Living in a digital world

Provocative thoughts

It feels like 1999-2000 all of sudden. The digital gold rush is under way once again.

Only this time it can be measured, clients know it works, the technology is robust, broadband penetration is high, craft skills and production values are reasonably high, and everyone but everyone is taking things seriously.

What’s not so clear is how agencies can convince clients that they have sensible full-service solutions. Here are some thoughts from around this topic from a couple of industry professionals:

Simon Thompson (Chief Marketing Officer of Lastminute, formerly marketing director of Honda and responsible for some of the best media neutral work of recent times) says:

“Who would have believed ten years ago that Google would generate more ad revenue that ITV? There are more people online during the day than watch TV and yet prestige and fame is coming from traditional offline creative work. It’s confusing to me.”

“How did you force the adoption of digital channels at Honda? We just did it. You don’t have to win people over.”

“What first grabbed you about digital advertising? For me it was interactive TV. It was wonderful because it was taking big brand emotion to online, all the way through to dealer sales. It was the perfect business model. My experience was that dwell patterns were up and brand affinity was up. You pay 30 seconds for an ad, let consumers press red and you’ve got seven minutes of their time with your brand. That’s fabulous value for money.”

“How important are planners? There are only two people in agencies who are relevant to me. One is the planner and the other is the creative. The planner says what you should do and the creative makes it live. The rest are suits who take you out to lunch, but generally I’m not hungry.”

“Looking ahead, what are you most interested about in terms of digital media? Personalised interaction. If someone could do a grand map that tapped me personally, emotionally, in a way that was absolutely specific to me, that would be wonderful.”

Ricardo Figueira of AgenciaClick (Brazil’s biggest digital agency): “Today’s advertising isn’t about creating message frequency through all personal media. It’s not about the message, layout, title or pack shot… It’s about brand engagement in complementary and relevant experiences around a concept to be enjoyed not just memorised.”

“A good creative professional isn’t ‘online or offline’ – they know how to create differentials in brands to deliver unexpected satisfaction to consumers. They’re the one who knows that a medium can deliver more than a message, the one who creates new media in each initiative, or the one who can create such good times that consumers talk to each other about their experiences.”

June 15, 2007 Posted by riksta | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment