NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> AdTech Coverage: Nathan Shedroff, Vivid Studios / Rpt #7
ONLINE-ADS>> AdTech Coverage: Nathan Shedroff, Vivid Studios / Rpt #7
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Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:02:05 -0600 (CST)
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AdTech: West Coverage - Nathan Shedroff, Vivid / Rpt #7
"Creative Issues With High Stakes Advertisers"
January 23, 1998
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This is the seventh in a series of 10 reports from Richard Hoy, who
covered the AdTech: West conference in Los Angeles last week. You
will receive these reports in addition to your normal Online Ads
posts/digests.
These reports are archived at: http://www.o-a.com/adtech-archive.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This conference coverage is generously underwritten by:
Match.com
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Advertise on Match.Com and
we'll play matchmaker with your product and a half-million affluent
singles. Our subscribers are people that are open to new adventures
(like your site, for instance). They are people who are comfortable
with an online commerce environment. In fact 50,000 of them log on to
meet each other every day. That means better targetability for you. We
target your banner based on demographic data supplied to us by each of
our subscribers. That's how we deliver your ad to the individuals you
want to reach. That's how we can offer you exceptional reporting as
well. This Valentine's Day, Match.Com will be a leading online
destination for thousands of singles. We can make that true for your
site, too.
Try Match.Com now and we'll give you three months for the price of
two. To find out more, visit us at:
http://www.match.com/advertising/
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Nathan Shedroff, Vivid Studios
"Creative Issues With High Stakes Advertisers"
The focus of Nathan's presentation was to impress upon the
audience that the Internet is a communications medium, not a
publishing medium. Because it is two-way, you can encourage
interaction with a brand on a one-to-one based. That
ultimately leads to brand loyalty because you are loyal to
organizations you have a personal relationship with.
"Most of the people that approach this medium, especially
when they come from a print world, tend to treat it like a
publishing medium," he said. " And it does publishing really
well, but it is not what its strengths are. And it is not
what is its opportunities and capabilities are."
In this past year, many were saying the Internet is turning
into television. This isn't true, Nathan said.
"The only people running around saying that are people doing
television because it is in their best interest to," he
pointed out.
If we have to draw an analogy to a current technology,
Nathan suggests we think telephone instead of television.
"Television is about broadcasting. It's about passive media.
The telephone is about communicating to people and it's
about making choices. It's about personal, individual
content and it's about personalized experiences," he said.
Personalized experiences, and the communications techniques
to achieve them, really should be at the core of any Web
strategy. Nathan laid out three phases companies typically
go through when building a Web presence first phase is to
simply establish a Web site containing the typical
information you would find in a brochure. The second phase
is to develop some sort of publishing/story-telling
capability. (That is the online version of the traditional
broadcast model.) That is where many sites are today.
But the third phase, which only a handful of sites are now
entering, is one based on community. It is where you build
channels that let your visitors communicate back and you
then use that feedback to build a custom experience.
Nathan predicts that this is the year we will see many more
phase three sites as companies create online products and
services. He suggested sites will appear, for example, that
allow us to select ingredients for customized food products;
or sites that let us monitor and control our electric power
consumption.
"The Internet is transcending being about publishing and
starting to be much more complex and sophisticated in the
kinds of experiences consumers get to deal with," he said.
The purpose of these services is to build a link to the
consumer. Nathan pointed out that the more sophisticated the
interaction of that link to a customer, the more powerful a
company can be in affecting consumers lives.
This has very profound implications to the middlemen
companies typically had to go through to reach a consumer.
The most obvious example are travel agents, who soon may
cease to exist in their current incarnation - people who
simply book your travel arrangements.
Nathan said that what it all boils down to is whoever owns
the link to the consumer is in the power position. And it is
technologies like the Internet that are helping shift the
power.
So how does all this apply to brand-building?
Nathan pointed out that brands are really about experiences
with a company. But other mediums, such as TV or print,
these experiences tend to get "flattened" because the
communication is one-way. This has shaped our perception
that a brand is packaging, a logo, or a sound bite.
"Here comes the Internet to remind us that the brand is
about an experience," he said. "So how can I reanimate what
got smashed into 2-D? How can I reanimate that on the 'net
and re-establish my brand, and, in fact, evolve it."
