uplifting offices

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uplifting offices

magazine of the year
19 MAR 2014
®
modern marketing £7.50
uplifting offices
how space can nurture creativity
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THE DRUM 19.MAR.14 www.thedrum.com
®
19 March 2014
VOLUME #35
ISSUE #06
18
Cover courtesy of Boys and
Girls (boysandgirls.ie)
The Irish creative agency’s
balloon suspended front desk
features in our look at agency
receptions.
12
25
Disruptive leadership
Ian Pearman says ‘digital’ has little
meaning in era of convergence.
18
Colourful spaces
How important is it for agencies
to get their receptions right?
15
Full steam ahead
Rory Sutherland joins other voices
from the worlds of advertising,
design and media to look at how
the electronic cigarette market is
shaping up.
30
25
Creative Works
The best new creative work
from around the world.
30
Top performers
A look at the latest happenings in
performance-based marketing.
50
54
The Last Word
Paul Kitcatt is not a fan of
pitching, and he doesn’t care
who knows it.
Girl Guides
Julie Dodd wants to harness
digital’s power for the greater good.
52
The Drum Network
Richard Draycott catches up with
Boutique Media’s Simon Bollon.
TD_35_09_MAR19_CONTENTS.indd 3
14/03/2014 14:43
Nobody ever achieved greatness with half measures.
Synergist can give you all this – and because
In business, or in life. So when you decide it’s time to step
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For agencies with ambition
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14/03/2014
10/02/2014 12:35
16:18
LEADER05
meet the team
gordon young
editor
[email protected]
we need to talk
about privacy
It is our industry’s guaranteed passion killer, a seven letter bombshell that causes
otherwise forthright and loquacious marketing directors to clam up and lose their
THOMAS O’NEILL
MAGAZINE editor
[email protected]
tongues. But it’s an issue that, whether we like it or not, is going to become one of
marketing’s biggest talking points of 2014. Yes, it’s time we talked about privacy.
In marketing circles, privacy has felt like the elephant in the room for too long.
It has stayed that way because marketers have been safe in the knowledge that
consumers, indifferent to privacy worries themselves, have largely surrendered their data
unquestioningly. Now we are starting to see that attitude change.
KATIE MCQUATER
FEATURES editor
[email protected]
The catalyst for that change is the Edward Snowden files, which have exposed
government organisations like the US National Security Agency (NSA) for spying on their
ordinary citizens’ web activity. Propelled by the campaigning of Wikileaks and the Guardian,
the issues around privacy and personal data have exploded onto the mainstream agenda
and become a subject of national debate. Suddenly, people are aware that their data, which
Stephen Lepitak
ONLINE editor
[email protected]
they have given away so freely, actually has a value – and a cost.
As data enters the popular lexicon, there is a danger that it becomes a dirty word and a
risk that marketers could be tarred with the NSA’s brush. A brand looking to target you with
relevant advertising is a much less sinister proposition than a government watching you
like Big Brother, however. But do people outside marketing services see the distinctions as
JESSICA DAVIES
NEWS editor
[email protected]
clearly as we do, or do they just see us all as seedy gatherers of their private details?
The complexities of targeted advertising are not well understood beyond our industry, and
therefore many people’s default setting, quite naturally, is to assume that anyone harvesting
their data must have questionable motives. By not being clearer about why we want to
know so much about our customers or website visitors, we are inviting suspicion upon
ourselves. The days of the acquiescent consumer are numbered.
Angela Haggerty
reporter
[email protected]
To combat these concerns, we have to be more transparent as an industry. It is the least
our consumers deserve. On page 11 we quote the Internet Advertising Bureau chairman,
Richard Eyre, who admits our industry is “undercooking it on privacy policies”. No longer is
the “legal bollocks” small print good enough, he says. “We need to go further than we have
ever gone before as advertisers to relax people with what we’re doing with data.”
PPA:
• Business Magazine of the Year 2013
PPA Independent Publishers Network:
• Media Brand of the Year 2013
• Editor of the Year 2013
PPA Scotland:
• Scottish Magazine of the Year 2013
• Business & Professional Magazine of the Year 2013
• Business & Professional Magazine Design 2013
• Business & Professional Magazine Editor of the Year 2013
Simply by telling customers what we won’t do with their data we can put their minds at
rest and eliminate many doubts. We need to better communicate why we need their data,
and if we’re not capable of that, perhaps we ought to question whether we should really be
collecting it at all.
We may be able to use data to predict consumers’ behaviour, but no database will ever
tell you their mood. It’s time we started to be more sensitive to their feelings around data,
and talk openly and honestly about privacy. If we don’t, it could be many brands’ silent killer.
Editor: Gordon Young Associate Editor & MD of The Drum Network: Richard Draycott Editor-at-Large: Dave Birss Magazine Editor: Thomas O’Neill Features Editor: Katie McQuater Online Editor: Stephen Lepitak Commissioning Editor:
Cameron Clarke News Editor: Jessica Davies Reporters: Gillian West, Jen Faull, Angela Haggerty, John Glenday Research Journalist: Sam Scott Staff Writer: Natalie Mortimer Social Media Manager: Ishbel Macleod Design & Production
Director: Nick Creed Design/Production: Amanda Dewar, Ross Lesley-Bayne Group Commercial Director: Liz Hamilton Business Development Manager: James McGowan Directory Sales: Stephen Young Recruitment Sales: Tehmeena Latif
Subscription Sales: Laura Bradley Events Director: Lynn Lester Events Manager: Katy Thomson Managing Director: Diane Young Head of Content Solutions: Andy Oakes Printed by: Stephens & George Magazines
Head Office: 4th Floor, Mercat Building, 26 Gallowgate, Glasgow G1 5AB London Office: Lower Gound Floor, Victoria House, 64 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NG Tel: +44 (0)141 552 5858 Fax: +44 (0)141 559 6050
THE DRUM is published by Carnyx Group Limited. The publishers, authors and printers cannot accept liability for any errors or omissions. Any artwork will be accepted at owner’s risk. All rights reserved. On no account may any part of this publication be reproduced in any form
without the written permission of the copyright holder and publisher, application for which should be made to the publisher. © carnyx group limited 2014 ISSN 2046-0635
TD_35_09_MAR19_LEADER.indd 5
14/03/2014 15:00
06AGENDA
www.thedrum.com 19.MAR.14 THE DRUM
Digital Convergence
Marketers must take
responsibility for
customer experience
or risk being overtaken
by IT departments
Thomas Cook marketing director Mike Hoban tells The
Drum’s Digital Convergence conference that marketers face
becoming redundant if they focus too much on “the colour
and size of logos” and abdicate responsibility for customer
experience to IT departments.
Marketers must embrace
technology and ‘take
responsibilty’ for the customer
experience or face becoming
“redundant” and letting IT
departments overtake them,
according to Thomas Cook
marketing director Mike Hoban.
Hoban said the rise of the chief
experience officer role within
businesses reflects an “abdication”
of the responsibility of the marketing
department.
“A marketing department must
put itself in place where it has an
accurate understanding of the
consumer, and champions that in the
organisation; aligning all its activity
behind the commercial objectives
of the organisation, and ensuring
that every part of that business
contributes to delivering that
customer experience.
Too many businesses treat brand
management as “worrying over
logo colour and font size”, when the
reality is that it is about managing
the promise that organisation makes,
according to Hoban.
“But if marketers allow themselves
to be boxed in by worrying about
the colour and size of logos they
will be redundant, as they will be
overtaken by IT departments who
will be responsible for customer
experience,” he added.
Hoban said that the first role
of a marketer is to champion the
customer and to do that they must
embrace technology, and in doing so
they can reinvent and future-proof
their businesses. “But you must be
able to talk to your IT department –
you will not succeed in the future as
TD_35_09_MAR19_AGENDA_01.indd 6
a marketer is you can’t.”
He stressed that the fact
marketing and IT departments speak
“different languages” is what can
ensure a business really thrives.
“The most important relationship
that exists in business today is the
relationship between marketing and
technology and the ability to get
them to talk together is absolutely
fundamental. But this doesn’t mean
that you want them to talk the
same language, because it’s in that
conflict that emerges in their different
languages that answers will emerge
to problems.”
Also on the Digital Convergence
panel was Andy Mihalop, Google’s
head of industry for insurance, who
agreed with Hoban that the siloes
between organisations’ marketing
and IT departments must be broken
down for companies to move
forward.
“Traditionally the creative piece has
sat within marketing, and some of
the science side which includes the
platforms and data on technology
side in the IT department – that silo
must be broken down – it’s about
marketing and technology coming
together with a common agenda to
drive a customer-driven experience,”
he said.
Hoban agreed, but reinforced
the point that marketing is not
synonymous with art alone, and
likewise science with technology.
“We shouldn’t fall into the trap of
thinking art equals marketing and
science equals technology, because
the platforms that will determine the
success of business in the future will
arguably be created by the creatives
within the technology departments.”
Fellow panellist Graeme Douglas,
interactive creative director at
Wieden+Kennedy, challenged the
term “creative” when applied to
specific individuals, reinforcing that
all people have the potential to be
creative.
