The summit's attendees included influential figures such as Ty Montague, then the co-creative director of Wieden+Kennedy's New York office, which has won three Big Idea Chairs for its "Beta 7" campaign -- a mock Web log supposedly posted by a beta tester of Sega's ESPN NFL Football video game. The anonymous tester criticized the game for being so violent that it made him black out and tackle people. The site had 2.2 million visitors in four months. "The creative departments at ad agencies still see TV as the sexy medium," says Montague, who's now chief creative officer of J. Walter Thompson, "but their days are numbered. These people will either get religion or get left behind."
That might sound a bit hyperbolic, but consider this: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, even after broadcast TV had come to more than half of U.S. households, the reputable creative directors refused to make TV commercials, which weren't very good yet and still weren't admired or respected as an art form. Eventually, they got religion -- or got left behind. nFC
Forget about "30-second spot" and "prime time." Here's the newer lingo as brand advertising moves to the Internet.
A mock Web log that's actually an ad, pioneered by Wieden+Kennedy's campaign to promote Sega's ESPN NFL Football game.
A user interacts with the ad (sometimes inadvertently) by rolling the cursor over it -- without even having to click.
An advertiser pays up to $1 million for all the ad space for a full day on the home page of Yahoo, MSN, or AOL (sometimes all three).
Short film downloads from the Web. Pioneered by BMW, which hired acclaimed Hollywood directors to make 10-minute films starring its cars.
A twist on viral films: Advertiser-produced series that draw consumers to the brand's Web site. Pioneered by American Express.
Vertical column running along the side of a Web page.
Ads with animation, video, audio, or interactivity. May use techniques such as float, fly, and snapback: animations that jump out from the ad and sail over the home page before retreating to their original space.
Alan Deutschman is a Fast Company senior writer based in San Francisco.
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