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Society of digital agencies report 2013  the quantified society
Tony Quin


                           Intro
                           With over 65,000 readers in 2012, The SoDA Report
“ Six years after 13       has become one of the most read publications in the
digital agency leaders
                           digital marketing world. But this is only one expression
got together over dinner
                           of the remarkable community of digital pioneers,
in Miami, SoDA has
                           creatives and executives that makes up SoDA. With
grown into a global
                           70 member agencies in 22 countries on 5 continents,
organization with
                           SoDA has become the leading voice of the digital agency
members from New
                           community, representing the top tier of digital agencies
York to New Zealand.   ”   and the most sought after production companies in
                           the world.

                           As you will see as you explore the pages of this new
                           edition of The SoDA Report, our members freely share
                           their latest thinking on everything from igniting an
                           innovation-ready mindset to the importance of user-
                           centric design to humorous suggestions for horrible new
                           buzzwords that we pray never see the light of day. That’s
                           because sharing is the cornerstone of how SoDA works.
                           We share with each other and we share with the world.
                           Our Peer Collaboration Groups, for example, bring
                           together over six hundred members across 16 disciplines
                           in the search for best practices and new ideas. Regular
                           roundtables and webinars showcase critical thought-
                           leaders to our membership and beyond. And this year
                           our “SoDA Presents” panel program will bring together
                           the cream of our industry at major conferences across
                           Europe, North America and Latin America.

                           Six years after 13 digital agency leaders got together
                           over dinner in Miami, SoDA has grown into a global
organization with members from New York to New
Zealand, enabling us more than ever to accomplish our
mission to advance our industry through Best Practices,
Education, and Advocacy.

I hope that you find this latest volume of The SoDA
Report insightful and valuable, and I invite you to find
out more about our programs, resources and members
at www.sodaspeaks.com.

Best Wishes,

Tony Quin
Chairman of the Board, SoDA
CEO, IQ Agency
Angèle Beausoleil


                            Foreward
“We see the world, not as   How agencies, production companies and brands
it is, but as we are”       perceive their value to their respective customers varies
  – Talmud                  greatly. How one generation perceives value differs from
                            the next. Campaigns targeting one consumer segment
                            are not necessarily perceived the same way by another
                            segment. Facing these multiplying realities, how can we
                            build a better awareness of people’s perceptions of our
                            services, products and organizations? This year’s first
                            edition of The SoDA Report reveals new perspectives,
                            fresh ideas and real concepts of how organizations are
                            balancing the art and science of perception to succeed in
                            these fast-paced times.

                            From blowing up what you learned about data from
                            your not-so-favorite math teacher, to exploring how
                            forward-thinking companies are laying the groundwork
                            for a virtuous cycle of innovation, to integrating the
                            best of technology development processes with quick
                            marketing smarts, we suggest how you can change
                            your company from risk averse to courageous, creative,
                            authentic and agile.

                            Future shifts in marketing are discussed by top
                            executives of global brands, tech start-ups, agencies and
                            the leadership of top trade publications. Among other
                            things, they highlight the importance of humanizing
                            data, creating credible content, advocating for user-
                            centric design, transforming business models, tribe
                            building and simplicity.
Our writers and editors ponder a broad range of
provocative questions. Are we responsive to responsive
design? If focusing on the creation of mobile optimized
content is akin to solving a problem from 2007, what
problems should we be focused on now? What is
the “next” Facebook? Are we living in a “Quantified
Society”? How can we become the Master of Design in
our organizations. And, does irreverent marketing lead
to effective consumption?

We propose the use of Improv to cut through
perceptions and expose the real people you are hiring,
and that whole-brained folks are truly the next killer
app. We suggest you pay attention to idea thieves, solve
real versus perceived problems and focus on becoming
exceptional – which is what innovation is about.

So, how can you increase your awareness of both your
own perceptions and the perceptions of others? Start by
reading this report. Enjoy.

Angèle Beausoleil
Editor-in-Chief
The SoDA Report
Team & Partners
Content Development
Angèle Beausoleil
Editor-in-Chief of The SoDA Report,
Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Agent Innovateur Inc.

Angèle Beausoleil has spent the last two decades
working with digital agencies, technology companies
and consumer brands on identifying market trends,
leading research and development projects through
innovation labs and crafting strategic plans. Today,
she balances her graduate studies (MA/PhD in Applied
Innovation) activities, with teaching Thinking Strategies
at UBC’s d.studio, and a strategic marketing and
invention consulting practice. Angele is also the Editor-
in-Chief for The SoDA Report and is an advisory board
member for the Merging+Media Association, Vancouver
International Film Festival, Kibooco (kids edutainment
start-up) and the Digital Strategy Committee for the
University of British Columbia (UBC). Angèle lives in
Vancouver with her husband and son.

Chris Buettner
Managing Editor of The SoDA Report,
SoDA Executive Director

After a career on the digital agency and publisher side
that spanned 15+ years, Chris Buettner now serves as
Managing Editor of The SoDA Report. He is also the
Executive Director of SoDA where he is charged with
developing and executing the organization’s overall
strategic vision and growth plan. And with roots in
journalism, education and the international non-profit
world, the transition to lead SoDA has been a welcome
opportunity to combine many of his talents and
passions. After living in Brazil and Colombia for years,
Chris is also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is an
enthusiastic supporter of SoDA’s initiatives to increase
its footprint in Latin America and around the world.
Chris lives in Atlanta with his wife and two daughters.



Editorial Team
Sean MacPhedran
Industry Insider,
Group Planning Director, Fuel

Sean is Group Planning Director at Fuel (based in
Ottawa, Canada), where he currently works with
clients including McDonald’s Europe, Nokia, Mattel
and Lucasfilm. He specializes in youth marketing,
entertainment & game development, and the
incorporation of pirates into advertising campaigns
for brands ranging from Jeep to Family Guy. Outside
of Fuel, he is a co-founder of the Ottawa International
Game Conference, managed the category-free
Tomorrow Awards and spent a good deal of time in the
Mojave Desert launching people into space at the X
PRIZE Foundation. They all came back alive.

Craig Menzies
Advocacy,
Head of Research and User Experience, Deepend

Craig is currently the Head of Research and User
Experience at Deepend, a digital and creative agency
headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Craig is a former
Forrester customer experience analyst, and has also held
positions with iCrossing UK and Vodafone Australia.
Zachary Paradis
People Power,
Director of Innovation Strategy, SapientNitro

Zachary Jean Paradis is an innovation strategist,
professor and author obsessed with transforming lives
through customer experience. He works at SapientNitro,
teaches at the Institute of Design and lives in Chicago.
Zachary works with companies to become successful
innovators by utilizing “experience thinking” as a
strategic asset manifested in better offerings, flexible
process, and open culture. He works with start-ups
and Fortune 1000 companies as diverse as Chrysler
Auto Group to Target, Hyatt Hotels to John Deere,
M&S to McLaren, and SAP to Yahoo!, evolving service
and product experiences across digital and physical
channels. Zachary recently relocated to Chicago from
SapientNitro’s London office.

Mark Pollard
Modern Marketer,
VP Brand Strategy, Big Spaceship

Mark is a brand planner who grew up digital. He built
his first website in 1997 then published the first full-
color hip hop magazine in the Southern Hemisphere,
while working in dotcoms, digital agencies and
advertising agencies. He is featured in the AdNews Top
40 under 40, and won a Gold Account Planning Group
(APG) award for his McDonald’s ‘Name It Burger’
strategy. A NSW Government initiative listed him as one
of Sydney’s Top 100 Creative Catalysts. Mark is VP of
Brand Strategy at Big Spaceship in New York City.

Simon Steinhardt
Tech Talk,
Associate Creative Director, Editorial, JESS3

Simon Steinhardt is the Associate Creative Director
of Editorial at JESS3 in Los Angeles. He is co-author
of the forthcoming book Hidden in Plain Sight: How
to Create Extraordinary Products for Tomorrow’s
Customers (HarperBusiness), set for release on April
16. Previously, he was managing editor of Swindle
magazine, and has written and edited extensively on art
and culture, including contributions to The History of
American Graffiti and Supply and Demand: The Art of
Shepard Fairey.

Philip Rackin
Research Insights,
Director of Strategy, MCD

As Director of Strategy at MCD Partners, Philip
Rackin helps companies such as Samsung, E*TRADE,
Discover Financial, and Genworth identify and develop
opportunities to grow their businesses with emerging
technologies. Over the past 15 years, he’s developed
dozens of marketing programs, and digital products
for consumer and B2B clients, including Comcast,
Consumer Reports, The Port Authority of NY and NJ,
Computer Associates, NARS Cosmetics, Johnnie Walker
Scotch Whisky, and the University of Pennsylvania
School of Design.

Kate Richling
SoDA Showcases,
VP of Marketing, Phenomblue

As Phenomblue’s Vice President of Marketing, Kate
Richling oversees the agency’s marketing and social
media outreach, as well as its inbound marketing efforts.
Previously, Richling worked in public relations, creating
and executing strategies for a wide variety of brands and
non-profit organizations.
Partners
Research Partner                Content/Production
Econsultancy                    SoDA
www.econsultancy.com            www.sodaspeaks.com




                                Organizational Sponsor
Cover Design                    Adobe
Struck                          www.adobe.com
www.struck.com




Tablet Edition/Prodution
Universal Mind                  The SoDA Report
www.universalmind.com           Production Team
                                Natalie Smith, Head of Production
                                Todd Harrison, Designer
                                Courtney Hurt, Production Designer


Infographics Partner
Phenomblue
www.phenomblue.com
Digital
           Marketing Outlook
                             Key Survey Findings
                          Respondent Overview
         Marketers Self-Assess their Digital Savvy
Client Investments in Agencies Trending Upward


                                    The SoDA Report 2013
The
 SoDAReport      Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook



                                    SoDA’s Digital Outlook Marketing (DMO) Survey
                                    results are in. The findings provide evidence that both
                                    digital agencies and full-service agencies with robust
                                    digital capabilities are taking an increasingly prominent
                                    seat at the table with client organizations. In fact, many
                                    not only have a seat, but also a desk and a few family
                                    photos. More than 1 in 5 of our agency respondents
                                    said they now have agency employees embedded as
Chris Buettner                      specialized resources at client offices as part of their
SoDA Executive Director             service offering, highlighting a significant shift in client-
and Managing Editor of              agency engagement models.
The SoDA Report
                                    Clients, for their part, are getting savvier as well. While
After a career on the digital       much of this digital acumen is home-grown within client
agency and publisher side           organizations, brands are also receiving help from their
that spanned 15+ years,             agency and production company partners. Nearly one
Chris Buettner now serves           third of agency respondents are providing education
as Managing Editor of               and training services to those clients who have
The SoDA Report. He is              developed internal teams to handle digital production
also the Executive Director         and maintenance.
of Operations at SoDA
                                    So, do digital agencies have a dim future given this
where he is charged with
                                    apparent shift toward “in-sourcing” on the client
developing and executing
                                    side? Quite the contrary. Forward-thinking digital
the organization’s overall
                                    companies are finding that the best route to growth is to
strategic vision and growth
                                    make things…to be able to create innovative, effective
plan. And with roots in
                                    experiences for both consumers and brands. And this
journalism, education and
                                    year’s DMO Survey results underscore that brands
the international non-
                                    are increasingly looking to digital agencies to do just
profit world, the transition
                                    that. We believe the trend toward clients innovating
to lead SoDA has been
                                    “out-of-house” and maintaining their existing
a welcome opportunity
                                    digital experiences in-house will only become more
to combine many of his
                                    pronounced this year and into 2014.
talents and passions.
After living in Brazil and          To support this shift, leading agencies and production
Colombia for years, Chris           companies are working to create a virtuous cycle of
is also fluent in Spanish   innovation and IP development at their companies
and Portuguese and is an    through the creation of innovation labs and product
enthusiastic supporter      incubators. A whopping 40% of agency respondents
of SoDA’s initiatives to    have launched product incubators, with the most salient
increase its footprint in   benefits being happier, more engaged staff and new
Latin America and around    business success. These are just a few of the trends
the world.                  emerging from this year’s DMO study.

                            Conducted by Econsultancy, SoDA’s 2013 Digital
                            Outlook Marketing Survey had 814 respondents, up
                            25% from SoDA’s 2012 study. Marketers represented
                            approximately one-third of all respondents with a fairly
                            even split between companies who primarily market
                            products (33%), services (31%) and a mix of products
                            and services (36%).

                            Over 84% of respondents were key decision makers
                            and influencers (CMOs, senior executives, VPs and
                            directors) with annual marketing budgets ranging from
                            US$5M to over US$100M and whose key markets are
                            North America (50%), Europe (22%) and APAC (12%).
                            This year saw a growing multinational cross-section
                            of respondents, with 12% indicating that no single
                            continent accounts for a majority of their business
                            revenue.

                            ABOUT ECONSULTANCY
                            Econsultancy is a community where the world’s digital
                            marketing and ecommerce professionals meet to sharpen their
                            strategy, source suppliers, get quick answers, compare notes,
                            help each other out and discover how to do everything better
                            online. Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has grown to become
                            the leading source of independent advice and insight on digital
                            marketing and ecommerce. Econsultancy’s reports, events,
                            online resources and training programs help its 200,000+
                            members make better decisions, build business cases, find the
                            best suppliers, look smart in meetings and accelerate their
                            careers. Econsultancy is proud to be SoDA’s research partner
                            on this publication for the second consecutive year. For more
                            information, go to http://econsultancy.com/
The
 SoDAReport    Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook



              Respondent Overview


              Organization Type
Q. Which of the                     Organization Type                        %
following best
describes the                       Consumer brand (B2C) marketing           13%
organization you                    Corporate brand (B2B) marketing          15%
work for?
                                    Agency                                   35%
Agency respondents
                                    Digital production studio                7%
were evenly split
between digital agencies            Vendor/service/independent consultant
                                                                             10%
and full service agencies           serving the digital marketing industry
with digital capabilities.          Other digital marketing professional     20%
See the Related Research
Insights within Industry
Insider for additional
analysis on how these
two sets of agency
respondents differ and
agree on key industry
issues.
Respondent Overview


             Consumer Marketers
             by Category
Q. Which of the
following best
describes your
category of
consumer brand
                                         12%
marketing?

CPG marketers
                                                   48%
represented
approximately 50%                  31%
of the 2013 sample of
consumer marketers.
                                          9%




                                   Consumer Packaged Goods
                                   Services
                                   Other
                                   OEM
Respondent Overview


             Job Title
Q. Which of the            Title                                                  %
following best             C-level executive (e.g., CMO)                          26%
describes your title?      Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of marketing      13%
                           Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of channel
Over 84% of                (e.g., social media, mobile, e-mail)
                                                                                  4%
respondents were key
                           Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of technology     2%
decision makers and
                           Director/manager of market research                    11%
                                                                                  10%
influencers (CMOs,
senior executives, VPs     Customer segment owner or customer program manager     24%
                                                                                  10%

and directors.             Director/manager of marketing services or operations   13%
                                                                                  23%
                           Other (please specify)                                 12%
Global Business Reach


             By Continent
Q. From which
region do the
majority of your
business revenues
come?


                                            11%
North American                        2%
                                     12%
respondents represented
50% of the sample (down                                50%
from approximately
60% in the 2012 study),
with Europe and Asia                 2 2%
making up an additional
                                             3%


third. Just over 1 in 10
respondents (11%) hailed
from multinationals
with a diversified
revenue stream across
continents, up from 8%
in last year’s study.
                                 North America
                                 Europe
                                 APAC
                                 Less than half of our revenues
                                 come fom any one continent
                                 South America
                                 Africa
The
SoDAReport    Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook



             Key Insight:
             Digital acumen on the client side is spiking.

