Access to unique audiences powered by premium technology and data is what makes our clients come back month after month. My team’s primary objective is to advise on the best tactics our customer should implement to hit their target.

How did you get into the digital sector?
I was working for a media/sales house company (print) as marketing analyst and just fell in love with digital and its accountability

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
No widespread adoption of cross media attribution tools and techniques that give digital the right credit. Even within digital I feel that we still rely on old practices, such as the ‘last click wins’, which skew attribution immensely and do not take into account how each piece of media contributes to the goal.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?
I have seen a few of these in the last 12 years but I have to say that today I am definitely living one of those moments, which is probably the most impressive! The innovation driven by new technology platforms, new profiling and targeting capabilities is absolutely fascinating and will shape our industry in the coming years.

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?
A vision from the top that translates into a clear and detailed roadmap is, in my view, key to creating successful products.

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
I am passionate about digital media so spend my spare time reading articles, posts on digital trade web sites. Recently I have discovered a new blog/news feed: www.adexchanger.com which I recommend to anyone who wants to know more about some of the new developments taking place in the digital space

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
Profound changes are taking place in the online display marketplace right now because of the emergence of ad exchange platforms, new technologies and data. I believe we are going to experience a lot of structural changes within our organisations (whether you are a media publisher or an agency) and the way we do business as well as the skills required will be very different in the next 5 years. In a way it feels like going back in time 7 or 8 years ago when search advertising was about to explode.

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation (brand/marketing director, agency, technology team, CEO, operations director) and why?
It’s a joint effort and those who have market knowledge will continue to be on the driving seat. That said, as technology continues to drive innovation in our sector, I believe that CTOs, technologists, data experts etc will have a greater involvement in the decision process.


If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be – and why?
I have seen quite a few in the last 13 years (Mobile, Search, Social Networks etc) however there is a ‘moment’ which even though I don’t necessarily want to go back to, just shows how strong and pervasive digital is. I am going back to those days that just followed the burst of the ‘internet bubble’ in 2000-2001 when everyone was rather negative about digital and people were jumping off the bandwagon. When I look at what the internet has become today, I have to say I feel some pride as I always believed that it was going to be big one day...

Pierre Naggar

Head of Yahoo! Direct Response UK

Started my digital journey with Realmedia UK in 1998 where I spent 7 years in different roles (Marketing, Research, Client Services, Business Development, Operations)

Moved to Italy for 2.5 years as Managing Director for 24/7 Realmedia

Moved back to the UK where I joined Bluelithium as Business Development Director for Europe

Headed the Publisher and Media Buying team for 14 months at Yahoo! Europe before I took on the role of Head of Yahoo! DR (Yahoo! Ad Network offering)

www.yahoo.co.uk

My digital starting point
I fell out of accountancy and into media more through luck than judgement – or to put it another way my then girlfriend, now wife, pushed me…. !

What’s impressed me; why?
The rate of change and the exponential growth of digital. We are seeing a new communication platform develop daily and existing technologies evolving at a pace that makes traditional media look pedestrian in comparison.

Current digital bookmarks
Loving Spotify.

Digital pet hates
The temptation to get carried away with fads. The question I always ask my team: Is there a sensible P&L long term?

Digital pulse: What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?
Mobile on both counts – it’s been the year of the mobile now for some time, and yet nothing I am seeing leads me to believe that the construct is effective and that the business model is distinct enough for advertisers to really crank up their engagement. That being said it is definitely the future. We at Thomson Reuters have been more consultative than most, investing substantially, building the right framework internally, and listening to our customers, which will also allow us to engage more coherently going forward.

Digital discovery: My ah! moment
Working at the Telegraph in the late 90's was formative. Electronic Telegraph was a pathfinder of digital publishing and seeing the potential at an early stage was addictive. I knew then from the negative reaction of "old timers" that this was going to be seismic in the shift of business focus and behavior.

Your wining digital argument: How do you persuade senior directors who still don’t get it?
By being consultative and engaging. Media is mostly about listening and learning in essence. More often than not we forget to educate and inform, scale is relative you need to personalise the message and find common ground.

Digital success: what’s your formula?
Not being afraid to fail, and keeping pace with the rate of change.

Digital watchouts
The numbers do not lie! Accountability is king. Often the numbers are ignored which tends to come back and bite you.

Digital time machine: what’s your destination?
In the garage with Sergei et al…

Browser history: Where you’ll find me online
Reuters.com, Telegraph.co.uk (you can take the man out....), every trade site I can think of and of course anything relating to Crystal Palace.

What are the big changes yet to come?
It’s all to play for. We have only just started to join up the dots . The consumer is changing rapidly and the demand for flexible consumption is the driver. Think how obvious Sky+ now seems and the on demand iplayer concepts. This will only increase and add challenges to content providers, advertising etc… For digital, change is constant and once you get your head around that...you realise it’s all to play for.

What’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?
The role is potentially significant, but the worry is SM’s regulation and accountability. The waters are becoming more and more muddied. The monetisation of Social Media is fascinating to me, we’re all complicit here, we either get it together or create a beast of burden which will become terribly difficult to control….

Digital leadership: Who should drive?
Everyone. The vision and strategy should be established and well-communicated so everyone in the business is able to feed into the execution. Let the leaders lead and the managers manage, but everyone needs to feed into the process.

What’s tipping now?
Mobile! Seriously I wouldn’t rule anything out, but my hope is that we’ll have a better definition of mobile’s role in the lives of our consumers, and the opportunity it presents for publishers long-term.

Make the most of the digital opportunities by…Be brave, brilliant and brief. Embrace change, listen and learn, and don’t be afraid to fail. And back to my earlier point, know your numbers.

My Digital Journey

Tim Faircliff

General Manager Consumer Media, EMEAM, Thomson Reuters
Chairman of the AOP UK

Tim Faircliff is the general manager for the consumer media business at Thomson Reuters. Prior to joining Reuters in 2005, Tim worked as the general manger for the online operations at the Telegraph overseeing programming, development and marketing. Tim graduated with honours from the London School of Economics.

Community organisations

- Chairman and member of the Association of Online publishers
- Board member, IDM/IAB Digital Marketing Council.

www.reuters.co.uk

We meet on the day the feud between Google and China boiled over to see Google’s Chinese service divert to Hong Kong and the war of words with the Chinese government reach the edge of IP address blocking. Sutton refuses to be drawn, but is clear about the importance of the BRIC markets, and after long periods in Russia to develop the business there is not shying away from the challenge.

“The markets are changing and so is the role of the portal in people’s everyday life. As MSN we need to know what our customers want, wherever they are in the world, and adapt our local strategies to fill that need.”

Breaking conventions

Sutton’s selection to head MSN’s international remit is a shrewd, but surprising choice: a non-American, respected heavyweight journalist, known for with a candid and pragmatic outlook. But he’s no stranger to breaking convention - his move from the Daily Mail to MSN in the 97 confused the news media industry, yet the placement of a content guy at the heart of the portal proved critical in building the foundations of MSN’s role as an aggregator and gateway.

“To me, it was always clear that the internet would be the next way that information would be shared”, he explains, “and breaking conventions has been key to building what’s needed on the web rather than copying offline media.”

“Soon after I set up the newsroom at MSN in London we were faced with a general election and the reporting challenges of a dotcom pureplay. ‘Decision 97’ was our first foray into content and election coverage and helped us learn what people wanted online, and why. There’s a responsiveness to the content and publishing that in traditional media you never get a chance to see. On the web your audience tell you, with every click, what they like and what they don’t – an immediate feedback that in the right hands you craft into a content development strategy to reshape your products around customer needs.”

“When Diana died in 1997 we had tributes pouring into the site. We cut and paste these into the web page and when the US MSN.com linked to us it became a torrent of tributes and stories, overwhelming us. We published every single one: it was a massive drain, but absolutely the best thing we ever did.” This was early social media, before the language to describe it had been formed.

“There’s a different culture in this space and that’s where most traditional media fall over. There’s a type of exponential growth that’s changing the nature of people’s expectations.”

For Sutton it’s partly a generational shift, and therein lies a challenge for the broad-based appeal portals need to retain. “1% of 70 yearolds name the internet as the first place for news while over 20% of 17 yearolds wouldn’t look anywhere else. The new generation have a different philosophy in social networking; there’s a different way of behaving and with 98% of 15-24 year olds now on a social network, all web media need to recognise this. These guys are never losing touch with their friends, never phoning each other to find out the news, never out of touch with who’s doing what and where they are doing it.”

