ad:tech brain » Jenny Williams

How Relevant Is The Concept Of A ‘Big Idea’ In Today’s Interactive Landscape? Discussion & video

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:23 +0000

I spoke with Ashley Ringrose, Founder, Soap Creative about the concept of a big idea. Here’s a video of our chat:

The relevance of a big idea in a digital environment has been the subject of many conversations between digital and traditional marketers and agencies.

I have historically taken the view that, while you need some overarching vision or positioning for a brand (which I guess could be called a ‘big idea’), it is how the technology, the content and the engagement is delivered in the context of the audience that matters. If you follow this thinking, in digital, it is the execution of a multitude of different tactical, small ideas that are important, not some single creative idea.

Sometimes, it is the tactical implementation itself that is the idea. Sometimes, it is the audience who drive the idea through consumer generated media.

I have also argued that because a website or even a social media presence frequently lives beyond the life of a campaign, that the campaign idea, no matter how big, is not relevant.

After talking to Ashley Ringrose from Soap, I started to think it was time to perhaps reframe my thinking on this subject.

I wonder if we are talking at cross purposes because we are trying to answer too many questions at once and create a generalised view for a multitude of different situations.

The key I think lies in the fundamental difference between advertising and marketing. If we take the Wikipedia definitions:
“Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action.”
“Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.”
So in this context, perhaps advertising does need a big idea but marketing doesn’t. The reason we get ourselves tied up in knots is because “digital environment” is an incredibly broad term. It covers many marketing activities which may or may not be related to a campaign. A website, if created to support and advertising message, still needs to deliver an experience consistent with ‘the big idea’ but everything you do in the digital space does not necessarily need to conform.

The thing that underlies any strong marketing strategy is always a brand vision. That is what we need to replicate with consistency across every customer touch point (digital and non digital). All the big campaign ideas need to have relevance to this brand vision and all tactical executions need to support it.
That’s a bit about what I think. Hear more thoughts and perspectives from this – seriously impressive – panel at ad:tech next week. Last chance to book today, registration closes at 5.30pm, Friday 12 March.

SESSION LEADER:
Iain McDonald, Founder, Amnesia, Razorfish

SESSION PARTICIPANT:
Sudeep Gohil, Strategic Planning Director/Partner, Droga5

Ashley Ringrose, Founder, Soap Creative

Brian Giesen, Director, 360 Degree Digital Influence, Ogilvy

Creative – Strategy – Data: What Should Drive Your Digital Marketing Most?

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:35:19 +0000

Marketing is ultimately about connecting with a group of people and communicating a message to them. Simple in essence; enormously challenging in execution. The myriad of information, options and opportunities at hand mean that you can approach the connection/communication task from a variety of angles.
When we think about marketing, even digital marketing specifically, all marketers have the same tools available to them, websites, social media, email, mobile etc. In addition, the average consumer is subjected to hundreds of advertising messages a day in one form or another. So in this environment, how can a marketer make sure that their message rises above the clutter?
In the old days, advertising was driven by a traditional art director/copywriter team coming up with a “big idea”…the creative. Now, with a more complex list of potential channels, the focus has shifted to less emotive and more analytical considerations such as behavioural insights, channel insights, technology insights and experience insights that enable a brand to connect and engage with the audience… the strategy. But even this is not enough and can lead to widespread wastage if it is directed to the wrong people. The real key comes in how these factors work in combination with targeting the right message at the right person at the right time … in other words, the data.
The debate remains however, what is the most important component of the mix: Creative, strategy or data?
Drayton Bird from Ogilvy once said that the success of marketing activity is 60% targeting (data), 25% offer (strategy) and 15% execution (creative). Is this still true? Is this true in the context of every campaign? Who should be driving the solution given that these three elements are typically managed by three different people within an agency?
This year we have assembled a panel of people from different perspectives to hash out the real question of who or what should be driving the bus in our future marketing landscape. In this session, you can hear from:
Session Leader:
Tom Hutton, Managing Partner, Ideagarden

Panellists:
David Whittle, Managing Director, Mark
Jason Davey, Managing Director, Bullseye
Brent Annells, Head of Radar DDB, DDB

How The Financial Services Industry Have Shaped And Influenced The Digital Media Space. Discussion & video

Lucy James (ad:tech) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:50:41 +0000

Jenny Williams spoke to Harry Lowes, Executive Manager - Digital Marketing, Commonwealth Bank about the campaigns that he’s admired most this year and why he thinks the financial services industry are often ‘first’ with digital media:

The financial services industry is known for testing new and innovative ideas and campaigns in the digital space. But what have they really achieved? Has there been long term effect, benefit, on the interactive media industry as a whole? And can they prove it??!