              Marketers
              Self-Assess their
              Digital Savvy
                                                      Q. How would you describe the
                                                      digital marketing sophistication
                                                      of your organization? (posed to
              5%
                   1%




                                                      client-side respondents)
                          %
             12



                        22




                                                      Fifty-four percent of client
               %




                                                      respondents describe their
                                                      organizations as “sophisticated” or
        26%                                           “very sophisticated” when it comes to
                                                      digital marketing, an assertion that
                          34




                                                      a large cross-section of agency and
                            %




                                                      production company respondents
                                                      support.

                                                      When agencies and production
                                                      companies were asked how they’re
      Very Sophisticated                              seeing their clients evolve, the
                                                      increasing digital savvy of client-
      Somewhat Sophisticated
                                                      side organizations – as suggested by
      About Average                                   clients’ own self-assessments noted
      Somewhat Unsophisticated                        in the pie chart above – became even
      Very Unsophisticated                            more pronounced. While the pool
                                                      of client-side respondents to SoDA’s
      No Opinion
survey may be more sophisticated than the general
population of brand marketers, we believe increasing
digital acumen on the client side is a trend that will
become more pronounced and pervasive in the years to
come.



A few highlights from agency responses:

“Many of our clients are bypassing traditional
marketing for digital marketing. That isn’t surprising,
but what is a shocker is that they’re clamoring for
digital experiences that are uber personalized.
Knowing a customer’s name isn’t sufficient. They’re
asking for higher customer engagement through
complex personalization. For example, aggregating
all user interactions (implicit and explicit) and serving
‘personalized’ content based on that data. In other
words, determining user preferences without directly
burdening the user for that information.”

“One of the savvier trends we’re seeing among clients
is toward custom behavioral marketing driven by
integration of data platforms to allow for real-time or
near real-time optimization and iteration (i.e., agile
campaign planning and performance management).”

 “We’re seeing a real trend toward more digitally
experienced marketers being promoted to more senior
roles within client-side organizations.”

“In their quest to do more with less, clients are
acquiring more digital expertise, either through the
addition of digital agencies to their rosters and/or
creating internal digital teams, often by hiring former
agency professionals.”

“Marketing and Technology teams are working more
closely together on the client side. Such cross functional
teams are driving the delivery of innovative new
marketing abilities.”

“More technologies and technology skills are entering
the marketing department on the client side. We call it
the rise of the Marketing Technologist.”

“We’re finding that marketing professionals at
forward-thinking client organizations not only have
a strong holistic understanding of how their company
business operates, but also much more technical savvy
in understanding internal systems as well as customers
devices and touchpoints.”

“Clients who used to work in silos are now tearing
down walls between departments to integrate more
closely with teams who have consumer-facing roles or
are involved in product development.”
The
SoDAReport    Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook



             Key Insight:
             Digital marketing budgets and client
             investments in digital agencies will grow at a
             more intense pace in 2013 and 2014.

             Client Investments
             in Agencies
             Trending Upward
                                                      Q. Which of the following
                                                      best describes your
                                                      organization’s approach to
                                                      managing and executing
                    14%


                          14%




                                                      digital marketing with
              28%                                     agency partners?
                                44
                                  %                   Nearly 30% of client respondents
                                                      indicated they were increasing
                                                      agency investments in digital
                                                      marketing efforts this year. This
                                                      is not only a testament to the
                                                      fact that the global economy has
  We’re Maintaining the Status Quo
                                                      shown signs of improvement
  We’re Increasing our Agency Investments
                                                      (albeit far from robust growth),
  We’re Decreasing our Agency Investments Over Time
                                                      but also to the realization that
  Doesn’t Apply to Us
                                                      digital provides stronger value
                                                      than other channels as indicated
                                                      in the next table on budgeting
                                                      shifts.
Some of the reasons…

  •	 Agencies are benefitting from clients’
     reluctance to expand headcount.  While many
     clients are expanding internal teams focused
     on executing and maintaining existing digital
     initiatives, most are looking to agencies for
     counsel and support when it comes to more
     senior-level, strategic digital marketing
     roles.  

  •	 The measurability of digital has given it
     more clout, although – admittedly – mining
     the avalanche of data generated by digital
     efforts is still a major challenge for both
     clients and agencies.

  •	 More of the clients’ audiences are paying
     attention to them on digital channels.
Budget Decisions
Shifting in
Favor of Digital
Projected Budget                                                 %
We’re decreasing our digital marketing budgets                   11%
We’re maintaining the status quo                                 34%
We’re increasing our digital marketing budgets without
increasing overall marketing spend (reallocating existing       39%
budget into digital)

We’re increasing our digital marketing budgets and
increasing our overall marketing spend                           16%

Other (please specify)                                           0%




                Q. Which of the following best describes your
                organization’s projected budget for digital
                marketing initiatives in 2013?

                Almost 40% of clients indicated they are increasing
                digital budgets without increasing their overall
                marketing spend (reallocating existing budget into
                digital). Another 16% say they’re increasing the overall
                size of the marketing pie (increasing overall spend
                and digital budgets). Any way you slice it, this is good
                news when it comes to the value being placed on digital
                marketing efforts.
Industry Insider
                                           Section Preface
              The Psycho-Dynamics of Experience Design
                            Putting Innovation to the Test
                           Agency Ecosystems That Work
           Why Your Math Teacher is Killing Your Creativity
                                      The Point of Awards
          Recruitment Agencies: Breaking Old Perceptions
                                   30 Seconds of Wisdom
                           The SoDA Buzz Word Launcher
Going East – Why Asia Should Be on Your Growth Roadmap
                                Related Research Insights


                                             The SoDA Report 2013
The
 SoDAReport    Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                   One of the most challenging issues facing digital
                                   agencies and production companies over the past
                                   decade has been the lack of shared insight. As the
                                   pioneers of 10 – and even 5 – years ago blazed their
                                   way through new technologies and changes in media
                                   consumption, the lack of good discussion, best practices
                                   and news forums created an industrial cowboy culture.
                                   Everyone alone together. Every challenge unique, twice.
Sean MacPhedran                    Every day was trial by fire, and gut instinct was a better
Industry Insider Section           path to success than a case study to follow.
Editor
Group Planning Director,           SoDA has played a key role in elevating dialogue and
Fuel                               best practices in the industry by providing a forum for
                                   industry insiders to share issues that are unique to the
                                   new generation of advertising. It’s my hope as the Editor
                                   for this section that it will remain “always in beta” and
                                   that it presents the fluid sensibility of a discussion
                                   - what makes SoDA unique. I welcome anyone to
                                   contribute by emailing me at sean@fuelyouth.com

                                   In this issue, Tony Quin, SoDA’s Chairman & CEO of
                                   IQ, provides insight into the most critical, but often
                                   overlooked, element of interactive – The Click. Joe
                                   Olsen, CEO of Phenomblue, discusses what innovation
                                   culture looks like in practice, and Matt Weston,
                                   Copywriter at Soap, gives his perspective on the
                                   evolution of the creative team from the trenches.

                                   Controversy abounds as we address Awards Shows
                                   and Recruitment Firms with Ignacio Oreamuno,
                                   Executive Director of the Art Directors Club, and
                                   Andrea Bertignoll, President of KANND Recruiting.
                                   With interviews, we explore how these two areas are
                                   critical to our industry.
Finally, we open the floor to members, with 30 Seconds
of Wisdom on a wide range of topics, and present some
amusing suggestions for horrible new buzzwords that
we’ll collectively pray never enter the lexicon.
The
 SoDAReport     Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                    Tony Quin, Principal, IQ


                                    The Psycho-
                                    Dynamics of
                                    Experience Design
With a background as
a writer, director and
producer of network TV
shows and commercials
in LA, Tony Quin founded
IQ in 1995 as an agency
specializing in television.
In 1999, IQ began the
transformation to a
digital agency. Today the
agency counts numerous
Fortune 100 companies
as clients and has won
                                    For years I have been preaching the strategy
numerous national and
                                    of Click/Reward. The idea is simple, every time
international awards. Born          someone clicks within a digital experience
and educated in the UK,             something pleasant should happen. This idea,
Tony is a founding member           while perhaps intuitive, flows from a number
of SoDA and Chairman of             of observations. First, we live in an instant
the Board. He also serves           gratification society, and, of course, we are
on the Board of the School          all pleasure hounds. But, more importantly, it
of Communications at Elon           comes from mapping buyer psychology to
University.                         the sales process.
Understanding the Buyer
How the unique dynamics of digital media connect with
the psychology of a buyer, on the path to purchase, is
the key to creating successful digital experiences.  This
path today is often presented as a wonderfully busy
chart with a myriad of touch points and influences.
But in the end we all go through the same simple
process: first we are unaware of a specific need, then
we recognize it as a potential need, then we explore its
value. And then, if we continue, we evaluate our options,
finally make a choice and buy.

Yes, there are many factors and forces that influence
this along the way, but block out all that noise for a
minute and focus on the buyer’s basic motivations.
Through this process our motivation shifts from passive
in the early stages, and unwilling to invest much effort,
to active in the later stages once our intention starts
to crystallize.

Creating the User Path
Our earliest attempts at IQ to codify these psycho-
dynamics, and create experiences that enable the buying
process, were expressed in the UX principles of Directed
Choice and Incremental Engagement. Directed Choice
essentially holds that unknown visitors to a brand site
should be assumed to be in marketing exploration
mode; passive and without formed motivation. At this
stage, it is the brand’s responsibility to make choice very
easy and intuitive, to reduce or eliminate work, analysis
and the number of choices. Of course someone with a
task to accomplish can always self identify at any time.

Next comes Incremental Engagement. This breaks
complex value propositions into steps where each step
requires a choice that takes the user closer to personal
relevance. This UX principle recognizes that most
value propositions are complex and require a time
commitment from the prospect in order to receive
the whole story. The problem is that before prospects
“ Incremental              are sufficiently motivated they won’t commit to an
Engagement is also
                           investment of time or effort, so we make each step a
based on recognizing
                           small commitment. Incremental Engagement is also
that the more personally
                           based on recognizing that the more personally relevant
relevant something is,
                           something is, the more compelling it will be. Every
the more compelling
                           salesman knows this. If you’re looking for a truck and
        ”
it will be.
                           the sales guy shows you cars…well, you get the idea, and
                           that brings us back to click/reward.

                           Rewarding the Click
                           So far we have learned that we should make things
                           really easy for prospects at first, we should make
                           commitments small and get them to what’s personally
                           relevant as quickly as possible. But this is all pretty
                           analytical. It assumes that people are pursuing their
                           interests analytically. Actually, evidence suggests that
                           people explore and make decisions more emotionally
                           than we think. As Charles Hannon, professor of
                           Computing and Information Studies at Washington &
                           Jefferson College, discusses in this excellent post, the
                           dopamine reward system produces good or bad feelings
                           based on what we do in the world.

                           The implication of this, as Jonah Lehrer explains in his
                           book How We Decide, is that rational decision making,
                           thought to trump the emotions since Plato, is actually
                           not how we do it. Recent neuroscience has reversed this
                           age old model of how human beings make decisions
                           by showing that indeed emotions, some stimulated by
                           the dopamine reward system, are core to the process.
                           It seems that we follow patterns instinctively and when
                           patterns are supported, and just to confuse things,
                           sometimes even when not, dopamine is triggered that
                           reinforces our decision-making.

                           That means every time we make a successful click or
                           get rewarded on our path to purchase we get a shot of
                           dopamine, which reinforces what we are doing. This
clearly tells us that we should be designing interactions
to understand and follow the emotional journey a
buyer makes on the way to a sale, and to study where
we are on the emotional/analytical continuum at every
moment of the path to purchase. This insight allows us
to focus our experience design so that we re-enforce our
prospect’s natural process rather than block it.
The
 SoDAReport     Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                    Joe Olsen, President & CEO, Phenomblue


                                    Putting
                                    Innovation
                                    to the Test
Joe Olsen is the President
and CEO of Phenomblue,
an industry-leading brand
experience agency. He
co-founded the agency in
2004, which has offices
in Omaha, NE, and Los
Angeles, CA. Phenomblue             Today we see so many companies call
has been featured in USA            themselves “innovative”—whether or not
Today, Ad Age, The New              evidence exists to support the claim.
York Times, Fast Company
and Inspired Magazine and           While you can’t become innovative just
has received recognition            because you say you are, you can easily
from the Webby Awards,              facilitate an innovation-ready mindset.
the CLIO Awards, SXSW
Interactive Awards and              Like learning a new language, innovation
the Favourite Website               takes knowledge, risk, innate talent and the
Awards. He is a seasoned            willingness to try out new things with trusted
entrepreneur, the creator of        peers in private before putting yourself to the
the Drop Kick Platform and          public test. Above all, it takes belief in the
a co-founder of Drop Kick           worthiness of the goal and a commitment to
Ventures.                           work hard enough to get good.

                                    Innovation initiatives can help build your agency’s
                                    capacity for success. Like immersive language courses,
these initiatives are intense learning experiences
“ Agencies can start an    that generate results quickly. Put some passionate,
innovation initiative in
                           intelligent, curiously caffeinated people in a room who
their office without too
                           are willing to devote their imaginative faculties to solve
much trouble. Get some
                           a specific problem, and you position your agency to do
white boards, markers,
                           something useful nobody ever has before.
pencils, paper, beer and
Red Bull, and gather
                           Agencies can start an innovation initiative in their office
your finest minds in a
                           without too much trouble. Get some white boards,
room just uncomfortable
                           markers, pencils, paper, beer and Red Bull, and gather
enough to keep everyone
                           your finest minds in a room just uncomfortable enough
                ”
relaxed but alert.
                           to keep everyone relaxed but alert. Set aside a day for an
                           innovation exercise, so everyone takes it seriously. Then
                           let your team define a problem it wants to solve, and
                           leave them alone until they’re done or asking for help.

                           We call these Bonus Days at Phenomblue. Once a
                           quarter, our agency goes dark for 24 hours—meaning no
                           client work whatsoever—while we split into teams and
                           compete for Bonus Day glory. Each team takes a project
                           from start to finish in a single day. The only rules,
                           other than “no client work,” are that we all present
                           our projects to the company the next day and abide by
                           maritime law.

                           Phenomblue also implements large-scale innovation
                           initiatives, like Signature Reserve, a semiannual
                           experiment where we devote 200 billable hours to an
                           internal passion project—no strings attached, other than
                           a finished product that provides real utility.

                           Finally, Skunkworks takes our best ideas and puts them
                           through a rigorous vetting process conducted by agency
                           leadership. If the idea succeeds, it gets produced during
                           client gap time. It could then get financed, incubated
                           and spun off into its own business through Drop Kick
                           Ventures—a company I co-founded to help marketing,
                           communications and creative agencies bring ideas to life
                           (as featured recently in Wired magazine).
Phenomblue absorbs the cost of our innovation
initiatives because we know the payoff is worth it.
Whether it’s a new piece of technology we don’t know
what to do with yet, a super-successful campaign for
a client or a market-ready product, our innovation
initiatives keep our team prepared for the chance of
a breakthrough idea.

Like language, innovation is dynamic. If you don’t
push yourself to practice, you might lose it. Innovation
initiatives can help.



Image Source:
  1.	http://pbfcomics.com/197/
The
 SoDAReport    Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                   Matt Weston, Copywriter, Soap Creative


                                   Agency
                                   Ecosystems
                                   That Work
Matt Weston is senior
copywriter at SOAP
Creative LA. Born in the
UK, he has worked at
several ad agencies across
the globe in Sydney, Paris
and now Los Angeles.
He has created several
integrated ad campaigns
across digital, tv, print,
outdoor and radio. He
loves Marmite on toast,
                                   The experience of advertising creatives
DnB and butchering French
                                   has changed radically over the past decade.
as a second language.
                                   We’ve moved from creative teams of two into
Preferably all three
together.
                                   multidisciplinary teams, and, as often as not,
                                   no two are ever alike.