Data points on the UK digital market

- 1 million BT wifi hotspots in the UK alone
- 67% of households have broadband
- 98% mobile phone ownership
- Globally there are now 1.7bn people online

MSN – advertising strategy and new ways for brands to connect

For web advertising what does this mean?

Sutton remembers the first ad that was ever sold on MSN. “Our new sales director came back from a meeting and burst in, beaming ‘I’ve just sold an ad’. We all looked at eachother in a mix of delight and confusion: the next question was ‘how do we actually publish it?!’ …and back in the world before ad servers that was far from an easy task.”

Since then MSN proved instrumental in fuelling the growth of the online ad markets, with pioneering research that would shape media neutral planning, a sophisticated strategy to fuel the trade associations so they could nurture cultural change in the markets, and high profile marketing to drive both viewers and brands to the portals.

“Display is a big advertising business online and inspite of the headlines of search engine growth that Bing is benefiting from, the big brands have realised that web display should be at the heart of media-neutral schedules.

On the massive migration in audiences as well as advertising revenues away from the newspaper industry Sutton came from, he’s sanguine, but clear that the traditional media companies are only part way through their restructuring. In the UK 53 local newspapers have closed since 2008, and 10,000 more jobs will go from regional press between now and 2012. Classified ad revenue has seen the largest falls with some nationals across Europe reporting collapses of over 90% in classified. That is an unrecoverable position, but Sutton doesn’t hold out much for the hopes of many titles: “The traditional revenue models in press simply don’t work. That means companies have to change the way they work. The old model in newspapers of separation between church and state - the gap between advertising and editorial – doesn’t survive the transition. Publishers have to innovate.”

“My biggest fear is not the future of newspapers but the future of journalism. When I was working at national newspapers we had the budgets to be able to investigate; today there isn’t that budget. You end up with a cheap common denominator of showbiz and football”.

MSN has pushed hard for taking online media into the integrated media schedule. “For online display advertising there are loads of great examples of branding, but the performance element remains high. Online needs to be seen as integrated, joined up in campaigns that run across multiple media”. That’s part of the reason MSN pushed the home page takeovers and skins – to create ad formats that deliver mass reach as well as impact or engagement.

One of the politically most awkward innovations has been online behavioural advertising, and while many web media pushed tracking and targeting of consumers to the point of fuelling the privacy advocates with a weekly stream of newspaper headlines, MSN has been much more cautious about when and how to introduce the technology.

“We always think of the consumer before new ad products are launched and it’s our role to balance the needs of the advertiser with what consumers are comfortable seeing. There is targeted advertising on MSN and some of the newer projects like the of work with Avatar and the studios behind it have created a new type of infotainment content. There a blur these days and the consumers really like that. With Avatar we ran ads on the home page, streams, tweets, search and a range of content tools both for the film and the DVD. Interestingly there’s strong re-targeting to that audience when the DVD comes out that ensures advertisers get a great deal and consumers only see advertising that’s relevant”. MSN is large enough to run its own behavioural retargeting and to respect consumers privacy settings along the way.

“James Cameron is coming in as a guest editor for MSN and that continues the thread of these conversations around Avatar. There’s a new model in marketing here, one that’s not about interruption but giving the audience what they really want and through several formats and techniques.”

Microsoft’s evolution

“At Microsoft it’s all about 3 screens and a cloud”, explains Sutton on where the business is changing. “While Microsoft in the past was focussed on the PC screen, today the focus is on all three screens and the cloud of connections and remote applications that are changing the way people communicate. We’re looking at how we change the licensing model and MSN and Windows Live are at the heart of that change. We’re champions of the new approach and as part of that are deliberately changing the way the whole organisation works.”

MSN has often been used to drive change within Microsoft and that process is now happening again.

MSN – and the future of portals

When I challenge Sutton whether the portal is dead, he’s confident in response.

“No, it’s dead good”. On the surface that might be what you’d expect to hear, but Sutton is clear that “there’s a continued importance in the role of the portal for consumers. It’s key to their experience online and their use of digital tools. At MSN we’ve started upping our investment in the portal, building the software and the content that they can access. There’s integrated search, hotmail, content and media all in one place that makes it easy for them to use and that’s why it keeps growing. There’s a stunning amount of competition, and on the one hand we have to beat hem, but at the same time it’s all about partnership.”

A while back when Sutton set the goal of overtaking Yahoo in the UK there was scepticism about the chances. Now the goals are moving again. “We’re a software company at our core, but we’re building a media business on top of that. We don’t own our own content or create our own content, so we have extensive partnerships that bring us together with classic media providers. With each business partner we look for the shape where the partners fit and build the right solutions from there.”

MSN has launched longform video in the UK with an extensive partnership with BBC Worldwide and All3Media using a model that can be monetised through advertising. “We’re a platform and we have a great video player; we’ll keep monetising and using the UK as a way of testing different models. In France M6 has been a TV channel partner for us and we’re working with them to take their content online. You watch the TV bulletin online and people send in their questions; Bing features in the TV show and there are audiences moving between all the channels. With Twitter, MSN now has deep relationships with managing content and traffic drivers, and their traditional competitor Yahoo has become aground breaking partnership” Uniting against common enemies as the stakes get higher

Future-gazing – what’s coming?

Here are Sutton’s predictions for 2015

- Explosive growth of video continues
- Everybody will have a Facebook profile but with more segmented access rights between business, family and friends
- Mobile internet will overtake desktop
- Dramatic growth in Cloud computing services with interrelated big shifts in the mobility of access

New devices to read the news will mainstream: Kindle, the eReader and the iPad. I’m really excited by these and the way content will have to adapt is incredible

Sutton is clear that the restructuring of the media industry is only part way through. “There will be more big winners and big losers. Some content owners will realise what they have and some won’t. But for the ones that do, we’ll be there to help them.”

http://uk.msn.com/

How did you get into the digital sector?
Back in the 90s, the whole concept of businesses providing services via the Web was very new and I personally found the development of the Internet as a business tool fascinating. There weren’t many marketing companies on the Web at that time either, so I was very lucky to be able to join the progressive team building the Commission Junction affiliate network. This was a fantastic first break and enabled me to look at business development, sales and implementation. In fact, it was a pretty multi-faceted role, which was very much the case back then.

What's most impressed you recently and why?
Apart from being a huge Apple fan, the whole Social Media explosion has really amazed me. It’s been really interesting to see it rise and evolve. In fact, although it’s very similar to the rapid expansion of Performance Advertising in the 90s, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly something can get started and gain traction in our industry.

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
Although I love my iPhone, the lack of wider and better transmission of data through these kind of devices, plus the fact its battery doesn’t last a whole day, really infuriates me. For something that could be so useful in business, to have to constantly search for power points to keep it going, is a real disappointment.

What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?
In terms of over hyped, it’s got to be Social Media! Yes, I do think the medium is very exciting for our industry, but it seems to be the topic of every show at the moment with 25-50% of all conference content dedicated to it alone. But what’s most worrying is the number of companies believing all the hype and just ‘having a go’ as though they feel they have to do it, rather than taking time to understand its strategic benefits to their business first.

What’s increasingly under hyped is face-to-face interaction. Within all this digital cacophony, face-to-face has taken a back seat with the likes of email, Twitter, Buzz, Facebook and LinkedIn all fragmenting the way we now communicate. I might add, simply following people doesn’t mean you have a relationship with them either!

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?
Back in 2000-2001, when Paid Search began to explode. It literally happened over the space of a week, to a scale which had never happened before in our industry. It really was the very beginning of innovation in this sector and its full potential really hit me.

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what’s happening. How do you convince them?
Digital’s ability to track and analyse customer response is priceless, especially now when marketing spend may be under threat in the Boardroom. Performance Advertising takes this a stage further as Advertisers not only get highly cost effective marketing, but it allows them to analyse and understand the customer acquisition funnel fully. With the right toolset, they can also have the ability to analyse lifetime customer value which is increasingly becoming more important these days.

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?
It’s all about clarity: really taking time to find out and understand what’s needed by your customers instead of just producing what you think they want; and having a clear vision of what your business is now and what you want it to become through setting specific and realistic goals and milestones that the whole team can buy into, or better still, can pull together to deliver.

What’s the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
Not having clear objectives for what they are expecting to achieve. Social Media is a prime example, where some businesses are simply tackling it as a task and are focused on implementation instead of spending time understanding the strategy.

If you could go back in time to a key ‘digital moment’, where and when would it be – and why?
The dotcom crash when there were businesses spending millions of dollars on completely non-sensical deals, co-brands and partnerships. If I knew then what I know now, I’d love to have been a consultant for those many VCs - I could have ensured more were still around today.

