Hello Viking

One Show Interactive 2008

We attended the awards ceremony for One Show Interactive a few weeks ago. In a word: Impressive.

This year's award winners were very global. (Click here to download the Interactive winners list (PDF) from the One Club.) We saw lots of great interactive work from Brazil, Japan, Sweden and the UK. This year's show only confirms the necessity to consider global audiences, or at least the presence of them. Whatever you build—be it a campaign site, digital content or online display ads—will be seen by an audience much wider and more diverse than what you might have targeted. And that's good. Not just for general awareness, but for the practice of thinking beyond your own marketing "walls." What might an audience in Korea think of your project once they stumble upon from a Google link?

We also got spend time with old friends (and judges for this year's show) Benjamin Palmer and Will McGinness (who also chaired the judging committee). Nice to see those guys on stage.

Anyway, Best of Show went to the Japanese retailer Uniqlo and the production company Projector for the "Uniqlock" campaign. It's incredible and totally deserved the top honor. It's content and re-distribution technology wrapped in a simple idea.



You can read a ton about Uniqlo—its corporate history, successes, failures and resurgence—and the Uniqlock campaign here at Creative Review. Here's a few highlights from their article:

"Uniqlock is a downloadable ‘blog part’ created by Projector. It’s a simple clock that anyone can place on their blog to give the time and location of the blog’s writer. Each hour, it plays a specially written chime by DJ/producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, aka Fantastic Plastic Machine. Nearly 20,000 are in use worldwide. Uniqlo recently updated the concept with the addition of video: in the new version (shown), each hour is marked by a short dance piece performed by dance group, Core of Woomin, and directed and choreographed by Yuichi Kodama and AIRMAN."

"Launched in June, the Worldclock section of the imaginatively wrought Uniqlock site will inform you that more than 19,000 Uniqlocks have been set, and the site has been viewed nearly 46 million times by visitors from 204 countries."

Again, impressive.

positioning

Fascinating post (and comments) over on Wieden + Kennedy London's blog, "Welcome to optimism" on the subject of how agencies position themselves.

Our own positioning suddenly feels in need of a tune up, if only because. Perhaps we need to coin a succinct rallying cry to ignite brand leaders to our side. Based on previous experiences inside larger agencies, we could devote years if not decades to this effort. But how about this handy poll instead?

Free!

Chris Anderson's latest in Wired, "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business" is definitely worth your time.

From an opening anecdote about razor magnate King Gillette, Anderson outlines the economic and technical forces that have evolved to create the business ecosystem we all work within today:

"It's now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers are concerned. Storage now joins bandwidth (YouTube: free) and processing power (Google: free) in the race to the bottom. Basic economics tells us that in a competitive market, price falls to the marginal cost. There's never been a more competitive market than the Internet, and every day the marginal cost of digital information comes closer to nothing."

It got us thinking.

If, as Anderson puts it, "The moment a company's primary expenses become things based in silicon (i.e. digital advertising infrastructure), free becomes not just an option but the inevitable destination," we've all got a lot of soul searching to do.

Advertising won't go away. Nor will it become entirely free to create or distribute.

The lesson here is to think differently about what advertising does, or is supposed to do. And to constantly evaluate our roles within this mutating system. Then be open to unusual thinking as it reveals itself.

Friends are fantastic

The past few months have been insane. Good insane. We've been terribly fortunate to be working with some marvelous agencies and marketers, as well as really awesome creative, media and strategic partners. And the results have been quite lovely as well. Here's a quick recap:

Persuasion Arts & Sciences and Brunswick/MerCruiser 360° Control
We just launched this promotional site yesterday to coincide with the Miami Boat Show. HV delivered strategy, design and development. Big thanks to Dion and Mark for the opportunity and to John and Aubrey and crew for their fine collaboration. We're implementing an AdWords campaign around this effort as well.

Kruskopf Coontz and 3M
We've been working with KC to develop strategy, media and creative ideas to enhance an existing product campaign in the digital space. Now we're moving into production on that stuff. Tip 'o' the viking helmet to Robb, Mike, Ann, Audra and the team at KC for the work, as well as our pal Alan for the big ideas.

Taxi Branding
We're in the midst of an ongoing strategic, media, creative and production project with our friends Tim, Richard and Debra. Thanks to Jamie, Alan and Shannon for their insights and energy.

Spring and PwC
Much love to our pals at Spring. We're currently developing their new website. And we just collaborated on strategy, then led architecture and development to launch a video contest for business students at pwc.tv/videocontest. Know any b-schoolers? They could win $3,000.

Fallon
And a shout-out to Al Kelly and Tom Eslinger for the opportunity to knock heads on digital strategy and creative ideas for a new biz pitch a few weeks back. That was fun. Thanks as well to Marc and John for their efforts with us.

Venables Bell and Audi
Late last year we collaborated with the team at VB on strategy, architecture, content and design for a "Truth in Engineering" campaign site prototype. (See the work here.) Thanks to Colleen and Lissette for the opportunity and Jamie and Marc for their fine aesthetics and work ethic.

1nteractive and Pinnacle Airlines
Last fall we developed an online strategy, media plan, AdWords campaign, banner ads, and a landing page to improve Pinnacle's pilot recruitment efforts. Over 4,500 unique users hit the registration page in first 30 days, eliciting 400 applications, of which 56.1% were qualified. Per-pilot recruitment costs dropped to $163 per applicant from, well, let's just say a much bigger number. Oh, and our AdWords CTR was 2.99% on average. See the work.

We've got some other great work in the pipeline and we're teaming up with even more awesome people. Work is grand.

Test this.

We attended a very pleasant Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association "salon" this evening featuring Jamie Roach, founder and president of Offermatica.

