Argos’s decision to communicate its digital transformation with a cinema ad and billboard activity shows the weaknesses of digital marketing.

The first motion picture, the Lumière brothers’ L’arrivée d’un train, caused panic when it was first shown, according to legend.  

The terrified punters fled to the back of the cinema to avoid being flattened. Rationally, they must have known it was just a projection, but the immersion of the audience was such that the image of an oncoming train was enough to get their adrenaline pumping and muscles in motion.

True or not, it’s a testament to the power of moving images to pull our basic emotional and instinctual levers. For all the interactivity of digital media, it’s worth remembering that it can’t recreate that power to make us jump, scream or shrink in our seats.

So it shouldn’t puzzle us that Argos has chosen above-the-line media like cinema and even billboards to communicate its digital transformation to consumers.

Only these channels can deliver the digital shift as an emotionally credible proof point for the revitalisation of its brand. With huge emotional barriers to overcome, Argos needs a platform through which they can reach out and touch us where it matters. 

It’s simply a matter of biology. Tucked away in our brains, there’s a magnificent, underappreciated limbic blob, which does a hell of a lot of work for businesses. 

It’s the emotional bit - skittish and sobby and excitable. It likes to be stimulated. And it’s where brands live and thrive. But it’s under assault, or rather, under siege.

The digital landscape of price comparison websites and classified banners is a fertile feeding ground for our rational brains, but an arid wilderness for basic instincts and emotions. Yet instincts and emotions are the very stuff of brands; the intangible, perceived value which is so hard to build and so very easy to undermine.

Looking at the world through a touchscreen, it’s framed, controlled, manipulable. Pop-ups, in-streams and takeovers are irritations we swat away with a brush of the forefinger.

Step outdoors, and the world is beyond that kind of control. Out there, the unalterable physical presence of an immense billboard speaks with more gravity than banner ads online. And step outside we do – after an online browsing session, often we’ll be happy driving down to pick up what we want from the high street. 

Argos is placing a huge bet on these habits. So it’s investing in becoming a digitally led business whilst retaining a deep retail presence.

Argos knows what it has to give people what they want, when they want it – and that such choices will be emotionally driven. Ultimately, it recognises the power of the oncoming train to interrupt, grab us by the limbic nodes and send us screaming to the back of the cinema. Or to the shops.

  • Rob Ward, head of strategy at 18 Feet & Rising