                                   Digital advertising is breaking down traditional
                                   barriers between thinkers and doers - multidisciplinary
                                   teams now rule the studio. As a copywriter reborn
                                   in a digital agency, I now routinely bump brain cells
                                   with technologists who would previously have been in
                                   another room.
A couple of years ago I was reading a chapter in one
“ Whether it’s an           of the new creative bibles concerning an interesting
idea tailor-made for
                            cultural change within one of the hottest digital
a social network or
                            agencies. The agency in question had challenged
a piece of interactive
                            the versatility of the traditional copywriter + art
art that demonstrates
                            director creative team structure and had set about
the product benefits,
                            creating new teams made up of creative technologist +
technologists are part of
                            designer + copywriter.
the creative process now
more than ever. ”           Such change was radical for traditional ad agencies
                            maybe, but for many digital agencies it’s one that has
                            been far more organic in nature.

                            Why? Clients in digital are often looking for a big idea,
                            but one that ‘pulls’ their target market’s attention
                            within the constantly-evolving, multi-platform
                            digital landscape.

                            That requires great creative and strategic planning, but
                            just as importantly, technological literacy.

                            Whether it’s an idea tailor-made for a social network
                            or a piece of interactive art that demonstrates the
                            product benefits, technologists are part of the creative
                            process now more than ever.

                            And so it was, as the newly-hired ‘ad guy’ at a digital
                            agency, I found myself brainstorming in a room with a
                            social media manager, planner, designer and javascript
                            developer.

                            “Where is my art director?” my mind went. “Be quiet!” it
                            replied rather disturbingly to itself, “They just asked you
                            something and I have no idea what that guy over there
                            just said.”

                            I thought about what was bothering me so much.

                            It was this - being part of a traditional twosome creative
                            team with an art director is fun.
Your partner is your best mate in the agency. The
person you go into battle with every day against other
creative teams that want your brief. It’s the kind of
camaraderie that prevents you from tearing a printout
of horrible client feedback into little pieces and collaging
‘ASSHOLE’ on your CEO’s skydome of an office.

So how did I feel about sitting opposite a guy whose
inspiration came from Minecraft? Rubbing conceptual
shoulders with someone who writes PHP? What is PHP?

Sure, I knew what I was in for in the digital world. My
inner creative welcomed the shake-up of convention. I
just didn’t count on my inner adwanker sticking his ugly
head into the mix. But this room didn’t have time for ad
egos with a close deadline and a reputation to meet it
with a hot digital solution.

Of course, the next bit you already know. Our
brainstorming session worked its productive little butt
off. The social media guy had an awesome gaming
suggestion. The developer came up with a great angle
on how to execute it and I tied in the insight behind the
idea that was true to the brand.

Maybe there was something to this developer-designer-
writer-whoever else thing after all.



Image Source:
  1.	http://www.atterburybakalarairmuseum.
     org/Capt._Stratton_Hammon__Mrs._
     Allred_Nov._1942.jpg
The
 SoDAReport     Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                    Tony Clement, Head of Strategic Planning, TBG Digital


                                    Why Your Math
                                    Teacher is Killing
                                    Your Creativity
Tony Clement is the Head
                                    “I’m not a data person.”
of Strategic Planning
at TBG Digital. Born in             What if by saying these small words you were
Brooklyn, raised in Sydney          poisoning your agency and slowly choking
and now living in London,           off your career? What if by accepting this
he misses all things above          statement you were carving out corners of
5 degrees Celsius. With a           measurement misperception and building data
background in Statistics            prisons in your own creative community?
and a love for Converse,
                                    Let’s do a symptoms check. Do terms like
he is a Strategist that
brings together data and
                                    ‘pivot tables,’ ‘recursive loops’ and ‘weighted
creativity to help ideas
                                    moving averages’ make you feel frozen with
find their purpose. He has
                                    indecision. If so, you need to take a breath,
contributed to four AFA             think back to your high school days and curse
Effectiveness awards and            your Math Teacher. Pause. Do it again, and
has an APG award for                then read on with teenage angst.
Best Use of Data. Recently
joining TBG, he has worked          I blame Mr. Chin
as Strategist and/or Data           My year 12 math teacher, Mr Chin, was a weird guy.
Geek for a number of places         He had a bad beard, bad breath and spoke to the
including Wunderman,                chalkboard for 45 minutes at a time while his class
BMF Sydney, Leo Burnett             sputtered into oblivion at their rickety wooden desks.
and JESS3.                          You know the feeling. We’ve all had a Mr.Chin or two.
                                    It was by far the most dreaded class to attend, the
                                    anti-Christ to PE, the classroom where no one wanted
to be at any time of day. And unfortunately, the slow
torturous doctrine of mixing boredom with formulaic
memory tests didn’t come to an end at high school.

The truth is over your high school and university
years, you either avoided math and swayed to arts,
or you punished yourself by attending 30 to 40 hours
of lectures each week for years, just to emerge with
battle scars and emotional trauma so deep, it actually
hindered your ability to speak like a normal human.

Your agency and your career need you to leave Mr. Chin
at the chalkboard. And instead of coping with data, it
needs you to rethink how it can become a part of the
creative culture so the gap between science and creative
can begin to heal.

Could you help your agency see the beauty of science to
build ideas, and learn how to speak data without using
terms like ‘p-value’ and ‘Central Limit Theorem’ just to
get people nodding in synchronized misunderstanding?

Well if want those things, tell your Mr. Chin that he is
the one who has failed, because numbers are more than
formulas, suppositions and marks out of 100. Tell him
by:

Taking the power back from Mr. Chin
and giving it to your Inner Geek
Have you ever noticed that most people have a hidden
Geek within? But they are pushed down, kept quiet
and exist in fear. But what’s even more interesting, is
every now and then, you’ll see that person’s eyes light
up when they let the Inner Geek out to solve a ‘data’
problem, and the Geek rejoices.

Let your Geek out for a walk and take small Geeky steps
to make your Inner Geek stronger.

Try this - The next time you go to the data team, sit
with them and ask what they are doing, and how they
are doing it. Or if you have a ‘how do you do that?’
“ The collision of       question, like, ‘how do you create a pivot table and
data and design
                         chart’, just go to them and spend 15 minutes exercising
is demonstrating
                         your Inner Geek. It’ll be time well spent.
to the industry the
communication            I pick pivot tables as a simple example, because
potential of data.   ”   managing the information is half the battle and if you
                         can do this, your Inner Geek will hug you.

                         Rage using the machine -
                         Use the open sources on the
                         net to learn at machine speed
                         Let’s face it. If you can remember more than a handful
                         of formulas from high school or university you are
                         doing extremely well. The human brain has an effective
                         memory loop of two seconds when it comes to digits,
                         which might explain why it’s so hard to memorize phone
                         numbers. Fortunately, the internet has more memory
                         than us all, and making the most of that collective
                         intelligence and openness with data is going to help you
                         become a data beast.

                         Try this: Ever wanted to learn how your digital
                         developers and producers build those web apps and
                         other cool digital stuff? Then Code Academy gives you
                         a very friendly and free start to understanding the
                         principles of producing digital experiences.

                         Open eyes with art, instead
                         of blinding them with science
                         The collision of data and design is demonstrating to
                         the industry the communication potential of data. And
                         no, I’m not talking just about infographics, that’s one
                         output. I’m talking about getting people to imagine
                         (yes, imagine) what data can reveal to them, why that is
                         provocative and how to communicate it.
During a data academy session I was doing, I held this up
and said, “That is all of my banking transaction data, and
I have a problem, but I never expected it to be this bad.”




My savings problem is something that I wouldn’t
have seen unless I put the information into this
different format. And that is the power of data
visualization, which I think is best said by an American
mathematician, John W. Tukey in 1977:

“The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to
notice what we never expected to see.”

Often organic or manmade facts can propel us to places
of unexpected intuition and insight. And working for
those facts is just another form of applied curiosity.

Start to close the gap in your agency by learning a few
techniques and setting a reminder for Monday saying,
‘Let out the Inner Geek, Mr. Chin got it all wrong.’
The
 SoDAReport    Section 2 : Industry Insider




                                   Interview with Ignacio Oreamuno,
                                   Executive Director of the Art Directors Club


                                   The Point
                                   of Awards
Ignacio Oreamuno is
                                   We caught up with Ignacio as he was enjoying
the Executive Director of
                                   a mojito in Miami, surveying the location
the Art Directors Club &
President of the Tomorrow
                                   of his next Award Show – the ADC 92nd
Awards. He is also the             Annual Awards + Festival of Art and Craft in
founder of IHAVEANIDEA,            Advertising and Design.
one of the world’s largest
online advertising                 MACPHEDRAN: Why are awards important to
communities with 12                our industry?
million pages read a year.
                                   OREAMUNO: It used to be that awards were mainly
                                   about the winners. Creativity is hard to measure. Only
Interview conducted
                                   the best of your peers can really judge, because so much
by Sean MacPhedran,
                                   of it is qualitative, it’s a craft. We need to collectively
Industry Insider Section
                                   be able to recognize quality. In an industry that is so
Editor and Group Planning
Director at Fuel.
                                   creative, we need some kind of benchmark, a goal to
                                   work towards, otherwise how do you teach?

                                   Some shows are more focused on metrics, but the line
                                   of measurement is so fuzzy that a good analyst can make
                                   a terrible campaign look like it performed amazingly.
                                   Maybe there was 100 times more media dollars. Maybe
                                   they slashed prices at the same time as a horrible ad
                                   campaign launched.
The awards industry needs to be more about education.
What is that amazing idea that everyone needs to
understand? What are the 20 amazing ideas this year?
They’re all going to be different. Awards are important
because they are a forum where we can all share our
successes, and the rest of us can learn from them. That’s
why we are pushing to make awards more educational,
and not just about handing out trophies.

MACPHEDRAN: Do you think awards are relevant
to clients? Or are they more about self-congratulation?

OREAMUNO: Absolutely. People want to work
with winners because they’re more likely to win again.
Awards are an easy way for clients to recognize how
well-respected their agency is by its peers. Not every
great agency is going to be at the top of the Gunn
Report, but it tells you something that an agency has
been recognized. And clients are as much responsible
for awards as the agencies. Creatives always complain
that “Oh, I had a great idea, but the client didn’t like it.”
But that is as much about risk as it is about how good
the idea might have been. Maybe the idea was fun, but it
was completely outside of the risk tolerance the client’s
strategy allowed for.

Awards help bring clients into the fold of creativity.
When Old Spice wins an award, you know… Everyone
knows, that it was an entire team that worked to
make that kind of breakthrough campaign happen. It
can’t happen without the client. Not just because they
approve it, but because they’ve helped craft the strategy
to bring the brand into a place where it’s ready for that
kind of innovation.

And for clients who are looking to the future – when the
creative team has some idea that seems crazy - when
you can look out into the world and see other risky ideas
that worked, things that broke the mold, it starts to set
a precedent that the only way to win in the marketplace
IS to innovate. To do something different and
remarkable. Awards help showcase those successes in a
formalized framework.

MACPHEDRAN: On the topic of education, how are
you working to bring that value back to the industry?

OREAMUNO: Well, on Tomorrow Awards – the entire
program is designed around education for innovation.
Instead of judges hiding in a box and voting, everything
is filmed. Why did they pick that and not this? You
get to see the debate, and there is a lot of debate, that
happens over each choice. But even before it gets to that
stage, we make everyone a judge. If you are a technology
intern in London or a senior Creative Director in Egypt,
you have a vote. We wanted people to explore the cases
for themselves.

The point of the Tomorrow Awards is to tear down
all of the walls. There are no categories. It’s all about
the innovation of the idea – and no two are ever alike.
We need to train ourselves to think so differently than
before, and no one is really doing that for the creatives.

The Art Directors Club is currently experiencing a total
re-birth. We’ve gone back to our roots of art and craft.
All our programs have been updated to reflect this.
From taking our 92nd annual to the tablet to creating
a community for our members that is fun and relevant,
instead of preachy and old. The biggest thing we’re
doing this year is the 92nd Annual Awards + Festival
of Art and Craft in Advertising and Design which is a
completely new and different type of festival. Instead of
having creative directors speak, I’m inviting some of the
most inspiring artists from around the world to teach
us the skills of craft, creativity and art. We’re going to
be doing everything from photo workshops to legos to
creative brainstorming. And all this will take
place in Miami Beach, a great place for networking. It’s
a win win for the industry and for all those who attend.
We need to fall back in love with our craft, because the
only thing that separates us from a client is the fact that
we’re supposed to be creative artists.
The
 SoDAReport    Section 2 : Industry Insider



                                   Interview with Andrea Bertignoll,
                                   President of KANND Solutions

                                   Recruitment
                                   Agencies: Breaking
                                   Old Perceptions
Andrea Bertignoll serves
                                   One of the most hotly debated topics is
as the President of KANND
                                   the need (or lack thereof) for Recruitment
Solutions. Andrea has an
academic background in
                                   Agencies. We sat down with Andrea Bertignoll,
Technology and 20 years of         President of KANND Solutions, to get the
recruitment and business           recruiters perspective on how agencies and
management experience.             recruiters can work better together.

Interview conducted                MACPHEDRAN: Why is recruitment treated as the
by Sean MacPhedran,                red-headed stepchild of services in our industry?
Industry Insider Section
                                   BERTIGNOLL: There are many reasons, but I think
Editor and Group Planning
                                   most of them are linked to the bad apples of Christmas
Director at Fuel.
                                   past. A poor reputation has built up, I think mainly
                                   stemming from the actions of older firms that aren’t as
                                   consultative and haven’t adapted to the changing needs
                                   of the clients and candidates. There are still too many
                                   of the stereotypical “body shops” out there who are in
                                   the game to place anyone into a spot vs. making sure
                                   that it’s a good fit for both the client and the candidate
                                   alike. There is more to it than matching a resume to a
                                   job description and then charging a fee...which is yet
                                   another bone of contention.

                                   In addition to all of that, “recruiting” is often seen
                                   as something that HR should already be capable of
doing in-house. Not always the case. As the number
of specialized roles keeps expanding, it’s next to
impossible to expect an HR Manager to manage
regular HR abilities and still recruit the right person
for the right role for multiple requirements. Seriously,
in some of the cases I’ve seen, they are juggling these
responsibilities and don’t have the authorization to use
a recruitment agency to help...something’s got to give.
All that said, it’s not that HR Managers are incapable
of recruiting, that’s the furthest from the truth, but
we see many of these people essentially trying to
hold down two full time jobs...daily HR management
responsibilities, and recruiting multiple specialized
mandates simultaneously.

MACPHEDRAN: It seems like a good analogy would
be Account Management vs. Business Development?

BERTIGNOLL: Absolutely, it’s a perfect analogy.
Many HR professionals that I’ve worked with pursue
this career path for the nurturing/farming aspect of it.
They are responsible for managing the company’s most
precious assets... its employees. An HR Manager or even
the Hiring Managers who sometimes have their own
recruitment mandates aren’t in the position of hunting,
but managing what they have.

No company would expect an Account Manager to
be in the mindset of hunting for new clients all the
time. That’s what Business Development does. It’s
not just a different role. It’s really a different mindset
and personality type. Recruiters are able to keep more
active databases. We hunt to find the best talent. We
develop relationships with talent and hunt to find as
much real information as possible. For example, my
new passive candidate “Billy” might have started a new
role a few months ago, but I know that he despises his
new supervisor and the commute time is already getting
to him. I know this because he tells me when I probe
for the right information and simultaneously create
See what respondents to        a relationship with him. I know what his key “must
our ’13 Digital Marketing      haves” are and they aren’t usually the salary. They can
Outlook Survey said were       be anything from the work-life balance to the preferred
key job satisfaction factors   corporate culture or anything within... Everyone is
for them. Spoiler alert…       different. Our job is to hunt for this information, hunt
it really isn’t just about     for the talent, and hunt for the truth... If we don’t, we
salary.                        can’t make the right match.

                               At the end of the day, many of us are in it because we
                               LOVE matchmaking. I think we just thrive on getting
                               people to “hook up” with the right people. We all have
                               a friend who does that...usually the one trying to get
                               everyone married. They just get a kick out of helping
                               people connect. Just like your biz dev people who get
                               the adrenaline rush from closing a deal.

