The advertising industry has been rooted in the idea of the campaign – that is what agencies, by and large, do. And campaigns come and go, while a few overarching themes in them are constantly refreshed with new pieces of creative.

Now, even as ad agencies have been migrating into the digital space, most of them have continued to approach what they do through the idea of a campaign. And the idea of a campaign is the idea of ups and downs. For when the campaign is running, there’s media in the market, and the audience grows. But as soon as the media is pulled off, or as soon as all the people have seen the campaign, the audience breaks up and drives off. And then the agency and the client are on to the next campaign again. That’s what the entire advertising business has been about.

But those who see the future of this business in the digital age are starting to see the rise of platforms. Platforms that are built to last. Platforms don’t necessarily go into the market with a bang, with lots of media buy, but they grow over time. Platforms are rooted in utility, and they provide something that the customer, the audience, will feel like using, and using again and again. The best and most pervasive platforms become a part of the audience’s lives. They’re more like services and tools than a 30-second spot or a clever billboard ad.

And the platform, when it encourages the audience to create and distribute their own content, and aggregates it from various sources, then becomes a media engine for the advertiser: the content, the comments, and overall enthusiasm from the audience feeds back into the platform, which can then churn out the content back to the audience again. And that content is much more real, much more authentic than traditional advertising material, because it comes from the audience itself. That content is what is called earned media.

Some examples of great platform ideas are, of course, the Nike+, and, in Europe, the Seppälä Supermodel Search, which I myself was lucky to get to help create back in 2006, and the way that HSL, the Helsinki Region Transit Commission, has sourced both utility and marketing material out of its Journey Planner and Transit Cost Calculator.

The problem with these platforms to many in the advertising and media buy+sell industry is that they don’t match the idea that we’ve had for so long of what is advertising. To envision, design and develop these platforms, it takes a different kind of a team, a different set of talent than what’s been used in traditional advertising. And it takes a different mindset. The way that people consume media, the way that they connect, is now driven much more by technology than it was before. To develop platforms, a new breed of creative technologists need to get a real seat at the creative ideation table. And, perhaps even more importantly, to make sense of all the different connections, links and experiences across different technologies and devices, agencies need Experience Leads to replace the old definition of Creative Directors. It’s an opportunity, rather than a threat, for all of us to grow and explore new things.

Sure, old style campaigns will most likely still be made for a good while, as this giant industry slowly changes, just like VHS tapes were sold for a time after the coming of the DVD, but forward thinking individuals and agencies have started to realize the change that is taking place. And this change is driven by the consumer, the audience, who, ultimately, is our real source of income. If we lose the attention of that group, we lose our business.

Change is often scary, but think about it: wouldn’t it be nice to get away from the ups and downs of the campaign era, and enter a new era of sustainable growth?

Karri Ojanen

The announcement quickly created discussion about whether doing away with campaign sites and focusing presence on existing social media platforms is wise, risky, or threatens ad agencies.

Campaign microsites, like banner ads, are a form of online advertising that, for advertisers and agencies coming from traditional advertising, have been easier to define, plan, control, and measure. It’s reminiscent of the old order, and therefore easier to grasp.

However, it doesn’t mean that’s where the online audience is going. Generating awareness and driving people to the microsite takes effort, and has no guaranteed outcome. People get annoyed when a brand tries to interrupt their online activity with “incoming messages”. So it makes sense, then, to go where the people already are: existing, and hugely popular social media platforms.

Coca-Cola and Unilever will undoubtedly benefit from moving away from the old model of buying traffic for short-term experiences, but there is still something here that smacks of old channel-based thinking. People I heard talk about this during the week seemed to think of it as an either-or question: it’s either sites, or Facebook. From the news article, it’s difficult to tell whether that’s how Coke and Unilever themselves see it.

In the old, channel-based thinking, there’s a box for everything. “Social media” is one box, and television, banner ad and billboard are others. But in the digital age, that’s not how things work. The whole of the Internet is social – people are social. The boxes, i.e. the channels, are connected, linked to each other, and instead of choosing just one, smart marketers need to see how to connect them in a way that interests the audience. If Coke, Unilever, and other brands really get it, they won’t just do away with campaign sites completely and switch to another channel, “social media”, but learn how to best connect them and look at the digital experience holistically.

Karri Ojanen

Nokia’s new campaign Somebody Else’s Phone plays with that idea. It invites people to explore the lives of three characters “in intimate detail, in real time” – and promotes the Nokia 7610. What’s really interesting about the site, which runs in 10 different languages, is that during the campaign, the characters’ storylines actually evolve through a 24/7 feed of content across three time zones for 6 weeks. The site promises to fuse scripted content with real life audience interaction – the characters have their own Facebook pages (“of course” and users can even call or text the characters directly (which leaves me with the question “how do the characters answer the calls or reply to the messages, when they’ve lost their phones?”)

In addition to the Web, the campaign, created by “Just Do It” Wieden+Kennedy’s London office, incorporates TV, radio, outdoor and print. In a lot of ways, the span of the campaign sounds like an (interactive) advertising creator’s wet dream. Of course, the three characters on the site are all young and sexy. Who would be interested in browsing through the old and clunky Blackberry of some dull accountant?

Check out Greenpeace UK’s EfficienCity for some good stuff and a whiff of fresh air. The website‘s pretty well done, too.

(The San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & partners seem to have done some great spots for the CMPB. North Kingdom of Sweden created the website.)

Karri Ojanen

Karri Ojanen

Similarly, the mobile phone operator Kolumbus has already earlier launched their own reality TV-inspired online campaign called Vapauden hinta. And much before all this, ordinary webcams used anywhere in the world to send live video (or frequently updated still images) online have already been, and are, a form of reality TV online. I find it a bit surprising that there haven’t been more “reality web” campaigns, and I welcome the development, as I think the endless reality TV shows can be much less annoying online. On the web you can add much more features to the show, like real time voting, prerecorded highlights, Q&A, etc.

Karri Ojanen

While I myself am not so fascinated by how it works in practice, it’s an interesting experiment, which could actually work, when the voice generation gets better and the anchor stops studdering. If we see more “full-service” web TV channels start in the future, for them this would be a cost-effective way of creating newscasts. Also, not directly connected to this, but the thought comes to my mind: 81 journalists were killed around the world last year (the deadliest year since 1994, according to Reporters Without Borders) – perhaps in the future their lives can be saved by sending robots to war zones and other dangerous areas? Though best would be, of course, to enhance press freedom.

Karri Ojanen

While the YTV Journey Planner and Matka.fi are both great tools in themselves, what’s really interesting is how YTV has had the brain to use the engine that was created for the journey planner in its campaign Rikastu. Käytä joukkoliikennettä. (“Get rich. Use public transit.”)

In the campaign, the user gives the exact addresses of point A and B – typically, the user’s home and his/her workplace – and then the monthly cost of making that journey a) by car and b) by using public transit is calculated for the user. Now he can see how much money he’d save by hopping on a bus instead of driving. The data for the calculations is taken from the engine originally created for the journey planner. So the YTV campaign is based on sheer fact; it’s all based on the personal data that the user himself has given. Pretty convincing, huh?

When advertisers think about the high cost of creating a new concept and building a web service, what they should really think about is whether the concept can be used later, and how, to create new services based around the original concept. Because that’s how they can save money, and get to see their online services grow.