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
Happily these days I spend a fair amount of time on GoToMeeting showing the new Impact Radius platform. Otherwise, it’s Twitter and Facebook plus a mix of the other latest new social media tools such as foursquare and daily pic.

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
The blurring of Online and Offline Marketing. Historically they’ve both been very different mediums with very different approaches. There are smart people on both sides so it would be good to see these minds united properly.

Social media that creates value: If applicable, what’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?
One of the best things about the Internet is that it gives you access to lots of different opinions to help you make informed decisions. This is where Social Media touches Performance Advertising, where you can tie in the power and influence of Social Media with Performance to drive purchases and leads.

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation and why?
I don’t think it’s smart for everyone to act autonomously. A digital strategy must sit firmly within a business so the necessary team members can drive it and shape it together. Digital is very much part of the Marketing mix so it should be viewed as such too with Marketing taking the lead.

What’s will be mainstreaming by this time next year?
Cloud computing. Although with so many of the new apps being browsers in disguise, I don’t think we’ll necessarily notice we’re all actually increasingly working this way.

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers?
Make a list of the most exciting companies out there and identify which ones can help you get to where you want to go. If you get the chance to work as part of a start-up team, the excitement, high energy and aggression to succeed will set you apart if you ever then enter a large business. Finally, embrace change and don’t just live in your own little box – always have a broader perspective.

Todd Crawford, 45

Co-founder of Impact Radius

1998 - joined Commission Junction to help launch what is now one of the leading affiliate networks in the world as Vice President in charge of sales & business development
2006 – Vice President of Sales a& Business Development for Digital River’s affiliate network, oneNetworkDirect

2008 – begins investigating and planning the launch of Impact Radius with other co-founders Wade Crang, Roger Kjensrud, Lisa Riolo and Per Pettersen

www.impactradius.com

On the surface, InSkin is unlocking new types of revenue for publishers by creating new types of ad slots for brands. But scratch deeper and there’s a structural weakness in the whole sector: inventory. Beyond YouTube there simply isn’t enough high quality video inventory available, and publishers have been reluctant to create or buy-in costly short-form video content. Drayton believes that some publishers are consistently putting their commercial energies in the wrong places.

The recession proved catastrophic for the media market. Regional press is hemorrhaging money with the economics of their business model permanently challenged; the freesheet wars drained reserves at News International and DMGT; The Guardian is selling the family silver; and TV networks are only now starting to monetise time-shifted audiences. Fat cost bases; thin ad revenues; fragmented viewing – post recession Britain does not mean easy recovery for the media sector. And of course, the changes to the media industry are not just cyclical this time - there are huge systemic changes, promoted by technology and giving consumers control, while removing the barriers to entry to new media models.

With massive oversupply of banner inventory in the consumer sectors, yields have tumbled across Europe and North America, and look set to stay permanently low. Publishers banking on the banner market replacing the luxurious full pages of the 90s are facing up to a bitter truth: web ads won’t bridge the gap between their costs and income. Against that background there’s a desperate need for new sources of revenue.

Drayton sees the problem as psychological as well as commercial. “Most newspapers just don’t get it”, says the former MD of The Daily Telegraph. “They are still important - though they were used to being more so - to the local, national and international economic, social and political infrastructure. But the role of newspapers as sole gatekeepers for news and classifieds is over. Yet their size and cost-bases don’t reflect this change. Take Craigslist: effective, ideally tailored to those who are looking to buy or sell; take Google’s ability to find anything; take Gumtree for local London classifieds - these are all in the heartland of newspapers’ historic turf, yet their business models deliver similar – or enhanced - end-user value on a fraction of the cost base.”

Paid content won’t deliver

The crusade to paid-for content has dominated the hopes of finance managers and CEOs for eighteen months. Championed by Murdoch and validated by the FT, most print chiefs seem obsessed with applying cover-price thinking to mainstream consumer markets. This is a wholly reasonable position – delivering high quality news and comment is an expensive business: but there is a large element of wishful thinking; the product of a group-think culture telling shareholders what they want to hear rather than understanding with their teams what will actually work.

“The New York Times is trying again with paid-for content – subscribers get everything, while non-subscribers get some… and are then invited to pay. They’re trying to keep search engines active on the site, yet they tried and failed several years ago with TimesSelect. There’s no reason to believe it will work better this time round, except through the lens of their desperation,” reflects Drayton.

“News International’s intention to charge for content – apparently ‘tabloid’ as well as ‘broadsheet’ – misreads how the business model works. Newspaper executives see only newspaper models, and the expensive, bold flirtation with MySpace has illuminated fundamental differences between old and new media. Facebook and others have stolen MySpace’s lunch – no fault of MySpace, it was a ground-breaking phenomena; but sadly, its youthful exuberance, married to lottery-winning investment from News Corp meant that it took on too many costs, and lost focus on its core triumph as a music specialist.”

Drayton describes traditional news and entertainment publishers as being top-heavy, with an institutionalised reluctance to innovate and test. For the online video sector this is proving frustrating. “We have a new, but proven, revenue stream for them – yet many publishers can’t effectively prioritise web video content, around which we can hang the highest value they can access.”.

CPMs a hundred times greater – and defensible

Oddly, the appeal about the cash doesn’t seem to have reached many finance directors’ inboxes. Maybe digital teams are so busy looking for the sexy new models, they overlook established wins. Video works: it tells stories, creates engagement, delivers powerful branding and, thanks to technology, can unlock clicks and users.

“We’re seeing click rates 50 times higher than banner buys, and we don’t even market as a direct response tool. This is delivering what television used to, and we have generations of consumers who have grown up knowing that TV and ads go together.”

Commercially, the differences are not simply an adjustment of the display ad model, they are a step-change. Web video ads can deliver a hundred times greater CPMs than banners which, in a banner-blind consumer culture, can blend into the page templates like wallpaper. Smart publishers have reduced the number of ad slots per page to give their advertiser brands better share of voice, but the attention web video gets is different altogether. Even the simplest pre-roll can’t be missed: no clicking the stop button, no scrolling away before they’ve loaded..

In a ‘banner-blind’ culture, video is the value-growth area

Drayton joined InSkin one year ago, just as the video market began to gather momentum. But while the quality of the ads and their value to brands is clear, the constraint on supply is taxing. “There is still a dearth of high quality video content. Unlike the online display market, where unlimited supply has heralded the dominance of ad networks and driven down the price (and value) of web inventory, video is still a value-growth area. High dwell times, high click-throughs and measurable user engagement justify a worthwhile ad-funded model. “

One of the drivers of InSkin Media’s models is to provide a better video ad technique, avoiding what Drayton calls “the potential damage that today’s blunt pre-roll advertising can do - drop-off rates some publishers witness are a huge concern and our more informative, interactive model gets around that”.

i-Roll – InSkin Media’s patented pre-roll format - aims to solve several of the existing issues with pre-roll: ensure that the consumer understands they are seeing advertising, provide a count-down to their chosen content; and most importantly offer simple interactivity – the ability to engage with the advertiser’s content, while pausing the chosen content.

InSkin Media is also developing solutions for long-form video, but for Drayton the challenge here is different: “So far agencies have not worked out the best way to pitch it to advertisers or present it to consumers. Video online is a fantastic opportunity for both the brand and publisher – but, as with a newspaper audience, we need to nurture and respect how people use the medium.”

Stick to a Hybrid Model – don’t give up on advertising

“The only viable route for general news publishers (outside the FT, WSJ, and the specialist business-focused publishers) is a hybrid model that blends ads and paid content”, says Drayton..

“Some publishers are giving up too quickly on digital advertising; it took longer than we hoped to achieve ubiquitous, always-on broadband, and the inbuilt measurability and effectiveness of digital advertising is only now starting to be realised. Because press advertising will continue to fall away, publishers need to exploit and develop digital models. Betting the bank on a paid-for model is high-risk: in the halcyon, simple days of newspapers, there were two key sources of income: cover price and advertising; the balance between the two changed,, depending on current markets, type of publication, competitive activity, etc. – but everyone understood the model”.

“Agencies remain too focused on price, with a short-termism that’s gone crazy. If they’re merely impression stock exchanges, seeking the lowest price for their clients (or simply filling up pre-agreed trading deals), they will not add value to their clients and they, in turn, will be usurped. If they are not seen to be innovative and creative, they will be by-passed. Big trading blocks and ad-network pricing can certainly enable bigger uptake and drive usage, but there is also a risk to the long-term health of our industry, which needs innovation, real planning and risk taking”.

www.inskinmedia.com

Eyeblaster enables the campaign management and agency workflow processes in order for them to deliver, measure and optimise dynamic real-time brand messaging into any media channel that has embraced digital connectivity. With a future of more and more media channels from TV to Out of Home taking digital connections as we break the browser mentality, the ability for agencies to more efficiently buy, distribute and target messages to consumers across the full media spectrum is an incredibly exciting prospect.

