Author: Thales Teixeira
Source: Harvard Business Review
In this article, Harvard Professor, Thales Teixeira discusses a new advertising phenomenon, “Lean advertising”.
By definition anything defined as lean, focuses on elimination of waste. The theory is that this should lead to improved quality and reduced costs. In terms of advertising it should mean finding simpler and cheaper ways of communicating what a company wishes to sell, in this case online video commercials. The article begins with an interesting comparison between the advertising strategies used by prominent footwear giants, with Nike and Reebok signing brand endorsement deals with huge names in sport compared to the unconventional rather radical approach by DC Shoes wherein they had co founder Ken Block featuring in a feisty commercial uploaded on YouTube. The response was euphoric with DC Shoes getting a 15% spurt in sales as they secured a tremendous one million views in 24 hours alone. The best part it was done in a fraction of what Nike and Reebok splurged on their commercials. Pretty cool for a non musical or film related video, eh?
Professor Teixeira states that low cost is not the only driving factor of companies resorting to online video commercials rather the growing audience of 3rd and 4th Generation tablets and handheld smart phones and due to dwindling rate of television commercial viewership.
He elaborates that there are two important aspects to consider and deal with if one opts for the online “lean advertising” method.
Firstly, the content of the advert. This can be tacked with the DIY (Do – It – Yourself) approach i.e. your own company design and film the ad such as that of kitchen appliance firm, Blendtec that took YouTube by storm. Or outsourced the content by hiring external agencies like Tongal who conduct surveys and competition amidst their employees for idea generation and choose the best from them and then have it developed