At ad:tech Harry and other marketing executives from financial services will be addressing just this and discussing more about the areas of risk, and how to manage them; and the areas of opportunity, and how to capitalise on them.

Read details of the panel discussion here. The other panellists with Harry are:

Michael Weeding, Head of Website & Online Acquisition, Citi
Monty Hamilton, Head of Online, UBank
Murray Howe, Executive Manager - Digital Marketing, Suncorp

Reputation Management In The Digital Space: Challenges & Opportunities

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:56:41 +0000

Reputation management is a critical issue in the digital space. With the advent of social media and the growth in user generated content, anyone can say anything they want about a brand and there is very little that the brand can do to control this.

Many companies shy away from any form of social media because they fear they will be opening the floodgates of consumer complaint however this isn’t really the solution. Consumers will talk anyway and it is invariably better to be part of the conversation than a helpless observer. At least if you are part of the conversation and you create the spaces in which the consumers can talk to you openly, the chances that you will be able to maintain some control is much higher.

It is true though that people with an axe to grind are often more vocal than the happy campers. Search remains one of the most important ways that consumers find information. If a brand is to retain any control and deliver relevance in an environment where they are competing against consumer comments, they must tackle any issues that they face or brand misrepresentation head on. Negative search results should not be ignored. They should be dealt with in the environment where they exist.

Proactive reputation management involves first listening to consumers, observing the issues, responding, often to the very individual who is complaining and having the ability to admit mistakes and correct them if that is necessary.

Additionally, proactively stimulating positive comments from multiple different environments is crucial to dominating SERP and, if possible, pushing negative results down the page. To do this, it is important to gain a real understanding of who ranks well. What influence do they have and how to engage them.

In this session, we will hear a couple of case studies from Canon and Cadbury to learn a little about how they have managed some of the challenges that reputation management involves. The panellists are:
Brett Wiskar, Director, Speedwell eBusiness Solutions
Myrna Van Pelt, Director, Technology, Hill & Knowlton Australia
Jeff Richardson, CEO, The Online Circle
Roger Sharp, Director of Corporate Affairs – Pacific, Cadbury

The Impact Of Social Content On e-Commerce - discussion and video

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:45:04 +0000

Consumer recommendations are one of the most credible forms of advertising because people trust people. Peer to peer recommendations and word of mouth have long been recognised as powerful marketing tools. While online, most companies rely heavily on search ranking to drive traffic and awareness, social content in e-commerce is the merger of these two ideas and represents an incredibly important area for any online retailer to consider.

According to a Forrester study, 71% of online shoppers read reviews, (http://www.ratepoint.com/resources/industrystats.html) making it the most widely read form of consumer-generated content. Additionally, a separate study by Coremetrics (http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats) found that people who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert.

Likewise, recommendation engines like Amazon (‘people who bought this product also bought that product’) go a long way to mirroring the retail experience and assisting in driving cross sell and upsell behaviour. When recommendation engines go social however, like LastFM (‘people who like similar things to you also like this’) it really starts to feel even more relevant and personalised bringing an offline experience truly online.

When Google announced their transition to real-time search this catapulted the importance of social media in the search game too. Real-time data is now placed above traditional web search results and as a result, it makes it even easier for a consumer who is purchasing a product to review social content that they may previously have had to work a lot harder to find.

The impact of the social content on sales is undeniable.

Social media has rapidly become one of the most powerful ways to raise awareness, build brands, drive customer loyalty and attract audiences to sites. Building a loyal community who are engaged and willing to contribute social content is potentially one of the most critical components of sales conversion in e-commerce and essential to the digital strategy of any marketer or retailer who is trying to sell their products online.

This is an area that any online retailer should be looking into seriously, and we’ll be discussing the key issues in the session at ad:tech ‘What Is The Impact Of Social Content On e-Commerce?’. The panellists will be reviewing the key issues. They are:

Myself and the ad:tech panel would welcome your comments and thoughts here.

