ADVERTISING ISN’T DEAD. HERE’S WHY.

advertising

noun

1.

the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards, etc.:

to get more customers by advertising.

2.

paid announcements; advertisements. 

3.

the profession of planning, designing, and writing advertisements. 

So here's the thing, it is incredibly disingenuous for any company that is paid to produce communications for brands to claim advertising is dead. It’s not. It is evolving. And therein lies the difference. 

New technologies and the shift in consumer behavior means that brands can no longer rely on the ways they communicated in the past, they need to think smarter.

 There’s been constant talk about storytelling and data for years, and they both deserve a seat at the table and as part of the communication discussion of course. 

Then there is ‘content’, a term that unfortunately is bandied about without much thought or consideration, it is used to fill in many gaps when people don’t quite know what to call something or when they decide to run a 30-second TV commercial online, suddenly it is no longer a TV commercial, it is content.

The channels available today to get a brand’s message out to people cover a myriad of mediums - digital, print, broadcast, mobile, out of home, in-store, on-shelf, and so on. 

Previously I wrote a post outlining my thoughts on TV commercials; in a nutshell I believe they are nowhere near as effective as they used to be. That has nothing to do with the TV commercial itself; it is mainly due to shifts in the way people engage with media. Commercials can still be part of the mix, but they are no longer the King of the communication castle. 

Those of us responsible for helping brands connect with their desired audience have so many options available to us now, and that is a good thing. Well I think it is.

Instead of being locked into a 30 second, one-off TV commercial format with a nice budget, you could make 10 pieces of video that tell an engaging story.

But how can you make 10 videos with a budget that previously only allowed you to make one TV commercial? Well, that’s where you need to get creative. Tell stories. Good ones, and ones that people will connect with. And sometimes the best stories are the simplest.

Garry Vaynerchuk recently talked about this and he hit the nail on the head regards spending 3 Million dollars on one TV commercial, he said – “…if you’re a true creative I would think ten $300k shoots…is also intriguing.” I'll link the video at the bottom of this post. 

Not every brand story needs Star Wars level production values, some can be made for much less, as it is the story and the message that is more important than the equipment, crew, ritzy accommodations, and the lobster tacos being served up for lunch. (But let’s keep the lobster tacos; they are nice.)

Technology has now placed 4k filmmaking right in the palm of our hands, via smartphones. There are also quite affordable DSLR cameras that shoot broadcast quality product as well of course. I've shot on Canon 5D's and their big brother the Canon C-300, both get amazing results, and neither cost a fortune to buy, let alone rent. 

The film ‘Tangerine’, a hit at the last Sundance Film Festival, was shot entirely on an iPhone 5s using an $8 app. It garnered critical acclaim, not because it was shot on an iPhone (actually the Director kept that a secret until after it had screened) but because of the story. Story trumps equipment every time. (Unless of course you're making something like 'Avatar'.)

There are now a growing number of talented filmmakers who shoot video and edit on the run, and more often than not they work as a one-person production unit, and they can make your 10 videos a reality. Sure, you may need more than one person, in fact you will, but you wont need a cast of thousands.

It reminds me of a TV commercial I made way back in 2004 for a record company when I had my own creative agency in Sydney, Australia. For reasons beyond my control I had to shoot the spot in Los Angeles, and do it for a very meager budget, and when I saw meager I mean tiny. Long story short, we shot it on a sound stage in Hollywood, the crew/team consisted of myself as Director/ Producer/Writer/Creative Director/Art Director and I also had a Camera Operator/DP to handle that side of things. That’s all we had on the production team…two of us. We also had one make up artist and we slipped some money to a guy who worked at the sound stage to help rig the lights. My DP and myself did the off-line edit on our laptops at his kitchen table in LA. 

I also played the role of caterer, I went to the supermarket the night before and stocked up on snacks, fruit, water, and other food. When I walked into the make-up room with a tray of offerings one of the models asked – “But aren’t you the Director?” To which I replied – “Yes, and the caterer, runner, cleaner, and everything else.”

One of the funniest things about this shoot was that we had five models/talent in it, so there were more people in front of the camera than behind it. That TV commercial aired nationally in Australia and New Zealand and nobody knew the backstory. The client loved it, the album in question went triple platinum, and I also had the added bonus of having designed the album cover. 

