Two types of marketing

August 9, 2006 on 4:39 pm | In Advergames, Brands |

Marketing is changing, again, with a long-overdue move away from what is now called the interruption approach.

What do I mean by this? The traditional model for advertising is to find an activity that your customers enjoy and then to interrupt it with a message. Whether we’re watching television, listening to radio, sitting in the cinema or just walking down the street, we’re interrupted continuously. When it happens, we must choose whether to act on that message — but if we’re not interested in the interruption, we’re more likely to use that time to fetch another beer from the fridge.

The interruption model is finally starting to retreat - giving way to permission-based marketing (most famously written about by Seth Godin).
The internet in a way had the opportunity to change advertising for the better, but for the last 10 years online advertisers have relied on interrupting the user. In fact, the interruption model has probably been pursued more aggressively online than in other forms of media. Pop-ups, interstitials — it’s all about getting in the user’s way, and these sort of things haven’t helped the market.

But now, at last, we’re starting to recognise the opportunity to create engaging content that we can integrate with commercial messages — content like advergames. Consumers don’t avoid rich engaging content precisely because it’s not an interruption. In fact, they pull this content in to their world, rather than just filtering it as it’s shoved their way.

Advergaming is not a broadcast medium — it’s one where every audience member chooses the content and experiences they want, creating their own package of entertainment. And it’s within that environment that we are best able to deliver a valuable message.

The interruption model is still going strong, but it faces a huge challenge: the limited amount of consumer attention available for capture. The problem is this: no one gives you their attention just because you ask for it. After all, why should they? They’ve got better things to do.

If you can’t force feed them, you have to give something in exchange for connecting with you, and that often means engaging content. This is how we structure long-term relationships with game players on behalf of brands.