Clients who complain about a lack of talent and creativity in Adland have nobody to blame but themselves because too frequently they are not willing to pay for it. That was the gist of a commentary that 4As President Nancy Hill wrote in The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today column Tuesday. She referenced a comment by Unilever’s Keith Weed at Cannes this year that he has “genuine concern because there’s never been such competition for creativity.” That was the starting point for Hill’s argument that Adland isn’t keeping pace with other industries in compensating top talent entering the workforce after college -- at least partly because clients aren’t willing to pay adequate fees. She noted that average student loan debt is nearly $30,000 while entry-level ad jobs pay between $25,000 and $28,000 in yearly salary. Meanwhile, tech companies like Google and Microsoft offer starting salaries in the $80,000 to $90,000 range, while consulting firms offer $70,000-$75,000. “If you were a recent grad with almost $30,000 in student loan debt, where would you go?” Hill asked. “I don’t mean to point a finger at Unilever or any other client. All clients demand the best talent on their business, but, generally speaking, aren’t willing to pay for it. Extended payment terms, unreasonable indemnification clauses, incentive plans that don’t incentivize, FTE negotiations on hours in a year all add up to a system that is broken. We’ve made it so complicated that, at best, it takes three extra staff members just to manage a contract.” Marketers often ignore guidance that the 4As and the Association of National Advertisers have offered on what constitutes fair agency compensation, Hill wrote. “All the guidance in the world won’t help if we don’t find a way to work together to create an economic environment in which we can pay reasonably well to attract, retain and provide ongoing learning for the very best and brightest that our clients and their brands deserve.”
Programmatic advertising has woven its way into every channel in marketing, including the most traditional: television. According to a new study from AOL, 76% of advertisers buy display via programmatic, while 56% buy mobile inventory this way; 48% use programmatic for video ads; 24% for social; 32% for search; and 13% for television. Just 8% say they aren’t using programmatic in any channel. From the agency perspective, 86% are buying display via programmatic, 60% for mobile and video, 34% for social, 24% for search, 7% for television and just 9% aren’t using it at all. In other words, over 90% of buyers are now using programmatic in some capacity. The data comes from new survey results from AOL Platforms. AOL Platforms surveyed senior executives at 25 major U.S. brands, 96 agencies and 56 publishers over a one-month period spanning May and June 2014. Although it is already prevalent in all digital media channels, agency and brand respondents said advertisers will increase the use of programmatic buying over the next six months. The expected growth is nothing to scoff at: Respondents said advertisers will increase the use of programmatic in display by 58% over the next six months -- by 53% in mobile, 54% in video, 18% in social, 12% in TV and 10% in search. AOL notes: “87% of brands and agencies plan to increase spend in Display and Video up to 50% in the next year.” “What started as a way to automate real-time bidding on remnant inventory has evolved into a force for innovation across numerous areas of the advertising landscape, including the trading of premium display and videos buys,” Allie Kline, chief marketing officer of AOL Platforms, told Real-Time Daily. “Programmatic is moving out of the minor leagues.” Ad technology is not without its faults, however, and brands, agencies and publishers all agree that inventory quality is a serious concern. It has been a known and documented issue for months now, and still progress has been slow, if not absent. “Inventory quality” is one of the top two challenges that brands, agencies and publishers all face with programmatic -- with agencies and publishers citing is as their biggest hurdle. For brands, the number one issue is transparency, followed by inventory quality and technology complexity. Transparency and technology complexity are the second and third biggest challenges for agencies. Publishers, on the other hand, don’t cite transparency as an issue -- instead noting that education and measurement are their second and third biggest challenges, respectively. While the “technology complexity” is a major problem, according to the survey, advertisers aren’t doing themselves many favors. AOL’s survey says that 73% of buyers are working with up to 20 different vendors. “This shows that while consolidation may be happening at a corporate level, the effects of it have not yet trickled down to the transactional level, requiring numerous partners throughout the process,” AOL theorizes. The complexity can perhaps be blamed for another complaint buyers and sellers share: Nearly 60% of all respondents say digital media buying and selling is still too time consuming.
