Thinking in the long term, increased collaboration with new and varied colleagues and partners, the so-called “second screen” not necessarily being second any more, the evolving role of agency producers and their production partners, and cause for optimism over the art and craft of advertising and storytelling.
These are some of the lessons learned and trends pinpointed in SHOOT’s year-end survey of the ad agency community.
Jeremy Adiram, digital executive producer of JWT New York, shared that a long-term view can prove advantageous even when crafting work designed for the moment. “My favorite question to ask myself is ‘when this work has proved successful, how can we evolve it next?’ That gets people who are often pressed into thinking on the short-term level into a frame of mind that constantly ponders what could be an evolution of an idea.”
Jamie Barrett, founder/creative director of barrettSF, observed that startups seem to be popping up in the Bay Area, signaling “some adverpreneurial fever going around.” He conjectured that these ventures are being sparked by optimism fueled by the notion that “more stuff seems possible now. You can make a movie with a phone. You can get famous with less than 140 characters. You can start an advertising agency with a laptop and charger cord.”
Julie Collins, sr. VP, group creative director on AT&T for BBDO New York, noted that producers need to be more crafty and nimble than ever in order to deliver relevant content across all disciplines. “That’s leading to new producer teamwork. We’re all meeting earlier in the process–digital producers, UX strategists, creatives and technologists, and that’s before we’ve even produced an ounce of content. I think it’s inspiring an awesome sense of teamwork.”
Peter Moore Smith, executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi New York, related that “as technology is blurring the distinction between which screen is which, the second screen is really not so second anymore. There’s the big screen on the wall that’s got the big media property on it. And there’s the little screen in your lap that let’s you talk in real time with family and friends–and the relevant brands. Each one is vital to the complete experience. As we’ve been thinking about the upcoming Super Bowl, for instance, we’re being just as cognizant of the little screen as we are of the big one. And while the little screen may not get the same share of mass attention as the big one, it has the advantage of being personal and the chance to steal some of that big screen attention away. The question now is whether there will come a tipping point when the small screen gets more eyeballs than the big one. That’s probably next year’s trend.”
SHOOT posed the two following questions to a cross-section of ad agency artisans:
1) What do you regard as being the most important industry lesson or lessons learned by your company this past year? If applicable, feel free to cite a specific piece of work from which lessons were learned or which shows how lessons were applied.
2) What industry trends, developments or themes were most significant in 2013?
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received, including more from Adiram, Barrett, Collins and Smith:
Jeremy Adirim, digital executive producer, JWT New York
1) The two things I’ve learned at JWT this past year would be “thinking bigger” and “building to last.”
By “thinking bigger” I refer to taking existing things we already do well and challenging ourselves to push ideas and each other to make them larger in scope, larger in scale and larger in ambition. I have always thought of each campaign production as an opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done before or something that makes people nervous (in a good way!). It helps everyone feel they can do more and pushes everyone to sell ideas that can often be things clients really want to be a part of. Balance and temperament are important but passion and conviction can be equally critical.
I also say “building to last,” because oftentimes it’s hard to consider the next six months or two years of something when we’re working hard to build for the moment. My favorite question to ask myself is “when this work has proved successful, how can we evolve it next?” That gets people who are often pressed into thinking on the short term level into a frame of mind that constantly ponders what could be an evolution of an idea. It’s also a goal that we make sure to present to clients to make them feel comfortable that we are thinking longer term too. Everyone loves a legacy and JWT is rich with history and lore.
2) Like every year, our industry is constantly challenged by disruption and innovation and the opportunities with mobile have been exciting for all of us. At all corners of our offices we are pushing and pulling ideas to fit within smaller real estates and shorter attention spans. Our ability to innovate on screens (either individually or uniquely) will become more important than ever. We still have challenges, especially within native media, and programmatic advertising will struggle to achieve reach that puts a premium on brand experiences and ownership; this means that space agencies and brands own and control will become richer, deeper and more innovative. Screens and content will remain king but variety will be much more critical to achieving the broadest and deepest engaged audience. Customization and the feeling (real or imagined) of infinite experiences will be something we see more and more of. What makes me happiest is that good ideas will retain their timelessness and things that used to live for a shorter time will live and be experienced longer. Ultimately the big ideas will need to be big enough to last and challenge assumptions for longer than a :30 used to. These are all amazing opportunities for creatives, for clients and for JWT. Professionally these are exciting times.
