The Economic Times: Death of Words in Ads, It is All Visual Now
But the biggest trend that Goodbyís seen this year at Cannes leaves him speechless ó well, it ought to. ìIíve noticed something overwhelming, there are no words! It made me wonder if thereís some new international language of pictures being developed right here in front of our eyes.î In the print entries, thereís very few headlines, very little copy. ìItís just picture, logo, and boom, you go figure it out.î
Itís so prevalent that he feels itís an indication of advertising adapting to a new way consumers have of processing information. So, for ads to make an impact, their creators will have to make sure that people want to see them. It could be as simple as an ad on the internet that tells surfers when the newest Nike ad will be on TV. It could go further ó making commercials that are more like entertainment than the shows theyíre running on.
It's almost along the lines of the movie trailer. Make it exciting enough for the consumer to actually want to seek out and view the commercial. Similar to the recent BMW Films promotion. Basically, an ad campaign for the ad campaign itself.
Advertising really is very boring these days and very formulaic. It has a rythym that we are so used to and that we can so easily tune out. Why not completely change the formula? The current formula is dying. We all get excited about a 1-3% response rate. Well what about the other wasted 97-99%? Why not make advertising so compelling that people will line up like they did to see Eminem's new movie? Why not re-work the teaser campaign into something that actually teases. Something that makes you drool to see the upcoming campaign?
Make it involving. Make it intruiging. Use each medium's strengths. Use radio to ask users to find an exclusively located billboard that will then have a URL on it that will take users to a web site that will engage them in some fashion, gather info or "tease" them to an upcoming long form "advertainment" for an exciting new product that will appear on television tonight at some specific time. Even better, gather enough information from them on the web site so that they can be directed to a version of the ad that will be most appropriate to them. Call it appointment advertising.
The "scheduling" of commercial viewership will become more important as technologies like PVR's and VOD become more prevelent. What people see and when they see it will be much more in the control of the consumer rather then the advertiser. Marketers will not be able to fight these trends but will have to adapt to them.
