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This is the personal blog of John F. Morton. It's where I talk about the stuff that interests me. Primarily technology, marketing and pop culture. If you are looking to see what I do when I'm not blogging, visit jmx2.com for a taste. Thanks for stopping by!

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Ad Agencies and the Integration of Traditional and Digital.

The interactive portion of SXSW 2009 wrapped up yesterday. If you followed my Twitter feed, you probably know I went to a lot of interesting panels.

During one session, Models for Agency Integration, my tweets resulted in a lot of requests from friends for my notes so I decided to post what notes I took and some additional thoughts here on SuperGeekery.

The session was unique in that it was the only session I attended handled by a single person, Pete Lerma, a principal at Click Here. Click Here is a sister company of The Richards Group and is sort of their digital arm, although they are actually a separate company. There were no seats in the small room and the audience sat in a semi-circle around Pete as he spoke.

Various Models for Integrated Agencies

He started the session by outlining several different ways advertising agencies approach the problem of integrating the creation of digital brand development into the traditional agency model.

The first method he talked about was the one practiced by his company. Two sister companies that split the duties, traditional on one side and digital on the other. Their term for this is “Spherical Branding.” (When I was at Ogilvy, their term was “360.”)

The second method he called “The generalist model”; a traditional agency assures brand that they can handle all the digital aspects the brand needs even though the traditional agency isn’t as digital savvy as a digital agency.

The third method, another “one agency model,” is when a single agency handles a brand but with 2 groups inside the agency, a traditional group and a digital group.

The fourth model, another “one agency” model, is practiced by Goodby. It’s where an agency is the owner of a brand but farms out the production of digital work.

Lastly there is the “multiple agency model:” In this method a brand uses best in class agencies across the different types of agencies. Agency holding companies claim to help facilities this type of model for a brand. It often leads to a battle for control between the different agencies, even within the same holding company.

Opinions Are Like, Well, Opinions.

After going through these definitions, the session really started to get interesting.

Various attendees started asking Pete questions and then started asking each other questions.

Unfortunately, I don’t have detailed notes from this part because I started to get wrapped up in conversation. It seemed that the crowd was leaning in the direction that a shop with a large in house production for digital was swaying the crowd and I wanted to add my opinion.

I spoke up and said that I thought the outsourcing model will ultimately be proven to be the model that will be the best solution. I think it’s the agency’s role to be the owner of the idea and see that it’s executed properly across the appropriate media types.

My argument is based on the idea that no single agency can have the best in class production resources on staff all the time. For example, if you found the best data visualization programmer in the world, you might not be able to keep him or her on staff because you won’t always have enough work to keep that person paid properly and working on the type of work he or she thrives on all the time.

I think that type of thinking has proved the best way to create TV spots for example. Big TV directors aren’t on staff at New York ad agencies. They are hired for a week or 2 when the TV spot they are perfect for is sold by an agency to a client. It’s “normal” to sell an idea to a client and then look for a director and production company to help realize that spot.

I was surprised how controversial this idea was to the group. There were many people who thought that having a full digital production staff seemed like the way to build an ad agency. I think that if you do that though, you’re more like to sell and produce the type of work your company is set up to produce rather than sell and produce the type of work that is the most right for your client. It reminds me of the old saying that if you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

That doesn’t mean an ad agency shouldn’t have some development people on staff. If an agency can safely predict certain types of work will be common in their day to day workings with their clients, it can justify having some core development team on staff. Many agencies have print production on staff because they’ve got clients who ask for a regular cycle of newspaper advertising, for example.

There seemed to be some agreement in the room that regardless of which model an agency is set up as, there needs to be someone who is the owner of the big idea. I see this working best in the outsourcing model though because there will be a clear sense of who is working for who in the relationship and who has the ultimate authority.

My big caveat: A generalist agency needs to be more digitally savvy.

A potential hole in my argument is easy to see. There are many examples of traditional agencies who claim to have this outsourcing model working, but it’s clear many haven’t got it working based on their output. Why? The answer is simple. It’s hard work to be well versed in so many types of media. But as I see it, that’s the job of a generalist in the ad world. 

Pete and others brought up what sounds like harsh process. It’s basically a get with the program or get out approach. For example, Pete talked about going through an agency and every person gets evaluated as “a star”, “having star potential”, or “never going to be a star player” then the culling begins.

• Stars get to stay.
• People with star potential get intensive nurturing to become a star from stars.
• Those who don’t get deemed to have star potential are replaced over time.

That process applies to every person in the agency, especially senior management. Ultimately it makes for an agency that gets it.

