The Revolution is Here! Digitas’s Verdino Proselytizes
Someone has finally said it: "Be the Content." Hallelujah!
(It would have been us, but we were too busy fixing the water cooler.)
Greg Verdino, we
salute you. As the popularity of online video soars, the question at hand for
marketers accustomed to their usual 30 seconds is – "How long do we make our
pre-roll ads?"
But
as he says in the longer
version of the article
in this month’s OMMA mag, "Don’t."
Today,
as the consumer exerts more control over her consumption of media, as primetime
gives way to “my time” and as technology empowers more people to make the shift
from content consumer to content creator, the effectiveness of traditional, interruption
advertising has been called into question…I’m not suggesting that television
advertising is dead – of course, it isn’t – but it does feel like we’re headed down
a slippery slope.
I’ll
say. Rather than being the pesky little guys that interrupt the programming
that viewers really want to see, he suggest that advertisers and agencies start
leveraging their resources into producing
content. Genius, really. He’s not saying that consumers will start watching
content that is solely about the brand, but would be open to material that
supports it – if it were entertaining or informative, of course.
So,
How To…?
First,
you’re going to need some friends. Obviously, your Creatives are not going to
start donning the dark sunglasses of independent film producers nor start
holding hands with mainstream media companies. And they’ll certainly not turn
over their cameras to, god forbid, The Consumer. But they can start playing
nice with them and see what comes of it.
Next
– distribute, distribute, distribute. To their own destinations, but also to
third-party sites, not forgetting to consider the potential influence of networked media.
When you go wild boar hunting (you know, as so many of us do) you don’t just bring one
bullet. To stretch the analogy further: although you shouldn’t be splaying the
jungle with machine-gun fire, a few select shots to moving underbrush might be
worthwhile.
And who
knows? You just might be bringin’ home the bacon.