“The word creative as a noun is
unhelpful – it’s about creativity not
creatives – it should reflect a way
of doing things and an approach
rather than a job title. We are guilty
of enforcing that – the whole industry
is guilty of reinforcing it – creativity
is a cultural thing, not something
to be siloed into a corner or even
outsourced,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nishma Robb, chief
client services and marketing officer
at Dentsu Aegis Network-owned
iProspect, added that one of the
biggest challenges for agencies is
working with clients who have not
embraced change and become
integrated themselves but are “totally
disconnected”.
“They look to the agency to act
as a kind of band aid between the
two, and we end up spending more
time helping businesses restructure
themselves.”
She also said that the fundamental
way in which agencies earn money
hasn’t changed, but that it must in
order to reflect the changing media
landscape. “The way we earn money
isn’t relevant now in terms of the
metrics we are trying to deliver.
“It’s about recognising that value
– it may be a sale, but it may be
another measure of success that
needs to be determined. But unless
we get true alignment between
brands and agencies that will always
be a challenge,” she said.
14/03/2014 15:12
AGENDA07
Digital Convergence
Digital Convergence
Notonthehighstreet.com has power
to ‘disrupt any consumer sector’
Tracking
consumers
who aren’t
signed in is
‘the golden
bullet’
Shop Direct’s head of user
experience, Sam Barton,
has said that cross-device
tracking consumers who
aren’t signed into an
account is “the golden
bullet” for businesses.
Online retailer Notonthehighstreet is in a position to “disrupt any consumer sector”
through its ability to offer personalised products that “talk to people on their terms”,
according to marketing director Ben Carter.
Speaking at The Drum’s
Digital Convergence event,
Notonthehighstreet’s Ben Carter
said the brand is aiming to
become famous in the next three
years and despite the business
growing 150 per cent year-onyear, there is still a huge branding
job to be done.
“Our prompted awareness among
females is very high but among
blokes that prompted awareness
is not,” commented Carter. “So
our mission is to make sure we
are relevant to anyone who wants
to buy something on the internet.
That’s a big mission and we have
big competitors like Amazon, but we
have the ambition and determination
to make it a success.”
Currently, 80 per cent of the
products on the website are sold
by females and the retailer is
channelling efforts to make the
brand more relevant to men. One
of the ways it is doing this is by
“investing in the right channels
above the line”, creating an
ongoing conversation and pushing
a constant reminder of the brand
through media partnerships.
Carter also said that the brand is
increasing its marketing investment
to drive home the message that it
is more than just a ‘gifting’ retailer
and a place to go for personalised
products for yourself.
“Notonthehighstreet has become
an established gifting destination, but
we sell so much more than gifts,” he
said. “Our mission is to make you
realise that you don’t have to have
the same doormat or bed sheet as
your neighbour. Our priority is to work
out how we become known as more
than that and to further grow the site
around self-purchase”.
As part of this push, the site last
week ran its first ‘reactive’ advert
after seeing the opportunity to
engage in current events and news.
It used a conversation around prenuptial agreements and in two hours
created the advert and ran it in print
the next day. It also pushed the
content through core social media
sites.
Creating advertising and social
media engagement through
current events is something
Notonthehighstreet is heavily
investing time in. Carter said the
marketing team is “almost like a
news team” with news gathering
calls taking place three times a
week. However, he added that
reactive “isn’t really reactive” and
needs to be more of a planned
process, with the team forward
planning key events such as
pancake day throughout the year.
Talking about targeting customers
at the right time, Carter said the
brand is “cutting through the clutter”
and from a commercial point of view
still “working out the balance for
Pinterest”.
Notonthehighstreet currently has
a 180,000 strong Facebook fan
base, with CPAs through the site
described as “phenomenal”.
Shop Direct’s Sam Barton has said
that the online retail brand is currently
only able to track consumers who are
signed into their accounts, making it
difficult to fully understand big data
collected about their habits.
“Customers who shop with us across
different devices are 15 times more
valuable than those who shop on one
device, so we understand the importance
of cross device. From that insight we
started retargeting on mobile and looking
at the data behind that.
“At the moment we just track people
who are signed in. We design user
journeys based on the profile of the
customers we are seeing and within UX
we create personas by the way people are
using cross devices. That influences the
interface and how we target them, and it
influences everything we do,” he said.
Barton was speaking at The Drum’s
Digital Convergence. Also on the bill was
Steve Forde of Channel 4, who said the
broadcaster uses big data to learn more
about the “human being” that is the
viewer.
“We believe by 2020 two thirds of
viewers will come through connected
devices which creates an interesting
strategy for broadcasters. We have
introduced lots of MBTs to nudge
customers into deciding what to watch.
“We have terabytes and terabytes
of data to understand what customers
are watching and how we can use that
data to influence decisions on TV. The
next thing to see is how and if data can
influence which programmes we can
make in the future”.
14/03/2014 15:12
08AGENDA
marketing
Burning a hole in our pockets?
Almost 50 years since cigarette advertising was banned from British TV, the world’s
biggest tobacco firms are returning to our screens as they pour millions of pounds into
the flourishing e-cigarette market. On page 15 we take a look at the opportunities the
new market offers advertisers, but first, how much is the sector currently worth?
digital convergence
Digital has
helped shift
F1 image
away from
‘moving
tobacco ads’
Formula One cars have
traditionally been seen as
“empty vessels” for tobacco
sponsorship – an image
racing teams can now shed
thanks to digital engagement
strategies, according to
McLaren’s Rob Bloom.
Formula One has previously “had
a label” for being predominantly
associated with tobacco sponsorships,
with the racing cars seen as “empty
vessels” for conveying commercial
messages, according to Rob Bloom,
group online manager at McLaren.
Speaking at Digital Convergence,
Bloom said: “The cars have been seen
almost like moving billboards driving
round with tobacco sponsorship.”
Now though teams have realised the
importance of building brand equity and
affinity, which was the reason behind
McLaren’s Tooned branded content
series, and its creation of fun content on
digital channels in the run up to and post
racing events.
Bloom said the pressure for Formula
One teams like McLaren to perform is
not isolated to the race track alone, but
equally applies to the digital arena.
“It’s about the power of context and
being relevant to the moment. We are
riding on the crest of demand at all times,
and brands must adapt from inside-out
to be right for social.
“The story of relevance isn’t between
2 and 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.
It is Wednesday to Wednesday of a
Grand Prix week. We acknowledge and
understand that people want more, and
there are loads of micro stories that can
be told along the way,” he added.
Bloom said the future road map will
centre on diversifying its fan base to
appeal to more 15 to 25-year-olds and
growing its international audiences in the
US and China.
14/03/2014 15:13
AGENDA09
sxsw
awards
Should brands be real-time?
Time fries when you’re having
fun... The Chip Shop Awards
entry deadline has now passed,
but if you still want to enter,
don’t worry. The deadline has
been extended, so we are still
accepting your killer ideas.
Email katy.thomson@thedrum.
com to arrange your extension.
A panel of US brand marketers from McDonald’s, Dell, Capital One and Whole Foods
Markets was assembled at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin to discuss their differing social
strategies in achieving audience and consumer engagement. Stephen Lepitak reports.
The rise of real-time marketing
through the adoption of social media
by brands has been evident over the
last few years, with many companies
increasing their spend in an effort to
achieve viral success through single
creative messages or longer-term
engagement strategies.
And while much of the talk in the
industry has highlighted major one-off
success stories, with the much hyped
Oreos ‘Dunk in the Dark’ Super Bowl
tweet still held up as the example to beat,
it was clear from the discussion that such
achievements are rare and that chasing
that success can prove fruitless and
costly. Instead the panel was united in the
belief that brands should see social as a
customer service tool to communicate on
a meaningful, granular level.
“What’s lost in the real-time marketing
discussion is the customer service stuff,”
claims McDonald’s director of social
media Rick Wion. “When we got started
on Twitter we were very particular in
making sure that we had a customer
service team as part of our original launch
team because we knew we would have
things that people would complain about
and we wanted to make sure we were
able to take care of those customers.
For us, real-time is about one-to-one
interactions everyday as those customers
that come in and are upset, we need to
speak to them too.”
Natanya Anderson, director of social
media for Whole Foods Market, was
in agreement, calling on marketers to
view the potential to communicate with
customers 365 days a year, rather than
attempting stunts around major events.
“The maturity that we have seen in the
social listening tool space means we’re
no long just getting big blobs of data
back. We have pretty sophisticated ways
to filter them, and because social is a
more mature space for businesses, not
every single tweet needs to go through
10 layers of approval. We’re really at a
place where real-time marketing can
become a reality.”
Noha Abdalla of Capital One,
underlined the need to understand
relevance should a brand wish to activate
around a major event, admitting that
the bank chose not to focus any activity
around the recent Oscars for instance.
“Real-time doesn’t necessarily mean
being a part of that culture-jacking
moment. We don’t have to be part of
the Super Bowl, it’s more about having
the right conversation with consumers
around something they are passionate
about and something they want to
engage on,” she explained.
Meanwhile, Dell’s Bryan Jones revealed
his social team encompasses 280 people
and that every one of his marketing
people is part of the conversation: “Every
person within the organisation needs to
have an active role in social media and
connecting to our customers,” he said.
“Real-time marketing is similar to the
conversations we have already had. I’m
not looking for the lightning strike, I’m
looking for the constant connection with
customers. If something funny or unique
comes out of that interaction then that’s
great, but its not the driving factor in how I
deliver a marketing campaign. I want that
connection every day to be relevant and
empowering to the end user.”
