But I first had to take care of the world I know

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="248" caption="Bud Caddell, as surrounded by Post-It notes."][/caption]

So nothing like 2 hours in customs and then more hours sitting on the runway because it's snowing at your destination, but it gave me time to read through this thought-provoking article from Bud Caddell on the future of the ad agency.

First off, it's great; it doesn't claim all the answers but it probes in all the right places. And for whatever reason I was thinking about this a lot over the weekend, and you should totally read Bud's piece first, because this is my take, and there are a bunch of synergies.

1. We do not need more web shops.

Now, I say that with a lot of friends running their own places, so let me qualify that statement. Most companies only need some simple hosting, a Wordpress install, and should spend the majority of their money on design. To saddle people with cumbersome, proprietary content-management systems and code re-written from the ground up when someone else's plugin will do exactly what you want is morally bankrupt.

On top of that, it can be done more cheaply and to a reasonable level of quality for around US$20 an hour. Sad for some, but it is the modern equivalent of the industrial revolution. And the money is best spent elsewhere.

2. This is "elsewhere".

Content. Content content content. I recently did an audit for a company and came out of it with the exact thing I expected: they didn't give their customers anything other than coupons, so subsequently that's all they talked about.

3. Everything gets easier.

This is the biggest truism, and it exists as uch inside the ad industry as it does outside it: everything, I do not care what it is, will get easier. It will happen in manufacturing as much as it will happen with technology, so companies whose existence relies on technology have but one choice: to make problems that are difficult easy for the people facing them.

Agencies with big technical production capabilities need to send the work out to be done more cheaply, take the best and brightest they have and remake that department as a research & development arm. There is no reason Foursquare could not have been created by Zagat's; but nobody was working on that kind of problem. Not hard enough anyway. The digital shops need to go back to their engineering roots; they need to sit a bunch of curious minds from across the board together and be inventors; that work is far too important to leave to agencies - and they're not going to do it anyway.

4. No points for second place.

One of Al Ries' 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing said it was better to be first in a new category than 2nd in an old one; that is basically positioning but it speaks to a fundamental truth: marketers need to stop inventing problems for products to solve and focus on creating products that get back to the existing ones, which I suppose just echoes what I said in point 1 more generally. And particularly in the CPG space, they need to udnerstand the conversation around the product is always more interesting than the product itself (e.g. baby formula or parenthood? Which is more interesting?).

5. What we used to call digital will lead, and it won't survive without traditional talent.

Bear with me: it doesn't make sense to talk about "digital" anymore, it's too ubiquitous to mean anything. What we're really looking at is a kind of "curation of connections", which happen in various places. Great strategists can lead that, but they're going to need content produced - and occasionally a short, branded spot or a still image. One thing traditional advertising still has over new media is the ability to tell a story in a heartbeat; we'll always need that sort of eye, but there's no longer any reason for it to lead, its importance is decreasing by the day.

6. This only applies to the companies that don't create true value.

Apple, Zappos, and the other handful of brands that create products and services so compelling they don't need to market the way everyone else does are going to continue to chart their own course. Long term, companies are better off focusing on that than trying to advertise their way into people's wallets, as that stops working the second the ad stops.

So, in summation: the agency will be replaced by strategists defining touch points and curating content for those points, and that can be a 3rd party or it can be a savvy brand manager. Regardless of who it is, a lot of people currently in agency land are simply not capable of that. It isn't a sell, it's leading by being meaningful, and advertising just isn't good at that.

Web shops who want to remain web shops need to use the cheapest technologies available, and make their own approach more turn-key. If they don't, they will lose out to overseas suppliers who can do it all cheaper (and likely faster). The whole notion of a "digital" agency needs to be ditched, we're talking user-experience and connections, regardless of whether that happens virtually or in the real world. The shops who don't want to do that need to be inventors.

And brands that don't want to deal with either need to create products so compelling and in-tune with their customer base they largely sell themselves. Advertising was always the price you paid for being boring, and shortly it may not be a price you can pay at all.

Let's get together and do it again

JP Morgan's Imran Khan (different Imran Khan) is tipping online display advertising to grow this year by around 10.5%. Which is obviously massive. He also cites a few trends that seem to be moving the industry away from naff executions - aka the banners that neither you nor I ever click on. Which, let's be honest, is all of them. He is talking though of a trend more towards what Banner Blog exists to share with us, which is great.

