Something to Think About

Everyone should read the recent Razorfish report, Five Technologies That will Change Your Business, to be found here:

http://razorfish5.razorfish.com

The two most important sections, in my mind, are the chapters on cloud computing and agile development.  Both address one of the fundamental issues we face as digital marketers: In many instances, many great ideas die simply because it’s just too hard.

It’s too hard to find the resources within internal IT teams.

It’s too hard to adapt complicated enterprise systems to embrace emerging technologies.

It’s too hard to get alignment between marketing and IT teams.

It’s too hard to get agreement on scope and budget.

Everything is just too hard, and because it’s too hard, important initiatives often fail to get off the ground because of an overwhelming sense the obstacles to success are simply too overwhelming.

The cloud and agile development make it easier.

It used to be that sales, branding, promotion, and customer service were four very distinct things.  Four departments within a company.  Four budgets.  Four very different views of the world.  Not only did these four departments not work together, they were often at each others’ throats.

Sales complained about the lack of effective promotions.  Promotional people were irked by the money wasted on brand advertising.  Brand people complained about the short-term thinking in the sales group.  And everyone complained about customer service.

It’s become a cliche to say “the Internet changes everything,” but in this case it’s true.  The Internet is a branding medium, a promotional vehicle, a sales channel, and a customer service tool.  It’s one thing, and it should be designed, implemented, optimized, and measured as one thing.  Every online interaction should build the brand, drive to a sale, and enhance service.

People see brand ads online and some time later use search to navigate to the website to make a purchase, so brand ads are also  promotional ads.  People visit the website repeatedly to do research, and over time change their opinion about a company, so an e-commerce site is also a branding tool.  People use online customer care, and if the company is smart, they are served targeted offers based on their relationship to the brand, so online customer service is also a promotional tool.  I could go on like this for hours, but you get the idea.

Problem is, we don’t have an accepted industry point-of-view on exactly how to managed the world when four things become one thing.  We’re still locked into silos that prevent smart integrated solutions.  I know I’ve carped about this before, but it needs to be brought up repeatedly.

If you do one thing this year, break down a wall or two and start to act as if the Internet is just one thing.  Your customers and shareholders will appreciate the effort.

Last week I was in a meeting with a group of clients when the subject of accountability came up.  Specifically, the conversation was focused on the measurability of digital marketing.  I was surprised to hear someone lamenting the good old days “when you couldn’t measure what we were doing.”  Heads nodded in agreement.

I’ve heard that one before, but not recently.  It was a shock to see so many people still feel that way. 

I used to work in those “good old days,” and I didn’t like it.  That’s why I left the agency business in 1989 vowing never to return.  Of course I did return ten years later when the promise of digital marketing started to become a reality.  I much prefer our role today:  Develop and implement a program, then find out if works.  If it doesn’t, stop it or change it.  If it does, invest behind it.

We’ve all read that CMO’s have an average life-span of 23 months.  Of course, that’s just an average.  Many last longer.  I suspect those that last longer are the ones that relish accountability — that are truly focused on driving business results for their organizations.  The average CMO tenure  is driven down by those that don’t fully embrace accountability. 

And that’s as it should be.

Yesterday I attended a presentation given by one of our competitors.  The subject: the challenges of integrating a technology department into a traditional advertising agency.  The presenter did a great job of covering all of the issues, many centered on process and organization, but most focused squarely on culture — by far the biggest hurdle.

It reminded me of similar conversations we’ve had within Razorfish, and that I’ve had with others in digital agencies.  We’re all moving in the other direction, expanding beyond our roots in technology and user experience design to develop traditional capabilities in strategic branding and storytelling.

I was surprised to see how much progress our traditional competitor had made, and I bet most would be surprised to see how much progress the digital agencies are making.

We’ve all known a day would come when there was just one kind of agency — a new organization that delivers on the promise of fully integrated strategy and execution across all touchpoints, both analog and digital.  It struck me yesterday there are a handful of agencies that are getting very close. 

A couple of years ago I would have guessed we all have ten years to make the transition.  Now it feels more like ten months.

There’s an old saying in the agency business: “Nothing will kill a bad product faster than great advertising.”

That may be true, but our industry has developed an embarrasing habit.  We credit the advertising when sales are improving, and we blame the product when sales are in trouble.

Fact is, advertising has always played a limited role in building brands.  Brands are built by the sum total of the product experience — the utility of the product, it’s distribution,name, positioning, pricing, packaging, and service.   Advertising is only part of the equation (possibly the least important part).  It’s the experience that counts.

