Louisville ad agencies can catch up to the latest technology with interactive media and Web advertising. These media options are all over the news, and create exciting opportunities for agencies to really show off their capabilities.
Interactive multimedia suggests many areas like games, educational and training videos, and presentations. The popularity of CD-ROM games and online services shows that people want to get involved and interact with audio/visual information. No longer a passive audience, people want control over what they view, read and hear.
The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet, a worldwide computer network. Web publishing - we're not talking about printing - means creating colorful, interactive "pages" that can provide anything from simple information to full catalogs from which people can order products.
InTerActivE
mUltIMediA
For ad agencies, a first venture into multimedia could be with a capabilities presentation used for new business pitches. The ability to change the course of a presentation in the middle of a pitch is only possible with interactivity. Interactive programs have point-and-click buttons that can take the presenter to a different topic or area as the interests of the potential client changes. Exciting animated sequences can capture the attention of the audience and display the agency's logo and mission in creative ways that slide shows, boards and leave-behinds could never accomplish.
Creating an interactive presentation does have a learning curve, and having an experienced in-house producer is optimal. But with private training and some ambition, it's certainly not unattainable. Once the framework is in place, making changes or adding special areas for each pitch isn't hard at all.
At the presentation, all that is needed is a Mac (Powerbooks are fine) and a special attached projector (purchased or rented).
Once an agency learns how to create and position interactive media, they can sell projects to clients.
Many ad agencies are seeing the wisdom of learning this new "medium" and have started or acquired multimedia divisions. Leo Burnett and DDB Needham Worldwide in Chicago are two, and they have account teams dedicated to selling multimedia projects to clients.
There are four different types of interactive, animated presentations that an agency can use to show their capabilities. Each type differs by how it is used, and whether it is run from a floppy, CD-ROM, or hard drive.
1. Capabilities/New Business Pitch
This type is designed for use during a verbal presentation. It can be created as a simple slide show, or can have complex interactivity to allow the presenter to go to different subject areas as needed. The presenter can also spend as much or little time in each area as the presentation demands. It can have categories arranged in a menu screen that can go to sections describing different aspects of the agency, like History, Mission, Principals, Awards, Clients, Media, Research, and Porfolio (including separate areas for print, broadcast, radio, other).
It could have a changeable section for each new business presentation, including categories for Strategies, Team for prospective client, or Proposed Ad Campaign.
Because there would be a speaker talking during each screen of this presentation, the design would similar to that of a traditional slide show. Little animation would be used except for the introduction (An opening animation using the agency's logo to capture attention and establish identity). Flourishes of sound could be used, but no voice overs, and little copy, so as to not compete with the speaker.
This type of presentation is usually large and would be run from a hard drive. The presenter could take a laptop or Syquest cartridge and have the additional equipment set up at the presentation site by a company that specializes in.
2. Agency Intro with Verbal Presentation
This type of presentation is simply an animation that shows off some of the agency's capabilities. It is short and exciting and may have little interactivity. For this purpose, a video could also be used or created from the animation. The presenter would show this at the beginning, then proceed with the rest of their presentation.
3. Full Capabilities Demo/CD-ROM
This would be similar to the Capabilities/New Business version, but would not have a presenter telling the potential client about the agency. Thus, it would have more copy for each screen and music or voiceover. It could be a full-blown capabilities demo with menu screens for targets to choose different sections.
CD-ROMs can contain as much as 650 megabytes of data, so the program could include music and video (including TV commercials and radio spots).
4. Teaser/Floppy
This would be similar to the self-contained CD-ROM version. The design would have to be minimal with graphics and sound because of how much space is available on floppy, but it can be a great teaser for getting to the next step with a potential new client.
Interactive presentations are still a novelty in our area. With lots of graphics and animation, they are exciting to watch. People who see them usually will want to show them to their collegues, especially if they are IBM users who only see word processing or spreadsheets on their screen. All presentations can be made for Mac or IBM users.
Creating it
To create one, agencies should first decide how it will be used. Refer to the above "types" to see if a presentation will be played from a hard drive, CD-ROM or floppy, and consider whether a video would be more effective.
Use broadcast producers as well as art directors to storyboard the presentation. Depending on the type of presentation, the storyboard should include menu branching, graphics and audio, even if the "audio" is simply a reference to what the speaker will be talking about.
Construct a schedule. To script the interactive program, outside vendors or training for employees can be retained. For a full capabilities presentation, plan for at least three weeks of full-time dedication by at least one employee, then some full days after that. Once the original framework is in place, changes for a new business pitch can be done quickly and easily. Because of the short lead time for most pitches, in-house production is the best option.
The industry standard software is Macromedia Director. Expect a fairly steep learning curve, especially with issues such as timing and interactivity scripting. There are other easier-to-learn packages, but features are more limited. With Director, full agency portfolios, including audio and video, can be included (video quality is limited however).
