What Part of "Interactive" Don't You Understand?

Online - The BIG Idea - May/June 1996
by Bayard Saunders

America Online has over five million subscribers for the same reason there is a telephone in almost every home - they make it easy for people to connect and communicate with each other. That's about as interactive as you can be. So why is the creative community ignoring this lesson?

Many clients today are asking Creative Directors for loyalty marketing and relationship building campaigns to communicate with existing and prospective customers on a pro-active basis. Long the bastion of direct marketing, the most important lesson learned by direct marketers implementing these type of campaigns is that communing with customers is the only way to build loyalty, and unless those business reply cards or coupons come back, there is no real connection.

True interactive creative design today is about contact points and content nodes. Content nodes in an interactive environment are like the inserts in the envelope of a direct marketer - the advertiser has no control over how much or in what order they are read by the consumer. But contact points are more like the "800" numbers of an inbound telemarketer, and the most successful of these connects human beings. "The Time-Life operator is standing by," ready and willing to talk with you, is the model which works, not a recorded message played by a machine.

While companies are concerned today about the return-on-investment value of their current Internet World Wide Web sites, many still think of the new medium in old mass communications and broadcast paradigms, and so erroneously look to media planners to create "traffic plans" and buy expensive, advertising "links" on other popular sites to entice people to visit. This is wrong from beginning to end.

Rather, a company looking to maximize a return in this medium should find creative interactive designers who can help them achieve their original goals (if they had any other than just getting online to match their competition). Creative directors and producers accomplish this by creating for online interactive as one integrated piece of a holistic marketing communications plan, and by creating the environment for interaction to occur online, interaction and the building of a community of interested consumers, which is the basis of most popular sites and all successful interactive communications today.

Local examples of this sort of creative design are the Internet Factory's VIRTUAL COFFEEHOUSE - MOTOR CITY WEB BOARD/CHAT (http://www.motor-city.com/coffee.html), where you decide on the topic, then you can post your opinions on an electronic bulletin board and read what others have to say about it any time you like, or engage someone in a live, real-time "chat" session, swapping stories or asking questions as fast as you can type. Also, Birmingham Internet Group's THE PLANET 96.3FM - CHAT ROOM (http://www.theplanet963.com) which is building a community of listeners who want to listen to their station and chat with their friends. Also, built by Creative Communications and hosted by Netrex, the AMERICAN RACING SCENE - SHOPTALK (http://www.racecar.com) lets automotive afficionados and IndyCar fans from Europe and Asia post to this bulletin board, where many of our local voices defend the reputation of our primary industry. And a new entry from BizServe, the BUSINESS EVENTS CALENDAR (http://www.bizserve.com) which is updated and maintained by members, for members and the general community, with all the events which you can personalize to show only those matching your chosen interests.

Where can creative directors, art directors, writers and producers learn about new media tools and communication of the interactive design concepts to account representatives and clients?

Locally, the Center for Creative Studies, College of Art & Design in Detroit offers extension and undergraduate degree classes in Digital Multimedia and some of the major desktop publishing programs, and Wayne State University, Oakland University and the University of Michigan Dearborn offer related classes in their Computer Science curriculum, but nothing yet exclusively for creative interactive communications online. Walsh College of Troy offers half-day continuing education introductory classes in the basics of online navigation and publishing, but no formal credit. Both public and private introductory classes are also offered by most of the internet service providers in town, and most of the professional associations have sponsored one or more meetings this year with online communications as the featured topic.

Through the summer a series of professional development courses for the creative community are being offered by the new training company, Alan Sandy & Associates, in conjunction with the Michigan Internet Association, BizServe-Online Technologies, and the BIG Surf Cyber Cafe. There are special classes for strategic planners and account representatives to help them understand the possibilities of the medium and generate ideas for new media marketing campaign proposals.

There will also be a series of "Techo-Lunches" for Creative Directors, Art Directors, Writers and "WebMasters," working on interactive communications projects today. These informal sessions will uncover the latest developments in online creative design issues, translating (not just transferring) creative from print or broadcast to the online environment, techniques and tips for using the new development tools, and presenting creative interactive concepts. Perhaps more important, it is the first opportunity for Detroit's creative community to come together with their peers to improve the quality of interactive work being done today.

To get on-line call:

• America Online - (800) 827-6364
• CompuServe - (800) 848-8199
• Prodigy - (800) 776-3449
• Delphi - (800) 695-4005
• Michigan BizServe - (313) 761-8742
• Microsoft - (206) 882-8080
• Netcom - (800) 501-8649
• Greater Detroit Freenet - (810) 691-7077