Campbell on Branding and Innovation

Further Discussion on Saving Ad Agencies

A few weeks ago I wrote on how agencies are becoming commodities and followed that up with six steps to remedy the situation.

I've seen some interesting articles and posts on this topic recently as well - Business Week profiled Saatchi & Saatchi in describing the potential irrelevance of traditional agencies and the competition from other areas including permission marketers. Fast Company just wrote about Publicis trying to reinvent itself digitally - of course, if their hopes are pinned on Honeyshed I'd recommend shorting them (check out David Armano's initial thoughts on Honeyshed). And my friend Sean Scott, interactive wizard at agency Carmichael Lynch, posted ideas here and here on fixing traditional agencies, over at his blog, twofortyeight. I love the concept of adding an information architect to the traditional art director/copywriter duo. That staid partnership is as archaic as the tactics they have generated traditionally - print and TV. And with the importance of digital it only makes sense to include that position early on in the concepting phase. Excellent idea, Sean.

I Love Gadgets, Widgets and Apps

I caught the tail end of a Harley-Davidson Christmas spot the other day. I didn't get to see the whole thing and, as anyone in advertising knows, once you try to catch a spot you'll never see it and the ones you don't want to see keep showing up. So I was super happy to come across the spot on the Harley gadget on my iGoogle page. It turns out that it's on the h-d.com site as well but I didn't think to look there, it's easier when it's pushed to me. Here's the gadget with the spot:

I think it's pretty good, fits the brand and I like the pipes being left under the tree. Whaddya think?

Anyway, I was just sent a Harley Naughty List gift on Facebook based on the holiday campaign from a buddy of mine. I also just became a fan of Patagonia, Dr. Pepper and Willie Nelson on Facebook. I know when Seth, Tom or David post something new thanks to my Bloglines acount. I've been to 87 cities in 12 countries thanks to the TripAdvisor "Cities I've Visited" app. I know there's 72 days, 23 hours and 39 minutes until Daytona Bike Week thanks to the Harley Countdown to Daytona Google Gadget and I can find a Starbucks and arrange a meeting at the closest one thanks to the "Meet Me at Starbucks" gadget.

Whether it's RSS feeds from your site or blog, gadgets and apps, an offer via Twitter, or basic opt-in, relevant and respectful e-mail, this is where it's at - permission marketing. Finding fans and letting them participate on their terms. I love it. I'm much more likely to learn about new Patagonia Spring products through my Facebook feed or their catalog (which is the original permission marketing vehicle) than through print or TV. If I have a meeting with someone, how much easier is it to set something up through Starbucks - I now know where one is that works for everyone involved in the meeting and can schedule it. And the cost. The cost! It doesn't reach 600 million Americans (which is impossible since there are only 300 million in the US but that's what reach and frequency from your media team or the pass-along rate from your PR team will claim) but it's impactful, relevant, respectful and cost efficient.

So to Scott B., Debbie G., Katia H. and Sean S., keep the Harley interactive goodness coming. And start sending me more gadget content and more Facebook news feeds. After all, I'm offically a fan. :)

Books in 2007

With 2008 fast approaching, I thought I’d share a list of the books I’ve read this year. I try to read one or two books a month and have a stack of 30 or so that I’ve been meaning to get to, but I always end up finding new ones that hop to the front of the line. Here’s 2007 to-date:

The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed by John Vaillant
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Dan Pink
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
The Deviant’s Advantage by Watts Wacker
Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan
The Big Moo edited by Seth Godin
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategy for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization by Tom Kelley
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
The Dip by Seth Godin
Mind Your X’s and Y’s: Satisfying the Ten Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers by Lisa Johnson
Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East by Clyde Prestowitz
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children by John Wood

I’m currently reading Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, which has frameworks we’re using in our Service Design class.

What are you reading that you recommend? I’m always looking for ideas.

A Few Remedies to Avoid becoming a Commodity

So my last post was on how ad agencies are in the commodity business. I’m not sure how to fix the dinosaur Y&R’s, DDB’s and Leo Burnett’s of the world. I suppose the best course for them is a continued slide into irrelevance (along with the holding companies) so that something new and great can be built out of their ashes.

But as promised, here are a few things I would do if I was starting an agency or running a small- to mid-size one:

1. Find a niche. Be the best at online community-building or the only place to call for luxury goods marketing. If you are charged with a crime you don’t want a jack-of-all-trades lawyer. You want the best criminal trial lawyer you can get. If I am running a new museum, I want the expert in museum marketing and if I’m doing search marketing I want someone who knows that space as good or better than anyone else (in this case a small agency, Overdrive, in Boston). This means not pitching any piece of business that comes along. In order to stand for something you have to make choices.

2. Talk to your customers and your non-customers. How do they honestly view you? What you do. How you do it. How you communicate it. I don’t recall a single time anyone at the ad agency I worked at asked current clients or non-clients regularly to provide an honest assessment of the agency and I was never asked by my agencies how I viewed them. You can’t change or improve if you don’t know what your target audience thinks. What’s the first thing agencies recommend when taking on new business? Talk to the client’s target audience.

3. Go strong or don't go at all. If you’re going to truly be media-neutral then make sure you hire and structure yourself accordingly. Don’t hire one direct mail expert and say you offer direct mail expertise. Did you hire production people that know the intricacies of it? Data mining experts? DM copywriters? Are your departments structured to reflect neutrality or are the deck chairs just rearranged on your Titanic.

4. Focus on business results. Hold yourself accountable. Make sure everything you do is tied to results. If the client is being vague, demand clear objectives and how they'll be measured because it protects you and them. If not, don't be surprised when regime change includes you. The point that Morris Hite's quote gets to is that advertising doesn’t exist to drive awareness or win awards.

5. Don’t blame the client for “not letting you.” If you have the greatest idea and it ties back to objectives and business results, then it’s your duty to convince them. If afterwards you were wrong, admit it. If you were right, tout it. If they continue to not “let you,” fire them. They’re only hurting your agency’s brand.

6. Start innovating. The industry is super ripe for this – new business models, new methods, new communication vehicles. If business is a spear, traditional marketing communications is the tip. Agencies have moved back from the tip a bit, into below-the-line marketing communications. Agencies need to move further back into new product/service development, branding environments, and more. This is where real value is today and in the future.

What do you think? Am I on track, way off or missing anything?

Also, Scott asked in my last post who I think are the half-dozen or so agencies that are doing things right and stand for something. In no particular order:

- R/GA - They're interactive, good at it and aren't pretending to be something else.
- Crispin Porter - Trite response, but like it or not they stand for something. They decided to solve problems in new ways that are now taken for granted.
- Zimmerman - They know retail and they are interested in linking to results.
- Anomaly - They're taking a fresh approach to the industry with business models, innovation of offerings, etc.

Any other agencies you're impressed with?