Like a still poster ad on TV or still newspaper ad on the web: understanding 7th Mass Media in advertising

Alan wrote about mobile advertising and marketing a few days ago. I wanted to join in and try to give it perspective.

We hear constantly horror stories about what mobile advertising might become, or indeed what it already is in some cases. Unsolicited, interruptive and spam.

Then we also hear many suggest that we should have "better location information" such as GPS positioning data, or "a larger screen" to give us more room for banner ads, and so forth.

RUBBISH !

Mobile is the 7th Mass Media, we keep telling our audiences worldwide that mobile is as different from the internet as TV is from radio. Mobile should not be thought of as the dumb little screen versus the PC screen, internet and TV - no, mobile is the smartest and fastest screen. Mobile phones are not dumb little brothers of the internet, no in fact mobile is the smart business-oriented web cousin of the internet, far better suited for business - and advertising and marketing - than the existing web.

And while mobile won't kill off the internet just like TV did not kill off radio, certainly as soon as the media content owners - and advertisers - learn to capitalize on mobile's advantages, then we will find vastly superior media experiences on mobile, not even possible on legacy media (including the internet) today.

Yes, spoken like a true heretic?

Let me explain. Lets look at advertising today, as a follow-up to Alan's posting. If we go back 50 years to the early days of TV advertising, it was often still images, or else very slow-moving acting. Almost all early TV advertising, if the moving image had been stopped, would have served well as a poster advertisement of that given product. There always was the permanent text on the screen, to remind the audience of the slogan that the advertising wanted to convey. In effect the TV spots were the equivalent of taking outdoor poster ads, and filming those - often with literally no movement in the ad at all.

Understand how different it was from today's TV advertising. 1950s TV ads were shot with one camera as one shot, no edits, often no speaking by the actors, often even no movement by the actors - thus barely any script - and usually a voice-over announcing the slogan of the product, plus of course a jingle, the song to associate with the brand. And throughout the ad there would be text overlaid on the screen to make sure we knew which toothpaste or washing detergent it was they were selling to us. Oh, and the actors? Were not any kind of movie stars or celebrities, no, they tended to be very average people - or else they could be the actors of the given TV show that was being shown, who often did ads live in the middle of their acting.

Today TV ads can be the most expensive 30 seconds of on-air time, more expensive to produce than hollywood movies (in measuring the cost per second to produce). They are meticulously scripted, with massive pre and post-production, special effects, editing, lighting, special effects, sound effects, etc. They often feature real actors or celebrities. The modern TV ads nearly always feature movement of the picture, zooming, panning, etc.

Consider that transition. The original TV ads were made by a young TV advertising industry that had not learned what works and what doesn't on TV, and had not been trained on TV production. They came from the print media. So they replicated posters and print ads and filmed those.

Eventually creative talent started to experiment with TV ads and studied film making from Hollywood and TV production etc, and adopted those techniques - and eventually even grew to pioneer new techniques - into advertising.

My point. That copying the existing ads from an old media format will not produce the best results onto a new media.

Lets take a quick second example. Internet advertising. Last year 2006 was the first year that search word ads (Google Adwords) delivered more advertising revenues than any other kind of ads on the internet. But they were not there at the start of internet advertising back in 1994 when I was employed by OCS in New York and we were among the first companies to put ads on the internet (and boy were we blamed for ruining the purity of the internet back then, ha-ha).

In fact no previous media had search. So the early internet ads were lame copies of what worked in newspapers and magazines, the banner ads. Then when search emerged, someone (at Google) figured how to turn the activity of search into a new opportunity for a radical advertising format, and the first "killer app" for a successful internet ad innovation was born.

Now, we could argue that viral ads are also an innovation of the internet, but what little appeal viral may have left on the web, is surely overshadowed by the massive overload of spam we get. So that little nice opportunity was totally wasted by the industry.

Anyway, our point is that the 7th Mass Media is different. It is better. It has 6 unique benefits not available on any other media (personal, always on, always carried, with built-in payment, available at point of inspiration, and with best audience measurement) - and mobile can also replicate ALL that can be done on any legacy media. Not necessarily as well - I do not want to read a book on my mobile phone even though millions in Japan already do - but all can be replicated. Remember watching a movie on a laptop is not as good as watching it in the cinema, but we CAN watch a movie on our laptop..

So yes, the mobile can replicate all that exists on the legacy media, but mobile as the 7th Mass Media can do so much more. We need to now learn and innovate and invent. Discover the true great opportunities and then invent the new advertising formats that capitalize on the benefits of mobile.

Lets not do banner ads. Lets not do spam. Lets explore the new, the amazing, the "magical". Advergaming is one early example of what is possible on mobile. But that is only a start, lets move beyond. Remember the examples we've given here of magic. Like Shazam the music recognition service or Kamera Jiten the cameraphone dictionary or 2D barcodes. Because our phone also has the camera, it is available at the point of creative impulse. We can - indeed we must - make use of these and differentiate.

Now the creative staff at advertising agencies need to learn. To discover what makes mobile different - not what makes it "lesser" - but what makes it "better" as a mass media. Don't try to fit the old model - the poster advertisement in an outdoor billboard onto the TV spot - but rather lets invent the new.

Anyone out there reading our blog, who is innovating in the mobile advertising space, please do tell us, we'll be most happy to celebrate your innovation and spread the word. Remember for example the Finnish Idol/Peoples' Idol concept - that was created by an ad agency in Finland (Taivas). Or follow Blyk, they are now pursuing user-participation in the co-creation of the advertising experience. Where can we go with a device that is always with us, that is always on, that is so personal we don't even share it with our spouce. Which can handle payments, has its built-in camera/scanner, and knows the audience.

We can build magic, and ads on this new 7th Mass Media, they can become magical. So magical that customers will want ads.

Obviously if you work in advertising, read up on these thoughts in our book Communities Dominate Brands, and learn the distinction between the basic interactive and its evolution: engagement.

Comments

[Tim Harrap]

"...that is so personal we don't even share it with our spouse."

Hei Tomi
It's time to blog that Institute of Development Studies paper on mobile in Africa. Some men are still controlling access to mobiles for their wives. There are still other social contexts to deal with in the world.

[Henre]

Brilliant post. Have trackbacked from one of my posts earlier today. I like your thinking and it ties in nicely with my view on mobile marketing.

Non-intrusive value added service.

Also convenience oriented marketing.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Tim and Henre

Thank you for writing.

Good point Tim, yes, its a sad state of affairs in so much of the developing world that the inequality is so bad even within families.

Henre, thank you to you too. We'll want to visit your blog too to read your posting.

Thanks for writing

Tomi Ahonen :-)