Joe Baratelli, executive VP/chief creative officer, RPA
1) You can’t rest, you always need to improve. Become better. More efficient. The work. The approach.
The marketplace is in a constant state of change. Brands need to see and recognize that change. Agencies need to help brands adapt, stay on top of, and put forth what is a consistent story and using that changing landscape in new exiting ways. A message that is true to the brand, but takes into account how customers take in and relate to the message. We need to use the tools available to make sure we develop the connections that work. Take the Honda Summer Clearance event. Responding to real Twitter trends. Using Vine. Creating live responses. Creating something that resonates and gets results.
2) We all know that what really matters are results. Results in the marketplace. But to get results you need to have a multi-layered approach that paints an emotional and consistent picture of a brand. Goodwill builds relationships. Those relationships create results. Having the confidence to put forth ideas that truly resonate with people on a personal or local level is more meaningful and has long-lasting results that go beyond just the use of a product or service. Today, and into the future, the whitespace for brands is created by how a brand acts. Not just what they say. But what they say by what they do. Agencies, as brand stewards, need to lead the messaging. Take what we did for Project Drive-In. This is a great example of an idea the agency brought forth that created a movement of goodwill. Another example is how we are launching Intuit as a champion for small business by creating a Super Bowl spot for one small business. Telling emotional stories using whatever means available.
Jamie Barrett, founder/creative director, barrettSF
1) You are who you hire. It’s not so much an industry lesson learned as an industry lesson reaffirmed. Particularly when your next employee represents 25% of your company.
We’re up to 15 people now. But our goal remains the same: find people we would never, ever want to lose. And turn them into people who would never, ever want to leave.
It’s a soft and naïve and unachievable goal, and we’re sticking with it. To do so we stay focused on three things:
1. Try to do the best work in the industry
2. Try to do the best work in the industry
3. Try not to be huge dickheads
Maybe that’s the bigger industry lesson. You are the people you hire, yes. But what you become? That’s more a matter of how you treat them.
2) It might be we’re a startup that notices other startups, but there does seem to be some adverpreneurial fever going around.
In San Francisco (or at least in Jackson Square where we are) it’s easier to find an ad agency than a venti latte. It’s frothy, as our tech counterparts like to say.
And it’s not just new agencies. It’s new music companies. New effect houses. New edit facilities. New brand/consultancy/digital/agnostic/hybrid/don’t-call-us-an-ad-agency-even-though-that’s-basically-what-we-are agencies.
Maybe all this newness is happening for a reason. Maybe it’s because more stuff seems possible now. You can make a movie with a phone. You can get famous with less than 140 characters. You can start an advertising agency with a laptop and charger cord.
It’ll be interesting to see where it all heads in 2014. Will small become the new big? Will the froth become a bubble? Will the bubble expand or burst?
Snapchat us when you find out.
Courtney Buechert, CEO, Eleven Inc., San Francisco
1) This year we’ve been fortunate to hit a new gear with our clients–and found several great new clients–by really looking for, and leveraging, the following three things:
1. Know thyself: confident brands are winning.
• Brands that seem comfortable in their own skin, have a believable perspective on what they have to offer the world, and feel like they are genuinely excited about their own products are telling the best stories…and attracting the most attention and consumer love. Think Virgin America.
2. Be thyself…everywhere: linking engagement points.
• The benefit of knowing yourself is that you are comfortable being yourself in every circumstance. Years of trending towards media choreography, consumer interactivity, and content sharing have fully blossomed. Every experience is connected, or can be connected. Be it, good or bad. The agencies and businesses that are embracing total engagement are winning. Those who are resisting the idea, are suffering.
3. Love thy neighbor: participate, share and experiment.
• Consumers, partners and even peers can make things better, together, than you can on your own. Agencies and businesses that revel in being part of an extended ecosystem are getting help, getting reach, and getting better results, than ones who stand solo.
