7/29/2010Posted by Leo Ryan, Influence Planning Director, Draftfcb London
This is a belated post about the digital culture smorgasbord that is SXSW. Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to attend SXSW and have written endless almost-finished-blog-posts and presentations about the amazing things I learnt and saw there. Now I have finally managed to (quickly) check my punctuation and spelling and roughly assemble my notes into an almost intelligible format...enjoy.
Some things that make SXSW cool...
The breadth: There is a very broad range of attendees: Compared to some 1 day conferences in London SXSW is incredibly good value. This low cost means that instead of a few clients from Proctor and Gamble and the creative digital director of BBH talking to themselves at the Grosvenor Hotel you get students, indy agencies, R&D guys from HP, tech and media startups, VCs and angel investors and every level of employee from interactive and marketing agencies including Draftfcb's healthy contribution that included junior creatives teams through to senior bods like Rob Sherlock and a raft of HR recruitment team swooping on any wandering talent.
The depth: There is a Massive Choice: Each session has about 21 different events from lectures to workshops, demonstrations and round-table discussions / debates. On the upside, what would be in itself a very good conference in Europe or indeed anywhere in the world is all on in one 60 minute session. On the downside obviously you can't possibly see everything or even just the things that you are really really keen to see. So completely opposite to TED where you get a single stream and lots of intense conversation around a single topic at SXSW you get lots of different conversations. To deal with the spread of interest the Draftfcb team split up and then shared notes after each session.
The treats: The Goody Bag was so heavy it could only be dragged back to the hotel and dumped on the floor to sift through. Containing all kinds of fun treats, stickers and flyers, some of them useful, most of them rubbish. Best one were the free Sticky Bits which I have only just re-discovered and distributed around the London office...
The BBQ: As a Queenslander born and bred I have strong opinions about BBQ. The Texans do it very differently but they do it very well. As evidenced by the regular damage we inflicted at Stubbs.
The Weather: Spring comes early to Austin. So while my family friends and colleagues were still shivering in London was in short sleeves and even managed a swim at the natural outdoor Barton Spring.
The Headsup: It is the harbinger of Things To Come. The products and projects launched or profiled at SXSW includes;
2006: Wikipedia2007: Twitter2008: Facebook Beacon (I didn't say they were all successful)
2009: Spotify2010: FourSquareSo what did this years SXSW presage?
1. The Internet of Things
The intersection of online and offline worlds. Newspaper Club printed a newspaper for the conference but took all of their content form the speakers and event data, Sticky Bits were handed out randomly and stuck to all manner of things (no, I'm not going there..) and naturally FourSquare and Gowalla were in high demand.
FourSquare added 100K users after SXSW. During the event we used it as a way of keeping track of who was in which talk, bar or party, sometimes with some hilarious results as we discovered a group who we'd invited to dinner had instead decided to meet separately, but only two blocks away...
QR codes on our conference passes meant that (for mobile phones with the software installed) you could just scan someone's pass and get their info into your contacts. No, it's not particularly new but when you see a gadgetally advanced crowd who all have iPhones and who all want to connect in a short period of time then you start to see the future of how this might be used.
2. There's an App For That
The SXSW iPhone app was a bit rubbish but it heralds an interesting thing; special purpose short term apps with very specific functions like a Nivea For Men World Cup App or a Matters *%^ Me Numbers App.
3. New kinds of businesses
There are some very different kinds of business emerging who are not hampered by legacy business thinking or technology who are really thriving in this new environment. Local Motors, Mint, SmartyPig, Vook, Newspaper Club are all very new types of business operating in traditional sectors; automotive, finance and publishing. There is a significant shift underway and we need to help clients to understand and adapt.
All in all an inspiring and invigorating event. MOre posts to come on some of my fave talks including Transmedia, Future of Publishing, Education 2.0. Once I get this pitch out of the way...
4/2/2010
Posted by Josh Dysart, Manager, Corporate Communications
Passing by the Apple Store this morning, I was reminded that tomorrow marks the launch of Apple's latest innovation, the iPad.
I went online to catch up on the news, and I was reminded yet again. And again. And again. It's everywhere.
That got me to thinking. What does the iPad mean for advertisers and agencies?
So before he started his day, I had the chance to sit down with Draftfcb Chicago's Chris Miller, EVP, group management director, digital, to get his thoughts on that very question.