All agreed that social should be used
for listening and responding to customer
needs but that responses should only be
made when appropriate.
Anderson advised that social
interaction be viewed as community
management, saying: “Real-time
marketing happens at the intersection of
customer conversations or your business
opportunities or business stories and
I really believe in the idea of holding
conversations that customers would
invite you to join. But by listening to
customers, listening to what they need
and what is important to them, and then
by joining in with what is important to
them, that can be useful to them.”
The Dadis (The Drum Awards for
the Digital Industries), in association with Synergist, is the UK’s
premier digital awards, celebrating digital effectiveness and excellence. Now in its eighth year,
entries for the awards are now
being accepted, with a deadline
of 30 May. Register and enter at
dadiawards.com.
The Drum Marketing Awards
take place on Thursday 8
May at the London Marriott
Grosvenor Square Hotel.
For more information about
the awards or to book your
tickets for the ceremony, visit
thedrummarketingawards.com.
2014
The Online Media Awards
is now offering an extended
deadline. Rewarding the best in
online journalism and sales, the
awards are open to online editors, publishers and media sales
professionals and the entry
pack, along with all other information about the awards, can
be found at onlinemediaawards.
net. Contact Caity Ryan on 0141
559 6063 for more details.
14/03/2014 15:13
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14/03/2014 12:35
AGENDA11
marketing
“We’re undercooking it
on privacy policies,” IAB
chairman tells marketers
Richard Eyre recently spoke out about the importance of
marketers working harder to ease consumer concern over
data and privacy – one of the pillars in his template on the
future of marketing.
Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB)
chairman Richard Eyre has told
marketers that they must go further
and work harder to relax people
about data, saying that the “legal
bollocks” on websites’ privacy tabs
no longer cuts it.
Speaking at ISBA’s annual
conference in London, Richard Eyre
said: “The activities of Bradley Manning
and Edward Snowden have brought
state breaches of data to the fore, but
it hasn’t taken the heat off advertisers
and brands. The IAB has offered some
best practice approaches, but I can’t
help but feel that we’re undercooking it
on privacy policies.”
“It’s about security of data and
despite our efforts their remains some
very serious concerns about the
collection of data.”
Eyre added that right now, what
marketers must to do to ease consumer
concerns is to get the ‘privacy’ tab,
often found hidden at the bottom of the
page, up to the top.
“And when we click on it we should
get something that isn’t legal bollocks
but that says here is what we will
never ever do with your data,” he
said. “We need to go further than we
have ever gone before as advertisers
to relax people with what we’re doing
with data.”
This respect toward the consumer
is one of the pillars in his ‘future of
marketing template’, which Eyre urged
marketers to take heed of.
Commenting on the importance
of openness for a brand – another
pillar – Eyre said that while brands are
pulling up their privacy tab, they should
also be overhauling how they enable
consumers to contact them.
He applauded the likes of Virgin
Atlantic for its real-time responses to
customer queries on social media,
but on a more basic level said that
right now brands should axe the FAQs
panel from the contact section on their
websites and invest properly in offering
consumers genuine contact points.
“Under-resourcing of contact points
is pathetic. It’s what big businesses do
when they think they are bigger than
the consumer,” he said.
In the same vein, Eyre explained that
for brands it’s no longer about defining
a persona and keeping it up because
in this “always on” world that simply
isn’t possible.
“Brand values have to be for real, they
cannot be an overlay. Under the constant
scrutiny and discussion available to our
customers, carefully crafted overlays
can’t exist. They must not express what
research says people want from the
brand, but the truth about what that
brand actually is and what it means,” he
said, explaining that Nike and Apple are
two brands who at one time have been
tarnished by the inconsistency in what
they say to consumers and what they do
as companies.
He continued: “CSR is a dreary term if
ever I heard one, but it absolutely should
be a division of marketing. It should not
exist anywhere else in your organisation.”
New research into behavioural
marketing has found that 62 per cent
of marketers avoid it due to privacy
concerns from customers.
Behavioural marketing is the practice
of capturing data generated by visiting
websites, or responding to social media
comments, and using it to increase the
effectiveness of campaigns.
The vast majority of respondents
to the study understood the benefits,
with 57 per cent forecasting more than
10 per cent improvement in customer
satisfaction; 61 per cent forecasting
more than 10 per cent improvement in
marketing attributed revenue; and 58 per
cent anticipating more than 10 per cent
improvement in ROMI.
Yet only 33 per cent of the 151
marketers surveyed said they considered
themselves “mature practitioners”.
“When prospective customers interact
with companies they expect more
– more personal, more relevant and
more timely communications,” said Lori
Wizdo, principal analyst with Forrester
Research. “Marketers need to constantly
and automatically evolve their programs
based on how their buyers react to
their marketing messages. Behavioural
marketing is no longer an option – it’s
table stakes.”
Looking at why there is a discrepancy,
78 per cent of respondents agreed
with the statement ‘we are held
back in our adoption of behavioural
marketing because of our marketing
technology’, and 62 per cent agreed
with the statement ‘we avoid behavioural
marketing because of our customers’
privacy concerns’.
However, B2B and B2C marketers
have accepted multichannel marketing
as a best practice, with 52 per cent
stating that they are already in transition
to adopting these processes. Only one
per cent said they had no interest in
doing so.
marketing
62% of
marketers
avoid
behavioural
marketing
Two thirds of marketers
avoid behavioural
marketing because of
the privacy concerns
of customers, according
to a new study by
Forrester commissioned
by Silverpop.
14/03/2014 15:14
12disruption
DROP THE
Digital is the communications equivalent of air, Ian
Pearman of AMV BBDO tells Stephen Lepitak,
and attempts to keep the ‘D-word’ alive within
agencies merely hampers innovation.
The advertising industry has witnessed more
change in the last five years than in the preceding
50 according to Ian Pearman, CEO of AMV BBDO,
who says the advent of digital favours strong
agencies and client teams who “know what they
stand for”.
In a period of rapid change, three characteristics
of successful agencies have emerged, Pearman
points out, explaining that success is embodied by
“organisational character”, an ability to “distinguish
between means and ends” and teams who don’t
confuse activity with progress.
Pearman is speaking to The Drum as part of a series
of interviews with agency chiefs around the disruptive
effect digital has had on the marketing communications
industry. Yet, when it comes to the terminology, he
doesn't believe “the D-word” holds much meaning in
the current era of convergence, describing it as "a false
currency" and adding that it is “the communications
equivalent of air, so trying to demarcate specific
executions, channels, ideas or budgets as ‘digital’ is a
pointless exercise”.
Yet budgets are still being siloed into disciplines that
include digital in a separate pot, says Pearman, adding
that clients’ existing business structures have evolved at
a slower pace than those of marketing agencies, mainly
due to the size of their organisations.
Pearman believes that siloing budgets creates
confusion over how money should be spent, and with
whom. “It creates a perverse incentive for agencies to
keep the ‘D-word’ alive in their own business, simply to
improve their chances of laying claim to those budgets.
The result is a drag effect on the innovation needed
within agencies and marketing departments alike.”
While the ‘D-word’ is an “oversimplification” that has
created two types of agency, as the term becomes
redundant clients will be able to focus on the overall
offering of agencies from varying creative backgrounds,
says Pearman. This of course throws up a limitless set
of competitors in an already cut-throat market.
“Theoretically, every agency is a potential competitor,
as every agency has the right to extend its capabilities
into new areas – broadcast advertising, social, content,
TD_35_09_MAR19_DISRUPTION.indd 12
web development – but whether they are actual
competitors depends on the maturity of those offerings.
“And as ever, most agencies have a centre of gravity;
the likes of AKQA and SapientNitro are likely to continue
with business models centred on building large web
development projects, just as our business model is
unlikely to veer away from big strategic and creative
ideas.”
Therefore, the main competitive battle facing AMV
BBDO, according to Pearman, is centred around who
retains the right to execute ideas across an increasingly
wide media mix.
“Specialist disciplinary agencies will always compete
hard for those specific opportunities, and we have to
earn our right to execute by showing our capability
and evidence of previous success in those disciplines.
Fortunately, we have lots of both,” he says.
Coming from a more traditional creative background
doesn't mean that Pearman sees his own agency as
having a better positioning in the modern era when
it comes to agency offerings, instead that it is simply
“easier” to find technology partners to execute an
idea rather than vice versa. "It’s always easier to find
the means if you have an end in mind, and ideas
first, technology second, fits that more easily than the
reverse."
The evolution has meant a change in hiring priorities
for the business, while also creating more opportunity
for internal working partnerships across varying
disciplines: technology, strategy and creative production.
“It’s the constant interplay of these inputs that
creates ambitious ideas that can still be actually made
– ideas that have never been done before, but that are
strategically bang on for a brand’s business challenge.
If you miss anyone of these inputs, you end up with
ideas that are brilliant but can’t be made, ideas that are
exciting but strategically bereft, or ideas that are right
but workmanlike,” he adds.
When it comes to ensuring agencies meet the
capabilities sought by current and prospective clients,
Pearman argues partnerships have become all the more
vital. In a time of multiple specialisms, this need has
become all the more pressing, he explains.
14/03/2014 12:57
disruption13
"No agency has every single capability in all of the
shapes and sizes, and there will always be occasions
when agencies need to call on best-in-class partners
– particularly production experts – to execute best-inclass work. Clients increasingly recognise that reality
and I’ve heard more and more talk of “ability to partner”
as one of the metrics by which they judge agencies,
knowing that it will significantly influence the final
outputs.”