About this time last year, Vivid was invited, along with the
other "cyber-elite" - CKS, Modem Media, Organic, etc. - to
pitch for the Nike Internet work. One company went in with
nine people (more people than Nike had in the room) and gave
a big, fancy presentation. Others spent up to $250,000 on
the proposal. Most of the pitches were Nike is ubiquitous in
the off-line world and therefore should be ubiquitous on the
net. Some pitched went as far as suggest extreme technology
implementations - like having the Web site send information
to people's pagers.
But Vivid's approach was to hand Nike a 115 page report on
what Nike should think about if it was going to build a Web
site. Nathan said the key page was page 5, where Vivid
listed what the Web is:
-individualistic
-personal
-insider-ish (geeks and geek wannabes)
-grass roots
-far-reaching
-empowering
These qualities are an exact match to what Nike used to be.
Vivid researched Nike's history and discovered its founder
started by selling shoes out of a station wagon. He knew all
the athletes and they knew him. They used to have a sense of
personal contact. Nike used to be grass roots. He made them
understand that the Internet can help communicate the core
values Nike still held, but were very difficult, if not
impossible, to express in the conventional media.
The site strategy was to build interactivity that captured
all these characteristics. An example of this is a feature
called Pulse. People can write in answers to questions that
appear next to professional athletes' answers - creating a
sense of equality. Nike was worried about the types of
submissions they would get. It turns out, though, that less
than 1% of the responses were inappropriate.
The most successful online efforts Vivid has done for Nike
were short-term, live events sites. One example is the
Spring Training site. Nike sent people to Spring Training in
Florida to interview the people (not the players) who turned
out. they put up pictures and audio clips of the people.
They even build online "trading cards" of the kids who
showed up for the baseball clinic.
"These are the kinds of things that get kids excited about
being a part of a company or a company's products because
the company is paying attention to them," explained Nathan.
Vivid did a similar site for Tiger Woods during the US Open.
The key feature of the site was the ability to submit advice
to Tiger. On Father's Day, which corresponded to the last
day of the US open, a question was posted asking site
visitors how there father encouraged them to get involved in
sports. Kids from all over the world submitted answers about
how their fathers had changed their lives.
"It is a really powerful thing for a company to think about
turning its voice over to its customers as opposed to
keeping all for itself and trying to control everything," he
said.
The another client's online branding strategy Nathan
discussed was Bank of America. About 2 1/2 years ago, Vivid
worked with Ketchum Communications to put Bank of America
online. The concept was for the visitor to build their own
bank, in a virtual sense. The site was customizable to the
individual. One example is of this is that if you filled out
a form online, the form would first be presented to you
filled in with as much applicable information the system had
on you. This whole concept of the personal experience was
analogous to how customers were treated when they walked
into a physical Bank America branch.
Nathan sees the future of online advertising being more
sponsored/embedded content and less banner or interstitial
ads. A strength of the Internet is that it can contextualize
advertising. He cited a travel example where you are booking
your flight and hotel. Because the system is smart enough to
realize you will need to get from the airport to your hotel
room, it pops up an ad at that instant for a shuttle
service.
Nathan made a great point that really sums up the tone of
his session.
"If you get a company who's brand attributes don't match the
attributes of the Web, maybe they shouldn't be doing
anything on the Web. The Web isn't necessarily for
everyone."
Related Links
-------------
Vivid Studios
http://www.vivid.com/
Nathan's Bio
http://www.vivid.com/vividians/bios/nathan.html
Nike Tests Internet Waters, Big Guns in Tow
Wired News
http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/2723.html
A New Buzzphrase: 'Web Architect of Record'
Web Week
http://www.webweek.com/97Apr14/undercon/design.html
Nike
http://www.nike.com/
Bank Of America
http://www.bankamerica.com/
This ends the seventh report of AdTech: West. Stay tuned for more
post-floor reports, and detailed session synopses in the days
immediately following the conference.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This conference coverage is generously underwritten by:
Match.com
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Advertise on Match.Com and
we'll play matchmaker with your product and a half-million affluent
singles. Our subscribers are people that are open to new adventures
(like your site, for instance). They are people who are comfortable
with an online commerce environment. In fact 50,000 of them log on to
meet each other every day. That means better targetability for you. We
target your banner based on demographic data supplied to us by each of
our subscribers. That's how we deliver your ad to the individuals you
want to reach. That's how we can offer you exceptional reporting as
well. This Valentine's Day, Match.Com will be a leading online
destination for thousands of singles. We can make that true for your
site, too.
Try Match.Com now and we'll give you three months for the price of
two. To find out more, visit us at:
http://www.match.com/advertising/
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