That's not what I want to talk about though. In the same article Khan talks about mobile growing 45% (!!!) this year, winding up with $3.2 billion spent on SMS, $253 million in mobile display, and $321 million in mobile search.

A few things:

1. As the mobile platform improves, the notion of display as distinct on mobile from PC will disappear


2. It will however give way to services sensitive to your platform and do other interesting things around location, and device-specific functionality


3. I don't understand what constitutes "mobile search" - maybe someone can explain it to me?


4. Advertisers who invade the phone like they have every other medium are going to get smacked; it's still too personal

Aside from all of this, it's the same Mcluhan-esque mistake (slide 44) made in online advertising where we take what we did before and force it into this new shape because we don't know any better. If anyone truly believes the best way to use a mobile phone is to send people SMSs, they deserve the rapid demise their business will receive.

Frankly it speaks to the lack of vision and general laziness that pervades the entire ad industry. With the simple days of TVCs and print long behind it, rather than thinking about how it can reinvent itself to be relevant in a new era, it consistently mines tired ideas that speak to the silo-mentality of 20th century media.

People, look at foursquare, get in and use it for a few weeks. That, right there, is a perfect storm of local marketing, small business marketing, and mobile. If you do not see it, either try harder, or find a job where you do not need to.

When honour is at stake, this vow I will make

I've been thinking a lot about The Three Musketeers - my framework for business models which places them (perhaps overly simply, but simply none the less) into two baskets: All-For-One (self-serving pursuit of value) or One-For-All (pursuit of value for an ecosystem). The former is business as usual up until the advent of Google, at which point things seem to turn, and we see more and more businesses cropping up and being successful by creating value

I had, for the longest time, felt uneasy about Facebook. My sense was that it was founded with All-For-One principles, and I have a hard time viewing it as a business that seeks to create value for an eco-system; it is, to my mind, the second coming of Microsoft rather than the second coming of Google.

I say that, but I also now can't help but acknowledge the market they have developed for small and local businesses to target customers, and the platform they have provided for brands to interact on a more personal level with fans. In some ways, it lessens the role of the ad industry, which to my mind has a hard time justifying itself as even remotely One-For-All, and so can only be viewed as a good thing.

Your friend and mine Umair Haque takes aim at Facebook in a recent Harvard Business blog: over the Farmville debacle

Once, banks held debt till maturity. The great unnovation was being able to sell it to the next guy, who sold it to the next guy, and on and on and on. What was once a simple, short value chain lengthened to the point of absurdity. Exactly the same value chain pattern is surfacing in media. Ads used to be bought and sold through a short value chain. Facebook ended up serving toxic ads because they were sold through lengthening chains of intermediaries — each of whom shifts the buck to the next guy.

The argument does and doesn't hold water in places - to my mind it swerves dangerously close in places to the kind of opinion that states ISPs are responsible for their customer's illegally downloading music. The overall point stands however, which is sacrificing the end-user for the man with money is a short-sighted strategy.

We need to spend more time creating things that user wants in the first place.

That is what One-For-All is all about.

Tell the whole world the truth is back

Image via Wikipedia

I've spent the last couple years talking about intent in various guises. Sometimes related to marketing, sometimes to business, but always, always at the heart of what anyone is doing. It has become an intrinsic part of what I write about, as anyone who has been with me for a little while will attest.

In February 2008 I penned a piece looking at Facebook's advertising ecosystem (things have changed dramatically since) and referenced a piece by your friend and mine Doc Searls on The Intention Economy. This phrase showed up again in a presentation I did called Digital Strangelove, and I realised just today, after stumbling across Doc referencing that presentation (tremendous honour and incredibly humbling) that despite spending a long time making sure the appropriate references were in place and credits given, I had not tipped my hat to Doc and his original article which clearly made an impression on me.

Thankfully the medium within which we work allows for easy retraction, correction and re-dissemination of correct information - if we choose to take advantage of it. I have updated my deck with a link to Doc's original piece in the credits, and wanted to take the time to acknowledge the source of that phrase. Additional credit I can only add by stealing from Sir Isaac Newton: if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Thanks Doc.

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world

Tomorrow I'm teaching a course at the agency I work at, titled (long before I arrived) "Today's Digital Consumer". The first thing I'll be doing is pulling out "Digital" from the topic heading, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has read Digital Strangelove.

