Advertisers use Internet to help shape their campaigns

Chris Lawrence knows how to get people to watch an online reality show that promotes a dull product: Get them to laugh at themselves and learn at the same time.

"People don't wake up in the morning thinking about what kind of paper towel they will buy," said the group account director at Fallon Worldwide, a Minneapolis advertising agency. So Fallon developed an online campaign for Brawny paper towels that encourages men to be better husbands through humorous challenges that teach them how to clean.

The Brawny Academy series is among a number of advertising experiments popping up across the Internet using original video programming, podcasting and even downloadable ringtones to shape a new era of brand promotion.

The experiments abound, including videos and text-messaged pet-care tips offered by Nestlé Purina PetCare and the "Heather & Jonelle" podcast at Johnson & Johnson's Acuvue site where two teenagers talk more about issues than contact lenses.

In the battle to capture consumers' attention in today's cluttered media world, advertisers are learning new ways to control a brand message. But whether consumers find the message is a major concern.

The goal is to draw eyes and ears then hope people share it with others. They could e-mail a video to a friend or have it posted on a site such as YouTube.com, where it could spread virally across the Web.

The fact that advertisers can tell from what ZIP code someone clicked on an ad, where they surfed after that and how long they spent watching a video has increased the pressure on ad agencies to create content that draws viewers and connects emotionally with them.

"You can create a better relationship online, more immersive," said Dave Friedman, president of the central region of Avenue A | Razorfish, the interactive ad agency that's part of Seattle-based aQuantive.

Online advertising spending this year on video and rich media, such as podcasts, is expected to reach $1.8 billion, roughly equal to text advertising, according to a July report from Jupiter Research.

By 2011, video and rich media ads are expected to hit $4.9 billion, dwarfing the $2.9 billion expected for text ads, Jupiter reported.

"The brilliance of [content-rich ads] is that you have permission to surprise people and hopefully it will connect them with a brand," Lawrence said.

Brawny series

Consider Episode 2 of the Brawny Academy series (www.brawnyacademy.com). It opens with the Brawny Man (played convincingly by actor John Brennan) in the bathroom of a cabin in the woods.

Seemingly surprised by the camera, he says: "Hey, you caught me. I was just putting this toilet seat down. My mom used to say, 'True love is never having to sit on a cold, exposed toilet rim.' It reminds me of one of the things we are teaching here at the Brawny Academy, empathizing with the woman in your life."

The scene shifts to the cabin's central room where the Brawny Man talks to the contestants about a coming challenge.

"Probably the No. 1 complaint your wives have about you guys is that you live like pigs and that they are constantly having to pick up after you. Case in point. (Brawny man looks around the room, a mess after a night of poker playing and cigar smoking.) But here at Brawny Academy, if you live like pigs, you live with pigs. Bring them in, boys."

Nine pigs storm into the room and start doing what pigs do, rutting around and making a bigger mess.

"All right, here's your first task," the Brawny Man explains. "You guys need to clean this place up while these pigs are going around making more of a mess. Kind of what your wives have to deal with."

Entertaining, but risky

Six episodes of the reality show are posted, with eight scheduled to air before the end of this month.

As entertaining as the show is, there are risks for Brawny.

For one, it's the first time in the 30-year existence of the Brawny Man character that he has been brought to life as a real person, said Steven Sage, vice president of category marketing at Brawny, which is owned by Georgia-Pacific.

"That was a very big decision," Sage said. "It's clear that [online] is a space you have to be, but it's early. There is a lot of experimentation going on.

"Our premise at the beginning was to direct people online and get some viral marketing going, to hopefully have it passed on to other people," he said. "With television, you don't have the ability to share that content with someone else, so the Web is a fascinating place for a marketer to play in.

"But at the end of the day, we are trying to sell paper towels," Sage said.

It is too early in the campaign to see if that is working, although Sage said calls to a customer-service line — which isn't published on the site so people are seeking it out — indicate a high-approval rate.

Friedman, the Avenue A | Razorfish executive, said it is possible to study how engaged people are with a brand online. You "quantify" engagement by how long they stay at a site and what they looked at. All of that is measurable, including the time of day people went to a site, which is important if they were prompted by a more traditional TV ad.

But Friedman added that "the tools to measure the customer experience online are still evolving."

One of the challenges is to get people not familiar with a particular brand to check out a Web site.

Red Bull, a Razorfish client, is one example.

"For noncustomers of the product, the 'build it and they will come' concept does not work," Friedman said.

But the company does know that core users of the energy drink go to places like ESPN.com after visiting the Red Bull Web site. "So that might be a place to put a banner ad to attract some like-minded people," Friedman said.

"Value exchange"

There also is the old-school tactic of using television, print and radio ads to try to drive people to a Web site.

At Arc Worldwide in Chicago, which has worked with Purina to produce podcasts about pet care, good content online leads to a "value exchange" with consumers, said Parrish Hanna, senior vice president for experience planning. Purina's Web site provides educational and entertaining content in exchange for brand awareness.

The Web "extends your core values about the brand, but you have to have a hook, a reason for someone to come back," Hanna said.

Marketers call this "pulling" people to the message.

"Consumers are seeking the information, but they have control of where they go, and to a degree, choose the people they want to advertise to them," Friedman said.

Hanna said "pushing" a message is far less effective than it once was. Five airings of a TV commercial were needed to reach 80 percent of the audience 25 years ago, he said.

Today more than 300 airings are needed to get that reach.