Advertising Advice from the "Got Milk" Man
Jeff Goodby, co-chairman of the agency that created the groundbreaking ads, talks about what makes a campaign successful

MARCH 24, 2006 - BusinessWeek

Talk about a campaign of yours where you feel you have hit the sweet spot.
For the Milk Processors, we have come up with a Web site that ties into wild postings we did that talk about lost cows. We suggested that the cows were abducted by aliens. Do you know what happened to this cow? Have you seen her? There's a phone number and the Web site www.cowabduction.com.The idea here is that there is a veneer of reality to the whole thing, but then it's tongue-in-cheek. It's combining entertainment with marketing in an idea that people are willing to seek out.

So, is the old model of the unique selling proposition dead or at least dying?
I wouldn't say that exactly. But what I do know is that the Internet has reversed the tide flow. You have to create stuff today that people go to rather than spending all your time sending stuff out to consumers hoping that they see it.

Branded entertainment seems to be all the rage, seemingly kicked off about six years ago with BMW Films. What makes for good branded entertainment?
First, I never thought BMW Films was all that breakthrough. It was successful, but it seemed like a pretty old idea. The product was integrated into the films in a good way. But in the end it was an old idea just transferred to the Internet.The branded-entertainment model can work as long as it is simple and honest. You don't want to lure people to a Web site with a promise of naked ladies and then have the payoff be about Doritos. And some of the stuff I have seen, like the Art of the Heist campaign for Audi last year, which taps into this alternate-reality gaming trend, I thought was too complicated. It required too much time on the part of the consumer.I like simple stuff. When Crispin did the subservient chicken on the Web, that was a simple idea. Go to this Web site and the chicken will do what you want it to. Cows abducted by aliens. Simple. Entertaining.

Obviously you are a big proponent of moving a lot of advertising to the Internet.
TV and the Net will soon be the same thing. And companies are going to acquire a reputation for either being good entertainers or not. And if you don't play that game well, you'll be left in the dust. Eventually, we'll go to a Web site for all our entertainment. This is where advertising and design start to really look like the same thing. If you think of advertising as just selling, then that's the old model.