How happy was I to read in today’s Wall Street Journal that, when it comes to advertising design, red replaces last year’s orange as the color of choice? This makes Red Slice very glad indeed.
Other useful tidbits on what to expect with 2009 advertising:
- Shorter ad formats – 15 second spots have been around a long time, but rarely used until now.
- Less glitz and high paid spokespeople (thank you, recession) – say hello to the Z list.
- Ads that watch you – face-recognition technology is not just for Minority Report, apparently. Out of home ads will start to be able to tell your gender, ethnicity, etc and target messages to you. This one gives me the heebie jeebies.
- Longer form, immersice ad experiences, like integrated websites, etc. Whoppervirgins.com, Burger King’s new campaign, is cited as an example
- Ivy League product and service endorsements – they need revenue, too and may get it for stamping financial institutions and auto makers with their approval.
- Location-based online tracking ads via mobile devices – find friends, pizza places and even public restrooms from your phone/PDA.
- Video will be everywhere that doesn’t move – and even some places that do. Does this mean everywhere will start to look like Times Square? Yikes.
- Smart ads and signs that can read things like your grocery store loyalty card or – heavens – know your wardrobe (with you telling them, or course) while you shop in a retail store so you can match your at-home items.
- Less website banner ads – these are on their way out as socail media and more integrated experiences take center stage.
Not sure how pervasive some of the smart ads and such will be – take with a grain of salt that these predictions are coming from big ad agencies with heavy interactive and digital divisions. I beleive that, with all this technology invading our lives from a marketing perspective, at some point the only way to cut through the clutter in the future will be to go back to basics like direct mail. But maybe that’s just me. We do after all have to adapt to changing patterns of information consumption in order to reach people where they are. Thoughts?
