The New Advertising Agency

I recently worked on a social media campaign for a rather large technology company.

The campaign was a B2B focused initiative targeting those folks in an organisation that are responsible for IT. IT people have shown an unflinching propensity to dislike advertising and our prognostication during the early stages of the campaign was that what they really wanted was useful, intelligent 'conversation and content' that helped them solve specific business problems.

So we did something we usually don't do - instead of using all of our media buys for performance based advertising we used it to distribute relevant content, targeted at various segments of our audience. We became, in essence, both an aggregator and a publisher of content. We wrote and produced our own content, we corralled an army of bloggers - and no we didn't pay any of them - to help us shift perception of our clients products in the digital marketplace and answer any questions from our target audience as and when they arose.

We familiarised ourselves deeply with our clients products and services so we could become part of the conversation and indeed help drive solutions to the problems our clients customers were experiencing.

And then we measured every action and reaction.

Media planning and buying, transferring value from the owner of inventory to our clients, is our core business. However this campaign showed us that ad agencies have evolved and have the core capabilities to be a valued partner in content creation and a significant component of the distribution chain.

The data we were able to pull from this campaign was phenomenal.The insight gleaned from analyzing this data is already driving major shifts on how we will be planning, buying - and creating media - for our clients future campaigns.

Pretty exciting stuff....

Surrealism and Social Media

Surrealism changed my view of the world. I was first introduced to Surrealism around 14 years of age by my art history teacher. She took us through the Dada and Surrealist movements in great detail and took care in pointing out all the symbolism and meaning behind those magic masterpieces.

Some of the paintings that had maximum impact on me were The Lovers and Son of Man by Magritte and the Persistence of Time and Metamorphosis Of Narcissus by Dali.

I loved the exploration and discovery that would take place when we were introduced to a new painting. The questions that would be asked such as; Why is the clock melting? What does the apple mean? Why do those people in the paintings have cloths over their heads? Sometimes our teacher would have the answer and sometimes not, but I often preferred to derive my own meaning from the painting and allow my imagination to run wild. Wonderful stuff.

When the Surrealist Manifesto(s) was written by Andre Breton, in collaboration with other writers and artists of that time, their main philosophy was based around the fact that rational thought was, by in large, the source of all problems in the world and that change would only occur through the shedding of the rational mind and leveraging the subconscious. The Manifesto(s) delved deeper into that philosophy with the idea that simple, everyday things, objects etc could have deeper meaning when viewed within the subconscious.

As with all art movements Surrealism was no doubt and expression of a period in time and a rebellion against the status quo. It asked, above all else, to look at the world a little differently and allow yourself to question why and how you have always viewed the world and the things within it. Perhaps, it challenged, you could solve a problem though approaching that problem from a different angle.

Although I am not suggesting that Social Media or indeed Digital Media is by any means an artistic movement – although I have heard some people argue that point well – I do believe we are at a moment in time where we are finding ourselves challenging the status quo and finding solutions to problems by approaching a problem from a different and usually, more creative angle.

Creating something beautiful, engaging, shocking even is needed today in order to get attention. I think that Social Media and the plethora of tools and technologies that now exist provide us with carte blanch to paint a brands picture on the digital canvas a little differently. A strong Social Media strategy with deep creative integration can take a brand from the mundane and forgettable to the extraordinary and remarkable. Being less prescriptive and allowing discovery and interpretation to happen a little more subconsciously is a hugely powerful movement that is swiftly picking up speed.

2009 Agency Innovator of the Year

I realise it's a little late to be updating my blog for the first time in 2010 on Jan 21st, however already 2010 is shaking out to be a pretty busy year. Many of my clients who in 2009 were still a little hesitant about exploring the possibilities that social and emerging media can provide, have in 2010, no doubt in their minds. An exciting and somewhat daunting process as we ramp up on resources and look for great partners to work with.

Innovation is going to be one of my keyword mantras for 2010 and I promise to post regularly on all things innovative, cool, exciting and new in the digital space. In the meantime check out a pretty cool magazine that really focuses on driving innovation within the global media industry. The Internationalist Magazine. I was fortunate enough to be named one of their Agency Innovators in 2009 and if your interested in reading the bios of all the named innovators click on the above link. As always, would love to know your thoughts and feedback on innovation - what do you think is the next big thing in digital?

Canadian Marketing Week

Looking forward to speaking at Canadian Marketing Week next month. I am speaking on the Evolving Media Landscape and how we - all those involved marketing today - are being affected by this change. You can read more about the Digital Day and Awards Ceremony at the CMA Website. Let me know if you will be there and feel free to follow me on twitter as I will be tweeting from the event. My handle is @zara78

Creative Media

what comes first media or creative? Distribution or content? a debate that lasted over four hours today with my emerging media team in seattle? does media need to have a creative offering or vice versa? social media adds a whole other element to the discussion....what's your thoughts?

Obama and In Game Advertising

Even though there is no winner as yet in the race to become the next president Obama has clearly taken the lead when you view the campaign through a digital media lens. Moreover, he is the first political candidate to used social media to promote himself and his party and now he has moved into the rehlm of gaming as a way to reach the American male youth audience.Here is a sample of the whole article featured on Yahoo news last week...worth a read. Being someone who is continually tasked by my clients to develop the best methodology to measure social and emerging media ROI, engagement and of course sales or in this case votes, I would LOVE to see the metrics off the back of the Obama Presidential campaign...if anyone can share any information to date on this I would be very, very interested. thanks

Somebodyelsesphone....

...http://www.somebodyelsesphone.com/ is the latest ad campaign from Nokia promoting the new 7610 Supernover and obviously targeting a youth audience. I like the creative concept of the website, it kept me intrigued for some time. The brand extentions are interesting too e.g the "characters" featured have set up their own facebook profile and are actively befriending people....however, part of the ad agencies promotional strategy was to video the characters - one nineteen year old woman in particular - in an overtly sexual way. mmm...part of me thinks well this is what appeals to nineteen year old guys (actually all guys right? ) but the other part of me is like...really? do you have to be that obvious and unoriginal? sex of course sells, but this part of the campaign on facebook is both unoriginal and gratuitous. Come on creative peeps come up with something a little better next time!! ( interesting side note - I'd say 90% of the comments around the video campaign on Facebook are negative in sentiment)

Federated Media...

...Heading to their conversation marketing conference this week in San Francisco...really looking forward to it...

raining in seattle...

....for the first time in ages, and funnily enough i am kind of enjoying it today! So, someone i talk about a bit is Hugh McLeod and something I keep coming back to is his whole theory around the Microsoft Blue Monster. check it out. This just has so much relevance in the world of social media.

Digital Think Tank

i made it...finally....it took a while, but i'm here! check back often and look forward to your digital thoughts in the coming weeks....