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My last 3 posts have had a pretty strong theme running around innovation; Think Like a Tech Start-Up, What is Your Gateway Drug? and My Plan for Creating an Innovative City.  So its pretty easy to see where my thoughts are at the moment.

As an agency that likes to work on innovative side projects, like NLYZR and Urban Insider, my team and I are often questioning the role of agencies going forward. I mean, we’re all supposed to be highly creative aren’t we? So why aren’t we getting more involved in creating more new businesses and revolutionising industries instead of just trotting out another 30 sec ad?

Then along comes the always clever Neil Perkin with a new post on his Only Dead Fish blog titled Agencies as Incubators. In it Neil looks at the Cannes Lions (formerly advertising awards), an amazing program supported by Wieden & Kennedy called the Portland Incubator Experiment which has some parallels to the excellent Y-Combinator concept in Silicon Valley and how Apple fund and secure new technology breakthroughs.

You must read this if you are interested in innovation or if you are going to be at the next Lunaticks event Smart and Innovative City Part 2. THIS  is the sort of thinking we need in our industry, not more self-indulgent award wankfests.

It seems to me that the time is ripe for agencies to start challenging their clients to think beyond business as usual and use that creativity to radically interrupt industries in the way new technology is reshaping the landscape.

Is yours?

…unless you want to learn some extremely innovative ways to reinvent your marketing.

Dentsu is a Japanese advertising agency that has become one of the largest and most successful in the world. That in itself was news to me. But what was more interesting is how Dentsu have pioneered fascinating cross-communication strategies that resonate strongly in the fragmenting world of modern media and digital ubiquity.It’s all been revealed in a new book called The Dentsu Way by Kotaro Sugyama and Tim Andree.

What got my attention in The Dentsu Way is how this agency doesn’t follow the old reach and frequency, interruption model of advertising, but aims to draw consumers out on their own accord. They try to deliver information with which consumers want to be come involved. It has a lot of similarities with inbound marketing in that regard.

My headline “Do not read this book” is a nod to a famous campaign Dentsu did for a manga publication where their late night TV ads pleaded with viewers not to search for the new title on the internet. Of course everyone then did search and slowly a cat and mouse game played out rewarding those who dug deepest. These fans then spread the word and the buzz and subsequent sales went crazy.

The core of the book explains Dentsu’s Cross-Communication theory and then shows case studies and how you can design your own Cross-Switch strategy. It balances creativity with a data-intensive approach, something that once again should appeal to modern digital agencies.

The Dentsu Way really is a fascinating read and makes a good argument for the merging of traditional advertising agencies with digital (as opposed to the current either or approach) so that a truly integrated approach can run through a campaign.

So whatever you do, don’t buy this book…..I’d rather keep these ideas for myself.

This year I have interviewed a lot of job applicants for various positions and one thing that I realised is that there are plenty of talented people around, but most of them have very little experience in the digital marketing world. Especially in Newcastle where we are based.

I don’t want to one of those employers that says, “Come back when you’ve got some experience.” I’d rather help foster new talent and grow the market.

So, we have announced a new initiative targeting the next wave of marketing and communication professionals: the Sticky Internship Program.

Here’s an opportunity to gain valuable experience in a modern, dynamic agency working across a wide range of areas. It’ll be fun, it’ll be challenging and it will be very worthwhile.

If you’d like to know more about the Sticky Internship Program please see the details on our agency site.

How many marketers and advertising experts actually practice what they preach?

Until recently it probably wasn’t a very viable option.

How many times has your media rep, who happily suggests where to spend your hard-earned advertising budget, actually “invested” his or her own funds in an ad campaign?

How often has your agency account manager had to feel the anxiety of committing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign that could make or break their business?

For that matter, when was the last time you saw an advertising agency run their own highly-creative, cutting-edge 30 second television spot during prime time?

You haven’t, have you. Agencies enter awards and then drum up column inches in trade press. Its called PR.

