Creative Circle

DAMON STAPLETON – ECD TBWA HUNT LASCARIS discusses the relationship between advertising and digital media.

Digital is the best thing that could have happened to advertising. Sorry to put it so abruptly but in our world of 140 characters, there’s no room for verbosity. For decades, advertising has been cruising along secure in its belief that we control the message and that people want to hear what we have to say. Digital has changed all that. Digital has created a generation of consumers who have a world of knowledge, a wealth of opinions and the means to express them.
When thereal-world impact of digital started dawning on the advertising community, there was no small amount of panic. Marketers predicted the end of TV, billboards, print, life as we know it. And,for most,this end was neither welcome nor prepared for. But 5 years into Twitter and 14 years into Google,we have to face the truth. But what is that truth?

The truth is digital hasn’t killed traditional advertising. Nor will it. Digital is forcing us to rethink how we use all media and, by doing so, is incubating the rebirth of advertising. Let’s take a look 10 years into the future. Will a billboard be a static message that preaches to the community rather than reflecting it? Or is it more likely to resemble Domino Pizza’s latest billboard in Times Square? Using an electronic ticker, they boldly display real-time and uncensored opinions from consumers, submitted online, about Dominoes and their service. My money’s on the latter. Recently Jay-Z launched his autobiography Decoded. Did he use traditional media to promote it? Well, yes and no. Through Bing, and with the help of Droga5, a campaign was created that used outdoor but in a thoroughly modern way. They put extracts from Jay-Z’s book up in cities all over the United States. Walls, billboards, bus shelters, even the insides of clothing were used to tell his story. Then digital took over. The public was invited to play a game, following clues given online to find the next extract from the book. They even created their own online book made up of photos of all the extracts they had discovered. The game was initiated online but it took place in the real world. The real world needs digital and conversely, digital needs the real world.

People live in a real world, not a digital one. Digital creates communities but those communities still go out and experience the world, they then talk about it on-line. Some of the most effective digital campaigns over the last few years have straddled the real and digital world. Gatorade staged a very real ‘grudge match’ which was followed on-line. Jay-Z’s Decoded campaign took to the streets in order to catch on in cyberspace. Digital may have changed how people interact with the world, they are exposed to different perspectives, but the world is still where they reside. The trick for marketers is to learn how to maximise the value of the traditional mediums by incorporating digital. Already many brands try to drive people to their websites but I’m guessing that, in the not too distant future, all advertising, whether it’s TV, print, radio or billboard, will have an interactive component. Because that’s the kind of relationship that digital savvy consumers are starting to demand.

Digital is forcing advertising to throw out the rule book. Advertising is obsessed with labelling things, but what’s happening can’t be labelled. Even Cannes acknowledged this when it took the word ‘advertising’ out of its festival name. It’s as if advertising is moving out of its frame, out of the art gallery and into the streets.

Of course, you can’t talk about digital without addressingthe South African context. Is South Africa good or bad at conceptualising and implementing digital campaigns? If judged against world standards, you’d be tempted to say we have a way to go. But why are we judging it against world standards? We have a very unique environment and equally unique challenges. We operate in a truly mixed space and we need to find our own way and methodology when it comes to digital. The upside is, the whole world is still grappling with how digital and advertising comes together. This is a new world for everyone and every country has to find their own relationship between digital, advertising and the consumer. When they do, they’ll quickly learn it’s a relationship that’s always evolving because digital is always evolving. What is right today may not be right tomorrow.

The only thing that seems certain about digital is that it can’t work in isolation. It needs to live in the real world in order to have lasting relevance in the consumer’s life. And for that reason, it’s the greatest opportunity for traditional advertising and could well be the shot in the arm we’ve needed for a long time.