Being Peter Kim

Connecting the Connected Agency conversation

About two weeks ago, Forrester published the Connected Agency report.  As expected, the reactions have been both positive and negative; if everyone agreed about the shape of agency of the future, then the research wouldn't have been worth writing.

I do, however, see a rough separation in sentiment between digital agencies (positive) and traditional agencies (negative).  Why is that?

Some reactions:

• "There is an healthy pull pulling both corporate communications/marketing and agencies/vendors up to new heights, faster and faster." Ken Kaplan, Intel
• "'Where have you been, my friend?' to the thought that the digital guys are going to be any better: they're also mostly tied up with old ideas about influence and information being a key driver of behaviour." Mark Earls, Independent, formerly Ogilvy
• "When you look at this changes in context of the challenges for the CMOs -- then suddenly the urgency and seriousness of the problem facing Ad and Marketing Agencies becomes quite stark." Chris Tacy, Method
• "We’re not excusing the industry’s slow move to digital or failure to pick up on some of the changes in consumer culture, but it’s not always within our control. Trust. We wish it was." Agency Spy, Mediabistro
• "I do think its hard to consider the future of the agency business without recognising that the media agencies (or at least some of them) are driving real change for their clients." Simon Andrews, Mindshare
• "I'm a bit tired of constantly hearing how bad we are at what we do. the industry is changing, and rapidly. We get it. And some of us are actually trying to drive that change in ways that will help change the ways that agencies come up with solutions for our clients."  Mitch Caplan, Project Davinci (WPP)
• "Am I crazy about how ridiculous articles like this are…especially because they are re-run every. single. week. by the trades. Is this hell? Yes."  daily (ad) biz, Anonymous
• "Own up to the problem that most marketers are completely out of sync with the rest of the world, take some responsibility and then, just maybe, things might start to get a little better." Deb Wiseman, Crayon
• "Boy, did I screw up." David Deal, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Instead of looking at what brands can tell people, we instead need to be looking at what brands can do for people." Paul Isakson, space150
• "I  believe that within a few years there will be less distinction between digital, advertising and pr agencies - we will in turn become influencer agencies that span multiple media." Jonny Bentwood, Edelman
• "Sometimes it sucks being ahead of the curve."  Tac Anderson, HP
• "Sadly, most agencies still don’t get the new space, or if they do, they lightly gloss it over by saying “Oh yeah, we’ve a blog” and when I look, it’s a bunch of self-serving posts written by a variety of different folks with little strategy and few comments." Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester
• "One major problem with advertising agencies is that they’re exceptional at believing their own bullshit." Jason Falls, Doe Anderson
• "I would argue if you have that experience, skills and aptitudes, then transposing them into the new techniques and channels offered by social media is a lot simpler than trying to come at it from the direction of the advertising agency." Steve Ellis, Metia Software
• "As communities & conversations become more and more important, there is a need to understand how to build analytical models around huge "conversational  databases" that will emerge." Sivaraman Swaminathan, Customer Equity Solutions
• "How much can an agency facilitate conversations and nurture connections? I feel this is primarily a job for the brands themselves." Shiv Singh, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Despite the wealth of information out there, distilling it into useful, actionable insight isn’t easy, and in fact it’s one area where old-school disciplines can help new media and digital mature as a discipline." Outside Line
• "Agency expertise has always tended to be siloed so things really become interesting when you connect media behavior with front end data for segmentation and predictive modeling with back end website analytics. Suddenly a different picture starts to form." Steven Duke, Wunderman

I'm glad we got people thinking - and this is just the beginning.

The Connected Agency

Forrester published a piece yesterday that takes a hard look at the future of advertising agencies.  It's what used to be called, in Forrester parlance, a "Big Idea," i.e. a concept not necessarily in practice today, but best practices looking 5 to 10 years out and beyond.  (The first Big Idea I wrote was called Reinventing the Marketing Organization.)

The executive summary of the research:

Today's agencies fail to help marketers engage with consumers, who, as a result, are becoming less brand-loyal and more trusting of each other. To turn the tide, marketers will move to the Connected Agency — one that shifts: from making messages to nurturing consumer connections; from delivering push to creating pull interactions; and from orchestrating campaigns to facilitating conversations. Over the next five years, traditional agencies will make this shift; they will start by connecting with consumer communities and will eventually become an integral part of them.

Clients can access the report directly.  After you've read the report, we welcome your comments here and/or on the Forrester.com site.