Agency culture has a part to play in determining how
collaborative companies are.
“Agencies that have creative departments with a
‘black box’ attitude to creative development – with
briefs pushed under the doors of creative offices – will
do badly by this metric,” suggests Pearman. “Agencies
that attract people who have ‘zero-sum’ attitudes – the
sense that sharing ideas means giving away power –
will also fail. Great production companies only partner
with people who treat them properly, and if clients
increasingly recognise this, the nice guys in the agency
sector will come first not last,” he adds.
While clients’ own structures have been slower to
develop, they are at the same time no longer likely
to be fazed by the emergence of new languages, as
technological development continues to evolve and
“It’s always easier to
find the means if you
have an end in mind, and
ideas first, technology
second, fits that more
easily than the reverse.”
their understanding of that and the opportunities it
creates continues to be imperative. However, more
understanding does mean that agencies will now be
judged on their capability and competency to deliver
their clients’ needs more in future. Pearman adds that
in recent years, he has yet to meet a client who has
not had an eye in wider agency capability, describing
integrated capability as having become “a hygiene
factor”.
It’s not just disciplines that are converging. Vertical
differentiation between agencies has also faded as client
needs have blurred, however that has in turn driven
organic growth within businesses such as AMV BBDO.
“Clients simply can’t manage or pay for huge rosters of
specialist agencies any more,” he says. “They’d rather
consolidate more business into one lead agency who
can either provide those services in-house or subcontract to specialist partners where necessary.”
He suggests that agencies are now emerging
from a “Wild West period” where he describes each
campaign built on a new discipline as “a bit of a leap of
faith”. Marketers now have the benefit of clear patterns
of effectiveness to establish what works, and what
doesn’t.
“That is very reassuring for marketers, and will be
the catalyst for a new wave of investment in highly
integrated campaigns,” adds Pearman. “As ever, if you
can measure it, you feel better equipped to manage
it, and the risks of increased investments start to fall
dramatically.”
TD_35_09_MAR19_DISRUPTION.indd 13
14/03/2014 12:58
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14/03/2014 12:37
e-cigarettes15
The electronic cigarette industry is one of the world’s fastest growing
markets, and with the big tobacco firms now involved it shows no signs
of slowing down. We hear voices from the worlds of advertising, media
and design discuss the opportunities the new category offers.
TD_35_09_MAR19_ECIGS.indd 15
14/03/2014 13:17
16e-cigarettes
It’s almost 50 years since cigarette advertising
was banned from British TV, and two decades
since loose tobacco and cigar ads faced
a similar fate. Last month however British
American Tobacco returned to our screens as
we start to see the world’s biggest tobacco
firms pour millions of pounds into electronic
cigarette advertising.
According to market research company Nielsen,
£60m has been spent advertising electronic
cigarettes in the UK since 2009, including a massive
£11.5m in the first two months of 2014 alone.
And with a reported 1.3 million Britons now
‘vaping’, the category is moving beyond a mere
cessation tool to represent its very own scene, with a
multitude of devices and flavours flooding the market.
We turned to the industry for some insider opinion
on the opportunities electronic cigarettes present,
and how we’re likely to see the market develop.
Getting us started is Ogilvy Group’s Rory
Sutherland who, coincidentally, recently spent 24
hours in a Qatari prison after unthinkingly having a
puff onboard a plane out of Doha. Despite his e-cig
induced incarceration, the vice chairman is optimistic
about the future of the market.
Rory Sutherland, vice chairman,
Ogilvy & Mather UK
E-cigarettes are a disruptive innovation. Like
many disruptive innovations, they emerge
unexpectedly from the bottom up, not from the top
down – and are pioneered not by large companies
but by small start-ups. As such they are always rather
annoying to a number of vested interests and large
organisations.
You might assume I am referring to the tobacco
industry here, and in part I am. But this natural
resistance also extends to other interest groups –
pharmaceutical companies who are heavily invested
in patches and gums, and even anti-smoking groups
who have made an enormous emotional investment
in other solutions to the problem, and who may
resent the idea that their problem is being solved in
other ways by someone else entirely. Purists may also
be naturally hostile to the idea of harm-reduction as
opposed to outright abstinence.
But e-cigs are important in that they seem to
satisfy cravings in a way that other substitutes may
not. Addiction is highly complicated. Regular drinkers
will become effectively drunk if they consume large
quantities of tonic water from glasses of which the
rims have been merely dipped in gin. A large part of
addiction may lie not only in a chemical dependency
but in the rituals and sensations attached to smoking
– which e-cigs mimic in a way other replacement
therapies don’t.
That’s why, for the moment, we should give this
technology the benefit of the doubt.
None of this is to say that e-cigs are harmless. It
is simply too early to say. There are almost certainly
as-yet undiscovered risks attached to them. Some of
the the appeal of e-cigarettes, let’s be candid, is that
you can use them in places where you can’t smoke
normal cigarettes (though this does not include
aeroplanes, as I recently learned).
But some arguments are probably a bit
desperate. I am instinctively suspicious of claims
that they are ‘gateway drugs’ – that children will
automatically progress from e-cigs to the real thing.
First of all, appeals which rely on urges to ‘think
of the children’ are quite often little more than
emotional blackmail. Besides, the whole ‘gateway’
argument is a little fatuous: I am sure I could make
the case that Lapsang Souchong is a gateway-drug
to crack-cocaine if I chose my statistics selectively
enough. And, to me, the magic of e-cigarettes is
that, after using them for a while, the urge to use
real cigarettes has disappeared almost completely –
something I never thought would happen.
Looking at it now, the e-cigarette market is at an
interesting stage. It appears to be much like the car
market in its early phases – an enormous number of
players and a noisy plethora of competing brands. One effect of regulation may be to reduce this
market to a much smaller number of competing
brands – which ironically (through simpler
choice) may have the effect of making the
category more appealing to consumers, not less.
(Good agencies might do well to try to spot the two
or three contenders who stand to survive and flourish
when the category is winnowed down).
There is an interesting question marketers need
to address in relation to the packaging and branding
of e-cigarettes, as well as how they should be
treated in advertising terms. This is an area I myself
am conflicted about. If they’re not that harmful (and
nicotine on its own probably isn’t), then marketing
them as some form of entertainment is no worse than
advertising coffee. My puritanical instincts would perhaps prefer that
14/03/2014 13:18
e-cigarettes17
industry
insights
Richard Sunderland,
CEO, Heavenly
E-cigarettes are a product
of our time: the coming
together of technological innovation,
consumer behaviour and social
responsibility. A product truly designed
to respond to a market need, to enable
smokers to enjoy nicotine without
it compromising their health or their
social life. What we are witnessing
now is this market maturing rapidly as
e-cigarettes become a credible and
commonplace alternative to cigarettes.
‘Vapers’ are growing in numbers and
in respectability. Social proof is an
important factor in any new market,
as early adopters look to others to
legitimise their brand choices and
to provide reassurance that they are
not alone in going against the grain
and trying new products. We are also
seeing the market segment, as the
players accelerate the association
of their brands with different lifestyle
themes. Welcome to Smoking 2.0.
“the e-cigarette
market is at an
interesting stage, much
like the car market in
its early phases – an
enormous number of
players and a noisy
plethora of competing
brands.”
not to happen. Would I want to see a novelty brand
with cartoon characters on the pack? No. However,
regulators, at this early stage, should probably err
on the side of slight indulgence: in any case human
psychology is so perverse that overly harsh regulation
may make the category cooler than it was before.
(By contrast, I was intrigued to be told by my Dutch
colleagues that no true Amsterdamer would dream of
smoking dope in a coffee house, as decriminalisation
has made these place unspeakably naff – fit only for
German and English tourists).
When the first e-cigarette TV ad aired, no-one
was more surprised than me. Ogilvy had
been approached by e-cigarette brands and led to
expect that TV advertising would not be allowed. In
its current form, I would argue that marketers need to
figure out if the category needs advertising; I suspect
it does, because marketing will have a crucial role in
normalising the activity and making the category more
credible. I also believe dedicated e-cigarette shops
will help smokers with the face-to-face advice they
need to make the switch. More controversially, I would
favour an indulgent approach towards flavours – since
if you get hooked on bubblegum-flavoured e-cigs,
you’re less likely to relapse back to standard tobacco.
Incidentally the benefits of nicotine need to be
explored along with the costs: it is, after all, an
appetite suppressant. There is a bit of a witch
hunt against smokers which is as much motivated by
snobbery and malice as altruism: there are plenty of
other behaviours (drinking, gambling or talking about
football) where the external harm is equally immense.
Andrew Bloch,
founder, Frank PR
The e-cigarette industry
has become the world’s
fastest growing market, with sales up
340 per cent from an estimated £44m
in 2012 to £193m last year, making
it an incredibly exciting space to be
working in. Today we find ourselves
in the enviable position of entering
at the early stage of an entirely new
market, and as a result have a fantastic
opportunity to help shape and develop
the entire category.
Bobby Hui, chief
strategic officer, Arena
As a credible alternative to
smoking, the e-cigarette
market is set to explode. Hitherto
these products have been marketed
as smoking cessation aids but as
their penetration grows and we
become more familiar with the sight
of people vaping it’s likely that the
category will go mainstream with its
distribution. The battle will be one of
share of mind and share of wallet.