The executive shuffle continues at kbs+. Industry veterans Dan Kelleher and Jonathan Mackler have been appointed co-Chief Creative Officers of kbs+ New York, effective August 13, 2014. In this new partnership, the two will work together closely to oversee all aspects of kbs’ creative work. Kelleher joins kbs+ following three years as Executive Creative Director at Grey Group, where he oversaw creative work for DirectTV and Ketel One Vodka. Mackler joins from Figliulo & Partners. Prior to that, he spent four years at TWBA\Chiat\Day, where as creative director he was responsible for global brands like Jameson and Skittles. Meanwhile kbs+ is promoting current President and co-CCO, Ed Brojerdi to CEO of kbs+ New York, effective September 1. In his new role, Brojerdi will oversee day-to-day operations for the agency’s New York office, reporting directly to Lori Senecal, chairman and global CEO of kbs+, who earlier this week took on the new holding company role of President, MDC Partner Network. Brojerdi will work to find new ways to continue kbs' record of inventive client work. Co-CCO Izzy Debellis will move on to a new opportunity outside of kbs+. These expanded leadership roles come amid momentum for the agency, including organic growth and several new account wins like TE Connectivity last month. Recently the shop bolstered its social media efforts with a new practice called Attention.
Dentsu reported a revenue gain of nearly 10% for its first quarter 2015 fiscal period (April 1-June 30), which equates to about $1.3 billion at today’s exchange rate. Organic revenue growth for the Dentsu Aegis Network (which includes markets outside Japan) was 9.6%. The Tokyo-based holding company said that results were helped by improvements in both the Japanese and U.S. economies, although “the global economy remained uncertain due to concerns about the economic slowdown in emerging economies and continuing political unrest.” The company said that performance in the quarter was helped by the FIFA World Cup and new client wins at Dentsu Aegis Group, which included the $1 billion-plus Microsoft media planning, buying and search advertising assignment. The firm reported that Dentsu Aegis Network achieved 10.6% organic growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, 4.7% growth in the Americas and 14.8% growth in the Asia-Pacific region. The company reported a first-quarter net loss of approximately $7.2 million, in part due to amortization of goodwill incurred through acquisitions including the company’s 2013 purchase of London-based Aegis Group. The firm said its advertising operations (the vast majority of its business) posted a 10.6% revenue gain with segment income of about $2.4 million versus a loss of approximately $6.4 million a year ago. For the full fiscal year, Dentsu has forecast a 4.9% revenue gain to about $6.1 billion with a profit drop of about 20% to roughly $304 million. "Financial Chart photo from Shutterstock.
It is said that exploration is imagination acted upon, and now National Geographic Channel (NGC) and 20th Century Fox are launching a crowdsourced search to find the next generation of inspiring explorers. Developed by digital agency Campfire, a unit under SapientNitro, the Expedition Granted competition invites contestants to submit a video up to two minutes in length and a Tweetable elevator pitch at ExpeditionGranted.com outlining what their passion project is and why they deserve to have it granted. "We're helping our clients expand the definition of "explorer" to capture a younger audience for the network; one that's interested in music, technology, science, and the arts," says Jeremiah Rosen, president/Partner, Campfire. "Part American Idol, part Kickstarter, anyone with an idea to explore uncharted territory -- and the passion to follow it through -- can enter to win the $50,000 award to make it happen And to encourage social media visibility, each entry will be displayed on the main site so fans can show support for the project they’d most like to see granted by liking and sharing on social media. To date, there have been 109 entries and submissions will be accepted through August 31, 2014. Sponsors Jeep and Dos Equis are helping to raise awareness via their own social media channels. An Explorers' Advisory Council of "impressive people" including Chef Wiley Dufresne, Filmmaker Casey Neistat, and Artist Kenzo Digital have filmed interviews that help bring this modern definition of exploration to life for viewers. Meanwhile, NGC's Brain Games host Jason Silva serves as the contest's brand ambassador and will work with National Geographic and its team to determine the finalists. The grand prize winner will receive $50,000 to achieve his or her dream expedition. “We want to help redefine the concept of exploration — anyone with a big idea and passion to make it come to life can be an explorer,” said NGC CEO Courteney Monroe. “This opportunity is for all of those pushing boundaries and forging new paths.” Campfire executed the entire program, from initial strategy, creative positioning and program architecture to the new website. In addition, the shop developed the CMS, the custom video player and is responsible for all ongoing promotional and PR activities. Campfire also produced a series of videos that explore the very concept of what exploration means today. The campaign is designed to broaden NGC's audience by conveying that explorers aren't necessarily Indiana Jones-type adventurers. Rather, the aim is to attract entrants from all backgrounds and disciplines ranging from art and music to food, science and technology. One key challenge has been the requirements that entrants must be U.S. residents over 21. "It's been hard to turn away some great ideas from people who fall outside the current restrictions," says Rosen. "Perhaps next year, upon its success, they'll open it up to those outside of the U.S. and to some really bright and eager teens." Campfire has worked with National Geographic Channel for three years. The agency was acquired by SapientNitro in March.
