Engagement that entertains

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Aug 01 2012 | Direct Marketing News - Ginger Conlon and Ryan Joe
On days when I'm feeling a little crazy, I log on to YouTube specifically to watch ads. Current favorites: Nike's “Leave Nothing” spots, as well as its three minute video for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. I also find myself riveted by video game teasers. I still remember the TV spot for Gears of War 3—a game that I eventually purchased—that featured a haunting cover of the song “Mad World.” This comes as no surprise: Successful marketing requires customer engagement. And the fastest path to that engagement—assuming the ad copy doesn't include the words free or complimentary—is entertainment.

Obviously, no brand wants to produce a boring ad, but the importance of entertainment seems especially acute in today's media landscape, where consumers are buffeted by countless distractions and dazzlements. Consider direct response television (DRTV): these spots need a hook to push customers from one channel (television) to another (voice or online). In the cover feature, writer Alex Palmer describes how analytics firm Turn Inc. designed DRTV spots to push customers to a webpage for Turn's cross-channel analytics platform. Motivating customers to take action is no easy feat—especially for a B2B company; cross-channel analytics is useful and important, but it's certainly not “entertaining,” however loosely we define the word. But by wrapping a cliffhanger narrative around its DRTV spot, Turn successfully drove prospects to its site, where they were prompted to enter an email address to receive further information about the platform product.

In fact, staff reporter Erin Dostal writes about the millennial audience—a group with vastly increasing spending power—who absolutely demand entertainment for their attention. Toyota, for instance, topped off its multichannel, millennial-targeted campaign for the Prius with a concert in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: ground zero for New York hipsters.

Read the full story here...