Adventures In Digital Marketing

At TEQUILA\ we used to joke that often at meeting where we needed to be smarter in presentation from the usual t-shirt and jeans, all of us would pull out of the wardrobe the “Digital Uniform” - invariably we’d all turn up in some kind of matching outfit.

That was two or three years ago, but I’m glad to report that, in London at least, the Digital Marketing Uniform appears to be well and truly strong (not least in my own wardrobe).

I was on the train this morning listening to two blokes talk about the intricacies of getting DivX movies to play on an Apple TV (that alone should have been enough of a pointer!) when I noticed I was dressed in a very similar way to both of them.  We were all wearing the uniform, and although I didn’t ask them, I’d put money on them both being at an agency somewhere -one was obviously a coder, while I am sure the other was a producer.

It get’s that way - you can start to spot the job role of people who work in the industry by what they are wearing - in the same way you can spot an ageing above the line creative by the wacky flowery shirt they will wear on summer party days!

So, what is this digital uniform so you can spot those around you in a John Carpenter “They Live” sunglasses kind of way?

Simple…

Blue Jeans
Why wear a full suit when jeans will suffice - they’re smart casual right?

Navy Suit Jacket
But, the top half of your body deserves the full smart look - so employ a navy blue suit jacket, preferrably with a nice accented colour strip of check.

White Shirt
Other colours don’t do it - got to be white, probably double cuff with cufflinks, or if not then at least with two buttons.  Oh, and a nice contrasting lining to the inside of the cuff and the collar always goes down well to show off your “creative” side.

Brown Shoes
Some can pull it off with trainers, but to get the full digital marketing uniform just right you’re going to need a nice pair of brown shoes, maybe even brogues.

Trendy Nerd Glasses
Even if you don’t need them to see, a corking pair of nerdy, yet extremely trendy designer glasses will really set this outfit off and show the world that although you work in marketing, you’re a nerdy geek marketer through and through - should have gone to specsavers!

See - it’s easy!  You too can look like you work in digital just by switching your wardrobe.

Howard

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Yet another lovely online promotional execution from the people over at Poke for Orange. Over at playballoonacy.com they’ve launched the World’s First Internet Balloon Race.

By placing a small piece of Javascript widget code into your blog or social networking page (you can see mine at the bottom right of this page) you can take part for a chance to win daily prizes and the grand prize of a week in a Luxury Villa in Ibiza.

Hats off to Poke - they continue to produce fantastic Digital promotion work for orange what with this and my old favourite Spot The Bull.

Howard

I’ve been meaning to blog about outdoor digital advertising for some time now. It’s something I find very interesting, and over the past year or so as I’ve been walking to and from work here in London I’ve seen more and more screens popping up in public places.

I’ve been inspired to finally put some words down in a post from an article in the NYTimes which talks about a new form of digital billboard that’s popping up which features a built in camera for facial recognition. Apparently two companies are actively playing in this space, which they refer to as audience measurement systems, Quividi, a French company, and TruMedia, based in Israel and Holland. By placing small cameras into digital billboards (quite small ones judging by the image I saw about the size of a 32″ TV embedded into a larger billboard area) they both claim to be able to view the faces of people directly looking at the ad itself, and then using facial recognition, work out the sex, age and so forth of the audience. They don’t take a photo, apparently, just using it in real-time to work out what they want and then ditching the image.

It doesn’t take much to work out that this has got a lot of privacy people worked up, and in these cases I often sit very firmly on the fence as I am obviously both a professional in the digital space and a normal run of the mill consumer.

That aside, digital screens are beginning to pop up all over the place in London - and I can’t believe it’s not the same in other large urban spaces around the UK, Europe and the World.

The tube is the best example so far of digital advertising screens - there are simply hundreds of them appearing all the time (TFL claim they are in the process of installing 2000). Large runs of screens on escalators, to large poster sized screens at pretty much platform level. These screens feature animation, video and still images - often with multiple screens working together in some way.

