5 ways to innovate media

In the era of information explosion, brand communication is not an easy task. If you want to achieve effective communication, you cannot do without media carriers and use media to innovate content. This article summarizes 5 ways to innovate media, hoping to inspire you.

In the era of information explosion, brand communication is not easy. If advertising wants to achieve effective communication, it cannot only focus on content innovation, but also needs to make some interesting innovations in media carriers. Traditional posters are playing less and less roles, and media are being presented in a variety of forms. A billboard that changes with the light, a subway station sign that allows you to lie down... Such media can attract more attention.

Here, we have listed several commonly used innovative media advertisements:

01 Light and Shadow Media

Fashion is a cycle. The neon lights that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s have now become a carrier for many cutting-edge brands to show their fashion personality. Adding a twist to this foundation may lead to unexpected interactive effects.

The AB side advertising light board of Night Taobao uses a special UV double spraying process to create a visual contrast between day and night. During the day, it looks like an ordinary bus advertisement, but at night, when the neon lights on the billboard are turned on, the text on the billboard also quietly changes its "meaning".

"After a whole summer of air conditioning, I want to enjoy some natural breeze?" "Enjoy some natural breeze in the summer"

"You're wearing something nice tonight, but you don't have time to go out and take a good look at it?" "You're wearing something nice tonight, so you should go out and take a good look at it at the street."

"The weather is getting hotter and hotter, I can't help getting irritated" ...

The lights come on just when it’s time to wait for the bus after get off work, and in this way, the brand communicates softly with its users: in addition to work, you should also have your own nightlife.

Compared with unchanging advertisements, this "dynamic" advertisement is more dynamic and interactive, and it accurately understands the psychological needs of users.

Similarly, there's this PSA from the Mary Keating Foundation - normally, this minimalist poster would read "November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month."

Once a coughing sound is heard, a close-up of the lungs will appear on the poster screen, with a reminder message: "If coughing has become a part of your life. Go get checked."

Such a moving poster is like the kind concern of relatives and friends. Compared with direct persuasion, such an advertisement can give people a gentle touch.

02 Tactile Media

From the perspective of visual effects, traditional 2D advertising is definitely not as good as naked-eye 3D advertising. But when the technology has not been updated and iterated on a large scale, what should traditional media such as subways, walls, and bus stations do? Making a fuss about touch may be a breakthrough point.

For example, Gujia directly integrated its products into the bus stop signs and made a set of real "soft advertisements". When passengers lean on the bus stop signs to rest, it is actually a face-to-face sales, and they can directly feel the touch and comfort of the product, which will also make passengers waiting for the bus start to associate it with the coziness of staying at home on the sofa.

Compared with the same old paper advertisements, such creative "soft advertisements" will become a street scene worth "checking in" in the city.

There is also this set of subway "soft ads" made by Taobao during the Hangzhou Asian Games. The protruding Taobao doll looks like a spirited gatekeeper, standing in the busy waiting station, giving workers who have not yet recovered from the long vacation a little rest space. After all, waiting comfortably is also a kind of vacation.

You can lean on it to wait for the next train to arrive, use it to vent your anger and relieve stress, or use it as a landmark to meet your friends after get off work tonight.

Some psychologists believe that 80% of our impressions of others come from non-verbal factors, that is, most of them come from the senses. Therefore, when communicating with users, it is better to find differentiated breakthroughs from other "senses".

03 Scene Media

Using everyday life scenes as advertising media to construct a larger narrative space is becoming a popular trend nowadays.

The most common way of expression is to use "daily real scenes + copywriting", which touches the hearts of young people lightly and accurately in a relatively lifelike manner.

For example, the children's clothing brand Youlan launched an event called "Celebrate a Small Thing", which collects every beautiful little thing in life, writes it on a postcard, and places it in the corresponding real-life scene to remind people to pay attention to and pay attention to the little beauties happening around them.

Juhuasuan captured the "drying quilts" scene with a strong sense of life, so it held a bed sheet art exhibition. Through the subtle connection of "bed sheets folded in half = half price folded in half", it conveyed the promotional information in a warm and down-to-earth way.

With insight into the national "travel fever" and the emotional needs of "seeking good luck", Tmall has set up a "good luck pick-up point" on the airport conveyor belt. Luggage is being transferred, and life is also being transferred. Through this warm little thing, everyone can smile knowingly while anxiously waiting for their luggage. Our lives have started to move, and we will definitely have good luck when traveling.

Abandoning "grand narratives" and "high value", brand creativity can be brought back to physical touchpoints. Everything can be a medium, and some scenes that you are accustomed to may also become emotional links between brands and users. After all, the closer the advertisement is to life, the easier it is to resonate.

04 Nature’s Medium

Good advertising does not require too much text description. Try to leave your creativity to time, and nature will give you a different answer.

For the 618 promotion, Tmall combined “low price” and “tide level” to create an interesting outdoor advertisement.

When the tide is at its highest, people can only see a "corner of Maoshan" on the billboard. As the tide slowly recedes, different contents are revealed on the billboard.

"Have you ever seen a complete low tide?"

“No one wants to know what it’s like to be in low spirits.”

"But when the tide recedes, there are always surprises waiting for you!"

As night falls and the tide reaches its lowest point, the surprise that has been paved all day finally surfaces: "Tmall 618 10 billion subsidies, the price low has arrived!"

Too straightforward advertising can easily cause people to have psychological resistance, while using nature as a medium, its elusive mystery can give people a sense of anticipation.

There is another way to play, which is to directly use natural scenery as advertisements to intuitively demonstrate the advantages of the place of origin and build product trust endorsement.

NetEase Yanxuan's "We Don't Need Ads" series of outdoor ads uses transparent billboards to frame a "dynamic landscape" that connects the heavens, the earth, and everything else. There is no need to emphasize "pure natural" or "pollution-free", as this landscape is the best advertisement. In this communication process, the product is the protagonist, and the brand is just another kind of nature's porter.

05 Symbolic Media

I call the use of a specific element to convey the brand's message as a symbolic medium. Sometimes, outdoor advertising does not need to say too much. Grasping or amplifying the brand's specific symbols to create a sense of understanding can actually communicate with consumers remotely. For example, the outdoor poster of the power supply "Barbie" only uses one side of pink, using this color symbol to communicate with consumers in an interesting way.

The same is true for the draft beer poster, which uses the word "raw" that fills the entire screen, plus the joyful expression of a person drinking, to create a scene with great visual impact.

Recently, IKEA used the same logic to promote its new store, enlarging its iconic blue shopping bag and designing it to look like a store poster to tell people that a new store is about to open.

They all have one thing in common, which is to capture and extract a certain element symbol, and complete the reception of the message through the consumer's brand memory. It is like an interesting decryption, and finally reaches a tacit understanding. Such media expression not only conveys well, but also strengthens consumers' memory and cognition of the brand. -Advertisements must be interesting, but they must also attract users' attention.

Under this premise, the content of the scroll is not enough, and more new expressions are needed in the media. Of course, with the commercial application of technologies such as AI and AR, brands are also trying new technologies and tools, and perhaps they can find a good breakthrough. Through the integration of AR augmented reality technology, richer interactive gameplay has been created. Not only does it provide users with an immersive experience, but it may also open up a full-link shopping path of "what you see is what you get" in the future. I believe there are more media gameplays waiting to be unlocked.

Author: Aye, WeChat public account: Shock Copywriter