Brunner Digital Blog

I’ve been surprised recently to hear so many people in our industry claim the era of integrated marketing is coming to an end. They say it’s an overused term, and its meaning has become diluted. If that’s the case, then why did my Google search of “integrated marketing” just turn up 6.6 million hits? A Blog Pulse snapshot indicates the topic is hotter than ever. Clearly, integrated marketing is more than an industry buzz word. It’s actually a concept that isn’t going away any time soon, but the focus has definitely shifted. As digital media becomes ever more prevalent in our society, marketers—clients and agencies alike—are struggling more
than ever to get their arms around how to effectively integrate digital into their marketing programs. MORE

Geert Desager is a Trade Marketing Manager in South East Asia for Microsoft. Geert spearheaded the making of a commercial for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. The short film, called The Couple, makes a strong statement about the relationship between today’s advertiser and today’s consumer. It was a risky project considering that the ad challenges advertisers and agencies - the target clients for this Microsoft solution - to question themselves and the way they communicate with consumers.

In June, the commercial won a Bronze Lion at Cannes and we at Brunner Digital find it . . . well . . . simply hysterical and right on point. The first commercial was so successful Geert did a sequel. They both promote the advancement of one-to-one, integrated and smart digital marketing in a thoroughly entertaining fashion. Take a look below:

If you would like to learn more about the making of the commercial, check out Geert’s blog, Bring the love back. And oh by the way, Brunner Digital is here to help you bring back the love. Lot’s of love.

I’m not sure why it took me so long to post this. But our Interactive Creative Director has been selected as a key contributor to the well known Adotas E-newsletter/blog. While some may have differing views of Ernie’s often strong opinions (even within our walls), we believe that healthy debate and dialogue is good, so in the spirit of transparency we thought that we would share.

http://www.adotas.com/author/ernie-mosteller/

“We need a new site. The old one is ugly, buggy, and doesn’t do what we want. We want one that looks like ___________. That’s a really great site.”

I wonder how many times those words have been spoken in conference rooms across the country. Heck, across the world, even. It’s only natural. Each of us has a favorite site, or sites – we like how they look, we like how they work, we like the way we’re able to use them when we use them ourselves. So it’s only natural for us to want to re-create an experience we already know we like for our customers and prospects.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Because your customers and prospects may be (probably are) looking for something very different from you than a duplication of your favorite website. And what your customers are looking for from you is, in the end, what you need to deliver.

Try this exercise:

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I have a new favorite word of the day: technologist. I’m not sure it should be my new favorite word so I’m on a mission to find out whether using it is appropriate or not. In most uses of this term, it is meant as someone who has specialized training in the world of technology. In academia and more international forums, this would include engineers and scientists, and it would often require specific accreditation for this label to be bestowed.

However at a recent AAAA digital conference, panelists from agencies and digital shops used this word to refer to a breadth of people working on the technology side of digital marketing, including some creative folks. So developers, programmers, IA, and the system admins were seemingly lumped into being digital technologists, if I heard this correctly.

Does this matter? It does when a panelist refers to the back-end programmers being outsourced to India as “oh those guys” instead of realizing how important it is to acknowledge everyone’s role in the building and creating of the technology we use daily. It does matter when creative designers are given props for skills and talent when the same respect is not accorded to the creativity offered by developers. And I’m sure it matters when pay raises are being sought and awarded.

But I like the word. I like the specialness that it signifies. And so I’m off to ask some of our own technologists on staff just what it means to them.

In an earlier post, I sang the praises of the advertising model offered by Pandora.com. Another site that is taking an innovative approach to advertising within broadcast media content online is ABC.com.

As television networks continue to make more programming available on the web, they have taken different approaches to incorporating advertising into their online program streams. Most of the networks have basically created a video stream that mirrors their on-air model. They play a portion of the program, then switch to a 30-second advertiser’s spot, then continue on with the program.

But ABC.com has taken a different tact. Within ABC’s online video player, advertisers have the option to load in a branded web page or even a microsite during the commercial breaks. This branded page is completely under the control of the advertiser, allowing the brand to include a variety of content - video and audio streams, flash product demos, user polls, online games - whatever the brand want to provide. A countdown timer keeps viewers on the advertisers page for the length of a standard TV spot, and after that the user actually needs to click to continue with the program - it doesn’t just start again. This model is really forward thinking for a television network because of all that it offers both the advertiser and the viewer:

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You can’t read, listen to, or watch anything about business lately that doesn’t have to do with speculation on the economy. A lot of the speculation we in ad agencies read, not surprisingly, centers around how advertising will fare. Because ad budgets are one of the first things affected when businesses sense a downturn.

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I’m not always a big fan of online banner advertising. They certainly have their place in the mix. But display banners often try to entice people to stop doing what they are doing on the page (reading content, checking email, interacting with other users, etc.) and click through to an advertiser’s web site. And depending on the audience trying to do anything more invasive, like over-the-page ads, can be found to actually annoy and frustrate users. That’s not really what advertisers should be setting out to do. We need to strive to be more innovative and relevant.

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My Top 5 short-list of what a client can bring to the table to strengthen the agency relationship (in no particular order):

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