cruel to be kind

Tag(s): tv ads, commercials, movie trailers, rss, customer relationship, Frosta

Rachel asks “TV Ads are dead?” and references Hugh’s multi-billion dollar suicide pact between clients and television to state:

But its not going to be that simple. The clever brands already recognise the changing face of advertising; there are more and more reports about brands switching spend from TV to online. They’ll never entirely abandon TV ads, but there’s more and more integration. The fun will be in watching how many of them get it right and how many crash and burn.

Let me say from a ‘consumer perspective’: TV ads may be dead, but commercials per se are not. [Granted, she is not saying otherwise and I am implying here, that she means ‘transfer it to something non tv ads. But it suits perfectly as trigger for what I wanted to say, and I additionally think she is a very clever women, so let’s take just the thought as basis for the following rant. ;)]

You don’t need to stop making commercials. You don’t need to transform to funny online games and websites. You should invest more time bringing the commercials online. Even extend them. Commercials are made in 30 seconds because they have to fit a costly TV scheme. But who says you can’t add credits to a commercial which will be downloaded on the internet? Who says you can’t have the extended version online? I see a whole new business coming.

I love commercials, but my TV time goes to zero. Even more if you consider the fact, that I live in Germany and we don’t have the cool commercials. We only have not so funny translated ones. Did I say I love commercials? I do. Deeply. I even have a collection of IBM commercials laying on my hard disk which are several years old. They go into my regular backup, so I don’t loose them.

I trade them with others to complete my collection. Why the hell can’t you all be like IBM? Different formats, different sizes. The only thing their website is missing is a feed to tell me, when new files for download are available.

And I collect others I come across, if I like them. Most of them are in very bad quality, stamp sized. Riped of a TV show which shows nothing but commercials, with laughter beneath it. Give me the ad. Give me a decent size; don’t make it flash or play only, make it downloadable. And I’ll come and download. I will watch them. Watch commercials on purpose. And if I like them, because they are funny, and or smart, I will even give them to other people.

Forward the link. Viral them. I burned at least a ten CDs with commercials on them for other people to enjoy them. You remember, we are talking tv ads here, right? Just give me the chance!

Same goes with movie trailers. How highly annoying is it, that they always want to stream. I want them on my harddisk! I don’t care that you want to count every time I view them – I will only view them *once* if you just stream them.

I am likely to view them several times, over time, when you let me download them. The Brother Grimm movie is the first movie website I encountered, which prominently offered me to download the damn trailer. I have a collection of them (because if you really want them, there are ways to extract the url etc, but it is annoying), and from time to time, if I liked them, I will view them again. Can you spell DVD buy? I seldomly go to the movies, because I don’t have a decent one with originals over here. Me buying your DVD is more likely than me going to the movies.

And forget about implementing a play count on my players to track local play count. If you start doing that, I will kick that application of my computer. This is my private sphere. I am watching your commercial, that has to be enough. If you don’t like it, stop playing this game and go play with some other kids.

Hell, give me an RSS feed with enclosures of your trailers, and adds. If I like your company, I am highly likely to love all your ads. And btw: Make better contracts with your producers – the old ways of licencing mechanisms don’t work in this new world and they have to learn that too.

Making of films? Give me ‘making of’ blogs. The german company Frosta started blogging about – their company. One of the last posts was about “how do green peas come into your fridge in three hours“. This is a consumer blog, but how many die hard fans has your company who would like to get to know more about Topic X?

Customer relationship was never easier than today. But I agree with Rachel and Hugh – you have to get it or get burned.

ps: Linktipps for selections of good commercials on DVD for acceptable prices are welcome!

ps2: I love taking things apart and ask questions you did not like to hear but know you need to hear. Try me. ;)

Tags: business blogging, cruel to be kind, Marketing