But there are much larger screens appearing outside. Right by the London IMAX there is a really good example. A huge billboard is situated on the left of the Waterloo Bridge as you approach the IMAX. Unlike the tube screens, these large format outdoor screens are still image only. This is apparently because there still isn’t any research to prove that you won’t crash your car when an ad comes on.

There are even screens appearing on the stands that the Evening Standard newspaper sellers use - with what look like 32″ TV screens positioned clearly on the top of the stand.

Not to mention the sheer volume already of in-store digital screens that exist in the captive retail environment.

In the US there’s already an industry/trade body setup to work alongside providers of this new and rapidly growing area of digital marketing. I’m not yet aware of one in the UK, perhaps it falls under the domain of someone like BIMA or the IAB?

Often a concern about these screens is that they take energy where a poster would not - but I wonder what the comparison is between digital distributing a poster/video/animation to 2000 screens over the internet, versus printing off 2000 large format posters, driving them around london and then pasting them up in place?  Aside from the saving for advertisers themselves, and the benefit of being able to digital and centrally manage campaigns on huge scales, there’s got to be something in not having to cut down any more trees?

Like I said above, I’m not sure about the audience tracking part being right or wrong, but it’s obvious that digital is gradually starting to take over all of the areas that traditional marketing has had it’s foot on for all this time.  TV’s slowly going to the dark side, the likes of iPlayer and the soon to arrive “project Kangaroo” are making sure of that, and now posters and outdoor begin to make the move as well.  Is nothing safe from our grubby binary hands?

Howard

image by James Cridland and found on Flickr

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Some truly great points in this presentation by Paul Isakson.  It’s well worth your while taking five mins to watch it.

I’ve seen the phrase “Geek marketers” a few places online recently - Steve Rubel’s a big fan of it (did you come up with it even Steve?) and thinks that it’s a big trend for the future of digital. Jim Kukral likes it as a title as well.

I like it too.

I think I am it probably.

I think a lot of people I know are it as well.

I’m proud of that.

Howard

It seems that digital outsourcing of production continues to be the conversation on everyone’s lips right now in London. I see Iain Tait blogging about it over on crackunit. I’ve also seen more and more articles in the print press about it. Obviously something is going on - not quite sure what it is and why it’s so in focus right now, but it surely is.

Would love to hear peoples ideas on why this is such a hot topic right now - are we all deciding to outsource our development? all of it? part of it? none of it?

And don’t lie - I KNOW for a fact a lot of you out there in both “integrated” and “pure play” worlds are doing it already - so who’s doing it and why?

Howard

ps - yes, I know I just used an under construction logo - been so long I couldn’t resist

A recent Campaign article which asked the question "Should agencies outsource digital?", in which Kate Nettleton discussed the differing points-of-view within the industry regarding the outsourcing of the so called “techy” end of digital creativity, has promoted me to put down a few thoughts of my own on the subject.

I’ve actually discussed the outsourcing of production with quite a few people over the years and in fact it’s a model I’ve worked with in varying degrees for quite some time now, from right back in the late 90’s at TDPL/Leagas Delaney through to the present day.

We all know that agencies employ freelancers – it’s so common place it’s never questioned as a business practice – but for agencies of a digital slant to completely outsource a whole chunk of what is often perceived as being a key business function is quite a recent phenomenon.  In the past, and particularly in the pure-play world, having a dedicated production (and by that we’re really saying programmers right?) team in-house was taken for granted.  But I don’t think it has to be that way personally, and I can see it becoming less common as we continue to understand how Digital Marketing and Advertising has to function as a business over time.

Kate points out in her article that a “new breed” of agencies are taking a note from the traditional world and outsourcing skills which don’t necessarily fit in with the overall creative business of an agency.  And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense – in fact I completely subscribe to it myself.  I love Martin Brooks’s comment that “digital agencies can’t take the strategic high ground if their business model relies on building banners in-house”.  It’s completely right.  How often do we hear the buzz-phrase of “we sell ideas” and yet never see it delivered because people are tied into a particular back-end system or delivery method?

