I am not one of those “Internet is the only way” guys but I do believe accountable results are better than mass market messages. I believe in convergence rather than Internet revolution.
But … something spectacular is building up. I forecast a huge budget movement from TV, radio and outdoor to online. The conventional agencies feel it, the clients know it.
Two years ago I’ve started my business with no capital. Just hard work and decent reinvestment of the profit. No credit, no investor, no nothing. I was knocking on the doors, meeting 3-5 clients a day, getting a new one every week. It was hard work and I had to do everything. I designed, developed, sold, invoiced, managed the account, report, met the client. Everything.
In two months it was too hard for me to do it all by myself and I had to work with a colleague freelancer, mr. Buga who later became a partner in the company. Andrei was the first actually, even before Alex, and we formed a nice little team. We had lots of fun together and launched some pretty cool projects.
… But cash was hard to get and every penny was carefully managed to pay the rent, the salaries, the incentives and others. I had many sleepless nights wondering how will I manage to get the payments in time, pay the salaries and keep everybody happy and motivated.
I always thought that, with time, it gets easier. It doesn’t. These game is not for the weak. There is always something that keeps you awake at night and there is always something that doesn’t go according to plan. But I had something that kept me going.
That was my promise to myself and to the world that someday we will be the best Interactive Agency in the world. It was the hope and the dream that kept me going. It was every campaign, website or product we’ve launched and every time we got together and congratulated each other on the work we’ve done, only to start again next day.
It was NOT the money. It never is. Businesses (and Interactive Agencies are businesses) are ran by people. Not by money. They are build with hard work. Not with money. They offer the world ideas, satisfaction and solve problems. It sounds idealistic but it isn’t. Check the economy manuals. Money is virtual. The thing that matters is value and value is not affected by the recession. It survives bubbles, it survives recession.
You see, some people, like me, think of recession as the status quo. Because, in the words of Steve Jobs you must “stay hungry, stay foolish”.
The sophisticated 3G European mobile market has been surpassed by the US market, as comScore reports.
It seems the American market grew 80 percent to 64.2 million during the past year. This huge growth has been enough to reach a 28.4% market penetration in 2008, up 11.7%.
The Western European market kept a steady growth, with Spain having a whopping 37.2% 3G market penetration.
I may rush to conclusion but I am sure the new iPhone 3G hype helped the US market to reach this figures. It seems 2009 will bring us even faster mobile internet connectivity and better web2mobile applications.
When I was a little boy I used to watch a TV show staring a famous football player (I can’t remember his name right now). The guy would show some of his favorite moves, those tricky shots and a little training program all in 15 minutes.
It wasn’t much but it made me dream one day I could be a world famous soccer player. I didn’t quite make it but the memory remained.
The campaign features a training website, where trainings are made in collaboration with world class trainers, a social network where you can invite your friends to train with you, stats regarding your training and even a cool mobile application to take your training program with you wherever you go.
I have to say I love both the concept and implementation.
The world spawned many organizational systems. Be it economic, social, religious or other I doubt we have reached a perfect global organizational system.
Socialism is Nirvana on paper but everywhere it was applied people manged to ruin things up. Working class leaders started and lead revolutions until they made it on top. Once there, they either became the dictators everyone feared (see the Chinese leader Mao Zedong), started revolution after revolution until shot dead (see everyone’s favorite t-shirt icon and political leader Che Guevara) or ruled the country into poverty and famine until stopped by citizens or outside security services.
Capitalism seems to be the wiser choice due to the higher standard living in capitalist countries and better economic trades, based on private property, free markets and investment concepts. Nothing is perfect however, as shown by the recent financial crisis.
Capitalism and socialism are just the tip of the iceberg as these systems can’t be managed without subsystems like the democratic structures, religious beliefs, military structures and others.
As the world gazes upon the ever-rising globalized economy a new low-level, barely perceptible structure arises. It is just a theory but I believe something I call Internitism is being born (don’t look it up, there is no such word. Yet.)
What is Internitism?
First of all Internitism is a full scale social system we are just beginning to understand and actually perceive. It features political structures, a special kind of democracy, its own economic regulations and markets (some that live beyond the off line economy), carefully delimited influence areas and territories.
Internitism does not care about color, geographical location, wealth, social class, religion or sex. In other words it might just be the perfect system.
Internitism is the web space and everyone inside it. Internitism is a new continent where people can (still) think and act freely, uninhibited by the social standards and regulations.
Its ever-growing influence and spread are the proof mankind tends to improve itself and think as one. The Internet is growing at a faster and faster rate, gathering more and more knowledge, having more and more adopters.
Think of Internetism concept as an ideology, rather than a social system, for a better understanding. You might want to see it from a different angle as it is already the ideology with the largest number of adopters in the world.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the last year, you have already heard about this thing called “The Financial Crisis”. I am also sure there was nothing too joyful about it.
So – what is this Financial Crisis and how are we, as interactive advertising people, affected or helped by the monster?
The Basics
First of all I will get into the basics of the Financial Crisis, nothing too complicated, just a simple “Financial Crisis 101″. Here goes:
a. The Recession is NOT the Apocalypse.
Although you may have heard some rumors regarding this, there is nothing spectacular about recession. It’s just part of the usual economic cycle.
You know when you get a lot of money, and spend it on useless stuff? You borrow some bucks from your friends, only to give them back at the next pay check. That’s exactly what happens with American economy. Only on a larger level.
b. So, are the recession and financial crisis the same thing?
Well, no. Financial crisis is the thing that happens when your friends stop giving you money because you didn’t pay them back the last time. Also – you don’t have a job and the money you make can barely give you a decent living.
