"We're living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, fifteen years ago."

"We're living in the future, I'll tell you how I know. I read it in the paper, fifteen years ago."

John Prine introduces today's topic with a song he released in 1980 on his album, "Storm Windows".

                                                                         youtube.com  (please disregard the ridiculous  images that come with this)

As you might suspect, today's advertising media vehicles ain't what they used to be. Whether you like it or not, that 1951 flat bed with no seat belts can be outpaced and out maneuvered by today's hot new frame, and much more efficiently - if the traditional vehicle isn't careful about it's renovations.

Newspapers and magazines are facing an array of changes to keep pace with tech environment, as many might know suspect. Personally, I'd much rather hunt for my news on the Internet than in the dry pages of a paper that make my hands smudgy. I can still remember black finger prints dotting the crumb-laden tablescape at breakfast that indicated where my dad sat every morning to peruse the Wall Street Journal. I don't want the clutter of papers and magazines in my minimalist (though chic!) lifestyle.

Just today I was hunting a DIY site, and was thrilled to see I could stuff winter boots with old magazines to keep them from flopping over and creasing. I try to reuse old city papers as floor coverings when I paint or craft, and dutifully haul them to the recycling bin when they've been hanging around too long. This may be a trickle-down effect of my sustainability-themed approach to living, but honestly I just don't want them around taking up my space and giving me paper cuts and smudgy fingers.

Traditional media face a new landscape of competition. Not only did the sharp edge of the Recession give advertising budgets a big hole in their pocket, but shifted the emphasis over to a much cheaper and far reaching medium - the Internet. Now the problem here is, who wants to pay for it on the Web? News is now viewed as a commodity, meaning that many publishers may have the story for free, why pay for it at one particular site?

With the rise of news media online, rises a new breed of advertising - that moving, blinking thing that may even be popping up as you read the news! Hail the banner ad! Now that we can manipulate screens, advertisers can create interactive pieces to sell their wares, and even download magazines and newspapers directly to a device - no paper waste necessary. Yes, this is the world of the Jetsons....sort of.

Looking through a sustainability lens, this no-waste business is a good thing, yet we are still facing strong competition for selling products and services that require ads in whatever form we can make them still feasible and relevant, such as banner and pop up ads on your screen. In my research across the Web, many brands actually have their most impactful advertising through events, and art-like installations that garner powerful press coverage and thus a wide smattering across news sites. I've posted some examples below:

First up: Tropicana and its orange juice-powered ad

antleragency.com

Next: Coke brings us an ad that absorbs carbon

antleragency.com

I personally love this idea as an approach for sustainability advertising. It's fun to look at, it's usually quite innovative, and best of all it makes you think about what's possible.



Sources:

Belch, George and Michael Belch. (2012)  Evaluation of Print Media. Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. McGraw-Hill.

Investopedia. (2014) Commodity definition. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/commodity.asp

Tucker, Beth. (2011) Practicing Sustainability in Advertising. Retrieved from http://www.antleragency.com/practicing-sustainability-in-advertising/

Youtube. (2011) John Prine, Storm Windows. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ftvh9eWkAc&feature=kp

Avoid waste coverage, media plan sustainably!

Some of you may wonder at this point where I'm getting my topics from. I suppose I should reveal the source of these prompts that I write so engagingly about at this point. I am auditing an advertising and promotion class, during my Masters in Sustainability, and am 'screening' each topic we discuss with a sustainability lens.

Personally, my ultimate goal is to understand how to appropriately and innovatively combine creative advertising with sustainability messaging. Simple!

Here is today's post topic - what is waste coverage? Waste coverage lives in the domain of media planners, and is something to be avoided, just like excess waste in sustainability-speak. A cleaner definition from the Design and Marketing dictionary is as follows:

"A situation where the coverage of the media exceeds the target audience. This term is used for ad coverage that reaches people who are not potential buyers and/or users. One of the goals of the media planners is to minimize the waste coverage to the extent possible, as some waste coverage cannot be avoided."

Business to business advertisers, who for example are selling copy machines will show ads during NFL Sunday or Monday Night football. Do these buys lead to a high level of waste coverage? Let's explore!

Who might be watching football on Sunday and Mondays - largely men (AND women - my future mother-in-law is one of them!), who have a variety of careers, possibly many in businesses with copy machines at the ready.  How insightful of me, right? So how on earth can media buyers and the ads they hope to showcase reach people trying to potentially get away from work and relax with a football game? On the other hand, this is a rather captive audience (especially if the game is good) who might recall the copy machine ads later in the week when the current one in the office goes on the fritz.

I personally believe that whether or not an advertising message ends up as waste coverage depends on just how captivated your audience is, which relies on a number of other factors, such as knowing who will be tuned into your media channel. Media planners'  basic goal is to reach as large a market segment as possible with their message by utilizing a combination of the right  tools at the lowest cost (Belch and Belch, p. 330).