His answer is in the video below, and after watching it, I'd love to hear what you think.
Interview with Chris Miller 12/10/2009Posted by Sanjay Rana, Senior Digital Business Strategist, Draftfcb New York
This post started out as a simple mental exercise. Given what I’m hearing from clients these days, would I ever recommend they avoid social media? Can I make a credible case against participating in social media?
First, some ground rules: when I’m talking about participating in social media in aggregate, rather than a specific site. MySpace may not be appropriate for an office supplies company. But, when you talk about social media as a whole, it becomes a bit harder.
So, I started thinking of situations where social media doesn’t make sense. What if you’re in a specific niche business where your customers aren’t using social media channels. What if you needed to guarantee ROI?
But then it hit me. Right now, social media is similar to the internet in the mid-90’s, when it just started gaining traction among the public. Sure, if you were a tech company, it was easy to argue for a website; after all, your target market was already surfing the Web. But, for non-technology companies, the argument was a little harder. It wasn’t clear if your customers were online yet. What would you actually do online? Who would be responsible for it? It wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t even clear if you could make money on this.
Some companies decided to take the plunge, despite everything. Others chose to wait.
Now, some ten years later, it’s pretty much impossible to be a major brand without some sort of web presence, and the term first-mover advantage is taught in college business classes across America. And, most importantly, a lot of what actually happens online these days wasn’t even a twinkling in the eye of engineers ten years ago.
I’m not saying that you need to do social media or else. But, there is something to be said for experience – for being out there and learning, for actually participating. As social media evolves, things will change, and what we will consider social media in 5 years probably doesn’t even exist today. But, in 5 years, social media will be embedded in daily life, much like the internet in general is today. You won’t have a choice but to participate. And the thing is, those companies that dipped their toes in the water today will probably be in a better place culturally to deal with that social media of tomorrow.
And so, we come back to my original question. Is there a case against social media? It depends. You could make a case that you don’t need to go all out with a Facebook page and a twitter feed and a blog and so on and so forth. Your circumstances will dictate that. But, I can’t, in good conscience tell you that you can avoid it all together. You need to dip your toes in the water. Even if, for now, that means listening to what people are saying about you and that’s it. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to learn how to swim. And it’s a lot easier to start in the kiddy pool then get thrown in the deep end. 12/9/2009Posted by Steve Schildwachter, SVP, Group Management Director, Draftfcb Chicago
Measurement and accountability are favorite topics of mine because they are the keys to the future of our business. Technology now permits us to know a lot more about the results of what we do.
Even so, it seems many executives don’t want to know the results. Perhaps they don’t trust the mysterious black box marketing mix analyses that impugned their efforts in the past. Perhaps the idea of understanding an algorithm (or even spelling the word) is intimidating or boring. Or maybe it’s just a lack of familiarity with the methods old and new we can all use to figure out what worked and what didn’t.
We’d all better get familiar fast. Even if we provide the smartest strategy and the greatest creative, it won’t mean much without analytics. As described in the short history of advertising, there are plenty of consultants who are willing to fill the void.
Fortunately the Draftfcb Model includes Customer Intelligence – the data analysts, or, as their leader says, the marketing geeks. On my business we are using them more and more – with great results.
The rest of the industry has caught on to these topics. Open any trade publication or business website and you’ll see a lot of interesting news and discussion. Here are just three examples plucked from the news last week alone.
1. It’s possible to measure TV advertising’s effect.
Let’s start with some fuzzy math. Or, in the words of Lucas Donat, “fuzzy analytics”. Donat wrote about a method of measuring TV advertising’s effect on sales. It’s very simple from a mathematical standpoint: establish a baseline that estimates what sales would be if you did not advertise for the time period in question. What’s the baseline? This is the fuzzy part. You are making a 21st Century dart throw, a guesstimate. But why not? You have to start somewhere. As Donat explains, you must attend to this model over time and learn its rhythms, constantly measuring your actual sales curve to understand the marketplace effect. Does this sound daunting? Ask Customer Intelligence for some perspective.
