2thinknow has just released a study that indexes the most innovative cities in the world. Granted, I live in San Francisco and I am insanely biased, but WTF?? San Francisco is tied for 2nd with Amsterdam and Hamburg? The last time I was in Amsterdam, I think most people were still using 28baud modems. And Stockholm is number twenty-seven? Does this sound right? Here is a link to the entire list.
Just read a about Dvice about Dalton’s BioLogic FreeCharge that hooks up to your bike and uses resistance from the wheels to generate enough power to charge an iPhone or other USB device. Assuming that it is kinda like those old “generator” headlights.
Pretty cool that you can actually do something good for the environment AND charge your iPhone. These should launch March 2010 and cost about $100. Sign me up.
When a client says, “I am only looking for digital ideas from your agency,” what does that even mean these days? When Levis puts a video up on YouTube and it gets 3MM views, is that a digital idea? When T-Mobile films hundreds of people singing “Hey Jude” in Trafalgar square and distributes it on the Web, is that a digital idea? When McDonalds includes a SMS link in a billboard that gives you a code for a free Shamrock Shake, is that a digital idea?
What I have grown to learn over the years is that they definition of digital is every-changing. Every new idea is considered “digital.” In the early days, that meant CD-ROM, interactive TV, websites and the online advertising. As new, technology-driven, ways to connect with consumers emerged, they were added to the “digital” list. They included search, mobile, in-game advertising, digital outdoor, kiosks, installations, viral, social media, etc. etc.
It has become much easier to define “traditional.” Print, broadcast and outdoor are never-changing and forever stuck in time. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t perfect elements to a campaign, it just means that there definition will not evolve. It is almost easier today to define digital as everything traditional isn’t.
But, let’s face it, none of these labels matter. Consumers don’t see a difference between digital and traditional, they are simply living their lives the only way they know how. They snack. They browse. They sample. They move effortlessly between digital and traditional mediums and don’t look back. This is precisely why the best ideas out there don’t begin and end in a single medium. They mix media and use the right platforms to tell an engaging story that connects with consumers.
By asking for “just a digital idea,” we are artificially limiting the potential of a great idea.
Sometime in the mid-nineties, the advertising industry identified the need to blend, or “integrate,” digital and traditional tasks within agencies. Account people, strategists, planners were relatively easy as they focused more on the consumers and the marketing strategy than producing a creative deliverable. That said, it still took about five years to get there.
Creatives came around later. Generally speaking, they tend to gravitate toward interesting work that earns them notoriety and is seen by a lot of people. Prior to 2004/05, the Web didn’t offer enough of this. An increase in budgets, production value, notoriety, etc started to make the Web more interesting and we saw an influx of traditional creatives actually <i>wanting</i> to learn more about digital. In most small shops today (under 100), creative teams are handling both traditional and digital assignments.
The one key role which hasn’t seemed to budge much in the last 10 years is that of producers and/or project managers. I have interviewed hundreds of producers and still find that they consider themselves a “print” producer, a “broadcast” producer or a “digital” producer. I am having a hard time figuring out why.
One could argue that producers are the most important role to be integrated. This person sits at the center of a project and needs to manage details across every channel. In most forward-thinking agencies, rarely is the media prescribed at the time the brief is written. When we start a project and EVB, we have no idea what the final deliverable will be. It could be an iphone app, TV spot, live event or anything in-between. It would optimal to have a team of producers who could support, and even guide, creative teams as they develop ideas for any medium.
Falling budget alone should be a force that drives the need for integrated producers. For low budget, multi-platform campaigns, it is not practical to support a separate producer for each medium. We identified the need for integrated producers early on as we were creating multi-platform campaigns for clients like adidas and 2K Sports and, frankly, couldn’t afford to multiple producers. We, maybe unfairly and with limited success, asked producers to play several roles outside their comfort zone.
So, why is it so hard for broadcast producers to grasp digital and vice versa? I wish I had the answer.
I read this morning on Agency Spy that Theresa Howard, the ad reporter from USA Today has taken a job at Crispen Porter + Bogusky as a copywriter. This makes so much sense for so many reasons. Not least of which, CPB completely understands that a major part of creating advertising campaigns in a media-fragmented world is finding ways to promote them using unpaid media. A good handle on the press and public relations and what makes campaigns “buzz-worthy” is the key to setting your agency apart.
I am not saying that Theresa is going to be regulated to only working on CPB’s press releases, rather she will have many interesting angles for coming up with advertising ideas that will appeal to both consumers and the press.
Microsoft Office Labs just released this video of their “glimpse ahead” to 2019. It’s an interesting and well-produced look at how we all may interact, connect and communicate 10 years from now. It’s fun to watch, but I do wonder how accurate it is. One of the dangers of making “prediction” videos is that they always assume that we will be doing things the same way we do them now, just bigger, better and more sci-fi. I am not sure if it is actually going to be easier, or more practical, to have hundreds of touch-screens and floating interfaces for each decision we have to make throughout the day.
This is a domain that I have owned since 1994. My friend, Max Bean, and I bought it with the intention of using it for our new Web design company. At the time, we felt like there were a lot of snake oil salesmen in the internet marketing world and we thought it would be apropos to name our company the Internet Charlatans. The domain name has followed me for years, but I have never used it for anything.
Max and I did start a Web design company, along with Jason Zada, but we called it Evolution Bureau (EVB), rather than the Internet Charalatans. As EVB has grown over the years, I have come to realize that my opinion and the opinion of the agency aren’t always the same, nor do they need to be. This blog is my outlet to talk about stuff that I want to talk about. The opinions here within are not necessarily those of EVB.