In a bid to bulk up its health and wellness practice Arnold has appointed two agency veterans with extensive credentials in the field to lead it -- Christine Beeby and Gary Scheiner. The roles are new and considered part of new strategic initiative to drive growth within its health and wellness category. Beeby has joined Arnold, part of Havas, after eleven years at WPP’s Ogilvy in Executive Vice President and Senior Partner roles, working for three divisions of the agency including Ogilvy & Mather, OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Healthworld. She was also a board member of the Ogilvy Healthworld management team and Ogilvy & Mather’s Women’s Leadership Professional Network. In addition to healthcare, she has experience in categories including consumer packaged goods (food, beauty and OTCs), corporate image/branding, insurance and retail. Scheiner has been with Arnold Worldwide in New York since August of 2013. He is currently EVP/Executive Creative Director and leads Arnold’s work for the Sanofi’s diabetes and cholesterol franchises as well non-healthcare brands like Volvo Trucks. He was previously Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer of Publicis Groupe’s Rosetta from 2009-2013 and prior to that he was Executive Creative Director at Omnicom’s TBWA/Chiat Day. During his career, he has worked on brands in categories such as CPG, automotive, pharmaceuticals, financial services, travel and leisure, and technology/communications. Arnold’s experience in the health/wellness category includes work for clients such as Centers for Disease Control, pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, and healthcare provider Emblem. “Our new leadership team of Chris and Gary now expands our credentials in a category that is growing rapidly as new technologies and cultural changes have led marketers to address healthcare and wellness in completely new ways,” said Arnold Global President Pam Hamlin. The health and wellness practice is led out of the agency’s New York office under the direction of Arnold New York President Peter Grossman, who joined the agency in July. He replaced Corey Mitchell, who left in May.
Now, every Web site can be unique to the visitor. Dynamic Yield, an automated real-time content optimization engine, is launching a platform that gives online publishers the ability to give readers a personalized news experience. The process works by optimizing content in real-time to adapt to the specific needs of each visitor. Publishers, for instance, can test different factors that impact journalistic content -- such as headlines, photos, and location -- and automatically make adjustments in real time. Most personalization solutions, by contrast, are bound to a specific location on the page -- most often seen on publisher sites at the bottom of article pages and they operate as black boxes, taking the control away from the editors. This is why it’s extremely rare to see personalization solutions running on publishers' home pages. Dynamic Yield’s solution, on the other hand, leaves the control in the hands of the editors, yet fully automates the personalization process. It simply allows them to choose more options to show users. The sports editor, for instance, will choose 10 possible sports articles to show on the home page versus the four to five normally allocated for the sports section. Then, Dynamic Yield decides in real-time -- based on the historical preferences of the visitor -- how much ‘real-estate’ to allocate per topic for each specific visitor and what articles to show the visitor out of the article pool. It does this automatically, in real-time, resulting in a more relevant home page experience and higher article click-through-rates. "As the pressures on publishers increase every day -- delivering more relevant content and balancing it with monetization units -- the importance of extracting maximum value from each pixel of the screen overcomes the natural fear of change," says Liad Agmon, CEO of Dynamic Yield. Advertisers also benefit from Dynamic Yield's optimization engine. When running ad campaigns directly on third-party sites, for example, these advertisers can send a Dynamic Yield Smart Object rather than publisher's static images. This in turn allows them to personalize what the visitors would see as part of the campaign. Thus, if users previously visited the advertiser's site, they could be served with retargeted ads; at the same time, advertisers can tap into third-party data and target ads per gender, age group, location and even the weather at the ad viewer's location. There is a lot to optimize after the visitor clicks on an ad. Using Dynamic Yield's personalization engine, an advertiser can optimize in real-time where on their site the visitor will land, and what content to show that user in order to maximize the revenue yield. Generally, no opt-in is required for Dynamic Yield to work. Yet, several publishers have added a way for users to ‘reset’ the personalization settings. Still, Dynamic Yield says its major challenges thus far, as with any innovative technology, is to gain the ‘buy-in’ of the various stake holders in the organization, and to reduce the fear of losing control due to technology. Company executives decline to disclose current clients using its platform, preferring to say that they work with global retailers as well as B2B and B2C marketing companies, to optimize user conversion funnels, online merchandising and the sites’ experiences. The company was founded in 2012 and has raised $15M to date from the New York Times Company, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker LLC and Innovation Endeavors.
