Is it time to evolve the “CTA”?
Agencies and brands we’ve been consulting, us and many like us have been speaking about being digital first and digital strong for a very long time. Some have made serious strides towards this effort. Native digital agencies are obvious, traditional “mainline” agencies have also been on the journey to making themselves more and more digital savvy.
The other day, I was in conversation about this very phenomenon, of being digitally sound in a digital era. The focus of the conversation was a simple (but not so simple) question
"we all talk digital, but do we think digital?"
This conversation and surrounding reading got me thinking about the subject deeper than the casual chat over a coffee. The more I thought, the more I was unconvinced about my and my immediate environments understanding of what "Thinking digital" really means.
So as anyone with a little bit of curiosity, I started asking 'stupid' questions;
What exactly constitutes digital?
How can one make out the difference between what is digital and what isn’t?
How is a traditional television film different from a digital film?
Can something physical be digital?
Or does it always have to be virtual to be considered digital?
I asked a bunch of my friends within agencies from across different fields (mainline, digital creative, media, social etc.) of what constitutes digital, and their answers were pretty much what would be expected, (with a bias towards their own field of course)
Measurable and ROI took first place, and quite understandably so, but does measurability and ROI make it digital? I think most media touch-points are measurable, especially with today's sophisticated attribution models and in the future with algorithmic attributions and IoT, we should be able to know exactly what our print ad is doing.
The lowest (by not much) is "Digital Media", which I guess isn't surprising since now every campaign including art installations are circulated and promoted on digital media, so that cant really be a measure of what constitutes digital.
Point is, I can write about every one of those attributes and why they aren't necessarily digital, but thats not the agenda here. Quite honestly, I would have expected all of the above to have almost an equal distribution, what I am actually surprised with, is how low "Engagement" scores. Definitely expected it to be higher than others, equal if not more than measurement.
Is my confusion just mine or are there others sharing my concern?
I was reading through a bunch of articles written by industry experts and came across a piece by Carl Griffith titled "What exactly defines a digital campaign nowadays?", written back in 2014. Here Carl speaks about entries on digital awards and his perspective as a juror and raises some interesting points on the matter.
My question is where are the digital entries where the idea and the strategy are anchored around and driven from the unique opportunities that digital now offers us? Where are the ideas that simply couldn’t have existed five or ten years ago? And, having asked this, are these even legitimate questions or am I just being unreasonable?
- Carl Griffith
Legitimate questions I would say, but shows the resonance of doubt around digital when even a veteran digital juror doesn't know if his musings are "unreasonable".
The keyword is "INTERACTIVITY".
Here is a thought, the difference between digital and everything else is its inbuilt ability to let consumers interact with the content.
Truly digital pieces of communication inherently provide the consumers the ability to "Interact" with it and therefore the brand. They aren't simple one way messaging and I even exclude the "visit www....." as the call to action at the end of a YouTube video.
I believe digital is about providing an opportunity for the audience to engage and interact with the content itself. A simple but powerful example of this would be the difference between a YouTube video and a "shoppable" YouTube video, the latter I would argue is digital. Another example of this would be blippable (or any other AR platform) print ads or billboards or logos, all of which are not necessarily on a digital channel, but allow for interaction with the content itself, at the time its being consumed. Think about an experience in a store, where every piece of clothing in the store has an AR overlay through its mobile app (native or web), that is a digital store and it is certainly not because the app resides on a mobile device, that is purely the technology.
According to me the stand-alone print ad done by MotoX in Wired without any web or mobile interface was more digital than many campaigns we see today.
All campaigns and content we create today follow what was taught to us in management text books and MBA class rooms and passed down as wisdom from our seniors. I have seen the influence model of AIDA show up in what is supposed to be a purely "digital media" presentation. The end goal of which is "Action" and therefore we are stuck with always ending our content pieces with what we define as a "Call to Action" - Shop now, Visit now, Download Now, Share Now etc. The films we make are meant to induce only a "Reaction" from the audience, a feeling or an action which can be taken after the content has been consumed, its engaging and may induce action, not interaction.
Decode JayZ by Bing, according to me is one of the best "Digital" campaigns that I've seen. Conceptualised by Droga5, though its execution was mixed media, it induces interaction with the campaign's content and the brand, and not just a simple action or reaction.
There are many great examples of such work which truly leverage the power of digital and make them great "Digital campaigns". But we don't see them as often as we should. The above campaign was released more than 6 years ago!! (Today is June 7th, 2017 for all you future readers).
Another example of Digital with an interaction lens, would be a recent experiment by Google called "Tabel". Its an interactive VR film, which uses basic motion tracking and sound technology to allow viewers to interact with the content and discover stories.
The "Tabel" is more digital than most other VR content out there. Are the others immersive and therefore Virtual Reality, absolutely. But are they truly Digital? I would argue against it.
Time to discuss "CALL FOR INTERACTION".
With our approach being driven to induce an action, we have been creating content which does that, and does it very well. But unless we change the foundations of our thinking, our creative approach and content it produces will always remain non digital (at least my definition of it).
It is time, we drop the "CTA" and work towards producing content which supports "CFI". Thinking digital is deep and difficult, to my mind its more than just getting yourself familiar with Google and Facebook tools and the various technologies available at our disposal. Its about completely re-looking at the way we approach a campaign and this holds good across all those involved in making a creative come to life.
If we assume "CFI" is the right lens, a strategist for one needs to understand how and why consumers interact with something; an insight if you will, to find a relevant space for their brand. The creative folk need to leverage these insights on interaction and find newer ways to design interactive touch points/content for the brand. Last but not least, the account managers need to understand and think digital themselves to be able to bring the client up to speed with this form of thinking, to explain the benefits and differences between this and the old and most importantly right upfront interpret a simple client brief with a "Deliverable" of interactivity.
It is time, we walk the talk, start thinking digital as much as we talk digital. Therefore imperatively everyone holds a knowledgeable point of view of what that means. This here is my attempt at that.
I would love to discuss this and any other perspective and definition, so that we all move stronger together to understand what "digital thinking" is and what it can be.
(This article was first published by the author on Linkedin on 7th June, 2017)