Dan Hocking / Opinions on… just about everything.

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The Post-Digital Age and the People It Needs

August 3rd, 2010 • Marketing • View Comments

In the old days of advertising and marketing – the pre-digital age, if you will – it was all about the silos. The account team spoke with the clients; the planning team did the research; the creative team did the brainstorming and, well, creative work; the production team made sure that everything was done on time and to spec. You either had to be in one silo or another if you wanted to work within the industry.

Then, along came this little thing we like to call the internet, and we introduced a new group to the mix: the developers and digital teams. Some of the big traditional shops struggled adding the digital team to the mix, but they eventually figured it out, and the new process integrated the new silo into the mix. While digital mainly started as informational and promotional in nature, there was an inherent shift in time towards creating quality content – just as on any other medium. Some agencies kept it simple (“we create websites”) as a part of their model, which others went a little more specialized with their approach (“using interaction design and usability research, we create comprehensive web architecture and content strategies to engage consumers…” – you get the drift.) Some new media agencies acted upon many of the key learnings from video production shops, forming successful digital production houses, servicing other agencies and clients.

In the last couple of years, the art of the cross-functional team has become prevalent, where the silo walls have been lowered (if not removed), and more team members are now involved in the end-to-end project process, coming in and out to deliver key insights or feedback in order to make the project more successful. This process has resulted in more creative projects that better utilize the digital capabilities, and has expanded the mindset of the client and the agency alike in developing new programs; to this, there is no doubt. Team members that can function in a cross-functional environment and relate to their colleagues are better set up for success than those who stay in their own silos.

However, I believe the age of using digital – or most media – as an interruption tool – or as a tool that solely pushes aspirational values without participation – is over. There are many recent examples that demonstrate this – and if you’ve sought out our blog, you know many of these – and the value of participatory content has been shown over and over. Because digital serves as a tool for participation and interaction, and the most successful campaigns involve online experiences leading to offline interactions, I argue that we’ve entered the post-digital age. If you’re not integrating your digital work into your overall campaign strategy – and using it as a medium like you would anything else we do – you’re missing out on many valuable opportunities to take the engaged user online and convert them into an engaged customer offline – which is the whole point of marketing in the first place.

What is interesting to me is the mindset that this requires of people working in our industry. No longer is the ability for someone to work in a cross-functional environment an important evaluation tactic for me with any new hire; instead, I think we should be looking for cross-functional people. Cross-functional teams bring together people with different functional experience under a project manager to execute on a project. Cross-functional people have multiple experiences or key skill-sets to bring into a project, offering different viewpoint across the project spectra. While, from a tactical level, you still require all of your skills to execute on a project – creative, development, etc. – having cross-functional people as part of your organization really benefits the planning and strategic portions of the project, as utilizing these different skill sets up front allows for different types of ideas to be developed, in addition to building an added level of flexibility into the project. I want to work with a developer who is able to strategize, or a creative who is obsessed with research, or an account executive who happens to love analytics and analysis. The more people you have able to perform multiple skills, the easier it can become to adapt during a project if something isn’t at the level it needs to be.

As someone who has worked at smaller shops (and run my own agency previously), I’ve seen plenty of roles that are hybrids due to resource requirements and limited funds. I’ve heard lots of arguments again this, mainly because “people aren’t able to focus on specific tasks.” (Paraphrased.) I would argue that the hybrid is the way of the future in our business – and many other industries – and that we better get used to it.

