Do You Have the Right Kind of Wife?

Barry Sanders Nike Ad

When you do things that feel organic and natural, it’s not like you’re selling something to people. The problem with a lot of advertisement is that it feels forced. And for kids, they can see it. They can smell it a mile away.

—Pharrell Williams

“Ads are just getting bigger and louder as attention online is getting so scarce,” said Solve Media CEO and founder, Ari Jacoby. “So we’re fishing where the fish are,” he said, referring to this untapped space where users are forced to spend time. (via Kottke)

For influential bloggers, sponsorships can be more lucrative than display ads alone, with payments reaching into the thousands for a multipronged campaign stretching over weeks or months. For the brands, it’s a way to market more conversationally to potential customers as well as exert more control over search engine results.

I’m not sure this is an entirely new thought, but it’s one that I’ve liked for a while now. If it’s done right it’s a great tool for both parties. And, I can’t figure out the difference between sponsoring a blogger and sponsoring a celebrity’s clothing on the red carpet.

Monocle magazine is the pioneer of the brand-fueled content. They have reconsidered the advertiser-publisher relationship and created engaging branded content throughout their magazine and into online media like podcasts. It works very well.

Brand-fueled content is content such as articles, videos and events where a brand’s values and briefs on a product where editorial control is given to the site owner (goal being a conversation started, natch). It seems to be the future. Let’s look toward the Old Spice campaign and “the Response Campaign”. Major success.

Beau Colburn captured my feelings on brand-fueled content (and the Old Spice campaign, more specifically) perfectly.

these video responses feel like a dramatic shift in “advertising.” Putting the word in quotes was intentional because I’m not really sure what this is. These responses aren’t ads. I suppose there’s a proper term like “brand extension” or the like for something like this, but this feels new.

One of the examples mentioned in the above presentation is the Domino’s Pizza Tracker (created by CP+B). In a recent interview, head of interactive production, strategy and business development at CP+B discusses productized marketing (which I consider to be brand utility).

I’m excited to see more brands recognize that their most powerful brand marketing asset is the product – not the marketing message. Because of this shift in strategy, we’re beginning to see more agencies move into the product design and development space. Agencies are no longer confined to crafting the message but also empowered to create both standalone products and enhancements to existing product lines. Since digital is both media and product, it’s an ideal platform to facilitate “productized” marketing. And this means that we’re spending a larger percentage of our days creating tools rather than the ads. I get excited by the idea that I can actually now ‘use’ the marketing we make, not just watch or read it.