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

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