Engagement and SB XLII Ads

Think back about the game.  Do you remember any of the ads - without any aided recall?  Did any of them really "engage" you?

For $3 million, I was curious about how engaging the ads would be.  I do marketing/advertising research for a living which means my perspective is biased.

To refresh your memory, going back almost two years:  "Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."  Thus spoke the ARF.  I'd extend that definition because it could be as simple as "they liked our ad."  I say engagement means that people did something after watching.

Well, these days the easiest next step would be for consumers to find out more online.  So I was looking for ads that sent people to the web to find out more - and not just looking for the ads on myspace.

OK so were any of these ads really "engaging"?

As expected, the only one that did with any effectiveness was GoDaddy.com.  The trick wasn't the suggestive humor - it was their URL displayed on screen for the entire spot.  (I spoke with their PR director last month in Vegas who said this is a recognized value-creating tactic.)

I can vaguely remember some other vanity URLs:

• A talking stain during an interview.
• Sunsilk - something with music, nothing to do with shampoo.
• Doritos using snackstrongproductions.com again (remember I'm biased)
• Sobe had one, but I just remember Thriller.

I also remember some of the other advertisers - Bridgestone, Audi, Coca-Cola, Victoria's Secret, FedEx, Gatorade, and salesgenie.com (their URL was ../tv I think).  But if they had vanity URLs, I can't remember them.  (were there any others?)

Keep in mind that I'm biased, in the industry, and trying to keep the addresses in mind.  Blame the memory, I suppose.

Pew's latest survey shows over 73% of adults have internet access.  Forrester data shows 72%.  Of course we could go to myspace and look at all the ads.  But isn't the point of engagement to say something that a viewer will remember - and then do something about?  Seems like most advertisers did as well here as the Patriots' offensive line.

Read between the lines: Google and TBWA

Last week, I moderated a Sapient-sponsored panel discussion on the state of the marketing organization.  At the same event, there was a session described as simply "Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Creative Lab, Google."  If you recall, this executive appointment caused quite a bit of speculation that Google might have plans to start their own ad agency, which has been repeatedly denied by the firm and best summed up by this statement:  "It would be mathematically impossible for us to get into that business."

Nevertheless, I was looking forward to the discussion to hear what exactly what happens at the Google Creative Lab (which sounds really cool, especially if you think about analogies like Nike Lab) in a discussion that would be facilitated by Tom Carroll of TBWA.  What came out of it was a half hour of dead air spots and the delusions of a traditional agency trying its best to sound digital.

OK so what IS the Google Creative Lab?  Someone from the audience actually asked this question after Berndt and Carroll had wandered from topic to topic for about 15 minutes.  The answer:

"an internal creative and marketing resource at Google to help manage the brand -- our only client is Google."

To elaborate:  "we own the Google brand."  "We work on partnerships, brand-defining stuff."  "We work with agencies on more complex stuff."

OK fair enough.  So the audience is primarily client-side marketing leaders.  They can't hire the Creative Lab; maybe they could learn lessons from the inside then, which Abbey Klaassen at Ad Age summarized.

Other than that, I found the most value in what was being said on stage and the insight between the lines...

TBWA:

• "Everyone is in a panic about digital.  Stop panicking!"  "Take a deep breath, we'll figure it out.  No one has the secret."
• “People say it’s a new world.  No it’s not, it’s the same world evolving.”
• “I wish I was 25 because then I would understand more.”
• “Right before Christmas, our Chief Digital Officer said let’s get everyone in the company on Facebook.  I wish she had kept me off of it.”
• "We did an asthma website for kids to show how to learn inhalers.  Like a Webkinz-type thing.  These are 26-year old kids.  They were getting a far deeper connection to the brand.  A more enclosed space between people, everyone is better off."

Google:

• “Google is still a founder-driven company.  Engineers are usually not crazy about marketing people; taking soundbites and pieces where the company comes from leads to interesting things.  ‘Organizing the world’s information’ is the world’s largest hack – a display of ability.  It’s an amazing creative space.  The core behind that is an almost Quixotic, a bold, moonshot type of spirit that’s at the center – it’s less competitive than sort of aspirational.  That takes a lot of communication and translation to people who don’t live at the center of that community.”
• “The vision of the brand is to help people remember what they enjoy about the emotion of Google.”

