HEAD BLOG

I’ve a lot of time for Open Source. I’ve a lot of time for standards and protocols. Yet when it comes to advertising, the attacks on Flash have me worried.

The reason isn’t that I want to see Adobe continue to dominate the market, I don’t.

I don’t even care whether Flash gets adopted by every smart phone around.

I care because the debate over Flash vs HTML5 focusses on technology, not ideas.

Taking a look at how an iAd is created I have to say that I’m worried. Worried that these will take more manpower to produce, which makes them more expensive, or that they will be more limited because of their complexity.

And let’s just look at that word: complexity.

I use it in the sense of how easily certain functions in web advertising can be achieved. Flash is guilty of this also of course. The change from Action Script 2 to Action Script 3 has had the effect of making certain functions more complex. I look at some web ads and ask myself where the need for Action Script 3 is.

In the same way I ask where the need for style sheets is.

It all just increases complexity.

And that’s when we begin to focus on the wrong details.

Invariably the ideas get pushed back as the gap between coder and creative widens.

Maybe that’s the cost of freedom and certainly in the world of enabling information to a wide audience and retaining control of our data that all seems good and worthwhile. But in the world of advertising it’s not the same. I’d rather see a static ad with a well designed message than let the technology lead. Flash, for all its flaws, has two things in its favour: the reach to a wide audience through browser technology and the way anybody can use it.

As time passes and tools become available then maybe this will change but at the moment it seems that most of the people attacking Flash ads are doing so because they don’t like advertising. They feel that Flash enables it to be invasive and irritating (which it does). But that’s not an argument for changing technology, that’s an argument for changing ideas.

And that is where the debate ought to be.

When it comes to understanding technology I like to think of myself as no slouch. I’ve done my share of programming from Z80 Assembly to Action Script and I know how to set the video recorder. The washing machine baffles me and fax machines just plain annoy (which side down again?) but overall I’d say I’m comfortable with using it and discussing it.

Yet sometimes I understand how my mum feels.

The big companies mostly get it. Apple, Canon, IBM, even Cisco – they all know that you don’t advertise the technology, you advertise what it can do for you. What  works for hair care products doesn’t, oddly enough, work for products that boast the most advanced engineering processes on the planet. Maybe Intel’s next chip should feature pentapeptides, I hear they are very good.

Many companies don’t take this approach. Maybe it’s because everything is vetted by the chief technology officer whose knowledge built the product to what it is today or maybe it’s just a desire to impress us, like when the owner of a new car tells us what the engine is capable of. Hey, as long as it’s capable of moving then all I’m really interested in is whether or not it will keep my arse warm in winter.

Recently, a job slipped its way into Head First. It was technology based but not game related. It was the kind of job we love because it enables us to apply our experience in new ways.

Trouble is, at first I didn’t have a clue what the product was.

They said their product is “the market leading social media platform for brands and agencies.”

I said, “what?”

I felt a bit thick.

If I bought it, what was I buying? Was it something I installed or something I stood on?

What did it enable me to do?

I wasn’t sure.

After five minutes I understood. They built websites on which their customers could share ideas, stories, videos – anything they wanted to really.

So I said, “ah” (I did, I really did) “you mean that with your software I can be my own Facebook?”

They said “yes”.

So why didn’t they just say that?

They’re all singing from the same song sheet but when it comes to 3D I’m not sure I’m hearing them.

Everybody seems able to recall images of strange black and white folk in even stranger red and blue glasses. It’s a part of all our sci-fi childhoods along with transporter technology and blue skinned aliens.

Some things just won’t die.

Those 3D glasses have made such an impact upon every fan boy’s psyche that when it comes to getting a job and having a say in product design, the memory steers the adult, making the dream of 3D a constant in the lives of successive generations.

Whereas, in previous decades, 3D was used as a show stopping gimmick now it is becoming a game changer and every company in this dimension is determined to make it happen.

From super expensive TV sets to handheld gaming systems, the time of 3D might finally have come.

Where there’s a will there’s a way too much and we’ve seen every form of entertainment trial 3D as much ad they possibly can. Studios are scrambling to convert films to the format (stopping just short of the Police Academy series) and video games are all set and ready for it also. It would come as no surprise if we see a 3D Switchover being publicly funded a few years from now.

But beyond the pre-pubescent fascination with the technology (no doubt born from a desire to see naked ladies with depth) where is the real value? Is being able to see Elsie Tanner (she’s still in Coronation Street right?) push a pint of mild out of the screen really worth the awkwardness of wearing a pair of glasses that dull the image and thereby actually reduce the user experience?