Our Twitterings from the presentation are vague, but we were excited by Jamie's logic. Optimization and testing can be avenues to increased creativity, more relevant messaging and greater overall efficiency.

If you have a reasonable-sized audience (and budget), why wouldn't you engage in a variety of tests with all factors of your website?

It's as much about providing balance to a culture of guessing--which occurs inside even the brightest marketing organizations--as it is about providing mechanisms for continual learning. From a creative standpoint, this kind of testing isn't about rating the worthiness of a singular idea, it's about the democracy of concepting and the reality that any testing means more than one idea is required. In essence, a culture of testing will produce and "air" more ideas than a culture that doesn't test.

Jamie also mentioned Cliq, a new blog-promoting tool sponsored by Offermatica. We'll test it out.

And kudos to MIMA for hosting the event in the swank Minneapolis Club, with its fascinating wall of genteel past presidents.

We'll be back.

[blank] killed the campaign microsite star?

You saw this coming, didn't you? Of course you did. Interesting piece in Adweek today on the eventual, obvious, presumed "death" of the Campaign Microsite.

"Digital advocates often proclaim the imminent death of the 30-second spot, but the interactive industry might now be witnessing the demise of its own version of the commercial: the campaign microsite.

The growth of social media is causing marketers to realize they cannot expect consumers to always seek them out. Web widgets and video-sharing tools make it easy for any user to take content that formerly might have lived only on a brand site with them wherever they go. And social media sites help them share that content with friends."

Our 2¢: Nothing dies in advertising. The campaign microsite will continue to play a strong role when and where it needs to.

If your audience isn't hanging out in Facebook or MySpace, then perhaps a microsite can act in that role quite effectively. And it's quite easy to provide many if not all of the social networking tools and utility within a microsite (AddThis, anyone?).

Given today's wonderfully complex mix of online venues, the campaign site is simply another option.

Perhaps it's a clearinghouse, or a jumping off point. At the very least, the campaign site does offer the greatest degree of control and distribution.

If you follow Jaffe's three (new) roles for advertising: To Empower, To Demonstrate and To Involve -- it's clear social media/networks are quite wonderful for involving and empowering; whereas the campaign site has unique strengths in its abilities to demonstrate. But it's all part of a coherent whole -- each element crafted or adopted for a specific role in the marketing mix.

To suggest the demise of the campaign site is at hand is quite sensational, but hardly accurate.

Facebooking

Yes, we did it. We took Facebook's bait and created ourselves a Page. Come visit. Become a fan. We would really dig that.

Who do you trust?

We were intrigued by a report on the Discover Small Business Watch by the Center for Media Research that discussed the economic confidence among 1,000 small businesses with five or fewer employees. Most of the article discusses economic confidence and cash flow. But we perked up towards the end...

"The buzz that general-interest networking sites are generating hasn't struck a chord with the Main Street small business crowd... " Rachakonda said. 55 percent of respondents said they would not consider using a service or small business that they heard about on a social or business networking Web site.

The study found that younger business owners use online networking the most. In the 18-29 age group, membership at general online networking sites reached as high as 41 percent at some of the more popular online networking communities. Membership among older age groups at the same sites is still significantly lower.

So we've crafted this poll.

Where do you wind up on the issue of utilizing social networking for business? Who do you trust?

What does it take? Part 2

Wow. 23 votes cast so far in our poll asking, "What actions should CEOs be taking to demonstrate their understanding of the digital space?" And more important -- numerous, well-considered comments. Thanks everyone, for the wonderful conversation.

Here's a recap of the voting thus far from PollDaddy (great web app). Let's remember, this isn't a poll of CEOs, but a poll of those responsible to a CEO -- those in the digital trenches, doing the work. What do those of us doing the work today want and need to see from our betters?

What stands out for us, overall, is this:

CEOs need to put some skin in the digital game.
It might be Facebook, or attending a conference or blogging. CEOs need to participate, personally. Show those around you -- your fellow board members, your direct reports -- that you're personally invested.

We've got highlights from the comments following the image.

In the case of "Other," the suggestions were:

+ Run paperbag lunch sessions where CEO presents ideas/vehicles that have merit

+ I think execs should have a digital dashboard that they review on a weekly basis

+ Support initiatives encouraging their employees to explore the digital space

+ INVESTMENT AND INCLUSION: put gigerati on the board, invest in technology

+ Take an interest in the ops/financial/marketing value of their domain name

+ Recognize that 40% of their customers time is spent online, yet they invest 5%

COMMENT HIGHLIGHTS:

"The real question I face every day is how do you get an executive -- who has been at the top of his or her field for decades -- to admit that they now have a knowledge gap that must be addressed?"

"That Giant Sucking Sound you hear is the leadership vacuum in the corporate digital space."

"The net-net is, we just have to keep educating, no? We have to speak up and tell them, show them, when cool stuff happens..."

"If the company's business is primarily in the digital space, it doesn't make sense for the CEO to be focused on it. It's far better if they support initiatives encouraging their employees to explore how best the company's culture fits into the digital space."

- - -

All of this gets us thinking and asking, well, Who is doing it right, right now?

Which CEOs in your opinion are demonstrating a solid understanding of the digital space?

And how are they demonstrating it?

Let's keep the conversation going.

What does it take?

After attending the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit 2007 and the MN Advertising Federation Show, and chatting with our friends working in the interactive space, we've got a question:

We have no illusions that any CEOs are going to answer this poll. Rather, we're curious what you -- the people who create, enable and guide the interactive work -- want from your CEO in terms of understanding and involvement. What do you want your CEO to know and participate in?

We'll post the results here and continue the discussion. Please share this poll and encourage your friends and co-workers to participate. The more responses we have from all of you, the better the survey. And everyone can share in the results.

(Hat tip to David Armano for the PollDaddy link.)