I'm wrestling with theory vs. practice right now though; it could be a very practical talk, or it could be one of big ideas, and I'm not sure where the common ground is. I feel like it's a moment for practical advice, for saying things people can take away and do. I also feel like advertising spends too much time just doing, and not enough time thinking about how it should be done.

Regardless, I'm thankful to have an audience that stretches across a variety of disciplines, from media planning to print production, and I'm hoping what comes out of it is a practical discussion, a lively debate and some points of view that challenge my own. It isn't about being right, it's about being least wrong, and I'm viewing all of this space right now with a smile and a shrug and a sly nod to a future version of myself who is already looking back and saying "Remember when..."

---

Image courtesy of the gracious and lovely Hugh Macleod.

You light up my life like a polystyrene hat

I give advertising a really hard time, partly because I work in it, and partly because it is a collection of some incredibly insightful and creative people who have chosen to try and sell more soup. I know soup needs to be sold, but I feel like after 8000 or so years of it, soup's proposition is fairly well established.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself loving the below TED Talk from Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman and Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy UK. I originally found it via the newly-discovered (by me) brilliance of Simon Kemp, and after bristling self-righteously that someone would argue for perceived value instead of actual value, I found myself giggling at Rory and remarking to a friend how insightful he was; his delivery is so desperately English, I love it.

Watch and enjoy.

[ted id=658]

*Update* The afore-mentioned brilliant Simon Kemp is also sharp and posted a link to a Q&A done with Rory after the talk he gave.

And the world seems to disappear

So I was watching Curious Films' Best Ads on TV vodcast this morning, the latest installment of which has a cracking Johnny Walker ad in it featuring Robert Carlyle. It's below, enjoy.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.862031&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D5996591%26server%3Dvimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D0%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3Duser%3A401515%26context_id%3D%26force_embed%3D0%26multimoog%3D%26color%3D00ADEF%26force_info%3Dundefined]

posted with vodpod

So as I was watching this I got thinking about the length of this "commercial". It may get a few runs on TV in its entirety, may get a few more in cinemas, but will most likely find its life, if it is to have one, online. So, that takes us quickly to a place where it isn't a TV spot, it isn't anything other than video which will be consumed in various places and fashions.

We're seeing the destruction of industries built to sell physical things in large quantities. Text, pictures and sound are things that will shortly exist almost exclusively in bits, not atoms. Fred Wilson talks about the destruction of industries that are "end-to-end digital". We're seeing in the music industry, in publishing, in television, in marketing, in R&D and we're going to start seeing it in a bunch of other industries that perhaps aren't as innately adaptable to being entirely digital, but you can bet that the parts that are will follow swiftly.

Clay Shirky said in a recent TED talk that advances "don't become socially interesting until they come technologically boring", and we're almost there. When everything is delivered via what we used to differentiate as "the Internet", the medium may infact cease to be the message.

That strikes me as, social or not, very, very interesting.

It's all about them words

A few years back I did a consulting gig on a print directory service everyone is familiar with. The project looked at how digital media was changing the landscape they existed in and they were interested in finding out how they could continue to be profitable while these changes happened. In the end the recommendation was to ensure migration from the offline service to the online one, and involved a strategy for doing so. Having delivered the final report however, the response came back stating their print directory represented X-million dollars of revenue so they expected it to still be a thriving business in years to come, regardless of what we had to say.

No prizes for guessing how that turned out.

I was reminded of this when I got home one day last week to see the below in the lobby of the building I'm living in at the moment.

Now, Yellow Pages wasn't the company so desperate to display their desire to stick their head into the sand, however they must, at some point, have had someone have a similar conversation with them. Three years ago when I was doing that project I stood in the middle of my agency and asked the entire office who had used a print directory in the last 6 months. Unless I was willing to accept "door stop" as an appropriate use, I had nothing.

It used to be if you weren't in the Yellow Pages you didn't have a business. Now it's a matter of being on Google's pages, and you best make sure its the first one. If I was advising a company still advertising in the Yellow Pages, I would tell them to take that spend and invest it in SEO, optimising its site for core competancies and locality.

Understand I don't think it is a good thing that a once proud business is dying, but few things are more Darwinian than business itself; ignorance should not be rewarded, nor should an inability or unwillingness to change with the times.

And we definitely shouldn't invest in delaying the inevitable.

