For long advertisers have bombarded us with TV and print ads that we sat politely and consumed. But as the world turns more ‘social’ — because of the Facebooks, Orkuts, YouTubes and Twitters of the world — we are breaking out of the passive-participant mould. The consumer is reacting and influencing others’ opinions. This throws up challenges for marketers and advertisers. Lucy Jameson, executive strategy director of DDB UK and chair of DDB’s Global Planning Futures Group, believes that in today’s socially-networked and hyper-connected world, it’s not enough to craft a message that just touches the individual. What we produce today has to be inherently social. In a conversation with Amit Ranjan Rai, she talks about the importance of social creativity and the shift from traditional advertising.
What do you mean by ‘social creativity’?
DDB has always believed that creativity is the most powerful force in business — that’s fundamental. However, we are seeing that creativity is fast changing. That is because the consumer, the medium and the technology are changing faster than ever. While it took 28 years for television to reach 50 million viewers, Facebook reached 100 million in just nine months. As a result, consumers are better connected and aware today than they used to be. So, it is no longer enough for us to target media that merely shouts at them.
Instead, consumers today want something they can participate in, play with, may be produce something new out of it, and pass on. They are interested in things they can interact with. And, that is what social creativity is all about. We are talking about social creativity that provokes social reaction and gets passed on to people’s social networks both online and offline. It is not just about connecting people with brands but also connecting them with more people.
The so-called hyper-connected world is redefining a lot of things. How is it changing people or consumers?
In certain ways, we are seeing a shift from an age of deference to an age of reference. There aren’t the same information asymmetries that used to be there. We are all able to speak to other people like us and find out about what they think. They don’t have to take information on trust any longer. They can find out what other people like them think as well as share what they found interesting with not just a handful but millions of people. In fact, thoughts of one person can reach out to millions in no time.
The concept of ‘six degrees of separation’ (everyone is at most six steps away from any other person in the world) was overlooked, but recent work from network scientists shows that it is actually true. In a world of six billion, we are all connected by just six steps. That’s an interesting insight for us because it means we are surrounded and networked with people 360 degrees, and if we provide people content that they find interesting, entertaining and useful, they would share them through their six degrees. That’s very interesting for us.
What does this mean for creativity?
Actually, it is even more demanding. It is no longer enough for us to do a classic TV ad where you play it out hundreds of times and eventually everyone gets the message. To produce something that people want to share and want to participate in is really demanding. It has to be better than it was before, say, on TV. There is both a challenge and opportunity for a network like DDB which has reputation for creativity. We are trying to produce content which people seek out rather than it just interrupting people. We have a number of examples where people are ready to seek out the content — they actually come and find it — rather than the advertiser having to pay to get it distributed.
Any example you can share.
Phillips has a history of innovation. Yet it trails behind giants like Samsung and Sony. These brands spend a huge amount of money on TV advertising. And Phillips couldn’t compete on those terms. So we decided to change the battleground. We decided to target a niche but affluent audience of cinema buffs: The kind of consumers who can pay upwards of £2,000 for a TV with a cinematic viewing experience. We took 21 words of dialogue and gave them five different directors from Ridley Scott Associates, and asked them to create their own film using the same 21 words in a way that showcased the TV’s unique features.
We seeded this unusual campaign in social media using a Facebook page which gives users access to additional exclusive content, such as previews, director interviews and behind the scenes clips. We also created a branded channel on YouTube, where we ran a global competition for consumers to make their own film, based on the same brief as the professional directors. Consumers can vote for the best films, which will then be sent to Ridley Scott who will select the winner. So instead of just creating some advertising talking about the product features, we tried to create content which engages a specific audience, generates interest, and even allows them to participate. And, at the same time, demonstrates the product’s features.
Another interesting example can be Volkswagen’s Fun Theory campaign in Sweden created by DDB. Stairs in a subway in Stockholm were turned into a keyboard. So instead of people going up and down the escalator, they started taking the stairs as it made musical notes. The experience was recorded and put online. Some 40 million people watched it, without Volkswagen having to spend any money on the traditional media. The idea demonstrated Volkswagen launching a new range of green cars and that adopting green behaviour can be fun. Volkswagen did a series of such experiments under the Fun Theory campaign for its greens cars. These are today among the most watched videos on YouTube.
So what does this mean for advertisers, marketers and agencies?
What we are talking about here is a shift from classic advertising and account planning to behavioural targeting and planning. It is about thinking through what is going to change behaviour, understanding what is going on in the brain. So a lot of recent research on behavioural economics and neuroscience comes in handy. Most importantly, we need to think through the customer journey. It’s no longer about just getting a particular message across; we’ll have to think if anyone would like to share our work with others. Clients will perhaps have to spend a little more money on such content and production, in view of the fact that they’ll have to spend less on the traditional paid media.
It’s an interesting shift for clients because we can create great multiplicative effect if we do more creative work, which can save clients’ money. But they will have to be prepared to understand that creativity, and value it in that sense.
What exactly do you mean by behavourial targeting in today’s context?
When you are online, being able to see what someone is doing online and then work out what would be the appropriate type of advertising for them. At a basic level, it could be they have done a search for shoes and visited three different types of websites around shoes — so in real time being able to put on those ads for that one person around the kind of shoes he’s looking for. But it is going to get more and more sophisticated. Say, a friend just makes a comment on Facebook, “I just bought a fantastic pair of shoes” and then we’re going to put an ad up for his friends to see the shoes and a similar range. It is relevant content rather than just random content. And it is going to pop up to that individual rather than across the board on that website.
And that’s just one end of the spectrum. At the other end, we will see much more exciting content that would engage the consumer at the brand level. We need to understand whole customer journey much better, and not just have an “Oh, I want create a lovely 10-, 20- or 60-second ad” approach.
What are the trends that you see in the next two or three years?
Probably one of the biggest trends globally would be how much mobiles will take off and as a result all the geo-based services. One example can be the Foursquare geo-social network which a lot of people are talking about, but it is not very big at the moment. But I think it would be important for us to think how we use geo-based services. So that will change a lot. Then, behavioural targeting will come up in a big way. So having access to the data, and targeting people very specifically through the digital medium, serving them with relevant content, will be crucial.
