Here’s me, road-tripping across the country with the Wienermobile.
What with all the buzzwords and trend-hopping in this business, it’s easy to get cynical. I’ve got a simple remedy: Drive across America in a thirty-foot-long hot dog. The response you get is instantaneous. And it’s sincere.
We take it for granted that this ridiculous thing called a Wienermobile exists, but first, somebody had to think of it. Then, somebody had to approve the money for it. Not only that, somebody had to actually build it. It’s very hard to imagine this sequence of events ever happening in the advertising holding companies and Fortune 500 marketing departments of today– “You want to spend 10 million dollars on what!?” But why? The Wienermobile has been bringing real joy to real America for over 80 years. It could be the most effective and longest running advertising campaign in history. We fret about new media, the end of television, and what to do about it. But when Oscar Mayer came up with his brilliant idea for a motorized frankfurter in the depths of The Depression, 1936, there was no such thing as a television.
Branded Content is nothing new. In fact, it’s the oldest form of advertising. Before mass media, brands couldn’t just make a habit of interrupting the main attraction, brands had to make themselves the main attraction. The very first Soap Operas were created by Laundry Soaps. One of America’s greatest songwriters, Hank Williams, sang for Mother’s Best flour.
The big difference today, of course, is that Big Data and analytics have proven the obvious– That, yes, advertising works and, yes, advertising that people actually like and engage with, works even better. There’s lots of things that are truly new in this business. We can fine tune and target our content and messaging like never before. But “Branded Content” is not one of them. To pretend that we’re re-inventing the wheel by creating advertising that’s Native, Social, Experiential, Mobile, or even Wiener-Mobile, is not only dead wrong, it confuses the issue.
The hard thing about Branded Content is not the method of delivery– the social network, the airwaves, the highway–it’s the content itself. If you want people to like and share your message, don’t obsess about the Like button or the Share button. Obsess about the message. Create content that’s Social because it engages people and doesn’t interrupt them. That’s Native because it speaks their language. And that’s Experiential because it’s worth the experience. Don’t overthink it. Get out there and over do it.
Road-tripping across America with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile makes you realize that brands need to be active. To have an opinion. To feel alive. And not always take themselves so seriously. It’s the same with the people who create them. Let’s have fun making people pay attention– pete@underthinkagency.com
