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David Verklin, CEO Carat Americas and Chairman
Carat Asia Pacific held court at the 'Impact One on One'
at The Taj Land’s End, Mumbai, on January 19. He
turned the advertising business over and spun it on its
head last year when he won more than a third of Procter
& Gamble's $2 billion media-planning business. His
simple pitch: Rather than create the ads and then find
places to broadcast them, Verklin argued for an insideout
approach.
Advertising hasn't really changed much in the last
60 years: Create a 30-second television commercial,
blast it everywhere - on as many channels as you can
afford to; hog as many hoardings as your media
budget allows you to, shout about your brand as loudly,
and as much as you can over the radio airwaves,
and voila, your brand is as visible as visible can be; surely
it will have a mammoth impact on your sales. So
what's the problem, one might ask? The problem lies
in the fact that only a small percentage of the people
who see your communication, are actually interested in
your product.
So how can we advertise to an audience, where a
whole 100 percent of the audience is an interested,
potential user or consumer of your product? More so,
how can we advertise to any audience at all, with all
those darned commercial blocking and filtering devices
like TiVo, Video on Demand (VOD), and Video iPods?
What is the future of advertising?
Or rather, "What's your favourite future?", as Verklin
put it, as he stepped up to the lectern. "That might
sound like an odd question but it's one that we need to
seriously consider in the advertising business. Do you
believe that the future of the advertising industry is preordained
at this moment? Or, is the future of advertising
one that we can influence? Is it one that we can
drive? Is it one that maybe we can even determine? Said
another way, is the cement of the advertising business
still wet? I think so."
One might find that an odd question to be asked, but
as Verklin put it quite simply, "It's not odd for individuals
to plan their future. It's not odd for someone to
decide on a career or choose a spouse or pick a place to
live. It's not odd for companies to plan their future.
Five year plans and long range goals are commonplace.
So why is it odd to plan the future of the advertising
industry? Yet, are we doing it, are we really planning the
future of the advertising business? And if not,
why not? Some might say that the advertising
business is too big to plan its future. Or that it
has too many different components. Some
might say that technology is growing so dramatically
that we can't even imagine what the
future of the advertising industry might be,
much less determine it. Others might say that
the competition in our industry is just too
darn intense. Still others
might say that TiVo and
PVR technology will force
the industry into a future
that many just don't want
to be a part of."
Verklin is of the belief
that the complete opposite
is true, and that as an
industry, advertising has a
fantastic future ahead of it.
"One that technology has
begun to bring into view.
And, if we collaborate on
our common interests
while still competing
aggressively, we can help
determine what the future
of the advertising industry
will be. However, I am not
talking about the types of
collaborations that we have always had.
Traditionally, important industry collaborations
in our business have come through the
trade associations. That work is very important,
no doubt. However, I chose to speak
here at the Impact One on One and to talk to
you about how, perhaps, we can use a different
approach to plan the future of the industry
and to work towards creating a great
future for the advertising business" he said.
How many of you are wringing your hands
and mopping your brows at all this talk about
the 'death of the 30-second' commercial?
Quite evidently, Verklin knows more than just
a few, "They spent their careers creating 30-
second TV commercials. And you know what?
They are wondering if they should get out of
the business before the 30 second commercial
is dead. One of my very good friends, Hal
Riney, talked to me about just that not long
ago. 'I am not sure I want to be a part of the
future of the business if the 30-second ad is
going to be going where I think it is going', he
said. But you know our industry is not dying.
It's changing, it's morphing, it's evolving and
it's growing. We are seeing reforestation,
ladies and gentleman. We are not seeing the
creeping in of a desert landscape into advertising."
So how, one might as, is it changing? More
importantly, how is it changing to benefit the
advertising business instead of spelling certain
doom for it? As Verklin shares his
'favourite future' with the audience, we begin
to see the light…
"It's 9PM in Mill Valley, California. Rob
Miller and his young wife Veronica have just
settled down uncomfortably on their favorite
sofa. Clearing her throat, Veronica reminds
Rob that he hasn't been around much recently
and he really hasn't been helping out
around the house that much for that matter.
Rob cringes. She continues: 'Rob, you know I
am eight months pregnant,' she says. 'For God
sake I could use some help. When are you ever
going to read that copy of What to Expect
When You Are Expecting that I put in your
briefcase four months ago? You haven't even
read it yet Rob and I am going to have a baby
in a month.' Rob cringes and he excuses himself
and says he is going to use the bathroom.
Actually, he walks over to the computer near
the kitchen and he checks his email for the
tenth time that day. He has a pang of guilt in
his irresponsible heart. He decides to search
the web and to get smart fast. It's interesting
to have the sum total of human knowledge
sitting in a box outside your kitchen in Mill
Valley, California he muses. He Googles (note,
that's now become a verb) 'pregnancy baby'
and heads to the first link. Babycenter.com
pops up first, he tries it, and he reads up on
what to expect in the eighth month. He finds
a link on that page for ten things he can do to
be a better husband. He heads to
Amazon.com from there to buy another copy
of What to Expect When You Are Expecting;
Rob has actually left his copy in a hotel room
on a business trip six weeks ago. He walks
over to Veronica and says he's going to read
that book and duly promises it yet again. But
in a flash of inspiration Rob suggests that
there might be something to watch on television
that could relate to this whole pre-natal
thing. 'Let's see if there is anything good on
TV that might help,' Rob says to Veronica."
Verklin is certain of the fact that in marketing,
this is truly a moment
of aperture and that as
whole, the industry will be
talking about this moment
in the months and years
ahead. "It is the same
moment of aperture that
drives guys to sell umbrellas
outside subway exits in
the rain. The right product,
at the right time, marketed
to a prospect with the right
mind set. We are about to
advertise to the interested,"
he triumphantly
announces.
Verklin continues with
the story of his favourite
future, "Rob clicks on his
TiVo home page which lets
him manage his TV service
through a search based interface. He types in
'parent, childbirth, newborn' into his TiVo
interface. He finds out quickly there are five
shows next week that focus on pregnancy,
three of them on The Learning Channel. He
tells TiVo to download them all and notes the
first one will be available for download in
about a half an hour, no less. As Rob jumps
from site to site, that computer both in his
kitchen and in his television has taken note of
his programming selections. Unknown to
Rob and Veronica, they have taken several
marketing orientated actions. A cookie set
from Rob's cable operator took note of the
action that he has taken. The system took
note of what will be called content tags, a
term you will be hearing more and more
about in the future, and crossed referenced
them with Rob's recent TV search history. That
cookie shares information with a marketing
application run on Rob's computer called
GDS, Google Desktop Search. Altered by the
marketing potential by the actions taken by
Rob, GDS instantly uploads the new tags into
Google's central advertising marketplace. In
Google's ad marketplace, millions of what we
will soon call 'potentials' are aggregated and
presented to thousands of advertisers for sale
in a modified real time auction. Most of the
advertisers participating have pre-set their
spending levels, their demographic preferences,
and most importantly their intent
based profiles.