digital strategist

Marketing imitates art. Badly.

First, let it be said that I am a big fan of M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Village and so on). I was however very disappointed by the Australian digital promotion for his latest film, 'The Happening'. You can check it out at the website or on YouTube.

Credit where credit is due, it’s great to see the promoters doing something for the Australian market beyond simply changing each 'z' in their film website to an 's'. However, what they decided to do was to create a Flash Mob 'happening' in Pitt Street Mall and film the crowd response. Again, I can definitely see the connection to the film. My only issue is this...

Compare their promotion to the ‘Frozen in NYC Central Station’ performance art piece that has been making the rounds (and currently has twelve million views on YouTube). They are practically identical, with two important differences. One was original and one was not. And one is more engaging than the other in pretty much every way. If you haven’t seen them both, I’ll let you have a look and decide which is which.

I love the appropriation of culture (and art specifically) into marketing. And I love the co-opting of marketing and advertising for artistic purposes. The mingling of discourses challenges and enriches both sides of the fence. What is disappointing to see is the wholesale copy of art into marketing with no attempt to add anything – and usually a dilution of the power and engagement of the idea. In an world when avant garde art was retricted to uber-trendy art factories on the lower east side, you could safely bet that most of your customers hadn’t seen the works that your marketing was riffing (or ripping) off. In a world of YouTube and Google, you no longer have that luxury.

Let’s bring more from art to marketing that a carbon copy (apologies to Warhol, crown price of carbon copying). Let’s bring the creativity, the passion, the lack of restraint. Now that sounds like fun! - brett

[This entry is cross-posted on the Naked Communications Australia blog.]

Digital's Live Connection, Digital Media (Asia)

A while back I spoke to Sarah Yin, a journalist who was writing about the use of digital to create real-world connections for Digital Media (Asia). Interesting article, came out in March. Apparently this is what I said;

“Digital is a wonderful environment to foster word-of-mouth,” says Brett Rolfe, a director at Naked Communications in Sydney. “It can make it easier to find audiences that you wouldn’t find easily in the real world, and you can be more tailored in your digital communications.”

However, Rolfe warns that digital media can only act effectively in this sort of campaign when clients are clear about two things: who the audience is, and whatmessage they want to communicate.

“We feel that what you should be doing with any communications problem is identifying touchpoints where you want to relate to the consumer. This is entirely influenced by what your product is, who your consumers are and what objectives you have at that point,” says Rolfe.

Yeah, sounds like me. You can check out the full issue here.

Rockin' Out

Today, big props to Dave Holmes, colleague (and boss) of more years than I care to count, and alround good guy. Last night Dave launched his album 'Waiting, Watching, Wasting my Time' at the Vanguard, and as they say, a good time was had by all.

It's always wonderful to see people pursuing their passions, particularly when they do so despite the challenges of balancing all the other things that keep life full. For me it's academia (in short doses), for Dave it's music. What's your passion? And are you giving it the attention it deserves?

Oh, and check out http://www.myspace.com/holmesdave for some 'gritty, honesty rock'.

Integrated Head, Specialised Hands

[This post is syndicated from the Naked Australia blog]

Many agencies and networks seem to be struggling with the ‘specialisation vs. integration’ dilemma. On the one hand, fragmentation of marketing vehicles (particularly in the digital space) is demanding ever-deeper specialised expertise. Being digital experts used to be enough – now we have mobile experts, search experts, and any moment we will no doubt see the spawning of mobile search experts as the technical specialisation continues. On the other hand, an increasing (and long overdue) disenchantment with shoving the same old ads down the same old media channels is demanding greater strategic integration from agencies. When client’s expect a media-neutral ‘big idea’ to be the foundation for their campaigns, agency groups can no longer rely on sending around a slick TVC and expecting studio to create ‘matching luggage’ executions across print digital et. al.

Some of the networks (particularly the digital ones, like Isobar and the ill-fated Blue Freeway) attempt to address this conflict between specialisation and integration by bringing together a group of diverse specialist agencies under one roof. In this way they can assemble the right mix of specialisations in response to a given problem. This approach is also adopted by a few of the more forward-thinking international clients who bring together multi-disciplinary ‘agency councils’ to work toward a single integrated idea. The challenge with the ‘multiple specialists’ approach is twofold. Firstly, it relies on agency cooperation, and while this often starts with the best intentions (P&Ls and political infighting notwithstanding), cooperation is often hard to achieve unless the groups consistently work on projects together. Secondly, bringing the right mix of specialists together is impossible until you know the shape of the solution – as a result, agency councils often steer the outcome (innocently enough) toward their own expertise... regardless of the nature of the problem.

A better solution is to separate strategic and creative thinking from execution. Agencies that focus on developing media-neutral insights, strategies and ideas are not under the same pressure to develop deeply specialised technical skills as executional agencies. For this reason, clients can brief a single ‘integrated strategy and creativity’ agency to develop the architecture for a solution in response to their marketing problem. As long as they apply sound strategic analysis and innovative thinking, these agencies can build the integrated ‘big idea’ foundation that can then be briefed out to specialist executional agencies. Importantly, these specialists can be chosen based on the proposed solution – making sure you can have the most appropriate partners every time without limiting your options.

Integrated strategy and idea, specialised execution. It probably doesn't make life that much easier, but it does give you a better chance of creating some really good marketing.

Easy Widgets from Sprout

Quarterly Marketing Cycles

Around this time of year, as many clients are mired in the arduous process of getting annual marketing plans signed off, I always have the same realisation. That this will be another year that such-and-such client will destroy any chance they have of doing anything really innovative because of the speed mandated by an annual marketing cycle. They treat managing a big brand like captaining a big ship - it takes a long time to change course, and if you hit anything you are pretty much screwed. This may not have been a problem ten years ago, these days (particularly within the digital space) it is the reason that every Goliath needs to be terrified of the many Davids just itching to take them down.

I was talking to a very on-the-ball client last year, and we discussed this problem. I told them that if they wanted to make a difference, if they wanted to really and seriously leave their competitors in the dust, they just needed to one thing... change from an anual marketing cycle to a quarterly one. Revisit strategy, spending, the lot, every three months (hell, why not make it two). I realise it's impossible for most big companies, but if they can find a way to embrace that speed of change internally it will finally equip them to capitalise on the equally rapid pace in the external communications environment.

Bellingen New Year

For those who have heard me talking about lovely Bellingen, I noticed it got a little press coverage on Jan 6th... about a week after we had been up there! Looks like we missed all the fun...

New Toy

With new job comes new toys. Two things to say about this...
a) Sony Vaio SZ series... oh my yes!
b) Having just been reading Grant MacCracken on consumption as identity construction, one develops a strangely self conscious warm inner glow while using a Vaio after several years of Dell laptops. It's almost like being a Mac user ;)

Onwards and upwards...

So, what's next? Well, can't quite let the cat out of the bag... but soon. Suffice to say, I'm very excited about it. Working with some great folk, and I think we will have a real chance to shake things up - and that's always fun.

The time has come...

Well, last Friday saw my final day as a full time employee of OneDigital. Mixed feelings, and probably a lot less traumatic than it could have been given that I will continue to consult on some work that will carry on through January... and hey, in this industry you never really leave, its a little more like musical chairs. Regardless, it's been a wonderful few years there.