Art is Back: Can Creativity Save Us?

Posted by Rodney Mayers on 10 March 2009 | 0 Comments

Since its inception, the Internet has been billed as “the most measurable” environment for advertising. What that has translated into, in recent history, is all science and no art. Advertisers are stuck in “short-termism” (to quote Rob Norman, Group M CEO), as though every consumer of content is ready to buy now—or will be in the next 30 days.

It is ironic that during an economic downturn—with DJIA down, Consumer Confidence down, and extra money going to pay bills—advertisers are doubling down on tired direct response networks, as though content consumers hadn't tightened their pocket books. Building a consumer's relationship with a brand seems to have all but disappeared.

Yet, in today's economy, with impulse spending down and major purchasing decisions taking longer than ever, it's all the more important that brand advertisers consider the context where their ads will appear, and the impression those ads will make over the long term. That’s why we’re ripe to see creative new implementations and new direction in display—and why direct response isn’t the path out of this mess.

In last week’s 4As conference in New Orleans and a recent AdWeek article, the industry has started to see creativity coming back into style. Visa is deploying a very engaging ad implementation that pushes the boundaries of display by pulling live content from various cities.

This kind of creative thinking is what I've missed in online advertising. When I got started at BBDO in the late 80s, I remember image ads and call-to-action ads. The image ads showcased some of the best creative executions (for that time) and told stories of social responsibility, brand history, and other emotional factors that positioned the brand in our minds back then as something worth buying, so that when we were ready to buy, we had a good perception of the brand.

When you pair high impact creative with high quality content, you see consumers truly establish a relationship with a brand. Here at Adify we call this type of highly interactive display ads + content syndication "brand performance," and it increasingly represents the best of what Adify has to deliver to brand advertisers.

Art is back, my friends. As we see high impact creative and innovation spread through brand advertising, Adify is positioned to place that creative where it can make a powerful impression: alongside high quality content, on mid-tail sites with engaged niche audiences. That’s where brand performance relationships really start to grow.