How did you get into the digital sector?

I suppose I could really trace it back to when I developed a quotation application for consumers to select new car models and price possible accessories on BBC model B back in 1986 after watching my father painfully tot-up the cost of a new car on paper after visiting several car showrooms. Yet it really came after my first graphic design job and having enough of walking half a mile on the rain to get the reams of galleys from the typesetters and sticking bits of paper together with cow gum. I fully welcomed the DTP revolution and saw the possibility of collating creative assets in real-time and outputting a dynamic message at a Mac Show in the early nineties – and the rest as they say is history… oh, and a bit of technological evolution.

What's most impressed you recently and why?

The industry rallying around the concept of a time-based eGRP metric for measuring audience engagement with media. It shows an intelligent technological insight as to what we could measure and offer advertisers in the future for all media channels that is based on actual consumer behaviour, as opposed to limiting ourselves in the past. How much time spent ‘engaging’ alongside how many exposures, broken down by media channel, will highlight optimum frequencies and mixes to drive consumers through a funnel. It leap frogs any speculative voodoo of the GRP of the past.

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?

The continual push of Cost Per Click (CPC) as this is utopia of advertising measurement, followed by people who continually ask me for benchmarks on clicks or advice and insights on how to generate more clicks… The fact I cannot click a billboard, print or TV says nothing as to the historic effectiveness of advertising on those channels – and is a modern myth propagated by software engineers limited by possibilities back in the nineties as opposed to anyone who understands marketing and advertising psychology… and then we wonder why clients are slow to have confidence in ‘online’?

What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?

Each technological micro jump from Twitter to Augmented Reality is heralded as the ‘next big thing’ but is really as far out as the end of our nose. The decline of clicks forcing reduction in inventory costs whole double verification of creative exposures feels like ‘Chicken Licken, the sky’s falling down.’

Discussions against cookie deletion, even reaching the EU government wanting to outlook storage of information on consumers machines again is clear evidence of a world gone crazy, and suggests we truly have reached panic mode. Stop already! The ‘under hype’ is in micro-machines called RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) that will bring in a smart world or ‘Internet of Things’ where every product is tagged and has its own webpage of history of movements. The potential of using these kind of insights as a replacement for cookies, with obvious consumer opt-in, gives an unprecedented accountability for all media, devices and product shifts.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?

John Wanamaker said 135 years ago that “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.” The concept of digital advertising reaching all media channels, complete with a transparency of accountability was the moment that I realised the potential savings to all businesses globally. Having been involved in developing and propagating the measurement of dwell time, seeing the actual consumer willingness to explore brands in their advertising and the resulting active time outpacing TV exposure and seeing the knock on brand retention I think is one of the most exciting developments of modern media – and certainly displaces the myth that display advertising is dead.

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what’s happening. How do you convince them?

I ask them if they have tried to buy camera film recently? What about a CD? Have you seen those music stores closing around the world, or heard of newspapers closing one per day right now? Have they been contacted by friends from school 20 years ago on a social network site? Then say you know your kids will ‘never’ lose contact with their friends.

Would you go back if you left your mobile at home? Seen those blinking billboards in underground stations, the backs of taxis, the side of buses? Do you know that by the end of 2010 it will be impossible to buy a new BluRay player that is not connected to the Internet? That usually helps them begin to realise ‘some’ of the scale of what is happening right now…

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?

The plethora of skill sets required from data analysts to video experts to application developers – the fact that no one party can claim totality any more. The fact that media strategists try to do the work of creative’s, and both do so in isolation from technological partners. Social media borrowing more from old-school PR then traditional copywriting. The fact that over-simplified metrics like clicks can be automated and optimised and forces a concern for agencies to rethink the value ad of what they are offering clients now investigating actual as opposed to assumed consumer behaviour to maintain their management percentages. Technology companies trying to replace agencies as opposed to simplifying certain aspects to release greater human insights. There are some radical changes that are happening right now, and people need to learn to play nicely in the school yard – the days of isolated gangs are archaic mindsets in a modern agency world.

What’s the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?

Bastardising terms to mean something they don’t. To refer to online as anything accessed by a browser on a PC – we have been using LotusNotes, Outlook and Instant Messengers on a desktop for years – and mobile apps are just a start of a shift away from browser dependence. The use of ‘engagement’ interchanged with the term ‘interaction’ and limiting to physical touch and ignoring the fact that humans absorb 75% of information through their eyes, and 10% through their ears… i.e. print and TV. Touch alone is a much smaller component of learning. Yet combined with other senses, ok, now we are talking enhanced ability for awareness and retention… hence those interactive BluRay players are about to demonstrate something browser-based activity has long dreamt of.

If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be – and why?

I could say when I stopped sitting in my backroom on a desktop PC, and sat in the lounge with my wireless laptop. Or when I bought my first iPod. Yet I think it’s really when I stopped paying for data per hour and went to paying for it as a monthly subscription. How many of you reading this remember CompuServe? This was the practically the largest brand out there to do with Internet – now most digital natives or young media moguls couldn’t even tell me who they were. Brands rise and fall very fast in a digital age, and these big brands today may cease to exist tomorrow. Expect to see some serious fall out in the mobile operator circles unless they take a lesson from the past. Friend Reunited was deemed exciting, before MySpace. Things move on. As old people flock to Facebook, you still expect their kids to stick around? I think digital is a series of key moments, most of which go un-noticed till someone points them out. It’s a bit like saying to someone, do you remember ‘spangles?’

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?

Right now? Facebook and Twitter. I have more people contacting me through those channels these days then I do email. In fact I now consider email the equivalent of faxing me. Leave a message on my answer phone send me a letter in the post – why are you surprised if haven’t responded to you within days, if not weeks. Email is becoming like that. It’s all just noise, corporate spam from well-meaning colleagues, clients and peers. We cannot cope with this media overload and ‘always on’ mentality of the BlackBerry generation. In times gone by, unions would have fought for the right for time off, now a BlackBerry is an extension of your working day. So I feel like I personally revolt – and yet ironically find myself in bed last thing at night, or first thing in morning checking Facebook and Twitter on my mobile phone – the laptop is probably still in my bag…

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?

Ubiqutous Computing (UbiComp) is bringing a ‘smart’ world of connected devices and products. Its known as the ‘The Internet of Things’ and uses NFC (Near Field Communication) via RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Those contactless cards – whether Oyster Cards or your new BarclayCard use RFID to wave-and-pay and are tied to specific product purchases.

Home appliances will be intelligent –your microwave or washing machine will know what is in it and adjust itself accordingly - your fridge will know what is in it and so your bin will know what is in it. Once that item is discarded, suddenly the screen you are in front of – whether your TV screen or billboard, will link your mobile device to location proximity and reveal the correctly sequenced ad. Aspects of this are already in trial in certain parts of the world, and there will be huge privacy implications to work through – but this future media targeting is inevitable and nearer then most people think.

Social media that creates value: If applicable, what’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?

I think the value of Social Media is still in very formative stages. The connection of social content to mobile devices, the fact that people control contact information and auto-update my contact list, the fact I can chat with my circle of friends via Facebook chat instead of SMS, call them over wi-fi Skype, post videos via YouTube subscriptions… Twitter giving way to a new video diary as opposed to 140 characters of text as we see WiMax (4G) rolled out – we are merely witnessing the cusp of this new contractibility. Already we are seeing interactive display ads that if I see a video trailer of new film I can forward the ad to my friends Instant messenger window or post on their Facebook wall – where we can discuss show times. Where brand advocacy of I bought this / fan of this become key ways of influencing purchasing cycles as much as Amazon started those product reviews off ten years ago which we now trust over the sales person in the shop. The fact I point my mobile device over a barcode of a product in the shop and get auto-price comparisons or reviews in real-time. The iteration of a connected world where I twitter my displeasure of service from a brand to recommend others means every sales person on the planet needs to embrace – and that right fast!

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation (brand/marketing director, agency, technology team, CEO, operations director) and why?

Who builds the house – the architect or the plumber? The evangelist heralds the impending change, yet it is the architect who devises the overall infrastructure along with the strategist who understands the objectives. Yet all these wild ideas need a reality of actualisation – the engineers are the ones who bring a vision to fruition, and refine the concepts. Who these people are in any organisation are no longer defined by job titles, but by passion and insights and each realise it truly is a team effort – and despite frustrations – each appreciates the role of the other in redefining the media landscape.

