Adverblog–one of the world’s top showcases for interactive marketing–is running a new interview series. In today’s edition, Lars Bastholm, Chief Digital Creative Officer at Ogilvy, shares some of his current thinking on the state of the business.
Q6. If you could wave your magic wand and change one thing about digital marketing what would it be?
I wish we could reinvent online advertising, particularly banners. I know it’s a multiple billion dollar business and, along with Google’s AdWords, the main driver of the Internet’s economic engine, but I don’t know a single person who actually interacts with them. Nor do I know many creatives who are excited about creating them. I wish we could start over and come up with a better way of reaching online consumers.
In an earlier interview, Martina Zavagno of Adverblog (who just moved to PDX), asks Iain Tait of W+K/Portland the same set of questions.
Here’s one of his more interesting responses:
Q5. What technology or initiative is most likely to revolutionize Web/mobile marketing?
I don’t think the next wave of digital marketing is going to be driven by technology. It’s going to be driven by brave clients and agencies. The world of interactive advertising isn’t going to fully bloom until we reach a tipping point where a majority of c-level clients are as comfortable signing off on heavyweight digital ideas as they are on more traditional campaigns. Once we get to that point then we’ll see fierce and bloody creative competition erupt. And that will be good for all of us.
Reinvention is the common theme here. Clients are busy reinventing themselves in order to reach customers and prospects in new ways, and the ad business is either lagging or leading in this same race to evolve.
We lag when we stay within the ad banner lines. We soar, or I should say W+K soars, when they get P&G to buy Man on a Horse.