Creative Agency Secrets

Peter Eckert, projekt202

Chris Bernard, Microsoft

Kevin Flatt – Tribal DBB [agency of the year]
Brooke Nonberg – Pixel
Garrick Schmitt -Avenue A Razorfish
[I came because this session is supposed to be about the intersection of the traditional agency and the new online agency and how they and clients transition].

PE - if you are nimble it’ll be easy to move to this new paradigm.  The culture is changing and the internet is becoming mainstream and so this is the key for agencies with specialisations that fill a niche but others will find it hard to move out to this space.

CB – Any creative route or client if you don’t understand it you will risk falling behind and your voice stops being heard.  Step out and learn – recipe for continued evolutionary success.  

PE -it is going to be very hard to stay up with all the new social media outlets / trends…
BN – it comes down to ideas, she has seen powerful things from unexpected agencies.  There are wonderful things out there.  Either you have the client relationships and ideas or you let politics get in the way.   The team works hard together.
KF – Tribal was born out of DBB and the changing environment.  Because it is part of an organisation with a long history there was a lot of learning, transferred over.  Our medium is digital but we aren’t ignorant of the wider world of advertising.  Across all our offices we can see digital and all forms of communication.    The most interesting are the agencies that forget about the medium but focus on the communication and the engagement you seek.
GS – Creative ideas – you need a mastery of the data and the understanding of a user interacts with touchpoints and the influence of each.  How to change message and campaign structure to adapt to each one, and what people are saying online and on Facebook etc.  This medium is still evolving, data and how to make the judgements against it is native to the net and this platform and it will be harder for traditional agencies to apply their skills over to it.

BN – the net is just one channel not ALL the digital channels – there is so much.  The blood will be where people think it’s just about email or a website…. the consumer is moving through all these things all the time, they don’t stop.  There won’t be one single answer.  Authentic conversations within social media channels?  It is a dangerous space to push inappropriately into these channels – social media is something that you need to have a reason to be in… Insights come also from watching what they do as well as data and conversations with real people.   Take the tone and attitude and recognise it’s about sharing freedom of speech not pushing adverts.  

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I work as a non-executive for a couple of my clients.  I came across this article from the Telegraph in which the differences and similarities of a non-exec and an interim manager are detailed.

detail below.

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A topic I’ve been mulling for a while is whether it’s possible to do "opensource" as a business model for creative agencies.

As is my wont, I’ll try the ideas out on a couple of agency bosses as I meet them during my normal line of work.  I have just had the first positive response to the suggestion.

My thesis, is that every agency says they are "creatively led" and "innovative" and "ideas-led".  But in practice, each one is very like any other.  A very few lead the field in creativity and innovation and the broad mass are followers. 

The broad mass are still very good at what they do, don’t mistake me.  But if you work for or own one of those agencies whose creative reputation is not yet as high a star as you hope it will one day become, how do you show the world how great you are at creative ideas?

The normal showcase you use is your client work.  But what if your client won’t let you run the best things you devise?  They choose the ’safe’ campaign.  Well, you use pitches as another opportunity to show off your talents.  And if you win the pitch - all well and good [but frequently the client still won’t let you run the really creative campaign you favour].

So what if you lose the pitch?  Well, there’s a fabulous document detailing all your best ideas for this particular brief sitting on a shelf in the office.

Here’s what I say

PUBLISH IT.

Here’s why

• if you are creative, it will show through
• You can then allow others to compare your work to the campaign the client finally ran with the winning agency (does yours stack up?)
• Prospective clients can see your truly most creative stuff
• Competitors…ditto….

I now have a second stage to suggest.  Allow others to use your material - YES MAKE IT OPENSOURCE

• Use creative commons licenses
• Let anyone take your best stuff and use / adapt it for their own purposes
• Take the credit for originating
• Promote it as a point of difference for your agency
• Let prospective clients work out how good your stuff is by showing them and the public how great it really is

I expect a few side benefits

1. Improved recruitment
2. Some great B2B campaigns to promote your business
3. The industry newspapers will ignore it…. for a bit
4. Smaller agencies will declare their connection to your work and you will get exposure through their clients (who may grow and come and see you sometime)….