What’s will be mainstreaming by this time next year?
ePrint devices will take off this year and sound the death knell for print in the same way the iPod sounded it for CD’s, but this is merely the start. We will see networked BluRay players complemented with 3D TV technology making a debut in the home breaking the concept of a home computer. More of our landscape will see billboards being replaced by digital screens, and our homes will see digital photo frames becoming ‘connected’. But these are all mere starting points. The mainstream will see mobile challenge the laptop as the key device to connect to the web, and as manufacturers adopt NFC technology the concept of ‘smart’ interactions will begin to emerge through new applications. Social Media will continue to challenge marketers who seek to know what to do with it, but will become far more reliant on mobile technology then mere fixed access. From media buying viewpoint we will see exchange services and creative production become incredibly sophisticated that will finally deliver realistic real-time insertion of targeted messages through intelligent optimisation across media purchases. This will mark a turning point for digital that will herald in cross-media buying.

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers
Refuse to be confined with the now. Refuse to be pigeon-holed by constraints the rest of us were forced upon fifteen years ago when all we could do was click on a static image. Understand that social media is nothing new, people have talked about stuff in pubs or around the water cooler in offices for years, we are just automating something that has always been there. Understand how advertising actually works at creating desire and we now have new tools where we can do that where people are, not expecting them to go somewhere else. Watch what you do next time you buy something, and see if you use your mobile in any way. Learn from the past of how brands were built and survived the decades, yet investigate the future of a connected world. Get on a plane and visit Tokyo and Seoul and Shanghai and be blown away with true digital vision. Understand the real concerns of privacy and what it means and don’t try and steamroll technology, but plough the fields and let it grow organically. Consider the fact that we all love to turn the phone off and disappear into the mountains or a beach – well away from technology…

What’s your ‘Meaning of life?’:
Technology is enhanced by war, communication is enhanced by religion. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Dean Donaldson

Eyeblaster Started over 20 years ago as a traditional Graphic Designer who loved type and editorial layouts who eventually became a Creative Director when it was called New Media.
Created CD-ROMs that could download new content when we were forced to have 14k modems.
Worked with local government to open one of first cyber centres in the south of UK in a world where Internet was still for the chosen few.
Aided brands understand dynamic information and content management for business automation which resulted in strategic advertising.
Helped push a more interactive world through creative technology at both national agency and global enabler and they haven’t got me to shut up just yet.

www.eyeblaster.com

http://info.deandonaldson.com

How did you get into the digital sector?
I bought the domain name bensaunders.com in 1999 - I had a dial-up AOL account at the time. My first major expedition was still a vague plan on the back of an envelope, but I had a feeling that an online presence (back then it was called a homepage) would be a part of it all somehow.

What's most impressed you recently and why?
The Big Picture from the Boston Globe (when there's so much guff about the internet killing newspapers, it's great to see one forging ahead and doing something really cool) - http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/. The Flash game Machinarium is glorious: http://machinarium.net/demo/ and Xero - http://www.xero.com/ - means accounting and bookkeeping finally make sense (and verging on fun, dare I say it), even to a doofus like me.

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
Online banking. I do my business banking with Barclays, and their online security is bonkers - you need to type your surname and remember a 12-digit customer number (it won't allow a browser to store either) then you have to plug your card into a calculator-sized machine to generate a unique 8-figure login each time you want to see your account. To get from their home page to my bank balance takes five clicks, six keystrokes on the PIN machine and 32 keystrokes -more than typing in the entire alphabet- just to see my balance. And then their statements are difficult to navigate (even for someone who navigates for a living) and only go back a few weeks. I marvel at how a company regarded as a leader in its field can do such a poor job of something so elemental. And I don't want to pick on Barclays - every example I've seen is near-hopeless, particularly when small companies like Xero are so many light years ahead of the banks when it comes to handling finances online.

What's over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?
Overhyped: 'social networking', and the iPad. Underhyped: simplicity and clarity.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?
I've blogged live via satellite phone from five major expeditions, three of which were solo. The potential that this level and intimacy of communication held struck me part-way through a 72-day solo expedition in 2004. I was nearly a month into the trek and had just seen some fresh polar bear tracks -always an alarming experience- when I realised that I had no idea what polar bears drank. I knew they were mammals, and that all mammals needed drinking water to survive. I knew also that they hunted for months at a time on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean, where there is no water. I have a stove to melt snow, but at -40 degrees c., if you tried to eat snow it would damage your mouth. I was a supposed expert on the high Arctic, yet I had no idea what polar bears drank. I eventually decided to post the question as a competition on my blog as I knew we had one or two schools following my progress. To my amazement, nearly 500 schools around the world replied; I was blown away by the audience my walk was reaching.

(And the answer is that polar bears don't drink anything - they derive water from breaking down fat in their diet.)

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what's happening. How do you convince them?
My expedition website in 2004 received 8.5 million visitors in six months. That’s enough people to fill the Royal Geographical Society's lecture hall 11,333 times over. At one jam-packed-full RGS lecture every week, it would take 218 years to tell that many people about that expedition.

What's the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
Jumping on bandwagons for fear of being left out, and making things more complex than they should be.

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
I live in Gmail (I was a reluctant Gmail convert but now swear by it) and spend far too much time on Twitter. I'm loving Xero and I get occasional doses of inspiration from Gym Jones - http://www.gymjones.com

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
Hopefully newspapers will have figured out how to thrive online. As Rosental Alves put it so succinctly, the paywall model (that the FT and NYT are implementing) is "the opposite of frequent flyer programs. It punishes frequent online readers."

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers?
Telling an engaging story. A lot of companies feel they're getting left behind if they don't have a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter stream or even a newsletter, but these are all just channels of communication - if the message you're sending out isn't compelling then it'll be drowned out, regardless of how you send it. I'm becoming more precious of my time, and less hesitant when it comes to clicking 'delete', and I suspect I'm not alone.

Ben Saunders, 32

Polar explorer

Ben Saunders is a polar explorer and a record-breaking long-distance skier, with four North Pole expeditions under his belt. He is the youngest to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton. He has blogged live from his expeditions since 2003 and has spoken about his use of technology at the planet's furthest reaches at the TED and Pop!Tech conferences. In November 2011 he sets out -on the centenary of Captain Scott's last expedition- to make the first return journey to the South Pole on foot. At 1,800 miles it will be the longest unsupported polar journey in history, and the first time Scott's epic trek has been completed.

www.bensaunders.com

How did you get into the digital sector?
I first built a website in 1996 but the less said about that the better! But in 1999 I joined the dotcom boom and built a full e-commerce site as Sales and Marketing director at image100. We sold royalty free stock photography online. Great business with a great website. We shifted a lot of product.

What's most impressed you recently and why?
The search engines. I know it’s the core of what we do, but every day I am impressed with the volume of sales we deliver for our clients through Google and other search engines - and at a great ROI. Even after 11 years working in search marketing the results still stagger me. And it’s still growing.

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
Three letter acronyms and sales people not asking enough questions to determine requirements. And the over reliance on powerpoint generally.

What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?
Over - hyped = Twitter. I am afraid I just don't get it, although I think I’m alone. The rest of I Spy think that I am a dinosaur because of my reluctance to tweet.
Under hyped = getting the fundamentals right. Too many clients think their search marketing is really working for them – most results that I see are mediocre at best.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?
At image100 I vividly remember spending £50 on GoTo.com in 1999. Our clicks cost one US cent each and for every 10 clicks we sold a product! At a great margin!! It was like we were printing money!!!! At that point I knew I had to get involved in search engine marketing - within a few weeks I joined GoTo.com as UK Sales Director.

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what’s happening. How do you convince them?
Senior directors that don't get digital are a dying breed. You can't be a competent Director of a UK business for long if you can't grasp the growth and importance of all things digital. I avoid working with clients who don't get digital - but I'll work with their more savvy successors! However, a well balanced financial model with great projected returns normally does the trick – especially if there are performance guarantees in place.

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?
I don't think there is a difference between getting a digital business rolling and a classic industry business. A good team is a good team. But a super team has to have a clear goal to work towards that all team members opt into. I'm lucky to have worked with 3 outstanding digital teams - at Overture, at the IMW Group (The Search Works and The Technology Works) and now at I Spy.

What’s the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
I firmly believe that if you can't measure something you can't manage it. The beauty of digital marketing is you can measure just about everything - that depends on selecting the appropriate tracking technology and then having it implemented correctly. I am still amazed that so many clients get this so badly wrong. Every time I Spy audit a client's analytics package we find the most basic of mistakes that has been usually been running for years. It makes me cry, frankly.

