THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL AGENCIES

Tags: digital advertising advertising advertising trends giles rhys jones"

Daily Show: Person Of The Year

“it’s almost as if consumers have moved on because mainstream media has abdicated its responsibility”

IBM might use Second Life for customer service

Finally someone using SL for something other than marketing hype.

IBM is launching an ambitious marketing campaign in the hip virtual world Second Life. Big Blue has developed 12 "virtual islands," and most will be open to anyone with a Second Life account starting next week. Other areas will remain private haunts for about 800 IBM employees —including the CEO— who have cyber alter-egos.

IBM's chief technologist, Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, acknowledged that virtual-world business is the "experimental stage." Big Blue doesn't expect to generate a profit in Second Life soon. But the medium is promising —particularly for training and orientation sessions for IBM, which has 330,000 workers worldwide. Two in every five IBM employees work offsite part- or full-time, and it'd be vastly easier to host a virtual meeting than to assemble hundreds of salespeople or engineers in a physical conference room.

The company might even use Second Life for customer service. Instead of trying to explain in a phone call how to unscrew your hard drive, someone in a more immersive 3D world could actually show you.

Wind powered art

Simply Stunning. First seen on Grand Union's Little Union blog.

Ad Agencies 3 Strikes

Tags: bad advertising,

Death of a Salesman

Another story detailing the potential demise of the ad agency as we know it from the New York Times:

Marketers have been relying on consumers for ad ideas for decades, but only recently have users been asked to submit full-blown commercials.

The explosion of Web video and free hosting sites have made it possible for marketers like Chipotle, Converse, Frito-Lay, General Motors and MasterCard to hold user-generated advertising contests.

For instance, more than 1,000 entries have been submitted to the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo in a “Crash the Super Bowl” contest to create a commercial for Doritos snack chips. The winning spot is scheduled to appear during Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4.

Not only are advertisers wooing consumers into creating commercials, so too are the television networks that run them. The CW network is teaming with one advertiser, the Sunkist line of sodas sold by Cadbury Schweppes, to ask viewers of the series “One Tree Hill” to create video entries in a contest with an unusual grand prize: a role in an episode for the creator of the winning spot, filmed on location in the winner’s hometown.

The entrants are being asked to upload their video clips to a special Web site cwtv.com/sunkist. Consumers will be able to vote online for their favorite submissions.

More on New York Times (registration required)

Tags: con-gen, advertising, agencies,

Who Cares About The Consumer?

On Vincent Thome's blog Chris Wood at Tribal said “Brands shouldn’t care what is said on community sites any more than they should care about what is said in the pub”.

Yikes. I think this is flawed in two ways:

1. Brands should care what people say about them in the pub because that is actually, much more than a brand architecture or a peice of advertising collateral, the definition of your brand.

This is exactly what are communications are supposed to stimulate as discussed on a previous post.

2. Since when did the bloke down your pub have a voice that could be heard by millions of people.

Example: man down pub bitches about lock being rubbish, man writes to lock company about lock being rubbish, man publishes article about lock being rubbish, man posts article online about lock being rubbish, every one knows locks are rubbish.

Krytonite didn't listen to the man down the pub either.

User Generated Ad Agencies

Building on this post about user generated communications I have just discovered a report from Forrester; Should Your Brand Use Online Video? Advertisers Must Think Like Content Providers To Engage Video Viewers, October 3, 2006. It cites examples of a 19 year contest winner developing an ad for sony style and New Line's Snakes On A Plane marketing where consumers created spoof trailers. It belives that groups of brand advocates will band together to form quasi/grass roots ad agencies. Creating the advertising for the brands they love with direction and reward from clients.

A thought: how long before P&G ask their Tremor crew, already creating buzz around products and sharing insight, to actually create their advertising...

User Generated Communications, Not Just Content

Many advertising and communications agencies happily talk about harnessing user generated content as if users will be pliantly go along with agencies suggestions and brands desires. Consumers have proved time and time again that they will push back on this approach and go their own way. The C doesn't stand for Content, it stands for Communications and actually agencies are ultimately cultivating their replacements.

Take Coke's recent Mentos experience. "Two total unknowns hijacked the Coke brand and gave it back to them in better shape. Coke was stunned, but they saw the light." After ignoring Grobe and Voltz, then trying it themselves (via their agency and yes, it bombed) Coke finally went back
to Grobe and Voltz to create a new promotion. Nothing to do with their agency.

Is this the new model, getting rid of the middle man and putting not only the brand but the brand communications back into the hands of those that always really owned it - the people.

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your daughter

Famously David Ogilvy said "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife." Today this might be better expressed "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your daughter."

At the Society of Editors conference last week John Naughton savaged newspaper coverage of today's youth. What he said is just as relevant for the marketing communications industry. Here's an abridged version of what he said...

Well, they are indeed the future. And they're already here. So what do we know about them? Quite a lot, as it happens.

Today's 21-year-olds were born in 1985. The internet was two years old in January that year, and Nintendo launched 'Super Mario Brothers', the first blockbuster game. When they were going to primary school in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee was busy inventing the world wide web. The first SMS message was sent in 1992, when these kids were seven. Amazon and eBay launched in 1995. Hotmail was launched in 1996, when they were heading towards secondary school.