In an ATL agency for example, where the majority of business may be focused on TV commercials – it’d be extremely unlikely that they’d have a load of directors, editors, sound experts and the like sitting around as permanent members of staff.  Those people, with highly technical and creative skills are brought in on a case-by-case basis as and when required – because it allows everyone else to focus on what they need to do – come up with great creative ideas. 

Why, then, do we (and I include myself in this to some degree) think that to do digital creative work in marketing and advertising we need to have programmers and other technical experts sitting around on the books full time, rather than get them in on a similar case-by-case basis.

The outsourcing of digital production makes perfect sense.

However, what I can’t stress strongly enough is that outsourcing your digital production or development does not, in any way, mean that as an agency you can forget about the technical side of the business, regarding it as “not your job” or unimportant.  When you remove technology from one side of the equation it has to be replaced elsewhere – and invariably what that means is that the people who you do have on a permanent basis in your agency need to pick up some of the knowledge to make your ideas work.  What that means is that it is essential that the creative teams, strategists, planners and account managers are more technically minded than perhaps you would normally have, and are able to understand what is and isn’t possible.  They wouldn’t normally be like that in an environment where programmers are sitting next to them. 

Allowing them to believe they don’t need to know that stuff because “they’re not technical” is not an option. Technology doesn’t disappear from your business because you’re outsourcing it – it just moves around a bit – but it is still present and is as important to the overall creative process and end deliverables that you provide as ever.

Bill Brock’s comment that by outsourcing digital you allow the agency to “be free to go for best-of-breed ideas, not end up selling website ideas because we had a website designer(s) free” is completely on the money and if you look at the other founding members you can see that together they can all help to provide that essential in-house technical knowledge that must be present.

Creative ideas should never be shoehorned into the technical solutions that your agency is capable of delivering in-house – they should be free to come from anywhere and delivered in any way you can think of that’s applicable.

Outsourcing production, to different 3rd-party partners who are expert in their specific fields allows agencies to mix-and-match what they need to answer a client’s brief and deliver on their objectives – and at the end of the day that’s what we are all trying to do.

It has made perfect sense in the offline and traditional world for the past few decades – are we not big enough now to admit that it makes perfect sense in our decade as well?

Howard

Earlier this week I attended another of the Chinwag Live events in Soho.  The topic this week was "Tomorrow’s Ad Formats" and the panel of guests chosen to kick off the debate and impart their expert opinion was comprised of five people:

Priya Prakash - Creative Director, Hachette Filipacchi
Rhys Williams - Co-founder, agenda21
Steven Hess - Managing Partner, weapon7
David Burrows - Ad Operations Director, Phorm UK
Mat Morrison - Digital Planning Director, Porter Novelli

and the whole event was chaired by Guy Phillipson - CEO, Internet Advertising Bureau.

In this first post I’ll try to summarise each of the panel member’s introductions and the key points they set out when making their opening statements…

Priya
Priya is a proponent of user centered design and believes that it will play a key role in the future of marketing.  Agencies are limited by their briefs to some degree, in what they receive as instruction from the client, and the client’s own vision of what they think the future of marketing is going to be. Agencies need to be able to separate themselves from this to help stretch the true boundaries of future marketing.

Quoting The Cluetrain Manifesto as a key influencer (there’s a lot of that in this Chinwag -  maybe everyone rediscovered their copy of it sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere) she stated that in her opinion marketing has to start adding serious value to the customer and their experience in order to be valid, otherwise ads will serve as nothing but an interruption (a Disruption?) to what users are doing and they will ignore it.  In this way she thinks brands themselves are too narcissistic, thinking only of their own needs and ignoring the needs of the customer, and this is what really needs to change in order for them to stop getting in the way and increase relevancy.

Rhys
Rhys sees there being three things in the industry right now which are driving us towards more and more complex media spaces and format choices.

