Is the internet more than a DR medium?
Berens: See, that is a very interesting statement, because I think that the thing that we are not necessarily saying enough here at iMedia, and in the industry in general, is this: interactive is not a substitute; it is not a nice consolation prize for the fact that your thirty-second spot is not reaching as many people as it would have twenty years ago. You are articulating a different kind of relationship, which I think is worthwhile.
Let me start from there and go into something else: most new marketing mediums, I think, start as direct response mediums.
Falco: Yes. That is right.
Berens: Certainly search is still, I think, largely regarded to be a DR medium. The internet, for the longest time, has been a DR medium. But, I also think that people are starting to become more alive to the branding potential in the internet. So, what do you think the differences are between branding and direct, online? Or, perhaps another way of putting the same thing is: what is the internet best for when it comes to marketing?
Falco: Right now it is clear that the internet is best for moving product. But, I agree with you that going forward the really creative marketers -- and, by the way, this requires a great deal of creativity on their part -- are going to find that the internet can also drive brand awareness.
It is going to take a different brand of people to do these kinds of things. But, I do believe that once they have "cracked the code," if you will, on brand awareness on the internet, the ROI is going to be profound-- it will far outweigh the traditional thirty-second spot. The strength of the thirty-second spot, if you think about it, is that it is an incredible way for a marketer to tell a story about a product. But there are also ways, if you are creative, to do that on the internet. And that is the next horizon for marketing on the internet.
Berens: That leads me to the issue of time. At NBC, you had "Must See TV." You and your cohort effectively owned Thursday night for so long. And, the experience of watching Must See TV was enlivened and amplified, I think, by the fact that you knew that other people were watching at the same time.
Falco: That is right.
Berens: One of the great things about TiVo and other DVRs, and timeshifting and placeshifting, is that it is all on my terms, now. I can watch when I want to watch. But, the problem is that now, I am just a lonely guy on the couch late at night, with my dog on the couch with me and my wife and kids asleep. So, it is hard to get appointment television these days. The Super Bowl is the greatest surviving example of appointment television.
Is there such a thing as "appointment internet?" What would it look like? And, what would it be for a marketer, or an advertiser, to wrap their brand and their brand story around an appointment internet experience?
Falco: I am not sure that the internet will ever be a place where there is viewing. I am not sure that is its highest and best use. I do think that people like to share their experiences. People tend to get on the net when there are big events going on. They like to chat about the Grammies, the Oscars, the Super Bowl. They like to chat about big world events when things are happening from a news perspective. And that is really where the tie-in is going to be in the future for marketers-- to find out where these social networks pop up.
They can be around many different things. They can be around health. They can be around pet owners. They can be around photographs. They can be around video. I think that that is what the "appointment internet" is going to be. It is not going to be necessarily a particular time of day; it is going to be more around subject matters and points of interest.
Berens: And, it sounds to me -- given that you were talking about the Oscars and the Grammies -- that you do not have an adversarial take on the relationship between the internet and television. It sounds like more of a symbiotic relationship in your imagination.
Falco: Oh, not at all. No, I actually think that the smart broadcasters are going to find ways to partner with the internet companies and take full advantage of these big events. I do not think that they can do it by themselves, because I don't believe that the websites popping up on traditional media will ever be able to scale up the same way that an AOL can.
Berens: And so, what AOL brings to the table is that kind of scale?
Falco: Absolutely.
Berens: So, in terms of partnerships, that sounds to me like AOL is open to working with other media properties in order to have integrated marketing campaigns.
Falco: Absolutely. And the smart marketers and brand managers are going to figure that out, and, I hope, work with us in the future to expand reach, and to expand again this interface with the customer, which is much more personal than it could ever be from a thirty-second spot.