Comparing Apples to Apples.
Recently, I have had the same conversation with two separate people. We were talking about the Dove Revolution campaign. The people with whom I was speaking both said they couldn't believe how well that spot had done at Cannes. It did well in the interactive category. They were aghast that what was basically a television spot would do so well in an integrated category of an award show. After all, there was no real interactive component. How dare they. There was no "online experience" to be had. Nothing to do but watch the spot. I've heard this lament time and again about various campaigns. In fact, the same argument has been waged in the pages of Marketing Magazine recently where, in the letters to the editor section, one Creative Director took another Creative Director to task for arguing that a television spot or outdoor billboard posted on YouTube does not make it "online creative". Perhaps not. But here's where I have to play devils advocate.
To my mind, the internet is obviously a place where you can interact with creative. But it's also much more than that. It's also, like television, a place where you can build a brand and create awareness. Like a direct marketing campaign, it can generate a lead, collect customer information, be extremely personalized, and provide an offer. Like a retail promotion, it can get you to enter a contest and win something spectacular.
Of course, the online space is a discipline. There's a way to produce online creative that is obviously different from how you develop other creative, and you have people who specialize in the space. But it's also a channel with the power to build awareness, generate a response, and engage a consumer.
And that brings me back to the campaign that started the conversation in the first place, the Dove Revolution spot, and the reason I'm writing this post. This was my role as the devil's advocate in my conversation with my friends.
The Dove campaign won at Cannes because it was brilliant creative. Plain and simple. It didn't matter where it appeared. It ran online, but why can't the online space be used to build a brand and generate PR? People who work in the online space know its potential. But do they harbour, dare I say it, some bias that online advertising can only be immersive and clickable? Only "interactive"?
Then, after having had both conversations, I had a revelation. Perhaps the award shows themselves (like Cannes) are creating this controversy and encouraging this argument. Perhaps the problem isn't the creative. Perhaps it's the way the work is submitted and judged. Maybe it's the categories in which the creative must be entered. Was the Dove campaign competing with work that was more experiential? Were apples being compared to apples? And if not, why not? Why don't interactive award shows create categories that break the work down into the objectives of the campaign. Mass/Awareness online ads should compete with online ads that were created to do the same job. Promotional campaigns should compete with campaigns against those objectives. And so on. Perhaps they'd have to rethink how the whole award show is built. Perish the thought!
In the mean time, don't blame the Dove campaign for being beautiful. Just let it compete with its own kind.
