When I was growing up in the 80s, there was a popular song called ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’. I supposed the song celebrated the emergence of music television (MTV) and mourned the demise of radio.
Today, the internet is killing television.
The media planners I work with will readily testify that, although television is still an essential part of their media plans, it remains just that – a part. Increasingly, it is unlikely to work on its own. In fact, it is no longer possible to build any media traction with one medium alone. Planners are constantly relooking at the way they plan and target.
In today’s context, consumer interaction is all about experiences and engagement. It is impractical to expect the consumer to come to you, you need to go to where the consumer is.
Most of them are online.
This may not be bad news for advertisers. Online advertising is cost-competitive and word-of-mouth advertising is free.
I will explain how this works with a real-life case study:
I was involved in the production of an epic and iconic McDonald’s television commercial in 1991. We casted 1400 talents and shot non-stop, day and night, for 7 weeks. The production costed S$1.5 million and the media costed… probably something equally phenonmenal.
Nonetheless, McDonald’s did amplify the emotional engagement between their brand and the consumer. For many years after, even today, everyone remembers the ‘McDonald’s Granny’ from the commercial.
It just took a lot of money to achieve that result though.
Going forward in time, Visa ran a Matt Harding-inspired commercial in 2008. Production-wise, they reaped savings by using videos of Matt Harding’s real life world tour, called ‘Where The Hell Is Matt?’ which by now, is almost cyber-legend, with 27 million views and counting. Other than a few spots on television, most of the world was drawn to Visa commercial on YouTube – by word-of-mouth.
It costed Visa almost next-to-nothing to produce and broadcast the commercial.
Borrowing a competitor’s slogan – the audience cut-through and the brand connectivity facilitated by people, YouTube, Matt Harding and an increased brand awareness and usage of Visa – was almost PRICELESS!
Who is killing who now?
Video Sources:
McDonald’s Restaurants Pte Ltd
