10 things that every digital swashbuckler should know.
1. Blog posts with titles like “10 things about this thing that does things” are written by people in desperate need of attention.
So I’ll quit right here. I’m bad at pouring things into lists anyway. But behind this post are two other recent posts. One on Scamp’s blog written for the digital creative and one on Ian Tait’s blog geared towards the digital planner. If you’ve read both no need to read this ’cause I’m afraid it’s the same-old same-old, yet putting in my $0.2 nonetheless.
First of all: if you want to be a digital creative you have to know everything Ian says digital planners should know. (BTW: the title comes from my conviction if you know both you should be called a digital swashbuckler.)
The big difference between being a “regular” creative and a digital creative is the importance of knowing the medium. When you get told to do a billboard, you basically know you’re going to do some text, a big image or both. It’s going to be put in places with a lot of passage so a lot of people are going to see it. You’re going to have to get creative “within” that medium . You can get creative “with” the medium by, I dunno, sticking a real car on there, but still, it remains a billboard.
Now say you should adapt that campaign for online. You could put the billboard picture online and animate it in flash.
Will it work?
Nope.
Well yeah, in a banner, but you don’t need to be a very well-versed in the digital world to make banners. But as a website? No. You can’t put a website somewhere so people will have to pass by to check their mails in the morning. It has to be so fun/cool/interesting/innovative/weird that people will got out of their way to visit it. That’s pretty hard.
Imagine your brief being:
“We’re going to put a billboard in a dead-end alley where no-one ever goes and it has to be so good people will do a detour on their way to work, just to see it. And than they will tell their friends to do the same.”
Daunting isn’t it.
Well, it gets worse.
Because the *BIG* problem is of course that there are a million other dead-end alleys out there plastered with other billboards craving attention.
So is digital marketing like billboards only a lot harder? Nope, that isn’t my point at all. In fact, my point is: advertising or marketing on the Internet isn’t like billboards at all.
Making the website-equivalent of a billboard is one option. Back in the old days it was the only option. For years it’s been the obvious option. But more and more it’s a bad option.
I remember the days when it was the only option, people didn’t know what to do on the Internet. Luckily there where enough “site of the day” websites out there to point us to one of those website equivalents of billboards. The Internet of today is so far removed from that it’s like a different medium altogether.
The medium isn’t a 20 square meter billboard, not flash, not a web browser, but:
the way people use the Internet.
It’s weird, I know. You’ve always thought of a medium being something like “television” or “a newspaper” not “the way someone does something”. But it’s true, your medium is just that:
the way people use the Internet.
The way they use it to look up stuff. The way they use it to make their life easier. The way they use it to communicate with companies, with governments, but mostly, with other people. People they know, people who share their interests, people who are also bored, people who live near them, people who suffer from the same disease.
What does all this mean for the digital creative?
It means it’s not (only) about being creative like an advertising creative.
It’s also about being creative like an entrepreneur. Like an inventor. Like Steve Jobs. Like a Cuban mechanic. Like David Copperfield. Like a guy who really likes Lego.
It’s not only about entertaining your audience. It’s about making their life easier. More interesting. About empowering your audience.
Think about it.
Oh, and everyone’s opinion on this is welcome in the comments, of course.
links for 2007-12-11
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Testing testing
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Need to look into this
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Love the paintjob and wheels, would look great on my econoline
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YES, I WANT A RUNNING PANHEAD!
links for 2007-12-10
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affiliate 101
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Great idea
links for 2007-12-08
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Dat wil ik wel, voe de paasvakantie
links for 2007-12-07
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Inspiration for the house
links for 2007-12-06
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But not with the cheezy paintjob please.
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I think this is reaaally cool. That is, until everyone starts using it and it gets reaaaally invasive.
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Great campaign!
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WHoohaha!
links for 2007-12-05
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JUst for demo purposes
links for 2007-12-04
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I really love the deep bullhorn bars like these from Nitto. But I’ll settle for a lot less my friends ; )
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I don’t want this but I’m doing a demo here.
links for 2007-12-02
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LOve the album art
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What's all this then?
Ching* is the name under which we, JP Bernbach and Christian Verschaeren, do our projects. We're award winning creative strategists/planners/thinkers. But also Internet entrepreneurs and culinary critics. Among other things.
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JP Bernbach
is currently asleep
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Text Area #3
This is the area on the site where Christian would announce his various skills and accomplishments, if he weren't so darned modest.