Problem: Advertising today is disjointed: the stories are separate from one another.
Solution: Some of the biggest ad campaigns in the world (GEICO, #LikeAGirl, The Most Interesting Man in the World, Got Milk, etc.) are character-based: the use individuals as the focal point of their messaging and develop a sense of interest and allure for that reason. GEICO used a Gecko, Always used athletic girls, Don Equis used an actor, and Got Milk made a mustache the star. The list goes on and on. Most recently, I came across this advertisement for the Playstation 5 by Rick and Morty (two extremely popular cartoon characters)
It got me thinking: would it be possible to create a whole business focused on building character-based media content that could eventually become advertisements (or vice versa?) Perhaps the best example of this is Disney: a media company that now has become a marketing and advertising powerhouse (and cash cow) purely because people love its characters. The business would innovate by attempting to create cohesive marketing that inspires individuals to buy products or take an action based on affinity rather than necessity.
Perhaps one “competitor” would be The Ad Council. As described in a March 30, 2020 Forbes article,
Since the early 1940s, The Ad Council has brought together marketers to communicate a wide range of issues of national importance. It promoted World War II efforts and also created Smokey The Bear to prevent forest fires. In the 1960s, it launched a campaign for the Peace Corps, in the 1970s helped introduce the first Earth Day, and in the 1980s fought drug and alcohol abuse. The 1990s led to anti-discrimination campaigns and in 2001 the nonprofit led the industry response after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Now, to stop the spread of COVID-19, The Ad Council has recruited dozens of companies to donate their time and money to finds ways to tell people to wash their hands and stay home.
While the Ad Council is an affiliation group, they have used their influence for good: taking iconic characters to make a difference. In fact, they even inspired an Elmo advertising campaign.
Perhaps the best bucket to understand this business is as a consulting brand. But these are notoriously not scalable and not venture-sized, so how would this be different? Perhaps by focusing on computer vision and rapid social-media testing to create characters: rather than shooting in the dark (like current creative processes) this business could apply science to likability for the purpose of constructing entirely new characters.
The global consulting market is estimated to be about $250 billion. When segmented, the marketing consulting market is estimated to be about $55 billion.
Monetization: Selling these services or access to these beloved characters.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)