Mainstream agencies make a bid for digital business

David Benady
2009 could be a make or break year for mainstream UK advertising agencies. Total spend on UK internet advertising - dominated by search - is poised to overtake that of television advertising and, in the midst of a recession, bigger agencies face mounting pressure to show that they have the digital skills and mindsets to compete with online specialists.
From BMB's iPint mobile phone game promoting Carling lager to TBWA\London's spoof online sport backing the launch of the Nissan Qashqai, traditional advertising agencies have shown they can display creativity outside television and print. But will the bigger agencies be able to turn out a consistent flow of digital branding campaigns to rival specialists such as Glue, Dare and Poke? Worryingly for the agencies, some brands are dispensing with their long-standing ad agency relationships altogether and bringing in digital specialists.
Last year 3, the mobile phone operator, moved its entire £28m UK advertising account out of ad agency Euro RSCG into digital specialist Glue London which will oversee both on and off line advertising. At the time of writing, ad agencies are keenly awaiting Glue's new work on 3 to see whether the agency is as adept at offline marketing as it has been at the online variety.
These will be testing times for the ad agencies and the effectiveness of the agency structures they have put in place to embrace the online world.
Structure
Among leading UK agencies, there is no single blueprint for how to organise their business to get a greater share of digital budgets. One path is to set up a separate digital unit and populate it with online marketing specialists. In the past two years, McCann Erickson London has established McCann Digital and Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R has set up Saint.
An alternative and increasingly popular strategy is to pursue an integrated approach of hiring online specialists and incorporating them into existing account teams. This allows the agencies to boast that they are digital to their core rather than offering online expertise as an optional add-on.
The UK's biggest agency, AMV.BBDO, has adopted this approach along with others such as BBH. Delaney Lund Knox Warren opted for the integrated path when it disbanded its specialist unit, DLKW Dialogue, and slotted its specialisms into the main agency.
One critic of this approach says it can be stifling for digital specialists working with creatives and planners that, they would claim, do not fully understand digital and its working practices. Digital staff, transplanted in this way, may feel that they won't learn from their peers in ways they would if they were operating in a specialist agency.
"Above-the-line creatives often don't want to dirty their hands with online because they have their hands full with TV ads," this critic says.
However, integrationists say the advantage of their method is that digital specialists are tasked with explaining digital and educating the rest of the agency about new media. Either way, brand owners still need convincing that the successful online campaigns created by mainstream agencies - such as BMB's iPint, BBH's work for Axe/Lynx and CHI's online strategy for Carphone Warehouse, the european mobile retailer - are more than isolated examples.
"The real currency of today is innovation," says RKCR/Y&R chief executive Richard Exon. "Every agency and every brand is trying to do something they haven't done before. That wasn't happening ten years ago when each agency - direct marketing, media or ad agency - was trying to excel in its specialisation."
This blurring of the demarcation lines between marketing services businesses is pitting every agency into competition with each other. One problem ad agencies need to overcome is clients' wariness of handing work to ad agencies' digital off-shoots as clients fear a digital relationship may be used as a battering ram to get the entire advertising business of the client in question.
This is the view of Juliet Blackburn, business director at AAR, which matches clients and agencies. She also warns that some agencies are less than honest about their interactive capabilities. Blackburn says: "I have a problem if agencies are masking their capabilities, saying they are doing everything online when they are actually sub-contracting to specialists. I like transparency in digital delivery."
Perhaps the biggest challenge for ad agencies is to realise that the digital world is much faster moving than TV advertising. A brand such as Guinness may create one blockbuster ad a year, scoop all the awards and then start work on the next big idea.
As one agency insider says of digital campaigns like BMB's iPint: "It is a one-off, a tactical, throw-away creation, a nice-enough little thing. But digital creativity has a much shorter life span than broadcast. Production and media costs are lower so there are lots of small things happening very often."