Why Pepsi’s Refresh Everything campaign isn’t anything new…

January 12th, 2010 • Marketing, Social Media • View Comments

So if you’re reading this, you’re probably already aware of the fact that Pepsi pulled their cash for Super Bowl advertising this year to instead be diverted into a campaign entitled “Refresh Everything,” an effort to put money back into American neighbourhoods based on user selection. It’s been repeated ad nauseaum within the marketers and social media spaces as the tipping point of major brands and social media, and you’ll likely hear even more about it as Super Bowl weekend approaches. It’s an interesting campaign to examine not because of the fact that it’s been funded with money diverted from traditional advertising (and an area that 5 years ago, would have been shocking to not have a brand like Pepsi participating in Super Bowl advertising), but in how little the execution actually has to do with the Pepsi brand. (I can just see the brainstorm taking place at Pepsi’s AOR: “What if we did a play on words with refreshing? You know, Pepsi has refreshing taste, cleaning up stuff is called a refresh – don’t those go perfectly together?”) Ultimately, it’s the supposed “big idea” that isn’t supposed to exist in the digital world – and while it doesn’t surprise those of us who are in the industry, it may be that public movement backed with money that actually legitimizes social media campaigns as a primary tactic in the public eye. (Disclaimer: We’ve proposed ideas like these to clients and been shot down because they’d never work. Pepsi will either prove us right or wrong, I guess.)

See, here’s the deal: this isn’t anything new. Companies that have seen universal success in the social media space have done so thus far because they’ve done one of two things:

They’ve provided a platform for either brand evangelists to speak strongly for their brand without much intrusion (see Coke’s Facebook fan page and their efforts to have it run by the fans that started it, despite Facebook’s efforts as a key example, or Honda’s Love campaign) or provided a place for brand evangelists/brand critics to provide input on the brand (with MyStarbucksIdea and Dell’s Ideastorm being the key examples – Ideastorm taking Dell from the bottom of the pack in customer service satisfaction surveys to the top). or;
They’ve activated a campaign that has nothing directly to do with selling products, or pushing brand messaging around product benefits, instead focusing on social or entertainment-related movements that speak to aspriational messaging around the brand. Pepsi’s campaign is an example of this, but so is the Greatest Job in the World campaign, Mad Men’s fake Twitter accounts, the Nissan Hypercube campaign, Coke’s CokeTag Facebook application, the Halo launch ARG, etc, etc… all not pushing product messaging (“Buy This,” “Watch This,” etc,) but creating this experience around the brand, and creating the connection in people’s heads. This is strongly based on traditional marketing efforts of association, but with the added complexity of user interactivity and the ability for consumers to influence the successes of these campaigns.

In fact, this label can likely be applied to the digital space in general – yes, you need a corporate website; yes, you need information online, but if you’re looking to actually produce results (and you’re not in the eCommerce business), you need to create something that I’ll remember offline – and pushing straight product/brand messaging isn’t the way to go with that. Pepsi isn’t doing anything revolutionary; they’re just the first to throw this much cash behind an idea online that isn’t seen as helping to sell product – when in reality, it likely will.

What do you think? Do you agree with my two types of social media successes? Are there organic social media examples that live outside of this?

Rogers on Demand Online (#RODO) – An Initial Review

November 24th, 2009 • Toronto Social Media, Uncategorized • View Comments

Rogers is no longer in the cable TV business – we’re in the video entertainment business.
David Purdy, Vice President Video Product Management, Rogers

Last night, the fine folks at Thornley-Fallis invited me out to an event for a launch of a new Rogers product. Well, that’s technically not correct; what they were doing was “leaking” this product into the hands of a few socially-minded folks for us to try and talk about.

The product is Rogers on Demand Online – a web extension of the Rogers On Demand service, and what is seemingly their answer to the Hulu/Fancast products. Public launch date is November 30th. ROD Online is an ad-supported content network online, available to any Rogers/Fido customer – including wireless, internet, home phone or even pre-paid wireless customers. Additional content is available to Rogers Cable subscribers depending on their packages – if you’re subscribed to Premium TV options, you’ll have access to more content based on the specific channels you’ve subscribed to. They see the platform as offering additional extras – though the specifics of which they didn’t do a deep dive into – above and beyond what you could find on ROD on TV.

The product itself is wrapped in a slick interface (screenshots below), and while the content on the beta now is limited to Rogers and Corus properties, Rogers VP David Purdy hinted at a major content provider signing on this week. The video is served up adequately right now – the Rogers team told me that this week is concentrating on performance in production, so many of the slight hiccups that I’ve seen are likely to be addressed during that time.