Around that time, pay-as-you-go mobile phone tariffs arrived, enabling teenagers to have phones, and the first instant messaging services appeared. Google launched in 1998, just as they were becoming teenagers. Napster and Blogger.com launched in 1999 when they were doing GCSEs. Wikipedia and the iPod appeared in 2001. Early social networking services appeared in 2002 when they were doing A-levels. Skype launched in 2003, as they were heading for university, and YouTube launched in 2005, as they were heading toward graduation.

These kids have been socially conditioned in a universe that runs parallel to the one inhabited by most folks in the media business. They've been playing computer games of mind-blowing complexity forever. They're resourceful, knowledgeable and natural users of computer and communications technology. They're Digital Natives - accustomed to creating content of their own - and publishing it.

They buy music from the iTunes store - but continue to download tracks illicitly as well. They use BitTorrent to get US editions of Lost. They think 'Google' is a synonym for 'research' and regard it as quite normal to maintain and read blogs (55 million as of last night), use Skype to talk to their mates and upload photos to Flickr. Some even write entries on Wikipedia. And they know how to use iMovie or Adobe Premiere to edit videos and upload them to YouTube.

Now look round the average British newsroom. How many hacks have a Flickr account or a MySpace profile? How many sub-editors have ever uploaded a video to YouTube? How many editors have used BitTorrent? (How many know what BitTorrent is?)

And while some of our teenagers' interests coincide with ours, many do not. Here, for example, are the top blog tags on Technorati last night: Bush, careers, college, comedy, Congress, death, Democrats, elections, Flickr, gay, Halloween, Iraq, Microsoft, money, Republicans, Saddam, Ted Haggard, vote, war, breaking-news, tagshare, YouTube. Some you'll recognise. But you won't see much about many of these in the papers.

These are the future, my friends. They're here and living among us. They're not very interested in us, and I'm not sure I blame them. The best we can hope for is that one day they may keep us as pets.

Full Story: Young people don't like us. Who can blame them? The Observer

Tags: consumer, web 2.0, ogilvy, John Naughton

Power of Video Ads on the Web

As broadband becomes more prominent, video content — both marketing as well as user-generated — is beginning to proliferate. A Dynamic Logic Report based on 101 measured video ad campaigns, show that video ads perform well. On average generating an average increase in Online Ad Awareness of 18 percentage points — 10.1 points above the norm.



As any new format this response and impact will reduce over time as this becomes the norm and richer formats develop.

Second Life is not overhyped

Second Life is more important, longterm, than even the much hyped publicity suggests. That's because what it really could represent is an alternative vision for how to interact with information and communicate over the Internet.

Article on how SL is the future of the internet by David Kirkpatrick at Fortune.

Blog's Eye View

Vignettes from Blog's Eye View presentation given by David Armano, a Creative Director. at the Digitas office in NY in October 2006. The full presentation was just over an hour and a half including Q+A, but this will give you a flavor of how it went.

Transmedia Planning My Arse

OK so what is the score with all the hype surrounding transmedia planning?

A guy called Faris and Ivan from Naked presented their thoughts, inspired by by some stuff in Henry Jenkins' new book Convergence Culture, at the APG Battle of Big Thinking in London. Details here. It has generated some debate and fervant condemnation of media nuetral or 360 planning.

The basic premise of transmedia planning is that rather than using different media channels to communicate the same idea, you can use each channel to communicate different things. Everything is still tied together by the same brand strategy or narrative, but each channel does what it does best, rather than bending to fit an idea that's not really built with any particular channel in mind. Each channel is strong and self-contained enough to live on its own, but can then be pulled together into a greater brand narrative. Encouraing social relationships to help forge connections, forming a brand community that shares and builds on each others' experiences with the brand. I've seen the advertising, you've been to an event, she's tried the product, he's had a good experience with an employee, and we all compare notes. The much touted best practise example of the the A3 H3IST is a great case study but surely required multiple channel exposure for full impact, rather than each channel living in its own right.

Err isn't that 360 planning: a brand idea at the centre delivered across multiple channels. Each plays an important and complimentary part but each also exists in its own right. And wow" stimulating thought and conversation from your collective brand audience. Doves' campaign for real beauty is a better example of this. See the poster, a site or the youtube posting and each makes sense in its own right.



Transmedia planning surley a case of the emperors new clothes? For all those social bandwagon jumpers surely a better name would be Media 2.0. The 360 model aint broke just they way people have been deploying it.

That said there is some interesting thoughts on designing executions on mulitple layers. Each different layer or detail could appeal to a different group of people, who could compare stories, and thus continually be getting new perspectives on the same thing. Posted here

Tags: integration, 360, transmedia planning, Faris Yakob, naked,

Collaborative Flickr User Model

This Flick User Model Diagram created by a guy called Bryce Glass is very interesting. Even more interesting is the community collaboration happening on Flickr to refine it.

Amex Taps Into Bloggers For Open

Adweek reports that American Express has tapped two small business owners (who also blog) as part of a campaign which recently kicked off (full disclosure, American Express is a Ogilvy client—though I have no idea if we are involved in this effort).
From Adweek: "The campaign, which is scheduled to start today and run into next year, promotes Open, the AmEx credit service geared to small businesses. Content revolves around a special section on the site, called BizBox, that features the musings of Grace Bonney, owner of a small design firm, and Andrew Kruse, who founded an alternative energy company. The duo will address the ups and downs they face running their companies. BizBox will also include a regular Q&A session with small-business experts, AmEx-produced video and contributions from readers."