Pete talked about how The Richards Group and Click Here had a 12 week course to get everyone on board. For 12 weeks, for 2 hours per week, the broad groups within the agency had intense training in their discipline, across the different media types.

After that 12 weeks, each department has a weekly meeting to keep everyone current. For example, Monday mornings for an hour, the creative department gets together and reviews the best creative work that’s happening in TV, Print, Digital and Social in the past week or so. Media might do their group review on Tuesday, Account, another day, and so on, each focusing on their discipline. Those are mandatory meetings.

The Client’s Role.

Another point that came up along the way was how important a role the client plays.

If a client is set up to have a common point of approval when dealing with their agency, or group of agencies, there is a much better chance of a brand’s advertising being seamless in the eyes of their customers.

For example, if a client is set up to have one marketing group approve the TV and print work and a different group approve the digital work, the work will have a much harder chance of delivering a consistent message to customers.

We look at some companies and see consistently high quality brand messages from them. Apple is probably the easiest example to point out. Apple’s internal marketing process seems to be very focused. The brand message, the look, the feel and everything about how Apple communicates with the world is very focused.

If Apple were a scattered organization internally, it would hinder it’s agency partners from doing the work they’re doing..

Wrap up. Feedback.

The one thing I think the group in the session ultimately agreed upon though was that what we see today is a snapshot and when we all get back down here next year, it will have changed again. If you were in the session, please drop me a line at john at johnfmorton.com. I’d like you to come to the next meet up of NY advertising folks, NY AD SCRUM. Join the group and you’ll get an invite next time we gather.

Also, please leave your thoughts below in the comments area. Thanks!

Prepping the ASUS 1000HE For SXSW

I’m on my way to SXSW for 10 days. As I was packing, I had to make the decision whether to take my new ASUS 1000HE only, or also pack my MacBook Pro.

Ultimately, I decided to bring only the tiny ASUS. My back will thank me later. To “get by” I had to prepare the netbook for the trip before I left and I thought I’d share how I did that.

If you’re looking for my quick picks, I’ll cut to the chase. I chose StarOffice, GIMP, VLC Player, Filezilla, AVG Free. If you want the details as to why I picked those, keep reading.

Free Is Key

I buy quite a lot of software for my Mac. It’s a well stocked machine. Since the netbook is not Mac, I wanted to equip it as cheaply as possible to do the tasks I wanted to be able to do on the road. That means trying to stick with as much open source software as possible. Being a netbook, I wanted to limit the amount of disk space I used for applications.

The ASUS 1000HE comes preinstalled with StarOffice. I’m writing this entry in StarOffice Writer and it’s just like having Microsoft Word as far as I’m concerned. (I do find it funny that it identifies ‘Microsoft’ as a misspelled word.)

Identifying Tasks and Picking Software

First I had to identify what I wanted to be able to do from the road and what tasks would have to wait until I get back to my production computer.

I don’t have an current open jobs requiring me to update or build Flash although having that capability in a pinch would have been nice, but the ability to build Flash had to go. I don’t own a copy of Flash for the PC and I still haven’t jumped on the Flex bandwagon, so building a Flash file while I’m away is not going to happen.

I do want to be able to update SuperGeekery while I’m away though. That should be fairly simple. I maintain this site basically through a web interface, something a netbook is perfect for. That’s fine when it comes to text, but I hope to take photos while in Austin and I’d like to be able to do basic cropping and editing. I’m a Photoshop guru but, as with Flash, I only own the programs for the Mac platform. I decided to try GIMP, the open source answer to Photoshop. I was happy to find out it only takes up about 37 megs on my drive as well. If I had gone with Photoshop, I assume it would be a much bigger drain on my available disk space.

Next, I needed to be able to import photos and videos from my Canon camera. On my Mac, this is handled through either Adobe Lightroom, iPhoto, or Image Capture. I didn’t know what my solution would be, but when I plugged my camera in with the USB cord, Windows asked me what I’d like to do with my photos and videos. I successfully imported a test batch with no problem. Cropping and resizing a photo with GIMP was easy.

My video file though, was an unrecognized file. I thought about downloading Quicktime, but I think that now means installing iTunes as well. That sounded like a very bloated chunk of software. For editing video, I’ve decided to rely upon YouTube’s basic editing tools that are now built into the system. I’m not sure how well they work, but I’ll find out.

Still, I’d like to be able to play the videos on my PC netboook without some bloated software. I decided to install the VLC Player. It took 60 megs of my disk space. I thought it should be able to play just about any video format though and a test proved that it did. Since I had the VLC player, I thought I might try bringing along a movie file I’d ripped from a DVD. Netbooks aren’t known for their video-playing capabilities though. I’m not able to watch a Hulu video full screen on the ASUS 1000HE because it simply can’t handle it. The VLC Player though must be written much more efficiently than the Flash Player Hulu uses because VLC plays full screen video flawlessly for me.