Hey I wish I was 25 again too because I would have a higher vertical leap and a less receded hairline.  But you don't have to be young to understand digital.  And agencies - do you think Google hired one of the world's top ad execs to create internal feel-good campaigns?  Do you sense a bit of frustration brewing in the Lab?

[The panel also demonstrated the result of what happens when the people on stage are unprepared for a discussion, which is why some of those statements may have come out so unpolished.  Sure, anyone can talk for 30 minutes, but if you want to say something interesting - or not - you need to give it some forethought.  If you need tips, check out these posts by Guy Kawasaki on moderating and participating.]

Facebook ad targeting examples

Facebook advertising has changed significantly over the past year.  Seems to me that ads used to look like flyers you'd find stapled to a campus kiosk, with messages like "futon for sale" or "a capella concert this Friday night."  Now, ad serving on Facebook has gotten mainstream, which means...it's terrible. 

Granted, it only breaks one of the three deadly sins of advertising - irrelevance.  Speaking of which, check out three flavors that I captured via screenshot on the site:

1. Behavioral.  Reading my cookies, eh Facebook?  The one on the left shows a display ad for the Bellagio.  True, I was looking for a Las Vegas hotel for CES last week at work.  But right now I'm updating my status, cyberstalking, etc.  You know, the usual.
2. Geotargeting.  The one in the middle shows an ad for a Dutch discount travel site.  Although I was sitting at home outside of Boston, Massachusetts, I was connected to my corporate VPN through Amsterdam (because for some reason my computer can't connect using the Cambridge VPN - go figure).
3. Contextual?  Owen Mack sent me an invite to add a PUMA app.  But look at the text ads - for high blood pressure, insomnia, and asthma.  Hmm...I don't have any of the three nor have I been searching for those terms.  Honestly.  Maybe working at PUMA feels like that?

Maybe remove poke is a pretty good idea...

(BTW the other two deadly sins of advertising?  Interruption and clutter, some would claim social ads hit both marks.)

BMWs made for "diplomatic" purposes

As seen in the window of BMW Park Lane, London.  Tough cars for tough times.  I guess seeing is believing.

Dude

  L'Homme 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

A sight commonly seen in the Paris Metro these days.  Along with H&M lingerie ads and some sort of frozen spinach thing.

The Unilever Onslaught Effect

Did you notice this article in Ad Age today?  "Dove Viral Draws Heat From Critics."

The idea of two brands conflicted underneath an CPG umbrella crossed my mind back in June - of last year.  [Don't get me wrong; I'm not claiming by any means to have invented this meme.]  My feeling is that the ends justify the means.  When I asked Babs Rangaiah about it during a panel discussion in March, his response was that they're separate brands with separate strategies.  Works for me.

Now someone's gone out and posted a viral video on the matter, which tells me that the meme has reached critical mass (that and the fact that there's a mainstream media article on the subject).

So - is this a case where Unilever needs to take on more corporate social responsibility?  Or is all fair in the name of shelf space and margin?

I know it's not black and white and thus probably a bit of both.  Just goes to show that the more successful you become, the more criticism you'll receive.  No one's crowing about Nike's ads anymore...because no one's talking about that ad campaign at every social media conference you attend these days.

Buzzlogic - WOM Ad Targeting

Buzzlogic is rolling out "conversation targeting" today at Ad:Tech - evolving online ad placement from contextual to super-contextual.  It's not the next step beyond behavioral, which keys off of client-side activity, but could evolve to include this as well.  Rather, we're talking about placing content-relevant ads with a dimension beyond reach/impressions - adding in a calculation of source "quality."  Quality has typically been left up to advertisers to determine for themselves based on clickthrough or conversion.

Right now the system only works with AdWords, so look for integration of other platforms - like blogads or adbrite.

This is an interesting product for a brand monitoring vendor - makes more sense to see this from an "engagement" type vendor like Buzzlogic or Visible Technologies.  Gives you an idea for where the market is heading.

Consumers Don't Trust Advertising

Max Kalehoff points out a Nielsen Buzzmetrics brand association map outlining terms associated with advertising in blog chatter.   The "inner circle" represents most frequent terms, grouped into four categories:

• Media:  commercials, ads (makes sense)
• Stakeholders:  marketers (naturally)
• Campaigns:  dollars, revenue (ok...)
• Negative associations:  false, misleading (uh oh)

This mirrors Forrester's data that only 6% of North American consumers agree with the statement "Companies generally tell the truth in advertising."

Interesting stuff.