                               MACPHEDRAN: How would you suggest HR
                               Managers go about working with Recruiters then?

                               BERTIGNOLL: Mainly it’s got to be about fit with the
                               company. Obviously, from our perspective, a retainer
                               is the best thing. But a contingency-based service is
                               going to make your recruiters work a little harder.
                               After a while though, you’ll know what agency you
                               like to work with and which one is a waste of your
                               time... Whether it’s the quality of the talent, the follow
                               up, the service, etc. I’d recommend picking a couple
                               of recruiters that you’ve developed a comfort level
                               with... You know, the ones that you trust won’t try and
                               “squeeze a square peg into a round hole.” The ones
                               that you can say... “get this mandate off of my desk”
                               and they bust their behinds to get it done. The one
                               who understands your needs and then gives you a full
                               rundown of the needs of the candidate.

                               Essentially today’s talent pool is fluid and, as such,
                               recruitment is a full-time job. If you can use recruitment
                               help, find a firm you trust. If your company can do it,
                               build a dedicated team, but don’t assume that you’re
                               going to get the best talent if you haven’t allocated
                               the resources.
MACPHEDRAN: Is there any other advice you’d
want to give?

BERTIGNOLL: Most of us who go into business in
small recruitment firms are really just passionate about
the challenge. Making the right match for a client’s
needs with the ideal talent gives you the “warm and
fuzzies” for lack of a better term. To make that match we
need to have much more than just a job description...
We need to know details about the team, new projects,
the direct supervisor, soft skills that would be ideal, etc.

That said, I’d say always getting the hiring manager/
department head involved early and working with your
recruiters is a good idea. They’re the ones who are
going to be able to best describe all the nuances of what
they’re looking for.
The
SoDAReport   Section 2 : Industry Insider




                                 30 Seconds of
                                 Wisdom
                                 We asked SoDA Members what they’d want
                                 to share if they had the conch for 30 seconds.
                                 What came back was a deluge of thoughts
                                 ranging from usability advice to insights into
                                 client relations, as well as the occasional joke.

                                 Innovation & Creativity

                                 “ Look for three, big innovative wins and then be
                                     relentless in delivering and making sure those
                                     happen. Read Insanely Simple by Ken Segall
                                     -- pretty good cure for the talk-it-to-death blues.   ”
                                 	     — David Rossiter, Creative Director, Enlighten

                                 “ Creativity is being replaced by flexibility.”
                                 	     — Dan Kennedy

                                 “ Process can’t do the work for you. It’s provides
                                     guidance, but it’s not a defined path to guaranteed
                                     success.”
                                 	     — Anonymous
Teams

“ Put your people first and enable them to make
    changes: both internally and externally. Then
    sit back and watch the magic happen.      ”
	     — Ranae Heuer, Managing Director, Big Spaceship

“ Don’t be afraid to pull in experts from outside your
    own organization. We all want to believe we can do
    everything, but, sometimes, pulling in a true expert
    will not only end with an incredible result but will
    also serve as a learning opportunity for your teams.     ”
	     — Anonymous

“ Optimize your time and resources. First thing every
    day, we regroup with our team and decide how the
    day will flow. Now, we start working at 10AM and
    stop at 7PM. And everything works.    ”
	     — “The Most Amazing Producer in the World”

“ Developers and designers need to be more willing
    to iterate when it comes to development. I still see a
    trend where Project Managers (stakeholders), afraid
    of missing a timeline, place pressure on teams to get
                                                   ”
    it right the first time. That just isn’t realistic.
	     — “Mysterious Mustafa”


Clients

“ Re-think who your clients really are.”
	     — Vassilios Alexiou, Founder, Less Rain

“ You’ll always get undercut by someone, so make sure
  quality - not money - is your value proposition.”
	     — Matt Walsh, Director of Business Development, Resn

“ The focus on growing our business and our clients’
    businesses shouldn’t be on selling. If we focus on truly
    solving problems and providing opportunities, that
    results in revenue growth.  ”
	     — Kt McBratney, General Manager, Phenomblue
“ Preparation. To be prepared is not just showing up
    10 minutes early to an engagement. Rather it’s the
    assembly and construction of knowledge pertaining
    to the subject. Whether this is researching a company
    before a job interview or gathering vital credentials
    from clients, you aren’t truly prepared unless you’ve
    really done your homework.    ”
	     — Lyndze Blosser, Interactive Designer, Terralever

“ Three-way partnerships (traditional agency, client,
    and digital agency) are fraught with backstabbing
    danger.”
	     — Anonymous

“ Marketers say they understand how paid, earned,
    and owned media work together, but most don’t
          ”
    really.
	 — Dave Bovenschulte, EVP Digital Strategy &
	  Product Development, Zemoga


Consumers

“ Think just as hard about PEOPLE as you do
    PRODUCT. In this world where everything is set
    to formulas, segments, demographics, spreadsheets,
    legalities and logistics, we have to remember that
    PEOPLE (we call them consumers) are at the heart
    of making this all work. These people are human,
    and they don’t always do the logical things we’d like
                             ”
    to believe that they’ll do.
	 — Jon Haywood, Planning Director & Cultural Attache, 	
	 DARE

“ Content marketing is king. Embracing branded
    content has been an important business tactic for
    a long time, but it’s REALLY important now that
    consumers have started to expect it.  ”
	 — Tessa Wegert, Communications Director, Enlighten & 	
	  Media Buying Columnist, ClickZ.com
“ As we head into 2013, email haters will rise again,
    proclaiming the end of this old school marketing
    channel. My advice, don’t believe the hype people...
    it’s alive and well, and here to stay.”
	     — Andy Parnell, SVP, Client Services, Terralever


Usability

“ Use technology to create utility; don’t use it to make
    things more convenient. If convenience is the goal,
    our society is fucked. (And don’t let technology
    replace good craft.) And... JUST BE HONEST.          ”
	     — Erin Standley, Design Director, Phenomblue

“ Social media web toolbars that live at the bottom of
    the webpage - these need to die a painful death and
    go to their specially assigned rung in hell. Just about
    the biggest annoyance currently in the web world.        ”
	     — Andrew Hainen, Interaction Designer, Enlighten

“ Always do wireframes or sketch interfaces before
    starting design. It’s easier to move around boxes and
    shapes as you think about the experience than it is
    to redesign parts as you’re working towards a great
    user experience. ”
	     — Joe Branton, Design Director, Grow Interactive




Image Source:
    1.	http://cloudfront.inthecapital.com/
       files/2012/08/dalai-lama-points-his-finger.
       jpg
The
SoDAReport   Section 2 : Industry Insider




                                 The SoDA Buzz
                                 Word Launcher
                                 Ideation, Phygital, Viral, Interactive Video,
                                 Gamification, Momversation, Phablet, Native
                                 Advertising, Big Data, Monetization, Engage
                                 and Social Currency are all words that SoDA
                                 members suggested for permanent deletion
                                 from our professional vocabularies. But
                                 what should replace them? We received a
                                 slew of suggestions for horribly unnecessary
                                 buzzwords, and hope that you will begin to use
                                 them in everyday discussion. Nudge nudge,
                                 wink wink.

                                 Qualitangible
                                    Definition: Insights that ride the threshold between
                                    qualitative observations and wild hearsay, but need a
                                    good label to be taken seriously.

                                    “It’s useful for those occasions when you need to
                                    pass off a conversation with your mate at the pub
                                    as a research driven insight,” suggests Amer Iqbal
                                    from Deepend.

                                    In use: “Most consumers will tell you that they
                                    use their smartphone in the washroom. We had
a qualitangible insight that this pattern of behavior
 carries over to urinals as well, but with a lower
 adoption rate. It indicates that our Urinal Puck AR
 Experience is going to be well received by our target
 audience.”

Web 10.01
 Definition: A level of digital integration so broad and
 advanced that it encompasses all innovation for the
 next 40 years, removing any need for further version
 upgrades in vocabulary.

 In use: “Your Xbox 720 fell in love with your Google
 Glasses over Vine? That’s so Web 10.0. We should
 leverage this for our online dating client.”

Corporate Bohemian2
 Definition: An employee who follows the lifestyle
 of a Key West transient while working for a large
 corporation.

 In use: “Oh yeah, Chuck is great. Total Corporate
 Bohemian. He threw a killer brainstorm in his
 office over drinks and a few of us just crashed
 under his desk. Haven’t seen him in weeks, but the
 presentation went really well.”

Moupon3
 Definition: A coupon that works on your mobile
 phone.

 In use: “It’s like a coupon, but for your mobile phone.
 We call it a moupon. I’m pitching it tomorrow as the
 Grey Poupon Moupon. It’s got legs.”

Non-tourage4
 Definition: A party of one. A term used to describe
 non-social behavior within social networks, or an
individual so connected in the physical world to their
 digital network that their “entourage” is invisible.

 In use: “That guy over there at table 5 said he was a
 party of 8, but he meant his non-tourage. He’s been
 in a Google Hangout for 2 hours and I think he’s also
 running Chatroulette.”

Egosystem5
 Definition: A self-sustaining system of egomania only
 tenuously connected to reality, but necessary for the
 life of projects and its own livelihood.

 In use: “It’s a great idea, but we need to incorporate
 more pet concepts and buzz words or it will never
 survive long enough in the egosystem to get to
 market.”

Yak-a-demia6
 Definition: The eye of the buzz word tornado. A
 rarified group in which only theory and discussion,
 never execution, is the currency of value.

 In use: “I went to a workshop at AGENCY
 REDACTED but it was total yak-a-demia. We were
 supposed to learn about producing for transmedia,
 but it was just a bunch of art videos and out-of-
 context Henry Jenkins quotes.”

Digitable7
 Definition: A person who interacts so much with
 technology they are rendered into a vegetable.

 In use: “Wendy is really on top of all this social media
 stuff, but she’s a total digitable in meetings. One time
 I spilled a coffee on her and she didn’t even notice.”
Let’s get to bidness!!!8
  Definition: A phrase used to spur a group into
  action. Usually used after 2am or while suffering
  from a head cold.

  In use: “Let’s get to bidness!!! Our pitch is in 4 hours
  and I think Phil might have been arrested. Did
  anyone pay the bill?”



Term Contributors:
 1. Andy Parnell, SVP, Client Services, Terralever

 2. Anonymous

 3. Tessa Wegert, Communications Director,
    Enlighten and Media Buying Columnist,
    ClickZ.com

 4-6. David Rossiter, Creative Director,
   Enlighten

 7. Karl Reynolds, Creative Director, Deepend
    Sydney

 8. Matt Walsh, Director of Business
    Development, Resn
The
 SoDAReport     Section 2 : Industry Insider




                                    Ming Chan, CEO, The1stMovement

                                    Going East – Why
                                    Asia Should Be on
                                    Your Growth Roadmap
As Founder and CEO
of The1stMovement,
Ming was named as
one of the “Top 10 Asian
Entrepreneurs” by Inc.
Magazine, and has led
the agency to numerous
accolades including:
three-time Inc. 500’s
“Fastest Growing Private
Companies in America,”
three-time “Best Places
to work in LA,” and “Top
                                    Having spent more than 15 years growing up
20 Advertising Agencies”
                                    in Hong Kong (and still visiting every year), I
in LA and Denver.                   have always paid extra attention to the Asian
The1stMovement has also             markets since I founded The1stMovement in
created custom digital              Los Angeles in 2006. In early 2012 we opened
solutions for some of the           our first Asian office in Hong Kong, and we
world’s most well-known             learned a lot from this experience. I wanted to
brands including: AT&T,             share some of the lessons we learned for those
Adobe, Cisco, DaVita,               companies who are also considering a move
Lexus, Pentax and USOC.             into Asia.
But, first, let’s consider the following statistics:
“ China might be your
ultimate target market,
                                 •	 Four out of the top ten Fortune 500
but there are still serious
                                    companies in the world are headquartered in
challenges to setting up
                                    Asia1
shop there. The most
significant barrier is           •	 12 out of the 20 fastest growing countries in
simply fundamental                  the world are in Asia, and have an average
cultural differences                of 7% GDP growth in 2012 (vs. <2% growth
between East and                    from US)2
West. ”                          •	 Overall advertising spends in Asia are
                                    projected to grow at a rate of 7.6% in 2013
                                    (vs. 3.8% in North America)3

                                 •	 US-based, multinational giants like Apple,
                                    Nike, GM, and others have poured over
                                    US$49 billion worth of investment into China
                                    alone each year since 20094

                              With that context, here are the most important things
                              we learned along the way:

                                 1.	Asia is enormous and diverse
                                    Asia is the world’s largest and most populous
                                    continent with 48 separate and unique
                                    countries, home to 60% of the world’s
                                    population and over 2,000 different spoken
                                    languages. Firms in Asia increasingly and
                                    regularly do business in more than one
                                    country, as we did recently with a project
                                    launched in 15 countries and in 7 languages.
                                    All on the same day at the same time. This
                                    required real on the ground local knowledge
                                    and cultural understanding.

                                 2.	 our entry point is critical
                                   Y
                                   Projected to become the largest economy
                                   by the end of 20165, China might be your
                                   ultimate target market, but there are still
                                   serious challenges to setting up shop there.
The most significant barrier is simply
“ Asia is the world’s      fundamental cultural differences between
largest and most
                           East and West. We chose to open in Hong
populous continent
                           Kong because it is one of the most multi-
with 48 separate and
                           cultural cities in the world. But Singapore
unique countries, home
                           is also a good choice as it is a very Western-
to 60% of the world’s
                           friendly city for business. And, despite recent
population and over
                           economic troubles, Japan is still projected to
2,000 different spoken
                           be top five in the world for digital advertising
languages. ”               spend. Not to be overlooked – Indonesia and
                           Malaysia – are two of the fastest growing
                           countries on the planet.

                         3.	 onsumer behavior is different in Asia
                           C
                           While there is some opportunity to apply
                           what we’ve learned in the US to the East, it is
                           important not to underestimate differences in
                           consumer behavior – and not only between
                           East and West, but between different
                           countries within Asia. For example, one
                           recent project taught us that consumers in
                           China spent on average four times more time
                           online than consumers in Indonesia. A fact
                           that caused us to adjust our campaign idea
                           and local country execution plan.

                         4.	 our existing global clients can help you
                           Y
                           Chances are your company is already
                           working with a client with global reach.
                           Their knowledge, experience and network
                           will undoubtedly help with your planning.
                           For us, what started as a pipe dream of
                           expanding into Asia quickly became a serious
                           pursuit when we began working with global
                           brands like Cisco, Pentax and Reebok. The
                           experience we had working with their teams
                           in Asia, and understanding how they act,
                           how they communicate and how they think,
                           made our transition into working with a
                           local Asia brand that much smoother.
Sources:
 1.	http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/
    global500/2012/full_list/index.html

 2.	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_
    countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate_
    (latest_year)

 3.	http://www.jcdecaux-oneworld.com/wp-
    content/uploads/2012/04/OneWorlds-
    Global-Adspend-Forecasts-Apr-2012.pdf

 4.	http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/20/news/
    international/us_business_chinese_
    investment_boom/index.htm

 5.	http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/
    nov/09/china-overtake-us-four-years-oecd



Image Source:
 1.	http://www.makino.com.sg/img/about/
    about_worldmap.png
The
SoDAReport    Section 2 : Industry Insider


             RELATED RESEARCH INSIGHTS
             Key Insight:
             Top digital agencies and production companies are
             becoming more proactive and are taking a larger seat at the
             table with clients and traditional agencies, based largely on
             the unique value and innovative IP they’re delivering.
             Undoubtedly, this is a trend that we’ve witnessed in past SoDA research
             studies, but it has become even more pronounced this year. Agencies
             and production companies are offering more education and training to
             clients, and developing labs and incubators to spur a virtuous cycle of
             innovation and IP development. In fact, product incubators are growing
             quickly in terms of their prevalence and importance for digital agencies,
             production companies and full-service agencies with digital capabilities
             – helping them win work and stay fresh.


