metaphor offers a suite of services that produce winning branding and direct response advertising campaigns.
Brand communities are being built around Web sites and this means that people are engaging with the brand on a regular basis. They are looking to these sites for entertainment or education, but we all hope that our site owns some place in their minds. Whether it's answers to a healthcare insurance question or background on the owners of a company the user is able to interface with the experience they are seeking.
This interactive approach and engagement has put an entirely different spin on advertising. Advertising creative has often been seen as very "great idea" campaign-oriented and not always in sync with the brand. It's important to recognize that with pull marketing advertising becomes much more of a teaching tool.
What we want to do is let the consumer of the advertising know what's available to them. That should still include a "great idea," but it should not be driven by it. The "great idea" should be born out of the identity. Think Super Bowl recall...what was the brand for that great commercial again?
Brand awareness advertising in particular stamps a platform in the hearts and minds of the consumer that develops a longer-term relationship. Advertising becomes a part of our cultural landscape and surrounds us at every turn. We have become desensitized to the "push" methods of the past and we are now being inundated with product placement in film and television and Internet. At least these placements are becoming more subtle and relevant to the environments created in the scripts.
