Advertisers need patience to tap into Web's potential
Marketers used to spend the bulk of their money on TV ads, which ran for a few weeks or months at a time. But these days, because of the Web, the shelf life on ads is infinite.
That has caused some new challenges: Some Web-based creative projects can last for years, taking on a life of their own. They can even take on forms that were not originally intended by advertisers. And because many of these ads are aimed primarily at a narrow slice of the general populace, they can take a long time to approach critical mass.
Still, there's good reason for this shift. Much more chatter about ads and commercials has begun to take place online. By moving efforts to the Web, advertisers hope to harness consumer reaction and sentiment. Almost half of the discussion of this year's Super Bowl ads, for instance, took place on social media sites focused on movies, video games, and entertainment news, according to TNS Cymfony, a tracker of online buzz.
As the Web changes ways of doing business, said Alicia Arnold, vice president of account management at Molecular, a Boston digital agency overseeing the effort, advertisers including Reebok are asking: "How can we move away from buying media time and toward creating time" between us and our customers?
Since April 2007, Reebok International of Canton has hosted Run Easy, a website (www.goruneasy.com) that lets runners map out their favorite routes, post iTunes playlists, join jogging-related discussion groups, and upload photos. The site snared more than 1.61 million unique visitors between its launch and mid-December 2008; in comparison, the first season of "Damages" on FX reached an average of about 2 million people on days it aired, according to Nielsen Media Research.
A broader Run Easy ad campaign involving TV helped start the venture, but the Web effort has largely sustained itself through user-generated activity.
To get the most out of Super Bowl ads - and presumably other campaigns that require significant investment - advertisers need to "blend social media, traditional media, and buzz around the watercooler," said Jim Nail, chief marketing officer of TNS Cymfony.
After pushing consumers online, however, marketers are discovering they need lots of patience. Reaction to a Web campaign may only come in dribs and drabs. "Because of the viral nature of it, you can't necessarily take it down. Things can live for many years way past the initial putting it up there, because they get passed around, and end up in different places," said Andrew Graff, president and chief executive of Allen & Gerritsen, a Watertown agency.
In fact, the Internet is fast becoming littered with the semiactive remnants of various Web campaigns. Burger King's Subservient Chicken featured a guy in a chicken outfit responding to typed commands and has arguably become the granddaddy of the genre since launching in April 2004. It remains active at www.subservientchicken.com.
Another long-lived - and risqué - effort comes from Philips Electronics, which has a presence in Andover. In 2006, the company used a mention on Howard Stern's Sirius Satellite Radio show to launch a ribald website that aimed to hawk body-hair shavers for men. The site featured a smirking guy clad only in a bathrobe, telling viewers about the company's Bodygroom shaver while pictures of fruits and vegetables popped onscreen to help describe sensitive parts of the male anatomy. No sensible marketer would ever put such a thing on TV, where consumers of any age and sensibility might get a gander; on the Web, however, the company could be reasonably certain that no one's elderly aunt would come surfing along.
To this day, Philips has kept the bathrobed host online - and added content. The company in September launched a new effort at the same Web address in which consumers can contribute to "manalogues," or dramatic readings of anecdotes that illustrate the ins and outs of male hair trimming.
Unlike a TV campaign, a Web promotion can require constant check-backs. "It's something we have to monitor closely. You now have more websites than human beings on the planet," said Arjen Linders, senior director of customer marketing for Philips Norelco shaving and beauty. "What do you maintain and when do you remove something?"
Reebok has reasons for continuing to operate the Run Easy site, other than giving people a virtual place to congregate, said Rich Prenderville, head of global brand marketing at the athletic gear concern. The company believed consumers had become daunted by ads that told them "you have to do this, you have to do that" in order to be a runner, he said. On Run Easy, they can learn and progress at their own pace, gathering support and information from other users.
Now that Reebok has built a community, he said, why take it down? "We started a community and we have started people talking about something, and if we just turned the lights off on it, I think we'd do them a disservice."
Brian Steinberg is the television editor of Advertising Age. 