Tue, Nov 20, 2001 page18

• Technology taking ads to a new level

  Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide, is best known as the man responsible for the McDonald's `You deserve a break today' campaign, which was voted the best ad jingle of the century. Reinhard sat down with Richard Dobson, a `Taipei Times' staff reporter, to discuss cultural sensitivity in advertising for a media-integrated and globalized world and the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the industry

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  Taipei Times: How will new media applications such as 3G affect the way advertisers get their messages to consumers?

  Keith Reinhard: I hope that as we go forward that we'll see people putting media first because so much of the approach is based on a simple media world with three television channels and seven magazines, but the world has changed now. With television, selling became telling. You listen and I talk which is a very unnatural way of exchanging goods and services. Now with the interactive devices -- soon to be wireless and handheld -- the ads of the future in many ways will look more like video games because we will engage you.

  

  Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide, speaks with Taipei Times staff reporter Richard Dobson.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  TT: You've written about the need to integrate new media with brand and creative strategies in advertising. How will this become apparent?

  Reinhard: In order to get your brand and its message in front of the consumer it will be embedded in the program content. Now Hallmark has its own channel. More brands are getting embedded into programming content. We're seeing this happen now.

  Three nights ago in the US, Victoria Secret had a one-hour fashion show. Is that advertising? Is it media? Is it entertainment? Is it content? The answer is yes to all. It's easy for me to imagine in the US that Anheuser-Busch will have a satellite channel and there will be a menu of options that will look like a TiVo screen so you can select sports, comedy and music. [TiVo is a video device that automatically tracks and digitally records TV programs and edits out commercials.]

  Anheuser-Busch would be the portal channel that you would log into. And then I think we'll get back to the kind of integration that was taking place in the industry in the 1960s and we were doing integrated and television and radio before that. You couldn't tell where the commercial began and the program ended; it was all woven right into the plot.

  I think it can go to the point where advertisers are making movies. That's the great positive development of all the new technologies. The consumer, the viewer, is absolutely in charge. It is no longer the advertiser forcing something on you so that you have to go through this in order to get to the program material.

  With the advent of TiVo and other personal video recorders people will choose to omit all commercials. They'll delete them. So it has to be good enough that you choose to engage.

  That means there are commercials that are so good that you'll want to see them. And you'll log on to a website or interactive television and you'll say I want to go see the commercials. But if we embed our brand in content it has to be so good you elect to go. It changes the dynamic from advertiser's choice to consumer's choice.

  TT: With heightened sensitivities to US foreign policy after the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent strikes in Afghanistan, how will US advertisers reach across cultural divides to sell their products?

  Reinhard: The blurring of US foreign policy, US global expansion and US entertainment products are all one in the eyes of many people outside the US. So it's encumbered upon us to try to become more understanding of their values and celebrate and affirm those even as we do not withhold the real benefits of globalization. That's going to be a real challenge and a lot of people are talking about it, especially now after 9/11.

  In going global we are not confusing global brands with American values. And that's something that we're working very hard on -- to make those distinctions. Frankly, some US-based multinationals are not as sensitive as they should be.

  The question is in classic marketing terms how to correctly understand what the population wants and desires, what their prohibitions are, what their preferences are and then connect with those feelings without offending any sensibilities or trying to force values on them that they don't want. They might want the values of a product but not the symbolic baggage that goes along with it.

  TT: How did the Sept. 11 attacks immediately impact the advertisement industry?

  Reinhard: Immediately after 9/11 all the TV and radio stations stopped all advertising. That was good as you don't try to sell things at a funeral. It also gave us a chance to take a breath and get to clients and say what should you do -- what's appropriate in terms of your advertising. Then we had to be very sensitive to wrapping brands in the flag and using irrelevant themes because consumers will say what are you trying to do? Exploit national grief? The most important thing now is that Americans turned cautious and we have to drill down through the layers of fear and anxiety and give them good reasons to get back in the shops and stores and get the economy going again. The most patriotic thing we can do in advertising is not wave the flag.

  TT: One of your clients is American Airlines, which was involved in the Sept. 11 calamity and recently in an apparently unrelated crash in New York. Where does an advertiser start in trying to rebuild consumer confidence in this airline?

  Reinhard: American Airlines are doing their own studies and we're trying to give them additional consumer perspectives on how people feel about flying and what measures consumers would see as positive and confidence building. My own view without revealing any particular strategy is that American [Airlines'] strength over the years -- and as our research continues to show -- is that they're given the highest marks in the industry for their professionalism. I believe that at times like this you want to flying with the pros.

  TT: What about for the rest of the airline industry?

  Reinhard: The advertising industry has to provide more compelling reasons for people to get on the airplane. In my view that is a combination of some fares which are almost irresistible and knowledge that you're flying with the pros. [Ads should make consumers say] "I've always wanted to go to Florida, that's a really good price and I really think I can trust these guys."

  But there are some voices being raised now in the US by public relations people and crisis management people who are suggesting that it's time for the airlines to start advertising security which is of greatest concern to its customer base but has long been taboo. I can't tell you how I feel about that but we are asking a bunch of consumers on how they would feel.

  TT: With the advertising industry already in trouble prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, what hope is there now of a recovery in the next couple of years?

  Reinhard: Generally speaking I would hope that the combination of a recessionary economy that turned to a fear economy -- although this term may be too strong at this point -- could be a catalyst to get companies to say now we've really got to sharpen our attack and we're going to have to spend our way to recovery and we can't cost cut our way anymore. But with each client it's a different story.
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