The New Canvas of Interactivity Is Scary For Traditional Advertising Creatives

My recent MediaPost column on the disparity of online advertising spending — and how it’s a good thing — ushered in some good feedback on the MediaPost discussion forum.

One important theme that emerged in the comments as a reason for the disparity of online spend was proof of effectiveness. Gian Fulgoni said:

To begin, new and emerging media have always been held to a higher standard of proof of effectiveness. The proof is building but it takes time.

And Roderick White said:

People with real money to spend have been looking for proof of performance before going mad with their potential online budgets.

There also were comments about the resistance to change among the creatives. I tried to unpack that concept a bit:

The historical canvas of media has been more of a blank and controlled one — whereby the artistry goes one way with full reign, from the “paid” media to the prospect. There’s an assumption that the consumer is simply sitting there in a chair with full attention, ready to soak in the creation as the creative executed it — whether it be a 30-second tv or radio spot, a full-page ad in a newspaper, or a billboard. Conversely, creative in Interactive is far more dynamic, where the artist must be far more adaptive to the shifting and somewhat complex, sometimes ephemeral canvas of an interactive environment. The importance of earning attention is more pronounced. It requires expertise in interactive experience, design, the written word, multimedia production, search and algorithms, bandwidth and device variance, social connections among numerous other areas. You bet, this is scary for traditional advertising creatives!

I fully admit I’m not an advertising creative, but many of my friends in that part of the business agree. What do you think?

Published by Max Kalehoff

Father, sailor and marketing executive.

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