I was thinking this week about online video content and media space; about whether there is a way to use TV like an online spot. I started at Honda's Cog ad, how one full length spot generated huge public interest.
The key ad that got me thinking though was this:
The Halifax radio station ads, or more specifically this:
A genius dubstep remix.
Now go with me here. Imagine if you put that once, on a music channel in the middle of the evening. Most people who saw it would think "what the hell??" and probably go and talk about it. People would ask if others saw it. Yet because it would only appear once on TV it could take on a mystical 'see it or miss it' quality, 'were you there when that ad played?'
In other words, can we use pop up ads, remix ads, proper UCG (not this make our ad for us bullshit) to create one off interesting moments that will create genuine interest and could help brands appear interesting and engaging?
Love to hear your thoughts.
3 comments:
Absolutely! All that's required is for the client and agency to reconcile the nature of the remix with the nature of the brand. Arguably, if you broadcast anything someone makes with you brand, you don't have a brand any more. Now that might well make sense - it certainly ties into existing theories of a brand being defined by its audience - but that still doesn't stop it being an uncomfortable thing to swallow.
I guess the main thing you'd have to get around is that only a certain demographics of the population are the creators - so while MTV won't have trouble finding people to play with their brand who are also their audience, Halifax most certainly will...
Indeed.
However one of the big opportunities here is to cross the audiences. Halifax need to produce mainstream ads... but embracing the piss take or remix and using that to a select audience widens their possible total audience.
Halifax isn't the ideal brand but I think it's an interesting one to debate; whether you can use pop-up ads to express a different side to the business at a cost that is low enough to allow you to keep your usual campaigns.
It's here, perhaps idealistically, that the AEs could do a "get-real" - hopefully backed up by a burly planner - and say, this is the way that this quite poorly ad can be switched up.
Why? Because someone has gone out and engaged with it - they've GIVEN you the cultural connection - they've done the hard part. It wasn't what was expected, or desired. So what?
Dubstep is very green, in that it seems capable of recycling everything. In that respect it's hardy and ensures it's own growth. Agencies can do the same by rolling with punches: absorbing everything that comes their way.
Great thought-provoker Rob!
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