Digital Wants to be Your Friend

But you’re probably already buds. That’s the beauty of online advertising, it doesn’t usually look and feel like a typical ad, as the goal is to give people an interesting way to interact with the brand. Is that sneaky or smart? And won’t we know an ad when we see one? Depends if the ad is providing something useful. “While traditional shops might thrive in creating the hot viral video of the day, they will fall short when it comes to building sustainable brand platforms and useful applications that blur product and marketing.” (“R/GA: Digital AOY 2008,” Brian Morrissey, Adweek, 2/16/09).

Typical advertising tells a story, but digital can offer a better way to eat, run, dress and drive. It doesn’t ask us to pay attention, it adapts to us. But their friendship/utility doesn’t come for free. The cool factor from the clients-side regarding digital is the direct sell part. “The key to these platforms is that they sell products directly, rather than tell stories about them. In the case of Nike+, the proof is in the numbers. The company’s global running-shoe sales are up from $8 billion for the fiscal year ending May 2006, a 21 percent increase.” (ibid). The old if you build it quote seems relevant here.

Ideally digital doesn’t just want to showcase products and services, it wants to inspire users, as it works in the selling part both more directly and seamlessly. Advertising this way has the potential to benefit consumers, brands and agencies, but with the dawn of addressable advertising (targeting commercials to various sects of society) we’ll see how intrusive all this becomes.

As long as digital remains innovative, making holes instead of selling bits (heck we’ll customize shoes at a bus shelter) we’ll get along. But there’s a fine line between anticipating what people want and crossing privacy boundaries. But if Nike+, NikeiD and Nokia viNe are examples of digital advertising as utility, ads might just come in handy.