Everyone and their brand is on the net. And the digi-spend keeps rising. If you need someone to manage your digital advertising and presence, it makes sense that you check out their presence online. I’m gonna compare two huge agency sites and see if one has the edge over the other.
Young & Rubicam
www.yr.com
The Site
Resisting the usual. Hmmm. This is the cliché for all ad agencies now. Makes sense but maybe resisting the usual when it makes sense and utilising the usual when it’s appropriate is a better idea. Articulating this well is the trick. I’m not even gonna try yet until I’ve seen everything there is out there.
Top marks for the original drag left/right main screen idea. But was it unnecessary? I had to think about it for a moment. Will others become slightly frustrated at this initial confusion? First impressions count.
The site is fairly uncluttered and easy to operate after you figure out the slide screen. Yet it doesn’t offer as much as DDB.
Some videos didn’t load or at least not on the first try. Websites must work seamlessly.
7000 partners worldwide? Is that an intimidating statistic? Should quality be noted before quantity?
If I’m an Australian brand, I want to see an Australian agency. The site is not going to drive these customers to the Australian agency.
Great site address though.
The Work (from the Innovation section)
The Spring Valley Sensible idea was pretty great. They created something original. Placed some intriguing posters at great spots and really seemed on top of things with a viable Facebook page that incorporated some cutting edge technology. Fantastic and the idea behind it was sound. But do you really want your brand/sensible notifying your consumers to take it easy at a festival? Nope. That’s what Mom’s are for.
The Latet project achieved news coverage and lots of media interest but looking at it from an outsiders/potential client point of view the clip didn’t really tell me much.
www.whenthelightsareoffthesiteison.com internet marketing 101, don’t make a difficult site address. While the use of webcam technology is fine while targeting those in a group likely to have top end laptops and PC’s (Nissan Z), this site could prove difficult to those not operating with these connections and equipment. Wasn’t the Orange site targeting a large demographic? Plus it’s way too gimmicky and pointless. The insight wasn’t regarding people in the dark, it was ‘People love to try gimmicks’.
Colgate, Second life. Good/great idea but Second Life is an overrated joke.
Maor campaign? Stop me getting to my internet site? Too intrusive. Publicity stunt. Pure and simple.
DDB
http://www.ddb.com/navPreferences.html
The Site
Straight away I have to think about it. Strike one against it. If you’re going to the website first time you don’t want to have to make these weird decisions.
It’s a little cluttered. I think a simple approach generally works best for any website. But the sheer volume of content makes up for it.
DDB has twice the number of employees (14,000) but articulates the advantages better than Y&R.
The voiceovers commenting on the work are a top notch idea and I believe that putting a face and voice to the agency on the website is always a good first step in starting any potential relationship.
DDB incorporates blogs in its website. Shows they have a good idea about what’s going on in the digital world. Plus they have an RSS feed. The Yellow Papers. Gold. I love these papers as they are fairly concise in explaining a lot of the theory in modern advertising while using DDB’s work to illustrate points. Makes one think they know what they’re doing.
All videos from Youtube play straight away on my laptop. So why should I have to wait for the half sized versions from DDB to load?
DDB encourages interaction on its website and wants communication and feedback
The Work
DDB consistently produces great stuff and has a fantastic amount of its work available to view. Sure some could be critiqued but too many of it is good or great and unlike Young and Rubicam doesn’t leave me thinking that’s not how you do it or you slipped up there. I can view a lot of great work.
The Verdict
The Winner is DDB. If I was a brand looking at these two sites, I’d plump for these guys as they seem to have a finger closer to the current pulse than Y&R who seem to be checking for the pulse behind your left shoulder. Yet I still prefer the simplicity of the Y&R website. However the DDB website offers a lot more value and I’d feel more confident allowing these guys to work with my brand.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
It must be really nice to work on the Coke advertising account. Unlimited budget, and no need to find any truly original tagline. Seriously you could put 10 verbs in one bag and 20 nouns or feelings in the other and with a little scrabble-esque whirl in the bag come up with a tagline that fits Coke perfectly. Then the creative team has to somehow combine the sun, beautiful young people and long refreshing swigs from a Coke bottle with some marginally original idea. Oh and add in a catchy upbeat song that wouldn’t work in the charts but is perfect as a jingle. There you have ‘Open Happiness’. Everything you would expect from Coke except this time..It’s Digital!!