The Lost Art of Advertising Storytelling

At the OgilvyOne NY Verge Conference they launched OgilvyTransient: a go anywhere do anything team of brand editors, film makers, storytellers, planners and creative. Putting the story telling and content back into marketing comunications.

This is not a very revolutionary concept but over the past 50 odd years the art of story telling to engage with the audience seems to have fallen out of favour in advertising circles. Thankfully we are however being forced to shun shallow one hit, broadcast tactics in favour of entertaining or useful, episodic and collaborative converations.

Tags:OgilvyOne Ogilvy verge

Andy Warhol 2.0

Warhol said "Eveyone will be famous for 15 minutes". But in this connected, long tail, customer generated content, free distribution world it is more like: everyone will be famous for 15 people. it has been quoted many times and attributed to many people but is a craking quote.

Dove Evolution - It's All About The Content

No media money was spent behind this but in less than a month it has delivered 1.7 million views on YouTube and garnered press coverage on 'Ellen', 'The View' and 'Entertainment Tonight'. Courtesy of Ogilvy Canada.



Impressively, it has delivered three times the traffic spike to CampaignForRealBeauty.com as the brand's SuperBowl spot and resultant publicity last year.

A good case of make interesting stuff and people will spend time with you, whether your media budget is zero or billions.

Technorati tags:OgilvyOne Ogilvy

Text100 In Second Life

An interesting video from Text 100, filmed entirely in Second Life it provides a great introduction as to why it is a communication tool of growing importance.

Nissan Puts Sentra Into Second Life

As promised last week, Nissan has just unveiled a Second Life extension of its campaign for Sentra. Here's the location's SL URL, and here are more details from Giff at Electric Sheep. A giant vending machine with very realistic action. The machine dispenses Sentras. The car itself is driveable.

Mentos & Diet Coke Sponsor Video Clips

On May 31, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz posted a video clip about the explosive results of combining Diet-Coke & Mentos explosion on Revver. The video has been seen over 6 million times and has inspired thousands of imitators.

Mentos were quick to capitalize on the publicity, posting the pair's video on their home page and sending them hundreds of free Mentos candies to continue producing the clips. But Coca-Cola appeared to remain distant from the videos — until this week.

More on Ogilvy Digital Mix

Real Time Chat

http://gabbly.com A cracking little app that allows realtime chat on any site with other users accessing the same site from gabbly.

Common Sense By-Pass At The Mention Of Digital

Why at the mention of ‘digital’ do people often undergo a common sense and marketing by-pass. And that as a result, a lot of nonsense is being peddled around the marketing communications industry, usually to the detriment of brands who are paying people a lot of money to explain to them how best to use these new channels.

The most important myth, you could call it an untruth, that is fast becoming ‘fact’, is the idea of a ‘digital consumer’. Suddenly there is this new persona that we are being presented with. We are being told how important it is to understand this ‘digital consumer’ who is, it seems, communicating in a way that’s totally new. The myth of the digital consumer who operates in a cyber world of his own is shrouded in mystery and making everyone nervous.

The sad consequence of this misconception, being put out mainly, I believe, by digital vendors, is massive confusion and decision paralysis. This was confirmed to me at Verge 2005, a major interactive forum organised by OgilvyOne. Original research by the agency, for the forum, revealed how senior clients realise the importance of digital channels to their business, but are largely baffled by the digital age and believe they haven’t really got a handle on it. I’m not surprised when they aren’t being given the facts.

There is no such thing as the ‘digital consumer’. There is no great mystery about how they think and what they want. These consumers are doing exactly what people have been doing for thousands of years – communicating with each other. The fact that technology is enabling them to communicate with each other faster and over distance is being perceived as something unique and extraordinary that needs to be controlled and pinned down.

Rubbish. People talk to each other – they always have. They are talking the same language and saying the same things, they are just not necessarily sitting in their front rooms, doing it over a cup of tea and the TV.

What I believe these new channels have highlighted is that brands and marketers have to step away from the ‘top down’ broadcast thinking that we (brand owners and marketers) tell them (consumers) what they should be thinking and buying. Instead, we have to realise that the interaction and conversation that really counts is the one taking place between consumers.

What the digital age has done is give people more and different ways to have conversations but have also made it so much easier for us to find out what these conversations are about and who is talking to each other (through digital boards, number analysis, chatrooms etc). This is what we should be concentrating on.

We need to be thinking about how to influence conversations that are already taking place between consumers. We need to find out who the important person is in the conversation (the protagonist consumer) and work with them.

In a way it has made things more difficult for brands and marketers. It’s more important than ever to come up with a good idea that can spread sideways rather than from the top down. We need to realise that as advertisers, we are no longer initiating the conversation with consumers – we are trying to become part of the conversation that these people are already having with each other.

That’s going to be difficult enough. So let’s not waste our time trying to figure out what a cyber consumer looks like.

Co-written with Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman Ogilvy Group

itv ads will never work

Essentially iTV ads tried to narrowcast through a broadcast channel, budget structure and creative mindset. The idea is sound - offering interested parties more indepth ans engaging content but the execution very poor. Consequently expensive for massive wastage and limited actual engagement with responders.