Several of the big tobacco players
are launching into the market and
they have deep wallets and big brand
thinking. Smaller players will need to
look at creating niche audiences and
growing that way.
14/03/2014 13:18
18agency receptions
colourful
spaces
TD_35_09_MAR19_RECEPTIONS2.indd 18
14/03/2014 13:13
agency receptions19
The reception desk at Dublin creative agency Boys and Girls is supported at
one end by giant Jenga blocks and suspended from balloons at the other
‘You never get a second chance to make a good
first impression,’ goes the old saying, and while
there is uncertainty over who actually coined this
bit of wit, its guidance resonates to this day and
seems to be a driving force behind a slew of quirky
agency reception designs, as Gillian West finds out.
“After the people and the product that you
produce, the reception is the most important
aspect of any business, full stop,” says
Dave Buonaguidi, chief creative officer at
Karmarama, whose office boasts a disco
tunnel, a huge red Buddha, a VW camper van
and a life-size plastic llama.
An agency’s reception area is often viewed as
a reflection of the creative talent who choose to
work there, meaning the area has to work 10 times
harder than the same space within a lawyers’ or
doctor’s office. Just like the brands they work
on, agencies increasingly have to consider the
impression their workspace creates because right
from the moment someone walks through the
door they are building a picture in their mind of the
business. And if that person walking in the door
happens to be a client with a multi-million pound
brief, you’d better hope it’s the picture you want
them to see.
With numerous potential clients passing though
agency receptions on a daily basis, FCB Inferno’s
Tim Doust explains how “every agency is trying to
distinguish itself from the next, and the reception
area is where all of this comes to life”. The reception
has to convey “everything an agency stands for; its
14/03/2014 13:14
20agency receptions
values and the image it wants to project”.
Décor is one way for an agency to make its
mark on visitors, and from Karmarama’s off-beat
additions to Elmwood’s ping-pong table and BBH’s
coffee bar, each item is there to engage potential
clients and reflect the agency’s ethos.
For example, creative agency FST uses its
reception area to showcase the two things it feels
are most important to its business – its clients and
its people – by displaying portraits of its staff and
an ever-changing collage of live clients on its walls.
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, on the other hand,
celebrates its creative edge by promoting work
from emerging and established creators, artists
and troublemakers in its foyer, and in Leeds the
centrepiece of Elmwood’s reception is a timeline of
its history.
However, no amount of style will make up for lack
of substance with many companies crediting their
‘front of house’ staff for creating the ultimate first
impression.
BBH London has gone as far as bringing in top
London restaurant maître d’s to impart their wisdom
on how to make people feel welcome and serve
“every agency is trying
to distinguish itself
from the next, and the
reception area is where
all of this comes to life.
it conveys everything
an agency stands for;
its values and the image
it wants to project.”
‘customers’, whereas FCB Inferno employs jobbing
actors as its front of house staff to make use of their
energy and artistic mindsets.
“User experience is an increasingly important
thing in our business and we’re trying to recreate
the content we create for clients in the experience
they get from our building,” BBH London’s deputy
chairman Jon Peppiatt tells The Drum.
“In the past we’ve had a few absolute pros from
the restaurant business come in and talk to us
about how to serve customers and how to make
people feel welcome,” he says, explaining that the
agency’s receptionists walk with clients to meeting
rooms or the coffee bar, and offer to take bags.
“It’s the little things that stop you from thinking ‘oh
God, they don’t want me here’ and shrinking into a
corner.”
Peppiatt goes on to explain that this is not just for
the sake of being nice. Or not purely anyway. “There
is a strategy behind it,” he reveals. “We’re doing it
because we know if we give the right impression
it will make the clients feel good and respect us
more. That leads to better relationships, which
leads to better work and more new business, which
becomes revenue and pay rises. It’s that circle
which is really, really important.”
Outwith impressing clients and visitors, an
The reception at Mother has a wall dedicated
14/03/2014 13:14
agency receptions21
Timelines and table tennis in Elmwood’s reception area
s a wall dedicated to the staff’s mums
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam hangs work from
emerging and established artists in its foyer
14/03/2014 13:15
22agency receptions
US firms like Ticketmaster have led the way in playful interiors
The Bio Agency has embraced nature
with an abundance of wood and greenery,
and even the odd woodland creature
14/03/2014 13:15
agency receptions23
Google is renowned for its quirky headquarters, which have provided inspiration for many agencies
BBH London brings in maître d’s from top London restaurants
to impart their wisdom on making people feel welcome
agency’s reception area sets the tone for the rest of
the office space, and the University of Minnesota’s
Carlson School of Management suggests that
creative office design leads to increased creative
output in a recent study.
“If an environment is clean and professional, we
feel we should act that way. And if it’s more relaxed
and carefree, we can let ourselves go a little bit,”
comments assistant professor and one of the
report’s authors Joe Redden.
Thought to have begun in the US in firms like
Google, Ticketmaster and Apple, changes to the
way we work have been the catalyst behind playful
interiors, argues Karmarama’s Buonaguidi, who
tells us that the office space, and what it says
about an agency, has shifted from being a “temple
showroom” to a more relaxed and open place to
work. “I prefer working in interesting, stimulating
Karmarama’s disco tunnel
“more modern ways of working mean that we have
moved from ‘office-based’ offices to open plan
environments, and that means more opportunity
to have fun and create interest and stimulation.”
spaces,” he explains, “and more modern ways of
working mean that we have moved from ‘officebased’ offices to open plan environments, and that
means more opportunity to have fun and create
interest and stimulation.”
This is an insight shared by FCB Inferno’s Doust,
who believes it’s more than just “quirkiness”, but
because making the working environment fun is
a “tried and tested branding tool”. The founding
partner adds that “businesses like Google,
Facebook and Bloomberg have demonstrated the
effectiveness of interior design in recent years in
attracting attention, talent and business.”
So whether you decide to transform your office
into a giant treehouse à la Mind Candy, or keep it
slick and sophisticated, the trick, according to W+K
Amsterdam’s managing director Clay Mills, is to
“convey the values of the organisation rather than
falling prey to gimmickry”. It’s advice we could all
take heed of.
14/03/2014 13:16
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14/03/2014 12:37
creative WORKS25
CREATIVE
A round-up of the best new creative work as voted by readers
of thedrum.com. For the chance to see your work in the next
edition of The Drum email [email protected] or follow
us on Twitter @thedrumcreative.
works
Miss Piggy stars in Adam&EveDDB’s campaign for Lipton
TD_35_09_MAR19_WORKS.indd 25
14/03/2014 13:09
26creative WORKS
Lipton ‘Be More Tea’ by
Adam&EveDDB
Kermit and Miss Piggy lend their star
quality to this global campaign for
Lipton from Adam&EveDDB. Though
Kermit finds New York to be filled with
animals he is able to navigate a more
peaceful path as Lipton has enabled him
to ‘Be More Tea’. Set to the soundtrack
of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, the promotion
aims to inspire people to look up and
take in all life has to offer.
Art director: Feargal Ballance
Copywriter: Patrick McClelland
Planner: David Golding
Media agency: Mindshare
Production company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Noam Murro
Editor: Neil Smith @ Work
Post-production: Framestore
Audio post-production: Clearcut Sound
Studios
Sport Relief ‘Make Every Mile Count’ app by Hi Mum! Said Dad
Hi Mum! Said Dad has created an app for Sport Relief aiming to unite the nation and foster participation in a mass effort to log a collective one million miles
across various sporting disciplines. Users can log miles using iOS or Android apps or through the responsive web experience. Users are rewarded for achieving
distance goals with medals and access to exclusive content. The app also enables users to donate to the cause and share their efforts via social media.
Creative director: Raimondo Taibi Art director: Leigh Hall Producer: Pete Ross
14/03/2014 13:09
creative WORKS27
Andy’s Candy Apothecary brand identity and packaging by Emcee Design
Emcee Design created a new logo and packaging for recently opened candy store Andy’s Candy Apothecary. The agency set out
to modernise the nostalgic feel of drug store candy by fusing quality and craftsmanship with modern typography. Emcee Design
also delivered store front and interior design.
Design director: Michael Leonardini Designer: Tamara Lawrence Copywriter: Kirby Bittner Illustrator: Aris Bajar
14/03/2014 13:10
28creative WORKS
Giant Owl Productions identity by
Alphabetical
Independent production company
Giant Owl approached London-based
Alphabetical to bring the brand to life
and create a distinct and memorable
brand identity which would achieve
necessary stand out and give the
brand a character. As part of the
identity campaign Alphabetical created
a website spanning the production
company’s latest project, a flying bag, a
small business card with a big presence
and a digital tape label you can see in
the dark.
Creative director: Bob Young and
Tommy Taylor
14/03/2014 13:11
creative WORKS29
Very.co.uk ‘Bring the Colour’ by
St Luke’s
St Luke’s latest work for online retailer
Very.co.uk shows that you can ‘Bring
the Colour’ to even the most dreary
of situations. Set to a backdrop of a
grey, lifeless world representing winter
drabness, the idea behind the spring
campaign is that you can brighten up
every day mundane scenarios with Very.
co.uk’s colour pop trend.