I also wanted to be able to log into several servers for sites I’ve got live around the web. On the Mac, I use Transmit several times every day. It’s an excellent FTP program. It’s also only available on the Mac. What’s a free Windows alternative? Filezilla. I’ve installed it and tried logging in and I’m set. I can do emergency maintenance if I need to and the fact that it’s free and a powerful program is nice bonus. It’s only about 9 megs.

Since I’m on a PC, I obviously need virus protection. I’ve got AVG Free installed. I’ve read it’s not the most efficient anti-virus, but it will do the job. At least I’ve got protection from viruses.

How will it work out? I’ll let you know.

Win a Star Trek Messenger Bag from SuperGeekery

I think Intel thinks I’m a sci-fi geek. Well, they’re right.

To help promote the new Star Trek movie, they’ve sent me 2 of the bags you see above to give out to SuperGeekery readers. They’re really nice bags too! But, seriously, didn’t you already know there was a Star Trek movie coming out? I plan on being there on opening weekend.

Intel and Lenovo are giving out some big prizes as well to get you interested in the movie.  (Oh yeah, you already knew about it.) The Zero Gravity Flight prize sounds amazing. You can also win a trip for 4 to the movie premier. If you win and you get to choose one, go for the Zero Gravity Flight, that’s by far the cooler thing to do. You have to register at their site, http://boldlygo.intel.com/newfrontiers. The site requires Flash and Javascript. If you’ve been reading SuperGeekery for a while, you probably have JavaScript turned off for security reasons, so you’ll have to enable it to even see their site. (I guess they haven’t been reading the blog.)

Winning the big prizes may be tough, but you can get one of the cool Star Trek messenger bags right here pretty easily. Here’s how to win one of the bags. Just leave a comment below and tell SuperGeekery readers something geeky about yourself. (That way I can tell you’re not one of the comment spammers that plague the site.) Be sure to fill in your email address in the comment form. Your email will not be shown publicly, but it will allow me to get back in touch with you. I’ll pick winners at random at the end of the month. One comment per person, please.

Good luck!

To whet your Star Trek appetite further, here’s a preview of the movie.

Part 2: Unboxing the Kindle 2

On the same day my new Asus 100HE showed up, that’s the Part 1 to this entry if you’re wondering, my other highly anticipated electronic purchase arrived on the same day, the Kindle 2. For fans of nice packaging, I think you’ll get a good sense of the nice package design Amazon has made for the Kindle 2.

(Like the previous video, the audio is a little too low, but you’ll still get to see the unboxing.)

After playing with the Kindle 2, I love it. My only hurdle has been getting used to the joystick nub. I’ve been a happy Kindle 1 owner for a year and will have to get used to the new navigation scheme. I can tell I’ll get used to it quickly though.

Part 1: Unboxing The Asus 1000HE

If you’re already sold on the Asus 1000HE, just skip to the fun part, the unboxing video. (I also upgrade the RAM while I’m at it.)

If you’re asking why I’d get one, then I will explain. I’ve been looking at netbooks for a while. I like the idea of a small computer that I can do basic tasks on, primarily writing and web surfing. Something that’s small and cheap.

Why didn’t I get a Mac laptop? I’m a Mac guy, after all, right? Well, if Apple made a cheap netbook, I probably would have. The closest Apple comes in the Air and it’s $1300. I got the Asus 1000HE for $365 from J&R. Why didn’t I just use my iPhone for basic web surfing and writing? The iPhone’s keyboard doesn’t allow me to write anything longer than a few text messages. I’m writing this post on the Asus keyboard by touch. Touch typing on an iPhone. That’s sort of funny.

Well, let’s get on with the unboxing. I’ll post a few followup thoughts after the video. (The audio is a little too low, but you’ll still get to see the unboxing.)

I’ve only got one big problem to report, the screen of my 1000HE has several dead pixels. After it has run for a while, many of the dead pixels have come to life, but there are still a several pretty evident on the screen. J&R, where I bought the computer from, has offered to replace the machine, but the waiting list is pretty long and I don’t know if a few dead pixels are a deal break on my little traveling notebook.

Update: After a full day of use, somehow all but one of the “dead” pixels has sprung to life. Perhaps its simply the screen being warmed up that has got them moving. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy with the outcome and will not be returning the machine to J&R. By the way, the J&R customer support person I spoke with on the phone was very helpful. I appreciate that and happily recommend checking them out if you’re considering buying one.