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Number
14: August 6, 2003
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This week in Katydid:
Pardon
the Entertainment while
We Bring You This Interruption
Have you noticed commercials creeping into your movie theatre experience
lately? It's soon going to get worse.
As people become more adept at avoiding commercial interruptions,
advertisers are looking for ways to get your attention. The movie
theatre may contain the last truly captive audience.
Just as you now get news feeds from ESPN and CNN, interspersed with
advertising, at the airport while waiting for planes (or on the plane),
movie theatres will become showcases for commercials.
Of course, you've seen slide shows, listened to radio programs, and
sat through a few commercials, as well as the movie trailers (more
commercials). Your movie can easily start 15 to 20 minutes after the
time shown in your theatre guide. By then you will likely decide to buy
several new CDs, video games, new cars, sodas, and join the Army, as
well as choose which upcoming movie will make you forget the $50 you blew
on this stinker.
However, the next wave of advertisement will outdistance those
efforts and then some. Regal
CineMedia, part of Regal Entertainment, the largest chain of movie
theatres in the country, has developed a program called 2wenty, which
delivers digital advertising to theatres.
When you arrive in the theatre, you will see full-motion live
material playing constantly. The content you see will depend on the
rating of the film you choose and it will include trailers, commercials,
music videos, cartoons, promos for television shows, and the like. You
can see samples
on their web site.
Subscribing theatres download their content from a network. Right now
RegalMedia customizes the content by movie rating, but it will soon be
easy to target material based on the film or the theatre location.
Depending on which hat you're wearing when you read this, you're
either excited by the opportunity, or annoyed at the new intrusion.
Nevertheless, don't underestimate the power of the ticked-off consumer.
Miriam Fisch of Evanston, Illinois recently filed
a class action suit against Loews Theatres for wasting her time with
commercials. Additionally, a New
York Times article on the subject quoted a teen-aged girl commenting
on the free CD that came with her soda, "Most of the girls put the
CDs in their microwaves. They come out kind of crackled and melty. It's
pretty nifty." (Think about that when you put together next
quarter's budget.)
Me? I'm against commercials in movie theatres for a more important
reason. People are going to talk over them anyway. Blurring the line
between advertisement and entertainment just encourages them to be even
louder during the film than they are now.
How Do You Feel?
Where are you seeing advertising creeping into everyday life? Elevators?
Restrooms? Where can we market that might have even tacit permission
from our audience? Where are the missed opportunities? Send me your
ideas and I'll make millions. Wait. No. Send me your ideas and I'll
include them in a future newsletter so we can all make millions.
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Let
Your Copy Sing
I didn't start out as a marketer. I was a poet
first. You could say that was marketing; I mean, it was more or less a call
to action: "Hey Girls, here's a sensitive guy, with talent, why
don't you date him!" Alas, your hapless editor had a marvelous open
rate, but terrible response rates.
I began my career as a business writer. That is, once people learned
I could write, that became my part-time job in addition to whatever
other duties I had. Still, I stuck to business because I didn't think I
could do anything as crass as write advertising.
Of course, being at the mercy of my employers, they soon drug me down
to the marketers who filled my head with value props, and market
penetrations. I gave in and began to write 'commercially'.
Like many people, I believed marketing meant lying elegantly. To my
amazement, I discovered more precision in it than I had expected. I also
learned I had a knack for it.
What great copy and great poetry have in common is compression. You
need to pack a lot of meaning in every line. Or more precisely, you need
to make sure that every element of every line reflects the drama you
wish to present. This means you need to be expert in technique in order
to evoke emotions with your lines.
For example, you have to have a great sense of meter – "Be All
That You Can Be" is iambic trimeter, it practically marches you to
the recruiting office (with no words over four letters). You have to
have a large vocabulary because one never 'learns', they 'discover,' or
'explore.' You need to know when to show accountability, "We
guarantee our products for life," and when to remain anonymous,
"Side effects are rarely experienced. 1"
You don't have to be T.S.
Elliot to write great copy. You can take some simple steps to
improve the poetry in your writing:
- Study great writers - Both Ogilvy
and Whitman
- Do crossword puzzles - Forget the hard ones; just build your
vocabulary of seven-letter words
- Listen when reading - When you read a great line steal the rhythm
- Read your copy aloud - When you stumble on a word, that's a clue you
need to rewrite. Pay attention to phrases that don't connect well or
sentences that end softly. (Like that one)
Who knows? In time, you may surprise yourself. 2
1Side effects include nausea, abdominal pain,
incontinence, impotence, paranoia, and death.
(By the way, everyone
always reads the footnotes just to see what trick you're pulling. In
fact, in most contexts a footnote is just a signal that everything you
just read is exaggerated.)
2Iambic pentameter, but you knew that.
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Thanks for Reading
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Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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