Advancing technology combines and controls media touchpoints, turning marketing on its head, says OMD's Joe Uva at the iMedia Brand Summit.

Summit attendees woke to uncertainty on Tuesday. Could we match the strength of Lloyd Braun’s keynote from Monday or have a second straight day of summer weather in February? For the latter, we can say they don’t call Florida the sunshine state for nothing. It was another brilliant day as the sun played host for the Summit’s proceedings. With regard to the keynote, OMD Worldwide President and CEO Joe Uva managed to rouse cheers and inspire imaginations with a keynote based on his vision of media innovations to come and ways for marketers to compete. On both counts, the summit audience was delighted.

Like Braun, Uva comes from a background in television advertising. Prior to joining OMD, Uva was president of Turner Entertainment Group Sales and Marketing for Turner Broadcasting Sales, Inc. (TBSI). Among other national cable channels, he handled domestic sales for TBS and TNT while also working with corporate marketers on licensing and promotion in the development of integrated marketing programs. Without question, Uva is well positioned to consider where media is headed and how marketers and advertisers can evolve to stay competitive.

Embracing the challenges of consumer control

Uva’s keynote framed the challenges facing marketers in the era of Media Center PCs, DVRs and other advanced technologies used to control media consumption. Rather than fear such devices, which are capable of stripping ads from content, Uva called on marketers to embrace the challenge. He views this challenge as a “big opportunity for marketers” that will ultimately result in a “renaissance of creativity.”

First, the advertising industry must reject long standing assumptions. Since the age of mass marketing is coming to a close as consumers adopt digital media, marketers must adapt to a new era of relationship marketing. In this new era, concepts such as “permission based” and “one-to-one engagement” are what it takes to influence consumers who are tuning out traditional messaging with greater efficiency.

At fault is a fragmenting media picture. Since “we live in an increasingly complex media world … we have become incredible censors,” said Uva. “We know what to filter out, we know when to filter it out and we know when we’re receptive for certain messages in a certain environment.” Still, consumers are not perfect in this respect. “All of us need help when it comes to this world,” noted Uva. 

The Media Concierge

Enhancing the consumer as censor are new devices that help edit and filter content. So far, we have the Media Center PC, TiVo and others. According to Uva, “these devices really help the consumers get back their most valuable commodity, which is time.”

While limited, perhaps to editing and filtering television content, Uva believes these machines will soon evolve into complete home networks which he referred to as media concierges. According to Uva, the media concierge will be programmed to control media entering and leaving a home by:

• Recommending and selecting media for consumption
• Locating and recording information of value
• Avoiding information or content of no interest to the user (i.e. irrelevant ads)
• And assisting in making transactions with third parties

“In the future world,” said Uva, “it’s the home network that becomes our consumer … think about that, our target audience could be machines.”

The implications are significant. Distributors of content - - for example, cable companies or broadband suppliers - - are less important compared to the gateway, or media concierge, Uva explained. Advertisers must find ways through this gateway with creative new solutions. For example, Uva pointed out new advertising tools pioneered with broadband like richer creative, branded entertainment, expanded gaming options and personalized marketing opportunities. Each of these represents an essential step away from intrusive mass marketing to user-defined relationship marketing. “No longer will the interrupted model of communications be relevant and finally we can see the rise of the engagement model that we’ve all talked about for so long,” Uva said.

To actualize this new model, Uva suggests advertisers address three issues:

Media relationships: Advertisers need to create associations with other brands. For example, the partnership between VISA and 'The Apprentice': two brands which are “both about success and achievement.”

Creative Messaging: It’s a team effort now. Messages need to be developed cooperatively by marketers, agencies and the producers of content (for example, product placement in TV shows and messages displayed while users fast forward through commercials in TiVo).
 
Accountability: The right message needs to be delivered to the right person at the right time. Uva described this as the “Holy Grail” and used the example of enhanced/interactive TV that “gives viewers a much more personal relationship with content and ads.”

As examples of success in addressing these issues Uva pointed to Target and McDonalds. Uva explained that these companies have segmented customers and aggregated audiences to refine their mass markets into relevant subsets. By doing so, they can focus on and cultivate relationships with different groups on different, more relevant platforms. While Target and McDonalds have managed to succeed with today’s audience using the available tools, “translating this kind of innovative thinking to the new digital world order will be the challenge that lies ahead of us,” said Uva.