David Kenny, Chairman & CEO of Digitas, opened i20Events’ New York conference as the Keynote Interview. In a similar manner to Rob Cosinuke of Digitas who spoke at i20’s Boston Conference a week earlier, David used such words as "engagement", "relevance" and "connection" to express the current and future direction of advertising.
David spoke specifically about the challenges that this new world brings to advertising agencies. He said, "Agencies cannot keep singing ‘Karaoke Creative’," which is David’s term for using ideas that have worked in the past.
In this new world one of the most important things that an agency can do, according to David, is to pick clients well. He said, "We turn down lots (of clients). It’s important to work with clients that you can have impact on. In fact, the bulk of what we do is for existing customers--to serve them well and to renew the relationship; that’s where online is most important--we really know them, learn over time and personalize the relationship."
When asked what the single biggest need of the Ad Agency is today, David replied, "Agencies really need to invest in talent. If we do not have people who are smart enough and brave enough to develop new creative ideas, we won’t get it. Those who truly invest in talent and are truly creative, will find the solution and their consumers will engage."
Few companies have engaged adults aged 18-34 better than MTV but as the media landscape changes, can it keep up?
We live in world of overnight media success. MySpace.com , for example, has skyrocketed to the 3rd highest trafficked site on the Web with over 14 Billion page views per month and 20 million registered users. Who? Yes, have you heard of this 2-year old site that has just surpassed AOL?
Tim Rosta, SVP/Integrated Marketing for MTV, seemed quite confident that his network would keep pace as he spoke about his content centric model that can be delivered everywhere young people are via TV, the web, wireless, etc. Speaking in a session entitled "The Power of the IDEA" (Sponsored by Gorilla Nation Media), Tim rattled off three examples of how MTV is leading the charge including a partnership with Coke Music where MTV created "Making the Band", a grassroots show on the story of bands as they struggle to make it big.
In tandem with the creation of "Making the Band", Coke Music developed "Making it Real" which is an online site where bands tell their story. Coke picks one story and produces a 3.5 minute short and airs it on MTV’s "Making the Band" episode. Click here to see the clip.
This is yet another example of a grassroots type sponsorship where an advertiser allows everyday people to gain recognition by simply being themselves and keeping it real.
On the other side of real, i20 and Jason Cassidy, EVP/Marketing for Miramax, featured campaigns with Uma Thurman in a wedding dress and samurai sword and Leonardo Decaprio as one of the great aviators of all time. Jason showed three examples of how they leverage the strength of their product to make shocking ads that jump off a newspaper page with an intermixing of colors and popping images of their actors portrayed in unsuspecting ways.
As for the Internet, Miramax has not ventured deep from an advertising perspective with about 2% of its budget allocated to the medium; however, Jason did express an interest in creating a 3 minute creative. He said, "Three minutes gives you the possibility to tell the story – anything that gives you the leverage to tell the story, we’re all for."
Is it only a matter of time before the studios and other TV dominated advertisers begin to divert a large percentage of revenue to the Internet? With the interest in telling a longer story combined with the full screen broadband capabilities of such companies as Klipmart and BroadcastPC, Television would appear to be the narrow band medium in terms of time.
Will the question of: "What can you really say in a 468x60 banner" become "What can you really say in a 30 second spot"?
Part 2 of 2 to follow tomorrow.
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