Three terms describe, effectively, the strategies of new millennium advertising, Product Placement, Brand Content, and Viral Campaigns. In the wake of the digital revolution, digital media convergence is an increasingly important aspect in advertising and new media. What is digital media convergence? In the widely accepted words of Jenkins (2006), Convergence is “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences...” In other words, Viral Campaigns (‘content across multiple media platforms’), Product Placement (‘cooperation between multiple media industries’) and Brand Content (‘migratory behaviour of audiences’).
...a pint-sized Darth Vader is worth almost 55 million views on YouTube alone.
The
Old Spice Guy, Kobe Bryant Jumps, Cadbury Gorilla and Volkswagen: The Force.
There are a great many examples of successful (not necessarily good) viral ad
campaigns. And why are there so many examples? The simple answer, look at the
numbers, the old spice ad has about 45.5 million views on YouTube; Kobe Bryant jumpingover a car has about 2.5 million views; a gorilla playing the drums! That’s has
7 million people curious; and a pint-sized Darth Vader is worth almost 55
million views on YouTube alone. That’s all there is to it. In real world terms,
making a viral campaign is the equivalent of throwing flyers of an airplane,
people will get curious, they will pick them up, and they will pass them
around.
Now,
these viral campaigns are great, they show how powerful a platform the internet
is, but they don’t demonstrate the true scope of modern advertising in the wake
of digital media convergence. No, that honour goes to the 2008 movie, ‘The Dark
Knight’. The viral campaign launched by Warner Bros. in late 2007 and early
2008 truly showcases how the ‘flow of content across multiple media platforms’
(Jenkins, 2006) has affected modern advertising and new media. As PROSPECTMX
points out:
“Back in the day when a studio had a product they really wanted to permeate every corner of the market, they did an old-fashioned advertising blitz. TV, movies, radio, print, everything would have that product plastered all over it. The idea was to put the product at the top of the consumers’ mind so that when they decided they needed, say, a casserole dish, they thought of the company in the ads. The Dark Knight decided to do the same thing, but at a fraction of the cost with viral marketing. In late 2007 and early 2008 it was impossible to read a single sci-fi or tech blog without hear about the latest, totally mind-blowing update to the Dark Knight campaign.”
– prospectmx.com
The Dark Knight’s viral campaign can be summed up in one term, Collective intelligence. “None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills.” (Jenkins 2006)
“Of 192 people surveyed by IM/CBS, 56% 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that they would prefer to see products incorporated into their favorite shows rather than be interrupted for commercial breaks”
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| Source: 20th Century Fox Television |
With online services, video games, personal video recorders (PVRs), wireless communication and interactive television completely disregarding and disrupting traditional advertising practices (Chisholm, Jenkins, Koerner et al., 2002), it’s little wonder that in the new millennium, the terms advertising and product placement go hand-in-hand. Product placement is the endorsement of products (or brands) in TV shows and movies. For example, the hit comedy TV show ‘Modern Family’ featured an episode completely dedicated to a main character’s quest for obtaining an Apple iPad (the episode “Game Changer”) on release. And another example is the movie Risky Business, whose placement and use of ray ban glasses contributed to a direct increase in sales of the ray ban Wayfarer glasses. Not only is product placement a new mode for advertisers to reach an audience, it is also a more preferable mode for the audience as “Of 192 people surveyed by IM/CBS, 56% 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that they would prefer to see products incorporated into their favorite shows rather than be interrupted for commercial breaks” (Chisholm, Jenkins, Koerner et al., 2002). As digital media convergence becomes more and more evident so does the shift of advertising from the traditional television commercials to product placement become more and more inevitable.
Even as
recent as 10 years ago the thought of making a six and a half minute commercial
was impossible. Today, increasingly advertisers aim to make one long commercial
or short film to advertise a brand rather than a product. In a world of “increasingly
distracted, distrustful, and disinterested consumers” advertisers are shifting
away from the ‘traditional advertising messages’ and towards an Integrated Marketing
Communications (IMC), where the advertisers focus on ‘developed
to provide clarity, consistency, and strong brand concentration’ (Sheehan and
Morrison, 2009). One such case is the Walker Heritage Brand Campaign. The Main
attraction of the campaign is a 6 minute and 32 seconds short film that
educates the viewer about the Johnnie Walker history. This video has quickly
generated around 2 million views on YouTube.
Viral Campaigns that span 75 countries, a 30 Minute TV show episode dedicated to a Product, and a 6 minute short film explaining brilliantly the history of a brand. This is the 21st century advertising industry in the wake of Digital Media Convergence. If Convergence is ‘the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation of multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences’ then there is no better example of convergence than the new millennium of advertising and new media.
References:
1. Reader week 2
6. Chisholm, A., Jenkins, H., Koerner, S.L., and Ernst, D. (2002), Pathways to measuring consumer behaviour in an age of media convergence, ESOMAR: Television Audience Conference, Cannes, [accessed 28/08/2012]
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