Classic blog posts #4: Randall Rothenberg’s manifeso on digital advertising creativity

Unlike previous classic blog posts – transparent attempts to compensate for a lack of attention to this blog by shamelessly republishing old bookmarks (which, nevertheless, are still brilliant) – this edition is to highlight a post made a couple of days ago.

Because it is brilliant. And everyone should both read it and engage with it:

Randall Rothenberg on “A Bigger Idea”: A Manifesto on Interactive Advertising Creativity”

The article is incredibly informative and well-reasoned. Furthermore, “R2” displays a level of passion and candour that few bloggers display, particularly those that are President/CEO of a major trade body.

He names the four enemies of online branding as

• A direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands
• An interactive agency business model that disincentivizes greatness and fails to penalize mediocrity
• An unwillingness by mainstream agencies to integrate technologists as full partners in the advertising creative team
• Media industry values and habits that malign and depreciate our own products, and by extension our customers’

The piece contains such great quotes as:

“Attention to beauty is more the exception than the rule in a marketing-services segment (Direct Response) that prizes today’s response to today’s offer over long-term brand lift”

“What’s the biggest difference between a traditional creative agency and a new-age digital agency? Answer: Traditional creative agencies are named after human beings. Digital agencies are named after inanimate objects or nonsense words.”

“This evolution of the creative partnership [integrating technologists] is as transformational a moment as was the invention of the copywriter-art director partnership exactly 60 years ago”

“Our seller-buyer-driven culture is devaluing not just the pricing but the potency of our medium”

Go check it out now

sk

Related articles by Zemanta

• Calling time on digital’s cult of accountability (adliterate.com)
• Digital Agencies Start To Step Out Of Creative Shops’ Shadow As ‘Agencies Of Record’ (paidcontent.org)
• How poor metrics undermine digital marketing (socialmediatoday.com)
• Adserver.FatTail.com – Direct Response Advertising (killerstartups.com)

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Classic Blog Posts #3

Faris Yakob on Transmedia Planning.

The crux of this notion is that brands can capitalise on our converging culture and media consumption by introducing non-linear brand narratives. In other words, different media can host different elements of a campaign. Each element works on an individual level, but by combining them can give a synergistic  (SIDENOTE: I had initially favoured synergetic but spellcheck and Google overruled) result that is greater than the sum of its parts.

It is an absolutely brilliant thought. Faris expanded on it in his essay for the IPA Diploma, which deservedly won the President’s Prize.

That is by no means a slight on the other essays submitted. Reading through the other two essays published (by Graeme Douglas and Isabel Butcher), as well as the synopses of the remaining papers, shows a depth of interesting propositions.

For additional reading, Transmedia planning was cleverly expanded upon by Jason Oke, who suggested incorporating social relationships for that extra level of interest. Incidentally, Jason has since left Leo Burnett and can now be found blogging here.

Each of these links is incredibly thought-provoking, and they come with my highest recommendation

sk

Classic blog posts #2

Seth Godin on really bad PowerPoint.

sk

Classic blog posts #1: Russell Davies on how to be interesting

This is intended to be the first in an occasional series.

Unlike the links post that I aim to update every Thursday or Friday, there will be no schedule to this. They will appear whenever I am too busy/uninspired to write original posts. (the former is the case this time – I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Tenby).

So, to keep my content ticking over, it seems sensible to populate my blog with the thoughts and musings of those high-quality bloggers out there who inspire me to have a crack at it myself.

First up, Russell Davies’ 2006 post on “How to be interesting”. A must-read for those who haven’t seen it, and well worth a second (or third) look for those who have.

sk