Are we running out of energy?
If you think there’s nothing to be learned at Cannes (yes I mean you, Mark Ritson) you’re just not looking hard enough. Today’s inspiration, however, comes not from the Palais but from our own Dentsu Aegis Beach House.
With content running all day, it’s a unique opportunity to tap into what’s happening around the network. Even better, it’s all live-streamed so do yourself a favour and click-through.
First up — the Attention Economy. A ground-breaking research project, built in conjunction with the Centre for Amplified Intelligence in Australia, with an ambition to change the way we measure, plan and trade media.
Eye-tracking technology has been used to understand how we respond to video ads across platforms and devices and it turns out, there’s a lot more to attention than meets the eye — literally. The data suggests that advertising in our peripheral gaze has almost as much effect as advertising that’s watched more intently. The results are fascinating and with a cross-section of media partners and clients already involved, theory could quickly turn to action. There’s a downloadable white paper here or you can watch the panel.
From media, we turned to the creative agencies and a brilliant piece of work from Dentsu Branded Agencies — the Dynamo Brands Index. Michael Chadwick is the APAC CSO, but this is a global study, created with The Effectiveness Partnership in the UK, which offers a fresh way to think about brands in a world increasingly full of branding anomalies.
Michael used the example of Tesla — making a handful of vehicles, yet valued more highly than both General Motors and Ford — to underline his point that what won for brands in the past (scale, heritage, share of voice) may not be enough to win in the future.
So many of the brand reports we see elsewhere focus on measuring the size of brands today. Instead, DBA’s model looks at momentum and where brands are going tomorrow. I love that the study crowd-sourced its subjects, unearthing examples of vibrant, fast-growing brands in overseas markets that we can all learn from.
At the heart of the work is the evidence that in the new economy, successful brands are marrying energy and direction. Energy is all about a brand’s presence, it’s ability to do new things and turn up in new ways. Direction means knowing where you’re going. And here’s the thing — globally, there’s a surplus of direction, but a shortage of energy, which sounds a lot like an opportunity for media to me.
Check out the DBA team’s excellent session here — and follow up on their website for more information.
