SociaLight Media Blog

Here’s an article from last week’s Wall Street Journal called The Ad Changes With the Shopper In Front of It. Very cool. It’s about how some companies, including Procter & Gamble and Dunkin’ Donuts are using new technology to increase the effectiveness of their in-store advertising. DD is using digital screen ads that change based on the customer’s purchase. For example, if you stop in for breakfast and purchase a coffee and bagel, the screen at the register will remind you about their new flavor of iced tea and personal pizzas as a lunch idea. Great stuff. P&G is working with Metro Extra in Germany with radio frequency tags which causes a screen at the customer’s eye level to display an ad based on the product that was picked up off the shelf! You pick up a certain brand or type of shampoo and the ad displayed changes to a complimentary conditioner.

This shift in advertising comes at a time when television spots are almost worthless due to the amount of noise viewers have to deal with, popular technology like TiVo and On-Demand, and the fact that the results of the ad are virtually untrackable. Businesses are trying to get their ads closer to the consumer purchase, which is one of two places: in-store or online. With an in-store ad, companies can rest assured that people are seeing, and not blocking, the ads (yet) because there isn’t as much competition for the consumer’s attention as there is on television. It is also much cheaper than a television spot and more trackable with automatic promotion and coupon codes.

Online advertising and social networks are also becoming the new battlegrounds for consumer attention. Every click is trackable; companies can see exactly where their customers are coming from, where they leave, how long they stay, and what they click on. Try to do that on television, or even in-store! Additionally, for many small-medium businesses, they benefit from the small price-tag of developing an online presence and the fact that they may have very little competition in their market. What’s even more appealing about developing an online presence is that they are providing consumers with information at the exact time when consumers are LOOKING FOR IT! In-store advertising and shifting display ads may be great for impulse-buys, but when it’s a more involved purchase, people research it first. 78% of internet users say that they research a product or service online before they purchase it (Pew Internet and American Life Project). That’s where you, as a business, want to be!

I couldn’t believe it either. This article, Chew on This, in today’s Wall Street Journal blew my mind. Creative advertising at its best, from a company that’s 117 years old and for a product that’s 94 years old.

In the music world, hip-hop artist Chris Brown’s latest pop-single, Forever, has been on the Billboard Top 100 for a couple months, just peaking at number 4 this week. It’s been playing all over the radio, at parties, at clubs, everywhere; whether you’re tuned into today’s music or not, there’s a good chance you’ve heard this song. Anyone who has heard it can tell you that in the chorus is a reference to an old chewing gum slogan, “double your pleasure, double your fun” - Wrigley’s DoubleMint Gum. We all thought it was just a cute, and meaningless, reference in the pop song - and boy were we wrong. Turns out it’s a direct reference to Wrigley’s product. Better yet, Wrigley paid for the whole thing! Back in February, they flew Chris Brown out to record simply an updated jingle for DoubleMint Gum commercials, just announced to be aired this coming month. During the same recording session, they recorded a 4 and a half minute version of the jingle, Chris Brown called it “Forever,” and in April, they released it on to the radio, where it has become a huge hit.

Now that it’s cracked the top 5 on Billboard’s charts, Wrigley is stepping out from behind the curtain (apparently they are set to reveal it Tuesday) to say that the whole song is a commercial…essentially. I actually really like the song, and now every time I hear it, I’m going to think of DoubleMint Gum. Talk about breaking through the advertising clutter! And it doesn’t stop there. The campaign will also include the same kind of song-commercials from two other pop artists, Ne-Yo and Julianne Hough, for Big Red and Juicy Fruit, respectively.

The ad agency Interpublic Group, is responsible for the fresh idea. And it’s not their only one, either. Also announced today was a new campaign for Dr. Pepper, another company founded over one-hundred years ago, where well-known, but fictional, doctors are “prescribing” how to drink the classic soft drink. A recent - and real - study was conducted which showed that people who drank soda slower actually enjoyed the taste more. Whether it’s true or not, we’ll have to just take their word for it, but it’s made for a great (and creative!) ad campaign for another seemingly stagnant product type. Click the play button and take a look:

I LOVE this video (click the play button to watch). This is a perfect summation of how the advertising industry (and many B2C companies) have worked for the past half-century, and how some are still working today: One-way Communication. I love how suave, smooth-talking Advertising is using all of these canned phrases (which you can picture him using on his other “girlfriend” consumers) like “Hey now! Lookin’ good!” - while not even looking at her - rather than having authentic conversation on Consumer’s terms. And how he responds to her complaint that they never really talk anymore with a barrage of survey-style questions about his one-way advertising methods. “You can talk on our website, can’t you?” Yeah, if I want to say “Order this product.”

Simple call-to-action communication is becoming rapidly obsolete. Consumers want to become involved; they want genuine dialogue; they want to have authentic communication with someone and not feel as though their being advertised to, demographed, and targeted. And they get this kind of conversation from other consumers. Real and raw. Recommendations on Amazon, reviews on Yelp, lists on Netflix, finding out through Facebook what their friends just purchased. Conversation between real people, online.

Now that isn’t to say that they don’t want to hear from the business - far from it. But they want to be approached on their terms, and by a real person with a response just for them. Twitter is a social platform that allows for microblogging, which in itself is a relatively nascent concept (what is microblogging?). People, like you and I, write snippets about what we’re doing, whether it’s having a bowl of soup to arguing with Comcast on the phone.

(Aside: here’s a great article about Twitter from USA Today if you’re still hesitant or skeptical about microblogging)

Now, we can see why Comcast would want to know that we are currently unhappy because we’ve been on hold for 35 minutes, and by responding to this Tweet, they can deliver a level of customer service that we, the consumer, aren’t expecting. Because we have, unfortunately, come to accept the many atrocities of customer service we experience, things like waiting on the phone with the cable company are now expected. So when we Tweet about it, and a representative from Comcast responds us directly with a Tweet of their own, the customer’s expectations are exceeded, and customer satisfaction may or may not occur. It’s a heck of a lot better than having to sit on the phone, listening to elevator music, fuming, and feeling as though Comcast doesn’t care about our business.

Customer service. Genuine dialogue. Things that seem obvious but have been muddled by slick advertising for too long. Welcome to Web 2.0. What do you think?