ALEX CAMPBELL'S TUMBLELOG

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.

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).

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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?
6. 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.
7. 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?
8. 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.
9. 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?”.
10. 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)