Keeping His Eyes on the Prize: Josh Linkner’s Consumer Incentive Approach to Interactive
But in terms of ePrize, Linkner adds, “The type of work that we’re doing is absolutely direct marketing—we’re getting people to react or we’re motivating specific behavior. But it’s done in the context of a brand-enhancing experience. For example, a consumer will come online and play an American Express game of ours—where they’re using the computer to ski down a mountain, and they’re seeing American Express stuff in the background, and they can win prizes. The consumer’s spending six or seven minutes really engaged in the brand in a positive way and they’re doing direct marketing at the same time. So where those two worlds collide has been a real strength for us.”
While many industry insiders have projected online advertising’s apex to occur a few years from now, we’ve already seen the steady shift of ad dollars to the space. That’s reason enough for Linkner to believe 2006 will be a milestone year for the industry, in terms of both challenges and opportunities. “I really believe that 2006 is going to be the tipping point year,” he says. “There are still some other large brands that are slower to adapt to new thinking. So it’s getting past that. One of the challenges is that the way most big brands are managed is by ad agencies. And the way that ad agencies are paid is by selling media—most specifically, TV commercials. So the people that are controlling the advertising decisions are [hesitant] to steer people towards interactive because they’re cutting off their nose—that’s not how they get paid so much. So I think one of the challenges is that the economics in the overall marketing world need to shift, and I believe they will because ad agencies can’t do what’s in their best interest and survive; they have to do what’s in their clients’ best interest and survive.”
Survival, in the Darwinian sense, is something that can easily be applied to a medium that already experienced such a catastrophic bust. But in the worldwide web 2.0, there seems to be a wiser allotment of marketers and agencies, ready to progress, while placing the customer on the same pedestal as the bottom line. That’s why Linkner says a Bubble 2.0 is highly unlikely. “I don’t see a Bubble 2.0. Before it was done on blind faith, hoping for the best. Now people are saying ‘Show me the money’. The proven measurable nature of this type of work is really going drive it to grow. Twenty-five years ago the hottest, best and brightest people in the marketing world wanted to produce TV commercials. Now they want to do interactive. You’re seeing those shifts, and those shifts tell a story.” He adds, “The dot-com bubble was probably premature and based on hype. Now we’re starting to see the same promise, but based on results. And that’s very exciting.”
Crystal-ball premonitions and creative/financial potential are reason enough to stir industry folks like Josh Linkner. For this jazz man/digital marketing leader, it’s nice to be in a respected position to get a birds-eye view of it all. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he and his staff are sitting pretty. “We’re pleased with our success—we’re the number three promotion agency in the country, online or offline, we’ve done all these great things, we’re growing at a huge rate—but we don’t sit around and say, ‘Look how cool we are.’ We’ve got a hundred feet of sheet rock ahead of us and we’re about creating the next great marketing agency of the future.”
“We’ve got a lot of work still to do.”
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