2) Mobility of engagement (not mobile).
• The devices are awesome, but we are not worshiping devices as much anymore. We are consumed by the experience — the places they take us and the things they bring us. They make us feel powerful, vital and excited. When you pretend to be Amish for day, you don’t miss the phone…you miss the messages.
Hunger for humanity and our better selves.
• Post airline collapse, financial collapse, political collapse, healthcare collapse and just about every other collapse, we are all craving some normalcy and civility. It is really wonderful to see people reach out, try to think a bit more kindly, act a bit more considerately, and judge their choices on more human terms. It is not quite a new hippy sensibility, but it does feel like our hearts are growing bigger again. Think Coke and Dignity Health.
Andrew Christou, chief creative officer, Publicis Seattle
1) Hands down: mobile first. While developing the Catch Jeremy campaign for T-Mobile which included 10 broadcast spots of Jeremy’s parents looking for their sojourning son backpacking through Europe, the actual stunt of a real Jeremy running up a $75,000 AT&T bill, and a website game where people can ‘Catch Jeremy’ to win prizes, we lost sight of the obvious second screen mindset. People watching TV were 70 percent more likely to go to the site on their tablet or phone to engage in the game. We rolled out the desktop version a week before we optimized it for mobile. That was a hard week for us as the numbers were hitting big. We recovered after a few days, but the second screen is no longer a theory. It’s here with a force that changes the digital development mindset. No irony lost that it’s for a mobile provider. It felt a bit like a classic example of Phil Knights’ theory of ‘Failing Forward’.
2) Trends are funny. For better or for worse, the trend that has my attention is the YouTube-stunt-I-am-so-desperately-want to be viral-even-if-it-means-throwing-the-entire-brand’s-DNA-away stunt. Sure it might get a few eyeballs and yes, it can even become an Internet sensation for two minutes, but not at the expense of the brand’s true essence. Reappraisal of a brand is crucial to modern day adaptation for both new and old media. However, getting a laugh at the expense of a brand’s likability could do long term damage to its credibility. Adventurous thinking is at the heart of what we do in Seattle and sometimes that means stopping the wrong idea from moving forward before it’s too late. The stunt we did for Catch Jeremy was authentic in only influencers he met on the road told the story. Authenticity. Volvo did it beautifully: a simple demonstration of their engineering magnificence. The stunt for the ‘Carrie’ movie was a train wreck. It was so fake it lost credibility and the movie just had to be bad. (Even if the movie was good, people who know, just know. And that’s most people, ya know?)
Julie Collins, sr. VP, group executive producer on AT&T, BBDO New York
1) Creativity has been affected (the bar set higher) by mobile apps like Vine etc. We have to work harder to be more creative with tighter budgets and the pressures surrounding us. But that leads us to greater and more inventive opportunities. And those projects don’t lack sophistication. Clients are expecting more and wanting it faster and we as producers have to be more crafty/nimble than ever in terms of delivering across all disciplines. That’s leading to new producer teamwork. We’re all meeting earlier in the process–digital producers, UX strategists, creatives, and technologists, and that’s before we’ve even produced an ounce of content. I think it’s inspiring an awesome sense of teamwork. A digital strategist was recently indispensable on a project we did with Werner Herzog for a ‘texting while driving’ initiative. We’re getting casting briefs for “influencers,” and we’re shooting stuff in Brooklyn and other locations as much as we are in L.A.
Rob Feakins, president/chief creative officer, Publicis Kaplan Thaler, NY
1) While social media is the new darling, it is no longer simply about building communities. It’s about building business. Social media programs and viral films that don’t do exactly that are being judged harshly. Fortunately we were able to do that several times this year. For instance, with Crest-Oral B Halloween Treats Gone Wrong. It not only had seven millions views, it had an offer and raised sales of toothpaste during a time when we had no right to have a presence.