                                        The Innovation Lab Explosion

                                        Innovation labs
                        39%             at full-service and
      61%                               digital agencies
                                        are proliferating
                                        Q. Do you have an innovation lab/product
                Yes                     incubator within your agency or production
                No
                                        company?

             The call for digital agencies to have increased responsibilities with
             respect to product / service innovations on the client side (Note: more
             than 1 in 5 client respondents to the ’13 survey say their lead digital
agency will have primary responsibility for product/service innovation
at their company in the long term*), coupled with the fact that the vast
majority of agencies believe the best route to growth is to make things
(unique, effective experiences and tools for brands and consumers) has
led to the proliferation of innovation labs and product incubators within
the agency and production company space.

Finding and cultivating talent who can contribute to a virtuous cycle of
innovation for the agency and its clients is an arduous task. However,
the very fact that these labs/incubators are being created is generating
a very positive benefit beyond things like VC funding. The initiatives are
bolstering employee satisfaction. In fact, agency execs say the number
one benefit of innovation labs is talent retention (i.e., happier, more
engaged staff (47% of respondents).

* Most client respondents indicated that internal teams at their companies will
continue to have primary responsibility for product / service innovation (53% to
be exact), but lead digital agencies ranked second at 22%.
RELATED RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Key Insight:
Digital agencies and full-service agencies with digital
capabilities may disagree on business models and the best
path to growth, but they do agree on the need to focus on
innovation and IP development in order to thrive, and on key
advocacy issues.

Respondent Overview

Agency Type
 Agency Type                                        %
 Full service agency
 (including digital and traditional)               45%

 Traditional advertising or marketing agency
                                                    3%
 (no In-house digital capabilities)

 Digital or interactive agency
                                                   44%
 (no in-house traditional capabilities)

 PR or social agency                                3%

 Other (please specify)                             5%



Q. Which of the following best describes the type of agency
that you work for?

In the 2013 survey, we saw a tremendous increase in the number of
respondents from traditional advertising or marketing agencies that had
both traditional and digital capabilities. In fact, agency-side respondents
were almost evenly split between digital agencies (44%) and traditional
shops with digital capabilities (45%).

While the two sets of respondents agreed in many areas, their answers
did diverge in a few key topics.
Different POVs on the Future of Independent Agencies

Do you agree or disagree?
-“Independent Agencies Do
Not Have a Bright Future”


 Full Service Agencies with
    Digital Capabilities                       Digital Agencies




                                                     14%
                                             6%
            16%




      26%            58%




                                                             80%




      Agree                                       Agree
      Disagree                                    Disagree
      Don’t Know/No Opinion                       Don’t Know/No Opinion


Q. Thinking about the advertising industry broadly, do you
agree or disagree with the following statement? Independent
agencies do not have a bright future – the vast majority will
be absorbed by the major holdings.

In comparison to digital only shops, full-service agencies were decidedly
less optimistic about the future of independent agencies. Only 6% of
digital agency respondents agreed with the statement about the demise
of independent agencies, compared to 26% of full-service agencies.
Different POVs on the Best Route to Growth
Do you agree or disagree? - “The best route to
growth is through specialization.”
 Full Service Agencies with
    Digital Capabilities                Digital Agencies




                                              5%
           17
             %




                      51%               39%
                                                        56%
        %
      32




      Agree                             Agree
      Disagree                          Disagree
      Don’t Know/No Opinion             Don’t Know/No Opinion

Q. Thinking about the advertising industry broadly, do you
agree or disagree with the following statement? The best
route to growth is through specialization (either by industry
vertical or digital services offered) versus a general, full-
service approach.

A majority of digital agency respondents (56%) agreed that
specialization offers the best path to growth as opposed to 32% of
respondents from full-service agencies. While not unexpected that a
majority of full-service agencies would disagree with such a statement, it
was somewhat surprising that so many actually agreed. In other words,
almost one third of respondents from full-service agencies said they
thought the best route to growth is through specialization, suggesting
they are not particularly bullish on their own business model.

Both types of agencies were equally likely to have a product incubator
/ innovation lab within their company (roughly 40% for each type of
agency) and – as previously stated – they largely agree on key advocacy
issues. In short, there is a broad consensus across a range of agency
types when it comes to the types of issues we need to fight for in order to
drive the industry forward. A few examples…
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Society of digital agencies report 2013 the quantified society

