Advertising's Future Doesn't Suck, Actually

At SXSW , they wrap streetlight poles and convention center pillars in plastic wrap, enabling people to affix stickers and posters to their surfaces without leaving permanent residue. A yellow flier caught my attention.

It read “Advertising Sucks.”

The verbiage made me curious enough about its origins that I followed the link printed on the paper. It turns out it’s not the work of some group of anti-capitalist Stalinists, anti-free-speech fascists, or the BBC. The company, Allfred , aims to help agencies run their operations more efficiently, theoretically enabling the client to then put more energy into ensuring the advertising they produce doesn’t suck.

I thought more about that as I rolled from taking photos of embellished concrete columns straight into a session entitled “A New School of Leaders Transforming the Marketing Experience.”

Advertising is a big part of the marketing experience. I’ve never been one to believe advertising in general sucked – its role in informing and entertaining consumers is often undervalued. But that doesn’t mean the industry can’t constantly strive to improve its processes. One modern improvement vector cited by the panel is what 联合利华 Chief Digital & Commercial Officer Conny Braams called “the creative commerce revolution.”

Moderator Michael Kassan of MediaLink pointed out the expansiveness of Braams’s title, and they discussed how her external relations job now needs to encompass sales along with marketing and, to an increasing extent, tech. Part of the reason is that digital technology has increasingly blurred the distinction between marketing and sales, and how to know to which area one should attribute commercial activity from, say, sales facilitated via a streaming video platform like Netflix .

The Netflix corporate policy, in fact, used to be that advertising sucked, at least for their business model. They’d do product placement and corporate promotional tie-ins, but did not accept ads. Kassan noted that he on more than one occasion called Ted Sarandos, the service’s co-chief executive officer, and got told Netflix would never accept advertising. Then the streaming ecosystem got disrupted and the streamer pivoted to accepting ads. The woman they brought in to spearhead that effort, Jeremi Gorman , told the audience the company was “really happy with the progress” so far.

She also talked about reaching consumers in meaningful ways, the way her firm’s library of compelling program titles has often succeeded in doing. And she should know – Gorman said she had COVID three times and no doubt gave her Netflix menus a workout.

Tim Mapes , Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at Delta Air Lines Airlines, echoed that observation by reminding the industry to avoid the superficial and suggested that brands should instead seek more authenticity. In many ways, the creative commerce revolution facilitates such implementations by enabling, as Mapes pointed out, content creators to do more.

But content creators have to want to do more. When they’re creating that great show for Netflix, are they also thinking about the marketing messages that might now run within it? As Braams noted, you “don’t want advertising to be dull and transactional.” A content creator good enough to get a show on Netflix knows how to keep from being dull. She also pointed out the increasing ability for bands to go from passive television ads to active ones with QR codes and more. And she asked how can we then make those feel valuable, not purely transactional, for the viewer?

Part of the solution is for content makers to take that into account at the earliest stages of their projects and for the likes of Netflix to ask them to think about it at the pitch phase. That could be in the form of content extensions for brands, storylines that lend themselves to showcasing brand values, and even logical moments where transactional placements could generate sales. Such an approach would make Gorman’s job easier.

She’s only been on the job for five months. As she noted, her product offerings for brands don’t yet include advanced ad technology. But they do have social media and other ways to extend beyond a :30-second spot. Hopefully she’ll have the clout at some point to be able to request that her colleagues who acquire programs ask those from whom they acquire them to keep her needs in mind.

The entire viewing experience, as Gorman said, “should be a joyous experience.” That includes the programming and the ads. If you do it really well, maybe you’ll even get people opting in to watch the ads.

Ironically, the flier suggesting advertising sucks was itself a piece of advertising. It got me to opt into it because it provided value. I’m a programming creator who looks to do business with the likes of Netflix and its potential clients like Unilever and Delta. I’ll always keep the idea of providing value to the consumer at the forefront of my creative process, and apply that thinking throughout the entirety of the viewer experience. If you’re working with an AVOD platform, it’s in everyone’s best interest for the advertising not to suck.

Rush Olson?has spent two-plus decades directing creative efforts for sports teams, broadcasters, and related entities. He currently conceives and executes content projects through his companies,?Rush Olson Creative & Sports,?FourNine Productions?and?Mint Farm Films. Through MFF, he’s at work on biographical documentaries about Nancy Lieberman, Sidney Moncrief, Pudge Rodríguez, Ed Belfour, and Bob Lilly as well as a show about the?The College Gridiron Showcase.

Subscribe to?@MintFarmFilms?on YouTube to see excerpts from upcoming documentaries.