Truth is that most of the marketing and advertising experts who businesses rely on don’t actually practice what they preach. And, to be fair, in many cases its not very practical to expect them to.

But the emergence of social media and inbound marketing means that a new generation of marketers has emerged who do have skin in the game, who do actually live, breathe and experience the highs and lows of the strategies they extol.

I have experienced this first hand. Our agency was originally a traditional full-service shop. We bought media spots for clients and produced their ads for them. But not for ourselves.

However, over time we began looking for other ways to grow our business, to promote ourselves, to attract more customers. We started blogging. We started using Twitter. We started creating videos and interviewing other marketers around the world. We started creating new marketing tools that helped our business.

Everything our agency now offers as a service to clients was borne out of our own experiences and efforts in growing our own business.

Our web design approach and philosophy is a result of constant experimentation and improvement.

Our Inbound Marketing system is the collective wisdom we have gained from creating an effective blogging, optimising, tweeting, and converting methodology.

Our advanced search engine optimisation tools evolved from our need to improve our own Google rankings so that we could be found online, increase traffic and generate inquiries.

Our use of social media has contributed substantially to the growth of the business and informed our advice to our clients accordingly.

In short, we finally practice what we preach. It’s a nice feeling.

Our inbound marketing approach has seen us evolve from a small agency servicing clients in our home town to one that has a growing roster of large national clients. Over ninety percent of our revenue now comes from outside of our home market and more opportunities arrive every week.

That’s what the internet, social media and inbound marketing can do for a small business now.

The most exciting thing is that we’re not alone in actually living and breathing our approach to marketing. Now there are hundreds of talented people and a generation of new agencies practicing what they preach.

You don’t need to look any further than the Age of Conversation series to find them. 171 of the brightest minds in marketing from around the world can be found in the latest book. Buy it. Visit their blogs, follow them on Twitter or Facebook or Linked in.

And if you are in need of some modern marketing advice, contact them.

How does your website look on an iPad?

Here’s a little test to do when considering an agency for your digital marketing.

Grab an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone and enter the agency’s URL in the browser. If the agency understands web marketing then their website will display seamlessly.

Unfortunately many agency websites will not display seamlessly, in fact they may not display at all. That’s because they have built their websites in Flash and Apple products are not Flash enabled.

We tested a bunch of agency sites on our new iPad yesterday and the results were alarming. Here in Newcastle 4 of the leading agency websites couldn’t be viewed at all while another 2 had serious formatting issues.

Looking at 15 of the leading Australian digital agencies (as ranked by B&T Magazine in 2009) the results were just as concerning. Four sites couldn’t be viewed at all, four had formatting issues which meant they could be partially viewed and navigated, while 7 worked well on the iPad.

Flash was not created to build websites on, yet for years designers, and especially agencies have relied on Flash. Its useless for search too, which means that sites built on Flash are missing substantial traffic opportunities through organic search listings.

Now as the web goes increasingly mobile, especially with the boom in Apple products, Flash is no longer acceptable (if it ever was) for good web design.

Is now the time for new kind of communications business that connects marketing specialists with corporate marketers?

Its been obvious for a while now that the generalist media era is coming to an end. No longer do a handful of large media outlets determine our news and entertainment the way they did during the last century. Increasingly we are turning to a multitude of specialist media providers to satisfy our many needs. Media consumption is splintering so rapidly that it’s difficult to keep track of the vast array of options available to us.

Marketing "connectors" assemble teams of specialists

One hangover from the generalist media era is the full-service agency. Whilst “everything under one roof” may have been feasible when there were only a handful of media options, in 2010, with a ridiculous number of feasible marketing options available….Free to Air TV, Subscription TV, Radio, Digital radio, Press, online press, outdoor, SEO, SEM, social media, inbound marketing, micro sites etc…. its seems ludicrous to believe that one shop can do it all.

We all know its nearly impossible to be good at everything. We’ve all heard the saying: “Jack of all trades, master of none”. Yet so many agencies are having trouble accepting the fact that it’s time to let go of the whole pie and begin specialising in certain ingredients instead.

