'As someone who has always looked at cross-discipline and new models a positive experience worth exploring, it is amazing to look back on my career and ever imagine where I would be today if I didn't embrace change and adapt and redefine. If you don't adapt, you get left behind. Will the landscape look the same 5 years or 10 years from today? I think not. Will the core principles of storytelling remain? Absolutely."
The
Advertising Agency Speaks
"Rumors of my death have been
greatly exaggerated" – Mark
Twain
By
Bret Stout
When
I first made the decision to jump over to the 'interactive' side, many
of my peers felt strongly that my move would be a career killer. Hey,
this was right after the big 'Dot.com' implosion and a 'banner ad'
didn't hold up too well to a broadcast spot. Yes, while all signs
pointed
to the possibility the premonitions of my peers could have been dead-on,
I saw something else, something rather compelling – a new platform
in its infancy just waiting to be molded like a piece of clay. My first
observation
was this new advertising called 'interactive' was anything but interactive – so
my team and I immediately set out to change that. And we broke every
rule. Hey, Creatives are rebels by nature – so what a perfect
place to put your footprint!
Real Conversations and Brand
Experiences
Okay,
let's get something straight – 'interactive' does not mean point-and-click – it's
a derivative of 'interact', right? So interactive has to mean a 'two-way
dialogue'. So to create real interactivity between consumer and brand
you must start every project with, "How do we initiate a conversation
here?" Our mission resulted in the production of highly interactive
campaigns, now referred to as 'rich media'. This new platform allowed
us to create real consumer affinities to brand – campaigns like
the online auto insurance quote and the idea to let you order a pizza
online. And this led us into building engaging online Brand 'experiences'.
Think about it – in the traditional advertising world you are
simply pushing product – trying to compel people to go to a retailer.
But now we could drive consumers into an imaginary world of make believe
you create to expose them to a brand 'experience'. Very cool. Yes,
the online side of advertising presented endless opportunities for
creative and strategic thinking. And
it gets even better. Unlike traditional media, online campaigns delivered
real numbers relating specifically to ROI and conversion. Career killer?
I don't think so. (whew!)
Web 2.0 - Defined
So
what's this "Web 2.0" thing, really? Okay, so what are these 'shiny
object'" so many big Brands 'think' they have to have (yes, all of
them) and their digital agencies who claim their experts in (but rarely
are)?
Over
the past several years I have seen so many people misuse the term or
describe completely out of context – not just creatives, but
industry leaders in the online space who are charged to deliver
the definition
to big Brands. The answer is quite simple – regardless of widget,
feature, function, technology or platform, Web 2.0 simply defines tools
that allow 'authentic dialogue' between consumer-and-brand – and
consumer-to-consumer 'about' brand. And big Brands don't need to implement
all of them – they only need the ones that are specific to their
brand to effectively initiate real dialogue. Reach in your Web 2.0
bucket and only pull out the ones you need. It's really that simple.
The Full 360o Evolution
of Advertising
And
the authentic conversations being created by Web 2.0 is very significant
when you're trying to figure out 'why' the online space has dramatically
impacted the traditional space. When you look at where marketing first
began, long before any platforms of the last two centuries, it was
one person talking to another saying, "Buy this" and "Don"t
buy this". Today, ninety-four percent (94%) of consumers are going
online to research a product before they make a purchase – initiating
authentic dialogue with others on their social networks and absorbing
the opinions of others on blog entries. Most consumers consider this
a 'trusted' space – after years of wondering if they
were being deceived by traditional campaigns. People having real conversations,
"Buy this" and "Don't buy this". Wow.
We just witnessed the full 360o evolution of advertising. Yes, the online space has brought us
full circle – and consumers like it.
