Red Roadblock and Integrated-Media Strategy

Gareth Kay, head planner of Modernista!, came by my Intro to Media Studies class. Some of the students has been talking about the cross-media aspect of the Red campaign, and after the Thanksgiving MTV/VH1 Red “roadblock” (at 9pm that night, the Red Manifesto played across all the Viacom broadcast platforms), it was very nice to get the skinny from the horse’s mouth. Not that Gareth is horsy. He’s a very nice young English man in fact. Anyway. Here are the boldface points from Mr. Kay.

Interestingness beats simple…as in the formerly inviolable “keep it simple, stupid.”

Give people something worth thinking about. Stimulate the desire to communicate.

Value complexity.

Communication is not a single channel.

Depth
Humanity
Humor
Subtlety should not be forgotten or undervalued

Advertising has been much slower than popular culture has been to work with complexity.