  • 2. Tony Quin Intro With over 65,000 readers in 2012, The SoDA Report “ Six years after 13 has become one of the most read publications in the digital agency leaders digital marketing world. But this is only one expression got together over dinner of the remarkable community of digital pioneers, in Miami, SoDA has creatives and executives that makes up SoDA. With grown into a global 70 member agencies in 22 countries on 5 continents, organization with SoDA has become the leading voice of the digital agency members from New community, representing the top tier of digital agencies York to New Zealand. ” and the most sought after production companies in the world. As you will see as you explore the pages of this new edition of The SoDA Report, our members freely share their latest thinking on everything from igniting an innovation-ready mindset to the importance of user- centric design to humorous suggestions for horrible new buzzwords that we pray never see the light of day. That’s because sharing is the cornerstone of how SoDA works. We share with each other and we share with the world. Our Peer Collaboration Groups, for example, bring together over six hundred members across 16 disciplines in the search for best practices and new ideas. Regular roundtables and webinars showcase critical thought- leaders to our membership and beyond. And this year our “SoDA Presents” panel program will bring together the cream of our industry at major conferences across Europe, North America and Latin America. Six years after 13 digital agency leaders got together over dinner in Miami, SoDA has grown into a global
  • 3. organization with members from New York to New Zealand, enabling us more than ever to accomplish our mission to advance our industry through Best Practices, Education, and Advocacy. I hope that you find this latest volume of The SoDA Report insightful and valuable, and I invite you to find out more about our programs, resources and members at www.sodaspeaks.com. Best Wishes, Tony Quin Chairman of the Board, SoDA CEO, IQ Agency
  • 4. Angèle Beausoleil Foreward “We see the world, not as How agencies, production companies and brands it is, but as we are” perceive their value to their respective customers varies   – Talmud greatly. How one generation perceives value differs from the next. Campaigns targeting one consumer segment are not necessarily perceived the same way by another segment. Facing these multiplying realities, how can we build a better awareness of people’s perceptions of our services, products and organizations? This year’s first edition of The SoDA Report reveals new perspectives, fresh ideas and real concepts of how organizations are balancing the art and science of perception to succeed in these fast-paced times. From blowing up what you learned about data from your not-so-favorite math teacher, to exploring how forward-thinking companies are laying the groundwork for a virtuous cycle of innovation, to integrating the best of technology development processes with quick marketing smarts, we suggest how you can change your company from risk averse to courageous, creative, authentic and agile. Future shifts in marketing are discussed by top executives of global brands, tech start-ups, agencies and the leadership of top trade publications. Among other things, they highlight the importance of humanizing data, creating credible content, advocating for user- centric design, transforming business models, tribe building and simplicity.
  • 5. Our writers and editors ponder a broad range of provocative questions. Are we responsive to responsive design? If focusing on the creation of mobile optimized content is akin to solving a problem from 2007, what problems should we be focused on now? What is the “next” Facebook? Are we living in a “Quantified Society”? How can we become the Master of Design in our organizations. And, does irreverent marketing lead to effective consumption? We propose the use of Improv to cut through perceptions and expose the real people you are hiring, and that whole-brained folks are truly the next killer app. We suggest you pay attention to idea thieves, solve real versus perceived problems and focus on becoming exceptional – which is what innovation is about. So, how can you increase your awareness of both your own perceptions and the perceptions of others? Start by reading this report. Enjoy. Angèle Beausoleil Editor-in-Chief
  • 6. The SoDA Report Team & Partners Content Development Angèle Beausoleil Editor-in-Chief of The SoDA Report, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Agent Innovateur Inc. Angèle Beausoleil has spent the last two decades working with digital agencies, technology companies and consumer brands on identifying market trends, leading research and development projects through innovation labs and crafting strategic plans. Today, she balances her graduate studies (MA/PhD in Applied Innovation) activities, with teaching Thinking Strategies at UBC’s d.studio, and a strategic marketing and invention consulting practice. Angele is also the Editor- in-Chief for The SoDA Report and is an advisory board member for the Merging+Media Association, Vancouver International Film Festival, Kibooco (kids edutainment start-up) and the Digital Strategy Committee for the University of British Columbia (UBC). Angèle lives in Vancouver with her husband and son. Chris Buettner Managing Editor of The SoDA Report, SoDA Executive Director After a career on the digital agency and publisher side that spanned 15+ years, Chris Buettner now serves as Managing Editor of The SoDA Report. He is also the Executive Director of SoDA where he is charged with developing and executing the organization’s overall strategic vision and growth plan. And with roots in
  • 7. journalism, education and the international non-profit world, the transition to lead SoDA has been a welcome opportunity to combine many of his talents and passions. After living in Brazil and Colombia for years, Chris is also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is an enthusiastic supporter of SoDA’s initiatives to increase its footprint in Latin America and around the world. Chris lives in Atlanta with his wife and two daughters. Editorial Team Sean MacPhedran Industry Insider, Group Planning Director, Fuel Sean is Group Planning Director at Fuel (based in Ottawa, Canada), where he currently works with clients including McDonald’s Europe, Nokia, Mattel and Lucasfilm. He specializes in youth marketing, entertainment & game development, and the incorporation of pirates into advertising campaigns for brands ranging from Jeep to Family Guy. Outside of Fuel, he is a co-founder of the Ottawa International Game Conference, managed the category-free Tomorrow Awards and spent a good deal of time in the Mojave Desert launching people into space at the X PRIZE Foundation. They all came back alive. Craig Menzies Advocacy, Head of Research and User Experience, Deepend Craig is currently the Head of Research and User Experience at Deepend, a digital and creative agency headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Craig is a former Forrester customer experience analyst, and has also held positions with iCrossing UK and Vodafone Australia.
  • 8. Zachary Paradis People Power, Director of Innovation Strategy, SapientNitro Zachary Jean Paradis is an innovation strategist, professor and author obsessed with transforming lives through customer experience. He works at SapientNitro, teaches at the Institute of Design and lives in Chicago. Zachary works with companies to become successful innovators by utilizing “experience thinking” as a strategic asset manifested in better offerings, flexible process, and open culture. He works with start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies as diverse as Chrysler Auto Group to Target, Hyatt Hotels to John Deere, M&S to McLaren, and SAP to Yahoo!, evolving service and product experiences across digital and physical channels. Zachary recently relocated to Chicago from SapientNitro’s London office. Mark Pollard Modern Marketer, VP Brand Strategy, Big Spaceship Mark is a brand planner who grew up digital. He built his first website in 1997 then published the first full- color hip hop magazine in the Southern Hemisphere, while working in dotcoms, digital agencies and advertising agencies. He is featured in the AdNews Top 40 under 40, and won a Gold Account Planning Group (APG) award for his McDonald’s ‘Name It Burger’ strategy. A NSW Government initiative listed him as one of Sydney’s Top 100 Creative Catalysts. Mark is VP of Brand Strategy at Big Spaceship in New York City. Simon Steinhardt Tech Talk, Associate Creative Director, Editorial, JESS3 Simon Steinhardt is the Associate Creative Director of Editorial at JESS3 in Los Angeles. He is co-author of the forthcoming book Hidden in Plain Sight: How
  • 9. to Create Extraordinary Products for Tomorrow’s Customers (HarperBusiness), set for release on April 16. Previously, he was managing editor of Swindle magazine, and has written and edited extensively on art and culture, including contributions to The History of American Graffiti and Supply and Demand: The Art of Shepard Fairey. Philip Rackin Research Insights, Director of Strategy, MCD As Director of Strategy at MCD Partners, Philip Rackin helps companies such as Samsung, E*TRADE, Discover Financial, and Genworth identify and develop opportunities to grow their businesses with emerging technologies. Over the past 15 years, he’s developed dozens of marketing programs, and digital products for consumer and B2B clients, including Comcast, Consumer Reports, The Port Authority of NY and NJ, Computer Associates, NARS Cosmetics, Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Kate Richling SoDA Showcases, VP of Marketing, Phenomblue As Phenomblue’s Vice President of Marketing, Kate Richling oversees the agency’s marketing and social media outreach, as well as its inbound marketing efforts. Previously, Richling worked in public relations, creating and executing strategies for a wide variety of brands and non-profit organizations.
  • 10. Partners Research Partner Content/Production Econsultancy SoDA www.econsultancy.com www.sodaspeaks.com Organizational Sponsor Cover Design Adobe Struck www.adobe.com www.struck.com Tablet Edition/Prodution Universal Mind The SoDA Report www.universalmind.com Production Team Natalie Smith, Head of Production Todd Harrison, Designer Courtney Hurt, Production Designer Infographics Partner Phenomblue www.phenomblue.com
  • 11. Digital Marketing Outlook Key Survey Findings Respondent Overview Marketers Self-Assess their Digital Savvy Client Investments in Agencies Trending Upward The SoDA Report 2013
  • 12. The SoDAReport Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook SoDA’s Digital Outlook Marketing (DMO) Survey results are in. The findings provide evidence that both digital agencies and full-service agencies with robust digital capabilities are taking an increasingly prominent seat at the table with client organizations. In fact, many not only have a seat, but also a desk and a few family photos. More than 1 in 5 of our agency respondents said they now have agency employees embedded as Chris Buettner specialized resources at client offices as part of their SoDA Executive Director service offering, highlighting a significant shift in client- and Managing Editor of agency engagement models. The SoDA Report Clients, for their part, are getting savvier as well. While After a career on the digital much of this digital acumen is home-grown within client agency and publisher side organizations, brands are also receiving help from their that spanned 15+ years, agency and production company partners. Nearly one Chris Buettner now serves third of agency respondents are providing education as Managing Editor of and training services to those clients who have The SoDA Report. He is developed internal teams to handle digital production also the Executive Director and maintenance. of Operations at SoDA So, do digital agencies have a dim future given this where he is charged with apparent shift toward “in-sourcing” on the client developing and executing side? Quite the contrary. Forward-thinking digital the organization’s overall companies are finding that the best route to growth is to strategic vision and growth make things…to be able to create innovative, effective plan. And with roots in experiences for both consumers and brands. And this journalism, education and year’s DMO Survey results underscore that brands the international non- are increasingly looking to digital agencies to do just profit world, the transition that. We believe the trend toward clients innovating to lead SoDA has been “out-of-house” and maintaining their existing a welcome opportunity digital experiences in-house will only become more to combine many of his pronounced this year and into 2014. talents and passions. After living in Brazil and To support this shift, leading agencies and production Colombia for years, Chris companies are working to create a virtuous cycle of
  • 13. is also fluent in Spanish innovation and IP development at their companies and Portuguese and is an through the creation of innovation labs and product enthusiastic supporter incubators. A whopping 40% of agency respondents of SoDA’s initiatives to have launched product incubators, with the most salient increase its footprint in benefits being happier, more engaged staff and new Latin America and around business success. These are just a few of the trends the world. emerging from this year’s DMO study. Conducted by Econsultancy, SoDA’s 2013 Digital Outlook Marketing Survey had 814 respondents, up 25% from SoDA’s 2012 study. Marketers represented approximately one-third of all respondents with a fairly even split between companies who primarily market products (33%), services (31%) and a mix of products and services (36%). Over 84% of respondents were key decision makers and influencers (CMOs, senior executives, VPs and directors) with annual marketing budgets ranging from US$5M to over US$100M and whose key markets are North America (50%), Europe (22%) and APAC (12%). This year saw a growing multinational cross-section of respondents, with 12% indicating that no single continent accounts for a majority of their business revenue. ABOUT ECONSULTANCY Econsultancy is a community where the world’s digital marketing and ecommerce professionals meet to sharpen their strategy, source suppliers, get quick answers, compare notes, help each other out and discover how to do everything better online. Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has grown to become the leading source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and ecommerce. Econsultancy’s reports, events, online resources and training programs help its 200,000+ members make better decisions, build business cases, find the best suppliers, look smart in meetings and accelerate their careers. Econsultancy is proud to be SoDA’s research partner on this publication for the second consecutive year. For more information, go to http://econsultancy.com/
  • 14. The SoDAReport Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook Respondent Overview Organization Type Q. Which of the Organization Type % following best describes the Consumer brand (B2C) marketing 13% organization you Corporate brand (B2B) marketing 15% work for? Agency 35% Agency respondents Digital production studio 7% were evenly split between digital agencies Vendor/service/independent consultant 10% and full service agencies serving the digital marketing industry with digital capabilities. Other digital marketing professional 20% See the Related Research Insights within Industry Insider for additional analysis on how these two sets of agency respondents differ and agree on key industry issues.
  • 15. Respondent Overview Consumer Marketers by Category Q. Which of the following best describes your category of consumer brand 12% marketing? CPG marketers 48% represented approximately 50% 31% of the 2013 sample of consumer marketers. 9% Consumer Packaged Goods Services Other OEM
  • 16. Respondent Overview Job Title Q. Which of the Title % following best C-level executive (e.g., CMO) 26% describes your title? Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of marketing 13% Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of channel Over 84% of (e.g., social media, mobile, e-mail) 4% respondents were key Vice president (including SVP & EVP) of technology 2% decision makers and Director/manager of market research 11% 10% influencers (CMOs, senior executives, VPs Customer segment owner or customer program manager 24% 10% and directors. Director/manager of marketing services or operations 13% 23% Other (please specify) 12%
  • 17. Global Business Reach By Continent Q. From which region do the majority of your business revenues come? 11% North American 2% 12% respondents represented 50% of the sample (down 50% from approximately 60% in the 2012 study), with Europe and Asia 2 2% making up an additional 3% third. Just over 1 in 10 respondents (11%) hailed from multinationals with a diversified revenue stream across continents, up from 8% in last year’s study. North America Europe APAC Less than half of our revenues come fom any one continent South America Africa
  • 18. The SoDAReport Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook Key Insight: Digital acumen on the client side is spiking. Marketers Self-Assess their Digital Savvy Q. How would you describe the digital marketing sophistication of your organization? (posed to 5% 1% client-side respondents) % 12 22 Fifty-four percent of client % respondents describe their organizations as “sophisticated” or 26% “very sophisticated” when it comes to digital marketing, an assertion that 34 a large cross-section of agency and % production company respondents support. When agencies and production companies were asked how they’re Very Sophisticated seeing their clients evolve, the increasing digital savvy of client- Somewhat Sophisticated side organizations – as suggested by About Average clients’ own self-assessments noted Somewhat Unsophisticated in the pie chart above – became even Very Unsophisticated more pronounced. While the pool of client-side respondents to SoDA’s No Opinion
  • 19. survey may be more sophisticated than the general population of brand marketers, we believe increasing digital acumen on the client side is a trend that will become more pronounced and pervasive in the years to come. A few highlights from agency responses: “Many of our clients are bypassing traditional marketing for digital marketing. That isn’t surprising, but what is a shocker is that they’re clamoring for digital experiences that are uber personalized. Knowing a customer’s name isn’t sufficient. They’re asking for higher customer engagement through complex personalization. For example, aggregating all user interactions (implicit and explicit) and serving ‘personalized’ content based on that data. In other words, determining user preferences without directly burdening the user for that information.” “One of the savvier trends we’re seeing among clients is toward custom behavioral marketing driven by integration of data platforms to allow for real-time or near real-time optimization and iteration (i.e., agile campaign planning and performance management).” “We’re seeing a real trend toward more digitally experienced marketers being promoted to more senior roles within client-side organizations.” “In their quest to do more with less, clients are acquiring more digital expertise, either through the addition of digital agencies to their rosters and/or creating internal digital teams, often by hiring former agency professionals.” “Marketing and Technology teams are working more closely together on the client side. Such cross functional teams are driving the delivery of innovative new
  • 20. marketing abilities.” “More technologies and technology skills are entering the marketing department on the client side. We call it the rise of the Marketing Technologist.” “We’re finding that marketing professionals at forward-thinking client organizations not only have a strong holistic understanding of how their company business operates, but also much more technical savvy in understanding internal systems as well as customers devices and touchpoints.” “Clients who used to work in silos are now tearing down walls between departments to integrate more closely with teams who have consumer-facing roles or are involved in product development.”
  • 21. The SoDAReport Section 1 : Digital Marketing Outlook Key Insight: Digital marketing budgets and client investments in digital agencies will grow at a more intense pace in 2013 and 2014. Client Investments in Agencies Trending Upward Q. Which of the following best describes your organization’s approach to managing and executing 14% 14% digital marketing with 28% agency partners? 44 % Nearly 30% of client respondents indicated they were increasing agency investments in digital marketing efforts this year. This is not only a testament to the fact that the global economy has We’re Maintaining the Status Quo shown signs of improvement We’re Increasing our Agency Investments (albeit far from robust growth), We’re Decreasing our Agency Investments Over Time but also to the realization that Doesn’t Apply to Us digital provides stronger value than other channels as indicated in the next table on budgeting shifts.
  • 22. Some of the reasons… • Agencies are benefitting from clients’ reluctance to expand headcount. While many clients are expanding internal teams focused on executing and maintaining existing digital initiatives, most are looking to agencies for counsel and support when it comes to more senior-level, strategic digital marketing roles. • The measurability of digital has given it more clout, although – admittedly – mining the avalanche of data generated by digital efforts is still a major challenge for both clients and agencies. • More of the clients’ audiences are paying attention to them on digital channels.
  • 23. Budget Decisions Shifting in Favor of Digital Projected Budget % We’re decreasing our digital marketing budgets 11% We’re maintaining the status quo 34% We’re increasing our digital marketing budgets without increasing overall marketing spend (reallocating existing 39% budget into digital) We’re increasing our digital marketing budgets and increasing our overall marketing spend 16% Other (please specify) 0% Q. Which of the following best describes your organization’s projected budget for digital marketing initiatives in 2013? Almost 40% of clients indicated they are increasing digital budgets without increasing their overall marketing spend (reallocating existing budget into digital). Another 16% say they’re increasing the overall size of the marketing pie (increasing overall spend and digital budgets). Any way you slice it, this is good news when it comes to the value being placed on digital marketing efforts.
  • 24. Industry Insider Section Preface The Psycho-Dynamics of Experience Design Putting Innovation to the Test Agency Ecosystems That Work Why Your Math Teacher is Killing Your Creativity The Point of Awards Recruitment Agencies: Breaking Old Perceptions 30 Seconds of Wisdom The SoDA Buzz Word Launcher Going East – Why Asia Should Be on Your Growth Roadmap Related Research Insights The SoDA Report 2013
  • 25. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider One of the most challenging issues facing digital agencies and production companies over the past decade has been the lack of shared insight. As the pioneers of 10 – and even 5 – years ago blazed their way through new technologies and changes in media consumption, the lack of good discussion, best practices and news forums created an industrial cowboy culture. Everyone alone together. Every challenge unique, twice. Sean MacPhedran Every day was trial by fire, and gut instinct was a better Industry Insider Section path to success than a case study to follow. Editor Group Planning Director, SoDA has played a key role in elevating dialogue and Fuel best practices in the industry by providing a forum for industry insiders to share issues that are unique to the new generation of advertising. It’s my hope as the Editor for this section that it will remain “always in beta” and that it presents the fluid sensibility of a discussion - what makes SoDA unique. I welcome anyone to contribute by emailing me at sean@fuelyouth.com In this issue, Tony Quin, SoDA’s Chairman & CEO of IQ, provides insight into the most critical, but often overlooked, element of interactive – The Click. Joe Olsen, CEO of Phenomblue, discusses what innovation culture looks like in practice, and Matt Weston, Copywriter at Soap, gives his perspective on the evolution of the creative team from the trenches. Controversy abounds as we address Awards Shows and Recruitment Firms with Ignacio Oreamuno, Executive Director of the Art Directors Club, and Andrea Bertignoll, President of KANND Recruiting. With interviews, we explore how these two areas are critical to our industry.
