Another brilliant TED talk by Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland.
Brands that don’t exist
I love Herbert Simon’s idea that we live in an ‘attention economy’. In a world where we are busier than ever, the ideas or brands that we choose to spend our time with have the most currency. Those that we choose to spend no time with don’t exist. This poses an incredible challenge for companies that are used to buying attention from mass media audiences that are declining every day.
Today we have absolute control over how we consume media and interact with brands. We can DVR our favourite TV shows and skip the ads. We can install the AdBlock Firefox plugin and ignore banner ads. We can choose what organisations we want to ‘Like’ and communicate with on Facebook. We download our music from iTunes. We get our news from the RSS feeds that we chose to subscribe to.
How can marketers respond to this?
There are a lot of stopgap solutions we can put in place. We can still reach consumers through interruptive mass media advertising, although it’s getting harder every day. We can experiment with new ways to make digital media more interruptive and more like traditional media. In the short to medium term these will work, but I don’t believe that they are really viable long-term solutions to the fundamental problem.
As far as I can see, there’s only one real long-term solution. We need to learn to create our own media. The terms ‘owned media’ and ‘earned media’ are not new and they are certainly in vogue amongst digital people right now. But very few brands are actually doing it.
There’s no doubt that creating your own media is unpredictable. When you buy 2000 TARPs from the TV networks, you know pretty much exactly what you’ll get. You can probably model the sales increase you’ll get from the TV buy pretty accurately too. But when you put 80% of your budget into creating content that will earn you media, you don’t really know what will happen. It’s scary stuff.
Luckily the skills that advertising agencies have learned over the past 60 years will be more relevant than ever in a world where we need to make our own content to create media. Audiences will continue to congregate around the most compelling ideas and content, it’s just that this won’t necessarily be a 30 minute network sitcom. It could well be something created by an agency.
The incredible storytelling skills that have been built up in the advertising industry will need to be applied in new and different ways. A lot of our work will still end up as linear video content, but instead of making one extremely expensive 30 second clip, we’ll need to make executions in any number of lengths or formats at much lower costs.
But sometimes the skills required won’t be storytelling - sometimes that brand will need to use technology skills to create a software platform that becomes owned media. The most commonly cited example of this is Nike+, which has become an integral part of the product and has brought new relevance to a brand that was rapidly losing ground with runners.
In any case, the thinking will always have to start with “what can we make that will be entertaining or useful for our audience?” rather than “how do we communicate this message to our audience?”
Some are getting this right. Wieden + Kennedy’s ‘Write the Future’ spot for Nike has had nearly 15 million views in just a few weeks. They spent $12 million (US) on production, and little or nothing on paid media. Fiat EcoDrive is a technology system that integrates into the car and helps drivers be more environmentally friendly, earning Fiat free media around the globe and bringing real credibility to their brand’s eco-friendly positioning.
The brands and agencies that figure out how to create their own media will ultimately survive and thrive as the currency of the attention economy rises. Those that don’t adapt won’t exist.
The emergence of a new media system is typified by a period of transposition, where the behavioural grammar of the previous system remains dominant. The first television shows were radio shows with people talking directly into camera. The first films were stageplays that had been filmed. And the first marketing forays online took what we knew about media and branding from broadcast media and applied it to a whole new space.
But digital is different. Digital is not a channel. It’s a suite of platforms, channels and tactics that will, ultimately subsume its parents entirely. Digital marketing is not simply a new place to disperse persuasive symbols, but the emergence of any entirely new behavioural grammar, as companies and their customer begin to engage with each other in entirely new ways in entirely new spaces, where everyone has an equal voice.
From this MUST READ post by Faris, ”A decade of digital: 10 things for 2010”
We’re looking for a Digital Strategist - come join our team!
We need a Digital Strategist with a strong social media focus to join DTDigital / Ogilvy Melbourne’s rapidly growing team. This is an opportunity to play a key role in building the best social media team in town.
We have a track record of award-winning digital work dating back to 1996, and over the years have created an awesome culture and an unbeatable client list (were talkin Honda, Myer, NAB, Bunnings, Sensis, Football Australia and Fosters, just to name a few).
Day-to-day, you will be responsible for:
- Monitoring and analysing key topics of conversation about our clients brands
- Advising clients on how they can best approach engaging their audiences through social media
- Collaborating with creative agency teams on developing integrated campaigns
- Identifying and converting new business opportunities
- Running social media training sessions for clients
You have:
- A deep understanding of how real people use the internet in their daily lives
- A strong personal presence on key social networks
- Proven ability to work independently to deadlines and budgets
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills
- A love for collaborative problem solving (and mad lolz!)