Campaign examples
iPint
The Molson Coors lager brand, Carling, paid just £31,000 to create iPint, the Apple iPhone's most downloaded free application of 2008. The iPint game, created for Carling by its UK ad agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay, soared to the top of the iPhone free download charts within a week of its launch in July 2008. Only £16,000 was spent developing the game while Carling shelled out just £15,000 from its PR budget to promote the application online.
However, it could end up costing agency BMB much more than this, after US developer Hottrix threatened to launch a $12.5m lawsuit against the brewer for stealing its own game on the iPhone called iBeer, for which it charged downloaders $3 per download. After complaints from Hottrix, Apple removed iPint from its US download store, though it is still available to users in other countries. At the time of writing, the dispute has yet to be resolved.
Once iPint is downloaded to an iPhone, users can play a simple game on the phone's screen. Using the iPhone's "accelerometer" which detects motion, you slide a pint of Carling down the bar avoiding obstacles on the way by tilting the phone to deliver the glass into a mate's hands.
You are rewarded with an "iPint", a virtual pint of Carling. As the iPint is poured, the iPhone's screen fills as if it were a pint glass. The virtual beer acts just like a real liquid, and you can "drink" the lager as you tilt the phone. BMB says it developed iPint to fit in with Carling's brand idea of bringing friends together. The iPint is a way for people to show off their iPhones to their friends in the pub, giving them "bragging rights".
There were two stages in testing the technology. The game was constructed on a PC-based emulator to de-bug the code and then it was tested on the SDK platform - the software development kit provided by Apple to create iPhone applications. The idea was created by BMB's digital creative director Jon Williams - now creative director at Grey - working with art director Dom Martin. A team was assembled from across the agency and Carling's digital departments. Technical fulfilment was outsourced to Swedish company Illusion Labs which specialised in visualising liquid motion on mobile.
Nissan Qashqai
Launching a new car across 14 European countries with a limited marketing budget requires some imaginative thinking. To support Nissan's introduction of the Qashqai sports utility vehicle-style hatchback, ad agency TBWA invented spoof online sport "Qashqai car games" to create a pre-launch buzz and establish the model's "urban proof" positioning. You can read a full case study on the Euro Effie winning campaign here.
The Car Games website features drivers performing some unlikely stunts with their Qashqais and allows users to follow teams and drivers. This was backed up with experiential activity, such as a road-show across European cities. The site has been viewed by nearly 20 million people and TBWA says it is evidence of the way ad agencies can use their planning and creative skills to solve brand problems.
"The advantage ad agencies have over digital specialists is that we tend to have lead relationships with clients, and we are called in a little earlier and on a more strategic long term basis," says TBWA\London planning director Tom Morton, who worked on the Qashqai launch.
"Nissan gave us a problem to fix - a new vehicle in a hard-to-understand category that needs as much familiarity as possible before launch. It is a classic communications challenge at which ad agencies excel, rather than just being asked to create a new ad execution," he says.
The agency came back with the idea of positioning Qashqai as a versatile urban vehicle and using different media to express this idea creatively. TV and print ads were created by TBWA's Paris office, leaving TBWA\London to oversee the digital activity. For this, it worked with specialist online companies such as viral marketing company GoViral. The positioning was created by TBWA\London's Nissan planner, account director and creative on the business working together. Lloyds TSB Savvysaver
As the credit crunch worsened in 2008, Lloyds TSB, the UK banking group, briefed its agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R to come up with some engaging ideas to capture the mood of the nation in the new straitened times. Lloyds wanted to show it was in tune with the public's new money-saving ethos.
The agency's digital arm, Saint, hit on the idea of creating a website offering money saving tips under the title savvysaver. This would enable Lloyds to position itself as a trustworthy source of information and a company that can help people.
Lloydstsbsavvysaver.com offers dozens of tips grouped under headings such as holidays, motoring and transport and food and dining. But the most striking point for agencies is that the digital strategy became the basis for a TV ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik9Gc-8p2RY

