A Cool Front Moves In
Aug 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Amy Johannes
PART 2) It’s about consumer engagement
Whether through online video or an event, “It’s all about consumer engagement and how to effectively engage consumers in a digital age,” says Larry Deutsch, managing director, 141 Worldwide, Chicago. “Engagement is an active interaction with the consumer, not passive. And the way you are active is through relevant content, not just the messaging. That’s what you are seeing…a shift in spending to engage with consumers in non-traditional ways via Webisodes, online mobile technology, etc.”
Coke, for example, is giving consumers reasons to stop and watch its ads. The company has joined other marketers in rolling out digital video recorder (DVR) ready ads. Coke launched “sublymonal” ads for a Sprite ad campaign, which tell viewers the ads are DVR ready with codes hidden within the ad that can be viewed when the ad is slowly replayed. Codes entered on Sublymonal.com unlock exclusive music and video content. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami, created the spots.
“It’s all very much a wink at the consumer,” McDermott says. “We’re saying, ‘We know you like marketing, but not marketing that pulls the wool over your eyes.’ We’re trying to make advertising fun and cool.”
It’s that “coolness” factor that has brands embracing DVR.
There was a time when some marketers considered DVR manufacturers like TiVo a “real pariah” for their ad-skipping capability, TiVo President and CEO Thomas S. Rogers acknowledges. The device gave marketers and networks sweaty brows over fear of plummeting ad revenue.
Fast forward a year ago, brands started changing their tune. Faced with fragmenting media and multitasking consumers, brands began following TiVo’s lead to engage viewers through interactive TV commercials, reflecting a “seismic shift” in the industry, Rogers says. Coke, GE, the WB Network and others have all tapped TiVo for its ad technologies. In May, GE launched its One Second Theater ad campaign around its “ecomagination” push (remember that dancing elephant commercial?). DVR owners pause the commercial to see clips of the making of the ad.
“There’s a lot of demand for TiVo enhancement,” Rogers says. “It’s all about how you reach those who are fastforwarding, what steps you can take to put creative and different inducements in front of somebody to get them to stop on an ad.”
In May, TiVo launched a new advertising tool that lets viewers search and select ad content. Dubbed TiVo Product Watch, consumers search for one-minute to hour-long ads and content from brands including General Motors, Sony Pictures, Lending Tree and Kraft Foods.
Between 10% to 12% of U.S. households own a DVR. Within five years, at least 50% of U.S. homes will own the technology, Rogers says. In TiVo households, consumers tend to fast forward through about 70% of commercials, he estimates.
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