Getting contextual on the 'Net: Ogilvy coins brand relevance for all

Give the new Pond's Institute website the once over and you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd navigated yourself onto a beauty portal. But since when did translating a brand onto the Web get this sexy? According to OgilvyInteractive Asia-Pacific CEO Kent Wertime, since the moment ecommerce took off and the consumer was put in the driving seat. Coining "Contextual Marketing" as the change in marketing tactics for clients making the 'Net leap, Ogilvy has equated product, education and information as the new marketing tenets. "We've seen that clients are genuinely befuddled about how they can begin to get on the 'Net in a relevant way," Mr Wertime told CReATION. "Contextual marketing crystalises the way in which clients are going to have to reassess their communications to consumers when they get on the 'Net". Featuring the product and its attributes on a website no longer cuts the mustard - today's consumers are lifestyle, not product-driven, junkies. And a journey to Pond's Institute website (www.pondsinstitute-hk.com) shows the site's key draws - funky graphics and consumer-centric customisation/personalisation. But products are only a fraction of the offering, with areas such as Your Skin, Skinformation, and Let's Talk, a chatroom for users to contact celebrities online. "It was very important for the site to be totally on-brand," said Unilever Hong Kong marketing controller, Helen Chow. "Both the website and (real-world) counters reflect the Pond's values of an honest approach to beauty". According to Mr Wertime, for many OgilvyInteractive clients launching Web-ward, being willing and able to address a wider range of topics outside the brand alone is essential. "But, again, they need to be prepared to understand more about what the context (of the brand) is. "If you go back over the last 40 years, product marketing has been about the soup in the can or the brand image around the can - everything under the sun was done to improve soup sales with new ingredients, secret ingredients, all natural ingredients," he said. This time, the 'Net is ringing the changes, throwing open extra brand dimensions, and in the mindset of contextual marketing, soup becomes more than just soup - it's about family nutrition; likewise, babies' nappies are more than just nappies - they are synonymous with parenting. "The 'Net has provided a way of inculcating a depth of consumer understanding in a way that, frankly, other forms of marketing and communication weren't able to do in a mass sense," Mr Wertime said. Once on the Web, the context of a product within a richer, broader, lifestyle framework is the key to a consumer's heart - and 'vortal' is the latest buzzword. "In the context of the Internet, people are used to portals; however, the goal of a lot of our clients is not to develop a portal per se, but a vortal - vertical portals featuring everything about a particular subject," said Mr Wertime. While FMCG companies such as Unilever are largely leading the contextual marketing revolution, the Web has forced them to change die-hard marketing habits. "Today, they have to be about product and service and this seems strange for an FMCG, because they'll say 'what I'm selling is a product that sits on a shelf'. Increasingly in the wireless world, you're going to see that all companies have to have more of a service element to their brands." Taking Coca-Cola Europe's lead for easier location of its products on the Web - even going so far as having WAP-enabled vending machines which use wireless virtual credit as payment - Mr Wertime remains pragmatic: "The 'Net is an exciting opportunity for marketers but it's also a demanding new space. It's not something you should walk into lightly, without understanding what consumers really want."

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com