In my last post, I talked of the coming disruption of the three way relationship between marketer, agency, and media property. Essentially it centers on the idea that marketers (who are often behind themselves) are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of digital savvy of their agencies and are now turning to media properties for strategic ideas and creative capabiliites. And these media properties are making themselves all the more ready, willing, and able to carry out the needs and wishes of the marketers.

I believe that that’s happening. But there’s still a big problem with that model. Consistent brand messaging

On a micro-level, this new way of doing things makes perfect sense. Crafting an marketing campaign tailored to the offerings of an online property could maximize the effectiveness of the campaign itself. For that media property.

But last I looked, most advertisers don’t use all their spend on one property. They’ll pick many properties in many channels. They’ll test here and there. They’ll sometimes concentrate on branding, sometimes concentrate on direct , sometimes (and the web makes this more possible, concentrate on both.

If the marketer - the company that is the end client - has to tailor each of its marketing messages to that of the publisher, chaos could result.

Publishers will need to realize this and further expand their services, sort of becoming almost full service for their advertisers. But still, this still could run into brand confusion as each publisher will owe it to their paying client to create the most effective campaign for their specific property or properties, leaving potentially different and confusing brand messages across several media properties.

Wise agencies should see this as the window of opportunity and work with publishers before they even get clients to formulate the framework for effective marketing campaigns that can perform very effectively over a cross section of properties and platforms.

Then, Funny:

Now, Funny, still:

HOW did an ad from the Association de Producteurs des Fruits—some European fruit concern Americans don’t even care about—get to be the second-most viewed spot on ad rating site Firebrand.com, over tons of way more recognizable American brands? By being the single most sexual ad in the universe. It certainly does make you want strawberries. Full ad after the jump; NSFW within the continental US. Via Gawker and Firebrand

MediaPost is reporting that Kimberly Clark is going to unleash a consumer generated content (CGC) campaign for their DentaBurst Teeth Cleaning product.  It starts right around Valentine’s Day targets young women, aged 19 to 25 who go to movies and are online.  That probably accounts for 95% if that category.

The campaign will be fully integrated with this phase initially encompassing a thirty second commercial shown in movie theatres in which a young women calls on people to “replace me on the big screen nationwide. Upload your own video at dentaburst.com”.  The commercial will show young people using DentaBurst throughout the piece.  But that’s not all.  In this contest, the winner will get $10,000 for “the party of your dreams”.

A few things…

I’d suggest having multiple winners.  Keep those five as winners.  Have them go national.  The important thing here isn’t being #1, it’s being on the big screen.  A larger (and hopefully more diverse) pool of winners could make the entire effort more democratic and more tangible to its target audience.  I’d say it’s more common for young people to want to “be like them” as opposed to “be like her”.

I’d also can the line “party of your dreams”…unless DentaBurst is specifically going to spend the money on a party.  That’s because the $10,000 can come in handy for things like college tuition.

We’re getting some responses from our outreach effort for Firebrand. Some are impressive. Some aren’t. Some are downright funny.

Shel Holtz likes the idea a lot. He opines that it isn’t that we don’t like commercials; it’s that we don’t like their inerruptive nature. True. Especially when the commercials suck.

C.C. Chapman thinks the concept of Firebrand is cool, although he’s remaining cautious overall. But he thinks the idea of tying in past Super Bowl games to this year’s Big Game is a great strategy. C.C., being a Granite Stater living in Mass. is staying true to his New England roots and predicting a Patriot blowout. Good man!!

Joanna Pena-Bickley gives us a mention too.

Apparently Paul Chaney did exactly what Chris asked him to do…thanks Paul!!

Steve Hall of Adrants is less kind. He’s trying to gauge when the Firebrand will flicker and go out. That’s odd, because Steve is usually never cynical. A warm and fuzzy guy. ;)

Shari Leventhal, CMO of Firebrand meets Steve head on in the comments section.

And Agency Spy plain hates us. But that’s cool. We don’t know who or she is.

Read more…