Richard Jenkins + Donkey
Will it get indexed?
Yes – Google never ceases to amaze. 20 minutes after creation … 2nd after Digg in organic search.
Will it get traffic?
Yes – 19 views faster then anything else on this blog in … 20 minutes.
Will it get people engaged?
Nope – doubtfully here. First movers win and this NYU Lawyer blogger was up first. Put up when it showed in the US and number 2 on Google (still a day later, until I put up mine, apologies) and 22 comments and counting. Including mine which proves I didn’t come up with the idea. And others after which proves the idea isn’t dead. Amazing.
What am I talking about?
Jon Stewart talked about googling “Richard Jenkins + Donkey” on his show this evening. And of course I did. As did others. But then again I live in the UK so I was a day late. And I DVR’d it so I was 10 minutes behind the UK live broadcast. But when I saw the lawyer’s blog I couldn’t resist the test. And it is still fun.
What does it prove?
Nothing drives traffic like good tv.
And sorry I couldn’t come up with a more rewarding set of images.
Check out Six Feet Under – great show if you haven’t seen it.
Proximity Gets a US Office – and it’s digital
After all of these years the “worldwide network” of Proximity will have a US office. It will also give 
Proximity’s digital team a major boast which I’m sure the teams in London and elsewhere will look forward to as they try to develop more digital work in the DM-centric offices.
So two questions to watch –
1) will Atmosphere add DM skills to become more like the original Digitas (Simon Hall’s original vision)?
2) will Proximity follow Atmosphere’s approach of building digital around display advertising not websites and applications?
Being focused on display advertising as Atmosphere is makes it a lot easier to integrate with BBDO’s traditional approach and creative structure, but makes it harder to be do advanced digital marketing — the transformational kind that requires good consulting, technical and deep creative skills.
Then again this may be smart — just as the management consultancies have said ad agencies shouldn’t bother to try to get a seat next to the CEO, perhaps they shouldn’t try to do complex digital work like R/GA either.
There is plenty of work out there doing advertising and campaigns.
Thursday, Feb 19
Breaking: Atmosphere BBDO To Be Absorbed by Proximity Worldwide
AgencySpy has learned that Atmosphere BBDO will be absorbed by Proximity Worldwide. Roy Elvove, EVP director of corporate communications confirmed the news moments ago.
R/GA Agency of the Year – Adweek
R/GA really may well be setting itself out as the agency for the new millenium. They do a lot of things differently — a lot smart, some less obvious.
Take the smart set. Here is a set of quotes from this AdWeek article that are really sharp in my book and when you review them — and other notes about the agency — you see a theme: the importance of technology, the idea that you create applications that are fixed rather then campaign-based, and that brands must commit to be successful.
R/GA has been the fastest growing agency since the 90s, has done amazing work and retains clients with big relationships. That is by definition success in our industry.
“There’s a difference between us and someone like Crispin Porter + Bogusky. We’ve taken the direction of building brand platforms rather than viral stunts or one-off things.” [Robert Greenberg]
The key, as Greenberg has long and frequently advocated, is technology, which enables forward-thinking companies to build systems that attract and retain customers while weaving marketing and product together. “We’re looking at customer behavior and seeing how to create something bigger than a TV spot or print ad,” says Greenberg, an architecture buff.
With a relationship dating to 2001 — a lifetime in the interactive world — Nike and R/GA are deeply enmeshed. “We have people on the ground at Nike,” says Nick Law, chief creative officer for North America at R/GA. “We have deep technical relationships with them.”
One of the crucial aspects of R/GA’s work in 2008 was to make real the promise of blurring the physical and digital worlds. This is an old quest for the digital industry and has, for the most part, come up empty over the years. Not so anymore.
“Software is a medium,” says John Mayo-Smith, R/GA chief technology officer. “Having people who understand software and a high-quality user experience is really important.”
Greenberg saw something different: He saw technology forming a new kind of creativity that relied less on the metaphors of talking animals in TV spots and more on brands connecting people. If the “traditional” notion of digital creativity is the hot viral video, Greenberg counters with an application that uses data in a new way to help people live better.
The key to apps: tech chops.
“They understand the Web, engagement on the Web and e-commerce,” says Michael Mendenhall, CMO of HP. “But they also understand advanced TV, mobile and all the other touch points that are part of the digital ecosystem.”
Entry to the executive suite also has given Greenberg an opportunity to sell his religion: that agencies must have technology at the core to help clients navigate the new world of digital media. While traditional shops might thrive in creating the hot viral video of the day, he preaches, they will fall short when it comes to building sustainable brand platforms and useful applications that blur product and marketing. That even applies to a shop like Crispin. When it comes to the core of Nike+, “they couldn’t even have the conversation,” Greenberg says.
A key area for the model Greenberg envisions is production, a discipline in which R/GA began its existence back in 1977. While most agencies rely on outside production, R/GA has kept its in-house. In 2008, revenue from the 30-person production facility grew by more than 300 percent compared to 2007. The digital studio shot over 250 video projects during the year, working for R/GA clients and other agencies and firms.
R/GA: Digital AOY 2008
The IPG shop’s mantra of utility over gimmickry proves its relevance as the stakes rise
Feb 16, 2009
Stepping into R/GA’s New York headquarters, a visitor notices, amid
the general bustle of a busy shop, the beautiful, sometimes
haunting images on the walls.