If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be – and why?
I was there at the birth of search marketing in Europe and I feel privileged to have been so - I can't think of any other event that digital event excites me more.

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
I spend most of my time online dealing with a plague of email - honestly why do people insist on sending so many? Email is without doubt the work of the devil. If I can get away from email, Google and various trade sites I do love to look at Golf course review/travel sites. I'm currently planning a trip to Donegal in north west Ireland so you’ll find my browser history littered with pubs, trails, country hotels and a few hundred travel routes.

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
This year will be the year where mobile search and advertising starts to deliver. Mind you I have made that prediction at least twice. But this is the year, it simply has to be real. Search is essential, the mobile web has arrived, location based services are mushrooming up like Apps in a digital agency: I can feel it in my bones....

Social media that creates value: If applicable, what’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?
User reviews should be treasured by clients as it should feed their product development process. I am also convinced that the bigger the volume and the more positive the product reviews the better your search listings will become – and that will drive a business’s sales.

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation (brand/marketing director, agency, technology team, CEO, operations director) and why?
Digital should be a priority for every business - so that means it should be driven by the CEO - and collectively owned at board level. If you’re a CEO reading this then, yep, I’m talking to you. Leadership has never been more critical, and while change may always feel uncomfortable (and techie change a bit geeky too) this is absolutely the core of your agenda. If everyone buys into a digital future then the results should be transformational.

What’s will be mainstreaming by this time next year?
This time next year clients will be looking to cut cost out of their business by better using social media platforms to manage customer complaints and feedback.

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers?
If you are looking to get into digital and make a success of it my advice is ask intelligent questions, listen, think, respond quickly and work bloody hard. If you're smart, lucky and hard working you will go far. And don't put anything embarrassing on Facebook etc - you never know who might see it.

My Digital Journey

Jim Brigden

Jim Brigden manages entrepreuniral businesses that help clients get outstanding results from digital marketing. He has managed over 500 digital marketing professionals in the UK, Europe and Japan and has worked with many of the world’s leading digital clients across all sectors.

www.ispymarketing.com

How did you get into the digital sector?
I was at Ziff Davis the computer magazine publishers. In 1995 our US office launched ZDnet and one of the team came to London to talk about it, I was hooked, one million page views a month sounded like a lot compared to our magazine circulations, little did I know what was coming! Our parent company Softbank had a holding in Yahoo and we were soon involved in launching that in the UK, Germany and France too.

What's most impressed you recently and why?
Peter Sells from BBH nailing the emotional connection we have with mobiles http://www.kinura.com/bobt/peter_sells_bobt.html

Blurb because it is a neat idea http://www.blurb.com/about

Atlas Solutions work on the ‘long road to conversion’, intelligent thinking illuminating the power of data and showing us the future and informing media planning. http://www.atlassolutions.com/uploadedFiles/Atlas/Atlas_Institute/Published_Content/dmi-TheLongRoadtoConversion.pdf

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
Last Click thinking

What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?
Earned media (publicity gained through editorial influence) is overhyped in the short term. Despite all the false ‘year of mobile’ we have suffered it is hard to underestimate the imminent impact of devices getting smaller more powerful and portable.

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what’s happening. How do you convince them?
By making it human for them, the sample of one (them) often works. A few years back many people were booking holidays online whilst simultaneously saying they didn’t shop online – humans don’t talk or think in slogans.

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?
Nothing

What’s the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
Not understanding what the data is actually saying is a common error. Failing to track is another! Marketing is marketing and all the principles hold whichever technique is used, on or offline. Look at the parallels between PR and earned media.

If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be – and why?
Two points – I would undo the early sales pitch ‘online is the most measurable media’ which we couldn’t back up at the time and was a millstone for ages. Ironically, 10 years later the media lives up to that promise, but early on it was an over-promise that left advertisers confused and disappointed. Secondly there was a moment in the ‘dotcom crash’ when desperate ad managers started sharing the risk with advertisers, accepting CPC buys for the first time, and unfortunately a crucial imbalance in the process of negotiated display came into being (the genie has never gone fully back into the bottle).

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
In my areas of passion, in research and communicating.

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
The full impact of ‘web on the go’ is yet to be seen, the power professional social networks gives to individuals will grow, infrastructure (like the fibre optic cable down the East African coast) will allow new countries to compete in the provision of services globally. Fancy a Rwandan company as your tech support?

Social media that creates value: If applicable, what’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?
In the news sector they have done so for a long time – eye witness accounts have always been crucial, as has comments and feedback. Nielsen hold that the BBC.co.uk site is the 11th largest social network in the UK driven by the traffic and engagement of our blogs and services like ‘Have your say’. A key digital moment in the UK: the first images of the bus broadcast on July 7th came from a mobile phone

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation (brand/marketing director, agency, technology team, CEO, operations director) and why?
The CEO’s job is to balance competing interests and mould them to pursue the chosen strategy

What’s will be mainstreaming by this time next year?
Manchester City

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers?
Becoming a student, this stuff moves fast, embrace that with enthusiasm. The harder you work the luckier you get.

My Digital Journey

· 1995-96 Commercial Director ZDNet

www.bbc.com

What most excites you about digital marketing?
The fact that it is like the wild west, it's all up for grabs, every brief could be something different. There is always some new canvas to work in or way to reach people. At the same time that is also what is irritating, technology often becomes the most important thing not ideas which opens the gateway for charlatans. As long as you know the latest acronym your suddenly good at advertising.

What was the ‘ah!’ moment for you – the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business…
We set up our agency with the 'ah!' moment.

What do you say to senior directors who just don’t get it, senior directors who treat digital channels as a minor add-on?
Do you mean senior directors agency side or client side? I'll go with agency side - Unlike most digital creatives, myself and Sam Ball (my creative partner) started out as a traditional creative team ( was no need to say traditional back then as digital didn't exist) which means we've worked both sides of the fence.

When you are a team in ATL you want to make TV ads, because it is an amazing medium the closest thing you get to film. It is also without doubt the most emotive medium available. People in ATL agencies (the good ones) are brilliant at strategy and big ideas, defining what a brand is. These are the things that digital agencies are not as good at, because they have never been in that position. Therefore the weight of the work is still top down.

There isn't a whole new world out there, people are still people and what drives them, persuades them is still the same things since time began. Digital merely shows us the truer picture now and allows us to have dialogue. BUT you still need people who know how to construct that dialogue in a way that will be advantageous to that brand.

Good senior directors get people and brands, good brands now need to embrace digital as that' s what people are consuming. The two things are one and the same and feed off each other. The reason why it's been an add-on is down to old habits and big agency structures and how they make money and how the senior director helps make that money.

Most big UK agencies are still very top down (i.e. they create a TV ad then drag that through all the other channels), this usually means telling the DM agency to follow the TV ad and put it in to a mailer and the digital agency to stick the TV ad in to banners or put it on YouTube. Obviously the other agencies don't take to kindly to this as they are good creative agencies in their own right. Hence we all end up with a load of shit work but at least it all looks like the same shit.

I think eventually this will erode and we will get a more 'centre out' approach (like you see in the states with CP+B) where an idea is at the heart of it and that gets pushed out into whatever channel is appropriate.

It can't happen overnight, but eventually action will catch up to all the lip service.

What’s the difference in thinking managers need when their firms enter this space?

I can only really speak in terms of creative teams, the thinking is the same, how do we get the people we are after to like us, spend money with us, stay with us?

What are the tools available, what's the best way to use them. I'd say the only real difference between digital and ATL is that with digital you are best to construct a slightly larger creative team. We use a traditional creative team, a technologist, a planner, designer and a producer. A real small crack team. Each has their own responsibilities but each can inform or add to the others.

Rather wanky, but we take the Beatles as our inspiration, there was four of them, George Martin and a sound engineer. They created the best content the world has ever heard. It doesn't need a team of 20 people, it needs smaller collaborative teams who respect each others skills.

Most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
To believe that new technology is a replacement for wit, charm and persuasiveness.

If you could go back in time to a key ‘digital moment’, where and when would it be?
To the meeting where they decided on the dimensions of a banner.

Where do you spend your time most online?
Twitter and posterous

Are digital channels a step-change in communications or simply a natural progression in marketing?
Both things.

How do you see social media changing marketing?
There will be more predictions, more conferences asking that question, more case studies proving it is changing marketing, it will have marketing professionals chasing it's tale for the next 10 years whilst the public will carry on playing, watching and sharing content that makes them laugh, excited, sad etc etc etc...

