Screen Magazine: Vol. 28, Issue 10

Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 28, Issue 10 - Index

Regarding technology, it’s a slight exaggeration
to say that if you buy a new gadget, it’ll be
outdated by the time you get it home. But
from a marketing perspective, with every new
technology comes a new opportunity for you
to get your client’s message across. However, if
there’s always something new emerging, how do
you keep track of it, and more importantly, how
do you test it to see if it works?
In an attempt to answer that question,
Campbell-Ewald (Warren, MI) has created a
media lab that not only houses some of the most
cutting edge consumer technology, but also
gives the agency’s staff an opportunity to tinker,
fiddle, play and brainstorm with the technology
to develop new and innovative ideas.
“In many cases, the devices have no current
advertising designed to be incorporated into
them,” says Rick Ratliff, VP, director of interactive
media. “But if there is an opportunity, we want
to be able to exploit it.”
In a vision of every technophile’s ideal living
room, C-E’s media lab is equipped with a 68inch
plasma screen, 5.1 Dolby Surround and
an array of components such as an Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Slingbox, DirecTV
and TiVo as well as portable devices like a video
iPod, a Creative Zen, a Blackberry Pearl and a
Palm Treo 700.
And even though there is some duplication
in the types of devices, there is a method to
the madness. “What we need to understand,”
says Ratliff, “is how the user experience varies
– based on how you navigate, what the images
are like, what the sound is like – so we can fully
assess [the device’s] power as a brand building
tool or as a message sending tool.”
Although it may seem a bit excessive to have a
room full of technology that may or may not be
useful for advertising purposes, the opportunity
for immersion in the media lab environment,
according to Ratliff, is essential to unlocking the
technology’s potential.
“The creative teams and the account teams
are coming in and playing with the devices,
trying to get ideas that wouldn’t normally come
about,” he says.
“This is sort of an ‘Alice in Wonderland’
environment. There are gaming machines, but
you can surf the Internet on two of them. So are
they gaming machines or are they computers?
When technology begins to defy categorization,
it opens the door for creative thinking.”
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