2) The line between pro bono and branding is gone. Consumers expect brands to be generous. They know brands can afford it, and they consider it part of the value exchange they have with a brand. The challenge is how is it a marketing and branding tool. Citi Bike was an example of a brand giving back unique utility and experience to its customers while also having 6000 brand billboards rolling through the city.
Paul Hicks, executive creative director, Godfrey Q, San Francisco
1) In one word: Patience. This year has been dominated by change. Departures within the agency and across-the-board reorganizations at key clients put important relationships to the test. Natural instinct is to react quickly to every curveball, but that completely ignores hard work and equity built over time, and it implies the causes of the problems are completely within the purview of the agency.
Instead, we showed patience and focused on things we could control–mainly, the work. And what manifested was a new energy that began to produce results immediately. The first was in the form of the Run, Business, Run! campaign for Symantec.
Via an interactive web experience, films and games told the story of an enterprise running smoothly (represented by a man running on a treadmill) in the face of ninjas, hurricanes and other unexpected threats. Thanks to Symantec, these threats were averted and business continued running smoothly. This work has been successful in communicating Symantec’s enterprise story, but also for the agency, proving to ourselves that even during chaotic times, focusing on what we do best is the only appropriate response.
In the weeks that followed, we saw clients committing to new, deeper relationships, several new business wins and better work being done for all our clients. This was possible because we had the patience necessary to remain focused on the things we do best.
2) Optimism has made an unexpected return in the minds of marketing professionals, on both the agency side and the client side. There’s a resurgence of confidence in the fact that what we do is important for business—beyond what most would consider traditional marketing or branding. More and more, marketing people are sitting at the table when decisions about the future of a company are being discussed. And it’s clear that success can have as much to do with communication to internal and external audiences than the design of the initiative itself.
I see optimism in what we think this business called “advertising” is becoming as well. As we witness the end of the advertising-supported commercial television era, one expects choruses of “advertising is dead.” Instead, we have seen countless examples of storytelling across myriad media that have resulted in far deeper brand connections (and ROI) than the traditional model would have allowed. Oreo, Chipotle, Rapha and Dove are obvious yet entirely distinct examples of how effective and exciting advertising can be, even in the Internet TV age.
Most importantly, I feel we are at our best when we are the confident change-agents that our clients turn to when they have seemingly impossible goals. I think this is why most of us got into this business in the first place. And I think it’s why some of us are still here: Optimism in the face of new possibilities for our clients and ourselves.
Chad Hopenwasser, VP, director of video production, CP+B
1) Telling stories with moving pictures is alive and well, whatever the format. It doesn’t matter how people are watching and it doesn’t matter how big or small the screens are on which they’re watching. In addition, traditional 15-, 30- and 60-second spots don’t appear to be going anywhere as soon as many originally thought. I only talk about it because we are heading off in many different and exciting directions that are growing exponentially. But it has also been a year of getting back to basics, working really hard on the craft of storytelling through video, no matter where it might live.
2) It’s not the newest trend or even a surprise, but I am still really interested in made-for-web video content. I don’t think we have neared the peak yet. YouTube has more than a billion subscribers compared to the 100 million or so in the US subscribing to cable. There is a growing number of companies and collectives that specialize in this medium and audience, with traditional production companies figuring it out as well. Viewers’ acceptance of consumer-level production as a form of entertainment (YouTube, Instagram, Vine, etc.) is only growing. And add all of that to the obvious increase in places where this video content can live—and the varying lengths of the stories we can tell—and we’re in a very exciting time. The challenge is that it has increased the production solutions we need to offer. And I think a lot of us are still figuring out the right way to handle telling these stories correctly. It’s a fine line between creating content that is consumer level in conception and creating content with the craft worthy of our brands and the high standards of our creatives. It’s a fun nut to crack.
Margaret Johnson, executive creative director/partner, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
1) Lesson: Marketing budgets are not directly proportional to how creative a campaign can be.
