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The pressure on communication agencies is intense, clients are constantly hoping for breakthrough ideas that are powerful enough to transcend the typically narrow media window and make it into popular culture.

As agencies work on these ideas they are increasingly looking for ever more promising hooks that are able to get the news media's attention, advertising as PR, as an example, Crispin looks at much of its work through the lens of a press release.

While this is great and a valuable awareness builder, do these efforts suffer because they are so focused on the news media as the target vs. the real audience?

SF Eater recently posted a graphic which they took apart Denny's recent Grand Slam breakfast promotion from the perspective of the end user and came up with a nice piece of math to quantify the opportunity cost of free.



While this is extreme and I am sure the Denny's promotion was a huge success on all fronts, it pays for planners and the media folk to work out whether these big ideas can really do all that's promised.

Of course this should all be in the brief, but if it is not, perhaps we need to employ some kind of bullshit filter to see if the proposed "big PR idea" has legs with consumers.


Posted by Ed Cotton BBH has a new campaign out in the UK for Barclaycard touting ease and convenience of payment, but what struck me most was the URL they use at the end of the spot, where instead of the corporate dot com address, there's a Facebook url.



This is a clear sign of the move away from corporate web destinations in favor of the locations where consumers are spending most of their time. This is a big shift and one that must be quite a challenge for companies to get their heads around, but it reflects the new reality.

This is just the start because it forces the agencies hand to work out how best to Facebook and looking at the Barclaycard example there are certainly some challenges.

Interestingly, the experience seems just like a corporate web site and not the organic, fluid experience you expect on Facebook.

While it's smart understand where your customers are, getting the experience right is critical .


Posted by Ed Cotton According to Campaign, VW is looking for a social media agency in the UK.

This will add another partner to the company's already expansive communications roster, add incremental fees and mean there's more to manage and co-ordinate. In a an environment where budgets and resources are being challenged, it seems counter-intuitive.

However, the media has done a good job, Influx Insights included, in hyping the social media space to such a point that client's probably believe the need a specialist to help them in this complex and challenging environment.

On the surface, at a moment in time when the CMO and his or her bosses seem fixated on the thrills of Facebook and Twitter, holding a review and hiring a specialist seems like a problem solved.

In reality, it might be more trouble that it's worth. If you take a step back and look at how social media breaks down and what's needed, it's pretty basic.

1. Someone has to listen and respond- probably best for the in-house customer service team to work on this.

2. Posting relevant content to get conversation-likely to be split between PR and advertising who both play a role in getting content out to the crowd. Good companies in these fields are already up-to-speed and know the world of social media.

Social media is another channel that must be a part of the communication mix, but fragmenting responsibility, while it seems like a sound plan, might make a marketers life a lot more complicated.

It would be great to get people's thoughts on this topic.


Posted by Ed Cotton Interesting to see The Atlantic write such a flattering article about The Economist and the current state of the newsweekly business. The discussion revolves around the recent changes and re-designs at Time and Newsweek, who are both hoping to drag their publications to new found success in an otherwise dying print market.
The Economist is the one shining ray of light that everyone now wants to emulate, but The Atlantic does not believe this is possible because The Economist possess one thing these other titles lack.

"The secret to The Economist’s success is not its brilliance, or its hauteur, or its typeface. The writing in Time and Newsweek may be every bit as smart, as assured, as the writing in The Economist. But neither one feels like the only magazine you need to read. You may like the new Time and Newsweek. But you must—or at least, brilliant marketing has convinced you that you must—subscribe to The Economist. "

In the end, it's all about the brand.


Posted by Ed Cotton There's a recent article in Ad Age that talks about the ANA meeting where CMOs vented their frustration with ad agencies over their responsiveness and the increasing opportunity they believe exists with media companies.

"Agencies and ad networks came in for some rough treatment at a CMO roundtable during the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference on Saturday as executives vented their dissatisfaction with agency models and ad-network performance. The chief marketing officers of Hewlett-Packard and Charles Schwab openly mulled the attractiveness of bypassing agencies to work directly with media companies and other experiments as they look to fix an agency model they see as broken."

In my view there's some truth to the argument that agencies are somewhat tied to a time intensive process that has to change, but in terms of thinking and ideas, I don't believe media companies can replace agencies.

The reality today is that great ideas matter way more than fast ideas.

Creativity is needed more than ever.

The reason for this is the massive increase in the volume of micro-interactions (emails, Tweets, Facebook updates, viral videos, channel surfing, radio surfing,etc...). I am not going to suggest we are reaching "Information Overload", or that we are suffering from "Future Shock", because I believe in our ability to adapt and manage. However, it's a simple fact that the more stuff you have the harder it's going to be to remember it and just "being there" in a media sense, I believe is no longer sufficient to generate interest, recall and to persuade.

This isn't about just showing up in a media, it's about placing a brilliant idea in media that is contextually right and relevant.

Brilliance has become a mandatory, because without it, there's no way your brand is going to be recalled or make an impact, it will simply be just another message that's ignored and goes in the trash, most of our email.

It's likely the CMOs in the article are merely reflecting back the pressure they are under and things taking time to get to market can add to that. However, the ad industry employs some of the smartest, brightest idea creators around and if clients aren't demanding and using that brilliance, they are missing something that's essential in today's tough times.




Posted by Ed Cotton A writer gets a cool opportunity to do a piece on legendary Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and turns it into a chance for Wired to go transparent; blog, film it and invite people in.

I guess the idea is to take a Kaufman-like approach to Kaufman.

Here's the pitch video- it's a little low tech and tough to watch..



While this is all very 2.0 and "on trend" it creates some interesting problems and issues.

1. Does any one care enough to spend valuable time going through this stuff?

2. Who might these people be? How can you give them what they want?

3. Is it really transparent- what are we missing/not seeing?

4. Notes and process also need to be compelling. It's not enough to just post or shoot you need to do more- real creative skills are required

5. Does the telling of the backstory take away from the main effort?

It's a brave attempt to do something new and original and the goal of taking the reader into the process is nice. The challenge is making all this stuff compelling enough to make people want to check it out.

Perhaps thinking it of two distinct parts is the problem; the research and the story or the process and the story.

Does it need to be "a whole"; something we just explore  and navigate around with hyperlinks et al?

It's smart of Wired to try this and I think with more work they could be on to something interesting that could lead to a new type of more "game-like"media experience.

Clearly, not everyone wants to be taken on a ride down a "wormhole", but there will be a few who might appreciate the experience, if it was designed correctly.


Posted by Ed Cotton