TRANSCRIPT FOR SECTION 14:30 to 30:40 – Marlon Griffin @ FOTW Presentation for TV Amplified.
Marlon: Good morning, everyone. A little bit of a technical difficulty. Thanks everyone for taking the time to tune in. Hope you’re all doing very well in these crazy times. I’m Marlon Griffin, Creative Director at Fall Off The Wall. I’ve been working in the industry now for over 20 years. I started my career original BBC as a creative before then progressing to become a TVC Director, where for over 10 years I shot commercials for brands including Coca Cola, Canon and Orange.
I joined Fall Off the wall in 2016. A creative agency with its own in-house production, which for over 12 years has built a reputation in the industry as a Direct Response expert. Today I’m going to talk a little bit about my thoughts on how direct response is evolving. Give a little bit of the science behind, engaging with audiences as well as touch on the importance of TV and digital working together.
It’s quite a lot for 15 minutes, So I’ll get cracking so to begin with. Let’s talk about the new rules for direct response, how it’s evolving in these times. Firstly, a TV viewing habits have completely changed as well as the amount of choice we now have on offer. We are no longer attract linear viewing audience. Next to this, we have had the rise of digital devices which have completely revolution, revolutionise the way in which we communicate share interactive brands and, most importantly, if advertisers shocked. So, the customer journey has now completely changed.
Yet in many cases, direct response adverts haven’t. So, let’s define how these TV adverts are categorised. Firstly, we have the direct response. These are typically product focused and used to communicate news of a great offer. They informed the viewer that they need to act now given a clear action, driving them to call a phone number or visit a website. These efforts a very rational when their approach and focused on trading, meaning the creative normally can take a back seat.
The strength of these adverts is that they have an immediate impact with an uplift in calls or site visits straight after they are broadcast. Next to this, we have the brand advert. These are very creative, focused on the storytelling. They are emotionally engaging. They are designed to establish connexions and build strong, long term relationships with consumers. Over time, they are not focused on hard selling their products for a quick sale. Historically, advertisers have run Big Brand Ads to engage whilst also running DRTV adverts at the same time to trade.
But in recent times, we’re seeing more and more advertisers lean towards creating single efforts that are designed to do both. This has given rise to Brand Response TV, commonly referred to as BRTV. These are the more into entertaining, creative yet still present the benefits off the products. A good example of these are the EE adverts, some starring Kevin Bacon, but I think it’s not so cut, dry and easy. To shoebox what is what anymore? It’s getting increasingly blurred. More of a melting pot has all the principles are now colliding? It’s getting looser and more disruptive, less defined.
I see it more like a dial that can be turned up and down from being more trade focused to be in more brand focused.
I personally think we’ve had so much choice as to what we want to watch, as well as what we want to purchase, that everything now needs to work just that much bit harder. Way have also never been so time for so we are far less likely to give our precious time to watch things that do not interest us. So, we must now always reward the viewer with something for giving us their attention. Like some entertainment or humour. These are powerful commodities.
This is why adverts like Ikea is science. The critics featuring wrapping ornaments was such a hit as they had actually transcended itself above being an advert, it actually become an entertainment, something that people actually enjoyed watching again and again. Deal TV adverts are now also need to entertain if they want to. They want people to take notice. The old approach to present a long shopping list of rational product benefits quickly run through over the course of 30 seconds just isn’t enough to cut through on its own anymore. They need to engage. I’d like to know to show you an advert that catches this melting pot of principles. I’ll call you back. Life moves pretty fast when you’re Ryan Reynolds. I don’t even have time to open doors anymore. Absolutely not. I’m a busy guy, so I need broadband, which moves as fast as I do. That’s why I’ve got BT Infinity. It now offers speeds of up to 52 megabits per second. Fastest fibre speeds as standard. Who’s the girl? She slapped me. She’s not in this grant. We thought she was with you. That’s very possible.
