It has to be said that most advertising agencies are pretty good at market sensing: we imitate, adapt and evolve according to the latest trends in communications. For a long time, this process used to be easily manageable, because trends only affected the output of the advertising agency, not the business model. And even if they did, the pace at which they did it wasn’t unmanageable.

Things are different today, because now trends equals technology. This has made change much more difficult to source and to leverage. Today, being up-to-date with the latest technology trends isn’t enough to gain a competitive advantage. This has opened up a field for new types of agencies with different business models, often with specialising in a certain innovations.

A competitive advantage can only be temporary, and considering the accelerating pace of technological development, a niched communications agency at the edge of innovation will almost certainly become outdated at one point in time. This is because innovation requires thought leadership, which in turn requires investment into human capital (e.g. R&D).

Perhaps the most successful innovation strategy for an agency is to find the sweetspot between innovation and commercialisation?

There’s no perfect template for creative briefs. But with the iPad there could well be. This template would be interactive and customizable in real-time – just drag ‘n drop the elements you need. Or download new ones.

The name of this software? iBrief of course. Could somebody please invent this?

Keiichi Matsuda via CR blog

This guy is.

The internet has gone from an information society to a knowledge society. From being a huge database of information, today’s internet is full of prepackaged insightful knowledge in terms of blogs, tweets, slideshare, and so forth. Theoretically, the easy access to knowledge can change the whole world. Or can it? 

There are masses of people who believe so. Usually, the same people are communication consultants or self-proclaimed evangelists who claim to have the solution right in their pockets. Be innovative like Apple! Use social media! Reinvent your company! Imagine this! 

If the world was easy to change it would look different from what does today. But even though inspiring ideas are abundant, these are hardly solutions to the problems companies face today. 

Instead of dumbfounding companies, we as providers of creative services should think about how we can achieve change rather than what we want to achieve. There’s a huge difference. Achieving real change is as difficult as ever, because it’s about changing people’s behaviours. And until you’ve managed to do change people, talk is cheap. 

 

Today I had a meeting with the nice people at PhD, a media agency, to discuss the possibilities of having a more innovative approach for one of our client’s media setups. 

Conclusion: while it is possible to tweak media formats, you’re basically stuck with these if the client has paid for certain number of impressions. In other words, reallocating the media budget towards developing new-to-the-world contact points (such as the Whopper facebook utility) is tough if there are no figures on this (a.k.a. the discussion about impressions vs engagement). 

A company that invests millions in media will simply want a return on it, and what it ultimately comes down to is risk – something that clients hate. 

As long as we don’t have industry-level measuring standards to fuel the risk discussion, traditional bought media will unfortunately be the standard for larger media investments. 

Unless somebody out there has an answer to either the measurement problem or a different approach to risk in marketing management, I don’t see how innovative communications can be anything else than small one-off search-of-excellence projects or nothing-to-lose scenarios such as pro bono work. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. The pursuit continues anyhow…

Previously: Risk, creativity and innovation

60 percent of all households in Stockholm are single households. A large percentage of those are working people. 

There are many things working single people don’t like to do: clean up, do groceries, pick up dry-cleaning, wait for repairmen to show up, wash clothes… My idea then is very simple: provide a service that does all of that for you. I’m not talking about some luxury concierge service – most citizens in Stockholm are middle-class, so this concept has to be built on scale rather than premium pricing. Like 7 Eleven. Easy, fast, casual. 

Beyond the obvious, the Urban Fixer service could also include these services:

Hangover panic: On Saturday or Sunday mornings, you get pizza, drinks and aspirin in a neat little package, all at the touch of an SMS.

Hotel breakfast: On weekends, you get the whole shabang delivered to your door. Fresh croissants, fresh fruit, fresh juice, etc.

Renovator Project Manager: No worries about renovating that kitchen. Everything will be taken care of. On time, on budget.

Downloader: your favorite TV-series will always be downloaded and ready for you.

Negotiator: no more crappy phonecalls to companies about phone contracts, broadband problems or electricity bills. 

Weekend supplier: no more queuing at Systembolaget on Fridays.

Travel butler: airline tickets, hotels, luggage packing…

This is hardly cutting-edge, and perhaps similar services exists in other cities. But the less time we have, the more valuable it would be, so I really think that there's a market for it. I would really love if someone would start this kind of service in Stockholm though, and I know many other would too if the price is right. 

Any entrepreneurs out there?