IAB Launched Second Branding Campaign

by Masha Geller, May 29, 2003, 12:00 AM

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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on Thursday launched a new integrated branding campaign aimed at helping marketers understand how they can best employ interactive advertising to more effectively reach their business goals. The campaign, devised by marketing communications agency Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners, highlights successful marketing case studies from brand leaders Volvo Cars of North America, Frito-Lay, Inc., and Kimberly-Clark and features the tagline "Interactive. The Active Ingredient."

This is the second of the IAB campaign under this tagline, following on the heels of a branding campaign launched in July of 2002, which also aimed to educate the market about the benefits of adding interactive to the media mix.

Designed by Stein Rogan + Partners and Underscore Marketing, the first campaign provided proof that interactive works, showing what different companies had done, said Kelly Colbert, IAB's Vice President of Marketing. "In this one we decided to flip that approach on its head. These are much more real life examples of real marketers that show how they can use interactive."

The campaign profiles marketing executives who have helped their brands become "superheroes" by tapping the potency of interactive in tandem with an overall marketing plan. Using a stylish, witty motif that overlays photos of each executive onto a "superhero" costume, the copy lists their "superpowers" - the campaign innovations that specifically contributed to achieving brand objectives. The ads encourage corporate marketers to explore the power of interactive advertising by downloading complete "superhero" case studies from www.iab.net/superhero. The first two "superheroes" are Cammie Dunaway, Vice President and General Manager of Marketing for Frito-Lay, Inc., and Phil Bienert, Manager of CRM and e-Business for Volvo Cars of North America LLC.

Bienert said the reason he got involved in this initiative was that it is a great way for the IAB to build on the work they've done in the previous campaign. "We've come to a point in marketing communications where we've got examples of success that interactive really does deserve an equal seat at the table. At the very least the intent is to spark the interest of the people who are on the fence."

Bienert said Volvo has had a "fantastic experience" with interactive. "We were one of the first automotive companies, if the not the first, to do an online ad back in 1994. Since then it's always been making sure that we can se use interactive to get the right message to the right people because Volvo owners tend to gravitate toward the interactive medium."

The case study used as part of the IAB shows who Volvo has been able to use interactive and traditional in concert to be much more effective marketers. "We've reached the tipping point," Bienert said, adding that while the company does not release figures, Volvo tends to "spend a higher percentage than industry average" on interactive.

The IAB is also aiming to practice what it's been preaching for the better part of this year with its Cross Media Optimization Study. While the last campaign ran primarily online, Colbert said this new one will be using traditional media as well. "We learned a lot from our own research," she said. "No model or medium can work effectively in isolation." The first wave of the integrated advertising campaign will appear in print, outdoor and online publications beginning May 28. The campaign will additionally feature email marketing, event and public relations strategies.

Greg Stuart, President and CEO, IAB, said that many marketing executives already recognize the potential of interactive marketing, but "continue to need tangible proof and creative examples of success to fully implement a media-agnostic plan. We hope that by delivering this message across many media, we ourselves can prove a successful case study - and continue to build on the upward trend of traditional marketers incorporating interactive into their media mix."

As with the previous campaign, the IAB is depending on pro-bono creative and donated media.

Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners has donated all creative, production and media planning in concert with Media Planning Group. "While all forward-thinking companies recognize the need for more integrated marketing, they look to organizations like the IAB for the tools and information to speed that process," said Ron Berger CEO, Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners. "Our agency is happy to help advance the process, and to support the IAB as a thought leadership resource."

Eyeblaster, Unicast and Viewpoint are donating rich media services. Atlas DMT is providing all ad serving, tracking and analytics and Dynamic Logic is conducting an AdIndex study to measure the impact of the online advertising component. Media companies and online publishers donating advertising space include 24/7 RealMedia, Advertising Age, AdForum.com, AOL, MediaPost (publisher of MDN), MSN, NetCreations, The New York Times Digital, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal Online and Yahoo!

The campaign will run through the end of the year.

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