Agen"see"

I read an interesting commentary today from a colleague of mine explaining why most agencies still don’t succeed at interactive advertising. The gist of the argument was that poor media buying led to ineffective campaigns. Very true, but I also think this points us to look at the evolution of the “big agency” take on interactive and why this is only half the equation. Truth be told, at first the failure of big branding agencies to succeed online was because none understood the level of trackability and functionality. It was thought that you just needed to get online because your competitors were there… or weren’t there yet.

A few years later and a few campaigns wiser, most are realizing the errors of their initial efforts. But to that point, are they really “getting” interactive now? In my humble opinion, the answer is no. So what if they’re producing multi-level Flash campaigns with interactive rollover banners and integrated video? That’s aesthetically pleasing and gives the business suits the warm and fuzzies, but does it really product results?

We constantly preach good design here at Media Two, but for most agencies I think that there’s a disconnect between what’s good design and what’s functional. Good design placed in the right places still doesn’t necessarily product results, and the converse is certainly true. But when good and functional design is coupled with innovative strategy, the result is a living and breathing media plan that grows and evolves.

So where I’m going with this is that success is two-fold in nature. It begins with the design team understanding the strategy side. Whether it’s copy, images, or functionality you’re talking about, the design team must understand the context in which their work will be viewed. For example, slap the Mona Lisa on the side of a building in East Harlem and it goes unnoticed, but speak to the locals through a blended mural and suddenly an artistic genius emerges.

The second part of this equation is ensuring that the strategy team fully understands the end result the designers are striving to achieve and then using that knowledge to find innovative ways to display it. After all, pictures always look better with a nice frame, right?

In the long run, I think the ultimate demise of most interactive campaigns comes from the inability of both groups in the equation to fully understand each other. It’s the old left brain/right brain conflict at its best. Those agencies that are capable of collective thinking with both brains will be the ones that excel in this industry by driving all parties involved towards a common goal.

Creative IS Media

Lately I’ve been reading articles about media firms that are starting to break into the creative ranks, but are getting push back from their parent companies or holding companies as they don’t want the media group to compete with their other brand agencies. I “get” that from a holding company strategy. They want to make sure they’re not stepping on each other’s toes, and strategically it opens doors for them if they have a wider array of specialties. However, if I’m the media shops client – I’d be damn sure to push back on them, and here’s why.

For years we have been saying give us more solid clients that understand marketing principles, and we’ll deliver them results – whether it’s brand exposure or ROI – we’re going to produce IF… If the Media Buy is flexible, can be tracked and has good creative execution. Notice I didn’t say “great” creative execution – I only said “good”. If you give us “great” that’s a whole new meaning that we can deliver the world on your doorstep.

To prove our point, we have a client who we had been begging for some brand identity guidelines from. This is not a small client, they just happened to be evolving their brand to keep pace with the fast moving interactive audiences. But when it never came, it was misconstrued by them as saying Media Two didn’t want to create their ads. On the contrary – we were creating very good ads, but our objectives were direct response and that meant there was not a lot of consistency from ad to ad or from site to site. So when the brand guidelines came, they turned the creative chores over to another agency to produce. We immediately saw a negative impact of the new ads and asked for new ones. Three to Four weeks later we had more underperforming ads to the tune of a 150% increase on our CPA. This is not the fault of this new agency, instead it was the result of removing creative from the hands of the media department. With media sitting next to creative on a day-to-day basis and sharing in the experience, you get the benefits of:

• Hearing what new sites are working from media allows design to customize banners (for example – if it’s a sporty site, make an athletic image/message).
• If the media buyer is on the phone and has a value-added opportunity in a new ad size format, the creative group can have that format done in minutes so as to not miss the opportunity.
• If messaging completely bombs – the media buyer will be the first one asking for new ads from creative before the client has even reviewed the end of day numbers.
• Media can keep in check design… By that I mean, every designer wants to create the coolest ads in the world – but when running ads on Yahoo.com or other large sites, you’re limited to 25k file sizes and 15 seconds of animation. If design understands media’s pain – it’s a much happier relationship.

Again – there are a lot of reasons to keep media and design together, and there are a lot of best practices, but I think the biggest reason any of our clients could ever see is that 150% increase on our CPA. As a side note – we have received those creative duties back from the client and are awaiting approval on our first batch of banners under the new brand guidelines. Anyone else smell a case study coming?