Roll up, roll up, read all about it. Stephen Waddington of tech PR company, Rainier PR, seems to think I may have something worthwhile to suggest.

A bit of a rant from Daniel Riveong.
He highlights two interesting and apparently conflicting trends that have the same outcome:

two trends will continue heighten the
“commodization” of client-agency relationships, resulting in the ever
more common “break-ups” between major brand and agencies:

1. Increasingly ROI driven Marketing/Advertising decisions
2. Increasingly integrated approach to Marketing/Advertising

These two approach drives the pressure for both parties to have
increasingly control over the marketing strategy, creative direction
etc - driving up the potential for friction (while also collaboration)
in the relationship.

Many agencies have used Rebus the integrated timesheet, accounts and cost management system.  The makers have re-written the software and called it "Paprika".  Launched November 06, it is a bit smarter than the previous system, has pretty graphics but is fundamentally intuitive and looks quite easy to use.

Key, of course, to a successful installation is
1/  Specify the system properly
2/ Have clear processes (and use them)
3 / Manage the change actively

I saw a demo online and have taken it into two clients for consideration.

Worth a look.

Would like to know what others think.

Just writing up the report on Agencies and their use of Web 2.0 tools to run their businesses. 
Findings, broadly in line with my thesis, that as an industry we are behind the adoption curve.

We managed 15 telephone interviews and 68 people got online to do the SurveyMonkey. 
We got picked up by another blogger (a graduate working for a PR firm).
The event invitations are out and replies coming back.

About 20 new contacts made with new people we didn’t know previously. 
One new prospect meeting already in the diary and one new job won from someone who already knew me but picked up the phone as a result of being contacted for the survey.

Net outcomes so far.  Costs = 100%.  New business won = 25% of costs to date.
Not brilliant.  But not awful.

Having made my snide remarks about PRs trying to track blogs for their clients, I think it’s time to focus on the law as it applies to us writing online for a wide audience.

Thanks to Creative Match for setting up the interview with Amali de Silva, senior litigation solicitor at Wiggins and Tahir Basheer, Partner at Media specialist law firm Sheridans.

Blogging offers us all an opportunity to have our say – but how far can we go without ending up in the soup?

When writing a blog, it is important to remember that the law does apply to the internet,

I am doing some research into how creative agencies are using Web 2.0 technologies for their businesses.  This stemmed from some McKinsey research published in April on how businesses globally are using Web 2.0.

I want to find out whether creative agencies are ahead or behind the curve.

As an advisor to several creative agencies, I see these technologies as "tools" that businesses can use to help them fulfil their strategic vision. 

Would you help me by taking the survey?

Click here to take survey

If you have colleagues and friends in other businesses who might also help
here is an email link you can send them to direct them to the survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=526743836111

With many thanks for your assistance.

P.S. the survey offers to send you the results once you have answered the questions… if you want the results without answering the questions, keep reading this blog!

Now, most of you readers know that I am a enthusiastic rower and sculler.  And here’s a great cross-over article about management theory and team building that is being used by one of the top rowing teams in teh world, Cambridge University, to try and aide its efforts to win the Boat Race.

Mark de Rond, has been following the crew and its professional coaching team for a year for his researches.  He is a Management Theorist at the Judge Business School.  It was Mark who set up the collaboration for his researches.  I expect the book that comes out of it will be very insightful. 

Anyway, here’s the Economist article.

Rhythm and blues

Mar 29th 2007 | CAMBRIDGE

From The Economist print edition

Can voguish management theory help to win a venerable race?