BT Infinity Fast just got faster. Yet the advert, by all accounts, has the high-end production values and engaging narrative of a brand commercial. But under the bonnet, strong DRTV principles are at work. It tells us that BT Infinity is very fast broadband that it has speeds up to 52 megabits per second. That it has the fastest fibre speed to standard even features a competitor graphic. Now these are the messages you message you’d usually expect to see unpacked within a day or TV ever. But they’ve been delivered here with narrative. Here’s another example of this new approach, The Virgin media sale is now on lightning fast broadband for just £27 a month. Now that gets the seal of approval. Lasers, lightning fast broadband for just £27 a month and cheque out more great offers from Virgin Media Theatre opens of a traditional DRTV advert approach as the lead character communicates the new news off the cell. But the advert suddenly shoots from the DRTV side of the dial all the way around to the brand side as it introduces. They’re talking on floating with laser eyes. Why? Because it engages a viewer, you smile. But most importantly, you pay attention and keep watching.
It elevates it to become entertainment. I think what we are seeing here is an exciting evolution. Indy are at the moment with this blurring of the traditional TV advertising principles. So how do we get this balance between big creative ideas and hardworking trade? Both sweet spot? Well, look awful things. It’s about getting the recipe just right. We call it the Sweet Spot. It’s well documented that videos that emotionally connective audiences on a human level are far more likely to engage and drive a response that on those that don’t when your content is contained within a compelling storey that relates to its audience is much more likely to be watched to the end. Remembered and shed. If you emotionally engage of your audience, you also get a greater response to your call to action, essentially building your brand and selling your product. So why is emotional engagement so important when making a rational decision?
Now here’s an example of your average human. In this case, it’s my main man. He’s your everyday consumer. Now. He’s not waiting for your ad, for he’s time poor, like the rest of us, and he’s bombarded each day or shed loads of impressions and adverts. So how do you make your message come through all that noise? Let’s take a piece of his brain and see what’s going on inside. Now the brain is described as being split into three key areas.
For the sake of simplicity. I’ve done just that. Firstly, the red area, which is called the reptilian brain This is our basic caveman brain, are instinctual brain, and it’s responsible for safety, sustenance, sex and procreation. Next is the green Area, which is called the neocortex. This are smart brain, and it’s responsible for intellectual tasks such as thought, word and creation. And finally, we have the yellow area known as the limbic brain. This is the part of our brain, which is responsible for love, emotion and decision making. And it’s the decision-making aspect, which is key here. You see, you can present the reason to the neocortex, the smarter of the brain. Yes, it’s a great deal. The price is good value, but you must also convince the limbic brain the emotional bit if you want the person to act. If we take a look at the emotional language, we use every day, we can see its Olympic work. My heart’s just not in it, something doesn’t feel right. I’ve got a good gut feeling about this. I love my iPhone.
So, if advertising to reach its full effectiveness, we need to get all of the brain onboard essentially too much hard, sell fewer tunes out and doesn’t absorb the message takeout weakening its effectiveness. But on the flip side, too much narrative charm viewer does engage but gets too emotionally wrapped up in the storey and doesn’t get the message. Take out, either, so again weaken its effectiveness. So, to maximise your advertising and get the best response you need tonight up the whole brain, your communications need enough charm to emotionally engage. Also clearly communicate the proposition and showcased your summers off your product or offer. Essentially, if you light up the whole brain bill, it’s disco time. What, and that’s the sweet spot.
So, to summarise, clearly communicate your message so that the consumer understands that your product will offer is fit for purpose but communicate in an emotive and engaging way. It’s not about one or the other. There is no trade off. It’s both. It’s the perfect recipe now.
There has been one major development in recent times that has completely changed the way we respond to advertising. Just like the way they are has changed football by introducing an extra screen. So, is the mobile phone changing our TV time? Yes, second screening, we are all guilty of it. Apparently 75% of the population are doing it for around 40 minutes a day. But these small screens are not the enemy of your TV yet for Oh no, they are. It’s best buddy, the mobile devices literally a shop you always carry with you. It’s the perfect next step from the DR TV advert. The power to purchase is literally at your fingertips at that exact moment in time, so the response window could be seconds after the adverts broadcast while you were still engaged from the TV.
