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The Integration Initiative: Special Ops Media Gives Entertainment Marketing a Full-Service Facelift

Written on
December 20th 2006
Author
by Kiran Aditham  |
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It’s no longer just an online marketing medium, though, that’s why we prefer to label it as ‘interactive’. It’s more far-reaching, I think, moving onto mobile and social networking among other outlets.

C: What’s also going to happen is the line between new media and old media—I think it’s blurred already—at some point, looking out 3-5 years, the demarcation between new and old media will cease to be relevant. I know that there are billboards companies going digital, where you can walk by with your phone, point your phone at it and pick up a message. Whether this stuff turns out to effective or not, I wouldn’t comment on, but that split between old and new, that gap is going to close.

One another point that Jason was alluding to, and I don’t know that it’s necessarily in ‘07, but it’s something we’re going to face every year in the coming years. This industry is continuing to expand, and expand significantly. But there’s going to be a coexistence of two factors: 1) explosive growth. 2) A real desire to be innovative and an increased tolerance for trial & error that comes along with innovation.

(a still from Special Ops’ viral initiative to promote the Season 2 DVD release of NBC’s The Office)

We sit in conversations and we hear seasoned marketing officers and advertising executives say things like, “one of the success metrics is that our brand is perceived as embracing new technologies.” Of course, it’s about ROI performance, but a key success metric is brand association with being cutting-edge. But the other piece that’s going to coexist with this growth is a constant checking in. Is it working, and is it returning. As these budgets get bigger, I think there will be an explosion in metrics and quantification.

A lot of that framework exists, but there’s always going to be one part moving forward and one part catching up. I think that there are going to be constant times during that growth where various parts of the industry say ok, we’ve got to get quantification to catch up. We’ve got to get ROI to catch up. In between these growth spurts, there are going to be check-in points. I see that continuing in ‘07 and well beyond.

J: It’s strange looking at the budget evolution four years ago, from year one to year two of our company. The budget numbers increased, but it was very, very gradual. It was like a first media budget was $5,000. It was more of a conservative, prudent approach…”we’ll test it a little bit more and a little bit more.” But this year, things just shot up. For example, 24 months ago, we were turning out viral tools for say, $5,000. It was very limited functionality, but that’s the entire budget that was there. Two months later, we’re getting calls and [there are] $50, 60, 70,000 budgets for viral tools, same category, but a whole different level of effectiveness, functionality and complexity.

In 2001, everybody jumped ahead and didn’t think about what was going to happen. I think we see it, as Christian was saying, on a micro level. It’s not a calamity, and I don’t think it would be unheard of that certain places where money was spent in interactive this year could even get pulled back and other areas could really explode.

C: Look at Razorfish [years ago], it was a Web design shop. Avenue A was a direct response shop. Obviously, they evolved into much more than that. In ‘99, it wasn’t uncommon for a lot of companies out there to do website redesigns for $1 million. There was a lot of the herd mentality, but Jason’s point is right. I think that what people look to spend money on online is going to continue to shift as we get into new areas, see what works, and see how they’re integrated. Most companies will tell you right now they don’t need a $750,000 corporate website. But they might need a $150,000 viral tool that’s designed to gather research, test products, and interface with clients.

That’s why it’s so exciting to be in this space. It’s still so uncharted, still so dynamic, and again, I think we’re just at the beginning of what companies are going to look to do online and how agencies are servicing them.

J: I love having all of these elements of an interactive agency. When we have clients that say, “My Internet budget for all of our Internet marketing is only ‘x’ amount of dollars, what do I do with it?” We’re not just a creative shop. We don’t say design a $250,000 website and do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Sometimes, quite often, it’s the total opposite where a lot of products—say a movie—some of them don’t need a $200-300,000 website. Some of them need a $5,000 informational page and can spend that extra $250,000 in external marketing, reaching people through media buys on other sites where there’s built-in traffic, reaching people through viral tools where we can leverage a database and get them to see it and send it to ten of their friends.

It’s true, you do need a place where someone can watch a trailer and find out basic information. But the truth is, you don’t even need content sites. Look at the rich media ads now. Everything you need is there: trailers, clips, and now there’s rich media where you can buy movie tickets and you don’t even need to put in your zip code. When you think about it, it’s like why am I spending money here, here and here, and just on regular Flash ads?



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