Taken from an interview for Inside Facebook (September 10, 2008)
As Facebook becomes a larger player in global media, multinational agencies are playing an increasingly active role in the marketing ecosystem around Facebook and the Facebook Platform. Inside Facebook recently sat down with Camilo La Cruz, Executive Creative Director at Rapp, to learn more about how the global agency sees Facebook.
Thanks for your time today Camilo. What does the Facebook ecosystem look like to you at Rapp Collins?
We see our task for our clients as creating communication that can enable a dialogue. Frankly, that will never work if you don’t have anything interesting to say. But we are hyper-social creatures. Ultimately, we see brands as facilitators of social engagement under the general umbrella of entertainment or knowledge gaining. Facebook is one of the biggest places where that is happening right now. The question is how do you activate that “social tissue” and add real value?
We’re definitely still in the early stages. Most of the things that we’re doing are experimental. We’re an agency rooted in direct marketing, so we measure everything (and we have to or we’re not invited back to the table). Today’s Facebook is a mass medium in its own right, but that doesn’t mean you can activate it with traditional mass media approaches.
So how do you go about it?
You have to think about how to activate the social tissue. We start with a concept focused on people (not “consumers”) that we want to engage. For example, take Kidnap!, an application created for the Travel Channel. We’ve had two million “kidnap requests” sent since the application launched in July. Why? It’s entertaining, and it’s built with the traveler in mind — not the tourist. It’s delivered in an unbranded space, and only people that dig deeper for information about a particular location are exposed to the brand. However, that doesn’t mean that if Kidnap goes extremely well we wouldn’t build it as a standalone application or a gaming application.
How does Rapp think about working with Facebook directly vs. on the Facebook Platform?
Facebook is still trying to figure out how to engage and monetize their users, which leads them to think about experiences that are ultimately more interrupting in nature - even though they are more social. 98% of applications have less than 1,000 users per day. We want our brands to provide value to people as a service - either entertainment or information. Brands can’t just say things, they must do things. We see applications in particular as an interesting way to experiment.
My ultimate concern is my client’s business. One thing we’ve all learned is that the old model of interruption is no longer viable. The touch points with users must be emotionally rewarding. Facebook is a great space for that to happen.
We need to add value to your life so that you pay attention. And we want to allow co-creativity so that you can share it with your friends and make it social.
Can you talk about any other projects to date?
We’re working on several things that I can’t talk about yet. We’re very proud of our early accomplishments with the Travel Channel. I think we’re at around 250,000 monthly users. It’s definitely working for the brand by other KPIs as well - like website traffic directly from the application, and in general. We’re fans of Facebook, and we will continue experimenting.
Camilo La Cruz - NY
I was interested to read recently the growing role that social networking and open source thinking is playing in the digital advertising world. The open source model whereby a global network of like-minded people all contribute to a common goal, is being adopted by more and more companies to bring additional thinking power to the table, that they would otherwise not have access to.
The thoughtology is that it is likely that someone has already come up with a solution to the problem you are trying to solve and as such why re-invent the wheel? Websites such as InnoCentive (http://www.innocentive.com/) are breaking new ground in assimilating global input to corporate challenges. Companies register as “seekers” choosing to remain anonymous or not, and place requirements online asking a global audience to come up with proposals. Some “seekers” include some of the world’s largest organisations, such as Google in their relentless global pursuit of talent and services.
One such example in context to the advertising world is a organisation wanting to rebrand itself similar to the new RAPP. The seeker (company x) can place a requirement online describing itself, its vision etc in turn asking a global audience to come up with a proposal including concepts, designs and idea’s for its rebrand. The proposals are then reviewed, and if a proposal is deemed good enough - a contract is entered into. The benefit of this approach is that you tap into a global audience, providing you with many more ideas and options that you would normally have using a traditional approach.
This is one example of how the internet and its ever expanding global reach, is opening up new channels in the pursuit of innovation - not just in advertising. The wisdom of many allows us the opportunity to learn and grow in ways previously not realised, but it also requires a different thoughtology to more traditional methods and ways of thinking. Not everyone is accepting that these new channels are sustainable or legitimate, but it can’t be denied that the digital world is evolving faster than ever before.
