Advertising innovations: Ad genious
A sampling of some creative and effective campaigns – As featured in FIPP Innovations in Magazine Media 2013 World Report.
Advertising today is all about interaction, engagement, and conversation.
The digital age, in particular the recent arrival of the tablet, has enabled a new generation of advertising geniuses who are constantly endeavoring to top each other in finding creative ways to engage potential consumers. “Because of innovations in mobile technology and social communications, advertising isn’t just about sending a profound message anymore. It’s about creating a lasting conversation,” says Nick Lagalante, social media marketing manager at Time Dog in the US.
With the rise of tablets and mobile, advertisers can let their imaginations run wild in reaching out to consumers. Rather than interrupting consumers’ daily lives, advertisers are exploring new and compelling ways to gain consumers’ attention, engagement, trust and, then, their business.
Take the Lexus ES 2013 ad for example. With the new CinePrint technology, consumers can bring ads to life by placing their tablets under the print ads. In a stunning light and colour experience, Lexus highlights the vehicle’s interior and exterior features in a way that makes for a completely extraordinary, out of the box, unforgettable experience.
Another example of the new creative, engaging approach to advertising is the PNC Virtual Wallet ad for tablets. This one starts as your run-of-the-mill banner ad but then unfolds into an interactive game popping with colour and shapes and movement. The game is very straightforward — a series of real-life questions and decisions pertaining to PNC, but its colourful, gamification approach resulted in a 50 per cent higher than average rate of user engagement and five times more views than average tablet ads. It’s safe to say, PNC got it right.
Brazil’s Bradesco Car Insurance company created a fake car ad for tablets. Users flip through the magazine by swiping left on their screens and come across what seems to be a car ad but when they attempt to ‘turn’ or ‘flip’ the page, the car crashes into the left side of the screen and the headline appears: “Unexpected events happen without warning. Make a Bradesco car insurance plan.” Definitely unexpected and creative, that’s the kind of stuff that sets brands apart and makes an ad memorable.
Along with the rise of creative digital advertisements is the ‘go green’ trend in advertising. Consumers now are more environmentally conscious, recycling more and even purchasing hybrid or electric cars. Volkswagen combined these two consumer trends in an ad in AA Traveller magazine and other titles touting its electric car. The ad included a shipping label (prepaid postage included) to recycle the magazine itself once you were finished reading it. Volkswagen received nearly double the anticipated response, which motivated the company to expand the campaign to other cities in South Africa.
Advertisers are not solely focused on digital innovation. The CW Network in the US partnered with Entertainment Weekly to enhance its print advertisement by integrating a small smartphone into 1,000 of their print magazines to promote the CW’s new season. The device showed short clips of two shows and live tweets on the CW’s Twitter account. Similarly, Marie Claire in the UK inserted a 45-second Dolce & Gabbana video ad in its print magazine.
Consumers confronted with so much noise in their lives and in their media present a challenge to advertisers: how to break through that noise to gain attention, engagement, trust and commitment. That challenge calls for advertising that will grab their attention, stimulate their imagination, spark their interest and get them started down the road to a purchase. And that requires pure genius.
To find out more about Innovations in Magazine Media World Report or to order the book, visit the Innovations toolkit.
