Are Large Ad Agencies Able to Adapt to the New Media Environment?
April 16th, 2009, JRoyA friend of mine posted a link on Facebook titled “Advertising Firm Leo Burnett Unveils New Mute-Resistant Commercials.” I followed the link, of course, and found myself reading a humorous article on the Onion’s website. The Onion article was about Leo Burnett using a ‘new technology that disables a TV’s volume-reduction functions, creating a “new kind of listening space” for advertisers to communicate with audiences.’ The most humorous line of the satire was the final sentence, “Rival agency Draftfcb is reportedly developing a technology of its own that will remotely turn on a television and adjust the channel seconds before a commercial airs.”
Take a second to smile and imagine how ridiculous it would be if ad agencies could control your television. Smile again. Laugh out loud a little. Ok, back to business.
The reason these Onion articles are enjoyed by millions is that they almost always connect to a real life situation or societal problem. The problem here? That the media landscape and how brands reach their consumers is changing/has changed, and it doesn’t always include big budget TV commercials anymore. The big agencies have built their empires upon the 30-second spot, and the big question is will all that talent, power and prestige be able to answer to a new era? In a similar vein, will their business model be able to survive without the XL budgets that come with a TV campaign? I can’t wait to see.
In an ideal world, Leo and the other big boys will focus less on the ‘TiVo problem‘ and more on the future of advertising and new media. (I really hope they do, because I love the flash animation on the Leo Burnett website and I would hate for it to go away.)
April 17th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hi,Cydney.
The future of TV network advertising is following the same path as mass market magazines in the 1960s. When I was a senior at the U of M in 1968, the 3 mass market magazines: Life, Look and the Saturday Evening Post, were all facing declining readership (due to more people watching television instead of reading).
So everyone was predicting the death of magazines. What happened? Exactly the opposite!
There are more magazines being published now than ever. But they are all for niche markets.
Cable has already done the same thing to network TV, but the real window on the future came last year when Josh Whedon, writer-producer of the “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly” TV series, created “Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” during the writer’s strike.
He released “Dr. Horrible” on iTunes…and the entertainment world changed!.
Josh created a series and delivered it right to the public, bypassing all TV channels, both network and cable.
So the traditional TV channels and ad agencies are going to have to adapt to the reality that their dominance the era of mass-market brands is over.
Nobody gets the whole pie, or even half of it anymore.
Advertisers are going to have to focus on what specific slice of that pie they want.
As one of the books on new media has stated: there are 300 million people in America. If your marketing strategy motivates just 1% of them to make a purchase, you’ve sold 3 million units.
Combine the changes in technology and communication with the changes in the economy and the political landscape and the next few years are going to be very exciting…and challenging for all of us.