Onus is on the interactive industry to give advertisers a reason to spend more.
Alan Schulman is chief creative officer of Brand New World, which he describes as the "advanced media agency." Alan has been an industry leader in developing new creative formats and solutions for broadband Internet, iTV, wireless and addressable advertising. Prior to launching Brand New World this past January, he served as SVP, creative director of Universal McCann Futures.
iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?
Schulman: My number one frustration is the tremendous disparity between the time spent online by various demographics of consumers and the amount of ad spending that is commensurate, or lack thereof, with those trends. At a high level, that is the No. 1 frustration. Why isn’t Madison Avenue brave enough to do a better job selling advertisers on aligning those forces? Perhaps it has something to do with my second frustration.
On a second level, my biggest frustration is the fact that we have continued expanding interactive advertising units based on an outmoded HTML-based publishing grid -- which lends itself more to a pure lean-in experience rather than really leveraging the broadband-enabled streaming experience. That has left us with a plethora of off-the-shelf banners, buttons and larger pop-ups, albeit rich media, which could bring us dangerously close to where we were three years ago at the dotcom bust -- just filling up space. If we don't bust out and start creating new streaming units and new ways of connecting with online users, it's our game to blow -- and we will blow it if we don't evolve those units out of a grid format and focus on the connective potential of those units or how compelling really are the nature of those units.
iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?
Schulman: We don't have to sell advertisers as hard on the legitimacy of online media -- and we’re clawing our way back due to broadband. Part of the reason it's easier is because we have ecommerce numbers proving out the model. If you look at the revenues we're seeing right now in both pure-play clicks as well as for clicks-and-mortar retailers, no advertiser can deny the power of the medium to influence awareness and intent to purchase.
iMediaConnection: Your company is called Brand New World. Are you only focused on branding or do you use interactive media for advertising as well?
Schulman: Yes, we're about extending branding principles correctly into the online environment -- which is more than just brand identity systems and screen performance. It includes more compelling site optimization, retail conversion and more compelling interactive advertising. Overall, we're focused on creating custom applications for advertisers, designed specifically for the broadband environment and moving beyond the typical off-the-shelf unit. We position ourselves as an "advanced media agency," instead of an interactive agency, because we deal with a wider solution set of interaction platforms, not just interactive online ad units. We're looking at the whole of consumer interaction platforms -- again, it's about interaction, not Internet interactive. That can happen online, through iTV, wireless applications, even broadcast over broadband IP, etc. It's time for us to help advertisers look more holistically at interaction. That's why we're called Brand New World -- we approach any platform from a brand-centric point of view, but with more of an interaction philosophy rather than just an Internet philosophy.
iMediaConnection: So, what’s one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Schulman: Currently, we're working closely with one of the major portals on the relaunch of its shopping platform -- which will be unlike any other. I can't reveal any more than that other than to say that the shopper is going to get a much more immersive experience.
iMediaConnection: Can your company point to evidence that suggests online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?
Schulman: We're not an analytics company, but there are plenty of studies out there from DoubleClick, Jupiter, etc., etc., proving online advertising really works for branding. In my own experience, having worked on a recent initiative with Johnson & Johnson and Universal McCann on ABC eTV’s 'The View.' Jupiter did a Best Practice write-up highlighting brand lift as a key result of the online component that really enhanced the pure on-air sponsorship component.
Still, the onus is on us to find ways to make brands more relevant online and not intrusive for intrusiveness' sake. That's the challenge, but it's a great creative challenge. Hopefully as an industry, we won't blow it and just annoy people. We need to be smart and evolve the units and the space in order to make ourselves relevant as opposed to "on top of" the user.
iMediaConnection: You mentioned that your company is about creating interaction be that via online, wireless, etc. Have any of your clients successfully utilized any emerging technologies, such as IM, wireless or iTV?
Schulman: As I mentioned, when I was recently with Universal McCann, as part of its Johnson & Johnson sponsorship of 'The View,' we embarked on a multi-brand, multi-platform on-air/on-line test that allowed viewers to vote via PC (ABC eTV), enhanced TV (Wink), as well as wireless SMS (Proteus) -- all in one hour wherein all ad units within that hour were J&J spots. That show was nominated by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for an iTV Emmy for most outstanding technical achievement in interactive TV. That represents significant progress, when you see a category like iTV being acknowledged by the Academy in the first place, and then, having an agency like Universal McCann and an advertiser like Johnson & Johnson getting nominated in a technical category. That’s significant progress.
iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?
Schulman: Currently, we’re demonstrating new types of creative units -- customized rich media applications that aren’t off-the-shelf, but that we believe really amp up emotional response and brand linkage. We’re very selective about our apps -- and they’re not for everyone. As far as standard rich media apps, they can get those from any interactive ad agency.
iMediaConnection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?
Schulman: It cannot deliver you a captive viewer. Not that it should. The idea that it is in some way a substitute for TV is not the right idea. It’s not simply a matter of porting your spots over to online because you can stream there. That’s a very near-term strategy. Again, the onus is on us to demand the attention of the user by being more intimate, targeted and relevant than just a 30-second ad unit. The idea here is, how can we take advantage of the two-way path and the ability to push compelling, viral content to create a relationship, a transaction, or just a smile. Reebok did it beautifully online with the entire pool of Terry Tate content, and that's the kind of brand propagation benchmarks we need to be shooting for.
iMediaConnection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?
Schulman: Well, we’re not media planners or buyers. But generally, the publishers are becoming more and more aggressive and more and more helpful. Those are good things. AOL, as the laggard, has probably made the most progress in recognizing the agency's role in the mix -- because it needed to. Now, all the major publishers are generally there for you, and Microsoft has really robust information on its site where you can find out anything and everything about advertising. That’s a value.
How could it be better? From an advertiser’s perspective, if Microsoft could let you target your prospect across its platforms (MSN, WMP, XBOX Live, MediaCenter PC, etc.) rather than just primarily pushing an MSN buy, then it might become a much more powerful property. In Yahoo's case, it has the brand buzz, but I personally think it needs to evolve the architecture of its user experience to reflect more of the broadband-enabled environment. But what can you say? Wenda Harris Millard, Jerry Shereshevsky and their staff at Yahoo! have done an A+ job of growing that property.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?
Schulman: It’s a brand new world (laughs). Your consumers are not where you think they are. Not only that, you need to think about different ways of connecting with them. Emerging technologies and digital media enable that. If you want to get lazy and just buy reach, you’re likely to get socked with an overvalued CPM in the upfront by your media AOR -- it’s your choice.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?
Schulman: They've got to break out of this publishing grid thing. They have to look at offering more customized ad solutions and programs -- not just units.
iMediaConnection: What remains the industry’s biggest stumbling block?
Schulman: The siloed nature of interactive advertising agencies and traditional agencies. Interactive still doesn't get the executive level attention on the advertiser side that the traditional media does because we haven’t done enough to bring them together. If senior- level marketing execs would take a hard look at why time spent online is what it is, I think they would feel differently about allowing their AORs to continue siloing those things or force them to integrate them.