The Nudge

As you may know I am fascinated (actually now obsessed) with online advertising and how it could be so much better. 

It seems we are right at the beginning of an interesting shift away from the disruptive, annoying, direct response form that 99% of online advertising takes. 

I believe, along with many others, that the future lies in being able to tell stories with compelling content whilst creating clever association with products and services. 

Now something occurred to me recently, there is one form of advertising that has been doing this for years and has it totally nailed…

The extreme sport video.

Created long before the internet age, this in essence is the ultimate advert.

Here is the formula (I am using snowboarding videos as an example):

1. Get a collection of world-class pro snowboarders who are sponsored by a range of snowboard brands (who promote themselves through out the video but in a non-intrusive manner).
2. Take the snowboarders and film them in some of the most thrilling places on earth.
3. Get the snowboarders to perform the newest tricks.
4. Attach an awesome soundtrack creating a 40 minute MTV type video.
5. Release the video once a year (Autumn time just before everyone is about to buy new equipment for the coming season).
6. And here is the genius part – CHARGE PEOPLE £30 TO WATCH IT

A picture of me performing a backflip, yesterday.

What you have here is the perfect combination of content, timing & promotion which, when you consider the brands charge for the video, comes together to form the ultimate advert! 

I think that there is a lot to learn from this for the rest of us.  I appreciate extreme sports have great content so the job may be viewed as easy but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that they have got the other parts right too.

They have made an advert, a paid message, not feel like an advert. By telling the story to an engaged audience a strong level of loyalty and advocacy is created.

The challenge is to take the content that makes a brand unique and create stories around it that set you apart. By understanding and respecting your audience and offering real value the quality of relationship is so much better, in some cases having a consumer who is so engaged they’ll pay for it!

This is the future.

Now where’s my snowboard?

P.S. Check out the Burton Snowboard website, it is a thing of beauty with a goldmine of great content www.burton.com