Mele’s Musings

Attention Marketers: The iPad Changes Everything

Look, last week when the iPad came out, I was initially unimpressed.  It looked like a big iPod touch and was relatively blah.  After reflecting on it for a few days, I believe this device could change forever (or, at least for the next several years) what we expect digital experiences to be and how we consume media.  It will save newspapers and magazines, but hasten the destruction of print.  It will increase TV consumption, but kill the “viewing schedule” in ways that the DVR has not yet.  It will increase the number of movies we watch but destroy the DVD.  We’ll read more books, but never enter a bookstore.  It will out Amazon Amazon and out Netflix Netflix.  You thought the iPhone was an obsessive device?  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

But what about advertising?

In the same way that the iPhone helped advertisers understand that there is a different way to think about what a mobile ”ad unit” can be, the iPad will help advertisers finally figure out how to really create interactive expeirences including how to effectively use video advertising in the digital space.

The iPhone in many ways revolutionalized the way that companies think about media - that media is as much about platforms and the way people use them as it is about where the eyeballs are.  For advertisers that get it, the smartphone application has helped drive marketers to move from ads to experiences, something that we talk about a lot.

link to picture

For those who still think that advertising is about ads, even the iPhone is a troubling media device, however.  The banners are too small to do much with, applications have to be more than landing pages, and texting programs require too much effort (think editorial programming) to effectively support beyond sweepstakes and contests.  For many of them, the iPad with its larger format feels like a great answer. “The larger iPad screen may also make new advertising schemes possible, since banner ads don’t fit on the iPhone without blocking a substantial portion of its 3.5-inch screen, he said.” (article link)

But, as usual, this misses the point.  While mobile devices are places for banner-type ads, innovative and forward-thinking advertisers will see it for its real potential: a place to create rich, interactive experiences.  In order to create these experiences, marketers and their agencies need to have deeper understanding of and skills around technology and development.  (For all of you who scoffed at this several months ago, please refer back to my previous blog post on the need for Devs in your creativve departments.)

Creating experiences for the iPad will require more robust skills than even how to build web-pages or develop in Flash (on a side-note, it will be interesting to see if Flash will actually be a necessary technology in 3-5 years).  Web pages use a mouse and keyboard interface.  The iPad will be a multi-touch experience, something very different to think about and create in.  Sorry, but the average creative department will have no clue on how to create in this type of environment.

In fact, it is my expectation that the application will become the experience of choice for advertisers in the future.  The web page will increasingly become a relic of the past, too large and cumbersome to be as useful as a focused application.  Banner ads as we know them will disappear, replaced by highly interactive media units.

But even more than this, the iPad will offer an opportunity for video advertising to finally move beyond the 30 second TV ad take down.  Interactivity within video will not be a nice to have anymore - it will become an expectation.  The iPad is going to be a hyper-interactive media device.  Video will need to adapt to the device.  It will become more chapterized, offer more opportunities for “spotlighting,” offer more views and angles.  For more on this, refer back to my previous posting on the need for non-tv thinkers to start working on video.  As long as those who are working in video are used to creating spectacular 30 second ad spots, marketers will miss the boat.

So, my expectations for the iPad are actually much higher than they were a week ago.  As usual, Jobs and company have not just created a new device, they have ushered in a new platform that everyone will rush to imitate.

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