We’re mobilizing Mobile with our friends at Google
I’m on a bit of a mobile kick as you might have noticed. That’s in part because Mullen has been hard at work getting our own mobile capabilities into high gear and also because we’re in the midst of a really cool project with Google to launch Go Mo, an initiative to get small businesses across America (and eventually the world) to optimize their sites for mobile.
It’s hard to think of anything that isn’t mobile anymore. Search is mobile. It’s pretty frustrating when you’re looking for something from a smartphone and it comes up like this.
Entertainment is mobile. In many cases it provides more options than the alternative. (Note how HBO GO actually trumps HBO On Demand for depth of content and choice.)
Travel is mobile, from booking flights and hotels to checking in. And the list goes on: shopping from mobile sites, making digital payments, executing stock sales and bank transfers, connecting with friends via social media.
More importantly, it’s evident we all have to stop thinking of mobile as its own medium or category. It’s part of everything – in-store, print advertising, physical experiences, customer service, data and analytics. Yet there’s a tendency to treat mobile as an afterthought or at least to develop mobile apps and utility off to the side.
Our program with Google is an attempt to change that. We both believe that given the proliferation of smart phones that everything – from strategy to content — has to start with mobile.
One of the more fun things we’re doing is mobilizing Mobile, Alabama. We thought that helping optimize sites for an entire town’s local businesses would be a great way to demonstrate the value of having a mobile site and the alliteration was too good to pass up. Google will help up to 500 local businesses get optimized for mobile, even hosting the sites free of charge for a full year.
I’m heading to Mobile next Monday to speak at an event encouraging ad agencies to learn, think and create in the mobile space. Jason Spero, Google’s head of Mobile Advertising, will join me. He obviously knows a hell of a lot more than I do about mobile proliferation and consumer trends, but I can share at least a few thoughts on how ad agencies can ready themselves for the biggest shift ever in marketing and engagement.
If you’re down there, stop by. You can register for our Mobile for Advertising Agencies and start to Go Mo yourself.
Oh, and the video below, on how Lulu’s optimized for mobile, was shot by my filmmaker friend Max Esposito.
Answers from your friends in advertising and digital
A month ago I crowdsourced questions here and on Twitter for the instructors at BDW’s Making Digital Work workshop.
We settled on five.
How do we get clients to embrace more innovative work?
What can we learn from software startups?
Do agencies have a role in social media?
How do we stop the talent drain?
What kind of people should we hire?
Here are the answers from my good friends and teachers Matt Howell, Gareth Kay, Kim Laama, Tim Malbon, Sheena Matheiken, Scott Prindle and John Winsor.I weigh in, too.
Some of my favorite soundbites:
Matt Howell on innovation: If we’re serious about selling more progressive work we have to get serious about investing in prototyping, showing how something works and how you’d interact with it.
Gareth Kay on social media: One of the biggest problems with social media is that people are too focused on the media part of social media instead of on the social part.
Sheena Matheiken on software inspiration: Developers in general, especially the creatively inclined ones, are such doers. They just create stuff. They don’t sit around and noodle. They make and prototype.
Tim Malbon on software inspiration: Try not to treat what you’re trying to make like a piece of traditional media. It doesn’t need to be designed massively up front. It can be cruder; it can be quicker.
John Winsor on retaining talent: Traditionally agencies are siloed. The creative department stands on a pedestal. The account people are there to serve them. Strategy is somewhere in between. But great ideas come from everywhere so you need to set up a system that accepts that great ideas come from everywhere.
Scott Prindle on hiring: The core quality is an entrepreneurial spirit. Someone who is passionate about the digital space, maybe someone who thought about being in start-up. They have to come into the into the agency and quickly generate ideas and move things forward.
One thing about all of these folks is that they’re willing to share. Ideas, advice, insights. Take a look and connect with them on Twitter. It will be worth it. Thanks for stopping by.
How an ad agency evolves in the digital age
The good folks of Cleveland’s advertising community recently invited me to keynote at an AAF event there. Cleveland is a pretty nice city and to my surprise is a foodie town — it’s the home of Eric Williams – and even the some of the suburban restaurants are pretty darn good.
Anyway, they wanted to hear a little bit of my story, the culture and transformation of Mullen and some thoughts on how we think about the business today and where it might be going.
Here’s the deck I shared. As is typical for me, the slides don’t say much without a voice over, but here’s the story in a nutshell
Slide 1: You don’t survive in this business, from the past to the present, or from the present to the future, without constantly evolving and embracing change. You have to live in beta.
