In the past, we'd distinguish between traditional forms of advertising aimed at mass audiences and direct marketing techniques which targeted groups or individuals directly. One of the interesting things about the brave new world of Web 2.0 is that these distinctions are becoming blurred. It's no longer TV campaigns, billboards and press advertising versus direct mail, e-shots and targeted web content. We can take an olde-worlde discipline such as radio advertising and adapt it to the brave new world.
Take Spotify, for instance. I was discussing the brand at a recent CIM course on marketing communications and making the point that the music is interrupted by pretty bog-standard commercials. One minute, we're enjoying virtually unlimited 21st-century tunes streamed over the web. The next, we're being treated to one of those cheesy ads that I grew up listening to in the 1970s on LBC or Capital in London. Unconvincing characters spouting stilted dialogue, dreamed up by the agency B-team.
While it may not be easy to drag the creative work kicking and screaming into late 2009, it is becoming possible to make the advertising more relevant to the listener. In an intriguing twist on the personalised communications we see on social networks, Spotify's Daniel Ek recently announced that his business would target ads based on customers' musical tastes.
Apparently it's possible to tell from my choice of tracks whether I'm more inclined towards BMW or Audi. This sounds intriguing, but as someone who's in the market for neither car, I'm wondering if the potential of the personalisation is likely to be rather limited. There's no doubt we're getting another glimpse of the future. How quickly it will arrive, however, is anyone's guess. In the meantime, my listening pleasure will still be disrupted by British Gas and some company which checks the memory of my computer in a free online test.
In 1968, David Ogilvy wrote a letter that was distributed at New York's Grand Central Station to help raise money for an African-American college fund. The opening line asked readers to look out of the train window when they reached 108th Street. Seeing with their own eyes the homes of the impoverished black students, they donated $26,000 in one evening. A simple idea that proved incredibly powerful. And an inspiration for this blog on advertising creativity around the world.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A number of my clients and delegates on training courses often wonder whether Twitter can truly be used as an effective marketing platform. Too often, we think of it as a vehicle for conveying a message, whereas actually it's an instantaneous method of anyone conveying a message on our behalf.
US space agency NASA recently invited 100 of its followers to Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Space Shuttle. The enthusiasts were only too glad to act as PR ambassadors for the American space program.
Yet another example of marketing communications passing out of the hands of the 'professionals' and into the hands of the general public. And just one of the many ways in which NASA has attempted to exploit the new technologies.
Watch this space.
US space agency NASA recently invited 100 of its followers to Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Space Shuttle. The enthusiasts were only too glad to act as PR ambassadors for the American space program.
Yet another example of marketing communications passing out of the hands of the 'professionals' and into the hands of the general public. And just one of the many ways in which NASA has attempted to exploit the new technologies.
Watch this space.
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