The most time-consuming part of creating a Director program is actually spent in Photoshop. Creating introduction and menu screens and converting portfolio images is all done in Photoshop eventually. Freehand and Illustrator files will convert to Photoshop easily, but Quark ads will not. Even if the entire ad was done on computer, sometimes it is best to scan in the printed piece. Ads will convert well to show design, but copy is not readable at the monitor standard of 72 dpi resolution. However, if copy reading is important, there are options, such as making separate, larger copy screens accessible when the presenter or user clicks on the ad.
The Photoshop pict images are then brought into Director where the animation, interactivity and other scripting of the framework for the presentation is done. The Director "movie" is then converted into a "player" which can run on any Macintosh or can be converted for PC-compatible computers.
One the original framework of the presentation is created, changes and additions can be simple and quick.
To show a presentation from a hard drive, a color Powerbook (540c is good, with at least 16mb RAM) and a projector will do the job. Projectors can be purchased or rented - if rented there are companies that will set up the system at your meeting location.
Costs of creating an in-house presentation can range from $2500 to $12,000 depending on the size of the presentation and whether an outside vendor or freelance trainer is used.
Bandy-Carroll-Hellige is the first local agency to complete an interactive presentation. Click here to read about their story.
WoRLd WidE wEB
(Obviously if you are reading this, you already know what the Web is! This section of this article was intended to help educate people who don't know more for the print version of this magazine...)
The "Web" offers graphic, interactive "pages" of information accessible worldwide through the massive computer network of the Internet. Anyone with an Internet graphic account (called "SLIP" or "PPP" accounts), and Web "browser" software can view graphic information from all over the world.
The technical terms involved can be overwhelming - don't worry about knowing exactly what they all mean. You can hire an expert to set up your account and produce a page for you. The important thing to know is that you can advertise your company or sell products with interactive graphics and text information.
Setting up an account, and getting familiar with how to get around can be difficult at first. Local internet providers, such as Iglou (Internet Gateway of Louisville) have large computer servers accessible by modem, and are "on-ramps" to the information highway. Different account packages are available, including a monthly flat-rate option which offers unlimited hours for one fee. An Iglou flat-rate graphic (SLIP) account with the graphic Web page creation capability is $39.90 a month.
Commercial online services, such as America Online, Compuserve and Prodigy have some access to the Web, but they all charge by the hour.
Several pieces of software are needed to make your computer communicate with the Internet. Mac TCP and Config PPP let your Macintosh talk to Unix based servers. Other shareware programs let you read and send mail and browse the Web. These and other programs are downloadable from the Iglou server and from other places on the Internet.
There are several directories and search "engines" on the Web where you can type in key words to find things, such as the WWW Yellow Pages. Companies can apply for listings in these directories through electronic forms.
Creating a Web page (also called "home page") is done with HTML (hypertext mark-up language) programming. A shareware program called HTML Editor helps this process.
Graphics are added as GIF files, which means Graphic Image Format, a file that can be seen on Macs, IBM and other platforms. Photoshop can convert graphics to this format. The graphics should not be too large because it takes time to send them over the modem lines so users can see them.
You can have one or several "pages" linked with interactive "pointers" that will take the user to another page when they click on a word or image. These pointers can take someone to the "next" page, or across the country to another Web page. Several Web pages have "hot lists" of interesting pages to go see.
There are already several ad agencies with Web pages, or Web sites. A site is when a company has their own computer server and don't have to use an outside provider (a big project to undertake).
Each Web page has a location, that can actually be typed into the location window of Netscape. Notice in the graphics on this page the box that has addresses that start with "http://". Some ad agency locations are:
The first question many people have about the Web is how useful is it as a media tool and what kind of market will we reach? There is little research as to what kind of people are using it, and there is no single way to advertise your company's Web page location.
Sending notification to every Web page directory certainly helps, and many companies are listing Web addresses in their print advertising and other media. There are a few electronic magazines that sell advertising space. Wired magazine has a Web site called HotWired that has space for Saturn and MCI Communications among others. For example, a Saturn ad appears on an editorial page that the user can click on to go to the Saturn home page. Wired is reportedly selling internet "presence" for 8 weeks at $30,000.
ESPN is rumored to be setting up a Web site and will sell advertising space for $1 million a year. Other magazines and newspapers are online, like Entertainment Weekly and MacWeek.
Thousands of people are getting internet accounts and creating Web pages every day. Demographic information is limited, but reports have said users are 70% male and between the ages of 20 and 40. Some pages have the ability to report calculated "hits," or number of times the page is seen. Nielson is supposedly going to start measuring the internet audience.
But, for $40 a month for a Web page, it's not that big of an investment to make for hit-or-miss.
CoMBinInG mEdiA
As stated, one way advertisers are getting users to see their Web pages is to list their home page address in print ads. Web page addresses are showing up in magazines and TV commercials, and on business cards and billboards. An interactive floppy disk teaser, as described in the earlier part of this article, could have a Web address for the user to get more information.