And you can see the video of Tim Hughes sharing his thoughts on the subject here:

Channel Planning: How To Weave The Advertising Message Through Different Platforms

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:26:13 +0000

Channel planning in the digital age seems to be becoming more complex by the year. There was a time when online was a single line item on a channel strategy and the media plan listed about four sites. Today the range of “channels” that digital offers extends from website, online ads, mobile apps, social media interactive outdoor, experiential and so much more.

The challenge, however is the integration of the user experience across all of these channels. Given the ability to interact and the user expectations of functionality and value, it is far more important than ever before to target the message and the experience for the medium. I mentioned in my recent post the need to consider the technology on which the message is delivered and indeed, the platform often influences the message.

It is no longer sufficient to resize your print ads to an animated 728 by 90 gif and stick it on the website of choice. For example, the tone and purpose of, a Facebook implementation is completely different to what you might stick on ninemsn. One is more informal, two way and fun while the banner campaign needs to catch people’s attention. What you deliver in a mobile environment needs to be relevant to people when they are out and about. The extent to which you differentiate between your customers and your targets on each platform may also vary. So the message needs to fit the environment in which it is delivered and the nuances of the audience.

But while the message and the intent may vary across platforms, how you weave the advertising message together across these platforms is also important. Not everyone will see your message in every channel however, if they do, it needs to reinforce the message by building on it rather than just representing the same idea over and over in different formats. Channel planning needs to consider how we can integrate the experience and in an ideal world, inspire prospects to seek out further experiences with a brand in alternate channels. This goes far beyond putting the URL in the last frame of the TVC.

With the diversity of channels the challenge many marketers face. As technology evolves and emerges, it is hard to find one supplier who really understands them all. Many clients have moved away from the “full service agency” idea and set up contracts with multiple suppliers and agencies to service their different needs but while this means you have experts in their field, it also means that you need a bigger board room table and the process of co-ordination becomes far more complex.
But whose role is it to manage the integration of the message across platforms that are being managed by multiple suppliers? Should this be the marketer, the media agency or the strategist? My guess is that this will vary from case to case and individual to individual however, if you don’t really understand a platform, you can’t leverage its full potential, nor can you appropriately consider its role in the communications mix. The amount of time people need to spend educating themself on the new technology in marketing has increased tenfold in the last 5 years will only continue to expand.

We’ll be hearing more about this at ad:tech on the session Channel Planning: How To Weave The Advertising Message Through Different Platforms (Monday 16th March, 11am). We’ve got a great panel of digital marketers who will be discussing this in depth and sharing their opinions:
Aisha Hillary, Senior Marketing and New Media Specialist, SBS - Special Broadcasting Service
Ruby Grennan, Marketing Manager, triple j
Dirk Freytag, CEO, ADTECH
Wolfgang Jaegel, Founder & Regional Managing Director, Syndacast

Your Campaign Is Irrelevant: Why We Should Be Looking At Technology To Create Our Next Great Ideas

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:36:35 +0000

The challenge with so many digital deployments is that they live for so much longer than a campaign. Your website, your social media presence and your email communications strategy are foundations which can help ramp up a campaign but need to exist independently of what ever big idea is driving the latest marketing strategy. So if this is true, what is a great digital idea?

Since the beginning of advertising, creatives have been focused on generating a ”big idea” that will capture the hearts and minds of consumers and inspire them to want and buy products. With the advent of digital, we added the need to “interact” or “engage” with that advertising online and we measure this interaction as a gauge of how good the idea actually is.

To achieve this, we have to employ a much broader range of skills and considerations and this is at the heart of what makes “digital” different.

It drives me nuts that so many clients still want to see creative in a pitch long before the agency has had time to really figure out what they need to build.

Driving the right kind of engagement is as much about the technology and how you use it, the interface and how you arrange it (UI), the content and how you structure it (IA) and the way that your interface actually works to deliver against the needs and wants of a consumer (UX). These aspects require us to gain insights into not only how the hearts and minds of consumers work but how their devices and their brains work too.

Sometimes technology creates barriers to the experience. It might be that databases need to talk to each other to deliver personalised information, and they just don’t. It might be that the audience is living in a part of Australia that still can’t watch youtube because their connections are too slow. It might be that you want to deliver the experience on a mobile phone and half the users will be looking at it on a screen that is tiny.

