It’s no surprise to anyone that marketing in the digital age has become a much more fragmented affair, with consumers bombarded with more and more marketing messages across a multitude of channels and a vast array of devices. We are becoming increasingly more fickle and hard to make an impression on – experts in evaluating what is, and isn’t, worth our attention, and ignoring the noise.
This sparked the above sentiment from Huib van Bockel, ex-Marketing Director of Red Bull UK, who suggested that brand marketing is becoming like the dating app Tinder, with people deciding almost instantly whether to engage with your brand or move on to the next one vying for your attention.
With it becoming so much harder these days to stand out in the crowd and get a viewer’s attention, it should encourage brands and marketers to re-evaluate how they might be perceived in such a small time frame, and what they can do to increase the likelihood of viewers ‘swiping right’ on their brand and starting a relationship. The type of relationship you can start in such a one-night-stand style environment is a story for another day!
With the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity over for another year, it gives all of us in attendance an opportunity to sit back and take stock of what it really means to work in advertising / marketing in an ever-changing media landscape. These days, there’s so much talk about smartphones and tablets, the battle between the first and second screen, the many different social networks and messaging apps flooding the scene, and yadda yadda yadda. Basically, the fragmentation of the way that users’ attention is occupied.
Because of this, there’s been a focus in the media and advertising world towards mastering the latest channels, usually through using a novel approach with the aim of grabbbing the viewers attention and being remembered. The problem with this is that, the more the channel takes precedent over the message and creative copy of a campaign, the less likely it is to make a meaningful impact on the audience. At the other end of the scale, some advertisers put minimal effort into differing digital channels and simply regurgitate the same idea across each. Too often, marketing in the digital age can fall flat. There is a constant struggle to find that balance between utilizing each channel differently and using great creative. But sometimes, there is a perfect harmony.
At the end of the day, whatever channel you use, you need to strike a cord with the viewer as well as taking advantage of that channel’s strengths. With that in mind, here are some of my favourite campaigns discussed at this year’s Dubai Lynx.
A.1. Steak Sauce “New Friend Requests” – Facebook
Facebook’s Fergus O’Hare championed the need to marry an understanding of the channel used with a great idea that not only leaves a lasting impression, but also conveys the message that the brand wants to get across. A.1. Steak Sauce in the US was aiming to create new use cases for it’s product by dropping the term ‘Steak’ from it’s name. Cue this great video that feeds off the channel it was distributed on (i.e. Facebook) to get that message across. This is my personal favourite.
Hewlett Packard “Bend The Rules” – Vine
David Shing (a.k.a. @Shingy, a.k.a the guy with the crazy hair) emphasised the opportunity in taking advantage of the restrictions of certain channels when telling your product’s story. If you can get your message across in only 6 seconds, then why take any longer? This user-generated campaign for HP’s new laptop / tablet hybrid wouldn’t work on any other platform but is great on Vine. It had some pretty hilarious results to boot.
Hunger Games “District Voices” Web Series – YouTube
Another great example of using the specific strengths of a channel was this campaign from YouTube to promote the latest ‘Hunger Games’ film. Google’s Vikram Tank discussed the phenomenon of YouTube celebrities that are actually more endearing to viewers than real celebritites. YouTube plucked them out of real life and dropped them into Panem, the fictional world that The Hunger Games is set in. The YouTube celebs would generate the same style of content they would normally, but this time in the context of the film’s backdrop.
Apple’s iPhone 6 “World Gallery” – Apple.com
With smartphones now completely ubiquitous, nearly everyone these days carries a pretty decent camera around with them 24/7 and we all like to think of ourselves as budding photographers. Rebecca Swift from Getty Images highlighted the recent Apple ‘World Gallery’ campaign that showcases the power of the latest iPhone’s camera by utilising user-generated content on their own site. Most of these shots are stunning.
I was lucky enough to have attended the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity this week (the MENA sister event to the Cannes Lions festival) and it only dawned on me, seeing so many fantastic advertising campaigns in one place, that the creative standard of the advertising that we typically see on a daily basis (mainly via the web) has seriously deteriorated in recent years.
While social media and tech capabilities have come to the forefront of the advertising world over the last three or four years, it seems that genuine creativity, at least as far as the copy of a campaign is concerned, has taken a back seat, having been replaced by gimmicky concepts aimed around getting the campaign shared. Creative and thought provoking copy, and it’s associated brand building benefits, has suffered with a move away from impact, to reach, and the folly of social ‘engagement’.
Humour can be used to great effect by some brands but it seems that more and more companies are opting for this approach, playing the role of the class clown, relying on Facebook Meme’s etc. to get their name out there, which is hardly a sturdy foundation to build your brand on (‘lads brands’ like Paddy Power excluded).
All is not lost though, as exemplified by the likes of the moving winner of the YouTube 7-Day Brief above, or the story of how a Hong Kong student rose from obscurity after a Steve Jobs piece received worldwide attention, and went on to create one of the most iconic adverts for Coca-Cola in the company’s history (below). Of course the online approach must be considered when developing an ad campaign but, as these ads show, this certainly doesn’t have to be at the expense of creative copy.
Creative advertising is still alive and well, even if it doesn’t show up in your Facebook newsfeed.
While Facebook might have turned 10 years old on Tuesday, another birthday that seemed to have passed under the radar somewhat over the last week or so is the Apple Mac’s big 3-0. While the Mac wasn’t Apple’s first foray into the personal computing space it is undoubtedly their longest lasting.
While the company struggled in the early 1990’s, the revamp of the Mac range in 1998 gave the company the boost it needed to pick itself up and pursue interests in other fields including music and mobile technology. Without the success of the new iMac in the late 1990’s, the company could easily have folded.
They celebrated the occasion by launching a pretty inspiring ad shot around the world entirely on the iPhone on the day of the birthday itself (January 24th) highlighting how far Apple has come since the Mac was launched in such bold fashion way back in 1984.
I really can’t get enough of these real-time digital billboards! Here is the latest example from British Airways whereby the billboard reacts to passing planes and gives passers by information on where the plane is going to and little details like what the weather is like at the destination. They use the image of a child pointing to the plane evoking the childlike sense of wonder in the magic of travel and really make you want to jump on a plane yourself and take a holiday.
These ads are accompanied by a marketing message relevant to each flight, like ‘Fly the new A380 to Los Angeles’ or provide info on the lowest fare that you can get on that flight. Brilliant!
About Me
I’m a Digital Strategist passionate about the intersection between technology and creative marketing. Last year I moved to London after 11 years living in Dubai.