The best around - June 12th, 2009

So this week I tweeted about an agency website which both had me giggling and marveling at its inventiveness. The agency in question, Boone Oakley is leapfrogging the notion an agency needs to have an impressive corporate site with not having a site at all. Instead, they have a video on YouTube which they have taken the time to build specifically for the platform, leveraging it in a way that is custom tailored to the site; it is not only a uniquely digital execution, it adheres to still fringe ideas around the distributed web and making your very presence as distributed as possible.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8"]

Plus it is very, very funny, and at 300,000-plus views, I imagine not only a bunch of disgruntled agency employees agree, but a host of disgruntled clients. To the companies out there who for some reason think they can get away witha  mediocre presence online and "let the work speak for itself", think again.

While we're on the work though, Goodby & Silverstein have a lovely piece up for telco Sprint. It is an execution unique to YouTube as far as I'm aware, following on from the brilliant Wario execution Nintendo had - I imagine this sort of thing will occur more and more as Google attempt to plug the US$500 million hole in the ship that is the world's most popular video sharing site. Users upload videos of themselves making a number via the ad and then are inserted into the appropriate spot in a banner that takes the idea of a digital clock to a new level. Check it out at BannerBlog.

Last but not the least, the biggest shift online this week is coming courtesy of Facebook. They're falling inline with most social networks and services and allowing personal URLs to be registered (e.g. http://Facebook.com/DavidNGillespie). This has previously only been open to brands at a cost, the indomitable Gary Vaynerchuk has more:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.837622&w=425&h=350&fv=]

more about "Gary Vaynerchuk - Why Facebook fan pa...", posted with vodpod

Take care everybody, and please let me know if you come across something during the week that simply has to be seen.

Best digital work this week - June 7th, 2009

Hi,

This is an ongoing series I'm doing rounding up the most interesting digital work I've come across in the past week. Sometimes it won't necessarily be new, it's amazing what can slip under the radar. If you find something you think is worth checking out, please leave me a note in the comments!

Cheers,

David

P.S. This post is best enjoyed with some Motown on in the background and a glass of wine/ice-cold beer.

----

This week has been somewhat of an odd one, I've been fixated on augmented reality (henceforth referred to as "AR") and have thus been scouring the web in search of the latest and greatest while trying to concoct ways to foist it on clients. Aside from just geeking out over it though, I really think there's an opportunity to tell some interesting stories in ways that have previously eluded marketers. Mini started off with a cute but ultimately shallow AR spot, I like what Ray Ban have done though, upping the stakes ever so slightly and making sure to use the medium to do something others can't (THE rule of ANY advertising: what can we do here that our friends in other disciplines can't?).

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAHYadYNz0w"]

As has been called out in other places however, not offering the option to "BUY NOW!" is a wasted opportunity.

In the interests of pushing things forward, I also came across a mad genius Russian raising the interactivity stakes, creating an environment virtual characters could interact with and makign it accessbile from your mobile (if your mobile happens to be a Nokia N95).

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyWVH6jkDHg"]

And I couldn't bring this up without of course pointing you in the direction of a video I found and lost a long time ago, bless the Japanese for all they have brought us:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JOM6Y_88Nc"]

Experiential markteters: take this and run with it. Please.

Now, as I am a big proponent of brands getting more into the facilitation of experiences and services in more of a sponsor sort of way, I was a big fan of this new webservice, Supercook. The premise is simple: punch in the ingredients you have lying around and let Supercook display recipes that match what you already have in the pantry.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMAr8p6UdQY"]

Dear Heinz,

Why are you not all over this?

Hugs and kisses,

Gillespie.

Moving on, in a great example of transparency, however cultivated I'm sure it is, I had no idea the Obama White House was running its own Flickr photostream. All companies who sell people-powered service please take note: putting a human face on what you do will always, always bring your customers closer to what you do. Next thing you know there'll be a Get Satisfaction feedback form on the official White House page.

Adding another section to platform cold war going on right now, a game called Spymaster has launched a closed beta. "What is so special about a game being in closed beta?" I hear you ask. Well, not much, except it has been built on and is to be played using Twitter. Mashable have a great round-up of it, and while this shouldn't be all that surprising given the myriad of web services already available, it's interetsing to see people extend Twitter's platform into a realm of sheer entertainment.

Last but not least, I couldn't help but share this Brazillian site encouraging people to...errm...urinate while in the shower as opposed to the toilet. I can't say it's a practice I'll be indulging in, and while I risk exposing myself for the hypocrit I am by including this site even amidst the lack of meaningful interaction between the site and its visitors beyond obligatory links out to various social networks, the execution is lovely and put a smile on my face.