And they’re doing it right. Apparently. Three ambassadors will travel around the world facebooking, tweeting, uploading, blogging and [insert random digital verb here]ing about their travels. Sounds pretty good so far but will it be a one way dialogue or will Coke allow consumer interaction to decide and make suggestions where these ambassadors go because if it’s just a travel log with Coke branding everywhere then I reckon consumers would rather look to independents or Lonely Planet experts for these experiences. The ambassadors themselves were chosen through recommendations by media companies and the likes of Lonely Planet culminating in some sort of online voting that nobody really ever heard about. Maybe Coke missed a trick here. The Greatest Job in the World campaign certainly got a lot of attention (although I do wonder if this attention was massive in Australia due to the location of the job) and Coke could certainly have run a similar competition for these roles. Maybe a Chinese, an Indian, a European, an African and an American chosen from be competitions within these regions might have created a lot more buzz. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how it goes. It could go well if there’s actual consumer involvement. I mean a vote for the ambassador to eat one of several local delicacies perceived as indigestible by your average western voter would be interesting. Or voting on the tattoo the ambassador gets as a memento at the end of the adventure. The possibilities are endless. The online game related to the campaign seems to offer Itune vouchers as a prize. Pity the game is slow and annoying. And on a related note it’s a little ironic that Cornetto’s new site is titled ‘no boring bits’.
And they’re doing it right. Apparently. Three ambassadors will travel around the world facebooking, tweeting, uploading, blogging and [insert random digital verb here]ing about their travels. Sounds pretty good so far but will it be a one way dialogue or will Coke allow consumer interaction to decide and make suggestions where these ambassadors go because if it’s just a travel log with Coke branding everywhere then I reckon consumers would rather look to independents or Lonely Planet experts for these experiences. The ambassadors themselves were chosen through recommendations by media companies and the likes of Lonely Planet culminating in some sort of online voting that nobody really ever heard about. Maybe Coke missed a trick here. The Greatest Job in the World campaign certainly got a lot of attention (although I do wonder if this attention was massive in Australia due to the location of the job) and Coke could certainly have run a similar competition for these roles. Maybe a Chinese, an Indian, a European, an African and an American chosen from be competitions within these regions might have created a lot more buzz. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how it goes. It could go well if there’s actual consumer involvement. I mean a vote for the ambassador to eat one of several local delicacies perceived as indigestible by your average western voter would be interesting. Or voting on the tattoo the ambassador gets as a memento at the end of the adventure. The possibilities are endless. The online game related to the campaign seems to offer Itune vouchers as a prize. Pity the game is slow and annoying. And on a related note it’s a little ironic that Cornetto’s new site is titled ‘no boring bits’.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Apparently video games are bad. Thats what they said about the movies at the start too. Kids should be reading books instead and people lament the culture lost to the decline of the written word on paper. But if you could flip it on its head and look at an alternative universe where video games existed before books and reading, how would people perceive books? They would laugh and shake their heads at this entertainment vehicle where you can’t actively affect the storyline, where there is no true interaction with the medium and at a solo pursuit that can’t be shared with your peers.
Traditional advertising and digital advertising are sort of in the same boat. Some marketers stress and shake their heads at social networking, consumer empowerment and the perceived decline of the thirty second spot. But the rise of digital advertising has to be considered an opportunity and a challenge. Imagine a world where digital had come first, before traditional mass media. Marketers would scoff at traditional advertising, asking; why doesn’t it directly hit the chosen target audience? Where is the two way dialogue with the consumer? Where is the opportunity to learn from the consumer and respond accordingly in the best interests of both the brand and the consumer? And of course where’s the opportunity to crowdsource?
Crowdsourcing is a word filled with possibilities. The ultimate example of course is Wikipedia, a success that surprised everyone but one that in hindsight was inevitable due to the massive connecting power of the internet. This connectiveness has increased at an incredible speed with social media at its core. But as increased video and Youtubing tops the list of digital marketers 2010 predictions, will we see the concept of crowdsourcing for brands become too much. Will consumers start to switch off at yet another video competition, designed for marketers to try catch lightning in a bottle, invades their world with the promises of prizes and opportunity? The Satchi and Satchi Toyota video submission debacle may serve as an example of this. They didn’t receive many contributions from the general public for a couple of reasons. The first was that they didn’t utilise social media to any great extent but perhaps the main failing was the lack of clear targeting and target market relevence. To truly crowdsource effectively you need to avoid trying to garner any involvement you can and instead focus on getting the involvement of the people you want. If you are an Australian brand or ad agency, you should limit the involvement to Australian consumers online. Why do other companies work for them? Why crowd out your target market? The world is getting smaller online but as ROI is ultimately measured in sales it makes sense to focus on those who will make those purchases and will ultimately justify your work.