Slide 2: In 1983 we launched the computer shoe for Puma. There are two points to the story of this ill-fated product launch.
The first: the sneaker maker asked the question, “Can we build it?” Instead they should have asked, “Should we build it?” They may have learned what was wrong with it before they put it in market. This story becomes more relevant later on when we talk about innovation and thinking like a start-up.
The second point: we made ads. We told people about our clients’ products, bought their attention, and made a product that was finished, polished, varnished and re-printed. A small group of us – pirates, renegades and outsiders even back then – were determined to do good work, win awards, establish a reputation and build an agency.
(Slide 3 — 14) We did well, but over time the world changed — digital, social, consumer engagement, etc.
(Slide 15–16) Once ideas were crafted out of words, pictures and stories. Suddenly they were created using applications, utility and technology. Media changed, too. Can you spell proliferation?
(Slide 14 – 24) Next came numerous predictions of the industry’s demise. From within and without. Also new competitors and models: Gary Vaynerchuk-like do-it-yourselfers. Crowdsourcing platforms. Scalable software services that strive to replace traditional service models.
Meanwhile lots of businesses in related or parallel industries did die, fueling the naysayers.
(Slide 25) So where do you look for ideas and inspiration? Certainly not to other ad agencies. How about Steve Jobs?
(Slide 26 –34) We changed — or at least evolved — a few things.
Our philosophy: Unbound
We reduced it to one word. Unbound was intended to free us from solving problems with advertising only and to become way more diverse in our thinking. It changed everything from what we made, to how we pitched business, the teams we put in the room and the space in which we worked.
Our influences: Steven Johnson
Good ideas come from collisions. That word became the blueprint for our new space and how we organized people. The idea was that the more collisions we could create — crashing people, ideas and disciplines into each other — the more creative (and effective) our solutions might be.
Our behavior and mindset: Social
One of our smarter moves was getting (or allowing) everyone in the company – and many of our clients — to embrace social media early on. We did everything from create experiences that introduced people to Twitter, started blogs, encouraged writing for the agency blog, designed conversation strategies for clients, even developed full-blown social media training and management guides. We started this in 2007. It may have been late for the early adopter but it was early for the ad industry. As a result, today we have a pretty good social media business.
Our culture: Curiosity
Some agencies and advertisers wait for new ideas and platforms to approach mainstream use before jumping in. We started trying everything new right away and encouraged clients to do the same. We introduced clients to Ning when it first launched so they could learn a little about community management. Today we have them playing around with Instagram, trying out Google+ (as individuals) and, of course, incorporating mobile functionality into more of what they do. Teaching, sharing, learning together has become a big part of our digital and social offering.
Our focus: Experimentation
We started experimenting more for ourselves. We incubated TNGG, a crowdsourced Gen-Y online magazine, which now provides content to Boston.com. To build our Twitter portfolio and generate coverage for the agency we created BrandBowl. And more recently, we launched the beta for a new integrated media platform The Pulse. If nothing else, our lab mindset has spurred a greater interest in experimentation of all kinds, with better work and creations likely to follow.
Talent: Digital
Not much needs to be said here. Every agency is doing this. But we’ve made it a priority and area of investment, recruiting talent in design, UX, front-end and back-end development, creative technology, production, project management, mobile, social media and digital media.
(Slides 35 – 72) I personally learned some new stuff, as did the agency. Got better at collaboration, both internally and across external alliances and partnerships. Became comfortable living in beta. Embraced the Google-y concept of giving credit to the idea rather than the person who “thinks” he came up with it. Re-thought where ideas comes from. Hint: everywhere. Validated the inter-connected circle of momentum and the four forces that accelerate it: culture, space, briefs, and teams.
The agency won some cool clients, realized that culturally relevant brands that reflect what the agency wants to do are great clients to have since they inspire you forward, and attracted some attention and even better talent.
In some cases we got better at practicing problem solving rather than message crafting.
But, note that change is hard. There’s plenty of resistance and no clear set of directions.
(Slide 73) Agencies and individuals tell me this is what they struggle with. That is comforting.
(Slide 74) Some agencies are being even more innovative. That is motivating.
(Slides 75 – 103) Five things every agency has to do. Why they have to do it. Some suggestions for how they can do it. Wrote about this a little bit in a previous post.
I think it went over pretty well. A sincere thanks to my new friends at AAF Cleveland and at Marcus Thomas for their warm hospitality.