And now we’ve proved that digital experiences matter to consumers. So we don’t have any excuses.  It’s our job to define, create, and optimize the digital experience for the brand.  Because for many products and consumers, the virtual brand experience is now as important as the physical brand experience.

No more excuses.

Building immersive digital experiences is not glamorous work.   There are no trips to L.A. to shoot a $1-million commercial.  There are no $100-million network media buys.  The technologies are complicated to execute.   It’s all new stuff, so there can be a lot of uncertainty and unforeseen complications.  The details really matter.   Yes, there are moments of pure inspiration, but turning that inspiration into reality can be a grind.

So why do people do it?  First of all, they have a passion for the digital channel.  They truly believe that their work is important and meaningful.  Second, and maybe more important, they’re people who really enjoy solving hard problems.  They like working in collaborative teams where original ideas are valued.   They enjoy the satisfaction of seeing something move from theory to reality.  They get a kick out of doing something that’s never been done before.

Turns out it’s fun to invent the future.

Recently I found myself involved in a group debate: The question: Do big ideas still matter, especially in digital marketing?

It’s an important question.  I spent the first twenty-five years of my career chasing the big idea.  Back then, nobody questioned the need.  We were all looking for an idea big enough to cut through the clutter.  Big enough to be memorable.  Big enough to form the foundation of a durable, long-lasting campaign.  Big enough to sell.

Opinions today differ dramatically.

One half of our group argued that big ideas were still critical to success in digital marketing — that nothing fundamental had changed.  A big idea is an essential foundation of any successful marketing program.

The other half felt otherwise.  They argued that the real power of digital was the ability to measure everything, to learn in real time, to test lots of different ideas, and to optimize your way to success.  In other words, start with a lot of little ideas and go from there.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and have come to this conclusion: Big ideas are still important, but they look different.  In today’s world, it’s rare that a pure advertising idea will get the job done.  Advertising has become compromised, so while it’s still important, it’s just not enough.

Consumers have become much smarter.  They expect more than clever ads.  Today, a big idea must be focused on providing something of value to the customer.  The proliferation of digital touch points provides the platform to deliver that value.  whether information, community, analysis, or entertainment, it’s that value that will truly set a brand apart in the marketplace.

Look there for your next big idea.

If you’re not getting transformational ideas from your agency or internal client team, you may be asking the wrong question.

Most people in marketing are used to framing questions in terms of communication goals: “We’re losing our ability to command a premium price.  What kind of marketing program can we develop to reinforce our differentiation?”  Ask that question and you’re likely to get an advertising campaign designed to tell consumers how your product is better than the competition.  If it’s a great advertising campaign, it may even have some positive impact in the market.

So ask that question, because it’s a good one, but next time ask this one as well: “How can we use the digital channel to actually make our product better?  What do our customers need that they’re not getting now?”  Don’t spend any time thinking about what your product can do.  Rather, think about the unmet needs of your customers.  Often, you’ll be shocked to find that it’s relatively easy to generate ideas that can transform the way consumers experience your product. 

We’re not used to asking this question because there’s really no way to use traditional media to fundamentally alter the product experience.  Not so in digital.  With the explosion of digital touch points (social, gaming, mobile, out-of-home, desktop applications), it seems there’s always a way to improve the product experience and to fulfill an unmet customer need.

This seems like a simple-minded formula, but it works.  When teams get stuck, often the easiest way to get them unstuck is simply to ask a different question.

Marketing must be the only business in the world where the word “production” has a negative connotation.

Most clients closely watch the percentage of their marketing budget that goes to media, attempting to keep the portion used for production as low as possible.  It used to make sense.  Now it’s an arcane formula that simply doesn’t apply in today’s world.

Brands are creating their own media through the creation of distributed brand experiences.  So that means sometimes 100% of the budget will go to production.  And that’s a good thing.  Turns out it’s much cheaper to reach people — let along touch them in a meaningful way — by building a relevant experience, rather than by buying a random piece of real estate.

So production dollars are now working dollars.  After all, why pay for something you can produce yourself?

Razorfish recently released Feed, our digital brand experience report for 2009.  You can find it here:

http://feed.razorfish.com/

There’s lots of important new data in the document, but the most important paragraph is this one:

“…digital brand experiences are not just “awareness” or “conversion” plays, but customer-creation plays.  According to our research, the overwhelming majority of consumers who actively engage with a brand digitally — whether by entering a contest, “friending” a brand on Facebook, or even watching an advert on YouTube — show dramatic uptics across the entire marketing funnel.  Simply put digital brand experiences create customers.”

This doesn’t mean that traditional push advertising is dead.  It’s just insufficient.  People expect more, and when you give it to them in the form of an engaging digital experience, they become customers.

The data is all in the report.