Traditional advertising and digital advertising are sort of in the same boat. Some marketers stress and shake their heads at social networking, consumer empowerment and the perceived decline of the thirty second spot. But the rise of digital advertising has to be considered an opportunity and a challenge. Imagine a world where digital had come first, before traditional mass media. Marketers would scoff at traditional advertising, asking; why doesn’t it directly hit the chosen target audience? Where is the two way dialogue with the consumer? Where is the opportunity to learn from the consumer and respond accordingly in the best interests of both the brand and the consumer? And of course where’s the opportunity to crowdsource?
Crowdsourcing is a word filled with possibilities. The ultimate example of course is Wikipedia, a success that surprised everyone but one that in hindsight was inevitable due to the massive connecting power of the internet. This connectiveness has increased at an incredible speed with social media at its core. But as increased video and Youtubing tops the list of digital marketers 2010 predictions, will we see the concept of crowdsourcing for brands become too much. Will consumers start to switch off at yet another video competition, designed for marketers to try catch lightning in a bottle, invades their world with the promises of prizes and opportunity? The Satchi and Satchi Toyota video submission debacle may serve as an example of this. They didn’t receive many contributions from the general public for a couple of reasons. The first was that they didn’t utilise social media to any great extent but perhaps the main failing was the lack of clear targeting and target market relevence. To truly crowdsource effectively you need to avoid trying to garner any involvement you can and instead focus on getting the involvement of the people you want. If you are an Australian brand or ad agency, you should limit the involvement to Australian consumers online. Why do other companies work for them? Why crowd out your target market? The world is getting smaller online but as ROI is ultimately measured in sales it makes sense to focus on those who will make those purchases and will ultimately justify your work.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
In order to learn, you gotta learn from the best.. www.markpollard.net
Mark Pollard, the strategy director at McCann in Sydney keeps a fantastic blog and something he said in regards to strategic planning struck me and inspired me to start a blog "I’m also curious as to what actions your curiosity has led to. Do you make stuff – a blog, art, computers, cars? There’s no better way to learn about stuff than doing and tinkering. If you’re just curious, and only watch from the sidelines I’d be nervous that we’d talk only about theory. I want to know what you tried and failed at. There’s rich insight in those failures." And so I shall blog because blogs even though they are apparently evolving into microblogging, still form a large part of what makes the internet great. And the blogosphere can be where brands are either saluted or humbled for what they do on the net. A lot of bloggers consist of the innovators and early adopters that inspire the rest that adopt a brand. They also tend to be the Mavens that Malcolm Gladwell identifies in the Tipping Point.
What Pollard does in 10 words? "Find undiscovered human patterns and reveal them in compelling ways" He defines strategy work as "about understanding the cause of a business or brand problem – not simply solving a symptom – and digging for insights about people that are relevant to what the company has to offer… and linking them in a unique way." I think a lot of the moves to get into social media by brands is ignoring/skipping this step and trying to get out there as soon as possible without being particularly relevant. A good example is the Toyota fiasco with Satchi and Satchi. They didn't really utilise or push the social media and what happened was they ended up using their networking skills to convince their advertising peers to contribute. Not really a great idea but a useful lesson for everybody else. The social media has to be used as an ends to a means and not as an ends in itself. Presenting these facts to a client will always be difficult. A friend of mine did marketing consultancy for a small accountant. The accountant kept talking about facebook for his business. My friend sidestepped it nicely but what did the accountant expect? Kelvin became a fan of Yada Yada accounting, first post "Remember Keep your receipts until the end of the fiscal year"
So maybe I can find words of wisdom from other sources. While teaching I learned that the best way to re-enforce learning is through hitting different senses. Students learn better when they hear, speak, act, write and do rather than simply one of the above. The same applies to the current state of advertising, multiple platforms with an opportunity to respond. I can read all I want on digital marketing and I can write about it here on my blog, I can do it through apps and engaging with brands. Podcasts can form the basis of my listening experience. There's several podcasts related to advertising synching to my I-touch right now. Fingers crossed there'll be some gold and not a hodgepodge of marketing buzzwords delivered in a grating American accent. Teaching 101 says that teacher talk time should be 20% and student talk time should be the remaining 80%. Those principles are perfect for teaching but perhaps a step too far for advertising at this juncture. Nonetheless the onus on advertisers has to be to step up the student (consumer) talk time and create more and more engagement with the brand.