Yo, creatives. And account people. And media people. And, yeah, agency founders. You're just not that important to the ongoing wellbeing of your agency. A new study from University of Texas Assistant Professor Sekou Bermiss made an interesting discovery. It's the Joan Hollands of the ad world that keep things afloat. Speaking to Harvard Business Review, Bermiss explains: "We separated the executives into two groups -- internally facing people in charge of things like production, HR, and finance, and externally facing people like account executives and creative directors. Then we measured the effect of their departures on firm survival. Losing people from the first group -- the internally facing executives -- was significantly more damaging than losing people from the second group." Yup, that's right, you hotshots in creative, media and Account service. You are not as irreplaceable as you might like to think. Would you entrust your marketing to a 15-year-old? Well, one marketer in Sweden, educational institution Kunskapsforbundet, is happy to hand the marketing of three of its upper secondary (highschool) schools over to five 15- to-19-year-olds. Figuring people the same age as those being marketed to might relate better to the target audience and create better advertising, Cordovan Communications has launched a new, seemingly unnamed agency staffed by kids. To allay fears these kids will simply sit around Snapchatting and Whatsapping all day long, Cordovan will provide good, old-fashioned adult supervision. Of being selected to work at the agency, 17-year-old Markus Petterson said: "For me, working with art and design is really a dream come true. Working at Sweden’s youngest advertising agency is the perfect step towards such a career. Despite my young age, I have some experience of working life and think I can add greatly to Sweden’s youngest advertising agency. I already have a lot of ideas that I want to share." Now, if only agencies would hire Baby Boomers to market to Baby Boomers who, you know, have the highest disposable income of any demographic group. Sadly, that'll never happen. After all, just how hipsterific can an agency be with a bunch of gray hairs wandering the hallways? And, really, anyone over 40 is, like, so stupid. Daily Dot Media’s growing creative agency has added two new hires -- David Flynn, most recently director of VICE’s ad network for the U.S. and the Americas; and Chris Boyles, formerly of Razorfish and Digitas. Flynn will serve as Managing Director from the Daily Dot’s New York City office, and Boyles as Creative Director of the Daily Dot’s in-house agency from the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. No word on whether or not Flynn or Boyles are over 40. Fully embracing the ad industry's biggest cliche, Dare CEO Sean Thompson is leaving the agency to pursue a career in filmmaking. Of the shift, Thompson said: "My time with Dare has been a wonderful experience. The people, the clients and the work we’ve been able to produce together have made me hugely proud. It's now time for me to pursue a personal dream and start a new venture that marries film narrative and digital experience. I wish them all the very best and will watch their progress with great interest." Oh now, come on, Sean. No, you won't. You can't wait to get out of the agency world and start hanging with the "Hollywood" crowd, right?
A recent blog post asked well-known senior creatives what they thought the agency creative team of the future would look like. They talked about the importance of writers and programmers and technologists; however, no creatives actually put media at the table when they described their teams. How can this be? In my world, the lines between media and creative are blurred. Media and creative walk hand in hand, since creativity is an expectation from both. The best ideas fall flat without media to bring them to the world and ensure they reach the right audience. And highly efficient and targeted media buys that aren’t wanted or relevant will either be ignored or filtered by the audience. This leaves no space between media and creative. We now share a common goal; to create connections and experiences. In the past, media focused on smart budget allocations based on reach and frequency, but today media is much more complex. The numbers will always be a priority, but with empathy-based media planning, we place the person, not a metric, at the center. We want our messages to add value to people’s lives. And our focus is not on the distribution method, it is on attracting people to our message via good ideas. Instead of launching a product with ads, our media and creative team recently partnered with the History channel to create a week with uniquely themed content. This unconventional idea not only broke traffic records for our client, but also boosted ratings for the History channel, creating a win-win for all parties. This could not have happened without media and creative collaborating from ideation to execution. The old model of creative presenting ads and media presenting a flowchart at the end of the pitch is long gone. We aren’t buying from a rate card anymore; we’re using negotiation and partnership skills to co-create and make the impossible possible. Creative and media together make certain the message is relevant and adds value to consumers’ lives, based on the idea, the audience and the engagement. There’s a symbiosis that will only get stronger in the future. I felt this power of shared inspiration recently at a Google conference, sitting next to my chief creative director. I knew we could walk out the door and together make things happen immediately. I didn’t have to sell an idea to a creative team, and he didn’t have to fight with media for budget. With media and creative starting out at the table together, the innovation journey goes further, faster. If you’re not giving media a seat at your agency creative team table, and if creative and media aren’t pitching, presenting and working in tandem, you may want to rethink your strategy to include the people who are ultimately responsible for connecting your ideas to the outside world. There are a lot of great concepts that die within the halls of an agency, but including media early on is one way to increase the chances that the next one sees the light of day.