September 24, 2007 - by Todd Alchin
All roads lead to Rome ... dot com
Continuing on from my recent rant about how difficult a seduction is in 30 seconds (or 15, if you're particularly confident) I'd like to suggest the new call to action is the website visit.
And not necessarily to immediately close the deal, but to continue the courting ritual ... or to work the analogy, the "cup of coffee back at my place".
It suggests a new role for mass communications: to steer your date (or customer) to a place where you can charm the pants off them away from the din of the crowds and other potential suitors.
Far too often a brand's URL is treated as a mere mandatory inclusion in a TVC or print ad - like an ugly strapline, difficult to art direct, and worthy of only a fleeting moment of exposure, or 8 point font. The campaign is then evaluated against web traffic and disappointingly remedied by "more frequency" or some even less direct course of action.
A better approach might be to treat the ad as the invitation and the web experience as the date. Many single people will agree - a date at a bar is safe territory compared with the dinner date at home - which is tantalizingly more serious.
Obviously this has implications to ad messaging. There is an extra, more influential, step between the ad and the sale and communications should really do more direct people to it - not as a side effect of the ad, but as a main outcome.
Failure to take this step could mean a long, lonely walk home for many brands.
This article is posted in BRANDS / DIGITAL
September 20, 2007 - by Rachael Lonergan
Can I have the IV bag with the Little Mermaid on it please?
Disney have announced their foray into healthcare with significant funding going to the rebuilding of a kids hospital in Florida (not too far from Orlando's Disney World).
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=297482
No doubt Disney have the best of intentions but while their "imagineers" (and who wouldn't want that title!) are hard at work designing the patient experience, they cannot actually lay claim to this extension of the Disney brand experience as an original idea. In fact, a hospital executive turned Disney "cast member" (Fred Lee) literally wrote the book on this as far back as 2004.
Lee's book is a serious look at how Disney's corporate and brand values can translate into the healthcare environment to provide superior levels of service and empathy to patients. Apparently someone at Disney was paying attention and took Fred quite literally. I do hope he gets an invitation to the opening!