Promax/BDA Highlights Creativity ... But Not Innovation

Each year the Promax/BDA conference brings together entertainment marketing, promotion and design professionals to inspire and inform as well as discuss the role of marketers in the monetization of media. The overarching theme was creativity and innovation. As a first-time attendee, I was struck by the failure to address the disconnectbetween creativity and innovation.

As Jack Myers has advocated for three decades, new and innovative business models are necessary in order for media companies to thrive. "If marketers are unable to effectively communicate with consumers," he says, "the long-term trickle-down impact on the overall economy will be startling." This year's Promax/BDA acknowledged that marketers are struggling to effectively communicate with consumers, as DVR penetration and broadcast television audience erosion force marketers and promotion executives to reconsider their roles.

Lee Hunt, President of Lee Hunt LLC, hosted "New Best Practices 2008," in which he addressed some of the most important and often overlooked issues in media marketing. He opened by commenting on Theodore Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" paper in which he said that railroad companies declined by failing to recognize that they were in the transportation business as opposed to the specific railroad business. Hunt emphasized that media and entertainment professionals should think of themselves as also working in the transportation business - the transportation of ideas - and involve themselves in all aspects of the media by which ideas are transmitted. But it's more complex than that. As Jack Myers has commented in recent JackMyers Think Tank columns,"Media companies today - even the largest digital media companies - are in danger of following the railroad industry model and becoming Industrial Age mass distribution vehicles rather than Relationship Age interactive brand and human connectors."

Hunt defines brands as a consumer's perception of a particular product or service. Taking a page from Lovemarksby Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, Hunt highlighted each of the four quadrants of the love and respect matrix of brands. Hunt then showed a DirecTV commercial that mocks cable television executives, noting that the commercial would place the brand in the high love, low respect quadrant of the matrix. Also in the high love, low respect quadrant is the Time Warner cable commercial featuring Mike O'Malley declaring, "DirecTV hates puppies" (there is also a version that replaces "Satellite" for "DirecTV"). When searching for video clips of both commercials I came across more video rants against both companies than anything else, indicating that user sentiments would place both in the low love, low respect quadrant.

During a session titled "TV 2.0: Understanding the New Content Paradigm," one advertising campaign was particularly outstanding. Created by interactive production studio Mekanism, the National Organization for Legislation Against Fun (NOLAF) spot for Tostitosentertained but also effectively integrated the product into the advertising. Clearly targeting a younger audience, a dedicated website, NOLAF.org, allows users to view and share the campaign. It was clear that the creators had thought well beyond the 30-second TV spot.

During the same panel discussion, Paul Beddoe-Stephens, VP of Digital Media for Comedy Central, said he felt many media companies were finally effectively embracing both the television and digital space as equally important and complementary, citing Stephen Colbert's presidential campaign, sponsored by Doritos, as an example. "The user experience is the ad experience and the ad experience is the user experience. They intertwine. You cannot put a 30-second pre-roll video ad in front of a clip. You're going to lose users." He went on to say that interspersed product integration and sponsorships were, at least for Comedy Central's programming, most effective.

Ironically, several of the commercial spots that were highlighted during the conference were devoid of any product integration. For example, the Sony Bravia commercial featuring stop motion clay bunnies was celebrated for its creativity. Last year, when compiling a list of 2007's best commercial ad campaigns, I asked several friends what their favorite commercials were. Several cited the "clay bunny ads" (as they were often referred to) but couldn't recall what the commercial was advertising.

During a session titled "State of Design," Justin Cone, editor of Motionagrapher.com, showcased a number of what he felt were creative and innovative promotions and advertising spots. Though the promos and ads were indeed creative and memorable, I am hesitant to call them innovative as it is days later and I can't recall a single thing that the spots promoted or advertised.

While the advertising industry continues to adapt to media evolution, the criteria on which successful advertising is evaluated must also evolve. As both Saatchi’s Roberts and Myers have pointed out, while well-produced and entertaining 30-second spots may be celebrated for their creativity, truly successful advertising, in whatever form it may take, should increase the consumer's Emotional Connections to the brand and creativity and innovation are far from interchangeable.