If you haven’t seen this new animated piece from Chipotle, you should.  It’s a great example of engaging content, a new format (2.5 minute video), and on-line distribution.  The trifecta of the new advertising paradigm.

Plus they got Willie Nelson to record the track, which is pretty cool.

Check it out on You Tube here: 

People don’t want to watch most of the advertising content that’s put in front of them, and many use technology to avoid it.  Because it doesn’t add anything of value to their lives, and because they are overwhelmed with marketing messages.

For most of the history of TV, the trade-off between free programming and advertising was accepted, if not exactly embraced.  But when VCRs arrived in the 80’s, we figured out that in addition to time-shifting the programming, we could also fast-forward through the ads.  I’ve been recording the network news ever since, which I can watch in 20 minutes when I get home, minus the advertising.

Then DVRs came out in the 90’s and it got even easier to skip the ads (my Panasonic model even had “skip :30” button).  One of my favorite stories is about a guy who was hired to research how folks were using the new DVRs when they arrived.  The researcher asked what the audience members did with the commercials, and was told “we skip them all” by nearly everyone who had gotten used to recording their favorite shows.  But when the researcher sat with the subjects and observed their actual behavior, he saw that they occasionally would rewind to watch a commercial that they were interested in.  Asked why they did that (since they’d told him they didn’t like watching commercials), the subjects replied that those were the “good ones”.  So clearly, some advertising content is considered of value to the audience.  The question is:  how does one produce those types of ads?

I propose 4 broad categories of marketing content that consumers find of value, and will actually watch, and engage with.  They might even seek them out, and share them with friends (the much sought-after “earned media” effect).

1.  Entertain Us

If an ad is entertaining enough, people will seek it out.  There are many recent success stories these days, mostly comedic.  Nearly everyone can use a good laugh, and so entertaining content is accepted, even when it interrupts the entertainment we intended to watch.  But I would also include in this category commercials that touch the audience emotionally and make us feel a bit better about ourselves, or the other creatures that we share the planet with.

2.  Inform Us

If you give me useful information that I don’t already have, then I’ll watch it and learn.  And I’ll be likely to pay attention the next time you put content in front of me.

3. Create Beauty

Some advertising content is so beautifully realized, in design, photography and music, that it will be watched and appreciated for that reason alone, like art.  That is, so long as it is in the service of an idea that is not totally inane.  We’ve all seen commercials that have wonderful production values applied to a ridiculous concept, and no one wants to watch them a second time, no matter how pretty they are.

4. Be Relevant

By this I mean temporally relevant to the specific audience member.  If one is in the market for a particular item, then an ad for something in that category will be of interest.  This is probably not going to include low-interest consumables (like tooth paste).  But content about an item that is in a high-interest category (cars, appliances, vacations, etc.) will be welcomed by the consumer who is trying to decide which to purchase.

It is in this last category that the internet will have an enormous advantage over traditional mass media, because of the ability to target particular consumers.  Nielsen and the like have done what they can to identify the demographic makeup of the audience for specific programs.  But it’s been a black art at best, and possibly a sham much of the time.  Now there are companies that claim to be able to identify consumers online to a frighteningly accurate degree.

Despite the fears of privacy advocates, I suspect that most consumers will be comfortable giving away some basic info about themselves (age, sex, marital status, home ownership, etc).  These are aspects of our lives that we don’t usually try to keep private anyway.  They will do this because it will mean that they will no longer have to sit through ads that are of no interest to them (or spend the time and effort to avoid the ads).  They will only see marketing messages that are relevant to them now.  That’s a game changer.   We’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming soon.  And once that happens we may not be so eager to avoid advertising anymore.

So marketers need to find a way to create content that fulfills one of the 4 categories listed above.  Otherwise they are wasting their money.  And worse, they may be annoying the very consumers that they want to engage with.  Imagine spending millions of dollars to piss off your prospective customers.  I have never heard a marketer admit to achieving a negative ROI with their program, but I suspect it happens now and then.

We will all be better off with less of the stuff no one wants to watch.   The age of “push” marketing is coming to an end.  Marketers need to create content that’s worth being “pulled” by their customers.

(comments, criticisms and witticisms are welcomed)