  • 26. Finally, we open the floor to members, with 30 Seconds of Wisdom on a wide range of topics, and present some amusing suggestions for horrible new buzzwords that we’ll collectively pray never enter the lexicon.
  • 27. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Tony Quin, Principal, IQ The Psycho- Dynamics of Experience Design With a background as a writer, director and producer of network TV shows and commercials in LA, Tony Quin founded IQ in 1995 as an agency specializing in television. In 1999, IQ began the transformation to a digital agency. Today the agency counts numerous Fortune 100 companies as clients and has won For years I have been preaching the strategy numerous national and of Click/Reward. The idea is simple, every time international awards. Born someone clicks within a digital experience and educated in the UK, something pleasant should happen. This idea, Tony is a founding member while perhaps intuitive, flows from a number of SoDA and Chairman of of observations. First, we live in an instant the Board. He also serves gratification society, and, of course, we are on the Board of the School all pleasure hounds. But, more importantly, it of Communications at Elon comes from mapping buyer psychology to University. the sales process.
  • 28. Understanding the Buyer How the unique dynamics of digital media connect with the psychology of a buyer, on the path to purchase, is the key to creating successful digital experiences.  This path today is often presented as a wonderfully busy chart with a myriad of touch points and influences. But in the end we all go through the same simple process: first we are unaware of a specific need, then we recognize it as a potential need, then we explore its value. And then, if we continue, we evaluate our options, finally make a choice and buy. Yes, there are many factors and forces that influence this along the way, but block out all that noise for a minute and focus on the buyer’s basic motivations. Through this process our motivation shifts from passive in the early stages, and unwilling to invest much effort, to active in the later stages once our intention starts to crystallize. Creating the User Path Our earliest attempts at IQ to codify these psycho- dynamics, and create experiences that enable the buying process, were expressed in the UX principles of Directed Choice and Incremental Engagement. Directed Choice essentially holds that unknown visitors to a brand site should be assumed to be in marketing exploration mode; passive and without formed motivation. At this stage, it is the brand’s responsibility to make choice very easy and intuitive, to reduce or eliminate work, analysis and the number of choices. Of course someone with a task to accomplish can always self identify at any time. Next comes Incremental Engagement. This breaks complex value propositions into steps where each step requires a choice that takes the user closer to personal relevance. This UX principle recognizes that most value propositions are complex and require a time commitment from the prospect in order to receive
  • 29. the whole story. The problem is that before prospects “ Incremental are sufficiently motivated they won’t commit to an Engagement is also investment of time or effort, so we make each step a based on recognizing small commitment. Incremental Engagement is also that the more personally based on recognizing that the more personally relevant relevant something is, something is, the more compelling it will be. Every the more compelling salesman knows this. If you’re looking for a truck and ” it will be. the sales guy shows you cars…well, you get the idea, and that brings us back to click/reward. Rewarding the Click So far we have learned that we should make things really easy for prospects at first, we should make commitments small and get them to what’s personally relevant as quickly as possible. But this is all pretty analytical. It assumes that people are pursuing their interests analytically. Actually, evidence suggests that people explore and make decisions more emotionally than we think. As Charles Hannon, professor of Computing and Information Studies at Washington & Jefferson College, discusses in this excellent post, the dopamine reward system produces good or bad feelings based on what we do in the world. The implication of this, as Jonah Lehrer explains in his book How We Decide, is that rational decision making, thought to trump the emotions since Plato, is actually not how we do it. Recent neuroscience has reversed this age old model of how human beings make decisions by showing that indeed emotions, some stimulated by the dopamine reward system, are core to the process. It seems that we follow patterns instinctively and when patterns are supported, and just to confuse things, sometimes even when not, dopamine is triggered that reinforces our decision-making. That means every time we make a successful click or get rewarded on our path to purchase we get a shot of dopamine, which reinforces what we are doing. This
  • 30. clearly tells us that we should be designing interactions to understand and follow the emotional journey a buyer makes on the way to a sale, and to study where we are on the emotional/analytical continuum at every moment of the path to purchase. This insight allows us to focus our experience design so that we re-enforce our prospect’s natural process rather than block it.
  • 31. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Joe Olsen, President & CEO, Phenomblue Putting Innovation to the Test Joe Olsen is the President and CEO of Phenomblue, an industry-leading brand experience agency. He co-founded the agency in 2004, which has offices in Omaha, NE, and Los Angeles, CA. Phenomblue Today we see so many companies call has been featured in USA themselves “innovative”—whether or not Today, Ad Age, The New evidence exists to support the claim. York Times, Fast Company and Inspired Magazine and While you can’t become innovative just has received recognition because you say you are, you can easily from the Webby Awards, facilitate an innovation-ready mindset. the CLIO Awards, SXSW Interactive Awards and Like learning a new language, innovation the Favourite Website takes knowledge, risk, innate talent and the Awards. He is a seasoned willingness to try out new things with trusted entrepreneur, the creator of peers in private before putting yourself to the the Drop Kick Platform and public test. Above all, it takes belief in the a co-founder of Drop Kick worthiness of the goal and a commitment to Ventures. work hard enough to get good. Innovation initiatives can help build your agency’s capacity for success. Like immersive language courses,
  • 32. these initiatives are intense learning experiences “ Agencies can start an that generate results quickly. Put some passionate, innovation initiative in intelligent, curiously caffeinated people in a room who their office without too are willing to devote their imaginative faculties to solve much trouble. Get some a specific problem, and you position your agency to do white boards, markers, something useful nobody ever has before. pencils, paper, beer and Red Bull, and gather Agencies can start an innovation initiative in their office your finest minds in a without too much trouble. Get some white boards, room just uncomfortable markers, pencils, paper, beer and Red Bull, and gather enough to keep everyone your finest minds in a room just uncomfortable enough ” relaxed but alert. to keep everyone relaxed but alert. Set aside a day for an innovation exercise, so everyone takes it seriously. Then let your team define a problem it wants to solve, and leave them alone until they’re done or asking for help. We call these Bonus Days at Phenomblue. Once a quarter, our agency goes dark for 24 hours—meaning no client work whatsoever—while we split into teams and compete for Bonus Day glory. Each team takes a project from start to finish in a single day. The only rules, other than “no client work,” are that we all present our projects to the company the next day and abide by maritime law. Phenomblue also implements large-scale innovation initiatives, like Signature Reserve, a semiannual experiment where we devote 200 billable hours to an internal passion project—no strings attached, other than a finished product that provides real utility. Finally, Skunkworks takes our best ideas and puts them through a rigorous vetting process conducted by agency leadership. If the idea succeeds, it gets produced during client gap time. It could then get financed, incubated and spun off into its own business through Drop Kick Ventures—a company I co-founded to help marketing, communications and creative agencies bring ideas to life (as featured recently in Wired magazine).
  • 33. Phenomblue absorbs the cost of our innovation initiatives because we know the payoff is worth it. Whether it’s a new piece of technology we don’t know what to do with yet, a super-successful campaign for a client or a market-ready product, our innovation initiatives keep our team prepared for the chance of a breakthrough idea. Like language, innovation is dynamic. If you don’t push yourself to practice, you might lose it. Innovation initiatives can help. Image Source: 1. http://pbfcomics.com/197/
  • 34. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Matt Weston, Copywriter, Soap Creative Agency Ecosystems That Work Matt Weston is senior copywriter at SOAP Creative LA. Born in the UK, he has worked at several ad agencies across the globe in Sydney, Paris and now Los Angeles. He has created several integrated ad campaigns across digital, tv, print, outdoor and radio. He loves Marmite on toast, The experience of advertising creatives DnB and butchering French has changed radically over the past decade. as a second language. We’ve moved from creative teams of two into Preferably all three together. multidisciplinary teams, and, as often as not, no two are ever alike. Digital advertising is breaking down traditional barriers between thinkers and doers - multidisciplinary teams now rule the studio. As a copywriter reborn in a digital agency, I now routinely bump brain cells with technologists who would previously have been in another room.
  • 35. A couple of years ago I was reading a chapter in one “ Whether it’s an of the new creative bibles concerning an interesting idea tailor-made for cultural change within one of the hottest digital a social network or agencies. The agency in question had challenged a piece of interactive the versatility of the traditional copywriter + art art that demonstrates director creative team structure and had set about the product benefits, creating new teams made up of creative technologist + technologists are part of designer + copywriter. the creative process now more than ever. ” Such change was radical for traditional ad agencies maybe, but for many digital agencies it’s one that has been far more organic in nature. Why? Clients in digital are often looking for a big idea, but one that ‘pulls’ their target market’s attention within the constantly-evolving, multi-platform digital landscape. That requires great creative and strategic planning, but just as importantly, technological literacy. Whether it’s an idea tailor-made for a social network or a piece of interactive art that demonstrates the product benefits, technologists are part of the creative process now more than ever. And so it was, as the newly-hired ‘ad guy’ at a digital agency, I found myself brainstorming in a room with a social media manager, planner, designer and javascript developer. “Where is my art director?” my mind went. “Be quiet!” it replied rather disturbingly to itself, “They just asked you something and I have no idea what that guy over there just said.” I thought about what was bothering me so much. It was this - being part of a traditional twosome creative team with an art director is fun.
  • 36. Your partner is your best mate in the agency. The person you go into battle with every day against other creative teams that want your brief. It’s the kind of camaraderie that prevents you from tearing a printout of horrible client feedback into little pieces and collaging ‘ASSHOLE’ on your CEO’s skydome of an office. So how did I feel about sitting opposite a guy whose inspiration came from Minecraft? Rubbing conceptual shoulders with someone who writes PHP? What is PHP? Sure, I knew what I was in for in the digital world. My inner creative welcomed the shake-up of convention. I just didn’t count on my inner adwanker sticking his ugly head into the mix. But this room didn’t have time for ad egos with a close deadline and a reputation to meet it with a hot digital solution. Of course, the next bit you already know. Our brainstorming session worked its productive little butt off. The social media guy had an awesome gaming suggestion. The developer came up with a great angle on how to execute it and I tied in the insight behind the idea that was true to the brand. Maybe there was something to this developer-designer- writer-whoever else thing after all. Image Source: 1. http://www.atterburybakalarairmuseum. org/Capt._Stratton_Hammon__Mrs._ Allred_Nov._1942.jpg
  • 37. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Tony Clement, Head of Strategic Planning, TBG Digital Why Your Math Teacher is Killing Your Creativity Tony Clement is the Head “I’m not a data person.” of Strategic Planning at TBG Digital. Born in What if by saying these small words you were Brooklyn, raised in Sydney poisoning your agency and slowly choking and now living in London, off your career? What if by accepting this he misses all things above statement you were carving out corners of 5 degrees Celsius. With a measurement misperception and building data background in Statistics prisons in your own creative community? and a love for Converse, Let’s do a symptoms check. Do terms like he is a Strategist that brings together data and ‘pivot tables,’ ‘recursive loops’ and ‘weighted creativity to help ideas moving averages’ make you feel frozen with find their purpose. He has indecision. If so, you need to take a breath, contributed to four AFA think back to your high school days and curse Effectiveness awards and your Math Teacher. Pause. Do it again, and has an APG award for then read on with teenage angst. Best Use of Data. Recently joining TBG, he has worked I blame Mr. Chin as Strategist and/or Data My year 12 math teacher, Mr Chin, was a weird guy. Geek for a number of places He had a bad beard, bad breath and spoke to the including Wunderman, chalkboard for 45 minutes at a time while his class BMF Sydney, Leo Burnett sputtered into oblivion at their rickety wooden desks. and JESS3. You know the feeling. We’ve all had a Mr.Chin or two. It was by far the most dreaded class to attend, the anti-Christ to PE, the classroom where no one wanted
  • 38. to be at any time of day. And unfortunately, the slow torturous doctrine of mixing boredom with formulaic memory tests didn’t come to an end at high school. The truth is over your high school and university years, you either avoided math and swayed to arts, or you punished yourself by attending 30 to 40 hours of lectures each week for years, just to emerge with battle scars and emotional trauma so deep, it actually hindered your ability to speak like a normal human. Your agency and your career need you to leave Mr. Chin at the chalkboard. And instead of coping with data, it needs you to rethink how it can become a part of the creative culture so the gap between science and creative can begin to heal. Could you help your agency see the beauty of science to build ideas, and learn how to speak data without using terms like ‘p-value’ and ‘Central Limit Theorem’ just to get people nodding in synchronized misunderstanding? Well if want those things, tell your Mr. Chin that he is the one who has failed, because numbers are more than formulas, suppositions and marks out of 100. Tell him by: Taking the power back from Mr. Chin and giving it to your Inner Geek Have you ever noticed that most people have a hidden Geek within? But they are pushed down, kept quiet and exist in fear. But what’s even more interesting, is every now and then, you’ll see that person’s eyes light up when they let the Inner Geek out to solve a ‘data’ problem, and the Geek rejoices. Let your Geek out for a walk and take small Geeky steps to make your Inner Geek stronger. Try this - The next time you go to the data team, sit with them and ask what they are doing, and how they
  • 39. are doing it. Or if you have a ‘how do you do that?’ “ The collision of question, like, ‘how do you create a pivot table and data and design chart’, just go to them and spend 15 minutes exercising is demonstrating your Inner Geek. It’ll be time well spent. to the industry the communication I pick pivot tables as a simple example, because potential of data. ” managing the information is half the battle and if you can do this, your Inner Geek will hug you. Rage using the machine - Use the open sources on the net to learn at machine speed Let’s face it. If you can remember more than a handful of formulas from high school or university you are doing extremely well. The human brain has an effective memory loop of two seconds when it comes to digits, which might explain why it’s so hard to memorize phone numbers. Fortunately, the internet has more memory than us all, and making the most of that collective intelligence and openness with data is going to help you become a data beast. Try this: Ever wanted to learn how your digital developers and producers build those web apps and other cool digital stuff? Then Code Academy gives you a very friendly and free start to understanding the principles of producing digital experiences. Open eyes with art, instead of blinding them with science The collision of data and design is demonstrating to the industry the communication potential of data. And no, I’m not talking just about infographics, that’s one output. I’m talking about getting people to imagine (yes, imagine) what data can reveal to them, why that is provocative and how to communicate it.
  • 40. During a data academy session I was doing, I held this up and said, “That is all of my banking transaction data, and I have a problem, but I never expected it to be this bad.” My savings problem is something that I wouldn’t have seen unless I put the information into this different format. And that is the power of data visualization, which I think is best said by an American mathematician, John W. Tukey in 1977: “The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.” Often organic or manmade facts can propel us to places of unexpected intuition and insight. And working for those facts is just another form of applied curiosity. Start to close the gap in your agency by learning a few techniques and setting a reminder for Monday saying, ‘Let out the Inner Geek, Mr. Chin got it all wrong.’
  • 41. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Interview with Ignacio Oreamuno, Executive Director of the Art Directors Club The Point of Awards Ignacio Oreamuno is We caught up with Ignacio as he was enjoying the Executive Director of a mojito in Miami, surveying the location the Art Directors Club & President of the Tomorrow of his next Award Show – the ADC 92nd Awards. He is also the Annual Awards + Festival of Art and Craft in founder of IHAVEANIDEA, Advertising and Design. one of the world’s largest online advertising MACPHEDRAN: Why are awards important to communities with 12 our industry? million pages read a year. OREAMUNO: It used to be that awards were mainly about the winners. Creativity is hard to measure. Only Interview conducted the best of your peers can really judge, because so much by Sean MacPhedran, of it is qualitative, it’s a craft. We need to collectively Industry Insider Section be able to recognize quality. In an industry that is so Editor and Group Planning Director at Fuel. creative, we need some kind of benchmark, a goal to work towards, otherwise how do you teach? Some shows are more focused on metrics, but the line of measurement is so fuzzy that a good analyst can make a terrible campaign look like it performed amazingly. Maybe there was 100 times more media dollars. Maybe they slashed prices at the same time as a horrible ad campaign launched.
  • 42. The awards industry needs to be more about education. What is that amazing idea that everyone needs to understand? What are the 20 amazing ideas this year? They’re all going to be different. Awards are important because they are a forum where we can all share our successes, and the rest of us can learn from them. That’s why we are pushing to make awards more educational, and not just about handing out trophies. MACPHEDRAN: Do you think awards are relevant to clients? Or are they more about self-congratulation? OREAMUNO: Absolutely. People want to work with winners because they’re more likely to win again. Awards are an easy way for clients to recognize how well-respected their agency is by its peers. Not every great agency is going to be at the top of the Gunn Report, but it tells you something that an agency has been recognized. And clients are as much responsible for awards as the agencies. Creatives always complain that “Oh, I had a great idea, but the client didn’t like it.” But that is as much about risk as it is about how good the idea might have been. Maybe the idea was fun, but it was completely outside of the risk tolerance the client’s strategy allowed for. Awards help bring clients into the fold of creativity. When Old Spice wins an award, you know… Everyone knows, that it was an entire team that worked to make that kind of breakthrough campaign happen. It can’t happen without the client. Not just because they approve it, but because they’ve helped craft the strategy to bring the brand into a place where it’s ready for that kind of innovation. And for clients who are looking to the future – when the creative team has some idea that seems crazy - when you can look out into the world and see other risky ideas that worked, things that broke the mold, it starts to set
  • 43. a precedent that the only way to win in the marketplace IS to innovate. To do something different and remarkable. Awards help showcase those successes in a formalized framework. MACPHEDRAN: On the topic of education, how are you working to bring that value back to the industry? OREAMUNO: Well, on Tomorrow Awards – the entire program is designed around education for innovation. Instead of judges hiding in a box and voting, everything is filmed. Why did they pick that and not this? You get to see the debate, and there is a lot of debate, that happens over each choice. But even before it gets to that stage, we make everyone a judge. If you are a technology intern in London or a senior Creative Director in Egypt, you have a vote. We wanted people to explore the cases for themselves. The point of the Tomorrow Awards is to tear down all of the walls. There are no categories. It’s all about the innovation of the idea – and no two are ever alike. We need to train ourselves to think so differently than before, and no one is really doing that for the creatives. The Art Directors Club is currently experiencing a total re-birth. We’ve gone back to our roots of art and craft. All our programs have been updated to reflect this. From taking our 92nd annual to the tablet to creating a community for our members that is fun and relevant, instead of preachy and old. The biggest thing we’re doing this year is the 92nd Annual Awards + Festival of Art and Craft in Advertising and Design which is a completely new and different type of festival. Instead of having creative directors speak, I’m inviting some of the most inspiring artists from around the world to teach us the skills of craft, creativity and art. We’re going to be doing everything from photo workshops to legos to creative brainstorming. And all this will take
  • 44. place in Miami Beach, a great place for networking. It’s a win win for the industry and for all those who attend. We need to fall back in love with our craft, because the only thing that separates us from a client is the fact that we’re supposed to be creative artists.