You come here often?

Watching the big agencies trying to get with the digital program is often a bit likewatching a middle-aged married man hitting on a co-ed in a bar.

Paul Beelan has written a paper on Advertising 2.0. It explores the influence of technology in advertising, marketing and media, and the threats and opportunities triggered by the revolution of the new, social internet and how agencies will have to radically change to stay alive. Well worth a read.

http://www.paulbeelen.com/whitepaper/english.html

SnakeOil 2.0

Over the past 10 years corporations have tried and failed to hijack the internet, treating it like any other medium by broadcasting their message with no respect for or dialogue with their audience. The web is now starting to return to the tenets on which it was built: collaboration, creation and power to individuals.

Some agencies and brands have always accepted and harnessed this: www.campaignforrealbeauty.com is a movement orginated by Dove but very much driven by consumers; debating what real beauty means, posting photographs and stories.

Beware agencies peddling Web 2.0, it means they missed the whole point of the web the first time round.

Image from Hugh Macloed: www.gapingvoid.com

How to beat banner blindness

It is not about just using rich media – animation, flash, video, audio. It is not about shouting at your audience with flashy graphics and noise.

To create campaigns that really stand out and encourage interaction, without annoying the user you have to match the customer insight with creative message and the placement. Place content in an appropriate place and invite the audience in a relevant way.

How about this for a radical strategy: sit your strategy guy next to your creative and sit both of them next to your media planner. By having this triumverate sitting in two or possibly even three different agencies (remunerated and measured on different metrics) is farcical.

The majority of really succesful campaigns are based on this priciple: Ogilvy's Cisco Livecast where a live webcast took place within an ad unit specifically negotiated with the FT.com reached millions and 60% of those who viewed the unit asked a question to the presenter live and the campign repositioned Cisco from a faceless corporate to a company who listens to it' SMB audience.

There are instances where just a cracking piece of creative wins the day almost irrespective of media placement but these are few and far between.

The Cancer Research UK "I shouldn't be here" campaign illustrated the advances that the advances made in Cancer Research in the past 10 years had saved thousands of lives. Our rich media execution brought this to life.

A figue appeared in the middle of the page with the title "I shouldn't be here" he then climbed back into the banner, where he should be, and explained that he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer but had survived thanks to CRUK. Intrusive, yes but with a reason and perfectly linked with the proposition.The campaign generated never before seen levels of donations.

Ogilvy In Top UK Interactive Agencies

http://www.nmatop100.co.uk/Agency/default.aspx?liTop100AgencyID=109&sStylePage=top-marketing&sBackPage=top-100

Owner: WPP
Founded: 1997
MD: Mike Dodds
http://www.ogilvy.co.uk/

Business split: 20% email, 15% websites, 15% media planning/buying, 15% advertising, 10% marketing, 10% strategic consultancy and project management, 5% iTV, 5% database management, 3% wireless, 2% ecommerce

Clients: BT, IBM, BP, First Great Western, American Express

The interactive divisions of OgilvyOne have picked up a lot of integrated work this year, including European business for car hire agency Avis, Chiquita the banana company and easyJet.However, Ogilvy Interactive has also picked up a substantial amount of business in its own right, doing interactive TV work for BT and deepening its relationships with both Unilever and BP. For BP the agency has carried out dedicated online work to promote the energy company's green credentials, and its work for Unilever has seen the creation of a European suite of websites for the Sunsilk haircare brand.

Other engagements throughout the year include the redesign of the American Express global sites and a viral film for Yahoo!/Fifa as part of the internet giant's World Cup sponsorship.One of the big changes of the year saw Neo@Ogilvy born, following the ending of the joint venture between WPP agencies Ogilvy and Mindshare that created mOne.

The media agency now sits firmly within OgilvyOne and took on Richard Wheaton, ex-managing partner at Carat Interactive, as its first UK CEO.Having media in-house has given the agency a new depth, according to Giles Rhys Jones, director of OgilvyOne's interactive team. He says that now creative and media teams can bounce ideas off each other, the biggest challenge is determining the right media mix for clients. "What part does digital play and how can you get a 360-degree idea working across all channels?" he asks. Rhys Jones believes that the last year has seen digital firmly cemented within OgilvyOne and the coming year will see the agency drive digital into as many areas of the network as possible.

Tags:Ogilvy

TV, Adverting and the Digital Revolution

Audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented, splitting their time between a myriad of media choices, channels and platforms. This, combined with the growing availability of on-demand, self programming and search, means we are moving beyond personalised to individualised viewing. As such, both the TV and advertising industries are facing unparalleled levels of complexity, dynamic change and pressure to innovate; if they are to reach audiences when, how and with the appropriate content consumers want.

I believes that technology has fundamentally changed the relationship between brands and consumers through all channels, not just digital. Consequently interactive thinking needs to be at the heart of marketing strategy; and interactive channels at the centre of campaigns and service offerings.

Digital is much more than a channel

Editorial: Digital is not a strategy
Craig Smith, editor Marketing 13 Sep 2006 00:00

href="http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/search/article/592402/editorial-digital-not-strategy">If you haven't heard of ASOS.com before, you will be surprised at its claim to be the UK's leading online fashion and beauty chain. It is less important whether the claim is true or not than the idea that it might be.