Let me get to the point - what are ways we might reduce waste coverage? I have theory based on a combination of other people's theories: knowing the personality of your audience, their work choice, and where they spend the most time with any particular media. I emphasize personality, because a report by Steve McClellan titled "Are Demographics Dead?" suggests that overall its personality, not necessarily pure demographic data that suggest how audiences perceive and respond to advertising.

This could be an interesting insight into how we make ads in the future - especially for sustainability purposes. 

This brings me to share insights from one of the world's top thought leaders driving business-oriented, positive behavior change communications. John Marshall Roberts and his consulting business, Worldview Thinking, create effective communication strategies based on behavior science. This means all sorts of great things for creative strategies around sustainability communication, that are informed by the strong field of behavior science.

If we know personality types, which may be gleaned form how individuals use media, suggested by McClellan, then I believe there is a hardly-explored, wide open world of possibility for messaging through advertisers - the world's great word and picturesmiths - that can use their powers for sustainability ideas across business and lifestyle, while cutting down on waste coverage that is the result of not understanding who will be tuning into your channel.

Sources:

Design and Marketing dictionary. (2014, Feb 12). Waste coverage. Retrieved from: http://design-marketing-dictionary.blogspot.com

Belch, George and Michael Belch. Media planning and strategy. Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. McGraw-Hill,  2012.

McClellan, Steve. (2013, Feb 23) Are demographics dead? Adweek.  retrieved from: http://www.adweek.com/news/television/are-demographics-dead-101671

Roberts, John Marshall. (2014 Feb 12). About. Retrieved from: http://worldviewthinking.com/about/ 

Super Bowl Shmooper Bowl - give me reality!

Sunday's Super Bowl ads for me are a brief memory of 'made in America-isms' and trying to redefine or keep on defining what America stands for. I know, it kind of sounds like the same thing. I was amazed at the lack of story telling in most of the ads. There was a lack of real values sharing, it was literally all about the thing. The ad that came closest to tapping values was the Axe ad, amazingly. According to the Chicago Trib article reviewing the SB ads this year, it also trivialized war (Johnson, 2014).

It's not a secret that I'm working on becoming a sustainability professional. As you can expect, I get a little tired of seeing those pricey ads for single owner cars that America is so very proud to make - while "Asia makes your phone" as the Dylan-Chrysler ad awkwardly put it. And then the spray tans in the Go-Daddy ad; beer beer beer. Coke and Axe made sure that their products had surface feel while trying to address a deeper issue of what apparently makes us all the same - love, and smelling good, and that everyone loves sugar. Sadly, quite surface.

I know the Super Bowl is about having fun, I really do - cultural traditions are amazing things! My point is that I hope that one day America is known for more than beer, Coke and trucks. These types of ads feel very "old-gaurd" to me, keeping a particular groups' version of the country alive while the rest of the world is apparently moving on. Even Volkswagen's German engineers were highlighted in a fun way (at 100,000 miles, a German engineer gets their wings), while the US makers of floor mats were apologizing for everyone else who outsourced their products.

Something I hadn't thought of immediately about but that makes perfect sense, is that ads now have to stand alone on the Internet to survive/have staying power. The Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson suggested the abundance of "weird -mostly good- weird" ads from the Super Bowl had this quality, specifically the Doritos finger cleaner (yes, WEIRD) and the frightening but funny "Dober-huahua"mix (chicagotribune.com).

I personally feel that the most forward thinking ad was the Cheerios cute-kid spot with the interracial couple, though I read even a similar ad from a year or so ago caused tension for viewers (Murray). Argh! There needs to be a balance between ads that are played at the Super Bowl that paint a picture of what we were, and where we aim to go.

The following video is not an ad directly asking anything of us or targeting sustainability issues outright, but I wanted to share it as a potential example of where we can go with ads that are easily Super Bowl material, and WAY more fun to watch that what was dished up Sunday. It's an ad to get people to watch a David Attenborough special using a song many people know and love...and some amazing footage. It doesn't use kitschy material or make fun of current trends in our society, it's just compelling beauty. Maybe I'm just wildly idealistic with my idea of sustainability communications, but come on! Who wouldn't want to see this stuff?! The attributes being sold here are nothing less than what's real in the world, and lasting - if we are wise.

Sources
Johnson, Steve. (2014). Super Bowl Ads: Hails and Fails. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://live.chicagotribune.com/Event/Entertainment_Super_Bowl_Ads_2014

Murray, Rheana. (2013).
Cheerios ad featuring interracial couple sparks racist backlash. Daily News. Retrieved from:http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/cheerios-ad-sparks-racial-backlash-article-1.1359690

CopterVideo. (2011, December 7).
David Attenborough - Wonderful World - BBC. [video file] Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8WHKRzkCOY