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY’S “blue boat”, which faces its Oxford rival in the 153rd
boat race on April 7th, glides past the browns and greys of the East
Anglian fenland. The oars cup and spill the water, leaving eight evenly
spaced dimples in the river behind them. Two catamarans track the
boat’s progress. In the first, Duncan Holland, the coach, looks for
flaws in the rowers’ technique. In the second sits a less congruous
figure: Mark de Rond, a management theorist from Cambridge’s Judge
Business School. He thinks this time-honoured contest holds lessons for
business today.

As in any
company, the members of the boat club are torn between competition and
co-operation. Colleagues vie with each other for preferment, yet must
collaborate closely to fend off competition from without. To win a seat
in the blue boat a rower must outshine his clubmates; but to go fast,
rowers must synchronise their efforts with the same people they are
trying to outdo.

On one recent
outing Mr Holland noticed the tell-tale signs of a “rhythm fight”
between two decorated rowers: each was trying, perhaps unwittingly, to
impose his natural tempo on the other. Some coaches might just tell one
to speed up and the other to slow down. But Mr Holland is willing to
try some b-school thinking. So, like the problem-solving circles
pioneered by Japanese steel plants, his rowers are encouraged to spot
and solve such glitches for themselves. “I lead from the side,” he says.

Picking the
best eight from more than 30 hopefuls proved tricky: not all of the
possible permutations added up to the sum of their parts. Jake
Cornelius, for example, arrived from Stanford University as one of the
strongest rowers, but he seemed to upset the rhythm of the boat. So he
was advised to row “anonymously”. As another rower put it: you stand
out by not sticking out.

Dan
O’Shaughnessy, by contrast, may not have the smoothest technique, but
he still belongs in the swiftest boat. A flamboyant character, he gets
the best out of his crewmates, who like to have him around, Mr de Rond
says. Their views were backed by an article in the Harvard Business Review,
which found that workmates prize amiability over ability, preferring
the “loveable fool” to the “competent jerk”. Employees may be reluctant
to admit this, but managers should take heed: teams that like each
other also seem to work better together.

So both
rowers will take their seats in the blue boat next week. The race is
always a test of strength, stamina and technique. But this year’s event
may also show whether some innovative management thinking holds water.

Thanks to Nicholas Carr for spotting and linking two reports on Web 21.0 for business.  First Forrester’s survey of CIOs asked about their take-up of six Web 2.0 tools

Fully 89% of the CIOs said they had adopted at least one of six
prominent Web 2.0 tools - blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social
networking, and content tagging - and a remarkable 35% said they were
already using all six of the tools.

Pretty much what you’d expect from Chief Technology Officers (who all probably lie a bit to appear ahead of the curve!)  [aside…. I remember in the Wordplex days of dumb terminals and central servers at Edward Erdman when I told the head of IT that a Windows front end for the software suite had been launched.  He knew nothing…. and I got no credit!]

But McKinsey did a wider survey

In January 2007, McKinsey surveyed some 2,800 executives - not just
CIOs - from around the world. It found strong interest in many Web 2.0
technologies but much less widespread adoption. McKinsey also looked at
six tools. While it didn’t include tagging, it did include mashups; the
other five were the same. It found that social networking was actually
the most popular tool, with 19% of companies having invested in it,
followed by podcasts (17%), blogs (16%), RSS (14%), wikis (13%), and
mashups (4%). When you add in companies planning to invest in the
tools, the percentages are as follows: social networking (37%), RSS
(35%), podcasts (35%), wikis (33%), blogs (32%), and mashups (21%).

So - you know where you can place your company in this list.  BUT….read on, dear reader.

Perhaps the most surprising finding coming out of the McKinsey survey
was that American companies are not poised to be the leaders in
embracing Web 2.0 in coming years. If anything, they’re looking like
laggards.

[I don’t want to say ‘hooray’ but finally we find the "rest-of-the-world" can dominate the Yanks.]  Hooray.  And our chance comes now. 
This bell-curve of adoptions is raging ahead.  Different industries are taking it differently.  I have been working with my clients to get blogs up to speed… the hardest thing is to get them to see the opportunities offered.  And where the benefits will fall.

Any advice for me?

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