I think it is unwise to dismiss digital as just a channel to be absorbed. It is true that very soon all agencies will have to digital capability merely to compete effectively in their own specific field. Technology however has fundamentally changed how brands and consumers communicate. As digital channels increasingly become the hub of campaigns so too interactive thinking needs to be at the heart of marketing strategy. By launching a consumer magazine, ASOS rather than capitulating to offfline and going against the flow, are merely showing they understand this new demanding, creating, sharing, interactive web 2.0 consumer and are giving them what they want.

The European Marketing Confidence Gap

Interesting to see that despite the increased media money flowing to digital channels there is a huge disconnect between the % of time people spend online and the % of money advertisers spend online. Obviously there are a couple of flaws to the data - money spend creating websites is not counted nor is simultaneous channel usage.
Advertising
Marketing

Bad carpenter, New tools

Everyone knows the maxim, “A bad carpenter blames his tools.”

There should be another maxim: “A bad carpenter thinks his shiny, new tools are going to save his sorry ass from oblivion.”

The digital impact on traditional marketing.

Saatchi creates girl band

classic marketing gone mad. instead of leveraging the existing relationships that people have with sites/magasines/social networks etc. they decide to create their own. you can already sponsor p diddy to sing about mcdonalds burgers why would i hire some tin pot threesome. selling out before they even made it - interesting approach. we see it all the time online but it mainly comes from clients - to have an agency do it off their own back is shameful.

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=377&Itemid=115

Who is best placed to manage your brand...

Who is best placed to manage your brand: consultancies or ad agencies?

I note with amusement the squabbling between brand consultancies and advertising agencies about who is best positioned to manage brands now and more importantly in the future.

The logical answer is of course neither. The technological revolution has fundamentally changed the relationships between companies and consumers so that, as never before, consumers are sharing, discussing creating content about products, services and companies; ultimately driving the direction of the brands they love or hate.

This happens not in broadcast channels or is a one off event on company terms. This happens constantly and through interactive channels whenever the consumer feels like it.

Surely the agencies who are closest to, or part of these regular conversations should be the ones driving and managing brand direction. Already we are seeing that increasingly communication and brand insights are coming from interactive agencies who have this direct relationship with the audience.

Consequently clients, and informed agencies, are starting to put interactive at the heart of their approach. Dove's brand positioning and approach is constantly recreated, refreshed and repositioned by the thousand of daily conversations, comments and pictures posted by consumers on campaignforrealbeauty.com. Brand management for a world where brands are debated rather than consumed.

Would Ogilvy recognise advertising today?

How the Internet changed advertising forever
Are today's big advertising firms the equivalent of the "buggy-whip manufacturer" in the early days of the automobile? Fortune's Daniel Gross says the Internet and other user-controlled, on-demand technologies are changing the practice of advertising "into forms that patriarchs like David Ogilvy and Leo Burnett would scarcely recognize." Fortune, Aug 8, 2005.

I am surprised that Dan suggests that David Ogilvy would have difficultly recognising the changing practise of advertising today. Ogilvy's belief was that deep consumer insight, coupled with big creative ideas, is the engine of brand building. Ogilvy has always been about 360 branding, using all channels to reach a consumer, always about inviting customers in, rather than forcing a broadcast message.

Ogilvy has always accepted, adapted and embraced all channels and technologies to allow the consumer and brand to converse - whether it is, PR, Interactive, Direct or traditional marketing or a combination of them all.

By pioneering cross discipline integrated planning, creative and account teams worldwide across all Ogilvy groups, I am sure David Ogilvy would recognise the industry today. In fact I think he saw what it might become a long time ago.

Co written with Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman Ogilvy Group UK

Technorati tags:OgilvyOne Ogilvy

Digital vs Direct

After "Digital vs Direct" article in campaign and the numerous letters it has spawned, I am still wondering "Is everyone missing the point?"

Yes both are competing and complementary 'channels' depending on use (although the two or three addressable media of traditional DM ill compare with the multitude of possibilities offered by digital). But this is still too comfy an approach: it suggests we all can relax, content that it's just "marketing as usual".

In fact Digital media are more than just a channel choice. Having become an integral part of people's lives, they have changed people's expectations of how they acquire and use information - and how they relate to brands. This affects far more than channel choice - it changes strategic marketing thinking.

This means marketing must be about thinking digitally, not just doing it. Having made this leap, you can then use any channels that serve your end. The work for Dove appears mostly in conventional media. Yet it is, at heart, an interactive campaign. A campaign for a world where messages are debated, not merely consumed.

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever

http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-presentations-ever/

What MySpace Means for Marketers

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3565776

Rupert Murdoch was quoted last week in "The Hollywood Reporter" as saying "In a sense, we say we've got 30 million portals." If you've spent any time playing around with News Corp.'s MySpace social networking site, you know the remark is accurate.

A shoddy palace of amateur content, the site is built entirely on personality and personalization. Buttons, MP3s and viral videos are easily cut and pasted from profile to profile and wrapped around a CGM core of photos, blogs and music.

It's vast and growing fast, boasting 37 million registered users and ranking third in pageviews among all domains, according to comScore. It now pulls in four million new members a month.