Best ads of the decade? http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/commercial-of-the-decade.html
Apparently the 30 second spot is dead but according to this list the 60 second spot is alive and kicking. Cool/entertaining/funny ads tend to go viral nowadays and 60 seconds allows much more entertainment to be worth a click. Maybe the whole idea should be to create a mini masterpiece and show it infrequently in peak TV spots, crossing your fingers that it also gets a Youtube run. It’s only really viable for the big brands with the big budget but done right it could prove to be an awesome boon to smaller brands taking a gamble. The winner was Honda’s syrupy cute animals and catchy jingle mishmash. Hmmm, doesn’t particularly endeavour me to Honda and I’m not quite sure that even the target market will be taken in either. Why go halfway towards saving the planet with your car when you can go hybrid or wait for the second coming of the electric car. The reader’s vote placed the ad at 23rd and maybe this is what should count. The readers selected the Bud Lite swear jar ad which made me smile and has 4.3 million views for the most popular clip of it on Youtube. Honda Grrr manages 150,000 views. So which is the better ad? And as for the Grrr ad beating Dove Evolution? You have to wonder what offbeat criteria the judges had. The Honda ‘Cogs’ ad was even far superior.
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup9.html Honda Cog ad
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup10.html Honda Grrr
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup2.html Bud Lite f*%&#n awesome!!!
Mark Pollard, the strategy director at McCann in Sydney keeps a fantastic blog and something he said in regards to strategic planning struck me and inspired me to start a blog "I’m also curious as to what actions your curiosity has led to. Do you make stuff – a blog, art, computers, cars? There’s no better way to learn about stuff than doing and tinkering. If you’re just curious, and only watch from the sidelines I’d be nervous that we’d talk only about theory. I want to know what you tried and failed at. There’s rich insight in those failures." And so I shall blog because blogs even though they are apparently evolving into microblogging, still form a large part of what makes the internet great. And the blogosphere can be where brands are either saluted or humbled for what they do on the net. A lot of bloggers consist of the innovators and early adopters that inspire the rest that adopt a brand. They also tend to be the Mavens that Malcolm Gladwell identifies in the Tipping Point.
What Pollard does in 10 words? "Find undiscovered human patterns and reveal them in compelling ways" He defines strategy work as "about understanding the cause of a business or brand problem – not simply solving a symptom – and digging for insights about people that are relevant to what the company has to offer… and linking them in a unique way." I think a lot of the moves to get into social media by brands is ignoring/skipping this step and trying to get out there as soon as possible without being particularly relevant. A good example is the Toyota fiasco with Satchi and Satchi. They didn't really utilise or push the social media and what happened was they ended up using their networking skills to convince their advertising peers to contribute. Not really a great idea but a useful lesson for everybody else. The social media has to be used as an ends to a means and not as an ends in itself. Presenting these facts to a client will always be difficult. A friend of mine did marketing consultancy for a small accountant. The accountant kept talking about facebook for his business. My friend sidestepped it nicely but what did the accountant expect? Kelvin became a fan of Yada Yada accounting, first post "Remember Keep your receipts until the end of the fiscal year"
So maybe I can find words of wisdom from other sources. While teaching I learned that the best way to re-enforce learning is through hitting different senses. Students learn better when they hear, speak, act, write and do rather than simply one of the above. The same applies to the current state of advertising, multiple platforms with an opportunity to respond. I can read all I want on digital marketing and I can write about it here on my blog, I can do it through apps and engaging with brands. Podcasts can form the basis of my listening experience. There's several podcasts related to advertising synching to my I-touch right now. Fingers crossed there'll be some gold and not a hodgepodge of marketing buzzwords delivered in a grating American accent. Teaching 101 says that teacher talk time should be 20% and student talk time should be the remaining 80%. Those principles are perfect for teaching but perhaps a step too far for advertising at this juncture. Nonetheless the onus on advertisers has to be to step up the student (consumer) talk time and create more and more engagement with the brand.
