Are Agencies Finally Getting It?

Brand Republic has an article written by Steve Hickman, of WWAV Rapp Collins Media today. WWAV are one of the big names in direct marketing in the UK scene.

The article explores "new" developments in outdoor media and that (pause for the fanfare) posters can now be made interactive by using technology. He goes on to give illustrations such as an Abbey (a bank) campaign which encouraged small business owners to sms for more information. Or even being able to click on a poster advertising a film and being able to preview the trailer and look up showing times.

Nothing against Steve, but why is the direct marketing industry so slooooow to get its head round this fairly basic concept? I remember talking to the very same WWAV 4 years ago about ideas like this - actually I was invited to present to the whole of the agency at the time. I distinctly remember a big round of applause followed by a deafening silence in the next few months as it became increasingly clear that they weren't going to take my evangelism to market.

Well, maybe I'm a crap evangelist. But about the same time, Flytxt were appointed by JC Decaux (one of the UK's largest outdoor media owners) to launch PosterTxt "the first opportunity for advertisers to plan street furniture advertising campaigns with fully integrated direct response wireless marketing components".

So, what happened to PosterTxt? I assume it quietly died as there's no mention on JC Decaux's website these days. And the only reason it could have died is lack of demand for it....mainly by agencies, who book most of the sites.

And yet 4 years later, one of the foremost publications for marketing in the UK is writing articles implying that this interactive stuff is all new.

Give it another 3 years or so and we might see this idea become mainstream. But I'm still bemused why it's taking these undoubtedly very bright people so long to get their heads round something as basic as offering a direct response channel in a direct response campaign.

Comments

[David Stennett]

First, mad props to C-Lo, my homie ;-)

As to your post -- the reason is simple ... Bluetooth spamming solutions are NOT interactive, and in fact, they're quite primative ... client-based solutions, like my Jellingspot, are much much better, but require an application to exist on the phone already to connect and play. So, it's kinda a catch-22 of sorts. The spamming solutions are seeing a big backlash anyway -- people aren't too happy about 'Accept connection from XYZ' popping up all over their phones ... but, with the client-side solutions, it's a matter of 1. advetising the services, and 2. getting that client onto a phone.

We've all been trying to cross the chasm with this stuff for 2-3 years now ... it's starting to blossom, so hang in there! ;-)

[Russell Buckley]

Thanks for the comment David.

I wasn't really commenting on using Bluespamming (which I hate), pull based solutions or anything else specifically.

My point really is that mobiles can make advertising interactive per se. HOW you do it can range from simple sms to your Jellingspot approach.

They just haven't woken up to the concept at all.

Russell

[David Stennett]

Russell:

Ooh, my bad, didn't mean to spam up your blog ;-) Well, the problem with SMS is, of course, it's not really targeted and expensive (anything that goes through carriers is bloody expensive) ... LBS is supposed to solve this problem, but again, I think it comes to a price issue. The technologies are there ... but as you noted, people aren't taking the iniiative to use such things -- and also as you noted, it's ad agencies, not us tek geeks, who have the ears of our potential customers ...

I think your prediction, a 3-year time period, is about right. We've been going at it for 2.5 with Jellingspot (back with the 7650 was really the only BT phone that could do anything) ... and it has grown by leaps and bounds ... eventually, they'll get on it. Folks like you just see things much clearer than your average marketing/ad exec ... sad, but true!

Best! Keep the blog rocking!

David Stennett

[Tom Hume]

Being cynical for a minute:

Adding SMS response to an advert or set of ads costs next to nothing in comparison to the other costs of running an ad.

It's well understood by most people.

SO... what's the downside of doing it? Companies are quite prepared to put web site address on their ads.

Could it be that it "closes the loop" on traditionally unquantifiable advertising? That it provides accountability and this makes the ad industry uncomfortable?

[NJAR]

One quick observation - No one has mentioned the lack of ZERO Tariff shortcodes. At the moment there is no equivalent of 0800 freephone numbers for SMS. In the UK O2 is the only carrier yet to offer this solution. Hopefully they will do early next year, at which stage we may see a further surge in Shortcode use within advertising.

njar

[Tom Hume]

We didn't need free internet to start putting URLs on web ads; I'm sure companies advertised phone numbers to contact them before 0800 was available. And if customers are getting value from their SMS, why does it need to be free?

[NJAR]

good point, but I also believe one of the reasons 0800 is popular is due to the reduced amount of t's and c's needed on what is premium airtime/ad space.

I wasn't disagreeing though Tom, and I think you've very much got a point. Bottom line the reason there is not more SMS usage in this arena is because the execs in charge don't want it there. The question then is 'why not'. I suspect your view, albeit cynical, may have a large amount of truth behind it.

Certainly the direct response results in these instances that i've seen have often been pretty damn poor.

[Russell Buckley]

Tom - I'm not sure I'd credit our chums in the agency world as having the nous to think quite like that! Besides which direct response agencies like WWAV grew up in the direct mail medium, which was very accountable, so nothing new for them.

I think the reason is just that they don't understand the mobile channel.

Having said that, adding a direct response mechanic does bring a whole new meaning to accountability. I remember back in ZagMe days, recruiting Burger King as a client. The campaign just didn't work at all (it was a poor offer). But it made the job of trying to get them to extend the promotion nearly impossible as we both had the stats showing that it had failed. Sure, I could argue that it was a poor promotion, but I'd already told them that in the first place.

As far as the free sms channel, having had a lot of experience with landlines, you get a big difference (and I mean big) depending on the cost of the call. Free is the biggest, then national rate then normal.

Actually, with 0800 phone-ins you get about 5% of people phoning just because it's free ie they phone in and gibber down the phone, for instance. This clearly brings its own problems, but free texting would undoubtedly increase response rates, if the landline cousin is anything to go by.

I agree though, that having a free channel isn't a mandatory pre-condition to try it, but I believe that giving advertisers the option can only be a good thing.

Russell

[technokitten]

Lots of agency folk don't get it because they don't like sms advertising themselves, nay, a lot of them don't even like sms so don't see it's relevance for their customers. Some of my clients don't fit this mould, but lots of marketers I do meet do fit this mould. They seem unable to put themselves in their customers' shoes.

They also still haven't worked out how to make money on ihis whole mobile game.

Combine the two, and you err, you get no activity.

However, certainly in the UK, we're seeing lots of adverts with the call to action of 'text now' for more info/test drive/whatever. And I think the "free" shortcode will help drive this further.

Certainly when I've done text response ads, we've had as many replies via text as we did by phone and the customer had to pay their usual text charges for the sms and the phone call was an 0800 number. What surprised me was that this was a) not the youth market and b) the level of information that the respondent offered.