New Technology
Even
with new technology, traditional
advertising is far from dead – it has simply evolved over the
past decade. For example, Nike use to concentrate all of their focus
on broadcast television campaigns with annual media spending in excess
of $600 million – and now they don't buy T.V. space – they
focus nearly all of their ad spend online – still producing broadcast
spots, but airing them on their website, microsites and video sites
like YouTube. Other things impacting the traditional media platform
of television include the technology of TiVo and other DVR systems,
because consumers can now 'skip' past commercials. Even magazine publications
have had to adapt to new technologies because of the easy-access content
source online. Even mobile phone technology has dramatically changed
with direct affinities to the online space. So where is our 'captive'
audience? They're online. They're mobile.
Evolution of the Agency Model
Prior
to the emergence of the digital agency, there was only one model – the
'advertising agency', and now there are three (3): A) The Traditional
Agency, B)
The Digital Agency, and C) The Integrated Agency.
Traditional Agency – Even
with mind-boggling technologies and digital evolution over the past
10 short years, traditional agency campaigns are far from dead. They
still happen. There's still a market on traditional media platforms.
It's also a matter of the same media execution adapting to new platforms
of delivery. It has been quite unsettling over the past decade to witness
the behemoth agencies dwindle in size/power and struggle in understanding
what to do next. The smart ones created digital arms and broke them
off into separate functioning entities. Others have viewed the digital
and technology evolution – first with denial, and then not knowing
'how' to adapt.
Digital Agency(s) – The
second group is the interactive agency now more commonly referred to
as the 'digital' agency. But it is important to point out this – there
are two (2) very different entities formed in the late 1990s and early
2000s – 1) digital arms created from traditional agencies, and
2) website companies formed from design companies. The first thinks
'campaigns' and the latter thinks 'design'. Two very different things – but big
Brands are not aware of the differences and simply bucket them as one
(1) thing – the "digital agency". This was simply their way of
differentiating from the original advertising agency model – which
they began immediately referring to as the "traditional agency".
The
problem here is they are not the same – while many of the two
different digital agencies have evolved over the past decade, with
creative types moving from one digital type of entity into the other,
there are still many very obvious identifiers that expose the difference – starting
with 'titles'. Digital arms formed from traditional agencies maintain
the same titles as their original parent agency – CD, ACD, Copywriter
and Art Director – while design company start-ups use titles
like UED, IA, Writer, Designer, and Brand Strategist. And if you take
a closer look at the highly successful online campaigns, you will find
they mostly come from digital arm agencies formed from their traditional
parent agency. When you see a big idea campaign come from a website-company-formed
digital agency, a closer look will almost always reveal a traditional
agency creative that moved into the digital space. So when you understand
there is a difference in the two different types of digital agencies – one
"campaign" focused and the other "design" focused, the big difference
is obvious – especially
if you're an advertising purist.
Integrated Agency – "Digital"
and "Traditional" – seems
simple enough. Right? Well, to confuse things even further, some traditional
agencies present themselves as 'integrated' or a 'full service' agency – meaning
they offer both traditional AND digital services. But big Brands generally
view these agencies as not particularly great at traditional or digital – so
as a result, integrated agencies now tend to only attract small to
midrange clients, rather than the big Brands.
And The Evolution Continues
Will
the traditional agency fade away or die? Absolutely not – too
many creative purists and continued dependency by big Brands for that
to happen. Too many digital agencies are not experienced enough with
big picture campaign strategy/creative – and we will always have
a need for those really big, hairy ideas that make us drop to our
knees in
awe. And the online space and authentic dialogue is not going away.
I believe the advertising and marketing world today cannot exist without
the other.
What's Next?
So
where will this end up? I don't know the answer to this – but
it seems more likely that the title of "digital" and "traditional"
will simply evolve into something else. How about "advertising agency"?
Now there's a novel idea. So simple, it may just work.
A
few years ago I began thinking about how animation studios could be
leveraged in the digital space – seemed to make sense because
of their ability to create living, breathing digital assets – from
photo-real product renderings, 3D animation and live-action filming.
What if you could bring in those campaign-based, storytelling writers
and art directors from the shrinking traditional agency model and create
something truly revolutionary? And that is where I am today – 29
years after I inked my first storyboard. But
I can't help but wonder, with the excitement of a child, what the advertising
world has in store for us over the next decade. I don't think any of
us have a clue.