  • 45. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Interview with Andrea Bertignoll, President of KANND Solutions Recruitment Agencies: Breaking Old Perceptions Andrea Bertignoll serves One of the most hotly debated topics is as the President of KANND the need (or lack thereof) for Recruitment Solutions. Andrea has an academic background in Agencies. We sat down with Andrea Bertignoll, Technology and 20 years of President of KANND Solutions, to get the recruitment and business recruiters perspective on how agencies and management experience. recruiters can work better together. Interview conducted MACPHEDRAN: Why is recruitment treated as the by Sean MacPhedran, red-headed stepchild of services in our industry? Industry Insider Section BERTIGNOLL: There are many reasons, but I think Editor and Group Planning most of them are linked to the bad apples of Christmas Director at Fuel. past. A poor reputation has built up, I think mainly stemming from the actions of older firms that aren’t as consultative and haven’t adapted to the changing needs of the clients and candidates. There are still too many of the stereotypical “body shops” out there who are in the game to place anyone into a spot vs. making sure that it’s a good fit for both the client and the candidate alike. There is more to it than matching a resume to a job description and then charging a fee...which is yet another bone of contention. In addition to all of that, “recruiting” is often seen as something that HR should already be capable of
  • 46. doing in-house. Not always the case. As the number of specialized roles keeps expanding, it’s next to impossible to expect an HR Manager to manage regular HR abilities and still recruit the right person for the right role for multiple requirements. Seriously, in some of the cases I’ve seen, they are juggling these responsibilities and don’t have the authorization to use a recruitment agency to help...something’s got to give. All that said, it’s not that HR Managers are incapable of recruiting, that’s the furthest from the truth, but we see many of these people essentially trying to hold down two full time jobs...daily HR management responsibilities, and recruiting multiple specialized mandates simultaneously. MACPHEDRAN: It seems like a good analogy would be Account Management vs. Business Development? BERTIGNOLL: Absolutely, it’s a perfect analogy. Many HR professionals that I’ve worked with pursue this career path for the nurturing/farming aspect of it. They are responsible for managing the company’s most precious assets... its employees. An HR Manager or even the Hiring Managers who sometimes have their own recruitment mandates aren’t in the position of hunting, but managing what they have. No company would expect an Account Manager to be in the mindset of hunting for new clients all the time. That’s what Business Development does. It’s not just a different role. It’s really a different mindset and personality type. Recruiters are able to keep more active databases. We hunt to find the best talent. We develop relationships with talent and hunt to find as much real information as possible. For example, my new passive candidate “Billy” might have started a new role a few months ago, but I know that he despises his new supervisor and the commute time is already getting to him. I know this because he tells me when I probe for the right information and simultaneously create
  • 47. See what respondents to a relationship with him. I know what his key “must our ’13 Digital Marketing haves” are and they aren’t usually the salary. They can Outlook Survey said were be anything from the work-life balance to the preferred key job satisfaction factors corporate culture or anything within... Everyone is for them. Spoiler alert… different. Our job is to hunt for this information, hunt it really isn’t just about for the talent, and hunt for the truth... If we don’t, we salary. can’t make the right match. At the end of the day, many of us are in it because we LOVE matchmaking. I think we just thrive on getting people to “hook up” with the right people. We all have a friend who does that...usually the one trying to get everyone married. They just get a kick out of helping people connect. Just like your biz dev people who get the adrenaline rush from closing a deal. MACPHEDRAN: How would you suggest HR Managers go about working with Recruiters then? BERTIGNOLL: Mainly it’s got to be about fit with the company. Obviously, from our perspective, a retainer is the best thing. But a contingency-based service is going to make your recruiters work a little harder. After a while though, you’ll know what agency you like to work with and which one is a waste of your time... Whether it’s the quality of the talent, the follow up, the service, etc. I’d recommend picking a couple of recruiters that you’ve developed a comfort level with... You know, the ones that you trust won’t try and “squeeze a square peg into a round hole.” The ones that you can say... “get this mandate off of my desk” and they bust their behinds to get it done. The one who understands your needs and then gives you a full rundown of the needs of the candidate. Essentially today’s talent pool is fluid and, as such, recruitment is a full-time job. If you can use recruitment help, find a firm you trust. If your company can do it, build a dedicated team, but don’t assume that you’re going to get the best talent if you haven’t allocated the resources.
  • 48. MACPHEDRAN: Is there any other advice you’d want to give? BERTIGNOLL: Most of us who go into business in small recruitment firms are really just passionate about the challenge. Making the right match for a client’s needs with the ideal talent gives you the “warm and fuzzies” for lack of a better term. To make that match we need to have much more than just a job description... We need to know details about the team, new projects, the direct supervisor, soft skills that would be ideal, etc. That said, I’d say always getting the hiring manager/ department head involved early and working with your recruiters is a good idea. They’re the ones who are going to be able to best describe all the nuances of what they’re looking for.
  • 49. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider 30 Seconds of Wisdom We asked SoDA Members what they’d want to share if they had the conch for 30 seconds. What came back was a deluge of thoughts ranging from usability advice to insights into client relations, as well as the occasional joke. Innovation & Creativity “ Look for three, big innovative wins and then be relentless in delivering and making sure those happen. Read Insanely Simple by Ken Segall -- pretty good cure for the talk-it-to-death blues. ” — David Rossiter, Creative Director, Enlighten “ Creativity is being replaced by flexibility.” — Dan Kennedy “ Process can’t do the work for you. It’s provides guidance, but it’s not a defined path to guaranteed success.” — Anonymous
  • 50. Teams “ Put your people first and enable them to make changes: both internally and externally. Then sit back and watch the magic happen. ” — Ranae Heuer, Managing Director, Big Spaceship “ Don’t be afraid to pull in experts from outside your own organization. We all want to believe we can do everything, but, sometimes, pulling in a true expert will not only end with an incredible result but will also serve as a learning opportunity for your teams. ” — Anonymous “ Optimize your time and resources. First thing every day, we regroup with our team and decide how the day will flow. Now, we start working at 10AM and stop at 7PM. And everything works. ” — “The Most Amazing Producer in the World” “ Developers and designers need to be more willing to iterate when it comes to development. I still see a trend where Project Managers (stakeholders), afraid of missing a timeline, place pressure on teams to get ” it right the first time. That just isn’t realistic. — “Mysterious Mustafa” Clients “ Re-think who your clients really are.” — Vassilios Alexiou, Founder, Less Rain “ You’ll always get undercut by someone, so make sure quality - not money - is your value proposition.” — Matt Walsh, Director of Business Development, Resn “ The focus on growing our business and our clients’ businesses shouldn’t be on selling. If we focus on truly solving problems and providing opportunities, that results in revenue growth. ” — Kt McBratney, General Manager, Phenomblue
  • 51. “ Preparation. To be prepared is not just showing up 10 minutes early to an engagement. Rather it’s the assembly and construction of knowledge pertaining to the subject. Whether this is researching a company before a job interview or gathering vital credentials from clients, you aren’t truly prepared unless you’ve really done your homework. ” — Lyndze Blosser, Interactive Designer, Terralever “ Three-way partnerships (traditional agency, client, and digital agency) are fraught with backstabbing danger.” — Anonymous “ Marketers say they understand how paid, earned, and owned media work together, but most don’t ” really. — Dave Bovenschulte, EVP Digital Strategy &   Product Development, Zemoga Consumers “ Think just as hard about PEOPLE as you do PRODUCT. In this world where everything is set to formulas, segments, demographics, spreadsheets, legalities and logistics, we have to remember that PEOPLE (we call them consumers) are at the heart of making this all work. These people are human, and they don’t always do the logical things we’d like ” to believe that they’ll do. — Jon Haywood, Planning Director & Cultural Attache,  DARE “ Content marketing is king. Embracing branded content has been an important business tactic for a long time, but it’s REALLY important now that consumers have started to expect it. ” — Tessa Wegert, Communications Director, Enlighten &   Media Buying Columnist, ClickZ.com
  • 52. “ As we head into 2013, email haters will rise again, proclaiming the end of this old school marketing channel. My advice, don’t believe the hype people... it’s alive and well, and here to stay.” — Andy Parnell, SVP, Client Services, Terralever Usability “ Use technology to create utility; don’t use it to make things more convenient. If convenience is the goal, our society is fucked. (And don’t let technology replace good craft.) And... JUST BE HONEST. ” — Erin Standley, Design Director, Phenomblue “ Social media web toolbars that live at the bottom of the webpage - these need to die a painful death and go to their specially assigned rung in hell. Just about the biggest annoyance currently in the web world. ” — Andrew Hainen, Interaction Designer, Enlighten “ Always do wireframes or sketch interfaces before starting design. It’s easier to move around boxes and shapes as you think about the experience than it is to redesign parts as you’re working towards a great user experience. ” — Joe Branton, Design Director, Grow Interactive Image Source: 1. http://cloudfront.inthecapital.com/ files/2012/08/dalai-lama-points-his-finger. jpg
  • 53. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider The SoDA Buzz Word Launcher Ideation, Phygital, Viral, Interactive Video, Gamification, Momversation, Phablet, Native Advertising, Big Data, Monetization, Engage and Social Currency are all words that SoDA members suggested for permanent deletion from our professional vocabularies. But what should replace them? We received a slew of suggestions for horribly unnecessary buzzwords, and hope that you will begin to use them in everyday discussion. Nudge nudge, wink wink. Qualitangible Definition: Insights that ride the threshold between qualitative observations and wild hearsay, but need a good label to be taken seriously. “It’s useful for those occasions when you need to pass off a conversation with your mate at the pub as a research driven insight,” suggests Amer Iqbal from Deepend. In use: “Most consumers will tell you that they use their smartphone in the washroom. We had
  • 54. a qualitangible insight that this pattern of behavior carries over to urinals as well, but with a lower adoption rate. It indicates that our Urinal Puck AR Experience is going to be well received by our target audience.” Web 10.01 Definition: A level of digital integration so broad and advanced that it encompasses all innovation for the next 40 years, removing any need for further version upgrades in vocabulary. In use: “Your Xbox 720 fell in love with your Google Glasses over Vine? That’s so Web 10.0. We should leverage this for our online dating client.” Corporate Bohemian2 Definition: An employee who follows the lifestyle of a Key West transient while working for a large corporation. In use: “Oh yeah, Chuck is great. Total Corporate Bohemian. He threw a killer brainstorm in his office over drinks and a few of us just crashed under his desk. Haven’t seen him in weeks, but the presentation went really well.” Moupon3 Definition: A coupon that works on your mobile phone. In use: “It’s like a coupon, but for your mobile phone. We call it a moupon. I’m pitching it tomorrow as the Grey Poupon Moupon. It’s got legs.” Non-tourage4 Definition: A party of one. A term used to describe non-social behavior within social networks, or an
  • 55. individual so connected in the physical world to their digital network that their “entourage” is invisible. In use: “That guy over there at table 5 said he was a party of 8, but he meant his non-tourage. He’s been in a Google Hangout for 2 hours and I think he’s also running Chatroulette.” Egosystem5 Definition: A self-sustaining system of egomania only tenuously connected to reality, but necessary for the life of projects and its own livelihood. In use: “It’s a great idea, but we need to incorporate more pet concepts and buzz words or it will never survive long enough in the egosystem to get to market.” Yak-a-demia6 Definition: The eye of the buzz word tornado. A rarified group in which only theory and discussion, never execution, is the currency of value. In use: “I went to a workshop at AGENCY REDACTED but it was total yak-a-demia. We were supposed to learn about producing for transmedia, but it was just a bunch of art videos and out-of- context Henry Jenkins quotes.” Digitable7 Definition: A person who interacts so much with technology they are rendered into a vegetable. In use: “Wendy is really on top of all this social media stuff, but she’s a total digitable in meetings. One time I spilled a coffee on her and she didn’t even notice.”
  • 56. Let’s get to bidness!!!8 Definition: A phrase used to spur a group into action. Usually used after 2am or while suffering from a head cold. In use: “Let’s get to bidness!!! Our pitch is in 4 hours and I think Phil might have been arrested. Did anyone pay the bill?” Term Contributors: 1. Andy Parnell, SVP, Client Services, Terralever 2. Anonymous 3. Tessa Wegert, Communications Director, Enlighten and Media Buying Columnist, ClickZ.com 4-6. David Rossiter, Creative Director, Enlighten 7. Karl Reynolds, Creative Director, Deepend Sydney 8. Matt Walsh, Director of Business Development, Resn
  • 57. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider Ming Chan, CEO, The1stMovement Going East – Why Asia Should Be on Your Growth Roadmap As Founder and CEO of The1stMovement, Ming was named as one of the “Top 10 Asian Entrepreneurs” by Inc. Magazine, and has led the agency to numerous accolades including: three-time Inc. 500’s “Fastest Growing Private Companies in America,” three-time “Best Places to work in LA,” and “Top Having spent more than 15 years growing up 20 Advertising Agencies” in Hong Kong (and still visiting every year), I in LA and Denver. have always paid extra attention to the Asian The1stMovement has also markets since I founded The1stMovement in created custom digital Los Angeles in 2006. In early 2012 we opened solutions for some of the our first Asian office in Hong Kong, and we world’s most well-known learned a lot from this experience. I wanted to brands including: AT&T, share some of the lessons we learned for those Adobe, Cisco, DaVita, companies who are also considering a move Lexus, Pentax and USOC. into Asia.
  • 58. But, first, let’s consider the following statistics: “ China might be your ultimate target market, • Four out of the top ten Fortune 500 but there are still serious companies in the world are headquartered in challenges to setting up Asia1 shop there. The most significant barrier is • 12 out of the 20 fastest growing countries in simply fundamental the world are in Asia, and have an average cultural differences of 7% GDP growth in 2012 (vs. <2% growth between East and from US)2 West. ” • Overall advertising spends in Asia are projected to grow at a rate of 7.6% in 2013 (vs. 3.8% in North America)3 • US-based, multinational giants like Apple, Nike, GM, and others have poured over US$49 billion worth of investment into China alone each year since 20094 With that context, here are the most important things we learned along the way: 1. Asia is enormous and diverse Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent with 48 separate and unique countries, home to 60% of the world’s population and over 2,000 different spoken languages. Firms in Asia increasingly and regularly do business in more than one country, as we did recently with a project launched in 15 countries and in 7 languages. All on the same day at the same time. This required real on the ground local knowledge and cultural understanding. 2. our entry point is critical Y Projected to become the largest economy by the end of 20165, China might be your ultimate target market, but there are still serious challenges to setting up shop there.
  • 59. The most significant barrier is simply “ Asia is the world’s fundamental cultural differences between largest and most East and West. We chose to open in Hong populous continent Kong because it is one of the most multi- with 48 separate and cultural cities in the world. But Singapore unique countries, home is also a good choice as it is a very Western- to 60% of the world’s friendly city for business. And, despite recent population and over economic troubles, Japan is still projected to 2,000 different spoken be top five in the world for digital advertising languages. ” spend. Not to be overlooked – Indonesia and Malaysia – are two of the fastest growing countries on the planet. 3. onsumer behavior is different in Asia C While there is some opportunity to apply what we’ve learned in the US to the East, it is important not to underestimate differences in consumer behavior – and not only between East and West, but between different countries within Asia. For example, one recent project taught us that consumers in China spent on average four times more time online than consumers in Indonesia. A fact that caused us to adjust our campaign idea and local country execution plan. 4. our existing global clients can help you Y Chances are your company is already working with a client with global reach. Their knowledge, experience and network will undoubtedly help with your planning. For us, what started as a pipe dream of expanding into Asia quickly became a serious pursuit when we began working with global brands like Cisco, Pentax and Reebok. The experience we had working with their teams in Asia, and understanding how they act, how they communicate and how they think, made our transition into working with a local Asia brand that much smoother.
  • 60. Sources: 1. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ global500/2012/full_list/index.html 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate_ (latest_year) 3. http://www.jcdecaux-oneworld.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/OneWorlds- Global-Adspend-Forecasts-Apr-2012.pdf 4. http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/20/news/ international/us_business_chinese_ investment_boom/index.htm 5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/ nov/09/china-overtake-us-four-years-oecd Image Source: 1. http://www.makino.com.sg/img/about/ about_worldmap.png
  • 61. The SoDAReport Section 2 : Industry Insider RELATED RESEARCH INSIGHTS Key Insight: Top digital agencies and production companies are becoming more proactive and are taking a larger seat at the table with clients and traditional agencies, based largely on the unique value and innovative IP they’re delivering. Undoubtedly, this is a trend that we’ve witnessed in past SoDA research studies, but it has become even more pronounced this year. Agencies and production companies are offering more education and training to clients, and developing labs and incubators to spur a virtuous cycle of innovation and IP development. In fact, product incubators are growing quickly in terms of their prevalence and importance for digital agencies, production companies and full-service agencies with digital capabilities – helping them win work and stay fresh. The Innovation Lab Explosion Innovation labs 39% at full-service and 61% digital agencies are proliferating Q. Do you have an innovation lab/product Yes incubator within your agency or production No company? The call for digital agencies to have increased responsibilities with respect to product / service innovations on the client side (Note: more than 1 in 5 client respondents to the ’13 survey say their lead digital
  • 62. agency will have primary responsibility for product/service innovation at their company in the long term*), coupled with the fact that the vast majority of agencies believe the best route to growth is to make things (unique, effective experiences and tools for brands and consumers) has led to the proliferation of innovation labs and product incubators within the agency and production company space. Finding and cultivating talent who can contribute to a virtuous cycle of innovation for the agency and its clients is an arduous task. However, the very fact that these labs/incubators are being created is generating a very positive benefit beyond things like VC funding. The initiatives are bolstering employee satisfaction. In fact, agency execs say the number one benefit of innovation labs is talent retention (i.e., happier, more engaged staff (47% of respondents). * Most client respondents indicated that internal teams at their companies will continue to have primary responsibility for product / service innovation (53% to be exact), but lead digital agencies ranked second at 22%.
  • 63. RELATED RESEARCH INSIGHTS Key Insight: Digital agencies and full-service agencies with digital capabilities may disagree on business models and the best path to growth, but they do agree on the need to focus on innovation and IP development in order to thrive, and on key advocacy issues. Respondent Overview Agency Type Agency Type % Full service agency (including digital and traditional) 45% Traditional advertising or marketing agency 3% (no In-house digital capabilities) Digital or interactive agency 44% (no in-house traditional capabilities) PR or social agency 3% Other (please specify) 5% Q. Which of the following best describes the type of agency that you work for? In the 2013 survey, we saw a tremendous increase in the number of respondents from traditional advertising or marketing agencies that had both traditional and digital capabilities. In fact, agency-side respondents were almost evenly split between digital agencies (44%) and traditional shops with digital capabilities (45%). While the two sets of respondents agreed in many areas, their answers did diverge in a few key topics.
  • 64. Different POVs on the Future of Independent Agencies Do you agree or disagree? -“Independent Agencies Do Not Have a Bright Future” Full Service Agencies with Digital Capabilities Digital Agencies 14% 6% 16% 26% 58% 80% Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Don’t Know/No Opinion Don’t Know/No Opinion Q. Thinking about the advertising industry broadly, do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Independent agencies do not have a bright future – the vast majority will be absorbed by the major holdings. In comparison to digital only shops, full-service agencies were decidedly less optimistic about the future of independent agencies. Only 6% of digital agency respondents agreed with the statement about the demise of independent agencies, compared to 26% of full-service agencies.
  • 65. Different POVs on the Best Route to Growth Do you agree or disagree? - “The best route to growth is through specialization.” Full Service Agencies with Digital Capabilities Digital Agencies 5% 17 % 51% 39% 56% % 32 Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Don’t Know/No Opinion Don’t Know/No Opinion Q. Thinking about the advertising industry broadly, do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The best route to growth is through specialization (either by industry vertical or digital services offered) versus a general, full- service approach. A majority of digital agency respondents (56%) agreed that specialization offers the best path to growth as opposed to 32% of respondents from full-service agencies. While not unexpected that a majority of full-service agencies would disagree with such a statement, it was somewhat surprising that so many actually agreed. In other words, almost one third of respondents from full-service agencies said they thought the best route to growth is through specialization, suggesting they are not particularly bullish on their own business model. Both types of agencies were equally likely to have a product incubator / innovation lab within their company (roughly 40% for each type of agency) and – as previously stated – they largely agree on key advocacy issues. In short, there is a broad consensus across a range of agency types when it comes to the types of issues we need to fight for in order to drive the industry forward. A few examples…