A few days ago Marc Andreesen advised the old media to “burn the boats”. In particular he was referring to the print media who have been attempting to straddle print and online for the last decade. Andressen feels that these guys need to commit to one or the other, ideally burning their original platform to wholeheartedly embrace their digital futures. Unfortunately too many of these organisations are finding it impossible to let go of their old business model, and perhaps they can’t.

Likewise, agencies seem reluctant to burn their full service boat. Its served them well for a long time and the glory days weren’t that long ago.

But the writing is on the wall. Marketers understand that the world has changed and want to be presented with the best options. They’re increasingly sceptical of anyone who tells them they have all the best people under one roof ready to provide solutions to all their marketing needs.

Is it realistic to believe that the agency who delivers killer TV creative can also nail the SEO component? Or the SEM strategy? Or craft an effective social media plan?

Marketers know they need specialists to assist in each area. And the areas of specialisation are becoming narrower, not wider.

The biggest challenge they now face is where to find all these specialists. The full service agency made it easy. One shop, one account manager. If this is no longer viable then how does the poor marketer sift through the plethora of “experts” to assemble their new dream team?

The answer may lay with another specialist. The connector. The connector is essentially a marketing consultant who understands the broad needs of the client and then introduces the best specialists for each aspect of the job. The connector works with a wide range of specialists, understanding where each of them fit in the bigger picture.

The best analogy is your family doctor. In many ways your doctor is the connector. He can offer quick advice on the general problems but refers you to  range of specialists for the more technical stuff. The doctor is often then the collector of the specialist reports and communicates them back to the patient / customer.

You trust your GP to refer you to the appropriate specialist, say an orthopedic surgeon, but you’d be very concerned if he suddenly offered to do that knee reconstruction himself.

Likewise, marketers should be wary of the generalist agency who claims to be able to address all their requirements.

What do you think, have we entered the specialist era or is there still a strong argument for full service agencies? Will we witness the rise of the marketing “connectors”?

Sticky is looking for a Digital Account Manager with great project management skills to join the team. The role is a crucial link between our growing client base and digital team. Its an important position so we’ll be taking our time to find the most suitable person for the job. All the details are here.

A few years ago it occurred me that digital media had enabled transition for marketers that allowed them to become their own media outlets, to engage their audience directly and bypass the traditional media outlets. I have subsequently posted extensively on the subject here on Media Hunter.

So naturally I am thrilled when venerable industry watchers like AdAge concur with this theory.

Recently AdAge editor Jonah Bloom gave a speech saying

the marketer has become the media owner…the job of the agency is going to morph into bringing their expertise to bear to help marketers build channels that connect them with potential customers and continually reward the customers who come back with new valuable information.

I couldn’t agree more. A new age of marketing is upon us. You can watch the short video with Jonah Bloom’ speech here.

I just came across this excellent piece in AdAge explaining how digital agencies should be the new advertising leaders due to their understanding of technology, speed of iteration and technology. It was written by Jacques-Herve Roubert.

Over the past 18 months, a great debate has consumed our industry: Are digital agencies poised to sit at the head of the advertising table? Depending on whom you ask and what you read, the answer seems to flip flop — with a majority of people still having reservations and making claims that digital agencies aren’t ready to lead.

So why does the debate continue? Does offline or online really matter to an oblivious consumer who’s only interested in “no-line” communications? Are we spending too much time focusing on who should lead and not enough asking: What’s next?

Ana Andjelic’s DigitalNext post, provocatively titled “Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready to Lead,” mentions several reasons why digital agencies aren’t ready to lead, one of which was their lack of experience in the business (as compared with the “decades of experience” that traditional agencies are known for). I’m sure there are instances where decades of experience can directly translate into success, but there are certainly instances (uh, Lehman Brothers?) where deep roots had no bearing on their ability to produce — and produce well. Furthermore, a certain percentage of the individuals now working and thriving in digital agencies came from traditional agencies.

