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.