For the meantime anyway, you can watch it here
Archive for the 'advertising' Category
I guess you mention Berocca… you get free stuff.
OK so the topic of whether or not to move away from micro-sites is a perennial one, and I’ve just been asked to comment on the topic, so here you go. They are often viewed as being expensive, a pain to manage, transient and sometimes a waste of money. To an extent these points can be true, however micro-sites still have their place and value.
Anonymity
Building buzz around something can require a degree of anonymity. Take the Film and TV industries for example. Films and TV shows are frequently launched with extended teaser campaigns, sometimes along with a complex ‘game’ to reinforce the mystery or history surrounding the concept. The TV Series Lost launched with a plethora of web sites, OceanicAir, The DHARAMA Initiative, The Hanso Foundation as well as the official web site hosted on ABC.com. The point is, placing all these websites on ABC.com would have watered down the experience. Secondly, placing these ‘out there’ on the Internet can even re-inforce the anonymity. If the site is entirely unbranded, one way to find out if it ‘belongs to anyone’ is to do a simple ‘Who Is’ look-up of the domain name and hey presto you have to owner… ABC.com. But if the site is hosted on a URL who’s DNS entry is registered anonymously, the mystery can be retained. This you cant do if it’s sat on the parent companies web server.
Unconstrained Creativity
Agree with this or not, micro-sites hosted outside the confines of a core web site can allow for greater freedom of expression of the brand. Why? Simple, most major web sites these days are hosted of templated content management systems. Frequently, these don’t offer blank canvas that is required to deliver a highly interactive, immersive experience. Yes, this can be done to a degree within a templated site, but not to the same degree as outside. There is an argument to say that the kind of experience as offered via micro-sites should be constrained within a core or master site, but more often than not the freedom simply isn’t there.
Segment Specific
Campaigns, of which micro-sites are generally a manifestation, tend to be targeted at very specific customer segments. Engaging with these segments can be far easier, and less tonally awkward, outside the confines of a ‘master branded’ web site. Even though a brand may have a large teen audience for example, the master brand as reflected on the core web site, may not talk to the audience on their ground. A micro-site therefore may be the best place to do this, where the tone can be altered, without making the bran look like your Dad at a rave.
Another approach, as best demonstrated by Nike, is to make your entire ‘web site’ a collection of what are essentially micro sites: Nike Golf, Football, Nike+, Woman, NikeLab and so on. The master site simply becomes a pointer to a series of highly segment specific, targeted product sites. And lets face it, very few people say Nike.com is a bad thing…
The Partners live in a really lovely building at the end of Greenhill Rents just off Cowcross Street in Farringdon, London. In their reception they have lots of awards, or more specifically Pencils including a black one. Awards are something they have lots off, in fact I think, hundreds, which for a company of less than 50 people is pretty damn inspiring. The trouble is though, that to me they are a challenge. None of them are so far, I think, for work that is entirely Digital. I have a lot to live up to. Gulp.
A good post from and ex colleague Geoff on the opportunities for Brands on Flickr has preempted something I was going to write on the same subject, but it’s interesting to see that Geoff came at it from a different, perhaps more positive attitude. I’ve long used Flickr as a gauge to research peoples perception of a particular brand. There’s no real technique to this, you just enter the Brand Name as a Flickr search and see what comes up…. simple.
A recent bad experience with Carphone Warehouse, that I’ll write up when I have time, got me to searching Flickr to find some images of a store that I could use in a PowerPoint deck… what I found however were lots of images tagged ‘carphone warehouse’ a bit like this:
Something to do with their Christmas Ball or whatever. As Geoff rightly points out, the amount of traffic Flickr gets, aside fro perhaps Google images, it’s pretty much THE image database of the Internet. What interests me, is not the opportunities as outlined by Geoff which are all valid and spot on, but how do Brands deal with the stuff they can’t, or perhaps can control? Do Brands need to consider what they allow their employees to publish in what is essentially their name?
When I started working commercially in the internet back in 98 (Oh! 10 year anniversary, Yay! ) the Agency that I worked in then had 5 kinds of people working for it:
Account Managers, Project Managers, Designers, Back End Developers, Front End Developers
That was it. Five. There wasn’t even much of a sense of rank or hierarchy. Look inside a Digital Agency now and it will look something like this:
All those discipline above exist, but may have within them 5 to 7 levels of seniority. The tech Department may have separated into technology disciplines: MS Practice, Java Practice, Data Warehousing etc. The creative department will now contain traditional Designers as well as Copywriters (of an advertising ilk), Flash Designers (not Flash Developers… they sit in Tech), more traditional Creative Teams of two if the Agency is biased towards online campaigns, 3D Animators, Video & Motion Graphics specialists. New disciplines have emerged or transfered form another mediums: Editorial and Content (written), Information Architects, Usability Experts, Usability Testers, Interaction Designers, User Experience Architects……. Planners, Strategists, SEO & SEM experts and so on…
The point is that many of the Digital Agencies that exist today are pretty mature, despite only been 10 to 15 years old. The people who have worked there through this period, now really do know their stuff. Forces to be reckoned with, digitally…. So why are most ‘traditional agencies’ now trying to compete with these guys on their ground? Advertising dollars, no shock there.
If you look at what digital agencies are trying to do, they all want a piece of the Traditional Agencies action… they’re now talking about Branding, Advertising and so on. The reason here not being dollars, but one of ego’s. Digital people now realise it’s ‘their day’, and after ten years of scavenging the crumbs of advertising dollars, want a seat at the table just like their big brother at the Ad Agency. Traditional Agencies on the other hand are now all talking Digital ‘cos that’s the way it’s going isn’t it… uh…. computers’. Both as bad as the other. The point is, both kinds of agency have fathoms of deep expertise in their own areas. Where is the experience deeper? On the traditional side, it’s been around longer.
‘Digital’ people who have grown up in web agencies do know a lot about technology, the internet, the world wide web and the magic therein that can be woven. Where we can lack experience is in a deep understanding of things like Branding, Design, Advertising, PR. Despite what we may think, we still have a lot to learn. It’s interesting that recently both AKQA and Digitas have launched content offerings: AKQA Film and Digitas - The Third Act. Why? Is that what thy are really good at?
There’s an ad campaign running at the moment that lazily uses the idea of ’sleeve facing’ as popularised on flickr. The ad is so lazy I can’t even remember what it’s for, but I would be interested to know if the bone idle agency that came up with the bright ‘idea’ shared their inspiration with their clients.
According to McCann Ericsson we are all moody here in Blighty. (No shit Sherlock) Anyway, just thought it compared nicely to yesterdays post about the BBC’s WHITE | Spectrum…. which has a way lovelier execution. Though McCanns drawings are nice.
Why not pack in as many links to random Orange stuff as you can!
Can we have National Arse Slapping day too?
So I wonder if there is a planner sat somewhere feeling very pleased with themselves saying “I told you so!!! If we make the logo really shit then the ‘users’ are bound to make LOL’s”
Oh Snap! LOLCats? LOLBots? Hey, here’ssss……. LOLBrandz. LOL!
Recent Comments