As you can imagine, many marketers have stepped up to try and harness this tangle of human relationships for the purposes of brand building and lead generation. They're mostly in the entertainment vertical, but other sectors abound: book publishers, automakers, cause marketers, even CPGs.

A roundup of their tactics follows.

Traditional media more trustworthy than online

LONDON - Newspapers, rather than websites and blogs, are seen as the most trustworthy source of information, according to a survey by interactive marketing firm Telecom Express.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/digital/article/588709/traditional-media-trustworthy-online-says-survey/

Online now the 'lead medium' for UK youth

10 August 2006
TV losing out particularly badly as a result

Online is rapidly becoming the lead medium for young people in the UK, with their consumption of 'old' media continuing to fall.

According to a new report from communications regulator Ofcom, 16 to 24 year-olds watch TV for one hour less per day than the average television viewer. Public service programmes shown by the likes of BBC1 and ITV1 are suffering particularly badly. In multichannel homes, the share to terrestrial channels among 16 to 24 year-olds is down from 74.3% of their viewing time in 2001 to 58% in 2005, as they turn to more niche digital channels that better reflect their interests.

http://www.intellagencia.com/news.asp?siteid=4&id=71948

Web 2.0 Strategies and Lessons

Good paper on web 2.0
by Troy Angrignon with Nick Kellet,
Gary Ralston, Ean Jackson, & Matthew Fessenden

http://www.changethis.com/pdf/25.05.Web2.0.pdf

Hype Cycle – Media Industry Advertising

Gartner Hype Cycle

Better branding

Marketers rely too much on intuition. The key to building brands more scientifically is to combine a forward-looking market segmentation with a better understanding of customers and a brand’s identity.

McKinsey 2003

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1349&L2=16&L3=14

Capitalizing on customer insights

Capitalizing on customer insights

To stimulate growth in today's marketing environment, companies must identify and prioritize opportunities at the points where proliferating segments, channels, and product categories intersect.
But because most companies still regard customer insights as an isolated research capability, they can't obtain or integrate the information they need.
A customer insights network helps marketers look at the world through a number of lenses and to develop proprietary information about customers.
It's also vital to embed customer insights in the organization’s key decisions by restructuring brand and sales planning, new product development, marketing investments, and other business planning processes.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1823&L2=16&L3=18&srid=17&gp=0

Thoughts on integrated marketing

We are seeing that the solutions for our clients business require a mix of channels with digital an increasingly important part and consequently not only the mix within the agency is changing but also fundamentally how we work.

It is all about connecting it together: A TV campaign drives response with a sms call to action which is fulfilled by a dm pack which in turn drives to web for purchase. The ongoing relationship is managed via email triggered by site behaviour and product usage.

Our work for IBM wimbledon is fundamentally enabled by digital technology constantly streaming results to online ad units, web sites and mobile phones, traditional media, PR and events play an important but supporting role.

At Ogilvy our philosophy has always been 360(tm) marketing and as we build bespoke multi channel client teams with every marketing discipline represented we are uniquely positioned to help our clients connect with their audince through the right channels.

Websites that changed the world

Some of these you use - some you might have heard of - all have changed the world.

Read a description of each and what makes them special here

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329551850-102280,00.html

1. eBay.com
2. wikipedia.com
3. napster.com
4. youtube.com
5. blogger.com
6. friendsreunited.com
7. drudgereport.com
8. myspace.com
9. amazon.com
10. slashdot.org
11. salon.com
12. craigslist.org
13. google.com
14. yahoo.com
15. easyjet.com

Winning the war for digital talent

According to a year-long study conducted by McKinsey & Co., the most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent. It's also the resource in shortest supply. Are you ready to fight for your fair share?

In 1997, McKinsey & Co. coined the phrase "The War for Talent." It expressed the need for organizations to review their employee value proposition (EVP) and ask themselves, "What is going to make a talented person want to work here?" This question still holds true today, almost a decade later. The difference is, today talent has gone digital.

We have managed talent from the Baby Boomer generation, and even survived the Generation Xers. How different will it be to manage the new breed of talent, the Generation Yers or Millennials?

For this generation, digital is a way of life. So what does this mean for talent management? At Ogilvy, we have found our talent management principles shouldn't change just because the media does. We may just have to execute the principles differently, and give some consideration to this generation's way of thinking, living and working.

The digital generation entering our workforce has different skills, motivations, expectations and ways of working than previous generations. Unless current leaders recognize and embrace these differences, they will be faced with a cultural divide in the organization – different generations, working side by side with little understanding of how the other is thinking or operating.
The war for talent can be won only by bridging the generation gap through a better understanding and appreciation of Gen Y employees.

As a business leader, what do you need to know about this generation, and the next one following behind it? And do you need to revisit your employee value proposition to ensure that the talented Gen Yers want to work for you?

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES
Generation Y has often been referred to in the press as the "Gamer Generation" because most Gen Yers grew up with interactive gaming. Instead of being wary of this generation, we should embrace it, as it brings a new and exciting approach to the workplace. Gen Y employees and managers will be more diverse than those today, as they approach their work in a way very different from that of other generations.