Best ads of the decade? http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/commercial-of-the-decade.html
Apparently the 30 second spot is dead but according to this list the 60 second spot is alive and kicking. Cool/entertaining/funny ads tend to go viral nowadays and 60 seconds allows much more entertainment to be worth a click. Maybe the whole idea should be to create a mini masterpiece and show it infrequently in peak TV spots, crossing your fingers that it also gets a Youtube run. It’s only really viable for the big brands with the big budget but done right it could prove to be an awesome boon to smaller brands taking a gamble. The winner was Honda’s syrupy cute animals and catchy jingle mishmash. Hmmm, doesn’t particularly endeavour me to Honda and I’m not quite sure that even the target market will be taken in either. Why go halfway towards saving the planet with your car when you can go hybrid or wait for the second coming of the electric car. The reader’s vote placed the ad at 23rd and maybe this is what should count. The readers selected the Bud Lite swear jar ad which made me smile and has 4.3 million views for the most popular clip of it on Youtube. Honda Grrr manages 150,000 views. So which is the better ad? And as for the Grrr ad beating Dove Evolution? You have to wonder what offbeat criteria the judges had. The Honda ‘Cogs’ ad was even far superior.
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup9.html Honda Cog ad
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup10.html Honda Grrr
http://www.bestofthe2000s.com/videopopup2.html Bud Lite f*%&#n awesome!!!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
So here it is my first post and I don't particularly care if anyone reads it..this is a diary for my extensive exploration into the much heralded yet muddled world of digital advertising in order to become a successful digital strategy planner in advertising.
I bought an i-touch. Bring on the iphone when visa issues allow me to hop on a phone contract but this'll do for now. I downloaded the best free apps and bought a few just to test them out and I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed. The potential is there but finding the right apps proves to be a tricky business. Try googling app reviews and try find a site that can even come close to the superb metacritic.com. This area needs an impartial review system that allows consumers to find what they want and I can't quite trust Apple with this job. I have to say this apps business is a work in progress but is unquestionably the future of digital technology use. The first question every website will have to ask itself from now on is "How do well do I run on the small handheld screen?"
But with every brand screaming to be a part of face book and twitter, you have to examine whether its a workable option. I took this from venture beat http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/23/the-plight-of-branded-ads-and-the-future-of-social-marketing/ "Verizon, Blockbuster, Nike and the New York Times have launched their own custom apps on Facebook. Their combined active userbase is just shy of 10,000. So if you were to turn all four into a single application, it wouldn’t even rank in the top thousand apps on the site." Wonder how many of the 10,000 actively use these apps? 1 in 10? possibly.. My immediate thoughts is an application has to be a quirky addictive game that offers prizes every week/month and that is winnable by anyone.. and is something that can only be played once a day by each individual user to prevent some users perfecting the art and playing it to death in order to win.. it also has to be backed by advertising in order to drive users and offer interesting prizes (obviously brand related) but maybe the best solution is for brands to piggyback onto existing successful apps and provide competitions within the app.. Mindjolt games seem to be doing very well.. could a brand get in on that action?
Well i reckon its time I tried out all these branded apps on facebook and the itouch.. Somehow the idea of playing games all afternoon doesnt excite me as much as I thought....
I bought an i-touch. Bring on the iphone when visa issues allow me to hop on a phone contract but this'll do for now. I downloaded the best free apps and bought a few just to test them out and I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed. The potential is there but finding the right apps proves to be a tricky business. Try googling app reviews and try find a site that can even come close to the superb metacritic.com. This area needs an impartial review system that allows consumers to find what they want and I can't quite trust Apple with this job. I have to say this apps business is a work in progress but is unquestionably the future of digital technology use. The first question every website will have to ask itself from now on is "How do well do I run on the small handheld screen?"
But with every brand screaming to be a part of face book and twitter, you have to examine whether its a workable option. I took this from venture beat http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/23/the-plight-of-branded-ads-and-the-future-of-social-marketing/ "Verizon, Blockbuster, Nike and the New York Times have launched their own custom apps on Facebook. Their combined active userbase is just shy of 10,000. So if you were to turn all four into a single application, it wouldn’t even rank in the top thousand apps on the site." Wonder how many of the 10,000 actively use these apps? 1 in 10? possibly.. My immediate thoughts is an application has to be a quirky addictive game that offers prizes every week/month and that is winnable by anyone.. and is something that can only be played once a day by each individual user to prevent some users perfecting the art and playing it to death in order to win.. it also has to be backed by advertising in order to drive users and offer interesting prizes (obviously brand related) but maybe the best solution is for brands to piggyback onto existing successful apps and provide competitions within the app.. Mindjolt games seem to be doing very well.. could a brand get in on that action?
Well i reckon its time I tried out all these branded apps on facebook and the itouch.. Somehow the idea of playing games all afternoon doesnt excite me as much as I thought....
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