I was reading a very interesting article by John Battelle in adage on Are you becoming irrelevant to your consumer? and here's my thinking on this issue.
Contextual Creativity should become the focus area for agencies and marketeers in an era of increasing media disintermediation. What does this mean? It means that if brands have to have conversations with consumers, they ought to know the context, to start a conversation and extend it too. For example:
- When I go to the net and search for "travel", then Hilton or Taj Hotels need to do more than just being on top of the search or have a banner or a link. May be an advergame that can help me select the right destination and budget can be useful. The branding in the advergame can help me build a positive disposition about the brand and therefore choose it for my travel.
- Imagine I walk into a supermarket and right at the entry, I could swipe my card. The retail store has all the information about me. Immediately, the shopping cart I pick-up starts playing customized commercials based on my past purchase. An interactive guide to parenting could be sponsored by J&J right on the shopping cart.
- At my bank ATM, when I withdraw money, if my balance is lower than min required, a personal loan message pops-up and an additional receipt is printed with a special interest rate offer based on my credit rating score.
- In international flights, based on the music I select, I get immediate offers and sample new music albums released. Also, a special guided tour by BOSE on how to select a music system could be highly impactful and relevant.
Contextual Creativity could provide big ideas for tommorrow's successful brands.