Screen Grab

Kevin Roberts

Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi

Brian Collins

Executive creative director, Brand Integration Group, Ogilvy & Mather

Resolved: The most powerful way to touch people is through screens.

Roberts: There are three ways to a consumer's heart. Mystery, sensuality, and intimacy. And today it's the screen where they come alive. As we move into an age of mobility, interactivity, attraction (not interruption), and time stress, we will rely more and more on our screens for information, entertainment, communication, transactions, and engagement. Screens feel real, personal, intimate, playful, and physical. They are the campfire storytellers of today. They connect viscerally and emotionally through sight, sound and motion. The family of screens--mobile phone, PC, TV, DVD, movie, Playstation, in-store, outdoor--is within arm's length, all the time, for all of us. And we're lovin' it--they connect us to the world, to ideas, to brands, to each other. Welcome to the Screen Age. And they let us interact immediately. Bliss.

Collins: Sure, screens are engaging. We often work with our clients to design theirs. But in our rush to embrace opportunities presented by digital technology let's remember that screens are just one part of our daily life.

You said it yourself, Kevin: screens "feel" real. But they are anything but. Ultimately they are sensation without experience. The best way to someone's heart is by creating real experiences, not only synthetic ones. And the best way to do that is through design. Look, it takes me only a few seconds to send a text message that says, "I love you." And it lasts only a few seconds before it is replaced by an explosion of other equally fleeting messages. Sending a dozen red roses amplifies my same message -- geometrically -- with form, weight, texture, scale and scent. Design individualizes my message because only I choose those particular flowers, that vase. Design not only ensures that my message will arrive with eclat, but it will be part of my audience's life for days. Screens may be hypnotizing, Kevin, but design is humanizing. It makes ideas tangible and real. So welcome to the Design Era, where we think beyond the screen to find real mystery, real sensuality and real intimacy.

Roberts: We've moved into the Age of Paradox--no more either/or, no more black/white. It's all and/and. Experience is key; design is core. Emotion is the common thread, and the screen is the most ubiquitous delivery method for making these connections everywhere consumers are. The screens are the new touch points which will lead consumers to feel the experience for themselves. The screens are where the attraction begins--for follow through in stores (the new theatre of dreams), in the bar, at home. So I think the game is about developing insight, moving on to foresight, figuring out how consumers feel, creating an idea, connecting on the family of screens, getting the design right from the shopper's perspective, and then delivering an authentic moving experience at the two moments of truth (when they choose and when they use). And/and. Voila!

Collins: Screens are where the attraction begins? For follow through in stores? I haven't heard such a linear communication strategy since NBC cancelled Bonanza. Let's finally escape the dreary old model where a commercial defined the brand story and all the other channels endlessly repeated it. Fine when Lucille Ball ruled the airwaves, but expensive and deadly when spot-centric brand models have collapsed. In fact it's the sheer glut of screens and the flickering ersatz life they offer that makes people respond ever more powerfully to real experiences.

An example: Our campaign for Dove didn't begin anywhere near a screen. Instead, we started by designing a touring exhibit of women photographers' personal views on beauty -- images that undermined the unreal, damaging stereotypes of beauty advertising. Thousands of people lined up to experience the groundbreaking show at malls across North America. Not treated as "shoppers", most people stayed inside the gallery for a half hour. Many visited with their families. Some were moved to tears. This experience was powerful because it was tangible and social -- and impossible to replicate on screen. The press the brand enjoyed was far greater than any screen-driven media could generate. Billboards followed and brought the debate into the street. Print ads placed the story into people's hands. PR drove the discussion though the media.

And only then did Oprah invite the Dove women on her TV show. Only then did the debate heat up online, with over 4 million hits on campaignforrealbeauty.com.