- Ability to confidently present ideas and strategies to senior-level clients
- Relevant degree-level tertiary qualification(s)
Obviously a PR background would be highly advantageous, as would experience working in a digital, creative or media agency environment.
If you display some or all of the symptoms above, then send a brief cover letter and CV to alex.campbell AT ogilvy.com.au
reblogged from dtdigital
Anonymous asked: What does a strategic planner do?
To answer this let’s look at some background first…
In the early days of advertising, advertising agencies had two main roles. They would develop creative messages to engage their audience, as well as working out the best ways to deliver these messages through buying media on their client’s behalf.
In the 1970s these roles were split into two types of agencies. ‘Creative agencies’ come up with ideas for communicating the client’s messages. ‘Media agencies’ plan and buy the media to deliver these messages.
As this split happened, creative agencies realised that the social science that went into media planning could be used to help them make more effective ads. The role of ‘account planning’ emerged in creative agencies – so called because it comes from both ‘account management’ and ‘media planning’.
In traditional agencies, the role of planners is to unearth insights that creative teams could use to make more relevant, impactful ads. In order to do this planners conduct endless research into their target markets, looking for new trends, behaviours and needs that will allow the client’s message to cut through and truly connect with its audience. That’s the theory.
In some agencies (like the one I work at) the role is much more strategic, hence “strategic planner”. It involves a lot of consulting work with clients, identifying what the real business problem is that we’re trying to solve. It involves structuring the problem in such a way that our different teams can each solve part of it – some problems need creative solutions, some problems need technological innovation, some problems need content, many need all of the above.
The role also involves working collaboratively with creative teams on media selection, because in so much of what we do the message is deeply connected to and informed by the medium. And finally it involves filtering back the work through the brief to make sure it is still on-message and on-target, and helping present and rationalise the work to the client.
Unearthing insights and understanding cultural context is still an important part of what we do. But in digital this is much more of an ongoing, evolutionary process - we don’t create one-off 30 second spot and run 1200 TARPs, we create experiences that live indefinitely and require ongoing re-thinking and optimisation. And I believe increasingly our role should be to make creative work more culturally disruptive, rather than getting it to fit into culture. We should make trends rather than follow them!
Remembrance of things past
Alex Campbell, Strategic Planner at DTDigital / Ogilvy Melbourne
No topic has captivated the imagination of advertising people around the world quite like the “the agency of the future”. Conferences are held to discuss it. Blog posts abound. Twitter is abuzz. Countless articles are published. Almost every agency shamelessly proselytises their “new model” and the supposed glory it can bring to their clients, complete with new job titles and everything.
It has become a cliché to point out that we could have all solved a lot of important problems for our clients in the time we’ve spent debating what the agency of the future will look like, how it will be structured, or arguing over whether agencies in their current form will even exist in the future.
I can’t help but wonder if the answer to this question lies not in our future but in our past. There was a time – not all that long ago in the scheme of things – when advertising agencies were invaluable to their clients business. The days of David Ogilvy, of Leo Burnett, of Bill Bernbach. An age in which choosing the right agency was one of the most important decisions a CEO would make. An era when agencies drove the agenda with clients through real insights and innovation. When clients went to agencies with business problems and agencies came back with business solutions.
Of course it could never stay this way for long. The easy profits agencies made in the early days would never survive as so many new agencies entered the game, and the balance of power between agencies and clients would soon be restored. Along the way the work that agencies do became a commodity. Clients internalised the strategic role that made agencies so essential, and agencies became order takers rather than order makers – their main purpose became taking detailed briefs from clients and turning them into ads of the specified format.
No doubt the industry has been broken for quite some time, but the financial turmoil of the past 18 months brought this into sharp focus for many agencies. At best clients demanded more for their buck, at worst they wanted even more for even less. When you’re in a commodity business, account pitches come down to who will offer the required services at the lowest multiple. Any pretention of caring about strategic or creative value subsided with the times.
I have no idea what the agency of the future looks like. What I do know is that the rise of the internet and technology has profoundly changed the way brands engage with consumers, just as television reshaped the way that brands engaged with consumers in the days of Ogilvy and Bernbach. Everyone is scrambling to catch up with these changes. More than ever before clients need agencies to help them navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.
While ‘legacy agencies’ keep thinking that a 30 second TV spot and 1200 TARPs is the answer to every imaginable problem, let’s get in there and help our clients innovate and connect with their consumers in new ways. Let’s drive the agenda with clients through real strategic thinking – not just in their communications but in their products, in their distribution, in their packaging, and in every area where they interact with consumers.