Years ago when I worked on McDonald’s we used this model to understand whether a promotion like Two Big Macs for $2 was driving a sufficient lift in transactions to justify the lower average check we expected from the discount. Step one was to establish a baseline. We treated these monthly case studies very seriously, and referred back to them for the planning of each new program. You’ve never known accountability, by the way, until you’ve explained store sales and profit to a committee of QSR franchisees.
2. The “secret weapon” should now be standard equipment.
Draftfcb resulted from the merger of an ad agency and the world’s premier direct marketing agency. I love the way my direct marketing colleagues think about measurement; it’s a product of decades measuring their work in direct marketing. Before the merger, direct marketing was something I only read about. For example, “Ogilvy on Advertising”, David Oglivy’s 1983 book, included a chapter titled “Direct mail, my first love and secret weapon”. It’s either quaint or prophetic that in just the third paragraph he mentions “computers” as a major advancement in the discipline.
3. Isn’t digital supposed to be measurable?
Recently, there was also an article about IRI, Dynamic Logic, ComScore and X+1 teaming up to offer a platform to analyze consumer purchase data and plan more effective online campaigns. Part of the news here is that they seek to tie purchase data to consumer segments such as loyalists and switchers. An intriguing example was the diagnosis of a packaged-goods brand campaign that attributed sales lift to incremental purchases by existing customers, as opposed to bringing in new buyers.
These are just three examples from one week in business journalism. There are thousands more.
Amidst all this activity, we offer something truly unique. We were the first major agency to elevate accountability to the same level as creativity. Customer Intelligence is critical to this effort.
12/3/2009
Posted by Kevin Skobac, Interactive Media Supervisor, Draftfcb New York
These days media consumption is changing so rapidly that what you knew today could be outdated tomorrow. Even traditional stalwarts like TV and print are evolving now, so that in 2010 we could be receiving our magazine subscriptions on a Time Inc branded tablet PC. Because of this, early adopters like me are constantly tantalized by and obsessed with "what's going to be the next big thing." in 2007 we were obsessed with Twitter as the future of communication and content consumption, then Friendfeed in 2008, and in 2009 we haven't shut up about Foursquare.
If you haven't tried it yet, Foursquare is equal parts social networking, location review & discovery (like Yelp), and gaming- all from your mobile phone. You "check in" when you arrive at a place and are told which of your friends are nearby, tips that they left for you about that particular spot (what's good to eat?), and you earn points towards badges that show up on your profile. And as of recently, restaurants & stores are increasingly leaving coupons for visitors to entice them to stop by after their recent nearby check-in.
This may sound simple, but it's quickly addictive. And if you commit to playing for a few weeks, you'll quickly see the amazing potential it has to unlock the power of mobile social-networking through real-world discovery. It may not be for you, and that's OK; Foursquare might not even succeed itself in the long run when Facebook inevitably replicates some (or all) of it's features. But the point is, you won't really know what it has to offer and how people are experiencing it unless you jump in and try it.
It's clear to everyone that old world disruption advertising models have a smaller role in the future of marketing. As advertisers we need to be able to know how to engage with our audiences in meaningful and valuable ways. The only way we can do this is if we invest real time in experiencing and learning the new media landscape. We need to stop asking what tweets are or why someone just became "mayor of the 33rd & 5th street Starbucks." We need to sign up for these new and unusual (or possibly scary or stupid) products and services, or we'll be left behind.
Since Foursquare is picking up steam the early adopters are moving on- this month I'll be over at Dailybooth.com learning how Teens are communicating with each other through pictures. I Didn't really see the point at first, but I have to jump in and try it.
12/2/2009Posted by Michael Fassnacht, Global Chief Strategy Officer
New York’s MOMA has currently an interesting exhibition of the “Bauhaus” schools, focused on its most important years from 1919 until the early thirties. The “Bauhaus” school of design, architecture, and much more has had a huge influence of a lot of art forms over the last 90 years. Rereading some of its core principles in a few recently published articles (from Artforum to the New York Times to the New Yorker), I was amazed by the absolute contemporariness of its ideas.
