Viewpoint Creative Swims the Tide for Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures Campaign
Rich media also allowed the creative team to present the requisite information in a tiered format. “We were able to not only drive home some of the messaging and attract the viewers to look a little deeper, but we could stack the information and deliver the messaging piece by piece in a more effective way.” The first thing a user sees is the animated banner. And right up front, before anything interactive happens, the user sees the Cousteau name and the air date time. That way, people who decide not to click on the banner may still tune in to the show and know that Jean-Michel Cousteau is back in action.
One of the first episodes of Ocean Adventures is about sharks, and PBS wanted to emphasize that in the campaign. Often, advertising gives an opportunity to meld two ideas together in the public’s mind, where they can have a greater impact than one image alone.
“We were trying to leverage Cousteau and the first show to get people to the network and to get them in love with Cousteau,” says Kiely. In this case, the name of Cousteau and the shark image not only hinted at the content of the series, but it also combined the mystique of the shark with the mystique of the Cousteau name. Kiely continues, “It was co-branding of the name of Cousteau with the shark imagery coming to the forefront. [PBS] found that people responded well to seeing the shark imagery, and it really engaged them.”
And what campaign in any medium would be complete without a catchy tag line that will hook the viewer. “‘This Summer, Adventure Has a New Name’,” quips Kiely. “Oh, it does? Who? … Cousteau?!”
“That came from PBS,” Middeleer explains. “We also knew that [PBS] wanted to give, in this particular campaign’s case, a summer theatrical vibe, and yet still maintain the integrity of the PBS brand as a place for great information.”
Rich media is probably the best way to convey the type of motion and interactivity required to cut through the clutter found on most sites. Ads don’t have to be constrained to particular dimensions, and can feature tabs, rollouts, and animated figures. But it can’t be used for all banners. Guidelines vary from site to site, and while the Viewpoint team could create anything they wanted conceptually, eventually the final ad banner needed to squeeze down to fit under a certain file size limit, which varies from site to site. To cut out the fat, Viewpoint used silhouettes rather than full-on images and a limited color palette featuring only the contrasting white and deep blue colors.
“I think like with anything, you need to grasp the viewer’s eye,” says Kiely. “Typically you go to websites and they’re front-loaded with a lot of information so that you can scan and get to what you’re looking for relatively quickly. The challenge for any online advertising is to get the viewer’s eye to glaze over your ad and discover some sort of interest.”
All in all, a skilled creative team that can bring together imagery and technical acuity can make an ad message cut through content like a great white through the murky depths.
Care to join Jean-Michel in his latest deep-sea explorations? Visit: http://www.pbs.org/kqed/oceanadventures/
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Tags: campaigns, PBS, rich_media, streaming_video and ViewpointArticle Sponsor
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