They are pieces from Bob Greenberg’s personal collection of
“outsider art,” more
Linx goes to … TMW. BBH Digital?
This is interesting. It seems like it was only yesterday that we were all talking about BBH having won Lynx’ digital business. It was one of the big events like Glue almost winning 3’s advertising. And it made digital veterans like Ian Tate question on the difference between digital and advertising clients.
Their first campaign launch, the Lynx Effect, was called an “agenda setting event” by Clare Beale herself. She called out the planning and striking design in an editorial, and in her column in the Independent made it sound as if the growth of the digital agency was done.
21 January 2008, The Independent
So the new site – www.lynxeffect.com
– is crammed with clever chat-up tools, such as a “fit girl finder” that you can download on to your mobile, and advice like, “Alcohol and chocolate make for a lady-wowing combination”, so click for cocoa cocktail recipes. And yes, there are plenty of sexy pics and the whole thing is beautifully crisp and user-friendly.But sod what the punters might think of it. The big question in adland is: “Can the non-specialist agencies do digital?” On the basis of BBH’s Lynx work, the answer’s a big, agenda-setting “yes”.
Claire Beale is editor of Campaign
I’m not sure at the time the digital specialists out there were as impressed by the site. Other work like BBH’s launch of an Audi site was pretty heavily critiqued. With a brand like Lynx it is usually easy to make great viral, and interactive campaign sites like Dare’s Feather show it. This site, aside from a great early use of video, is interactive, has send to a friend features and is original.
Brands doing their own video sharing sites like the Linx Effect are dismal and really were only proposed because teams new to digital could say “a YouTube for <insert brand here>.” Or maybe it is the opportunity for junior ad agency art directors to try out their directing skills for the seeding videos. Unfortunately they rarely catch on with the public as Coke found out in a big way. As did Hellmann’s. And countless others.
Of course the bigger question is what happened to BBH’s digital team? Was the big digital build out just a pr exercise? There was a very tight campaign with the reporting on hires like Michelle Stanhope from Glue. And the Linx win just afterwards. Had BBH truly turned the from its break up with Dare? In that case a group of digital experts decided they couldn’t work with the big famous ad agency — even despite BBH owning 37% and having John Bartle himself as non-executive chairman.
I think the answer is that “learning digital” and integration is harder then people expect. This article from the Times gives a nice view — and has a great quote that explains it.
Consider BBH’s Executive Creative Director’s quote here:
The Times – 13 May 2007
John O’Keeffe, executive creative director at BBH, is sceptical that there is anything unique about digital marketing skills. “There is a very, very simple truth to all this,” said O’Keeffe. “Nothing is more important than the idea. The people who espouse the view that [digital specialists] have some kind of technological advantage are diminishing in number. It’s just not the case.”
He added: “The technology is functionally very simple. It’s not difficult to find people who can press the right buttons. What’s difficult, and what’s always been difficult, is getting people who can have a great creative idea.”
I can’t say I know John O’Keeffe but I think I’ve met a number of people like him. Ideas are very important — but unlike a print ad, in the digital world the idea is only the beginning. And in the same Times article, the journalist hits the real point. The client’s point of view.
Unilever’s Alan Rutherford sounds less certain that the technical skills are easily acquired. He said: “We’ve given BBH the Lynx account to see if
they can get up to speed on digital.”
Unilever awards Lynx digital account to TMW
03-Feb-09, 11:45
LONDON
- Unilever has appointed digital and direct agency TMW to work on the
digital marketing account for the Lynx brand following a pitch.
Azure Aviation Update
Just did a check on the application my brother and I set up in 2004 to service the private aviation industry.
We had a good run and built out the brand, did a couple tradeshows and built up the clients from the original partner to 5 others.
My brother is still keeping it working for the key partners and just did a homepage redesign.
Revolution – Digital's Biggest Brains – Strategic Thinking
Was asked to write a piece for Revolution – which has always been one of my favorite interactive industry magazines. Ironically the article isn't available online, so I've put up images of the scans below and pulled out my piece. Great to get iris Digital in great company and see other names that have been in the UK biz for a while. Though adding the ages seems a little unfair — since I met a good few of them 10 years ago I now know they were in fact 12 when they started. Just dug up some of my original comments as well. It is too bad the last question didn't make the magazine — although I should say Kim Benjamin did a great job. Here it is:
Digital is not famous for having people in positions of power, making hard-nosed business decisions. How do you see this changing?
Digital is still a relatively young specialism so it isn’t surprising that high profile digital leaders aren’t in the headline grabbing positions of power — unless you are talking about digital businesses like eBay, Amazon, Yahoo!, Facebook or Google. That said these leaders’ decisions get quite a bit of attention and impact both the digital and traditional business significantly. Things will change as the current generation of business leaders moves on. Today we’re in the position where every business says “digital is important” and “digital is at the heart of our business” but like their advertising it is just a claim. Very soon we will see a new generation of leaders that understand like Google it isn’t what you say, but what you do. Or that like eBay network effects are very significant and not just a buzz word. And that the functionality on your website — a software development challenge — can make your business like Amazon. It is so much more then understanding how to make computers do interesting things, it is understanding a new approach to marketing and communication.