This generation has a much higher interest in achieving a healthy work/life balance. Gen Yers are used to working in an environment that puts no restrictions on them. They can be physically dispersed but connected to colleagues, clients or a network by technology, making the need to be restrained by the office environment almost obsolete. They need to have flexibility in how and where they work.

We are also finding new entrants into the workforce looking for the opportunity to work globally, either by relocating within the network or by being given the chance to work on a global client. This generation has a better understanding of different cultures and market pressures, as internet chat rooms and the ability to search the web break down the barriers that used to stand in the way of globalization. Gen Yers see a world full of possibilities. They no longer have to wonder what a career in another market would be like – they can gather that information more readily, opening up their minds to the many opportunities and possible applications.
When your new-generation employees look for constant feedback and seek praise, it is not because they are needy or attention-seeking, it is because this is what they have become accustomed to. They received a lot more attention from parents and teachers than their counterparts did in the 1970s, and they were told they could achieve anything they put their minds to. This is their belief, and they will expect to get there a lot more quickly than you or I may have done.

They also have a need for instant feedback. In my years as a human resources professional, I have always encouraged managers to give timely feedback; don't wait until the next appraisal to give someone developmental advice, give it in the moment so that it is relevant. This holds true more today than ever. In a world where texting and instant messaging are the norm, why should this generation wait to hear how they are doing? It's simply not what they are used to or expect. They also find out pretty quickly if they pass or fail while they are gaming, so they can accept developmental feedback and are ready to look for a different approach to the task if at first they have been unsuccessful.

Coaching should play a large part in the growth of any generation. This one especially needs empowerment; Gen Yers need to learn fast, and they need to feel that they are a part of the organization's growth. They have the digital talent, but maybe not the leadership skills, and, to move quickly through the organization, they need guidance, advice and mentorship. This guidance needs to focus on each one as an individual, and not with the more traditional "sheep dip" approach to training and development. Gen Yers need to feel like individuals, and to know they are being treated and valued as such. If treated like individuals with the opportunity to grow and manage their careers, it is unlikely they will leave the organization to seek promotion, because they will want to grow within one company.

Gamers have the ability to multitask. They can be focusing on shooting the enemy, while collecting bonus lives from a cave in the corner. Therefore, expecting your employees to focus on and be motivated by one task is unrealistic. To keep this group motivated, you need to set them a real challenge; they need to know what is expected of them and how they will be measured, in order to gain personal satisfaction and fulfillment. They will also want many tasks so as to ensure they do not become bored.

Problems do not faze this group. When faced with a challenge or problem, they are more likely to think outside the box, show tremendous resilience and believe that nothing is impossible. These are great skills and ones that we actively apply to our clients' businesses. Not only are clients presented with innovative solutions, they can rely on a group of individuals working tenaciously to find those solutions.

One stereotypical view of this generation is that its members are loners. This view comes from looking through a lens that sees them on their own a lot, in their own world with nothing but a cell phone or laptop. Nothing could be further from the truth. This generation is fabulous at working in a team – after all, gaming is very social, both with friends and now over the internet. So while this generation needs to be measured and rewarded on its own merits, Gen Yers still value the opportunity to work in a team environment.

In summary, here are our tips to help you be an employer of choice for this digital generation, and to help them manage a long and successful career with you:
As leaders, embrace a different way of working, in the approach to clients, employees and business process.

Manage the expectations of your employees. They will expect to grow very quickly; help them to balance their goals with the needs, and sometimes restraints, of the business.
They will be looking for a work/life balance. Think about what allowances you can make to help them achieve this.

If you are a global organization or have global clients, this generation will have a desire to work across those cultural boundaries.

You must help Gen Yers to manage their careers as individuals. Ensure you are giving constant feedback and recognition based on their own merits.
Keep them interested and motivated by allowing them to work on a number of projects at the same time.

This group has an ability to look at innovative ways around problems. Use this to the best advantage for your organization.

You may see Gen Yers as unfocused and a little too sure of themselves, and they may see you as inflexible and stuck in your ways. But there is room for both generations and approaches, as long as there is understanding and a desire to work together for mutual success.

Marie-Claire Barker ( OgilvyOne worldwide - New York )

Attitude to Mobile & Finance

“Research by the Henley Centre in association with BT found that 39% of people in the ABC1 customer categories would like to be able to deal with their finances on the way to and from work... And 41% of 18 to 24 year olds said they would be interested in an instant messenger service which allowed them to have live conversations with advisers about financial services”. The Daily Telegraph

2005 Web stats

72% of British households own a PC, 64% have the internet of which 44% have a broadband connection and 80% have a mobile phone (70% of individuals).

Henley Centre Headlight Vision’s annual UK survey Planning for Consumer Change

Cross-platform marketing is the new mainstream

Marketers are unlikely to give up on TV as long as there are audiences tuning in to mass broadcasts, but there are few mainstream companies that are not supplementing their traditional media buys with various online campaigns. As Coca-Cola's Susan McDermott told Adweek, at Coke, executives are asking, "'How can we marry online with TV, print, outdoor and make them all work together?'"

http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002951081

the effect of online advertising on search and sales

the effect of tv and press on search

Big business tries to make friends online

THE internet sensation that is MySpace continues to grow at an astonishing rate. The social-networking site had 17m unique monthly visitors last July, when Rupert Murdoch recast himself as an internet visionary by buying it for $580m; now it has 54m, and is the most visited website in America. Even if, judging by recent headlines, many visitors are prowling paedophiles or panicking parents spying on their sex-crazed children, at least some of them are the valuable youngsters to which many big firms yearn to sell things.