Stating in his first sentence that the problem with digital advertising right now is that everything is driven by jargon, Rhys thinks the media landscape is becoming more and more complicated all the time driven primarily by clients (advertisers), media owners, and lastly by the users themselves.

For a start, some clients, and often some agencies, always want to try and get some advertising Kudos by having a "media first", to appear to be the cutting edge and are always asking during a lot of briefings "what’s the next big thing?"  This mentality, of associating new formats with cutting edge creative, is part of the problem with why the media landscape is getting so diverse and complex.  But it shouldn’t be. He questioned why new format opportunities are so important to some clients, why do they see everything in that way as a first being so important?

Rhys then gave an example in Facebook at this very moment which goes for a media first but results in a run of the mill campaign - referring to the rash of experian search ads which have started to appear inside everyone’s profile pages whenever they log on (yeah! Why are they SO annoying?)  He believes that advertisers who do this are actually being lazy, going for the cheap clicks through a misguided sense that being first will lend their (annoying, interrupting and unimaginative - my words) campaign some extra legs.

Secondly, another problem he sees is that media owners try to push new formats on their space in hope of getting increased CPM, as is the case right now for video formats which can often top £25 CPM as opposed to around £1-ish CPM for a banner placement.  Clients then see these formats as an answer to the problem of getting stand out in a crowded environment (certainly though there is some evidence to suggest this works I guess seeing as the CTR on video formats is way higher than on static formats?)

FInally, Rhys said that he thinks often creative agencies want to push the boundaries themselves in terms of formats available to get a creative edge, often resulting in nothing more than a larger amount of real estate with which to play, and that media planners often get pressured by creatives to create plans full of new, larger, more invasive formats. 

Steven
Steven said he finds new formats very confusing.  He thinks that often lots of things emerge into the spaces available which are simply nothing but technical innovations which are built for no other reason than because they can be - and certainly bear nothing in relation to them being useful for campaigns of customers.  He strongly believes that formats don’t fuel the creative brief, and never will.

He raised the question that in this climate, how do we, the people working inside the digital industry right now, express creative ideas for a client that users and customers will be able to understand?

Technology in his opinion should be used as an enabler to meet a client’s problems, and not as a stick to beat problems with until they fit into a technical shaped box.  In the past ten years or so, the digital industry has had a sense of entrepreneurism that’s helped us all drive towards more innovative and creative solutions with what tools we had available to us at the time.  He fears that this mindset will disappear if we continue down this current path.  We must resist the urge to continually give names to all new shapes, formats, ideas and inventions that we all come up with in an attempt to commoditise them and sell them on to others for more and more profit. 

He thinks we need to demonstrate solid returns for clients for all of the ideas we give to a client, regardless of the format or what it is, rather than continually trying to turn new spaces we discover into extra formats.

David
Dave thinks that customers right now are fed up being bombarded by endless streams of junk and irrelevant advertising, and that the problem with advertising on the internet is that the signal-to-noise ratio is far too high.  For every good ad there are a hundred bad ones for IM smileys or a free iPod. (Oh come on Dave! If it weren’t for those ads we would never have been blessed with "Smack The Monkey" banners).

Phorm, for who Dave now works having left Yahoo! for them recently, aim to help users strip down the junk and address the signal-to-noise problem.  Because 50% of ads don’t work, but no one right now knows which 50% of the ads it is, phorm think they can start to target in a much more effective way than has been previously achieved.

Dave also believes that in the past there has been "an arms race" in terms of banner real estate sizes, for which he holds his hands up to some degree during his time at Yahoo!, and that all media owners, by behaving in this way, have been causing a lot of the problems.

He thinks that Phorm again have the key to this, and through their OIX targetting platform, they can help customers receive the ads which are most relevant to them, in turn helping the agencies and clients as well. 

All this with a very anonymous system in which privacy is apparently a key issue which Phorm have taken very seriously.

