While looking for Jon Lunds url for my previous post on DIA06 I stumbled upon a post on Jon’s old blog about the campaign Avistid. The title of the post claims “Top danish directors in cutting-edge online-only campaign”. Which I actually thought was a joke. After reading the post, I’m not so sure. For the record, by the way: This is by no means “talk trash about Jon Lund”-day. I just missed a post some time back, found it and decided to post my comment here as opposed to in the comments as it appears Jon is now blogging somewhere else.
Anyway. A lot of bloggers have written about Avistid (can’t be arsed to link to it all, just search for it — you won’t be bothered with any other hits ;-), most of it being about the cluelessness with regards to the reason the campaign is even launched. Which is, by the way, where it connects to my previous post about online marketing.
So just a few thoughts on the claims Jon is making:
Top-“dogme” directors: True. But this isn’t the same as their films are any good or support the aim of the campaign in any way. Actually, I’ve found them pretty boring so far, the first by Søren Kragh-Jakobsen definenately being the worst.
Web-only: Yup, all other media is trying to drive traffic to the (horrible) website, trying to get people to watch the films. For what reason I ask? Please keep in mind that the Danish newspapers aren’t trying to sell just any product, they are actually trying to sell newspapers — and could benefit a great deal if they would please explain us what they are good at.
Cutting-edge: Bullshit. Being cutting-edge for the reason of being cutting-edge.…is not cutting-edge.…
As BMW before them: Mmm..no! BMW’s films were semi-viral pieces being linked because of the quality of the films. Which I haven’t experienced with the films from Avistid. Also, Selling cars and selling newspapers isn’t the same. At all. It’s obvious, however, that they’re trying to get it to be the same; going ‘lifestyle’ on the consumers poor asses.
The link to my DIA06 comments is this: If you want to respect your customers and not stuff whatever down their throats, you should take a good, hard look at the context in which you’re ‘communicating’. Noone gets offended if people selling jeans, soft drinks or cars pull the ‘lifestyle’ card on them. After all, this is a lot of what you buy. When you are a newspaper, however, sell less newspapers due to — among other things — the internet with its user empowerment, conversations and free niche-content and then
decide to market your product as if nothing has happened and you just need some flashy advertising and some promises about ‘being cool when you take the time to read a paper’ — you are taking the piss.
I’m willing to talk shop anytime, focusing solely on craftmanship, techniques and what have we. But in cases like this where the message you’re trying to convey so clearly goes against everything what’s right while wasting a lot of money and treating your (former) customers like stupid sheep — especially when you’re in a business who should have no trouble managing communication and hightlight what’s good about the product (and not the lifestyle sorrounding it) — then I think it’s time to take a step back and look at what it is you’re trying to do. And admit you’ve failed miserably.
Come on, Anders. Neither you or I know if the films they’re going to produce on Avistid will be good or bad untill we see them. This far we’ve seen two films: the first one (I’ll give you this) definitevely not working, the other one actually being quite funny — se my post: The finger plan.
And I do think Avistid deserves credit for this one: Avistid is the first ever time, a danish advertizer decides
1. to hire in independent, high-quality directors, giving them free hands to produce whatever they like with only one string attached to it: that the message of the film should be one that the danish newspapers should naturally be able to identify themselves with, and
2. decides they’ll run the film only on the web, thereby taking advantage of one (not all!) of the great possibilities of the web, namely the ability to distribute rich content like films. The campaign is from the very outset meant as a viral campaign, all focused on the web.
The question, which I ask in this post remains, though: “Could you get the Danish media industry moving forward, if you’d had given these money (45 mio DDK — aprox. 7 mio euro) to e.g. flix.dk (the Danish equivalent to ohmynews.com) – or to e.g. research in how the printed newspaper will cope with the comings of electronic paper?” Instead of pulling of a campaign for having more people reading newspapers? The answer is, as I put it, “No doubt to me!”. And as a new media man, I’m sorry they didn’t. Choosing to make an ad campaign instead, I am, however, glad they’re trying out one of the frontiers of new media.
Best
Jon
PS. You can find all my postings on newmediatrends.fdim.dk, including the one you’re arguing against.
Uh, my html-tags didn’t go through. All my links disapared! Here they are
1. My post on The finger plan:
http://newmediatrends.fdim.dk/2005/11/finger-plan.html
2. My question about if the money used on Avistid could have been spend better:
http://newmediatrends.fdim.dk/2005/09/microfilms-are-cool-and-cuttingedge.html
3. The post Anders is arguing against:
http://newmediatrends.fdim.dk/2005/09/top-danish-directors-in-cutting-edge.html
What I’m trying to say is simple: Even if they had produced great films that people actually would send to each other, they’re still trying to avoid — just as you say yourself — to develop their product and face their customers, admitting that the internet has a lot to do with the fact that they’re selling less newspapers. And in that context, it’s just not good enough to get some of it right: You have to show — clearly! — that you understand the net. Otherwise, you just end up looking like the money-spending fool you are.
Sure, they’ve hired some good people and focused on the web. But isn’t it ironic that they obviously understand so little of it, then? By focusing on the web, they imply that they mean something by doing so. It’s very unclear to me what that is.