Socially networked show

BRAND :Cheetos
BRAND OWNER: Frito Lay
CATEGORY:Food
REGION: USA
DATE: Feb 2009 - May 2009

Cheetos wanted to target 18-35 year olds just out of college or getting into the real world and associate itself with engaging content that would entertain rather than interrupt. This was part of a wider Cheetos campaign to appeal to adult consumers.
The snack brand teamed up with popular actor Ashton Kutcher to fund a web-series centering around a Hollywood production company, with Kutcher as the boss. It was the first sponsored series to be distributed through a Facebook application, called FunSpace, created by Slide, the largest publisher of entertainment applications.

The idea was that Cheetos could engage with young people in this way in an environment where they were hanging out anyway, with the hope that it created conversations around content.
The series, KatalystHQ, is a “fly-on-the-wall reality” parody about working in Kutcher’s production office and follows the experiences of Katalyst’s staff as they navigate the excitement and perils of corporate life set against a backdrop of the television and film industry. Cheetos are worked into the story lines and given custom-made pre-roll ads. It is available at www.FunSpace.com/KatalystHQ.
The deal echoes that of Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane’s microseries deal with Google.

Become a Doritos guru

Doritos has a long track record of user generated ads, and its latest campaign in Canada is no different. Doritos has launched a new flavour with a secret recipe and is inviting people to think of a name to match it in the Doritos Guru Contest.Consumers can find the new flavour in stores in a plain white packet.

Consumers are invited to try the new recipe, think of an appropriate name and then create and upload a 30-second commercial inspired by the flavour.

Visitors to a microsite vote for their favourite and the winner receives $25,000 in cash and one percent of the flavour’s Canadian net sales.

Doritos Canada 2009

How We Work: Our Process and Pricing Guide for Web Design

Arnold Yoon / October 15th, 2008 /
In this day and age, being fiscally aware and responsible are really important things - I want to know where my money is going, and in what fashion. Service industries such as ours have always been plagued with a lack of clarity in pricing.

Full disclosure, no secrets!
When shopping for products, whether it’s a couch, food or a computer, both cost and quality play important roles in making a decision. The prices are clearly laid out, even for big ticket items such as homes and cars, so that we can make an informed decision. This being said, why is it that professional service industries don’t have this sort of transparency as a norm? Shouldn’t I be able to see the qualifications and cost commitment at-a-glance to determine if I can afford a particular lawyer, general contractor, or web shop? The answer to these questions should be, YES!
That has always been committed to integrity and true transparency with all of our clients, both prospective and active. We calculate and provide clear, value-driven pricing on everything that we do. No smoke-n-mirrors, no secrets and definitely no BS! Granted, we’re not the low-price leader in web design firms, but do you really want the cheapest open-heart surgeon out there? You want the best for your dollar. We price our services on a value-based model: one which delivers comprehensive intellectual ROI immediately and throughout the business relationship.
Intellectual ROI? What on earth is that?! It means that you, as the client, receive tangible deliverables that produce valuable results throughout our whole relationship, not just pretty designs after 4 weeks. The road to those deliverables requires a lot of research, strategy and planning before execution (this is the Base Process). This is where we, the “metro web nerds,” combine our expertise with your passion and build a plan to execute your vision. After all, it’s impossible to cook a great meal without a solid kitchen, fresh ingredients and some culinary knowledge.

In our initial meeting, we learn about your project and understand brand goals and vision. Also share expertise in the web 2.0 space as it applies to brand project. Once have a collective understanding of what Brand goals are, we’ll build an estimate for the total cost of the project. While we work on an hourly basis, we want you to have an accurate representation of what the project will cost based on our discussion. There is always the chance of the project scope increasing as we strategize new ideas and functionalities, but you’ll always be a position to approve or deny the enhancements. We charge a rate of $175-$225/hour depending on the complexity of each task for strategy, design, front end development and integration services.
Here is an outline of how a typical engagement with dt works:

1. Strategic Alignment (primary discovery and brainstorming session)
2. Proposal and Contract
3. Kickoff Meeting (Both teams design and fill in the minute details on the project roadmap)
4. Flows & Wireframes (the structure and user interface of the site / web app - think of this as a blueprint for the key user interfaces to be built)
5. Living Designs (the look and feel of the interface - we add color, light, graphics and texture to the wireframes)
6. CSS/.XHTML Build (the Living Designs come to life with web standards strict code)
7. integration/Interaction Design (design templates are integrated into the website and made functional - additional programming takes place, such as AJAX and other front end effects)
   

Our relationship with you is like cooking with a partner - we work together to create something unique and super tasty. We will challenge your thinking and evolve your concept like a beautifully-crafted meal. This being said, it’s time to break the traditional service-agency model and “put our menu in the window.”

