I Don’t Want to Have an Online Relationship With My Mustard!

The power panel “Developing Developing the Big Idea - Creative Strategy and Execution in the Digital Era started out with a big idea—moderator Jeff Marshall told the audience that he had hoped for us to be able to Twitter in questions. Fun! I refreshed my Twitter in preparation… But this was quickly dismissed for logistical reasons and instead Jeff gave out his mobile number so we could text in any queries for the panel.
And from there, the conversation about “big ideas” regressed away from anything we’ve come to know as part of web 2.0 or this new “digital era” and instead highlighted case studies still dabbling in established online technologies.
Michael Piekarski, Creative Director with imc2 discussed their podcast campaign for Diet Coke Plus. A cute idea, tarnished a bit by the logic that “because podcasts are successful, this campaign will be successful!” Users can choose from a variety of podcasts—house party themed, zen themed, etc—and then download it to “enhance their lifestyle—just like the vitamins in Diet Coke Plus enhance your diet!” (Okay, perhaps I added in the last part, but that’s what was being implied.)

And how were Diet Coke Plus and/or music fans being driven to the site? Web banners! Um, really? The big ideas of the digital era are still reliant on web banners? Such is the case.
Jessica Boggs, Creative Director with AlphaZeta, Inc. showcased their work on the Aon Client Focus microsite—which had a clean, sleek layout and was built to divert Aon’s “intellectual capital” to their clients. In non-jargon speak, I took this to mean: displaying videos, PDFs and other info in a content-viewer format with an easy-to-use backend for uploading and monitoring content.
To answer the question “what role should a brand play in a consumer’s digital lifestyle?” Jamie Anderson, VP/Digital Director of Cramer-Krasselt took the mic and revealed Corona’s yet-unlaunched web portal—a virtual beach, just begging for customer interaction. What I found most interesting was that the site has had no press but it’s already getting traffic. This is where those who don’t have a liquor client on their agency roster get insanely jealous. Booze: It’s like you don’t even have to try to get customers interested. They just Google you all day long for fun and pump up your metrics.
Out of everyone speaking on the panel, Jamie was the most laid-back and compelling. Responding to questions about consumer engagement online, he remarked “It’s not about online relationships—it’s about the actions you take online and how they translate into the real world—how you measure them and how it benefits the consumer, [more so] than the brand.”
The last case study presented was from Dominic Lee, Digital Creative Director at Leo Burnett North America. It was exactly what you’d expect from Leo Burnett—a well thought out and executed campaign to increase awareness about Hallmark’s new line of (RED) products.
Full disclaimer: I do not like the (RED) campaign at all. It’s all fluff and no substance—but does give anyone involved a nice fuzzy feeling about “doing something good”. However, this makes Leo Burnett’s mostly-Facebook-oriented Hallmark campaign pure genius. Facebook is, after all, the capital of click-to-show-you-care.
However, this insight seemed lost on an audience that burst out in laughter when someone told a story about a daughter being upset that her mom was on Facebook. Like I said, big ideas about the new digital era… there’s still a lot to be desired.

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