This is a very rich territory to capitalise on, so let’s focus more on the customer journey of today. The court action is not a simple sign off. It’s a trigger the gun. At the start of a race, we need to set the fewer off to move straight on nine. Once here, they are only a few clicks away from a potential purchase. This should be considered in the creative on why you should never plan a TV campaign separate to the digital They need to work in tandem. The strong relationship between TV and its influence on the digital journey has often been nest. Here’s an interesting statistic from think Box. 69% of Web site visits are generated by Pete paid media, but a staggering 47% off that 69% are actually generated by paid TV media. The fundamental with TV is it’s still one of the hardest to track and attributes cells back to. Yes, you can use a bespoke action, but in reality, the consumer will probably good with product.
So, they may end up on the website with no clear trackable footprint that tributes to purchase back to the TV. We will. Of course, you’re spiking visits to the site soon after the adverts broadcast, but it is not clearly Oh Noble as a direct click through like you might see from a digital ever. Also, you may react to a digital wherever I click through, because you recognise the campaign from the TV, taking nothing away from the power of the digital side of things. But for a long time, all of these responses and successes of the click throughs have been attributed directly to the digital, emphasising not to the offline brand interactions like the TV ever. So, it’s very clear that TV and digital need to work together for maximum results, so you should always consider how to amplify your campaign by maximising all of the rich assets you are creating for TV.
For you used to digital space further strengthening, giving consistency and reach. With this mindset, always pressure tested TVs sets up from, so you’ll be sure they will work in the digital space. Here’s an example of a spike you ever we created for TV, where the assets were then repurposed to create digital executions, get the best TV all in one place with sky queue, join Sky TV and get 90 channels, including Sky Atlantic, plus ultimate on demand. So, you could enjoy Netflix with massive originals like stranger things. Together with awesome sky box acts like Game of Thrones, get Sky TV, Netflix and Sky Box sets, or, for just 40-year-old month for 12 months, search Sky TV. Now a lot of work goes into creating these TV spots. So once created, it’s smart cost effective to repurpose the assets for online. This is called a pocket TVC. When doing this for best results, never simply reformat the original TV. Ever digital executions must dear to the best practises for the channel, as people are viewing habits changed dramatically on mobile devices. So, for example, adverts or social platforms should always be shorter, tried to stay between five- and 15-seconds people are less likely to hang about on their phones, so you need to be quick before they swipe.
Always have your brand logo one screen from the star. So even if they do swipe, you will have achieved brand awareness on always used on screen text or graphics to support messaging. When a video is viewed on the phone, you can’t guarantee the sound will be on or that they are in a quiet environment. And always remember, this is a different platform. It’s not TV, so have fun and play with a former. In this case, we had our stranger things. Vines grow out off the screen and over the instruments below. All these little fun tricks can increase the engagement, entertain on as well as increased the sharing potential.
So, to finish up, we can see the relationship between TV and online. It’s getting closer, and it will continue to do so. This relationship, done right, can seriously amplify campaigns for maximum results. TV is also getting smarter as well as the ways in which advertisers have now the power to use data to target. The right audience is relevant to the product on platforms such a sky had smart, smart, connected TVs going out share data just like the online, allowing us to track, target and refine. Eventually, we’ll even be able to swap out the campaign based on the life data informing us off what is proving most potent as we could see, the loop is starting to close. All of this tech is amazing, and it can put the ball in front of the goal. But we should never lose sight that it’s the power of the creative that needs to engage to make that consumer actually kicked the ball into the net. The TV is still the beating half your campaign offline and online. It may have been a little overlooked in recent times with the explosion of digital, but we all started to realise just how powerful this box that has always been in our homes still is. It has grown up and got smarter with us. It is still as relevant today as it has always been, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon. Many thanks for your ears this morning. If you have anything else, you’d like to discuss further, please reach out to me. I’m Marlon@falloffthewall.com