So how do you then balance the technological capabilities with the emotional requirements of the marketing campaign?

To do this in a vacuum is impossible. Just as ads get tested on focus groups, digital executions should always be tested through usability analysis. And even once you go live, the data on usage patterns will tell you a lot, not only about what content people are interested in but also, whether the site you have built is easy and intuitive or confusing and not worth the trouble.

For many years, I have been saying that in digital, there is no “big idea” but rather a series of things an agency needs to consider which, when pulled together, deliver the best possible experience for the customer. Perhaps this collection of insights and the smart things that you do with them are in fact a great digital idea. Perhaps the way you project your brand in a dynamic and interactive environment is the idea. Perhaps digital is a series of good ideas that combined, make a great experience.
I’m interested in what you guys think is the “big idea” in digital? So, let me know now.

And this whole area will be addressed on the ad:tech program on various panel discussions, including Your Campaign Is Irrelevant: Why We Should Be Looking At Technology To Create Our Next Great Ideas (Wednesday 17th March, 11am, Track 2). Tony Palmer, C4 Communications, Nic Hodges, Clemenger BBDO and Julian Peterson, Time Out Sydney will be discussing this and would be really keen to know what you think and what you want to hear about in this discussion.
• What impact does interactivity have on an ‘idea’?
• How can you prevent infrastructure from jeopardising the user experience and digital ‘story’ that you want to tell?
• How do you balance the technological capabilities with the emotional requirements of the marketing campaign?
• How do you develop your brand in the digital space?

What’s The Role Of A Digital Strategy In Today’s Marketplace?

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:38:33 +0000

The program for ad:tech Sydney is almost 100% complete and we’re working closely with the panellists to finalise content. I will be blogging about the topics again so that we can get a broader view of the key issues that you, the industry would like to discuss. To kick off my blogging effort this year, I chose to focus on a subject close to my heart…digital strategy.

2 or 3 years ago, many digital agencies gave strategy away with a pitch in order to win the production business. Now, the field is varied. Some companies still consider their web presence a channel and relegate it to a project manager to … well, manage. At the other end of the spectrum however, we are seeing more and more companies pitching strategy out separately and involving many people in their organisation who previously had no insight into marketing activities or their rational.

The question for this panel is, does a company need an overarching digital strategy or is the strategy digital? Here are a few things to consider:
• Digital is like a retail location. Even if customers are not wanting to buy right now, if they’re looking at your web presence, they are an opportunity.
• Customers’ expectations are to be able to transact online but delivering this often requires new products and services to be developed.
• Digital initiatives often interface and depend on large scale CRM systems and data warehouses. Responsibility for these areas crosses many different departments and might require complex political negotiations to get working together.
• When companies start investing big budgets, they also expect ROI.

Since this is what I do for a living, I have to say that yes, companies do need a digital strategy, but how far should we go?

Some initiatives in digital marketing are no more complex that promoting something or gathering email addresses … over thinking a simple campaign microsite makes what used to be a cheap and effective use of the internet, prohibitively expensive. It is interesting to debate just how necessary a digital strategy is.

Strategy also implies something fixed. However, the ‘always live’, instantaneous digital experience affects how strategies need to evolve, like a living, breathing thing based on feedback and results. How many companies budget for and organise themselves around this kind of effort and how many are still revamping their website every few years and then leaving it alone?

So what makes a good strategy today? One that the board can understand and ‘buy in’ to, or one that constantly evolves? Can these be the same thing? My view is that it is more dependent on organisational culture and less on the PowerPoint but there are times when I have wondered.

This panel should be really interesting (Tuesday 16th March, 9.45am, Track 3). Anthony Goldman, Citrus; Ben Dux, theirspace digital; Yvette Mayer, SMV Group Australia; and Mac Walker, Hyro would love to hear what you guys think and any other burning questions you think are worth debate on this topic.
What is the role of a strategist today?
* What’s the right skill set for a strategist today?
* Does digital have a role in strategic planning in 2010?

ad:tech 2010 advisory councils LAUNCH

Lucy James (ad:tech) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:15:19 +0000

In order to ensure that the ad:tech event and program are closely aligned to the Australian and New Zealand digital media marketplace we’ve put together the ad:tech advisory councils. There are nine councils, representing different parts of the market, and they will be instrumental in guiding the conference content, speaker faculty and promotions for their topic area.