Creative director: Al Young
Art director: David Wigglesworth
Copywriter: Ed Redgrave
Planner: Rose Van Orden
Business lead: Jonathan Dale
Account director: Lara Poole
Agency producer: Caroline Angell
Production company: Partizan
Director: AB/CD/CD
Freeview ‘Cat and Budgie’ by Leo Burnett
Leo Burnett’s new campaign for Freeview gained momentum thanks to a week-long teaser trail ‘What happened next?’ which introduced the
nation to the advert’s stars. As Leo the cat eyed his feathered friend from afar, most predicted that the budgie was set to meet an untimely
demise so when the ad finally broke and the unlikely duo sang the classic motown duet ‘You’re all I need to get by’ audiences were surprised and
delighted in equal measures. The crux of the campaign is to show how great free entertainment can be.
Executive creative director: Justin Tindall Creative director: Richard Robinson, Graham Lakeland Art director: Phillip Meyler, Darren Keff
14/03/2014 13:11
30performance
TD_35_09_MAR19_INTRO.indd 30
14/03/2014 14:12
Performance31
how well is your
marketing
performing?
Performance marketing is moving up the value
chain, as we explore over the next few pages. Here,
sponsor Affiliate Window explains why compliance
and transparency is key to its future growth.
The performance channel is a complex network
of different online strands bound by a common
commercial metric: cost per acquisition.
Because of the range of traffic sources and
promotional methods available, together with the
number of sales delivered (30m transactions and
£2bn in revenue across 1,600 retailers last year
for Affiliate Window alone), affiliate networks are
faced with ongoing quality challenges that require
constant vigilance. They also have a duty of care
to ensure that traffic is delivered ethically and
within the spirit of the industry.
This is where the network’s compliance function
comes to the fore and must be at the heart of any
decisions when choosing who to partner with.
Performance marketing compliance isn’t just about
weeding out occasional rogue publishers engaged
in unethical or non-compliant activity, it also helps
assimilate new technologies within the channel to
ensure existing publishers are treated fairly (as in
the setting of cookie hierarchies when dealing with
retargeting traffic).
It is imperative compliance should be at the
heart of a performance campaign rather than a
TD_35_09_MAR19_INTRO.indd 31
bolt-on or afterthought, especially in an era of evergrowing brand vigilance when publisher partners
need to always be ‘on message’.
Performance marketers should offer confidence
to advertisers that any residual fears they have
are tackled by suites of proprietary and third party
tools. Brands should also take heart from the
UK’s position as the most ethical performance
marketplace in the world.
Every digital discipline, be it display, SEO, paid
search or email has its own challenges regarding
standards and ethics. That they may be less
understood could be part of a lack of willingness
to expose them. Performance marketing doesn’t
have a bigger problem than other channels, more
we recognise the need to tackle transparency and
control head on, knowing this ultimately builds
trust and secures future budgets.
Kevin Edwards
strategy director,
Affiliate Window
14/03/2014 14:12
14/03/2014 12:38
performance33
high-class
performance
Luxury brands have been notoriously shy when it comes to performance
marketing, but diversification in publisher types, new technologies and the
rise of content is bringing confidence to the sector, as Gina Lovett finds out.
TD_35_09_MAR19_PERFORMANCE_1.indd 33
14/03/2014 14:07
34performance
It would be hard to not acknowledge the
prevalence of affiliate marketing. More than
a third of the UK internet population is now
using price comparison or coupon sites
according to the latest IAB/PwC Online
Performance Marketing survey, while last year
saw UK consumers make 150m purchases via
affiliate websites totalling £13bn according to
ComScore data.
And with comparing prices, reviewing products
or signing up to a loyalty programme now inherent
in national shopping habits, it’s little surprise that
luxury brands – historically shy of performance
marketing – are now getting in on the act.
According to digital marketing professionals,
the last year has seen an influx of completely new
brands from the luxury sector. Consumers are
now as likely to see Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren,
Net-a-Porter, Matches, Burberry, Gucci, Michael
Kors, Jimmy Choo, Emporio Armani, Moschino,
Valentino and Selfridges on price comparison sites
as they are on city centre billboards.
According to Diane Canady, marketing and
e-commerce director of luxury tailoring brand
Savile Row, it makes good business sense.
To eschew affiliate marketing would be to not
There is still
hesitancy among
luxury brands towards
incentivisation.
recognise how integral a part of the ‘multi-faceted’
the customer journey it is.
The growth of premium, content-rich
environments is helping fuel interest. Fashion
portals are captivating consumers with a rich
luxury experience, immersing them in the brand by
enabling them to follow certain runway collections
or curate individual outfits from a range of brands
or collections.
According to iCrossing’s head of media, Sam
Fenton-Elstone, ‘super affiliates’ work well in
fashion and retail as consumers tend to search
for specific types of designer goods. Portals such
as Shopstyle, Polyvore and Lyst have grown in
prominence, network and reach over the last few
years to achieve maturity.
“Luxury brands are in good company; the
experience is great; there’s good design and
images, and great social interaction. It’s a strong
brand-led environment. They are now being taken
seriously,” says Fenton-Elstone.
Tom Woodhouse, senior affiliate executive at
iProspect, agrees: “Fashion aggregators such
as Shopstyle, Polyvore and Lyst are able to
place even the most premium brand in a luxury
environment. There is definite opportunity for high
end brands who would have traditionally never
entered a space dominated by incentivised sites,
which could damage brand credibility.”
As Woodhouse points out, there is still hesitancy
among luxury brands towards incentivisation.
Vouchercodes, cashback and other such activity
is likely to be perceived as discounting and can
‘distress the brand’.
He adds: “The pitfall for luxury brands is most
certainly brand protection, and how to maintain
control of assets and the policing of the network
on how they are promoted. This can be easily
resolved with full creative control resting with the
brand and all assets and marketing tools delivered
via the affiliate networks.”
The benefits and scaling out opportunities
gained outweigh the risks to the brand, according
to Fenton-Elstone. The brand risks are more of a
“perception challenge”, he says, which is often the
hardest bit. “If you’re restricted by brand, you’re
not going to be able to scale out.”
Canady sums up the challenge for luxury
brands: “It’s a constant challenge balancing a
very price sensitive market with protecting the
brand credentials. You have to be strategic about
things.”
Coggles is one such luxury brand to have
implemented a broader affiliate programme in the
last nine months, according to Affiliate Window
account director, Nicola Clare, who oversees the
programme. The brand works with most affiliate
types but has a policy never to discount the brands
on site by offering codes. According to Clare,
sales work “incredibly well and deliver increases”,
14/03/2014 14:07
performance35
Affiliate marketing can now be much more
closely aligned to how brands wish to their
products to be marketed.
which the voucher sites can promote. However,
there are never discounts outside this. The largest
contribution to revenue has come from fashion
publishers including ShopStyle, Polyvore and
ASOS.
Clare puts the success down to Affiliate Window
engaging directly with publishers to understand
exactly what their requirements and technical setups are. This involves standardising product feeds
so that systems can process and replicate them as
closely as possible to the shopping experience.
“Some advertiser feeds are incredibly poor
with missing content, broken links or no images.
Affiliates like ShopStyle spend a massive amount
of time sorting that out. Equally the format of every
networks’ feeds are different so they have to make
those fit too. We just wouldn’t have achieved
such successes without investing in the face-toface time learning about each other’s business
needs and building the all-important personal
relationship,” says Clare.
Despite the hesitancy of some luxury brands,
there are a number showing even more confidence
in the affiliate space, venturing beyond content
and aggregation into tactical loyalty, cashback and
discount programmes. The level of data insight
that can be harnessed from these for targeting
or personalisation can be particularly useful in
customer acquisition and assessing customer
lifetime value.
Such is the motivation for luxury brands Hugo
Boss, Armani and Diane Von Furstenberg all
working with Quidco, offering online cashback
between five per cent and 9.2 per cent. Hugo
Boss offers eight per cent exclusively to Quidco
shoppers, helping boost its five-star customer
rating on the site.
According to Quidco commercial director
Andreas Andreou, while luxury names should be
brand protective it’s important they do not miss
out on opportunities that can help them drive more
sales and bring in new customers.
He adds: “We do a lot of Net Promoter
Score analysis and more than often we find that
customers using Quidco have a higher NPS than
those that shop direct meaning they are more likely
to purchase again. Our most recent NPS analysis
showed 100 per cent uplift for one retailer.”
Andreou emphasises the importance of working
strategically with brands to ensure long-term
success. Blanket offers and vouchers are best
avoided, he says, especially if they can’t be
controlled.
Ed Fleming, head of PR and partnerships
at Savoo, echoes the rich rewards of data
insight, which guide incentive strategy and deal
seasonality. Benchmarking the data, he says, will
help work out the optimum time to implement.
He points to Selfridges’ 20 per cent vouchercode
offer, which ran across a number of sites including
Savoo in the run up to Christmas 2013 as a
‘canny’ example. Fitting with its democratic
fashion-for-all mantra, the luxury department
store’s vouchercode offer catalysed a spending
surge in the critical retail Christmas weeks –
boosting revenue at the time of year when retailers
are under pressure to make the bulk of their yearly
revenue. “Selfridges probably wouldn’t do a deal
like that again for the rest of the year but they
gained a huge number of new customers and got
a great deal of insight,” Fleming says.
