Effective ambient campaigns, using the space around you
By Lindsey Kin
According to
Knotebook.com, ambient media is the name given to a variety of out-of-home products and services. These include non-traditional or experiential media. The key to a successful ambient media campaign says
Knotebook, is to choose the best media format available and combine this with an effective message.
OnePartScissors.com adds that ambient media refers to marketing campaigns that make use of public spaces to raise awareness.
Motives behind the growth of ambient media include: its ability to offer precise audience targeting; its versatility; the decrease in traditional media; and the increase in point-of-sale communications. Because ambient media is placed in non-traditional places, it fabricates mass attention within popular locations and will directly interact with its consumers, on a daily basis – for ambient media, any and every available and accessible space is seen as an opportunity for an advertising platform.
An international example: Guangdong Advertising, Beijing, China created the ‘Excretion Vision’ campaign for Greenfamily Youth Association of Environmental Protection. Guangdong was challenged to raise people’s awareness about environmental protection. The agency erected huge billboards on drainage holes, where dirty water created the synonym for human excretion, resulting in a strong visual impact as well as psychological, and even physical, abhor. Strong interaction between audience and campaign was created, making people aware of protecting the environment, as well as the consequences – both sight and smell - if they did not.
As a local example, winner of the ambient media category, at this year’s
Out of Home Media SA (OHMSA) Awards, the Durex campaign titled, Play-O Broken Bed stand at the Sexpo, was designed by MorrisJones & Co. It featured a bedroom in shambles with a broken bed and shattered mirror, making the ad relevant and interesting for its clients, as well as the inquisitive ‘passer’ at the show.
Feed SA, a charity dedicated to feeding disadvantaged people throughout South Africa, teamed up with TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg to create an effective campaign to increase contribution of food to Feed SA. Images of hungry, begging street children were effectively placed at the bottom of supermarket shopping trolleys, bearing the Feed SA website, www.feedsa.co.za, as well as the following line: ‘See how easy feeding the hungry can be’. Any food that was placed into the trolley appeared as if ‘actual food’ was being given to a street child.
Research conducted by BuyNowMedia found that when compared to other forms of advertising, ambient media is effective in getting a message across to consumers. Additionally, it caters to a better top-of-mind awareness within a targeted audience.
With the abundance of advertising, consumers are inundated with information all the time. With the use of ambient media and its artiste statements attached, such campaigns will stand out from the crowd. If marketers want to secure the immediate attention of their consumers, ambient media is the way forward in today’s congested marketing environment. Such campaigns will make you look, even if you do not want to; generate interest, even if there was none to start with; and are out of the ordinary, so they will grab one’s attention, creating buzz around a campaign, and in turn, increasing brand recall.
For a look-see of more ambient campaigns that I’ve come across, or to leave your thoughts on ambient media carrying the potential to create direct interaction between consumer and brand, please feel free to visit our blog.
View allFlux Trend Review: the state we’re in
By Kerryn Le Cordeur
On Thursday, 25 February, Trend Analyst, Dion Chang, hosted the 2010
Flux Trend Review Conference, powered by BlackBerry, at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre Theatre. Chang explained that the Conference would provide a glimpse of “the state we’re in,” and would serve as an executive summary of the past year and the year to come, looking at business and lifestyle trends that affect the way in which we live; work; and do business in the 21st Century.
Chang introduced the first speaker, Editor-in Chief of
City Press, Ferial Haffajee, who questioned whether South Africa is becoming a ‘banana republic’. She explained that features of a banana republic include the instance where the leader becomes the owner, rather than representative, of the people, but incidents such as the recent bullying by a ‘blue light’ convoy of a citizen exercising his freedom of expression also lend themselves to the label, and the danger of this is that it could lead to coups and uprisings; corruption; and little chance of advancement.
On the other hand, Haffajee feels that for every pothole on our roads, there is significant development, too, especially with the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup fast approaching, and looking at the way in which our financial markets came through the recession, as well as our good relationships with India; China; and Brazil. She stressed the importance of speaking up against bullies; poor service delivery; and corruption so that South Africa doesn’t become another Zimbabwe. She noted the public’s response, leveraged by the viral and instantaneous nature of social media, to the news of Zuma’s 20th child with a woman who is not his third wife, which was a significant reason for his public apology, and explained that this signifies the way in which we are able to control the future of our country if we speak out – it is up to us which way it goes.
Moving from looking at the state of our nation, Bishop Geoff Davies took a look at the state of our planet, which he commented mirrors the impact of greed and our lack of moral fibre. He explained that humans have achieved great things, from air and space travel to advanced communications networks, but as a result our carbon footprint is drastically increasing. The Bishop feels we need a paradigm shift to rediscover our principles and values, because unless we get our principles right, marketing and business will suffer, too.
