Looking to the Future

The real killer app for advertising will be when our business can think seamlessly across communications disciplines and has people who can apply knowledge along the continuum of communications vehicles and techniques (advertising, direct mail, interactive, and public relations), and execute them aggressively. That’s the killer app because that’s where you figure out how to make all the connections and communications to a consumer, how to build a brand, and how to maximize the return on investment as measured by sales.

From an organizational perspective, we need to create a culture that enables things that, while all under the banner of communications, are genuinely different and require different expertise and competencies but serve a common goal. While these things are different, when you look at them as functional entities, tools and competencies, they all help accomplish a grand-scale vision or opportunity. You can talk about collaboration, but the goal is to build an organization where, at a conceptual (values or philosophical) level seemingly disparate things build a very strong brand in a marketplace. As a weak analogy, we talk about teams. Teams are what accomplish things, not individuals. Within a team, are disparate processes, mindsets, types of people, and organizations that can bring those differences together and enable them not only to coexist but actually flourish and be respected.

In terms of types of advertising, there may come a time when the 30-second commercial is not as prominent, but I don’t think it will be totally obsolete. There is some point at which the mind can’t absorb any faster than that, so I wouldn’t be prepared to call it dead.

There was a time when we’d talk about people who grew up during the MTV generation. That means, of course, that they are used to fast television, rapid interaction and dialogue, with more clutter on the screen, which may seem disjointed to someone used to a more traditional, linear style of conveyance. Look at how that has spilled into the rest of our television, and how the baby boomers now watch television the same way. You cannot turn on cable TV without seeing four different banners. You have the ticker tape along the bottom, the banner, the logo of the program you’re watching, and now the latest thing: a vertical bar running along the side. We all absorb communications that way, and it’s very interesting. So something that started in a particular age group has infiltrated the entire medium.

We are going to continue to evolve. Two possibilities could emerge, and perhaps both will become reality. One is that when communications and advertising companies really learn how to absorb and support the totality of communication – everything from brand development to transactional-based activities (e.g., customer relationship marketing, online, direct marketing,) – when they can embrace that entire scenario and it can be driven by one vision, the role of advertising can be very different. It does not necessarily have to generate the sale. It may only need to create a feeling and an attachment to a brand that’s very emotional. So the question is, could that be done in 15 seconds? Yes, if my purpose is to create an emotional attachment and I don’t have to get into a long description of what the product is, how it fits into your life, and how you use it. If I can say to you that I have a communications organization that can do everything from creating that emotional bond to giving you all of the rational information you need and also do the customer relationship management piece, I may be liberated to do that. There’s a scenario where you could say that over the long run, there won’t be as many 30-second commercials. We just won’t need them because we’ll have other options. Think about the people watching television and being on the Internet, and a 15-second commercial on TV that’s a spear through the heart and creates love and passion – that drives you to a site where you can do all the rational stuff you want. Then the story can be finished. Can it be done in 10 seconds? Maybe. We need people to think that way. That’s a scenario that would say it’s possible that the 30-second spot could become a thing of the past, and it’s not commonplace anymore. The norm has become the exception.

The other direction we could go is back to an old technique. If TiVo and things like that offer an effective way to take the sponsors out of paid promotion, and we can’t find our way around them, we may be going back to a sponsored program type of an environment. The advertising entities would become more integrated into the actual program itself, appearing more like the GE Theater.

I think both of those are real possibilities, depending on a variety of things, including an agency’s ability to express itself across the entire spectrum of communications tools and being able to manage it properly; the ways technology could facilitate that is also important.

Another area needs to evolve. In order to think outside silos, an agency must create a new breed of thinker. There are no farm clubs for these people. We’re doing that every day ourselves. By being inventive, creative and thinking beyond traditional boundaries, we start to teach new people coming into the business that they don’t need to be restricted by something on TV, in print or online: any of those things are on our palette of tools. You also need clients to develop in the same way because many clients, larger ones especially, buy in segregated ways. You can only sell a mutual fund to someone who’s prepared to buy or understands the purchase of a mutual fund. Years ago, you couldn’t sell a mutual fund to someone who only understood the concept of a stock. The buyer has to be in sync with the possibilities. I believe that will happen, and both agencies and clients are moving in that direction.

Joe Grimaldi is president and CEO of Mullen Advertising (Wenham, Mass.), one of the top 25 agencies in the US.

For over 19 years, Grimaldi has been a key figure in defining, shaping, and building the Mullen brand. During his tenure, the agency has grown from 14 people and $7.5 million billings to a $640 million agency with 550 people in four offices. It became part of IPG in 1999.

Throughout this evolution, the company has retained its strong culture and distinguished product and reputation. Today, Grimaldi directs agency strategy and development, maintains proactive involvement with clients and accepts ultimate responsibility for total agency operations.

Grimaldi is an Italian immigrant who came to America at age five. He grew up in Queens, New York, having to fend his own way through most of his adolescence. He started his career in advertising 27 years ago at Benton & Bowles in New York City, upon completing his college education at New York’s City University, and Bernard Baruch College of Business. He came to Boston in 1981 when he was recruited to Hill Holliday.