Xtra-Lars

My friends at Tribal DDB Asia , Dirk and Amanda, were kind enough to invite me along to the Digital Media Awards Asia, held at the Beijing Millenium Hotel. It’s good to see that the basic rules of the advertising game remain the same, no matter where in the world you are – winning awards!

And what a great night it was for Omnicom, totally dominating the awards with strong showing of all their agencies; Proximity, BBDO, DDB, Tribal DDB and TBWA/agency.com.

Tomorrow I’ll be checking out ad:tech for an in-depth session on social network marketing in China.

Agency life is full of buzz words, such as engagement, interactivity, emotional connections and so on. Often agencies use these words to signal to clients to increase the executional spending budget. Bigger productions = better emotional connection to the consumer, or so the argument often goes.

What grabs our attention as consumers, on the other hand, is simply what interests us. If I love reading about gadgets (which I do) I can spend hours on a site detailing the latest what and hows of gadgetry, and discussing this with other fans. Less ’emotional’ communication, but probably more emotions.

Similarly, think of the times you’ve really enjoyed a book, then seen it on the big screen afterwards. Very rarely does the film experience match your imagination or emotional connection that you made with the content on your own.

Sometimes the written word rules. Creating images in the minds eye is the most powerful tool we can use.