The Future of Advertising…26/07/12
Following a recent study in the USA which stated that 49% of consumers stop and interact with digital media Ads while 13% stop to watch plasma screen Ads and just 4% stop to look at poster Ads, we were very keen to pop along to a talk at the Apple store last week about the Future of Advertising!
We left the captivating talk with lots buzzing in our minds – what opportunities this provoked for us and for our fellow industry peers?
Well, in a nutshell: digital outdoor advertising will soon be tailored to the situations of customers through contextual media, providing well-tailored and effective ads to potential consumers. Digital screens and projections are expanding the visible reach of that advertising, through techniques such as projection mapping, to cover the landscape. Will this soon involve holographic video, sound, lighting and smell integration? The panel discussed what this all means for digital outdoor advertising, for the filmmaker and the creative.
So what is in store for us and other digital production companies? Where do we fit into this changing trend of print and digital advertising? Read more to find out what we have to say about it…
The presentations focused on the digital environments we now find ourselves immersed in – specifically digital canvases at airports, shopping malls, bus stops and roadside billboards – and the various opportunities that exist to use this medium to explore brand messaging through content and social media and delivering a memorable experience as a reward for interacting with the advertisement. Speakers from Grand Visual, Contagious and Clear channel showed examples, including a digital canvas at a bus stop with gender recognition technology which only delivered messages to women, promoting female education. Other examples included touch screens, augmented reality or the ability to interact with the digital canvas using a smart phone. Some of the campaigns that were mentioned; Lynx –Angel ambush, Heineken – Tweet map, Visa – Flow faster, Gender recognition.
All of the speakers had the same story to tell, albeit with different flavours – Grand Visual focused more on the creative ways to put media into practice, Clear Channel on the prevalence of digital media and new display technology, whereas Contagious concentrated on gaps in the market and the new possibilities that this offers, as well as the future facing marketing and consumer culture.
The overwhelming message was that the advertising world is slowly reducing their focus on commercials, where a compelling storyline formed an integral part of the final product, and shifting their attention on advertising as an interface, offering an experience in exchange for the viewer’s attention and giving people a reason to engage with the brand. Advertising is thus slowly moving away from a medium in which the product’s ability to satisfy the user’s needs are demonstrated, and is now also expected to foster a personal engagement with the user/viewer – to make him/her feel more identified with the product and have it ingrained in their memory for reasons not necessarily restricted to the pure use of the product, but to the use of experiential campaigns using innovative technologies, creativity and immersive digital solutions.
So what does this mean for TJ? Within this new era of ‘producer-consumer’ interaction and the advent of new technologies, traditional high-cost advertising mediums such as television and print media are being replaced by more effective and direct formats such as online- and new media marketing, as they have potential for a larger audience and empower the consumer. It is a time of continuous innovation and reinvention, with digital media production companies leading the way. As the budgets previously allocated to traditional mediums are reassigned to digital mediums and the pace picks up on technological innovation, companies like Taylor James find themselves in an industry with tremendous growth potential. In order to retain market share and continue making a name in the industry, this opportunity should be attacked with zeal! Increased funding shifted from the other mediums should not simply be used for production, but also, and most importantly, funds need to be invested in Research & Development in order to ensure that the Taylor James name is one associated not only with quality, but also with the key differentiator of the new marketing world – innovation!





