Here are the details about our process, the time it takes to achieve them and what each of the parts cost:
Base Process: $6,300

• Meet and Kickoff
  
• Strategy, Research, Client Self Realization (Creative Brief)
  
• Project Management and Meetings
  

Page Design Process: Cost Depends on the Project and the Numbers/Types of Pages

We divide our projects into 3 key types of pages, based on their classification and complexity. For each type of page, there are 3 “ingredients” required to create the finished product:

• Flowcharts and Wireframes
  
• Living Designs
  
• .CSS/HTML Build

Per-Page Costs (includes the 3 ingredients above for each page)

• Home Page: $4,200
  
• Primary Design Page: $2,450/page
  
• Secondary Design Page: $1,225/page
  

A Sample ProjectLet’s say that we’re embarking on a project to build a site for a neat web application that will give users sample recipes based on what they have in their fridge or pantry. The project might be priced out like this:

• Base Process ($6,300)
• Home Page Design ($4,200)
• Primary Page Designs/Build ($7,350)

Enter ingredients
Recipe results
Featured recipes
Blog
Cooking tips

• Secondary Page Designs/Build ($3,675)

Search recipes
About Us
Contact us


TOTAL: $21,525 + Integration Costs (based hourly on time and materials)


Time and Materials: $175/hrdigital-telepathy offers strategic user experience design without any filler. We never “pad” hours in our estimates - you get the straight story with no BS! We use the calculations above to figure out how many hours it will take to complete your project. This being said, there are often aspects of your project which will be billed additionally as Time and Materials. Some examples of these a-la carte items are:

• Additional strategic time
• Logo/Branding
• Additional design time
• Integration into your backend or a CMS, and front-end programming (these are nearly impossible to quote initially, as the complexity is not usually determined until the flowcharts and wireframes have been completed.)
• Additional features and functionality
• Out of scope revisions
• Additional project management time
  

What do You Get?In addition to piece of mind resulting from a solid strategic foundation, you’ll walk away with a beautifully engineered and artistically crafted front end (Page Designs + .CSS/HTML Templates) for your back-end application or content management system. We’ll integrate the designs into your system if you like, or you can have your programmers take care of that

Skittles :::Wikis its homepage

BRAND: Skittles
BRAND OWNER:Mars
CATEGORY:Food
REGION:USA
DATE: Feb 2009 - Dec 2008

These days it is not unusual for a brand to give consumers some control over their website or marketing, be it Doritos inviting consumers to name a new flavour, or getting consumers to come up with a TV spot idea. But Skittles has gone one step further by completely relinquishing control of its own website. 

In a bold move, skittles.com features content drawn from all over the internet, with social media touchpoints including content from YouTube and Wikipedia, what people are saying about Skittles on Twitter as well as Flickr and Facebook.

Upon arrival to the site, visitors are greeted with the message: “Don't sweat it, this is still Skittles.com. It just has a new twist. Use this as your guide to find anything and everything Skittles that's online. Have fun".

The homepage is made up of Twitter comments including the word “Skittles”. Anyone who “tweets” about Skittles automatically gets their comments to appear on the Skittles homepage. The site has effectively been “Wikied”, providing a window onto all content created about Skittles within social media.

Visitors to the Skittles.com are accompanied by a small branded toolbar which allows for navigation between the various social media outlets.
Skittles has been criticized of copying Boston ad agency Modernista!, which pulled a similar move last year with its own website, although it is a first for a consumer brand.





























