'Creativity is aligned with technology': Facebook's Mark D'Arcy
At the Ad Club event held in Mumbai, D'Arcy spoke about how technology is changing businesses and powering creative ideas
Sarmistha Neogy | Mumbai | November 3, 2014
Mark D'Arcy
The advertising fraternity turned up in big numbers at the session hosted by Ad Club with Mark D'Arcy as the speaker. It was a memorable Friday evening for attendees, with food, drinks and a fun session with the VP and Chief Creative Officer of Facebook Creative Shop giving his take on 'Creativity that Matters'. The event was held on October 31, at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.
D'Arcy commenced by saying that no matter how exciting any platform is, creativity is the key to unlock it. Creativity stands for ideas and people who matter, and also connects brands and businesses. A follower of Bill Bernbach, he believes that creativity is not abstract, but it is aligned with technology.
D'Arcy observed that a radical transformation of technology is happening today, which was not the same when he grew up in New Zealand. Back then the biggest piece of technology was a digital watch with a calculator, with which he was always fascinated. Today, he observed, things have changed and we have got super powers in our hands. This transformation, he said has had far-reaching impacts – it is changing businesses and paving the way for different platforms and applications. “Earlier, content existed for that particular moment of time, but now we can record, and thanks to other technological advancements, we have the ability to entertain ourselves with any piece of content we have. Through companies like Facebook and others, today, we also have the advantage of connecting people in real time, as a result of which we live in a word of seamless connection,” he stated.
All the above powers have not only changed our approach towards advertising, but also towards marketing, he commented. “I have been in advertising for the last twenty years. I got into advertising in my teens, and it was only a year ago, that I understood what advertising really means. If you go to the root of the word advertising- it means to 'avert attention'. Today, we have infinite choices, deeper control and finite time, so it will be wrong to assume that we have the right to disruption. Therefore, what is happening now is that we are moving from disruption to connection. Marketing, on the other hand, is a new science and discipline; it is the manifestation of services for ad purpose. The key to a successful business is that one should always respect one's audiences' time as much as they do their own,” he said.
D'Arcy also spoke about Facebook ads and campaigns. “The secret of making the best Facebook ad actually depends on the context of your life, and for whom you are making it. It will be different for a college girl in Mumbai who travels every day by the local, as against a multi-millionaire who lives in the Silicon Valley. I hear brands saying 'we have reached a Facebook fatigue, therefore let's run a campaign'. Yes, campaigns contribute to conversations, but it has to be well-planned and chalked out, in order to expect results,” he advised.
He cited an interesting example of Nescafe's campaign called 'Can we turn virtual friends into real life friends?' For this, Nescafe asked an average guy to meet his Facebook friends unexpectedly, and offer them coffee as real friends would. The guy filmed these encounters for two months, creating a two-hour long web documentary. The documentary reached over 7.5 million viewers and turned into a real social phenomenon in France, helping the brand become a symbol of true connections.
He concluded the session by saying that people are fundamentally different and brands can no longer assume that they are ignorant. “The success to anything depends on the way we approach them,” he added.
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