MySpace seems to offer a chance for companies to take their marketing into new, potentially more lucrative territory, by becoming, in effect, members of their customers' network of "friends". A growing number of firms have established their own pages on MySpace, to which users can link. In the process, some are getting into bed with some unlikely partners. Earlier this year, for example, Unilever, a consumer-goods giant, hooked up with Christine Dolce to promote Axe, a deodorant. Ms Dolce, who goes by the alias ForBiddeN, boasts around 900,000 "friends" who link to her MySpace page. Bleached, buxom and with impressive marketing savvy, she is arguably the most successful brand to emerge from MySpace, and has already launched a line of clothing.

That made her perfect, Unilever concluded, to draw in the 18- to 24-year-old lustful lads to whom Axe is shamelessly marketed. So Ms Dolce hosted an interactive game, called "Gamekillers", based around dating tips and designed subtly to promote Axe. Some 75,000 MySpacers signed up for it.

The biggest challenge—for MySpace itself, and for the firms that want to use it to promote their wares—is not to alienate potential customers by being overtly commercial. "We need to be engaging with them, not banging them over the head with brandalism that pollutes their space," says Kevin George of Unilever. But, he says, "when you deliver 18- to 24-year-old guys content they want to engage with, they don't mind if it comes from a brand." This theory will now be put to the test, as MySpacers' attention is fought over by brands including Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, State Farm insurance, Elexa by Trojan female condoms, and the US Marine Corps.

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=7233972&subjectID=526352

What the hell is a mash up?

A mashup is a website or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service.

Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or APIs. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript.

Much the way blogs revolutionised online publishing, mashups are revolutionizing web development by allowing anyone to combine existing data from sources like Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Strikeiron, Windows Live and Yahoo! in innovative ways. The greater availability of simple and lightweight APIs have made mashups relatively easy to design. They require minimal technical knowledge and thus custom mashups are sometimes created by unlikely innovators, combining available public data in new and creative ways. While there are many useful mashups, others are simple novelties or gimmicks, with minimal practical utility.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_%28web_application_hybrid%29

Here are two great examples:
http://www.dynamite.co.uk/local/ - overlays a BBC Travel News/weather/travel news/speed
cameras onto Google Maps

http://ononemap.com - overlays all the properties for sale in the UK on a map

Tips to Bounceproof Your Email

http://www.emailexperience.org/Tipstobounceproofyourlist.pdf

Viral-video makers walking creative fine line

In just over five years, viral Web video has grown from an underground phenomenon into a $100 million to $150 million industry, according to estimates. But with this success comes the need to keep users entertained with more creative -- and expensive -- concepts, while avoiding the appearance of being too mainstream.

Video game ads becoming more mainstream

With around 75% of the online population in the U.S. playing games for at least an hour a month, according to one report, it's no wonder that gaming companies are looking to market these popular, well-trafficked platforms to advertisers.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-07-10-ad-games_x.htm

Marketers find themselves in online avatars

Marketers like ESPN, L'Oreal, DaimlerChrysler AG and others are using animated images or avatars, sometimes representing advertising icons or even their chief executives, to generate online marketing buzz.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401587.html

Big business tries to make friends and influence people online

THE internet sensation that is MySpace continues to grow at an astonishing rate. The social-networking site had 17m unique monthly visitors last July, when Rupert Murdoch recast himself as an internet visionary by buying it for $580m; now it has 54m, and is the most visited website in America. Even if, judging by recent headlines, many visitors are prowling paedophiles or panicking parents spying on their sex-crazed children, at least some of them are the valuable youngsters to which many big firms yearn to sell things.
MySpace seems to offer a chance for companies to take their marketing into new, potentially more lucrative territory, by becoming, in effect, members of their customers' network of "friends". A growing number of firms have established their own pages on MySpace, to which users can link. In the process, some are getting into bed with some unlikely partners. Earlier this year, for example, Unilever, a consumer-goods giant, hooked up with Christine Dolce to promote Axe, a deodorant. Ms Dolce, who goes by the alias ForBiddeN, boasts around 900,000 "friends" who link to her MySpace page. Bleached, buxom and with impressive marketing savvy, she is arguably the most successful brand to emerge from MySpace, and has already launched a line of clothing.
That made her perfect, Unilever concluded, to draw in the 18- to 24-year-old lustful lads to whom Axe is shamelessly marketed. So Ms Dolce hosted an interactive game, called "Gamekillers", based around dating tips and designed subtly to promote Axe. Some 75,000 MySpacers signed up for it.
The biggest challenge—for MySpace itself, and for the firms that want to use it to promote their wares—is not to alienate potential customers by being overtly commercial. "We need to be engaging with them, not banging them over the head with brandalism that pollutes their space," says Kevin George of Unilever. But, he says, "when you deliver 18- to 24-year-old guys content they want to engage with, they don't mind if it comes from a brand." This theory will now be put to the test, as MySpacers' attention is fought over by brands including Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, State Farm insurance, Elexa by Trojan female condoms, and the US Marine Corps.

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=7233972&subjectID=526352

European Web users respond differently