Was the project easy? Pretty much. Was it fun? Absolutely, we all had a ball and I am still good friends with most of the talent that was in it, they said it was one of the most unpretentious and enjoyable shoots they had ever done.

Would I want all my shoots to be like that? Not necessarily, but it goes to show that if you want to make something, you can. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Another prime example of a one-person video content making machine is Casey Neistat. He makes a daily video vlog while running a new app start-up and many other projects he has going on. He conceives the concept, writes, shoots, edits and posts every day…all by himself. His videos get an average of 500,000 views in a day, he has 1,343,00 subscribers to his YouTube channel so far and to date that channel has had 272,525,409 views. 

Now this kind of filmmaking is not new of course, but somehow it got swept under the carpet in favor of big production values for 30 seconds of disposable media. I’m not complaining, I built a career on the back of such things, and I am proud of that work, but that was then and this is now.

When you turn on the evening TV news what you’re watching is a story that is being shot by one person with a camera and maybe a sound person. Like I said, this is nothing new. 

Now what do you do with 10 videos you may ask? You distribute them and place them in the relevant mediums; they don’t have to be 30 seconds each so you have much more flexibility now. Much of that media is free of course. Bonus.

They can be on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, on mobile, in-store, Periscope, and more. We now have so much more of a playing field, so much so I am amazed more people are not excited about it. Now that your ideas do not have to conform to a rigid 30-second format that should allow you to break free and shine creatively. 

But if needed you can also tailor your video content to work in the traditional broadcast space, so you have everything covered. Some good writing and editing can ensure you can make it work in 30 or even 15 seconds if needed. But my suggestion is write and develop for the other formats first and then re-work for the TV format and not the other way around. This is a mistake so many make, as I mentioned earlier, people placing a 30 second TV commercial online and suddenly calling it content. 

Google partnered with BBDO NY not long ago to do an experiment about just this, placing a traditional TV commercial on mobile to see if it engaged the audience, it didn't, but what did work was a different version of the same idea, tailored to be more suitable for the mobile medium. I'll link to an article about that below. 

So that is the video and motion side of things, but what about print media? Well, as we know that too has changed. But print is not dead either, just walk into any of the magazine stores in New York City and you will see wall to wall publications. What has happened is that we now have many more niche and targeted magazines and journals such as Monocle for example, that is a print success story to be reckoned with.Monocle also produces online video and radio content. Then of course there is Kinfolk, Cereal, and more. 

But what has gone beyond print, and in some ways is closely aligned to it, is something that and I feel will continue to grow in relevance for brands, and that is Instagram.

Take for example someone like model Miranda Kerr, as I write this she has 7.3 million followers. There is not one magazine that can claim those numbers.

She can engage with millions in an instant and they are opting in to connect with her…plus it’s free. When she posts something she can get anywhere from 100k to 250k likes. They are pretty impressive numbers. She recently posted a 6 second video about her new fragrance she is promoting, she didn’t even speak a word, and it so far has 150k likes. Not bad.

Many smart magazines are pairing Instagram with their printed publication to good effect. 

But once again, something like Instagram offers up some fresh creative freedoms that should be embraced. It’s still virgin territory in many ways and there is still so much more than can or could be done with it. We just need the ideas, and those ideas can be stills, animations, and live action videos.

Ideas should be the hero before anyone even thinks about what they are going to make. Great ideas get discussed, shared, talked about, liked, and sometimes even loved. Bad ideas are easily forgotten.

Before the obituary is written about the death of advertising, maybe we should be looking at how to resuscitate it, how we can breath life back into it.

Because if you are in the business of helping to promote a brand, product, or service and you are being paid for that service you are in fact, for all intents and purposes, in the business of advertising as the dictionary description above clearly spells out. And unless you somehow have the power to re-write the dictionary I have a sneaking suspicion that description will remain that way for some time to come.

Words and image ? Rodd Chant

You can see Gary Vaynerchuk's video here.

Take a look at Casey Neistat's YouTube channel here.

And here is the Google/BBDO mobile ad test here.