It’s easy to get used to hefty budgets that enable you to hand off campaigns to well-known directors with big-time track records (and astronomical day rates) and hunker down at Shutters on the Beach for a month of postproduction and $30 hamburgers. But in some cases, less money can actually mean more: more freedom, more creativity, more fun. Recently we got a brand assignment from a client. We needed to spread the budget across more spots than we’re used to, but we actually found it liberating. It forces you to really focus on the quality of the storytelling and effective execution. You don’t fall prey to a leaning on a director to make something better. You quickly realize that if it’s not funny in script form, it’s not going to get funnier when it’s live action. The campaign is turning out to be some of my favorite work of the year.
2) There’s a trend in the industry for companies to be less inclined to hire an agency of record and instead hiring several agencies for individual projects–a phenomenon frequently referred to as “the Google model.” It can be problematic for firms relying on multi-year AOR deals with lots of layers and moving parts. At GSP we’ve had to rethink our approach to advertising. We’re working leaner these days, so we’re all closer to the work. We’re focused on doing a lot more great indie films instead of gearing up for a blockbuster every time. And that’s a great place to be.
Erik Norin, creative director, Wieden+Kennedy, New York
1) If I had to pick one thing that was the biggest lesson the industry learnt it would be that with so many new emerging technologies, new channels and methods for advertising and the new real-time/topical marketing era post the Oreo (Super Bowl) tweet, the landscape has changed.
Brands and agencies alike are trigger happy now–many of them sacrificing stories and quality for content overload–all searching for their own Oreo tweet. Brands trying to be topical or have opinions where no one wants to hear them or trying to make yourself a part of conversation you are not invited to.
When the dust settles, being the first still is not as awesome as being the best!
2) The above mentioned real-time topical marketing on social media was obviously a big thing that seems to affect every agency and every brand. In hindsight I feel like I remember some of the more epic brand fails more than the wins so it’ll be interesting to see where this goes in 2014.
It also feels like we’ve seen a lot of stunts in 2013. Social experiments where brands are doing rather than saying. The Carrie stunts, our own Departure Roulette for Heineken and of course the most epic of splits by Jean-Claude Van Damme for Volvo. Challenging consumers and viewers. Enable a few – to inspire millions.
The third thing is all the new emerging platforms – SnapChat, Vine, Instagram Video and many others. I feel like we’ve still only scratched the surface here on what can be done with the channels consumers engage with and use every day. I like the idea of using these platforms in new, interesting ways rather than just ask of consumers to contribute by using them.
Also, we’ve seen more irrelevant #hashtags than ever before. Detergent ad’s end with “Join the conversation! #WeLoveClean” Hopefully this will end soon. If you do not do it right-in cyberspace no one can hear you scream.
Richard O’Neill, executive director of integrated production, TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles
1) This year many in production felt like Sandra Bullock’s character in Gravity–the production events were on us with little time or means to react and we had to rely heavily on our knowledge and wits. I took on the role–unfortunately not the looks–of George Clooney trying to be there with advice, a positive attitude and suited up when needed. In many cases we pulled off what seemed to be the impossible.
Within a few weeks of getting a Pepsi Max Jeff Gordon idea, “Test Drive,” we bid, shot, edited and ran the content video online viewed by 39 million. “Test Drive” was not the only one moving fast on this production. We were given the green light this year with very little time for prep or post to produce another season’s television series GT Academy for Nissan and Sony PlayStation. Viewing for the premier episode was up a spectacular 171% from last year’s debut. Special thanks go to our producers for keeping this show literally on track. We began this year’s agency work for Adidas with the logistically challenging but emotionally gratifying documentation of women’s athletic teams in many parts of the world. On these and many more productions for many more clients we learned that our production and post partners were truly indispensable. They too reacted quickly, accepted the challenges of today’s budgets, and were able to provide us with many quality, well-crafted products for a wide range of integrated media. Unlike Sandra Bullock’s character, we learned that we’re truly not alone in facing our industry’s challenges.