Social media is not complicated is it? It enables people to share and participate. The key is WHAT are you sharing, that's is the hard thing to create: something worth sharing.

How does consumer generated content sit with traditionally authored and published content, what’s the relationship?
All depends. It's right sometimes, sometimes it's not. It really is dependent on what you are trying to achieve and what the take out to the communication is. If it's appropriate then great, but like anything it is not the answer to all briefs. So often now briefs or work is becoming like an MOT checklist - facebook app - check, UGC - check, twitter feed - check, mashup - check etc etc. As long as everything is checked then we have a great campaign. Terrible.

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation: brand/marketing, agency, technology team, other?
Not sure what you mean, is the organisation you refer to the brand? If so then they own it but it's co created with the agency.

My Digital Journey

Dave Bedwood has worked with his creative partner Sam Ball since 1995 where they met doing an Advertising degree at Buckinghamshire College in the UK. They were one of the first traditional teams to get a job in digital advertising. By 2001 they were Tribal DDB’s Creative Directors, after 4 more years they felt that the big agency had taught them enough to risk going it alone. They set up Lean Mean Fighting Machine with the belief that writing should always come before technology. In 2004 they were voted into Campaign’s Top Ten Creative Directors in London across all disciplines as well as Campaign’s Faces to Watch. Since starting Lean Mean Fighting Machine they have picked up numerous industry awards including D&AD, Clio, One Show, Cannes, Creative Circle, and the Webbies. In 2008 Dave made The Observers Future 500 list, Campaign’s A-List, went to Cannes and with an agency of 22 people became the first UK agency to win ‘Agency of the Year’.

www.leanmeanfightingmachine.co.uk

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What's most impressed you recently and why?
The adoption of iPlayer and other VoD formats – and in contrast, the relatively low projected % of non-linear TV viewing over the next few years (Deloitte etc).

What frustrates you most at the moment in digital?
1) Ignorance about cookies and the benefits of targeting. 2) Slow time to market of digital innovation, despite the urgent need for all participants to drive revenues.

What’s over hyped and under hyped right now?- and why?
Over-hyped: 3D – I’m sure it will lead to chronic and mass migraine.
Under-hyped: The opportunities for and effectiveness of digital advertising – seemingly dismissed by many publishers who are nonetheless struggling to establish sustainable business models.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?
A long time ago, soon after we launched Electronic Telegraph in 1994 – it was clear that the benefits for business (and society, and democracy) of digital, once we achieved ubiquitous, always-on broadband, were huge: everything would change – the way we communicate, work, live, socialise – everything.

Many senior directors still just don't get the scale of what’s happening. How do you convince them?
Persistence...trial... Persistence... Coercion... Competitor successes... Good lunches...

What's different in the formula for creating successful teams / companies / products in the digital space?
No different – you still need appropriate skills, bright people, hard work, tangible rewards and consistent, positive communication, internally and externally.

What’s the most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?
Not looking at the data; or relying on preconceptions, or past experience.

If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be – and why?
Dotcom bubble – fascinating but nonsensical: with the benefit of hindsight, I could have become very wealthy

Where do you spend your time most online, and why?
News and Media sites; email above all. I use Linked-In, and check the Spurs sites...

What are the big changes yet to come, in marketing, media and beyond?
Significant advertising budgets from FMCG giants

Social media that creates value: If applicable, what’s the role for consumers in creating content and value in your sector?
In our space social media can be about validating relevance and popularity, and contributing to peer ranking

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation (brand/marketing director, agency, technology team, CEO, operations director) and why?
The CEO – to change the game, but everyone has to be involved

What’s will be mainstreaming by this time next year?
Online video – of course

And any final words of advice to people developing their own digital careers
Play online games, participate in social media, understand Ad Operations and Ad Serving, contribute to forums and/or blog.

My Digital Journey

Job title:

CEO, InSkin Media

Career:

- Planned and launched Electronic Telegraph in 1994; continued to drive Digital agenda as Marketing Director and Managing Director of Telegraph Group, until 2004.
- Managing Director, Europe of Advertising.com – the largest online ad network, part of AOL/Time Warner (2005-6).
- CEO of Phorm (formerly 121 Media) - behavioural targeting specialist (2007-8).
- CEO of InSkin Media (2009).

www.inskinmedia.com

I like it when brands create something useful thing. The Rayban virtual mirror allows me to try sunglasses on without being laughed at by my wife. I also love RedLaser and Nearest Tube which both take existing technology and apply it in a relevant and contextual way. I am also obsessed by Demand Media’s new model for content creation which is scarily cool.

What most excites you about digital marketing?

The fact that in digital you can continuously, ruthlessly and in some cases brutally refine and optimise your activity and that we are lucky enough to be alive at a time when we will continue to be able to do so on a massive scale for at least the next 10 years - if not forever.

What was the ‘ah!’ moment for you – the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business…

Seeing blind people who had previously had to have an assistant physically walk them around shouting out product names in Tesco’s being able to comfortably shop online from their home on a Sunday afternoon.

What do you say to senior directors who just don’t get it, senior directors who treat digital channels as a minor add-on?

It depends if they are a competitor to one of our client’s or not. If the latter then I will do my best to sit down and understand their point of view. Then using what they tell me I will try to understand their position and quietly illustrate through insight, rationale, a user-validated proof of concept or by delivering them results beyond their expectations that there is another way!

What’s the difference in thinking managers need when their firms enter this space?

Balancing the fact that change is constant but that it doesn’t mean everything you knew before was wrong.

Most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?

Thinking that it is time to re-write the rules and that nothing will ever be the same.

If you could go back in time to a key ‘digital moment’, where and when would it be?

So many. University of Manchester handing my dissertation in on CD in 1994. The basement of our Pall Mall office in 1998 hearing reports that a company called Freeserve had launched free dial-up internet access. Paying for my restaurant bill using my mobile phone in 1999.

Where do you spend your time most online?

I would feel cold, naked and alone without Outlook, Amazon, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Ocado, iTunes, TweetDeck, Keynote and my National Rail iPhone app.

Are digital channels a step-change in communications or simply a natural progression in marketing?

They are both nothing new and completely different.

How do you see social media changing marketing?

Did you know that you are never more than five pixels away from a tweet or slide share presentation about this subject. At the weekend and in the evening I spend hours playing around with Facebook advertising. I love trying to start with the widest possible demographic and then seeing how far I can segment it. I guess that means that things have changed a lot.

How does consumer generated content sit with traditionally authored and published content, what’s the relationship?

The key is to have clear rules, labelling and a structure that allows the user to differentiate the voice of the brand and that of the consumer.

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation: brand/marketing, agency, technology team, other?

The most successful digital strategies are owned by everyone and mapped to an organisation’s overall business objectives.

My Digital Journey

Justin Cooke founded digital agency Fortune Cookie in 1997, following creative roles with BBC Films, Universal Music (Rondor) and United News and Media (Miller Freeman, Travel Division). His aim: to make Fortune Cookie one of the most respected digital agencies in the world. A graduate of Manchester University (Computers in Theatre), Cooke has successfully steered Fortune Cookie through two industry recessions. Fortune Cookie’s 50-strong team of some of the greatest talent in the digital industry produces award-winning work of a consistently world-class standard for brands and organisations including Legal & General, Amnesty International, Europcar, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, British Gas, UEFA, Miss Selfridge, Kuoni and Lawn Tennis Association.

Websites designed and built by Fortune Cookie have been shortlisted for major design awards 44 times in the past two years, including an Honour at the 2009 Webby Awards, an NMA Effectiveness Award and Best Agency at the Travolution Awards.

www.fortunecookie.co.uk

“Personally : Watching my 6 year old daughter effortlessly navigate the web. Professionally : reputation management tool from Marchex http://www.marchex.com/repmanagement/, a must for any business.”

What most excites you about digital marketing?

“Fact that every year something comes from nowhere and changes everything, think Twitter, Facebook, Skype etc.

What was the 'ah!' moment for you - the moment where you suddenly realised the scale the web or digital marketing would play in your business?

“The way email changed the way and frequency we communicate.”

What do you say to senior directors who just don't get it, senior directors who treat digital channels as a minor add-on?

“Not met one of those since the late 1990's!“

What's the difference in thinking managers need when their firms enter this space?

“Enter this space implies its different. Simply include digital as part of an integrated marketing strategy and apply resources to it accordingly.”

Most common mistake people make in digital media or marketing?

“Not being prepared to fail and organizations being too judgemental of people who do.”

If you could go back in time to a key 'digital moment', where and when would it be?

“1989, standing beside Tim Berners-Lee as he wrote a memo proposing an Internet-based hypertext system which kicked it all off.”

