Brave new media world

 
Self-promotion The Serviceplan agency group hosted an I-Day on the subject of interactive media at its headquarters in Munich. 
"User-generated content" and "social media" are just a few of the buzzwords currently being hotly debated in the media landscape. But will these topics have a lasting impact on our communication? Or are they just bubbles that will burst after a short half-life - just like the virtual world of "Second Life"? The agency group Serviceplan, whose network also includes Plan.Net as a specialist for interactive communication, invited over 100 executives, client representatives and interested parties from the media to its first I-Day last week. The event, which was staged both as self-promotion and as a contribution to the discussion, presented well-known trendsetters in presentations followed by workshops. The topics were moderated by Michael Frank, Managing Director of the Plan.Net Group, and Florian Haller, Managing Director of the Serviceplan Agency Group. They said: "The industry wants to set trends. In the middle of the year, now is the time to take stock: where have the expected trends developed?"
Rescuing the commercialRoman Kuhn, director, producer and commercial filmmaker, presented his latest invention
before. The filmmaker has already been nominated for a German Film Award with a documentary about Hildegard Knef. In the 1990s, he not only projected affordable lifestyle into popular fashion with numerous commercials for H&M, but also had a lasting influence on the style of many music clips with his emotionally charged commercials. His soundtracks to numerous H&M commercials regularly landed in the charts. With the now launched platform Floaded - which is derived from "film loaded" - Kuhn wants to combine all these worlds. He is speculating on nothing less than a possible rescue of the commercial. "We are all aware that the commercial as an interrupter of a feature film on TV has reached the end of its career," said Roman Kuhn. His new idea is now a separate platform for commercials of a more advanced kind. On
short films with integrated products will be shown. As a pilot, "The Erlkönigin" can be clicked on. Anyone planning to buy a new car in the near future, for example, can watch this film for several minutes. The images show the desired Mercedes in all poses and driving situations, broken up into scenes that are as beautiful as they are exciting or action-packed. There is also a tool that allows the viewer to click on certain parts of the car. This takes them to the brand page, where they can find more information about the car or other products presented in the film.Kuhn believes that many such Floaded clips can be edited with "waste material" from traditional commercials. Beautiful drives that last only seconds in a movie or TV commercial can be squeezed out in full length on Floaded and accompanied by beautiful music. "The emotions that can no longer be generated in a 20-second spot - because the switching costs are too expensive - can come back into play in the new medium," Kuhn believes.
As a pioneer in the search for future forms of advertising, the German automotive industry has contributed financially to the launch of Floaded. In line with the concept of "entertainment at the front - product information at the back", the development of special microsites is also part of the design of a Floaded clip. The information presented in the film is further elaborated on there.
To make the new advertising films as attractive as possible for viewers, additional links should also be provided, for example to the actors appearing in the film and their latest movies. If the music plays an important role, information about the band can be obtained by clicking on the corresponding button.
"These new forms of advertising require even more overarching thinking on the part of agencies," Kuhn concluded in the workshop. Does Floaded have more chances of survival than "Second Life"? This will be debated at the next I-Day.
Wickert's double successIn addition to the trend scouts from Profero - a partner agency of Plan.Net in London - and this year's Cannes juror Friedrich von Zitzewitz, who invented the Horst Schlämmer blog, Ulrich Wickert will also be presenting a new project on I-Day. The retired "Mister Tagesthemen" from ARD continues to work as co-editor and creator of the news platform Zoomer.
Launched in February by Holtzbrinck Verlag, this portal already employs 40 full-time editors. Zoomer has 1,000 comments per day on its site. With over five million users, the newcomer has already overtaken the generally popular TAZ site.
Wickert was interested in details such as the fact that ten editors monitor user comments for 24 hours so that no misdirected "user-generated content" can enter the network. The television personality explained that a 90-second video blog is best received by Zoomer. Wickert also had personal success with a reading where Zoomer users watched him for a full nine minutes without a single interruption.
At the workshop on this topic, it was agreed that the boundaries between print and online content will become even more blurred in the future. However, this is not the end of print products. Wickert even cited examples where a printed magazine has evolved from a website. However, this was still a marginal issue relating to nature conservation. But perhaps nature conservation does not actually play the most important role in the virtual world.
Andreas Panzeri