And that’s what it’s all supposed to be about, right? The user experience. Not the continual need to create new products, however vacuous, in order to persuade us to ditch things like those old fashioned flat screen HDTV sets we bought for the World Cup. If we can persuaded of the need for something then the rest is just a PIN number away.

So will it change the way we tell stories? Probably not but then neither did the coming of colour.

Just days after seeing (and commenting) on this neat viral ad for the Swedish TV licence, I came across a similar concept for Adidas’s range of Star Wars branded trainers. What is interesting to me is my reaction to both ads.

With the former I was spurred on to write about positivity in advertising and bemoan the often gloomy approach to social change advertising in this country (a state that came back to mind during a debate on Newsnight where all the questions centred around whether setting a minimum price for alcohol was likely to help curb the culture of binge drinking – my observation at the time was to wonder why nobody was asking why people felt compelled to drink to inebriation in the first place – but I digress).

With the latter ad (the Adidas one in case my digression has jolted you out of space and time) I found myself thinking about the technology which pulled in images from a Facebook account and incorporated them into the video.

I’ve seen this done before of course, and even proposed it for a campaign before today. Sometimes it has been done well, sometimes, not so well.
I’d argue that the Adidas campaign falls into the second group.

The biggest draw, the biggest point of interest in the ad was Star Wars. That was its entire appeal. The “personalisation” elements were added in because, well, we’re social now. It’s not that they were jarring, just redundant. A “share with Facebook” button would have probably sufficed.

And all this got me thinking about virals and technology and how we’re supposed to believe that everything has changed now because of the internet.

And yet, how little has changed.

Because, it seems to me, a viral ad is just an ad done correctly.

I wouldn’t pass the Star Wars ad on to friends because of the social aspect. Seeing my photos in it wasn’t new anymore and didn’t fit into the ad’s message any more than augmented reality technology is fitting into the many application it is being forced into.

Novelty is a technique, not a message.

Facebook connect (and technologies like it) are incredible. It’s easy to see appeal and it’s understandable to want to use it to facilitate word-of-mouth.
But the danger is that it can overshadow the message.

And it is the message which, when novelty fades, which goes viral.

And message isn’t reliant upon technology.

If the message is strong then tongues will wag, real or digital.

Whatever happened to ideas?

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about consolidation. The big advertising agencies have woken up (it’s said) to the fact that there’s this big thing called the internet and that many of their clients are wanting to get face time with their audience on there. Personally I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification (of an oversimplification). But who cares? We’re all businesses first and foremost right? And businesses expand, acquire other businesses, close down, split up. It’s just life. Business life anyway.

But somehow, in the whirl of talk about web 2.0, social marketing, open web, something gets lost. It’s not enough to have ideas any more. You have to be seen to be surfing the next wave.

So these big agencies are buying up the digital agencies, strengthening their teams by purchasing the skills needed to go online. It seems an odd move. Not because being online isn’t an important part of a campaign but because these agencies should have the skills in place already. Because the skill most needed to go online is the skill of ideas.

I’m sure Head First isn’t alone in being an advertising and design agency capable of having ideas. I’ve heard rumours of one or two others in the North West alone. We don’t see our ideas as being print ideas, or TV ideas or online ideas. We see them as ideas. And the better the ideas, the more exciting it is, the more strategic it is – well, these are the ideas that transcend media. They are the lynch pin of campaigns that clients ought to be chasing.

To take an example from an old issue of The Drum let’s look at Vimto’s site. The idea there is “seriously mixed up fruit”. It’s a fun idea. It informs the development of the site but it’s easy to view it as bigger than the web side of Vimto’s new marketing direction. The idea isn’t tied to the web but is open to interpretation for any purpose. Need a print ad? No problem, the line looks sufficiently stout to withstand a whole forest of them. TV? Yep, I see from the site they’ve already been there too. How about a novelty coaster – I could rustle up some neat concepts for those too.

Our work on Bionic Commando started from a similar position. Establish an idea strong enough to carry a campaign and the rest falls into place. It helps having a team talented enough to translate the big idea into media specific projects but the fact remains that it is the idea which excites the entire campaign. And that idea must be a tangible communicable concept.

As technologies merge and consumer behaviour shifts, this need to focus on the idea first will only increase in importance. As the line between advertising, PR and online disappears the primary skill-set will be in having the ideas needed to start the conversations or open brand ears to what the consumer wants.

An idea can cut through all the hype and sounds of lumbering agencies swinging into line with consumer trends. By rushing around buying up skills, all big advertising seems to be advertising is their lack of said skills.