Commentary

Welcome To The Development Hamper


If you are reading this, you either work at an ad agency, have an agency represent your brand, or sell ads to both groups. (If you are not in any of these camps -- well, heck, thanks for reading.) If I may, tell me what you think of when I say these three words: dog and pony. You laughed. Well, smirked, at a minimum. Admit it. You've got 'em. I've got 'em. We all do.

We struggle to do the heavy lifting, creating such capabilities overviews. Then we spend time trying to customize them so they don't look templatized. Nonetheless it's a lot of fluff that's laden with much of the same words -- we call it "media lingo bingo." Have you played? When watching a presentation, reading one, or sitting in a meeting, come up with a list of words you just know will be said. Then count how many times they have been said. So let's think here...do I have "synergy" or "synergistic?" Or how 'bout "multiplatform" or "multidimensional?" You get the drift.

When you represent brands (like me) this almost becomes white noise. We all struggle to come up with better words. Once in a while, one or two come out. However we let them manifest quite often until the point of no control. The personal best for many years has been the word (drum roll, please) "integrate." This is a big one for the agency folks at large. No matter how small or big the brand or the budget, it is said. We will integrate messaging/creative/whatever with offline efforts. Almost every agency says they do this.

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Well, duh, should you? I mean, come on, in this day and age would anyone allocate monies to a campaign that wasn't integrated into something else? I think nowadays you can't be a strong brand without integration. If I were hiring an agency today, they sure as hell better have integration down pat. And for the record, if that's what they hang their hat on, don't even bother pitching in the first place.

For those of you who know me or have followed my columns for years now, you know I grew up in agencies. I've been out of the day-to-day agency life for five years now. Ironically, I get hired to conduct or participate in reviews. I must admit it is pretty cool to be on this side of the table. However, it is scary. I still think it's creative that sells the agency's capabilities more than anything. Why not? It's fun to watch eye candy. You know as well as I do, it's meat without the bones -- and oh, by the way, the new marketer is probably a vegetarian.

From time to time I am at the helm of digital media audits. I can't comment too much due to nondisclosure agreements. However, let's just say, even though you look up to some, they are almost always in the same boat. They try and develop best practices, predict trends and forecast the future. Inevitably we always find lack of integration. Yes, from the very shops with cachet names and trade buzz as well as the small shops. On some level they all tend to fall down when it comes to integration (although that's how they sold their capabilities going in.)

Have you seen much true integration? It doesn't matter where. It could be within groups in the agency, under a brand umbrella, from a creative and messaging standpoint, etc. I doubt you have seen it successfully running in motion. I'm sure you've witnessed valiant attempts, though.

Pete Blackshaw, industry vet and executive vice president-Nielsen Online Strategic Services, was just quoted in a recent Ad Agearticle on how to staff and manage digital effort:  "A lot of it ... depends on where you are in the time continuum," he says. "And while integration can hamper development of expertise about a fast-changing marketplace, it helps by putting digital expertise closer to the point of decision making," the article continues.

I could write on and on about this, but I'm afraid I have no more space. Let's continue the discussion on the Spin blog, and I'll cover it again. I guess I'd just ask the question in the most diverse and open-ended way: Show me true integration. More importantly, do you believe it is critical to our collective and respective success as an industry? Discuss.

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