Thursday, June 12, 2003
I spend a great deal of my time meeting with marketing executives of some of the world's most successful companies. Two of the more interesting trends developing at these firms include (a) the leveling of the playing field for advertising agencies - for the first time in many years, smaller agencies can actually compete with the big boys (at least for the attention of the execs, if not for the budgets) and (b) it is clear that these companies are finally "getting ready for broadband."
The broadband development is an extremely important one for many reasons, not the least of which will be the opportunities for innovative digital shops to start designing rich media based experiences for broadband users only. Having said that, I can hear the tired chant of "what about those site visitors that don't have a high-speed connection? They represent the majority." Of course they do, for now. But, I predict we will start to see advertisers add a button to their websites that says "for broadband users only" and "if you don't have a broadband connection, click here to get one" - perhaps made available via revenue share deals with Comcast, AOL Broadband, or Verizon. I also expect that major advertisers will soon be interested in sponsoring broadband-only content and creative experiences that can be parked at sites like Comcast.Net (which already has over 4 million high-speed subscribers). At Comcast.Net, the advertiser knows for sure that the audience has a high-speed connection and can easily view the message as it was designed to be seen – an obvious place to start spending your advertising dollars and measure the impact that the use of rich media can have on response rates. Bill Gates said that Microsoft invested in Comcast, in part, to help “encourage the adoption of broadband.” A billion dollars here and there is a nice push in the right direction.
As marketers take baby-steps to get ready for broadband, agencies must do the same. Success will result in understanding, embracing and leading this new movement of “high-speed” thinking. At Red Robot, we are squarely focused on helping advertisers find new methods to expand their reach into the emerging broadband world. And, we expect our competitors will soon do the same. Actually, because of our unique rich media technical expertise, we’re finding that we’re more like to partner with the large agencies, than to compete with them. The advertising industry and the technology industry have always struggled to understand each other – emerging broadband technologies are making it even more difficult.
Creative leaders need to start thinking about rich media as something that should be used to add incremental value to campaigns, as opposed to something that will revolutionize them. This is an important distinction, because once put into practice it helps agencies focus on eliciting response from high-speed Internet users, not simply entertaining them. And, acquiring this level of understanding can actually be used to position agencies to win new business from major advertisers. This approach will also help the agencies avoid appearing more visionary than practical.
The challenge will be for agencies to better understand how rich-media related buying decisions are made in the real business world, and then assess if they have the right technologies and human assets in place to deliver on the broadband promises they expect to make to clients.
Thanks to increasing adoption rates for broadband usage and the willingness of advertisers to spend money to reach broadband customers, changes are on the horizon yet again for the advertising industry. It is absolutely true that change can bring with it many new opportunities, but it can also deliver a heavy dose of uncertainty to the lives of the people that must implement that change. The ability to actually leverage and implement change is the ultimate key to business success, and the key to turning change into action (results) is based in leadership.
It will be interesting to see how leaders in the advertising industry begin to respond to these new changes and either get for ready for broadband or get ready for failure.
Tom Flanagan is CEO of Red Robot, Inc. (http://www.redrobot.com
The broadband development is an extremely important one for many reasons, not the least of which will be the opportunities for innovative digital shops to start designing rich media based experiences for broadband users only. Having said that, I can hear the tired chant of "what about those site visitors that don't have a high-speed connection? They represent the majority." Of course they do, for now. But, I predict we will start to see advertisers add a button to their websites that says "for broadband users only" and "if you don't have a broadband connection, click here to get one" - perhaps made available via revenue share deals with Comcast, AOL Broadband, or Verizon. I also expect that major advertisers will soon be interested in sponsoring broadband-only content and creative experiences that can be parked at sites like Comcast.Net (which already has over 4 million high-speed subscribers). At Comcast.Net, the advertiser knows for sure that the audience has a high-speed connection and can easily view the message as it was designed to be seen – an obvious place to start spending your advertising dollars and measure the impact that the use of rich media can have on response rates. Bill Gates said that Microsoft invested in Comcast, in part, to help “encourage the adoption of broadband.” A billion dollars here and there is a nice push in the right direction.
As marketers take baby-steps to get ready for broadband, agencies must do the same. Success will result in understanding, embracing and leading this new movement of “high-speed” thinking. At Red Robot, we are squarely focused on helping advertisers find new methods to expand their reach into the emerging broadband world. And, we expect our competitors will soon do the same. Actually, because of our unique rich media technical expertise, we’re finding that we’re more like to partner with the large agencies, than to compete with them. The advertising industry and the technology industry have always struggled to understand each other – emerging broadband technologies are making it even more difficult.
Creative leaders need to start thinking about rich media as something that should be used to add incremental value to campaigns, as opposed to something that will revolutionize them. This is an important distinction, because once put into practice it helps agencies focus on eliciting response from high-speed Internet users, not simply entertaining them. And, acquiring this level of understanding can actually be used to position agencies to win new business from major advertisers. This approach will also help the agencies avoid appearing more visionary than practical.
The challenge will be for agencies to better understand how rich-media related buying decisions are made in the real business world, and then assess if they have the right technologies and human assets in place to deliver on the broadband promises they expect to make to clients.
Thanks to increasing adoption rates for broadband usage and the willingness of advertisers to spend money to reach broadband customers, changes are on the horizon yet again for the advertising industry. It is absolutely true that change can bring with it many new opportunities, but it can also deliver a heavy dose of uncertainty to the lives of the people that must implement that change. The ability to actually leverage and implement change is the ultimate key to business success, and the key to turning change into action (results) is based in leadership.
It will be interesting to see how leaders in the advertising industry begin to respond to these new changes and either get for ready for broadband or get ready for failure.
Tom Flanagan is CEO of Red Robot, Inc. (http://www.redrobot.com
