on YouTube; Franklin and Apolskis were in the background on Flickr images; Sucre and Abruzzi had their own MySpace pages.

After the ‘Locate the 8’ campaign (great title) was promoted via a combination of marketing to the Five.
TV email base, outdoor advertising and live on-air shout-outs, a dedicated community quickly sprang up online, working together to solve clues in the best tradition of the online Hive mind. Clues were seeded via the campaign microsite, with the first to locate all 8 fugitives winning a trip to Alcatraz.

We’ve never quite seen the appeal of trying to break in where others spent ages trying to break out, but thousands of people did. Results were impressive - Prison Break 2 delivered a rise of 14% vs. its peak figures for the previous series, and audience figures maintained at a similar level through the lifetime of the competition. 50% of the entrants ‘caught’ all 8 prisoners.

Check it all our at: http://www.vccpdigital.co.uk/awards/work/prison-break-microsite/in

ON: Digital Marketing Podcast & Course

This week I have begun preparing to coordinate a series of podcasts and lectures for brand marketers and traditional advertisers to be hosted by me and Mark Rosal @ Visual Goodness.

Taking queues and influenced by my fellow creative bloggers, I have created a 101 series to begin educating marketing executives, clients and fellow non-digital creatives on how to create and architect relevant consumer conversation by giving them brand story’s that are worth repeating.

My theory - while very Utopian - is that education free's the mind.

I have also resolved to complete my book on the Agency world.