• by May 14, 2004

SOMEONE'S IN THE KITCHEN WITH A REMOTE CONTROL - Frrrrrrp! Was that a rip in the space/time continuum? Well, yes, but it was also the sound of Paul Woolmington ripping a dollar bill from his wallet during lunch. This was followed by an uncomfortable pause and one of Woolmington's trademark knowing looks. Now the Riff has been offered a few bribes in its time, but never for such a paltry fee. That's when Woolmington flipped the bill over to reveal an example of what he calls "experiential media," the kind of attention-getting, engaging media buys that have become so associated with his media shop, Media Kitchen. This particular dollar was one of 50,000 to carry a first-of-its-kind media buy, bearing stickers for the TV mini-series "Traffic" produced by the Kitchen's client, USA Network.

"We estimate it generated about $10 million," said Woolmington, referring to the "media value" in free media impressions from news stories covering the unique media buy. Not bad: $50,000 into $10 million in less than four months. With returns like that, Woolmington should be giving Warren Buffet advice. Actually, the Traffic media buy cost a little less than $100,000 to execute, but that's still a considerable return on investment, be it financial or advertising-wise. And it's just the kind of out-of-the-box media thinking that the Kitchen specializes in. It's an approach that's got Kitchen clients showing up in an array of unconventional media buys, such as the pull-out for the PBS series "Colonial House" in this week's People magazine that's turning literally a new leaf in print advertising history. The ad is part of a campaign that plays modern day conveniences off their 1628 versions. Readers who pull the tab of this insert get to see a roll of toilet paper transform into a maple leaf.

As for the space/time continuum, Woolmington's ideas aren't simply stuck in the here and now, but are actually beginning to bend the notion of time, both backwards and forwards. While many media buyers are trying to figure out how to get consumers to stop fast-forwarding though their clients' ad messages, Woolmington actually got them to slow-motion through one. The ad for CPC's Hellman's mayonnaise brand, features a 2.5 minute recipe spot that was time-compressed into a 30-second media buy that looked like viewers were fast-forwarding through a commercial. Viewers who hit their slow-mo buttons got to see the entire 2.5 minutes of the ad, all for the price of a 30-second CPM.

Woolmington's even developing notions for dealing with viewers who would prefer to hit their fast-forward buttons instead. He's not ready to reveal those, but they involve compressing enough information to render an effective message in the six-seconds it takes the average viewer to fast-forward through a 30-second spot.

"It requires that you think differently," said Woolmington, asserting, "Consumers want to be in a partnership with us. You just have to make the right offer."

That, in a nutshell, is the Kitchen's approach to the scary new world of consumer-empowered media. And instead of running for the hills, Woolmington said his media strategists are embracing "consumer control" as a "good thing." It's good he said, because consumers appreciate advertisers who direct their messages to them and speak to them as equals, and in a way that acknowledges that the consumer is actually in control of the process.

How does he know this? Well aside from being really smart, he's investing in some new research to help direct his agency and his clients along this uncharted territory. He shared a bit of those findings recently during the ARF's annual conference in New York. The research, conducted in partnership with InsightExpress, is part of an ongoing series of studies on how consumers relate to advertising when they have the technology and the wherewithal to avoid it. So far, it concludes that consumers want advertising they can control. You just have to think differently about what it is and how you serve it to them.

Consumers Who Would Like These TV Ad Approaches

Traditional :15/:30      18%  
Interactive TV           37% 
Imbedded Sponsor Logos   27% 
Video On Demand
26% 

Source: The Media Kitchen and InsightExpress from a series of consumer surveys conducted online.