NOTE: At this point Dave was heckled by a member of the audience who shouted out "You’re an advert!" (or something similar, it was hard to hear) basically making the point that Dave was here to talk about Tomorrow’s Ad Formats and not just plug Phorm as the cure for cancer.

Mat
Mat claims he really doesn’t have much to say about Tomorrow’s Ad Formats as he has only worked in PR for about 6 months (perhaps he meant in relation to PR?  Because surely if he is ex-AKQA he would have something to say? To be honest I didn’t quite understand what he meant here).

What he does think though is that the current climate feels a bit like the late 90’s and that worries him.  He went on to quote from a press release circa 1997 from the IAB claiming that the 468×60 banner was the future of advertising and better than TV ads.

He wanted us to consider this ten years down the road and be careful of what claims we all make incase they come back to bite us in another ten years.

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That’s it for now.  Tomorrow (well, hopefully but it is a bank holiday!)  I’ll post details from the discussion part of the evening where the panel went on to discuss some format specifics in more detail.

Howard
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Grabbing hold of current trends in both music sales/distribution and digital advertising/marketing, Trent Reznor’s band the Nine Inch Nails (disclaimer: I am and always have been a very big fan) have launched their new instrumental album, Ghosts I-IV, online in a variety of both digital and physical formats with prices ranging from free for the 9-track DRM-Free sampler album to $300 for the Ultra deluxe package.

With a nod towards Radiohead’s recent launch of In Rainbows, which they offered online for the price the user felt they wanted to pay and was covered alongside the future of the music business as a whole in great detail in an article by David Byrne for Wired Magazine, Reznor has changed tack slightly by providing a large range of options to suit all pockets.

Free music being what it is recently, with a lot of artists testing the water one way or another, such as Prince with his Daily Mail (gah! must clean mouth out after saying that paper’s name) free CD, there are lots of discussions ongoing as to whether this is a solid new approach or simply something already established artists with a loyal fan base are able to exploit at this time.

What really interests me in this instance is what Reznor has done alongside the variable pricing structure for his latest work - which is providing a whole host of other formats to the usual MP3, as well as material specifically designed to act in a marketing context.

When you download the album (I got the $0 version for now, although I will be getting the full thing on pay day!), you get a couple of folders full of wallpaper, the cover art for the album as a JPG, a PDF document which acts like the insert in a CD (some lovely photography contained within) and, most interesting in some ways for us digital marketing types, a whole host of pre-made banner, button and blog header images.

Reznor is doing something very intelligent and interesting here.  Not only is he experimenting with the free music approach, something which in itself will generate a load of PR one way or the other, but he’s giving the music itself away in multi-track formats to encourage people to play with and remix his work (something he did previously on other albums, giving it away in Apple Garage band format at least), and by providing the ready made blog and banner formats, he’s giving people a way to show their loyalty to the band, and in turn generate a viral style effect for the album which he couldn’t possibly hope to achieve on his own or through an agency with a media plan.

By giving away so much stuff, stuff which fans will firstly think is way cool and want to put all over the internet, Reznor’s actually giving the fans control over his marketing campaign, truly putting it right into the hands of the people who know and love the most about the band in the first place.

User generated advertising was a buzz word a short time ago, and perhaps still is in certain bars around Soho on a good night, but handing over the control of the campaign, utilising free media space in highly targetted areas with an applicable audience, is IMHO a master stroke and a perfect example of where marketing is possibly going in terms of control and transparency.

Undoubtedly the freedom NIN and the like are now experiencing in terms of no-label is also extending itself into their thinking for no-agency marketing and no-control PR.

In more ways than just my musical taste alone I have to say right now Trent, I am a big fan.

Howard

Absolut vodka have worked on an arty project called Absolut Machines that tries to explore the boundaries of artificial intelligence, music, technology and creativity. It all seems to be an interesting mix of robots or mechanical machines and computer generated music. The real world locations are in Stockholm and NY and online users can interact with the installation.

There are lots more great pics of the robots being installed on this Flickr set.

Jonathan