The diversification in publisher types, new
technologies and the rise of content means that
as a channel, affiliate marketing can now be much
more closely aligned to how brands wish to their
products to be marketed. While it might mean
spending more time building relationships, in the
long-term, it can only mean reaping the rewards
from prevalence.
14/03/2014 14:08
36performance
Playing your
cards right
14/03/2014 14:10
performance37
Card-linked technologies are changing the cashback
and retail landscape as new means of offering
seamless consumer discounts emerge. Sean
Hargrave takes a look at how new partnerships in
the card cashback space are presenting exciting
opportunities for retailers.
ur
Recent developments in cashback and affiliate
marketing have made in-store the new huge
opportunity, and no doubt battleground,
for performance marketing publishers and
advertisers.
In the latter half of last year, two of the big four
banks (Lloyds Banking Group and RBS Group)
launched in-store cashback services, introducing
the masses to the notion of promotion and
loyalty schemes returning money to their wallet.
They joined the million shoppers at the country’s
leading online cashback service, Quidco, who
have registered a debit or credit card so they can
take advantage of long running and shorter terms
deals by simply using their everyday card to make
the purchase.
Cashback is now moving in-store from the
banks on the one hand, and affiliate marketers on
the other, to tap in to the nine in 10 sales that still
happen face-to-face on the high street.
Banking loyalty
So, how have these
new developments
come to be?
Cardlytics launched
Everyday Offers in Q4
last year with Lloyds
Banking Group (which
includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland) and has a
very simple premise. The majority of its customers
will bank online nine times per month and around
40 per cent of its 11 million customers bank
through a mobile app nearly daily, offering a vast,
frequently engaged audience which the bank has
detailed spending data on.
“The beauty of what we’re doing is people
don’t have to do anything new, they don’t have
to go off finding sites with deals, they don’t have
to sign up to schemes,” says Charlie Humphreys,
Cardlytics managing director.
“We bring the deals to them and they’re offered
based around detailed data analysis because
we can look at what an advertiser is trying to
achieve and then present those people to them.
For example, one of our clients, Gourmet Burger
Kitchen opened a restaurant in Norwich recently.
Through the banking data we knew which
customers in the area were interested in casual
dining and could offer them a targeted offer next
time they checked their account online or through
their mobile phone.”
As with all the major players in the area, a
similar looking control group is never shown a
particular offer so the incremental sales can be
proven by comparing identical types of customer
who are only differentiated by those who have
seen the offer and those who haven’t.
It is a very similar situation with Reward Insight,
which powers Natwest and RBS Cashback Plus.
The initiative expects to add several new retail
partners to its current roster of seventeen before
Easter.
“We’re all about allowing the banks to offer their
customers little thank yous,” says Penny Shaw,
marketing director at Reward Insight.
“Nobody’s going to rich off them but they’re
a great way of getting, typically, one per cent
cashback all the time through selected partners
People don’t have to do anything new,
they don’t have to go off finding sites
with deals or sign up to schemes.
without customers having to even think about it.
It’s effectively cashback as a loyalty scheme.”
Online reaction
So, what do the online giants in the area make
of the banks taking on the charge of introducing
cashback to in-store? Quidco, the country’s
large cashback site, soon expects to hit four
million members and already has a million cards
registered for in-store redemption? Its commercial
director, Andreas Andreou claims that rather than
being worried about the move, he welcomes it.
“It’s actually really good news for cashback
because it introduces it to a much wider audience
and helps us to then make the link between offers
on a smartphone or our web site and in-store
redemption,” he says.
“We don’t need to be worried because the
banks just have a handful of shopping partners
but we have more than 4,000 and so that’s why
14/03/2014 14:10
14/03/2014 12:38
performance39
The real battleground was always going to
move on to where the majority of purchases
take place – in-store.
people see us as a shopping partner, they just
don’t have that same relationship with their
bank.”
Birdback, the company providing the
technology which can take affiliates’ offers and
track the card registered with them, so the
customer gets paid and their shopping habits
tracked for marketing purposes, is similarly
optimistic. And with good reason – Birdback is
expected to announce a deal with an affiliate
network this month to link publishers’ vouchers
and deals to a card for in-store redemption.
“We’re still rolling out the network but our
strategy is that people want access to the
widest range of deals possible without having
to remember to print out coupons or belong to
a particular bank,” he says.
“With us they just register for the deal from
just about any of the big voucher or cashback
sites and the cashback is automatically
processed. It’s not like a deal with a single bank
or a single cashback site where you only get
one set of offers. With our technology you get
the whole lot but without having to remember
to carry vouchers around with you.”
What is clear, then, is that while much has
been made of the phenomenal success of
cashback online, the real battleground was
always going to move on to where the majority
of purchases take place – in-store.
With the banks offering either long term loyalty
cashback orientated or short term deals with a
small number of large retailers, there is definitely
a great deal of exposure being given to what
was previously an online offering.
The online companies that have been
offering cashback for the past few years are
poised to ride the coat tails of this drive and
take their offers in-store. Given that the latest
moves are opening up 90 per cent of retail
(ie in-store) it is true to say that there is room
for everyone as the banks work mainly with a
dozen or two dozen partners and the affiliates
work with thousands.
An interesting part of these developments
is going to be not only online cashback sites
proving how they can drive footfall in-store and
capture data to shape future offers around, it is
going to be good old-fashioned de-duping.
This has not been an issue for the online
pureplays before because people would either
type in a code or online or show up at a shop
with a printed out voucher. However, with that
need taken away, Quidco is encouraging its
retail partners to work through accepting offers
that have to be activated by the customer,
even though, in theory, they could actually
just register their card once and then have all
transactions linked to their card.
“We’re certainly working under the
assumption of last-click wins, should someone
have come across two offers for a retailer from
different sources which they’ve linked their card
to,” says Andreou.
“That’s why we’re encouraging retailers to
take up our service of asking shoppers to
activate offers so we not only show intent to
the retailer but we can demonstrate the last
click. We don’t see it as a big issue, because
it’s nothing new to affiliate marketing but
it’s going to be a very new issue for in-store
attribution because these issues just haven’t
arisen before.”
The other obvious development is that the
banks are likely to focus more on loyalty with
some tactical campaigns thrown in by a small
selection of large, well-known mainly high
street brands. While the same is also true of
online performance marketing publishers, they
will be looking to seek an advantage through
their wide reach so thousands, rather than
dozens, of advertiser retailers.
Two very different strategies that are now
running alongside each other for the first time.
14/03/2014 14:11
40performance
Educating
brands
Is more effort needed to educate advertisers on
the power of performance-based marketing? The
Drum speaks to a few key players to investigate.
Performance marketing continues to move
up the value chain, with the sector generating
£14bn in sales from £1bn ad spend in 2013.
Yet despite commitment to education and
transparency from key industry players, a lack
of awareness persists around this type of digital
marketing activity.
For example, according to research from Paid
on Results, 20 per cent of online retailers (of 975
surveyed) don’t fully understand performance
marketing.
The Drum spoke to some players in the
performance market to discuss whether more
education is needed to provide clarity for
advertisers, and which stakeholders are responsible
for this.
Ben Sutherland, head of performance,
Vizeum UK
The dirty truth is that every agency is in the
business of making money and the art of
selling what we do remains out of the grasp for far
too many. The simple solution is to prove the impact
that the work has on a client’s bottom line.
Performance marketing is critical to achieving
this, but has perhaps suffered due to an image akin
to a pencil pushing geek that limits creativity and
inhibits the big idea. The reality is very different. All
marketing activity should be driven by performance
to showcase the tangible results from what we
do. Unfortunately, too many agencies isolate their
performance offering, treating it is a merely as an
add-on.
Obviously, better education is an important first
step in demonstrating the value of your marketing
activity but there remains a fundamental flaw in
the structure of many agencies. Too many keep
performance marketing separate when it should
act horizontally across all clients in all sectors from
FMCG through to retail. By doing this, all personnel
within the agency will have more experience
TD_35_09_MAR19_Q&A.indd 40
working with performance disciplines like CPC, SEO
etc. This in turn will increase understanding, help
agencies communicate the tangible benefits of their
work to clients and, most importantly, open up the
potential to upsell.
Ben Wood, global president, iProspect
We don’t help ourselves. It’s not
necessarily about education, more
importantly I think as an industry there
is still far too much jargon and nonsense spoken
around the different facets of digital marketing, and
too often agencies hide behind complexity rather
than striving to make things simple.
More simplicity would help clients to embrace
the powerful opportunity that exists through fully
integrated performance marketing.
The other sad truth is that whilst data and
technology should drive transparency and value –
in many instances they don’t. Margins are often
cloaked and in many instances the strategies
employed to drive performance in and cross
channel are unsophisticated at best (many agencies
for example are still not offering their clients a
properly attributed view of success for optimisation
purposes).
It is this complexity, lack of transparency and poor
implementational practice that is creating confusion
– which of course is a huge shame given the great
business transformation these channels can drive.
Kevin Edwards, strategy director,
Affiliate Window
It’s a well-worn statement to make that
more education is the key to better
performance marketing and whilst there is an
element of truth in the assumption, we need to
assess the situation more widely.
I think one of the major challenges we face is
there is a credence that because a certain channel
exists it’s fit for purpose for all advertisers: mistake
14/03/2014 14:18
performance41
number one, performance marketing isn’t right for
everyone.
It certainly can work for SMEs (and should
work for almost all brands) but it’s a hard slog and
that’s the second challenge: resource investment.