Really, what more can we ask than that?

Best interactive work this week

Continuing the regular look at the best sites, banners and indescribables that came across my desk this week. If you see something (or better yet, make something!) worth checking out, please leave a comment and I'll come check it out.

There's something about the work out there at the moment that makes me want to leap out of my 9th - soon to be 11th - floor window. There is tedious, self-absorbed work from Mercedez Benz, Intel, Bank of America, it goes on. The BofA site, The Morris Code, it particularly disappointing as it comes courtesy of Organic, who really should know better. We're seeing the continued proliferation of TV commercials doubling as micro-sites, engaged in unhealthy, endless bouts of flashturbation. And for what? For limited, one-time value that disappears the second the media buy is over. Don't get me wrong, the production values on those sites are off the charts, but I think that's part of the problem - all of these sites are driving a message down the throat of the visitor instead of finding a way to engage and interact.

I finally arrived with great pleasure and enthusiasm on Magnetic North's site, which had at least taken the time to consider what one might like to do on the web. Light on the flash, heavy on the interaction, you can scribble on their home page, which reveals their work beneath it. View a campaign, if you like it click just once to see similar projects, a mix of finished products, sketches and demos. When are people going to learn brands can be tinkerers too? The best stuff is rarely shiny and never perfect.



The best banner execution I saw this week was for Prius. Saatchi in the US executed it but hats off to the media buyer, it no doubt took a lot of work to get it off the ground. Banner Blog has a QuickTime clip of it in action, honourable mention also to a Tourism Victoria spot from Publicis Mojo, which doesn't seem to be working properly on BB but I get the sense there's something pretty cute going on.

From the Much More Important Than Advertising Dept.: I missed this announcement from Google saying they were extending their dalliance with Open ID. As I wrote earlier this week at AVC, I want a single point of identification in my web access, not several logins for hundreds of silos. Slowly slowly catchy monkey.

But the coolest thing I saw this week, hands down, was some new work out of Boffswana, which is staffed by a friend or two in Melbourne. Look at the below video and marvel.

Augmented Reality: Releas3D Standalone Version. from Boffswana on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Let me see you do that switch-a-roo

This week: Microsoft unveiled a new search engine, and Google unveiled a new approach to email. This is akin to Cadbury launching softdrink and Coca-Cola creating chocolate bars.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et0rUzRAXGE"]

Microsoft's Bing

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ"]

Google's Wave

Ok maybe not that drastic, as Microsoft and Google already play in each other's spaces, what I find interesting is each company's desire to innovate in the other's space, potentially at the expense of the things that got them to where they are.

I have a number of clients at Microsoft and I like to think I challenge them regularly to try and build new markets as opposed to steal other people's; if Google is going down the same path then that disappoints me greatly. What I do find interesting about the above scenario though is Google's new email idea, called Wave, doesn't seem to have monetisation built into it beyond advertising, whereas Microsoft are obviously making a big bet on increasing search revenue via Bing, their new search engine.

Google's play seems to be closer to an idea where everything is contained in a single space, a move I like, away from distinct destinations. Much like Facebook, they're seeking a single dashboard from which they can control a user's experience. Microsoft meanwhile are chasing a better mouse trap. It could potentially be a more lucrative mouse trap, but I don't think it aligns with where user bahviour is going.

And as we all know now, disruption is never about a better mouse trap.

Go see Tim O'Reilly for more on Wave.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft Wants You To 'Verb Up' And 'Bing It' (gawker.com)


• Is Google Wave the Future of Email? (q-ontech.blogspot.com)


• Microsoft's Request: Use Bing, Don't Google It (nytimes.com)

Digital ash in a digital urn

So I wanted to find a site that compiled the best work in digital over the past week. It seems there are a bunch of niche sites doing this well but nobody covering the entireity of the space the way Best Ads On TV bring you...well...you get the idea. A couple categories are obvious: best site, best banner execution - however I'm keen to track down the best applications, be they in Facebook, in the browser, Adobe Air, whatever. I sould take the time to note that a pretty piece of Flash that could be a TV commercial (or, in a lot of cases, IS a TV commercial does not count). Leveraging my previous thoughts ojn the subject, I'm looking for executions that couldn't have been done in any other medium.