He went on to mention some interesting statistics, saying that the wealthiest 10% of the population owns 85% of global assets, while the poorest 50% receives just 1% of total income, and South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. He feels that it is essential to establish justice, and to consider future generations in all our actions. The only way to ensure sustainability, according to the Bishop, is to change our approach; assumptions; and attitudes. He ended by saying that a sustainable future is possible if we can bridge the gap between current and future trends, and between what is and what ought to be.
Chang then returned to the podium to explore post-recession economies. He began by looking at the empathetic economy, which involves a shift in value systems in the wake of the recession. Millions of jobs have been lost, and as a result, there has been a ‘human effect’, whereby people have reassessed what is important and what they want out of their lives. As a result of technology, Chang commented that we are in the midst of a consumer revolution, where people are able to voice their opinions and demand accountability; social responsibility; and transparency. The outcome of this is a consumer-dominated economy, as well as the need for customisation; personalisation; and conversation.
A second post-recession economy, according to Chang, is the knowledge economy. Once again, technology plays a role in the formation of this economy because the cost of storing and transmitting information has become insignificant, while the value of ideas has increased and is facilitated through collaboration, which relies heavily on technology. In the consumer revolution we are living through, knowledge-sharing is also important from the point of view of transparency and engagement.
Lastly, Chang briefly explored the concept of the free economy, which flips the traditional notion of economy on its head. Within this economy, ownership no longer equals value, and businesses that offer free services, such as Google; Skype; Facebook; and Twitter, are the ones that are most successful in today’s society. Technology’s role cannot be ignored here, either, as it has largely been the negligible digital manufacturing and distributing costs that have allowed for the above-mentioned services to waive any user fees. Another feature of the free economy is that it is the trend now to buy attention – by offering a free service, you are able to build up a database of relevant members of your target market. Chang concluded by saying that coming out of the recession, money is no longer our only motivator – people are seeing the merit in doing certain things “just for the hell of it.”
Taking a more in-depth look at technology and connectivity was Toby Shapshak, Editor of
Stuff magazine. He believes that 2010 is the year of the app as it is increasingly the way the Web 2.0 generation interacts, with ‘super apps’ such as Facebook and Twitter now central to our online lives. The uptake and prevalence of iPhone apps has also been remarkable, with one-billion apps downloaded in nine months – this is almost incomparable to the rise of radio, which took 38 years to reach 15-million users, or even the internet, which took four years to reach 15-million users.
Other technological developments which have shaped how we communicate and consume information today include Skype, which didn’t exist six years ago, and yet is now ‘killing the traditional telecommunications business model’, having become the biggest telecommunications platform; and YouTube, which has shaped pop culture and broadcasts one-billion videos per day – in fact, Shapshak stated that by 2013, most online traffic will be video streaming.
To bring it back home, Shapshak concluded by saying that Africa has also seen significant growth, especially in terms of mobile penetration, even looking at initiatives such as MXit and the Grid, but added that bandwidth remains an issue, although it has the scope to improve in the coming years.
Sylvester Chauke, Marketing Manager of Nando’s South Africa, moved away from the technological side of things to take a look at impactful marketing and advertising in the country, specifically from a Nando’s point of view. He feels that it is important for a brand’s personality to always shine through, and that marketing is central to the entire business and should work from the inside out, at all levels, in an innovative way. He added that share of mind is as, if not more, important when it comes to getting your brand out there, explaining that Nando’s has one of the smallest advertising budgets in the fast food industry, meaning that it has fewer opportunities to speak to its consumers than its competitors, and must therefore be relevant and intriguing when it does so.
Chauke mentioned that Nando’s speaks to its customers through its personality; vibe and attitude, letting its ethos, ‘Take a stand against bland’, shine through in all aspects of the brand, starting from within. He said that the brand finds unique ways to reach consumers’ hearts that are fresh and rewarding – in this way, it breaks through the clutter and is memorable and relevant.
Something that is all about relevance is popular culture, which Randall Abrahams, media consultant and TV personality, explored. He began by looking at the rate of change the modern world experiences, saying that while it is intuitive that change is linear, and therefore occurs at a constant rate, it is, in fact, exponential, meaning that it is occurring increasingly fast. As a result, it has been stated that we will see as much change in the first 20 years of the 21st Century as we saw in the past 100 years. At the same time, while internet growth and penetration in Africa is slow, in time it may leapfrog older technology in other parts of the world, because the rate of development is so much faster now than it was a few years ago.