Boulder Digital Works instructors in innovation, software companies, social media and more
I got plenty of questions here and on Twitter for the 10 folks who spoke at the last Boulder Digital Work Making Digital Work sessions, which just ended this past Thursday.
Here’s where we netted out. Thanks to the willing Nick Todd, who shoots and helps edit the videos we do at these sessions, we got eight of the 10 speakers on film answering all five of the questions below. Believe it or not, while many of the answers were consistent, few if any were overly redundant.
It might take a few weeks to get a finished video together, but my instinct tells me you’ll find it both interesting and insightful to hear answers from Matt Howell, Gareth Kay, Tim Malbon, Ben Malbon, John Winsor, Kim Laama, Sheena Matheiken and Scott Prindle when we do.
In the meantime, below are the final questions and a few of the answers.
How can agencies inspire clients to do more innovative work?
Answers ranged from setting up internal labs to experimenting more ourselves. That way we can vet new technologies and platforms and develop ideas that we know will work before taking them to clients. Scott Prindle suggested taking on the role of teacher, educating clients more frequently in what’s possible with all the software, social networks and digital toys coming at us. Others talked about the need to bring inexpensive ideas to the table in hopes of inspiring more experimentation. In short, spread excitement.
What lessons can agencies learn from software companies and start-ups?
As an industry, we no longer look to each other for ideas and inspiration. We draw on Silicon Valley, new social platforms, as well as companies like Google and Apple. If any answers stood out, they were these. Speed is your best friend. Stop perfecting the design of something and get to a Minimum Viable Product quickly by prototyping. Another equally compelling suggestion – stop organizing people around disciplines and put people together by team. It accelerates solving problems.
How can agencies stop the drain of talent to young startups and tech giants?
As we hire more creative technologists and developers, we’re competing with a much broader range of companies. Want to attract and retain people whose goals are to make things that matter? Give them more responsibility sooner. Consider a program like Google’s 20 percent time. Eliminate organizational hierarchy.
Do agencies have a role in executing a brand’s social media when authenticity, transparency and access are the key attributes for good social engagement?
This was the most controversial question. Some participants insisted outright that agencies should have no role. Social media and all the new platforms simply emphasize the diminished need for the middleman. Others vehemently disagreed, suggesting that if agencies master the art of conversation strategy and engagement that they should take the lead. Creativity matters even in the new space and agencies are better prepared to be inventive there than clients might be themselves.
What are the core talents you look for when hiring people who’ll drive change and implement contemporary digital work?
This might be the only real throwaway question, but the answers were still pretty good. Kim Laama wants familiarity with the entire digital landscape. I suggested curiosity and a T-shape. Tim Malbon wouldn’t consider anyone who didn’t have a real social presence. (If you haven’t already connected, interacted, shared and contributed on Twitter forget about working at Made by Many.) Ben Malbon, director of strategy at Google’s Creative Lab had my favorite answer. “I’m less interested in people who use technology and more interested in people who want to create it.”
Eventually we’ll have more thorough answers on film. In the meantime, thanks for joining in.
Crowdsourcing questions for BDW’s Making Digital Work instructors?
I’m taking questions. Starting tomorrow I spend three days with some of the smartest people I know at Boulder Digital Works where we’re conducting another Making Digital Work workshop.
This time around we have the usual suspects –Matt Howell of Arnold; Gareth Kay from Goodby; Tim Malbon who hails from Made by Many in the UK; Scott Prindle of Crispin; and Kim Laama who joins us from AKQA– but we have some newcomers, too, including Ben Malbon, BDW board member and director of strategy at Google Creative Lab; Sheena Matheiken, who founded the Uniform Project; and Will McGiness, creative chief at Venables Bells and Partners. Plus, back for his second visit, Daniel Stein, founder of EVB.
Virtually everyone of the presenters is either a company founder or c-level executive. And all of them have been creating, leading, or initiating digital work for a long time.
I thought it might be fun to crowdsource a set of questions we can ask everyone. For example:
What do you see as the next emerging digital or social trend?
What’s broken about the way your company does business?
Will Mesh-type businesses pose a challenge to traditional marketers?
Can ad agencies really learn how to build stuff?
What changes to you plan on making inside your organization over the next year?
What holds your company back from evolving as quickly as it should?
How do you inspire innovation?
If you have anything you’d like to ask us as a group leave your comments here. It might be fun to see if the answers we get back are consistent, different or even contradictory.
I’ll take the five or 10 most provocative or original questions posted here, on Twitter or on Google+ and try and solicit answers from all 10 individuals above. Who knows, you might learn something, or simply conclude that no one knows what’s going on.