So, what’s the verdict on this? Let me break it down:

The Good:

Free (to existing consumers): There was a lot of talk about it being a value-add piece to current packages, and all of the conversation that centred around cost spoke to a philosophy that would have it remain free (if ad-supported.)
Quick: Despite all of the disclaimers that the Product Manager gave about it being a beta, and having performance issues, I haven’t really seen that. The videos have been for the most part snappy, page loads haven’t been long (4 seconds or so, and the Lead Architect was telling me he wanted to make it down to 1 or 2 seconds before launch), and the video streams incredibly well, with only a minimal waiting time if you’re scanning through the video.
Slick: This isn’t your usual Rogers digital product. The interface is well-thought out from the landing page, and presents the various video options above the fold. The site organization seems like it’s had a significant amount of thought put into it, and it was intuitive to use. While I’m curious as to how the UI/UX will change to integrate in social and community features (something promised for early 2010), or for the mobile integration they’re launching in Q2 2010, so far, they’ve got it right.
Easy to Provide Feedback: Feedback controls are present up-front, and while the labels could be a little more intuitive (I’d hate to be on the team that will have to moderate the current “Feedback” area; more direction please!), the fact that it’s an integral part of the interface while viewing a video shows the thought behind listening to the userbase. In fact, I Tweeted last night about my surprise about Rogers’ desire for ongoing user feedback – that’s not the Rogers that I’ve seen over my 10+ years as a consumer – but I got the sense that the product team actually believed it. If they’re willing to let their userbase help shape features and content, this would be a move we’ve NEVER seen from a Canadian carrier.

The Not-So-Good:

The Ads: Okay, so I want to have my cake and eat it too, but the ads do irk me a bit. While the answer to the question of how frequent the ads are last night was “it depends on the provider,” the fact that some programs will have the same amount of total (unskippable) ad time as commercial TV in a day and age where PVRs are the norm doesn’t make sense. Yes, I like that it’s free; no, I don’t like the fact that some of it has to be ad-laden to do so.
The Content: This also isn’t really fair – and this point may change as the service goes along – but right now there just isn’t enough compelling content. As their “deep library” (read: old movies, seasons of TV shows, etc) expands, this may become less of an issue, but there is currently significantly less content than is available on the TV-based Rogers on Demand service.

The Elephant in the Room: What about the Data?
There was one question in the room that was left unanswered, or at least, without a satisfactory answer, and that is what impact this will have on the monthly data caps as a Rogers consumer. While you can access this program as a Bell, Teksavvy, or other internet provider, it’s how current Rogers consumers will see this changing their usage or billing that remains a question. To be fair, this is not a question that anyone in the room, save perhaps Purdy, should’ve been expected to answer – the Product team should be worried about putting together the best product possible, not about some of the repercussions that it has on other Rogers services. In my opinion, Rogers needs to handle this VERY carefully with the average consumer, so that the shell-shock of bandwidth overage doesn’t reflect negatively on what is a solid, and needed product.

At the end of the day, there is one quote that sticks in my head. David Purdy started off the presentation by saying that Rogers “is no longer in the cable TV business, but the video entertainment business.” He also identified wanting to be the “first mover” on this. With this product, Rogers is offering high-quality video of quality content – and a channel to promote Canadian content – for free. This is a move unlike many of the carriers, and has in fact been one of the first carrier-supported moves to market in North America (along with Comcast’s offering.)

If Rogers can work with the content providers and build out a library of thousands of videos, add-ons and extensions, and integrate mobile and TV so that I could pause a show on one device and resume it somewhere else on another, this is a gamechanger for Canadian video. I know the product team believes this is possible; it’s just a matter of time before we see if their plans can come to fruition.

Thanks again to Thorney-Fallis (especially Dave Fleet and Michael O’Conner Clarke) and the Rogers team present – David, Lara, Jeremy, Dennis, Keith and Rob – for the chance to preview this!

See Mark Goldberg’s post on why he thinks this IS a gamechanger for another point of view.

UPDATE: April has a good viewpoint on why she liked the Rogers approach to releasing things this way – identifying what your detractors may say before public launch can prove useful as well.

RODO Landing Page (click for full)