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: Ernie Mosteller, who describes himself as a “Southern farm boy with an education,” embraces and embodies advertising’s transition from traditional to new media. His award-winning work as a creative director jump-started a successful 15-year run as a nationally-known commercial director. Energized by the endless possibilities of a changing media landscape, he combined his strategic, creative, narrative and digital skills to found a hybrid digital/traditional boutique, release an early eBook on the changes agencies face today, and cultivate a loyal following of weekly blog readers. His current position as VP, Interactive Creative Director at Brunner Digital, and VP, Creative Director for the DC office of Brunner, complete the circle – finding him back on the agency side, helping clients, creatives, and agency management understand the possibilities of digital, and create compelling messages across all media. His personal blog is erniemosteller.com.

The Mating Dance of the “Big Idea” and Technology

Written on: March 19th 2008
Author: by Ernie Mosteller |
Feed: XML Feed

ADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — The Web facilitates countless ways to interact with people – that’s not exactly a news flash. But when you throw in mobile and all other forms of binary-driven technology – and here I’m thinking talking billboards, Times Square-style interactive video, building projections, under-the-skin RFID chips, whatever — the list of ways to communicate with people is beyond immense and actually quite mind-boggling.

So how do we do it – and do it well?

Interactive methods of communication keep cropping up and so far there hasn’t been a single sign whatsoever of new media technology congealing into nice, neat, definable set of categories anytime soon.

That’s probably why, in most publications about interactive advertising — heck, in most advertising publications when they’re dealing with the subject of interactive ads — the focus tends to be on new delivery methods, and the tech behind them. How they work, how they perform, how they can be tracked, what’s new this afternoon, whether people use/play with/like/hate them, etc. Which is fine, and good, and can even be informative and inspiring. Except for this: The discussions about creative content usually happen somewhere else.

The error of our ways

Traditional advertising generally separates the “idea” from the delivery mechanism. A “Big Idea,” expressed in print or on television, can almost always be massaged, expanded or contracted to work in other media. The “idea” drives the idea – and the media delivers it. That’s the way it’s always been. Separate, but equal. Or perhaps more accurately, relatively equal. And because that’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it’s always been discussed. Media folks have their pubs and conversations and interests — tech people have theirs – and creatives, theirs.

But here’s the rub: things aren’t the way they’ve always been anymore. The nature of both creative and media have changed, and that has caused a major shift in the nature of the idea. When you’re talking about digital delivery, it’s impossible to generate an effective idea that’s separate from the delivery mechanism. The two are so integral now, they’ve become one. And that affects how both the delivery experts (tech and media) and the creatives must think about, and discuss, the things they make.

Which is a better way to reach your client’s potential customers, and tell them about her product — a blog, or display advertisements? The “Big Idea” is: Natural lasting beauty, for the price of a pound cake … so how do we deliver the message to our early-40s female target?

Easy example, but you get the idea. Back in the days of old media you might (emphasis on might) be able to answer the questions based on demographics. But now, there are too many questions remaining — and a whole lot of them have to do with tactical execution. (Which means, they have to do with a creative idea that’s intrinsically tied to a specific delivery platform.) Because the disciplines are tied, discussions about them have to be tied. And the job of generating ideas that work gets harder, because it involves more people, coming at the problem from more angles.

As sophisticated as we are with digital communications, we’re still infants, comparatively speaking. The wholesale change in advertising from pure traditional media to a blend, to who knows what, has only begun to mix technology with creativity. It’s far enough along, though, that it’s clear the two will never be separate again. Still, there’s a tendency for experts in each discipline to have only casual relationships when it comes to creating stuff for our clients. History, though, tells me there’s hope that the separation of tech, delivery, and creative won’t last.

A brief allegory

Look at film editors: I’m old enough that when I first started writing television commercials, they were edited on a flatbed. We made a print — and the editor, who was a storyteller, physically cut and spliced scenes together on film. It was kind of non-linear method of telling a tale, in a wood-burning sort of way. It wasn’t the technology that told the story — it was the editor, combined with the director and the writer.

Then along came videotape-editing systems. Vast banks of u-Matic machines for rough-cuts. Re-recording sequences endlessly when you wanted to change something. Making sure each time code was dutifully recorded, and burned into the one-light transfer, so the very linear final edit wouldn’t go extra hours. The editors, for the most part, were defeated by the technology. They were storytellers — and the tech had made their job of telling stories harder. At best, they became supervisors. The guys pushing the buttons — the ones who understood the machines — became the editors. Except, they weren’t great storytellers. They were great at running the machines. And for awhile, the quality of the things we edited dropped, though it was faster and certainly cheaper.

Then desktop-based non-linear editing was invented. The editors who were storytellers — if they were still in the game — bought and learned the interfaces. The technical guys who could operate the old machines also learned the new ones. And because they’d been the de-facto editors for so long, many of them learned to tell stories, too. Inexpensive hardware and apps helped grow a new generation of editors that could do both — tell stories, and use the new tech in creative ways. It was, and is, all one process to them. Now, video editorial product is light-years ahead of where it was in the flatbed days — and we have the combination of tech and creative to thank for that.

The revolution is upon us

The evolution of video editing is important to keep in mind because the same kind of revolutionary change is going on with the development of delivery mechanisms that can be used to engage people with ideas. They’re seen as tech-heavy gadgets and gizmos with all kinds of possibilities — yet those possibilities aren’t native to the thinking of non-tech creatives. And the discussions about what to create, and how to deliver, are still too much in silos to realize the true potential that’s out there. It’s clear that the new crop of creatives does, in fact, blend technology with creativity. But it’s still not seamless. Perhaps, as was the case with video editors, the technology behind the tools will simplify to the point that an art director can create a mobile interface. That’s starting to happen on the Web, but there’s a long way to go.

In the meantime, and probably from now on, if you want your message to engage, it’ll help if it’s built on an idea that was created at a communal table — where every discipline has a seat.

Reader Comments.

While I agree with the logic and virtually all the points made, I think it misses the larger point. The “Big Idea” is premised on a single message being delivered one-way to a customer or prospect, i.e. push marketing. Today’s explosion of communications mediums not require marketers to re-think how the message plays in each medium, it also necessitates us to stop thinking just about how we deliver our message, but how to we spark a discussion around a topic that hopefully leads to customers speaking about the product or service in a way that is meaningful to them and lend their authenticity. Consumers are becoming more and more resistant to marketing messages, that’s nothing new. But the way to cut through the “marketing” is to create real conversations and if your product/service is really appealing, you can use your customers as the “real” voice that will get listened to as something other than noise.

Posted by John Kottcamp | 2:04 pm on March 20, 2008.

The Medium IS The Message! - Marshall McLuhan
Decades ago my Modern Mass Prof asked us to name a movie that could only be done as a movie. In other words a film that makes full use of that medium and would not fulfill it’s potential as a book or a TV program. Citizen Kane comes to mind but there are others. The point is that we have yet to see the “Killer Mash-Up” and make no mistake it is indeed a mashed-up world.