Agencies that ‘get it’ right now are in an incredible position. We can help transform our clients’ businesses to make sense in the digital age, and reap the rewards that follow. The blueprint for this was established half a century ago - it worked then and it will work now. We need to take back our seat at the corporate strategy table. We need to re-learn how to speak the language of CEOs and boards. We need to build their trust and respect so that when they come to us with a problem, it’s a business problem rather than an advertising brief. We need to think and work laterally across all areas of the client’s business to solve the problem. Just like those who came before us.
reblogged from dtdigital
Why doesn’t anyone care about your new website?
When a business launches a new website there is typically some fanfare. Congratulatory emails abound. Executives make laudatory announcements. Website analytics are carefully watched for improved performance.
Yet the results that follow are often disappointing. Traffic stays steady. Bounce rates don’t move. Average time on site doesn’t change. It seems that no one cares that you’ve launched a new site.
If you find yourself in this position then your team needs to honestly evaluate how they got there. In my experience it’s much more likely that they got the website strategy wrong than the execution. No matter how good your website looks or how compelling your content is or how clever the technology behind it is, if your strategy is wrong then nothing else matters.
Following is a quick rundown on the top 10 mistakes that cause people to get their web strategies wrong. I’ve already reached my quota of offended people this week so I’m not going to give specific examples here (tempting as it is).
-
Uselessness
This is a killer problem for businesses of all sizes. Your site should aim to solve problems for your users by being genuinely useful. The concept of ‘Branded utility’ is not new, but today it is more relevant and important than ever. -
Egocentricity
Far too many corporate websites seem to be designed around their organisational structure rather than their customers’ needs. This makes for a frustrating experience for customers, who don’t care how your organisation is structured and just want to achieve what they came to do as quickly as possible. -
Diffuse identity
What is your site’s value proposition? Do you know? Is it clearly communicated to users as soon as they arrive on your site? There are billions of websites out there. You need to tell your users straight away why they should spend their time on your site rather than somewhere else. -
Lost in translation
Taking analogue ideas and applying them to the digital world is a recipe for failure. Many websites are literally an online representation of a brochure. Is this really the most effective use of the medium? Does your site do things that would never be possible offline? Does it do them in ways that would never be possible offline? If not then you’re probably missing out on big opportunities. -
Selfishness
The best websites are generous to their users. They don’t try and lock up their content on their site - they provide ways for users to share it. They don’t hide their best ideas behind registration forms and paywalls - they give it away for free. If you’re not being generous with your users, then why should they waste their time on your site? -
Listening to tech people
Tech people have a frustrating tendency to solve every problem by focusing on technology before worrying about what the business or its customers need. To avoid this, Forrester proposes the POST model, which outlines the order in which you should think when establishing web strategies: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. Understand what your customers need first, what your business is trying to achieve second, and your strategy for meeting both their needs third. Then figure out the best technology solution. -
Disrespectful irrelevance
Creating a site that isn’t truly relevant to your users is disrespectful and a solid waste of everyone’s time. This seems strikingly obvious but if you spend some time browsing the average corporate website you will be amazed at the irrelevant crap you’ll find. Do your customers really care about your Occupational Health & Safety policy? Or the lengthy bio of your marketing director? Or are these just getting in the way? -
Same same
You can’t expect to attract a significant audience by creating something that is similar to your competitors. Users have endless distractions and short attention spans. Unless you offer them something unique that they can’t get anywhere else, you’ll be invisible. -
Complexity
Creating overly complex websites can be an extremely costly error. You should aim to create the simplest thing possible that achieves both your needs and your customers needs. Ask yourself what Apple would do, not what Microsoft would do. Ask yourself “What can we take out?” not “What can we add?”. -
If you build it, they probably won’t come
Finally, one of the worst mistakes of all: putting all your time, budget and energy into making the website absolutely perfect rather than figuring out how to promote it and make it successful. You can build the best website in the world but if no one ever finds out about it then you’ve wasted your time.
If I’ve made getting your web strategy sound difficult, that’s because it is. It requires a deep understanding of your customers, a clear idea of your business objectives, and a relentless focus on creating something simple, relevant and useful. If you do these things right then you can’t really fail.
The good news is that the execution part of building great websites is getting easier every day. Services like 99designs and SquareSpace make it easier than ever for small businesses to cost-effectively create excellent websites. This gives you more time to focus on getting the strategy right!
(This is an article I hastily constructed for SmartCompany this morning)