That’s pretty much USA these days. The recession usually happens on a period of 10 years. The country needs some money in excess, borrows from other countries and than pays back in the next 10 years.
60 years have passed since the USA financial super-bubble started to inflate. Guess what … it went “Pop!”. The crisis has just began and it will affect a lot of people next year too.
c. Where can I hide?
The bad thing about this is that the whole world will “benefit” from it. Some will win and some will lose. In the bigger picture, you can look at the Crisis as the “wealth redistribution program”. Probably China and India (unlike the USA, they have a rising economic trend) will gain more and more influence. Probably the world will invest less in cars and more in green technology (we already see the rising demand for anything that is “green”, and it was predicted that green technology will outpace the Internet growth in 2008).
For what I am concerned I am sure the world will invest more into Interactive Advertising and less in Conventional Advertising, starting 2009. Which brings us to…
The Interactive Advertising Industry in 2009
Basically, if you want a safe place to keep your money until the times get better, look for an interactive agency that showed a profit in the last year and has a growing trend. Invest there.
What are the stats ?
I’ve put together some data to get the conversation started:
Business to Business marketers will increase their Internet spending by 16% in 2009, compared to 6% in conventional advertising, according to eMarketer;
Small and Medium business will increase their online buying activities by 40% due to lower costs and better services;
Top 100 Advertisers moved 1 billion dollars to Internet from the conventional media (a huge 33% growth, as reported by AdAge);
Top ten UK Interactive Agencies have totaled a £ 304.608.921 turnover last year;
60% of the top 100 interactive agencies are independent.
These seemingly disparate data will lead us to some very interesting conclusions you might or might not agree on. Let’s see them.
We will have to learn Chinese
No self respective interactive agency won’t be able to compete in a globalized market without some .cn expertise. 253 million users (and rising) are not to be ignored. At the moment the things are not very clear there but I am sure the government will ease up on censoring the Internet, allowing it’s citizen to enjoy more virtual freedom, as well as a chance for Internet related jobs and services.
Many conventional agencies will die
It does sound a little rough but I am sure clients won’t allow too many unaccountable spendings in 2009 with the recession at its peak. Advertising spending will rise overall as the market will be more and more competitive but some agencies are just not trained for results.
The new interactive advertising
Interactive advertising has proved successful and many clients will need the same accountability in off line advertising as they have online. The theory of media convergence will prove itself in 2009. We will start seeing displays that record the users preference, billboards that target your mood and contextual TV advertising.
Global budgets handled by Interactive Agencies
Most interactive agencies are way more budget conscious than conventional ones. Clients love that and they might consider this move.
Conventional Agencies acquired by Interactive Agencies
Interactive agencies are now the Cinderellas of Advertising but the times are changing and I would bet on at least three huge take overs or mergers next year.
Huge advertising groups will start fading. At least one new Interactive Communication Group will rise.
The likes of WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis, Dentsu and Havas will have big problems trying to hold their position in the new market, as capital is scarce, clients are ever demanding and the companies they run are inflexible. I sense that there will be at least one group with a interactive-based business philosophy that will rise to challenge the giants. Who will that be?
The world needs results in these times of economic struggle. Conventional has lost its spark and Interactive Advertising is getting better and better. These “new” (some are over 10 years old) agencies are growing at a faster rate anyone has predicted, just as the Internet does. The future holds many secrets but one thing I’m sure of: the interactive advertising is here to stay.
If you would have to place your bets, what would you bet on ?
Research in advertising has been a praised tool for quite some time. David Ogilvy, the promoter of advertising research always said “Look before you leap”. How else would you know where to place your advertising, how to do it and where to look for results?
With Ogilvy dead in 1999 and traditional research methods proving rather inefficient online we should look for new ways of doing research for interactive advertising.
Research in the Interactive World
Research provides answers. Answers for your following online campaign, stats on users behavior, your expected conversion rate, needed budget and others.
These answers are harder to find online because the questions are a little (ok, a lot) different from conventional media. Back in the day the questions you had to answer to were ” Who ? (Spokesperson), Says What ? (Advertising Message), To Whom ? (Target Audience), How ? (Which Media Channel), With What Effect ? (Desired Outcome) ” (source).
These simple questions followed a simple rule: The advertiser sends a message which is received (or not) by the audience, through some kind of media and evaluates his results after. Times have changed and the process of sending messages has turned to dialogue , where people want to stay in touch constantly with their favorite brands.
Once upon a time brands were the all mighty companies imposing trends by mass communication tools like TV, Radio and Print. Along came the Internet, the new media, and everything changed. People were interacting with each other and wanted to do that with brands too. Companies had to give in and start talking rather than shouting.
Nowadays the trend is picking momentum off line too as customers demand better interaction. Mobile marketing helped this and I am sure the future holds other means of helping users interact.
So you see research, as a concept, has to change. It has to evolve. We have to follow conversations rather than messages. We have to understand people and their lives rather than “demographics”. We have to understand tribes, rather than opinion leaders.
Ask the right questions to get the right answers.
Research is based on questions. The best answers come from the best listeners, asking the right questions.
Here are a few questions you should take into account next time you will be doing interactive advertising research:
Who is the person you’re talking to and who are his or her friends?
How do you keep track of your conversation with your tribe ? (find more on the subject here)
What makes you special ?
Does your brand fit in the tribe you are talking to ?
Where will your followers answers go to ?
Is your conversation pleasant? Are people listening to your marketing? Do they trust you ?
What are your target’s interests ?
These questions are the start to a clear view of where you stand. This is what you should know about your audience in order to communicate better, to receive better results and understand the market you are in.