Internationally ad:tech works with very senior advisory boards and here in Sydney we want to get more hands on, really tie ourselves to the digital market and make sure we’re doing what the industry wants; the advisory councils will help us achieve just that. For a full list of the online marketing councils and their members, click here.

Jenny Williams, chairperson for ad:tech said, “I’m really pleased that so many senior and experienced people in the digital marketing community have agreed to be part of this new initiative. It’s always been essential that we deliver the most topical and important content that the industry needs and the councils will ensure that we do that at ad:tech 2010.”

The initial council meetings are currently taking place in Sydney and the program and speaker line up for ad:tech 2010 will be announced soon. You can keep checking the ad:tech brain for more details and also see the ad:tech website for all up to date details.

Core Digital Media
Digital Strategy
Performance Marketing
Social Media Strategy
Creative
Emerging Technology / Channels
e-Commerce / Online Retail
Data Analytics
Mobile

ad:tech is the number one event for digital marketers, the conference program comprises two days of content tailored to the needs of the digital media and marketing industry. There are keynotes from significant international business leaders and also panel discussions and case study presentations addressing the most pertinent challenges and critical issues in the marketplace today. By bringing together a number of experts to discuss each topic area ad:tech guarantees that you can take away multiple insights, expert opinions and real tangibles that can actually make a difference to your marketing operation.

Mark Abay, Director, ad:tech Australia said, “The content at ad:tech has always been designed around the needs of the industry. The formation of the councils now means the content will be designed ‘by the industry, for the industry’ and will therefore result in the most relevant, valuable and exciting conference sessions.”

You can have your say here on the ad:tech brain. Submit your suggestions for topics and speakers using the Voice of the Industry tab at the top of this page.

Core Digital Media
Chris Brown, Group Managing Director, DDB
Josie Brown, Digital Marketing Manager, Proctor & Gamble Australia
Midu Chandra, Group Manager of Digital, Telstra
Kerry Field, Partner, Innovation, Mindshare
Paul Fisher, CEO, IAB

Digital Strategy
Jules Hall, Managing Director, The Hallway, and chairperson for this council
Sudeep Gohil, Partner, Droga5
Alex Houghton, Strategist, OMD
Harry Lowes, Digital Marketing Executive, Commonwealth Bank

Performance Marketing
Scott Ennis, Director, Switched on Media
David Holmes, CEO, caradvice.com.au
Liam Walsh, MD, Microsoft Media Network

Social Media Strategy
Julian Cole, Digital Strategist, The Population
Karen Ganschow, Executive Director Relationship Marketing, Telstra
Aisha Hillary, Communication Specialist, New Media & Brand, SBS
Mark Pollard, Strategy Director, McCann

Creative
Matt Eastwood, National Creative Director, DDB
Iain McDonald, Founder, Amnesia Razorfish, and chair for this group
Bob Mackintosh, Digital Creative Director, Host

Emerging Channels / Technology
Ben Cooper, Director of Digital, Three Drunk Monkeys, and chairperson for this group
Guy Gadney, Director, The Project Factory
Alex North, Software Engineer, Google
Drew Parkes, Digital Marketing Director, Xbox

e-Commerce / Online Retail
Nicolas Cabrera, Head of Digital Marketing, Westfield
Adam Canter, Country Manager, Australia, shopping.com
Will Easton, Head of Retail, Google
Hamish Stone, Head of Marketing, eBay

Data Analytics
Christian Bartens, Managing Director, Datalicious
Alexx Cass, Digital Services Manager, Audit Bureau of Circulations
Andrew Eckford, Senior Business Analyst, Telstra

Mobile
Oliver Weidlich, Useability Specialist and Mobile User Experience Consultant, Ideal Interfaces
Jennifer Wilson, Director, The Project Factory
Neil Wiles, Managing Director, Mobile Active Ltd
Darren Burden, Director of News and Platforms, Fairfax Digital

How relevant is Twitter?

Jenny Williams (Ideagarden) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:14:54 +0000

Jenny Williams met Jye Smith to get a preview from his session at ad:tech - The Relevance of Twitter. Jye shared some of his thoughts on the market, the role of Twitter and what to expect from his panel discussion.

Jye