Abrahams questioned how such changes in technology will affect pop culture. For example, in 1956, Elvis Presley appeared on the
Ed Sullivan Show, and was watched by 60-million Americans, or 83% of the population – this had a significant effect on his career. However, an artist today would be unlikely to have the same type of exposure from an appearance on TV because audiences are so dispersed and selective of what they consume, depending on their particular tastes, and this is largely fostered by the many technological advancements, such as an increased number of TV channels; time-shifted viewing; the rise of the internet; and mobile and social media, to name just a few. This also makes it more difficult to define pop culture. Abrahams feels that we are the final generation of the pop culture age, as the rate of change will be so fast as we move into the future that not one trend will settle itself into being an integral part of our daily lives for long enough to become part of our culture.
Mokena Makeka, MD of Makeka Designs, was the next speaker, taking a look at ‘Urban spaces for modern tribes’. He believes that all people are inherently creative and create products of utility in aesthetic design. He added that we need to enhance our talents through perseverance; determination; and resolution. However, he feels that in today’s society, we tend to replicate and reinterpret rather than create; we are excellent consumers, but not producers.
Makeka moved on to say that the concept of community is being redefined because while we may all see the same thing on a website, we all sit alone in front of our computer screens and have forgotten the public realm – placing less importance on aspects such as the appearance of buildings but rather retreating into a virtual space. As a result, public spaces aren’t seen as ‘ours’, but rather as ‘theirs’, which results in issues such as increased litter; poor service; and degradation of our surroundings, because no-one takes responsibility for them. He feels that the virtual world can greatly assist in real world challenges, but is not an end in itself.
With the challenges the real world presents, Dr Craig Nossel, Head of Vitality at Discovery, looked at ‘Wellness in the 21st century’. He explained that lifestyle affects health; wellness; and lifespan, and Discovery’s Vitality programme is an incentive for healthy living. Habits such as smoking; lack of exercise; and poor nutrition account for 50% of the world’s deaths, while chronic diseases cost millions in the developed world, and lifestyle-related deaths are even higher than AIDS-related deaths. A quarter of South African children watch more than three hours of TV a day, and spend nine hours a day being sedentary, while a nutrition transition to processed; energy-dense; and easy-access food, as well as ‘portion distortion’, has taken place, and this has resulted in a much less healthy population, with 60% of women and 30% of men obese in South Africa. Aside from the health effects of these lifestyle choices, they also have an environmental and economic impact, with Nossel noting that obesity results in, for example, increased carbon emissions when travelling; the need to purchase bigger hospital beds; and so on.
Nossel discussed reasons for the elusiveness of wellness, including the impact of advertising, as well as misperception and misinformation. However, he added that people’s attitudes are beginning to shift, and they are starting to see the benefits of taking time out for optimal performance. Initiatives are also being implemented to promote healthy living in fun ways, as Nossel noted that the main problem is that people are unaware of what is in their best interests, and need to be educated.
The Conference came to an end with three presentations of ideas that will make the world work better. Dianne Bayley, Co-founder of infORM Online Reputation Management and Editor of Marketingweb, looked at the power of social media and the consumer, and discussed the importance of becoming part of the social media sphere in order to engage with consumers and deal with the viral nature of the medium.
Prince Menzi Mthethwa, a young entrepreneur and philanthropist, and a 2008
Johnnie Walker Dream Red winner, presented the 5c Project to delegates. The premise of this is that 70% of coins released in South Africa are 5c coins, but these are not circulated as they are viewed as having less value, and are cumbersome to carry around. However, collected on a mass scale, they amount to a substantial value. As a result, in 2007 Mthethwa started a campaign to “help people help themselves,” by asking communities to collect 5c coins to help underprivileged schools. In 2010, the 5c Project will be extended by calling on schools; churches; community centres; businesses; and government to collect coins over a period of seven days to help underprivileged schools in all nine provinces in South Africa.
Lastly, Chacey Eder, an Inscape Design College graduate and 2009 national winner of the
Plascon Prism Awards, presented her winning design, titled ‘Baobab Raincatcher’. She explained that she noticed that with increased rainfall, water was simply flowing, wasted, into storm water drains, and she decided to come up with a way to make use of this water by creating a renewable water source. The design is based on the structure of the baobab trees, with the tree’s branches working as funnels and the trunk acting as a water filtration system, before it flows into a water tank at the base of the trunk. Each ‘tree’ is painted in bright colours from Plascon’s colour palette and is placed in informal settlements to not only provide a water source, but also brighten up the area. Eder explained that she is passionate about South Africa and would love to make a positive change in the country through design.
Poet and author, Lebo Mashile, ended off the day with a ‘Poetic Conclusion’. Certainly an informative day and an insightful glimpse at ‘the state we’re in’.
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