• by David L. Smith , November 19, 2001

get ready. The next big thing is upon us. It is called Web Services and it will rule.

More and more is being written about Web Services. Up until now, most of this has been in “the trades” - those publications directed at CIO’s and techies. What are these services and how can we use them from a marketing standpoint?

Web Services will be truly ubiquitous. They will not necessarily involve huge things. But they will involve the hundreds or thousands of little things that take up our time. They will replace tasks that we now perform by fax, phone, going to Websites to look something up, etc. They are part personal concierge. They will definitely help with personal time gridlock. They’ll be delivered in a variety of ways, depending on the devices that you use. Of course, they will come through your PC and your browser, but they will also come to your PC outside the browser, via your PDA, your pager, your phone, your set top box/home entertainment system and through other devices.

Both Microsoft and Sun are in the thick of this. Microsoft through its .Net initiative and Sun through Sun ONE. They are both creating platforms that will permit developers to generate end user applications that simplify many every day things. This includes online navigation, search, shopping, the much-heralded electronic wallets that we have been waiting years for, and many other services. The difference between their two offerings is that, while they will both have development tools, only Microsoft will provide services to the end user while Sun will support third party developers. Services could be paid for through a subscription basis, a one-time fee, transaction charges, or marketing/advertising embedded in the services.

It’s not unreasonable to conceive of a time “real soon now” when the navigation device in your car is Web enabled and traffic updates will come to your car, advising you to change routes vs. the one originally recommended by the software.

Some of you have seen the new notification service from Orbitz when your plane is running late. Web services will add to this by notifying not only you, but also someone selected from an IM buddy list. There could also be marketing messages included which offer you Red Carpet Club services while you are waiting or other services.

These services will be truly one to one and should facilitate one to one marketing. (While the Web has been touted as a one to one marketing tool, it has been proven to be more of a mass or targeted media vehicle than truly personalized. The companies attempting personalization like Engage have, to a large degree, failed to deliver because of the mass rather than individual delivery of Web messages).

The question will be one of marketing implementation. While advertising messages are a natural for these services, it is entirely possible that much more subtle “marketing messages” could be embedded in the communications. This presents a quandary for the agency model. Agencies and publishers have an easy time making deals when there are defined ad budgets and standard units to run on a mass medium. The experience with the Web and business development teams has, to date, been an incredibly unsuccessful model for publisher, agency and client.

The publisher wants to go directly to the client as the marketing message often involves content as well as advertising and is outside of the box for the agency. Yet according to Iconocast, up to 90% of all business development deals did not get renewed in the 1999-2000 period. Why? Both the seller and the buyer were inexperienced at making these types of deals and many of them were not well thought out in the rush to make that multi-million dollar deal before someone else did. Many were overpriced, under executed and clearly not optimized during their run. As we have all seen, optimization represents the greatest opportunity for leveraging Web deals. Yet, the bizdev deals historically became orphans once the deals were cut, as there was not a service infrastructure on the side of either the client or the publisher.

Enter the agency. Agencies are constructed to provide services relative to marketing programs. Yet, they are so caught up in the profitability of the :30 TV spot and the huge TV budget that the publishers did not think they could get attention to a major Web deal. The publishers also feel that the agencies are not interested or qualified to move these kinds of marketing deals ahead. Despite the almost total failure of bizdev deals in the past, the publishers are still likely to step in and work directly with the client as the deal gets made faster that way. The whole industry needs to take a deep breath and consider whether it is about making the deal, or making the deal work after the fact.

If we once again go down the road of supporting Web Services like bizdev deals, many will fail. The agencies must step up and get involved. The clients must recognize that it is not about making the deal; it is about servicing it after the fact. And the publishers must wrap their minds around including the agencies. Yes, the deals will be harder to make, but the chances of them working will increase if somebody takes ownership once the deal is done.

David L. Smith is President of Mediasmith, Inc., the Integrated Solutions Media Agency based in San Francisco and New York.