Brand New World's Alan Shulman joins the conversation at the iMedia Summit about interactive marketing being the proxy for the future.
The following edited conversation took place at the iMedia Summit at Amelia Island, Florida on May 23. The format was that of the "Tonight Show," with iMedia President Rick Parkhill taking on the role of interviewer. Doug Weaver, president, Upstream Group, Inc., was "on the couch," having been interviewed by Parkhill himself. Weaver introduced the theme for the discussion, which is the idea that interactive is the tail wagging the dog -- "the things we are figuring out in our little interactive world are really going to be the lessons that are going to drive the whole business of media and advertising in the future."
Read yesterday's portion of the discussion with Taddy Hall, chief strategy officer of ARF.
Rick Parkhill: We are going to bring out our next guest now. He is the chief creative officer for Brand New World. A lot of you have heard him before. He is one of the most recognizable advocates of interactive advertising. He works with the world’s most recognizable brands to help their transition to digital media. He has served on the AAAA’s Advanced Television Committee, and Interpublic’s Convergence and Branded Entertainment Advisory Committees. He is one of the top agency creative minds in this interactive business, and we are happy to welcome Alan Schulman. Please welcome Alan!
Alan, please tell the audience out there about Brand New World, just briefly. You know, what you’re involved in, the kind of clients you’re working with, and what you’re helping them transition to.
Alan Schulman: We are in this space we call advanced media, which is essentially moving clients' campaigns into new forms of creative. So, we are doing a lot of pre rolls, right now. We are creating custom fives, 10s and 15s for the streaming broadband environment. And, that has got half of our designers going crazy. Some of that’s flash-based, some of it is video-based. But, there is a huge demand, right now, because most of the traditional creative agencies don’t know how to make that stuff. The interactive agencies are making banners, and the traditional agencies are making TV commercials. So, there seems to be a real huge niche for the pre-roll product. So, we are doing a lot of that. We are also doing a lot of ad insertion for VCAST on the wireless platform. We are doing some ad insertions for that.
Parkhill: Give us an example of a current project you have worked on and creative that you are particularly proud of.
Schulman: Well, right now we are in the middle of doing something with Johnson & Johnson. Which, you know, I always have a little trepidation about talking about things sooner than later … but, I will say that the name of the game right now is to try to get … as people get online and search for specific kinds of content, the ability to pull creative down and align it with content that they are searching for, giving them a little bit of a reward for the time they spent pulling that content down. So, we are really doing a lot of endemic, sort of contextual mapping of creative executions designed specifically for certain kinds of content. If you know people are searching entertainment, and they are searching news, and they are searching sports, it is time that we are executing creative against those types of things. And, J&J is one of the companies we are doing that for.
Parkhill: So, do you guys adhere to this notion about the -- I assume you do -- that consumer and control, and that creative needs to invite them in, and all that….
Schulman: Yeah, right … blah, blah, blah.
Parkhill: So, that being the case, you know, this is the age of consumer in control, doesn’t it put more pressure than ever on creatives to create compelling content that gets them to click through?
Schulman: Absolutely. Yeah. We have got to find the new permission model. And, the new permission model is, you know, shorter lengths. You have got to be creative in a shorter period of time. And, the other piece of that permission model is, you have to be willing to get out of the craft of that story arc that used to take 30 minutes -- 30 seconds rather -- to tell. And, now you have to be clever in a shorter unit size, but you also have to be willing to create longer formats that can live in broadband, that somebody can click from a TV commercial to, you know, to a longer format. So, it’s shorter and longer.
Parkhill: So, it really puts the onus on creating hooks in your creative that gets you to go further? Is that the most important part of interactive creative?
Schulman: The most important part is, can we get, you know, in terms of time spent … we have got people spending time in online applications that far eclipses 30-second commercials on television.
Parkhill: But, you have got to get them there, first.
Schulman: Yeah. You have got to get them there. And, once you get them there, we have got some people at the conference this week, like Rei Inamoto from AKQA, some of the great creatives who build immersive environments. And, it is not just about sites anymore. It is about how can we use push features? And, you know, what we really need from a metrics' standpoint -- back to Doug’s point is -- we need a protocol to measure engagement, and we need a protocol to measure immersion, and time spent, rather than just trying to throw everything back to speaking television language.
And, I think that the creatives in the business are more interested in, as we evolve, how can we create really viral applications? Those guys down there in the measurement business, they need to figure out ways that we can track all this viral stuff, so that we can go back to a client and say, “Look, it just wasn’t your CPM. Look how many times the application got pushed, unbeknownst to you, Mr. Marketer.” Those are some of the things we are wrestling with.
Parkhill: The guy from Vermont is squirming down here.
Doug Weaver: Do you accept the premise that over the next few years, as all TV needs to be more accountable, and as pressure exists on the 30-second spot -- don’t the people in the creative community for television have to learn a lot of the things that you are doing today?
Schulman: Yeah, they do. And, you know, some of them will take the plunge -- like all the creatives right now are.
Taddy Hall: Alan is quite far ahead of the curve, I think, on this. When I have been speaking with creative agencies, I have been advocating just kind of the abolition of the term: creatives. Creative, going forward, as a stand-alone specialty is a dinosaur concept. We need to be thinking about precisely the word that Alan used, which is “engagement specialist.” Creative expertise, in and of itself, is empty.
Parkhill: Hmmm. Engagement specialist. Have you thought about that?
Schulman: Well look, you know, here is the thing -- a 30-second commercial is a craft. You have to, you know, you can’t … it’s going to be around. And, it’s a hard thing to write. Having done it myself, I know it is something that is a craft unto itself. So is the craft of optimizing creative banners in the interactive space. If you are a creative, there are great people out there like Beth Sibbring, and her company Tangible Impact, and other people who could really help you, as a creative, to optimize what it is that you are doing. But, I think, at the same time, there are going to be specialist kind of creatives, Taddy, that have to just get over themselves and be adults and willing to come to the table and collaborate with other creatives. That has been the hurdle so far, is that the TV guys have always sat at the top of the food chain and said, “What we say goes” …
Hall: Mmm hmmm.
Schulman: … and wave to the interactive guys in the elevator, right? I think that that is breaking down now.
Parkhill: So, there has been this dearth of talent in the creative pool for online, right?
Schulman: Right.
Parkhill: Is that changing?
Schulman: Totally changing.
Tomorrow: More from Shulman on creatives and creativity.
Dawn Anfuso is editor of iMedia Connection.