If somebody knows of a site that exists doing exactly what I'm after, please let me know, as there's lots of other thigns I could do with my time. On the assumption they don't however...

This week's best site is...The FWA's 50 Millionth visitor takeover.

• Because: It lives by that most important principle of bringing people togetehr and giving them something to do. Instantly leveraging its own community, the execution with Facebook Connect extends the community into the personal profiles of each person who takes part, making it instantly viral. Drawing a baseline at common interests and going from there, it plays to the narcissist in each of us by allowing a profile picture on a highly trafficked website and offers opportunities to connect. Brilliant execution.

This week's best banner execution is...Apple (struggling to find this to link to, so I've included an image and a link to a previous Apple banner which is different but still quite cool).

• Because: Each time I think they've taken the idea of PC vs. Mac to the end of the road, they find a corner to take. The content will be familiar but I like the use of space the best - yes lots of people have done this and pused the space better, but this got shared around with friends due to it being enjoyable to watch, not because it was clever. It's almost sponsored content in a way, Apple making me smile for 30 seconds a day. Microsoft, what have you done for me lately?

This week's best app is...Skype.

• Because: Apps, particularly on Facebook appear faster than anybody can document them. I didn't manage to get hold of my Mum last week for Mother's Day, so in making good on that, arranging a trip in July to see U2 in Ireland, and generally being a bit easier to get hold of, Skype running through Facebook has it for me.

So next week I'll think about this a little more. I wanted to dive into it today as I'm a big believer in digital requiring more of a willingness to figure it out on the fly. If you have things you find during the course of the week please shoot them through. For those, like me, in Canada today, have a great long weekend!

Money for nothing

Reminds me very much of the Scrabble piece also from JWT, though in Chile as opposed to Frankfurt where the above arrived from.

Via the always delightful bad banana blog.

Let's push things forward

While thinking about Balloonacy the other day, I watched a TED talk from Scott McLoud who has authored several books on comics. Scott, whose approach to comics is equal parts advocate, raging super-fan and passionate academic gives a great overview of where the medium has been, intertwined with his own personal history.

In discussing the move of comics from print to online, he refers to it as "a classic McLuhan-esque mistake of appropriating the shape of the previous technology as the content of the new technology" (about 11 minutes in).



Marshall McLuhan who he is referring to, is famous for saying "the medium is the message", the idea being whatever you're saying is impacted and altered by the medium it is delivered in. As a tangible example, this piece in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times carries more weight than it being on my blog, even though the content could be exactly the same...but I digress.

In the move online we found the tangible points to make sense. Email was DM, banners were billboards, video initially wasn't even possible. While email hasn't moved that far, banners (thanks to Banner Blog) are staring to find their own uniquely digital place as more and more people question what we can actually do in this space. It is of course too easy not to ask the question and just get the work out, but that isn't going to push things forward, or ultimately retain your clients.

With all this in mind, I'm trying to pull together a list of campaigns or ideas that could only have been digital. Balloonacy, Nike +, what else? It sounds like something interesting is in the works for Killzone 2, the possibilities of this medium are only limited by our ability to conceive them. To think there are still people who only want to make TV spots - they can have them!

<3

From DDB New Zealand, via the completely adored Bad Banana Blog.

Andrew, I'm looking for this to show up on your much neglected Tumblog... ;]

I aorde tihs

Via bad banana blog.

Strategy | Intent | Persistence (and tigers and bears OH MY!)

Digital strategy is a business decision, not a marketing decision. That doesn't mean your marketing team shouldn't be in the room, it means everyone else should be there with them.

Julian Cole wrote a piece a few months back saying "Don't trust an agency with your digital strategy." It does then beg the question (if I may, for a moment, speak client-side) "Then whom shall I trust in your festering cesspool of sharks, narcissists and hopeless egomaniacs?

Good question.

A single unit needs to own a company's strategy, and they need to be able to talk about each channel with authority. That sounds like a no-brainer I know, so I'm going to put this out there and see how it feels: you won't find it anywhere where the last name of an ad giant from yester-year hangs their name on the front door. That isn't because they don't have intelligent folk from all disciplines working for them, that is because their business models and internal practices will not permit the structural changes required to achieve genuine innovation and next-generation creativity for their client's businesses, let alone their own.

If anyone is hearing that for the first time, I promise I'm not the first.