2) There is no singular trend, development or theme in the world of production that stood out this year. All is now in play and ever changing. As has been reiterated over the last decade, we now have many canvases to fill and with them an ever-increasing palette of tools to use. Perhaps if there is a trend, it is in finding those on the agency and partner side who can deliver to many mediums, but most importantly tell great stories. Producers must have the knowledge to produce a story for most mediums and be specialists in finding and recommending the right partners and tools. We’re now needed to be generalists and specialists at the same time. Our database is sourced from blogs, postings, websites, industry festivals and still by word of mouth. We get excited when we can show off new tools such as those we’ve been using for the creation of unbelievable pre-visualizations for clients. Complex effects stories are being virtually completed within a few days with newly developed motion control and pre-visualization tools. We now have many more new industry tools that we love to share and that can be utilized for future concepts such as seen with projection mapping on moving objects by Bot & Dolly. We are motivated when challenged to capture a story from a brand-new perspective by finding a partner to work with us in developing a highly sophisticated new tool. Every day now seems to bring something new to inspire our creative, producers and production partners in telling our clients’ stories.
Peter Moore Smith, executive creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi New York
1) The most important lesson I learned this past year is the same one I learn every year: Storytelling wins. It seems like every year — hell, every day — there’s a nifty new media thing everyone’s talking about. Tweets or memes or lists or ambushes start showing up in every meeting. I’m not against any of these and am just as curious as everyone else when a new way to communicate shows up. But what I learn time and again is that the ones that work, the ones that capture people’s attention and imaginations, that go viral–and stay that way–are the ones that adhere to the ancient principles of storytelling. We’ve come up with new ways to tell stories, and that’s cool, but the tools of storytelling itself–jokes, dialogue, drama, irony, character, surprise, etc — are the same. One of the most successful digital/social projects Saatchi NY created last year was a film for Duracell about 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis. It starts with four-year-old Patrick running out of a shack in Tennessee and then literally running through every phase of his life until he emerges as an adult on the field in Candlestick Park. People went nuts for it on the webs and it got all the clicks and hits that we routinely brag about in our business. And it reminded me, yet again, that people love a good story no matter where they encounter it.
2) To me one of the most significant trends of the past year is one that has been building momentum for quite a while but now seems to have reached full velocity, and that’s the second screen experience. For years people have been communicating on laptops and mobiles during their favorites shows and big games, and smart marketers have found ways to use it to their advantage. But as technology is blurring the distinction between which screen is which, the second screen is really not so second anymore. There’s the big screen on the wall that’s got the big media property on it. And there’s the little screen in your lap that let’s you talk in real time with family and friends–and the relevant brands. Each one is vital to the complete experience. As we’ve been thinking about the upcoming Super Bowl, for instance, we’re being just as cognizant of the little screen as we are of the big one. And while the little screen may not get the same share of mass attention as the big one, it has the advantage of being personal and the chance to steal some of that big screen attention away. The question now is whether there will come a tipping point when the small screen gets more eyeballs than the big one. That’s probably next year’s trend.
Toby Southgate, CEO, Americas, Brand Union
1) Key lesson of 2013: A strong “point of view,” consistently applied, is a galvanizing force and a powerful asset for an agency in the work it does for its clients. Too many agencies try to be too many things for their clients, particularly in the strategic branding space. The ongoing trend toward craft, expertise, smaller volume / higher quality plays to this precisely. These assets are redefining what constitutes a luxury or premium experience in any category. There’s a tiny denim brand in Wales called Hiut whose belief is “One thing done well – that’s enough.” They are single handedly rebuilding an industry, re-energizing a town and reconstituting craft-based production of a world-class product. That kind of higher calling is something all brands can aspire to, but that few have the focus to deliver. That’s why we’ve invested in redefining our own positioning and our offer, and giving clients a new – and challenging – lens through which to view the experiences their brand creates and provides.
2) Industry trends: Macro-level trends – The best creative work continues to come from new and interesting places; Everyone still wants a slice of Brazil, but it remains a very tough place to do good business; the talent pool continues to dry up as young, smart people become braver about doing things for themselves; the proliferation of misused buzzwords and nonsense marcomms industry jargon (particularly as it relates to technology and digital) continues to amaze and frustrate me in equal measure.
Todd Tilford, executive VP/chief creative officer, Draftfcb Chicago
1) Viral. That’s it, pretty much.
2) It’s not how big your data is, it’s what you do with it. Creative analytics isn’t an oxymoron, it’s the future.