Where do you spend your time most online?

“Social Networks.”

Are digital channels a step-change in communications or simply a natural progression in marketing?

“They have turbo charged the way we communicate, Facebook is word of mouth on steroids.”

How do you see social media changing marketing?

“Facilitating word of mouth marketing, however you'll only get out what you put in.”

How does consumer generated content sit with traditionally authored and published content, what's the relationship?

“Its critical, it provides diversity, comprehensiveness and personality.”

Who should own digital strategies in an organisation: brand/marketing, agency, technology team, other?

“Everyone owns a businesses reputation and this is especially true in digital which allows for a previously unseen level of user engagement and feedback.”

www.oodle.com

For many firms online marketing only means search. Retailers live and die by their position in the organic search rankings, and fight ever smarter battles in the bid wars for pay-per-click position. Money pouring into search marketing has kept search in pole position, accounting for over half of all the online ad spend in the UK. But now there’s a new kid on the block. So before its official launch in the UK, we caught up with Bing’s marketing manager in London. Cedric Chambaz told Danny Meadows-Klue the story of a new brand, a new approach and the big implications for agencies and advertisers fighting on the frontline in search battles.

Bing is not simply a rebrand of Live Search. That’s the first thing that’s clear when Cedric Chambaz explains what Microsoft has been doing. While the global deal with Yahoo to make Bing the unique search engine across both networks and to thus combine both reaches has stolen the headlines, dig deeper and you find it’s a very different product. Different from Live Search, different from Yahoo, and different from Google. The differences are in all three parts of search: what the user experiences, how the engine thinks, and how the advertising works. And as Bing’s influence grows, the changes will be radical.

“It all started with the unfulfilled consumer needs we knew we could address” kicks off Chambaz. “We went out and really spent time with consumers. We started by looking at what people are doing, and asked them what they were really expecting search engines to deliver. In fact, people find searching tough, so we needed to find new ways to display the results that would make the whole process easier.”

Chambaz is clear about the scale of change: “in the last 10 years the web has become unrecognisable. The applications, the content and the richness of the information have changed the landscape.” Which is why for Bing and Chambaz, providing the same experience simply wasn’t the right approach. “The nature of the data they have to find has become more complex and the engines need to deliver far beyond simple text queries whilst remaining as simple to use as possible.”

As search becomes more critical, the complexity of searches has grown. “There’s a lot of frustration out there. People using the web often don’t find the things they’re looking for. They blame themselves, and that taints the whole experience of using the web. Bing’s ambition is to help users find more easily what they’re after. Our vision is to help users make more informed choices.”

Engagement, relevancy and the timeliness of the results are all part of their story, and while on the surface this might read like a marketing whitewash, Bing’s products and experience are delivering. They’ve removed a layer in the consumer’s journey and brought more of the landing page information upfront onto the search result page. Their challenge is to build a brand and to get people to unlearn the habit of Google. It’s a massive task, and Bing has to first get people trying the new experience to realise that the product as at least as good, if not better.

What’s different?

Not surprisingly, the user interface is deliberately different from Google. Half of the British internet users start their web journey from a search engine, and the Bing homepage is deliberately designed to find new ways to create customer engagement upfront. Just roll your mouse over the daily-refreshed rich image and you’ll see pop ups for quirky insights about what’s in the images. That’s a fundamentally different approach. Microsoft is creating a new experience that captures the internet user imagination and helps him refine his intent along the way.

Behind the scenes, Bing is about ‘categorised search’. Here again it’s a different approach based in part on a taxonomy that includes manual involvement. Even here in Soho, close to our offices, there’s an engineering team that is looking into the relationships between the millions of keywords used by our fellow citizens. “This means that Bing can capture the ‘loose intent’ that people have when they start searching and push the content they are after in the back of their mind”, explains Chambaz. “People enter a ‘first query’, but we’re providing access to the second or third options people want by the click of a button. We’re helping people find more easily what they actually want by integrating historical search behaviours of British users. Take something like a search for Stephen Hawking’s book ‘A Brief History of Time’: if someone is looking for the essay but doesn’t know its title, this person will type the name of the author with the hope to find it, Bing’ll feature a Quicktab, a button labelled ‘Books’ that enables to strip out of the search results everything that is not related to the scientist’s bibliography.This gets rid of the lengthy and frustrating process of trying to find the right word permutation that would bring the desired results.”

In practice this means their model can deal with anything from flights and the details of arrival times, to dentists in the district you’re searching for.

Chambaz believes that “nobody has yet fully cracked the search issue. Engines still rely on consumers doing much of the work.”

Taking Bing out of ‘Beta’

Launched in beta in June, the product is about to be launched as a fully-fledged engine in the coming months. The campaign will combine brand building and product demonstration to show people how it works and encourage trial. In the US we showed how the price predictor works in online banners or TV commercials. We showed the key features and used complementary online and offline communication to build the vision in the mind of the consumer. For one person it might be a price predictor for people to fund the right deal.

There’s a deliberate desire to influence the influencers. Microsoft has been communicating first to heavy internet users and relying in part on them to take the market with them. Sure, you’ll see Hotmail, MSN and Messenger making it clear that the search they see in all these channels is with Bing, but this is a viral change they’re looking to achieve.

Chambaz is convinced the product will win people over: “It’s all about the product. In the UK we have the most relevant search results you’ll find”.

“Take something like the ‘Best Match’ feature – Bing is providing the most relevant by pointing at the official website of certain key branded or navigational queries that people want: type BBC or Facebook and that’s the expected official website we give them in first position. One third of searches are navigational, this feature helps consumers get where they actually want to go, faster and without cluttering their way with less relevant links.”

Shaking up the value chain in search

Bing is also innovating with the business model. In search advertising we’ve had over a decade of cost-per-click as the primary business model but Bing is trying something different. In the US for instance, there’s a cashback model being tested that could change the balance of control and power between advertiser, consumer and search engine. “We are looking for a way to reward all three parties: the search engine, the advertiser but also the consumer. The model of giving a “cashback” value to the consumer. This model has been running successfully in the US for a couple of years. In Europe, with the MultiMap and Ciao acquisition by Microsoft, we are looking at even further innovative models. Chambaz hints at this: “Search and Social Media are getting together and can be monetised, and solutions like Farecast in the US could be relevant for the international markets”

Comments and questions

Steve Smart, AIG, asked about the nature of partnerships between brands and search
“Search engines don’t own the internet and need to acknowledge this. We’re helping people get answers. That means partnering with other companies for services and data that boosts the relevancy for people in each country and creates something which is native for their markets.”

“We’re not creating a one-size-fits-all product. If we’d deployed the same service globally, it wouldn’t have been right for our customers. We work with a global blueprint and have local developers in each key countries looking at the needs of the local market. In Soho for instance there’s a team of 60 engineers just working on the localisation and the appropriate partnerships. So that whether you are in London or in San Francisco, you get local listings, restaurant reviews and maps for instance,

Alison Fogg, SKOPOS, asked: “Which demographic group responded best in the tests?”
CC Our primary audience are search heavy users. People who know the web, and know how much they need to get the right thing. It’s not demographic, it’s behavioural. And part of this behaviour is their influential power which is key to generate consumer endorsement”

Key facts and figures about Bing
• 30% of all UK search queries are navigational: people using the search engine to get to a single URL. Type in Facebook and Bing gets you there straight away – it’s the one link that will come up.
• Preview: Before the click, Bing gives you the preview of the page you’re about to go to – a snapshot of what’s at the end of the link, by hovering over the actual link
• Visual search: a search experience piloted in the US that use visual stimulus and intuitive filtering option to help the user perform their search
• Conversion: Nielsen NetRatings have tracked that the conversion rates for advertisers on Live Search (Bing’s predecessor) have been 42% higher than other search engines
• 12% of US queries: Bing’s audience since launch
• 3.7% of UK queries: That’s the market share that Live Search had before – massive expansion potential for Bing, but a big challenge for the marketers
• Microsoft adCenter, the search marketing platform that serves your ads on Bing, is available in the US, UK, Canada, France and Singapore

Bing looks set to fundamentally change the nature of search marketing. The battleground is shifting from using techniques to play the algorithm game. This isn’t small scale, it’s a shock to the search ecosystem and one Google will respond to. Caught in the middle of a seismic shift will be SEO agencies trying to navigate how to make their clients listings perform well on two very different platforms. Bing has mapped the customer journey and are even working with SEOs to make those journeys shorter and simpler (displaying the call centre numbers of the firms that are getting listed for example).

Here in London, the next wave in the search engine battle is about to begin.

www.bing.com