I can't say I know all of the answers, or even any of them. But not enough people are asking the question. Or questions; you can phrase them in a myriad of ways, let's maybe start with something like this: why does Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne now have four people in its planning department, none of them digital natives? Tim, who worked there as a member of the planning team up until a week ago, had this to say:

I’ve been arguing for a long time now that as product, advertising, sales and service, all get closer together, advertising agencies really need to become creative marketing consultancies...some drastic restructuring needs to take place.

Drastic restructuring then did take place, though perhaps not along the lines he was thinking.

David Armano has talked about a move away from the silver bullet, much like Tim has. I took a personality test recently that told me I rated close to 0 when it came to perfectionism, but was a polar opposite when it came to creativity and a love of thinking. Call me biased (I won't argue), but that sounds like something very different to where we're currently at, and given that test it is no wonder I'm a fan of this new direction. I'm also a fan of offering substance, something advertising doesn't do very well at all.

I've talked a lot about intent, and I think this chart speaks to the heart of the same thing I'm on about. It is also the same thing Seth Godin means when he says the following:

Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

My friend Michael Hewitt-Gleeson calls it SDNT: Start Do Notice Think.

I call it intent, and when I talk about it, I talk about constanty refining the work we're doing to ensure the outcome is matching the intent; if it isn't we change it until it is.

Intent is at the heart of everything we do, and the group that owns your strategy should have it etched onto their brains, directing nothing less than strategy that delivers the intended result tomorrow better than it did today. Starting here I'm advocating a move away from the single-minded proposition to the statement of intent; it is fluid and flexible, and it ensures the goal is forever just over the horizon. It will keep you and your organisation passionate and motivated and restless.

And that is how it should be.

Social capitalism

I have an obscene habit of opening tab after tab after endless tab until Firefox starts to resemble an attempt to learn about everything there ever was to know. People spend their time playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I can get you from Miami Art Basel to Dave Eggers talking about after-school-learning projects (watch that by the way, it is amazing) to NASA's space imagery without currently needing to open any new links. I can get you there, but I can't tell you how I myself wound up on them in the first place.

I love teh interwebs.

Anyway, one of the tabs open is a piece I've been meaning to blog about since it was posted, instead I'm just going to give you the link and tell you to go read it. It is from Tamir over at Frank Thoughts and it is to do with TAXI's 15 Below Project. When I bang on about experiences facilitated by brands but not about brands, this is what I'm getting at.\

Fantastic stuff.

Ambiguity in narrative, in advertising

Yesterday I was at my friend Tim's place where we waxed lyrical over beers on how we can make a squillion dollars - look for an announcement on retirement shortly. While there he fired up GTA 4 on his Xbox 360 as I hadn't actually seen it in action (the gamer kids are asking for my dog tags back, it's really quite tragic). I was incredibly impressed, it seems all the learnings about the balance between a sandbox and a story had been compounded into an experience equal parts open ended and focused. The biggest issue in games like GTA 4 (aside from the mammoth amount of technology they have to wrangle of course) is giving the users who want it an open ended universe to explore while at the same time delivering a taught experience for people who just want to play a game.

Tim actually took exception, saying it hinted at a completely open universe but didn't actually deliver as he couldn't run into any shop he wanted, rob them and then go next door to rinse and repeat. The pragmatist in me thinks that is unrealistic, but only because I'm coming from the perspective of a person who once had to generate content for people like Tim to run into every nook and cranny they could find; that is not a fun job to have.

I digress though. Ambiguity. Who did their homework and checked out the HBO Voyeur site? If you haven't please go look at it now.

OK, what did you think? What did you see? A series of apartments spread across New York City, all with their own narratives going on. To my mind, what the agencies involved have done is take the essence of what they were promoting and asked themselves what the best way to tell the story would be. The other day I said the best examples of narrative in games are the ones where people think first about the story they want to tell and then settle on the style of game that suits it best; marketing can learn a lot from that approach, one of being platform-neutral and making sure the main thing is the main thing. No egos, no hidden agendas, just the desire to deliver the work in a way that suits the project best.

Sure, saying no egos in advertising is like asking the Pussycat Dolls to share vocals equally, like it was a vehicle for five careers and not one. The point remains though: we overcook so much on the way to delivering creative, we lose sight of what the brief was in the first place: to get the brand, product or service talked about.

Not the advertising around it.

---

Image courtesy of xeophin, with thanks to compfight.