Increased interactivity is obviously the direction advertising and public relations is going, but I don’t think it will all be focused on the Web.
I got really excited when I read the Wired article about Nine Inch Nails and 42 Entertainment because that is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. I’m not saying all ads and PR activities should involve multi-continent treasure hunts, but integrating everyday elements people encounter into marketing for a product is how to make new fans and keep the ones you have interested. Like Trent Reznor said, he wasn’t attempting to create marketing for his album, even though that maybe the way it is perceived. He knows his fan base and doesn’t undermine their intelligence. He is creating an experience with the fans. When you involve people at that level, you are no longer just trying to sell a product. You are trying to give them a better understanding of what you are producing and making them a part of the production.
A film that hit theaters about a couple of weeks ago called Be Kind Rewind took this approach. The film stars Jack Black and Mos Def, who are two kooky friends working for a local video store that is running into financial problems. Through a weird accident, Jack Black gets magnetized and manages to erase all the tapes in the video store, so Mos Def attempts to make his own version of the movies. Prior to the film’s release, the production company asked for fan-submitted “movies” reenacting their favorite films, which is called sweding. It helped create buzz for the film and plenty of funny shorts. Check out the guide to sweding.
I think that is the way the industry is beginning to move or at least consider moving because consumers want to feel like they are a part of something. However, other interactive approaches probably won’t work as well like the Nike-Google mashup of Joga.com. Soccer is huge around the world, but people can only manage so many social networking sites. Right now, it’s either Myspace of Facebook. It would be difficult for such a niche site to be truly effective. It might keep the current fans happy, but I don’t think it could attract more.
R/GA, one of the leaders in interactive advertising knows this. 42 Entertainment gets it. Now everyone just needs to catch up.
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I definitely agree with you that consumers want to feel like they are part of something. Coming from an advertising background, one of the biggest challenges marketers face is convincing consumers to interact with certain products. It's especially hard with high involvement and serious purchase products. But, as a consumer also, I can say that some products I would never have bought if I hadn't used them in some other capacity first.
Audi did a good job of marketing a high purchase product using an elaborate alternate reality game, called The Art of the Heist. They had just designed and produced the new AudiA3, which is their hatchback sedan. They knew that sales for this type of car tended to be low because people didn't see the car as cool or trendy. So...they put three of these cars in different places in the US then staged a fake robbery of one of the cars from a dealership. The goal for the players was to find the other two cars because they contained information regarding who stole the third. It was a great success for Audi as they sold a lot of cars, generated a lot of web site visitors and 500,000 people participated in some way in the story. Check out the video with the details and other stats. It's pretty neat...
http://www.mckinney-silver.com/A3_H3ist/
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