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If you’re wondering about the best way to get across your Big Idea, you really ought to be thinking about the internet. Forget any fears that you might have once had about whether it’s possible to communicate a Big Idea online. Those concerns are no longer relevant. In fact, in the light of changing consumer habits and expectations, the web can deliver more than just a Big Idea. It can help you deliver a Bigger Idea.

It wasn’t so long ago that online marketing and advertising were perceived as the poor cousins of offline campaigns, but things couldn’t be more different now. The days of traditional ‘push’ strategies – where you push your message out to consumers – are over. It’s no longer enough to simply put your message out to the public at large and keep your fingers crossed that it gets picked up by the people you want to reach. The most successful strategies have as much ‘pull’ as ‘push’. They engage with people and encourage them to interact with the brand and its products or services in some way. Which is why it’s so important to get your online activities right.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen an increasing shift away from passive consumption to a more interactive experience. According to a 2007 Forrester Research study, Europeans spend an average of 14.3 hours a week online, compared with 11.3 hours watching television and 4.4 hours reading newspapers and magazines. A survey commissioned by web content provider Break Media last October meanwhile revealed that nearly 70% of men aged 18 to 34 would rather give up TV than the internet and, rather worryingly for the future of mankind, 26% of them saying they would rather surf the web than have sex.

Striking a chord with your audience
A successful online campaign is all about listening to, understanding and planning for your audience. It’s vital to adopt a targeted approach, but this can be potentially tricky because web audiences are getting more and more fragmented. So as well as knowing who their audiences are, brands also need to identify where they are and what they are saying. Research is clearly important, which is why a lot of brands are now employing specialist word-of-mouth companies to monitor the different areas of the web, including blogs, forums and networking sites, and report back on what's being said about their products and services. The insight gained by this process can then be used to create a campaign that will both strike a chord with potential customers and be in tune with the media they’re utilising.

When it comes to the creative side of online campaigning, there have already been lots of innovative ideas – and there will undoubtedly be lots more to come. Games usually go down well and these can be made as simple or complicated as required, ranging from quick knowledge and skill tests to extended alternate reality games. The interactive nature of gaming makes perfect sense in the digital environment and devices such as treasure hunts and puzzle trails can encourage even deeper levels of user involvement, especially if there are plenty of original hooks and twists along the way.

Dancing eyebrows and saucy undies
Brands that have used the internet to communicate Big Ideas include:

Cadbury
The confectionary king’s recent ‘dancing eyebrows’ advert was watched by three million people in the space of a month on YouTube at the beginning of this year and the company have now launched ‘Jivebrow 09’, giving everybody a chance to star in their own dancing eyebrows video. Cadbury would seem to understand the potential of the internet better than most. They wasted no time in moving their ‘singing gorilla’ advert to the web, where it was seen by more than 10 million people in 2008 and spawned countless spoof versions – from Wonderbra to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Lynx
‘Get inspired. Get tooled up. Get in there.’ It’s hardly the most subtle advice for any young man about town hoping to enjoy a little female company, but then Lynx don’t really do subtle. They do cheeky and cocky instead. With their Lynx Effect microsite, the Unilever male fragrance brand have put together a highly entertaining lad’s mag-style online seduction guide. The content includes videos and downloadable mobile tools, as well as an opportunity to record your finest caveman noises and challenge your mates to a roar off.

Skoda
The car manufacturer has been running an ingenious interactive campaign to promote their Octavia range in the Netherlands. By logging onto a campaign website, internet users were able to remotely control some of the features of a real car which the company parked at different locations around the country over a period of several weeks. Users took the controls for one minute at a time and were able to manipulate the car’s lights, windscreen wipers and horn, as well as a series of voices played from speakers hidden in the car bumpers which made it sound like the car was speaking. The results – and the reaction of passers-by – were recorded by two cameras and relayed on the website via a live stream.     

Agent Provocateur
Back in 2001, the exclusive lingerie firm shot a short video called ‘Proof’ which featured Kylie Minogue riding a mechanical bull wearing their sauciest of saucy undies and not much else besides. The video was banned from TV, but proved to be a huge hit in the cinemas. So much so that, eight years on, it’s just been voted the best cinema commercial ever in a poll by DCM, a success undoubtedly fuelled by its enduring popularity on the internet. Because while it may be many moons since it’s been shown in the cinemas, it’s showing on YouTube whenever you feel like reaching for the popcorn.    

Churchill
An example that is close to my heart is Churchill’s ‘Challenge Churchill’ campaign. The Challenge Churchill television advert, in which the insurance company’s iconic dog answers questions in a ‘Millionaire’-style quiz show, achieved the best recall during the space of a single week in 2008 in ‘Marketing’ magazine’s Adwatch of the Year with a whopping 83% recall. But just as important in raising brand awareness were Churchill’s associated internet activities, including web advertising and a microsite, with the online drive notching up almost 44 million page impressions.

Bringing your brand to life 
These campaigns are all Big Ideas going on Bigger Ideas. They’re just a few examples of what can be done online. The internet enables companies to carry out integrated and immersive work, pulling people closer to your brand and bringing it to life in a way that’s simply not possible on television or on radio or in print. Add discussion areas and social bookmarking links into your mix and, as well as giving users a good story to tell their friends, you’ll give them the tools to start spreading the word straight away.

With the right online campaign, you will be able to:

• Extend your reach
So you’ll get to more people.

• Target your audience
So you’ll get to more of the right people.

• Adapt your campaign
You can shift the emphasis of your campaign and change your messaging depending on how your audience is reacting.

• Establish trust
And trust is a key factor in somebody deciding whether or not to part with their cash – especially when times are tough. 

• Gather information 
The web provides plenty of opportunities to find out more about your customers and get feedback on your products and services.

• Measure your success
It’s easy to gauge the success (or otherwise) of a campaign when it’s online and you can do so on an ongoing basis.

• Save money
The internet is a much more cost effective medium then television, radio or print.

• Go on and on and on 
As well helping you with specific campaigns, the web gives you a permanent presence.

Whatever you decide to do online, it’s important to remember not to be intrusive. You shouldn’t try to deceive people. You must be transparent. And however effective your campaign is, you still need to ensure that your product or service is rock solid. If it’s not, the people you want to talk about how great your brand is will be using the tools you’ve given them say precisely the opposite.

Ultimately, the trick is to stop worrying about trying to control everything, which is something you’re not able to do anyway. As Cadbury’s marketing director Lee Rolston said of the dancing eyebrow video, “We just let it go and see what people think of it”. It takes a little dollop of courage along the way but, with the right online campaign, your Big Idea will be more than just a Bigger Idea. It will be an Idea That’s As Big As You Want It To Be.

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