One of the Bauhaus core principles is the end of separation of the “Werkmeister” (the skilled craft expert with a deep understanding of materials and production techniques, who ultimately produces the art piece) and the “Formmeister” (the conceptual expert who comes up with the idea and the concept of the art). The Bauhaus thinkers detested this separation between the highly regarded thinker and concepter (Formmeister) versus the more hands-on, poorer paid executer of someone’s ideas and concepts (Werkmeister). This separation of form and production/technology hindered the creation of true art concepts according to the Bauhaus school of thoughts. Bauhaus had even its own course for any new students called “Vorkurs” (Pre-Course) with the focus of dissolving the distinction between these two masters. In 1923 it was called “Art and Technology: A new Unity”. This principle could not have more relevance for today’s marketing discourse, it might even worthwhile to design a new marketing centric “Vorkurs” for most marketing organizations.
A few months ago I wrote about the trend that successful digital organizations integrate the technologist/producer closer into the traditionally defined creative team of the copy writer and art director. It seems that the Bauhaus founders understood the danger of being too alienated to the ultimate means of creation. Interestingly enough, most famous painters have always closely held control of the production of their master pieces, even in cases where they delegate some of their executional work to students who work in their atelier.
And in today’s marketing world, technology (as the ultimate way of production of marketing programs) is becoming more and more central to any marketing idea. To complicate this Bauhaus principle which I fully support, we can witness a strong commodization and outsourcing of production technologies and work, primarily due to lower labor costs and more repetitive and non differentiating production cycles (who wants to create and quality ensure a simple Web Banner?).
The reasonable way forward of combining the Bauhaus principle with today’s reality of cost pressure is the separation of innovative technology and production ways that should be closely held as part of a newly created marketing team, including the “Werkmeister”, from the repetitive way of mass produced elements of a marketing program that does not require neither the attention of the “Formmeister” nor the “Werkmeister.” 10/14/2009Posted by Jennifer Beio, Media Planner, Draftfcb Chicago
It's weird, sometimes, the stuff that sparks inspiration.
Sir James Dyson was on the Today Show this morning, with a segment about Dyson's new product, a bladeless fan. My ears perked up, and the reasons for this are threefold:
1. Sir James Dyson's buttery voice turns me into a puddle of mush. He could sell me anything.
2. I love Dyson, in general. Sexy awesome household products? Yes, please.
3. The type of fan we're talking about is, by definition: any of various devices consisting essentially of a series of radiating vanes or blades attached to and revolving with a central hublike portion to produce a current of air.*
Check it out, here.
A fan is a thing with blades. But, blades aren't perfect. So, let's ditch 'em.
It's really cool when people improve upon products and services to make them better: more efficient, safer, more functional, easier to use, etcetera. It's incredibly cool when people redefine them. Maybe a bladeless fan is a ridiculous product that nobody really needs, but it's kind of fantastic to think that people out there are inventing products that have no need for the elements that used to define them.
Sir James Dyson, you're pretty cool. You make me want to create things, maybe advertising things, maybe other things, and throw the limitations of definitions out the window. You make me want to be an inventor. You go, James Dyson.
*dictionary.com FTW 6/10/2009Posted by Russ Unger, Diretor of Experience Planning, Draftfcb Chicago
Wow.
Feels so very vain to type that.
But, if you’re interested in seeing my ugly mug and listening to me talk about the book, “A Project Guide to UX Design” that I co-authored with Carolyn Chandler, please, check out the video!
Feel free to lob tomatoes at your monitor as you deem necessary. 3/5/2009
Posted by Chris Miller, Group Management Director, Interactive, Draftfcb Chicago
I continue to be more and more bullish on the so called third screen, the mobile phone. I’m up to 10 pages full of icons=app’s on my iphone and while some are played with and casually tossed away, most are becoming a daily part of my life.
The area I’ve most be intrigued about is location services. Sure there’s dopplr and brightkite and app’s like Loopt, Cellspin, etc. as well as service app’s that don’t just connect you to people but to product like Where and Urban Spoon. But when Google gets into the game with a service like Latitude, you know the game is changing.
As an advertiser and marketer for my clients, data is becoming increasingly important. Well not just the data but the analysis, use and marketing through it, that’s the important part. For years we’ve talked about: the right message, in the right place, at the right time to the right person. It would seem marrying: mobile, data and, on the fly/flexible creative messaging are we’re just about there.
Sure it’s a little bit out there and not the least annoying to others unless those voices are in your head (or bluetooth headset) is the advertising scene from minority report. But are we really that far away from it.
Take a read to the latest Business Week article for their take on mobile marketing, privacy and where it’s going. |
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