HEAR THE RAINBOW
Popout
BREAK THE RAINBOW
Popout
CRY THE RAINBOW
Popout


TBWA/SHANGHAI 

Mini-series drives airlines alliance

BRAND: Star Alliance
BRAND OWNER: Star Alliance
CATEGORY: Travel/Airlines
REGION: Multi-local
DATE:Oct 2008

Star Alliance, the international airline network aimed at frequent international travellers, wanted to increase awareness among its target audience and so created a series of short documentaries with businessmen in mind to drive traffic to their website.
The series, called “A Meeting of Minds”, produced with CNBC International, saw entrepreneurs interviewing global business leaders on the art of improving business, especially in emerging markets, and breaking into international markets.
The films were uploaded to staralliance.com and were available in nine different languages.
To complement the campaign, Star Alliance also developed an international business etiquette guide to acknowledge the importance of different cultures when doing business around the world, produced in association with international magazine, Monocle.
As well as the mini-series Star Alliance placed a number of advertisements on targeted news, business ad travel websites directing visitors to a video landing page at www.staralliance.com, and ads ran in Star Alliance’s 21 member carriers’ in-flight magazines, on entertainment channels and in posters at London’s Heathrow and Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airports.

The horror of milkshake

Milkshake brand Frijj looks to highlight its “unique thickness” via a film contest that plays on the classic horror movies.A series of virals show Four Ridges, a fictional 1950s town, being terrorized by a little girl called Martha.

These drive consumers to a website where they are encouraged to upload their own scary movies featuring Frijj. The brand has also extended the horror metric to cinema with a ticket giveaway that offers purchasers the chance to watch classic horror movies as part of a film festival.

Puma dials up the football

BRAND:Puma
BRAND OWNER:Puma
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:European
DATE:May 2008 - Jun 2008
MEDIA AGENCY:ZenithOptimedia

The European Championships in Austria and Switzerland set a particular challenge for Puma. Budgets were significantly down on the World Cup of 2006 while rivals such as Nike and Adidas were expected to keep their spend high.The brand knew that watching big football games was about community – the reason why fans watch matches in groups be it at home, bars, cafes and pubs. The challenge for Puma would be to enhance this sense of togetherness.Together Everywhere was all about achieving this. Consumers would be able to sign up to a mobile message that highlighted their patriotism, put them in touch with Puma stars and also enabled them to talk to their own community.Consumers who signed via to the mobile WAP portal would be able to hear a relevant celebration football chant every time their team scored. When the goal hits the back of the net, the ringtone would be heard and consumers would hear a pre-recorded message from a Puma player before being put into a conference call with the people they had registered on the WAP portal. After the call fans were encouraged to upload images of their celebrations to to pumafootball.com.The aim was to associated Puma with that moment of joy and bring the good news to fans who were unable to watch the match at a time when no other brand would be part of their lives.
The activity was promoted via SMS, online ads and via pumafootball.com as well as via press and outdoor.

Lamb with your tennis?

Meat and Livestock Australia became part of the Australian tennis open

It's often said that the best TV ads are as good as the programmes that separate them. Meat and Livestock Australia's ads are so good that viewers now actively look forward to its lamb promotion each January.

In 2008 it took advantage of this fact and turned the tables on broadcasters. Instead of booking a standard schedule it asked broadcasters what they would do to win access to its content. The result was unprecedented integration

Meat and Livestock Australia Australia 2008

DEMONSTRATING GPS

Nokia arrived in China with a new gadget, the country’s first GPS enabled mobile. Its mission was to convince upscale consumers that once they had GPS they would never go back.The solution was to demonstrate the navigational benefits of GPS by creating a contest to identify those citizens with the best and worst sense of direction

Nokia N6110 China 2007

The city furniture gets made to measure outfits in Zurich

SHIRTS THAT FIT

A bespoke tailoring specialist has dressed up Zurich and in particular the streets near high paying financial services firms to boost demand for its products. A key element of the campaign has been the fact that Artesanos offers a made to fit service for consumers with non-standard body shapes.

Among the items of street furniture getting a makeover were a tree and a lamp post while pricing tags on these unusual made-to-measure items provided a discount for new customers.

Artesanos Camiseros Switzerland 2007