A Fresh Ferocious Wave/Article
The Brand, The Tablet, the Future of Brand Advertising
Jake Fowler talked to Joe McCambley, founder and creative director of The Wonderfactory, developer, among other things, of Sports Illustrated’s iPad version, about the future of brand advertising and how platforms like the iPad will transform the magazine experience for readers and advertisers.
How do you create a brand experience people will embrace in the digital space?
“Brand Experience” is such a loaded phrase. Many marketers today define “brand experience” as advertising; some think of “the brand” as their logo. Smart marketers know that every interaction a person has with the company or product is a branded experience, and they try to perfect every interaction.
Everything matters.
If a FedEx truck cuts you off on the highway, the value of the FedEx brand decreases in your mind. If FedEx is smart, they’ll make sure that all trucks bearing their logo have superb, courteous drivers behind their wheels.
One cranky barista can ruin the Starbucks brand experience. That’s why Starbucks regards itself as a customer service company that happens to sell coffee, and trains its baristas accordingly.
Even experiences that are seemingly out of a marketer’s control matter greatly. Like I said, everything matters.
Aren’t the keys to creating successful brand experiences in ANY media the same? Don’t we have to be relevant (right message, right time, right place, right person) and interesting and informative and entertaining and helpful?
Think about the creation of brand awareness. While the media used to express their messages were different, were the old Burma Shave billboards and the new Subservient Chicken all that different? Didn’t Burma Shave attempt to stand out from the monotony of a long drive, and didn’t Subservient Chicken try to stand out from the tedium of the Web? Both campaigns put “Burma Shave” and “Burger King” on the tongues of millions because they did their jobs so well.
When Volkswagen asked in the 60’s, “…ever wonder how the guy who drives the snow plow gets to the snow plow?” was it all that different from BMW Films’ “The Hire” showing how a person whose livelihood depends upon his car uses his car? Sure, the length and action are different, but the idea is the same—and effective.
I wish there were easy-to-follow rules that would make it possible for all brands and all agencies to create meaningful brand experiences in the digital space that people embrace, but no such rules exist. I’ve heard Ogilvy on Advertising quoted in defense of shitty ads too many times in my career to believe that any rules I write here will make a difference.
I think it was John Wooden, the great UCLA basketball coach, who once said, “You can’t teach height.” Maybe the best way to create a brand experience that people will embrace in the digital space is to start by hiring a great creative agency.
How has the relationship changed between content publishers and advertisers with the evolution of digital technology?
When it comes to the relationship between publishers and advertisers, “measurability” may be both the greatest blessing and the greatest curse of digital technology. In many, if not most cases, advertisers only want to pay for clicks or purchases. That’s like going up to a girl in a bar and asking her if she wants to have sex, and then blaming the bar when she says, “No!”
Like bars, publishers have always had a responsibility to create an environment where brands and consumers can meet, and develop relationships.
Like bar patrons, advertisers have always had a responsibility to be smart about the way they approach consumers, so that they might build relationships with those consumers. When brands demand instant results, and refuse to pay for relationship-building, publishers respond by shoving more ads onto their sites to make up for lost revenue. The environment necessary for relationship-building is degraded. That’s why the Web is overrun with remnant banner inventory, because “next to nothing” is all that most websites are worth paying for these days.
Now we’re in a situation where publishers can’t make enough to survive, advertisers can’t get the relationships or results they need, and consumers can only be reached with ever-larger banners. Nobody benefits.
One of the reasons why the tablet makes me so hopeful for advertisers and publishers is that ads have always been an important part of the magazine experience. Remove the ads from InStyle or Real Simple, and the experience for consumers would not be nearly as pleasing. Hopefully, publishers will take this opportunity to create an even stronger environment for relationship-building, and advertisers will take this opportunity to develop deeper relationships with consumers.
But the publishers will have to have guts to make this happen. Publishers that have strong wills, who demand brand experiences from advertisers that enhance their tablet content—and who partner with advertisers to create those experiences—will thrive over the coming years. Publishers who allow their experiences to be degraded for the sake of money will follow the same path as publishers on the Web.
What are the main concerns potential ad buyers have about advertising in the digital space, especially in the iPad format?
This is a great question, because it points to one of the biggest problems with advertising today: the separation of ad buyers from ad creators.
In our age of specialization, it’s only natural that ad buyers demand as much as possible from publishers in return for their money. That’s what advertisers expect them to do. Ad creators, on the other hand, (should be) looking for ways to build fabulous experiences that lead to positive outcomes, be those outcomes awareness, interest, desire or action.
The buyers want more real estate for their money. The creators want the broadest, freshest creative palette possible. The goals are at odds with each other. Until advertisers, their buyers and creators,
What are you most excited about with advertising in the iPad format? What is the biggest challenge to selling this advertising so far?
The tablet is the broadest palette yet created for advertising. It’s print, audio, video, outdoor, all in one. It’s awareness, direct response, point of sale, all in one. It’s useful, entertaining, inspiring, thought provoking, timely, portable—and about 50 other adjectives. Best of all, it’s personal, in that consumers have to touch it to get what they need. Sure, the Internet was most of that, and the iPhone and other mobile phones were most of that, but the tablet is the first package with the right size, the right bandwidth and the right aesthetics to create totally useful and pleasing experiences.
What excites me the most is what has always excited me the most about advertising—the potential to create advertising that is so useful, people will think of it as a service to be embraced, as opposed to an interruption to be avoided. Now, when they go to the bathroom, it just might be to immerse themselves in an ad experience, rather than to avoid it!
Odd use of the basketball coach John Wooden quote “You can’t teach height.” McCambley thinks this somehow relates to hiring a great creative agency. Height is an indisputable fact like a click or a purchase. The significance of the fact is where coaching judgment or marketing judgment enters the picture. Great creative like great coaching must use facts. There are very few short basketball stars.