Additionally, most of the world’s most ingenious inventions were not created overnight, but took years of hard work, research, observation, trial and error, and collaboration to fine tune. The digital ecosystem has required much of the same exploration — and, in most cases, into technologies that are new to all of us. As James March himself said, “Exploration involves being an amateur for a while, but only as a step on the way to being a professional.”

And while the structure of an interactive agency may often mimic “one big crazy family” (by the way: Whose family isn’t crazy?), how could making sure everyone’s opinion is heard be a bad thing? Most interactive agencies subscribe to the notion that you never know where the big idea or concept will come from. Sometimes the big idea can come from the exploration of a new technology or method that enhances consumer connection.

Here’s why:

• That was then, this is now. Like it or not, the days of the ingenious, 30-second TV spot are over. Today’s creative ingenuity lies within the idea, the technology, the concept, the innovation and, perhaps most important, the Holy Grail: consumer connection. Word of mouth is more prevalent than ever and interactive communities have an increasingly louder and more influential voice and are stronger (and sometimes the only) sources of breaking news stories. No one understands this better — nor is better equipped to handle the swift demands required — than the digital agency.
• Teaching an old dog new tricks. The “new trick” is immediacy. It’s about faster response times and the concept of immediacy. E-mail, IM, Twitter, Facebook, cellphones — all of these technologies set the stage for consumers wanting and expecting immediate responses, not to mention, immediate access to products and services. Traditional advertising agencies are not adapting to this mentality because they are still working with processes and organizational structures that were developed in a time when the internet and the concept of immediacy simply did not exist.Digital agencies understand that brands are being held to higher-than-ever consumer expectations. The plethora of data we can garner from a $50,000 media buy can leave traditional agencies’ heads spinning with insight and analysis. The truth of the matter is: Interactive agencies are forcing traditional agencies to integrate with digital media to better track and measure campaign results through custom URLs, short codes, etc.
• Kickin’ it old school. Not only are the days of the 30-second TV spot gone, so too are the traditional advertising agency gurus like David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach. Today, those figures have been replaced, instead, by financially backed entities. Rather than exploration and exploitation, digital agencies need their own gurus and legends that can lead by example.

Five or 10 years ago, I might agree with the argument that digital agencies weren’t ready to lead, but after sitting at the table with other agencies for the past decade — traditional, branding, public relations, marketing — it’s clear that digital agencies have proven their value, not to mention their ability to innovate, inspire, and create the big idea.

Perhaps the synergy and balance between exploitation and exploration is off kilter for digital agencies, but more and more we’re starting to see the agency structure itself change with new hires in technology and social media. And marketers are noticing:

• According to Media magazine, AKQA was named the lead agency for Nike India earlier this year.
• Precor named Ascentium its agency of record in October 2009. According to Forrester’s Q2 2009 Interactive Agency Wave, Ascentium “received the highest client satisfaction scores in this year’s review.” The assignment with Precor includes strategic planning and execution of all offline and online campaigns.
• McAfee hiring Tribal DDB as its agency of record in 2008. This assignment included all TV, print, outdoor, and digital.

The balance may not be there today, tomorrow or next month. The truth of the matter is digital agencies have earned their right to sit at the head of the table because they’ve brought what consumers and marketers are looking for: new innovations in measurement; flexibility and nimbleness; and, most importantly, ideas that bring what a magazine spread or 30-second TV spot cannot.

I have been banging on at this site for over a year now about how the face of media and advertising is changing. The global financial crisis has managed to accelerate the changes that were already underway, and now we are starting to see confirmation.

If anyone is wondering why I have put so much effort transforming my Newcastle advertising agency into an Inbound Marketing agency then read this story we’ve just posted over at GetSticky. Its latest research from Forrester showing the massive change that has taken place.

If you still think that your business will survive based on old-fashioned Outbound Advertising alone then you may have a rude shock coming. Now is the time to start thinking Inbound. Start dedicating a reasonable amount of your marketing budget to creating an effective internet marketing strategy TODAY.