Marketing Briefing: Why marketers are all about ‘nontraditional formats’ now
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As the craft and science of marketing continues to be plagued by fragmentation and sharply reduced budgets, brand marketers are increasingly more receptive to alternative advertising options to reach consumers.
Those marketers are investing in “nontraditional formats,” explained Evan Giordano, strategist at Mother New York, with the hopes of creating moments in culture that consumers actually notice rather than ignore or worse, actively block.
These formats can range from PR activations (one recent example: Progressive’s brand mascot Dr. Rick became the first brand mascot to appear on the talk show Hot Ones) to long-form content to unusual brand activations (remember the hubbub around the Pop Tart bowl earlier this year?) to packaging innovation and other uncommon efforts.
The strategy requires creative teams to rethink how they typically approach a campaign. “It’s pretty liberating because your creative team and your strategist have to think like product people, they have to conceptualize the outside of traditional formats,” said Giordano. “It helps the teams internally when you don’t have to think in terms of like 30-second [spots] or a print ad and it’s more about what is a thing that we can make in culture that’s going to solve a business problem. What can we make that will go out into culture?”
That may be a result of marketers championing a blend of performance and brand – rather than performance over brand – a shift that C-Suites are starting to embrace. There’s a slow recognition that marketers must invest in brand marketing to (hopefully) pay dividends in the long-term. Even agencies like WPromote recognize the potential to cash in on the merging of brand and performance – with its new (aptly yet wonkily titled) “brandformance” practice.
It’s not that marketers and agency execs are seeking to be different just for different’s sake but that the fragmented environment where mass media moments are few and far between requires that approach. “You can’t rely on advertising around a piece of culture anymore and expect that anyone and everyone will see it,” said Giordano. “Because they won’t.”
“Fragmentation has redefined what creativity means for marketers, who previously felt some sense of security knowing that the media placement itself would do the heavy lifting,” said Brittany Hunley, svp, connections planning director at ad agency EP+Co. “These days, that’s simply not the case. Now, capturing an audience and really earning their attention isn’t about being everywhere; it’s about showing up with something truly remarkable — something worth talking about.”
Hunley noted that Nutterbutter is another example of this as the snackfood’s “unhinged” TikTok account, which Dentsu Creative is behind, has gone viral in recent weeks for garish imagery that’s so strange it’s hard to ignore. Hunley described the content as “consistently playful, zany and ‘out there’ (to say the least),” noting that it has garnered the brand one million followers on TikTok. “This shift has actually opened the door to a greater sense of creative freedom,” said Hunley. And has “cultivated new opportunities for marketers to be bold and inventive in ways that traditional formats never allowed.”
Even as marketers are allowing more creative freedom and nontraditional concepts as they seek to marry brand and performance, it’s not just that marketers are more willing to get weird now. The strain on budgets and the need to do more with less continues to dog marketers.
“Clients are looking for smarter, more efficient ways to spend their money,” said Kevin Mulroy ECD and founding partner of Mischief, a shop that has become known for its unusual work. “We like to say to clients that you don’t have the budget to be boring because if you’re going to do boring wallpaper advertising the only way to get anyone to notice it is to annoy the shit out of them by running it over and over and over and having a massive media budget.”
“A lot of clients are looking for a punchier, more efficient way to reach the target that they want to speak to,” Mulroy added.
3 Questions with Carly Proett, head of brand marketing at laundry detergent brand Branch Basics
What media channels and strategies is Branch currently testing or experimenting with?
Instagram has definitely been our bread and butter for many years, and we find incredible traction there still to this day. Obviously, the algorithm plays around so we have to be on top of trends and pivoting where we need to. But I would definitely say we’re still incredibly focused on Instagram.
What about other channels?
As for other social channels, we have been playing around with YouTube Shorts. We’ve started to have more of a strategy on TikTok. We’re going to continue to push in there with more of an affiliate play, and we just joined TikTok Shop.
With the looming ban, TikTok seems to be really trying to keep advertisers interested. They just released search ads campaign. Any potential to lean in there?
What we’ve found with TikTok so far is that our organic strategy doesn’t work the same. On Instagram, when we’re posting authentic, organic content, it performs. On Tiktok, it’s such a toss up with the algorithm. What we’ve found is it’s almost harder to focus on an organic strategy. We really want to start leaning toward a creator strategy. We’re actually going to start working with an agency very soon that works with affiliate creators, and that will be tied in with our launch on TikTok shop. — Kimeko McCoy
By the Numbers
When deciding between creator partners, should brands choose those prioritizing long-form content, or shorter, more immediate work? The pendulum between those two poles seems to be constantly swinging one way or the other. For now, it seems as though creators are doubling down on long-form content such as podcasts, live streams, newsletters and long-term video, according to a Billion Dollar Boy and Censuswide survey of over 500 influencers.
- 64%: The percentage of creators that moved to make more long-form content during the last year.
- 72%: The proportion of creators that plan to make longer-form content next year.
- 39%: The proportion of creators that say they’ve seen better engagement on their long-form content than on short-form. — Sam Bradley
Quote of the week
“What we have to realize is that we can’t rely on other platforms to send us traffic. We have to create that demand loop itself,”
— Katie Friedman, chief subscriptions officer at Business Insider, of the current challenges facing publishers (and advertisers).
What we’ve covered
- Microsoft looks set to shutter its retail media business
- TikTok joins the AI-driven advertising pack to compete with Meta for ad dollars
- How Kraft Heinz’s new CMO Todd Kaplan is defending creativity in the age of data
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