Our Relationship Could Be So Much More

By | October 21, 2008

She was beautiful and she got me. And once I turned the music on, it was all over.

I wish I could bring this ad for Air France that was on the NYTimes homepage right into this blog post, but, of course, that would be too easy, right?

This screenshot I took will give you a visual, though.

LEspace Affaires

Air France - L'Espace Affaires

What works about this ad is that it grabs you because it keeps it really simple and yet the animation, the song that backs it up, and the message all work together. I can tell you, it makes me want to go to France.

But what’s missing?

First, when I roll over it, there should be an automatic way to share it into my social nets like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. But even if it only gave me the embed code, that’s okay, I’ll take it.

Why, ad agency, would you put the effort into making this little piece of media, and getting it placed correctly, but then not give me – your entry point into a great network – a way to pass it on? It doesn’t make sense on the Web.

Use my intelligence as part of the network to re-place your ad.

Second, let me do something interesting with it. You have my attention. Why not let me see something about what it means to fly business class on Air France (which is what this ad emphasizes) or, better, say something about flying business class to France that gets folded into the ad and displayed wherever it is?

In other words, connect me to that ad and I’ll never forget it. Make the ad movable and make it interactive.

It’s more than possible to do these kind of things in this medium, so why aren’t we? We’re using the Web like it was a piece of paper, and that’s too bad.

  • http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing Taylor Davidson

    Many (mostly older) companies still think of their websites as the only important destination and that any interactions online that do not occur through their website are of infinitely lower value.

    I know, it may not make sense to you or me or web-centric people, but it's still alive and well in most traditional marketing and web IT departments.

    It's not terribly surprising based on how they measure marketing success: most companies do little to measure marketing and interactions outside of what they control.

    Unless you're the boss, you only do what you can defend by measuring it.

    • http://brooksjordan.name brooksjordan

      I think you're right, Taylor. It's going to take much better measurement and some really good success stories of how distributed marketing works, and a little bit of that is happening.

      But I also think there's very little discussion about what ads could be – even in agencies and tech/media companies – where people work on them every day.

      I know there's lots of talk about it, so why such little progress in the last three years?

      • http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing Taylor Davidson

        I'm cynical, but I think it's a lack of vision, and lack of ideas, and an unwillingness to take the “risks” about exploring what ads could be.

        Or maybe it's just that people are focusing their “ad innovation” on the tools and platforms to connect rather than the ads themselves.

        • http://brooksjordan.name brooksjordan

          More the former. . . but in truth I don't see how you can separate the platform and the media, although we're all doing a pretty grand job of it right now.

          • http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing Taylor Davidson

            I'm a believer “the medium is the message”, but I think a lot of people are just applying tools and tactics without thinking about the messages they send.

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