Performance marketing isn’t plug and play. You
don’t flick a few switches and watch the sales roll in
forevermore. It’s a relationships as well as a bread
and butter channel that requires perseverance,
toil, dedication and tenacity. This can switch off
advertisers who see more instant (and maybe less
ROI focused) returns elsewhere.
Finally the third challenge is we’re a sales channel
and whilst this is our greatest strength (it makes
us leaner, hungrier and more determined), it also
means there will always be people who want to do
something more creative within their businesses, the
irony being that performance marketers often bring
some of the most innovative solutions to the table.
One of the major
challenges we face is
there is a credence that
because a certain channel
exists it’s fit for purpose
for all advertisers:
mistake number one,
performance marketing
isn’t right for everyone.
Andy Oldham, managing director,
Quidco
Advertisers cannot fail to notice the
impact performance marketing can
have on their brand and bottom line. A channel
that experiences a 15 per cent increase in
investment returning an ROI of 14:1 is critical in
any marketing mix.
The ‘paid on results’ model is something that
any lean company should know about. Especially
in online retail as the recovery of consumer
confidence has not been as fast as some would
have wanted.
The figure mentioned is testament to the
education needed that will provide clarity for
advertisers around this opportunity. Here at
Quidco we work with our partners, devising
marketing campaigns that provide the most
cost effective results, all based on tailored
objectives. Driven by our data insights, it is this
approach that will see retailers execute on the
most cost effective campaigns. This will see a
further increase in the channel as more traditional
marketing avenues fall out of favour.
14/03/2014 14:18
Digital Growth
It’s all that really matters, right?
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we make no excuses when delivering it to you.
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14/03/2014 12:39
performance43
Rather than
focusing on what
we do as a channel,
we need to talk
about what we can
deliver in a language
that advertisers
understand.
Helen Southgate, managing
director, Affilinet
In my view to help advertisers get on
board with performance marketing,
we need to stop talking channels and instead
start thinking like them. Advertisers are
customer-centric in their thinking. They want to
understand the customer journey and the points
at which they can be influenced to purchase
their goods or service. And so that is what we,
as an industry, need to do to. Performance is a
microcosm of different digital disciplines that can
be optimised to drive more traffic, grow sales
and enhance brand awareness. Insight into
the consumer path to purchase enables us to
deploy this arsenal of tools in order to positively
affect an advertiser’s objectives.
Rather than focusing on what we do as
a channel, we need to talk about what we
can deliver in a language that advertisers
understand. If we do this, we’ll carve out a more
distinct proposition that is better aligned with
advertiser’s marketing objectives.
Matt Bailey, commercial director,
Performance Horizon Group
I disagree that brands don’t
understand performance marketing.
Every single one of the IMRG’s Top 100 Online
Retailers spends significant amounts of money
in the performance marketing arena and it
would be naïve to intimate that marketers of
this quality don’t know where their money
is going. However it is a dynamic area and
therefore there is a need for continuous
knowledge sharing.
In my opinion, this will be achieved through
two methods. Firstly by brands cutting out
middle men and building stronger relationships
with top partners directly to understand better
how to achieve success together. Secondly,
and I know it’s a cliché, but access and
interrogation of data. Performance marketing
can no longer be seen as a one size fits all
solution and brands need to be able to access
real time views on the impact that different
initiatives are having on their sales.
14/03/2014 14:19
44knowledge bank
knowledge
bank
TD_35_09_MAR19_KB_INTRO.indd 44
This section of The Drum showcases marketing
industry insights. For the opportunity to share your
knowledge, contact James McGowan at james.
[email protected] or call 0141 559 6072.
14/03/2014 15:01
PERFORMANCE
FOCUS
Increase acquisition, not cashback
For some advertisers, offering cash rewards to
gain customers has been so effective that they’ve
almost become victims of their own success, relying
too much on cashback at the expense of other
channels. Redressing the balance is a key priority
for many brands – but what does it take to really
achieve this?
Over the last 12 months, we’ve launched a number
of new brands on the OMG network, all of which had
one thing in common: their existing campaigns primarily
relied on cashback affiliates to drive volume.
There’s no doubt that cashback sites deserve their
place in the performance marketing mix based on the
value they add - their reach is impressive and their ability
to engage with specific demographics is continually
improving. But perhaps advertisers and networks have
become hesitant to invest the time and effort to unlock
the acquisition potential of other affiliate segments.
The real drivers of performance-marketing success
Ultimately, the measure of a successful performance
campaign is ROI, so customer acquisition and lifetime
value – not necessarily just short-term sales, is key. And
knowing which customer types engage with which types
of affiliates is key to generating value as well as volume.
That’s why we put the affiliate mix at the heart
of the strategies we develop for clients, and this
approach has helped us create powerful performance
campaigns where cashback plays an important role
alongside a broad mix of other affiliate types, to deliver
the right customers, the right value and, ultimately, the
right level of ROI.
Technologies and teams
Engaging affiliate segments beyond cashback does
require more resource, technical innovation and
smart strategic thinking. We’ve developed a suite of
technological tools that makes the whole process a lot
simpler and easier, combined with the investment in
creating an experienced Publisher Development team,
who are dedicated to developing new publishers.
For example, they helped extend the affiliate reach of
a travel client by engaging publishers with users known
to be interested in specific high-value destinations,
achieving a campaign mix where more than 80 per cent
of total sales are driven by non-cashback affiliates.
Building a relationship with content affiliates is the
key, it’s only the first step. We also have to give them
the tools they need to deliver maximum value, such as
integrated and interactive content to drive conversions.
We’ve put time into our technical and creative offering,
developing and hosting an interactive “Book Quick”
widget with deep links to purchase pages. This puts a
relevant call to action right into affiliates’ copy, with a
user journey that’s 30 per cent shorter than standard.
Affiliate mix after optimisation
“BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP WITH CONTENT AFFILIATES IS
THE KEY, IT’S ONLY THE FIRST STEP. WE ALSO HAVE TO GIVE
THEM THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO DELIVER MAXIMUM VALUE”
The key is to find the right call to action and combine
it with the right approach for the user, their behaviour
and the device they’re using, whether the content is
a tailored or exclusive offer, while the format could be
anything from CPCall to an HTML email.
Powerful partnerships
Recently, we took over the affiliate campaign of a leading
brand in the utilities market where top content sites hadn’t
been engaged. In our first two months, we used our
existing partnerships to capitalise on a switching peak in
the market, driving exposure with email sends and onsite placements. The result was 69 per cent more sales
compared to the best month achieved by the previous
network – and a reduction in the volume contribution from
cashback sites from 95 per cent to 64 per cent.
The recent Ofgem RMR guidelines have made it even
more crucial to adopt intelligent strategies and broaden
the affiliate base. We see major acquisition potential
in peer-to-peer referrals as an incremental acquisition
channel. We’ve developed and hosted a referral
platform for a challenger brand in the vertical, enabling
them to reward existing customers for successful
referrals. This has driven substantial volumes over the
last six months, and accounts for an average of 17 per
cent of their total direct sales.
Value from neglected publishers
An insurance client joined us from another network
where 99 per cent of their volume was driven by
cashback sites. We identified three key publisher
segments that they weren’t engaged with – price
comparison, voucher codes and paid search.
We used tactical CPC deals to establish key metrics
with price-comparison sites, gaining prominence
within comparison tables, and then reverting to a CPA
model once performance MI was established. We also
launched a paid-search strategy that sat alongside the
client’s existing campaign, focusing on complementary
USPs, capturing and converting more of their own
search traffic on brand and generic terms for highervalue policies. Overall, we doubled sales volumes and
reduced the contribution from cashback by 10 per cent.
Vouchers drive value
The next step is to launch tactical voucher-code
campaigns, using tailored offers to engage with vouchercode sites.
Our in-house OMG Rewards technology
encompasses the entire user journey, including data
capture, tracking, reward fulfilment and contact
management for completed acquisitions. Through
this platform we’re able to engage brands with sites
where they don’t have the internal capability to do so
themselves. Vouchercode, email and portal affiliates
have already helped us deliver some exceptional results,
such as a 5 per cent month-on-month jump in sales
for a brand in the insurance vertical. More importantly,
though, the campaign also achieved an increase
of around 30 per cent in policy value compared to
cashback, with voucher-code customers twice as likely
to purchase a more valuable add-on product.
Increasing customer acquisition is a bit like saving
for a rainy day: the wisest investments are those that
deliver sustainable value over the long term. Instead
of simply increasing cashback to drive sales, brands
should focus on offers, content and formats that are
tailored to both publishers and customers. Ultimately,
that will bring them acquisitions that are sustainable,
relevant and, above all, valuable.
OMG
Tel:
01603 697713
Email:[email protected]
Web:www.omgpm.com
Twitter:@omgpm
KB.indd 45
Carla Arrindell
Client Services Director
OMG
14/03/2014 15:26
46KNOWLEDGE BANK
The future of mobile in
performance marketing
Mobile has changed the way people perceive performance marketing,
however, the industry has yet to fully understand how the commercial
model can adapt to the new landscape, and marketers still have a way to
go to ensure mobile effectiveness. Kevin Edwards takes a look at how to
successfully engage with the mobile performance opportunity.
Mobile’s swift elevation to online darling is
probably unprecedented. In less than three
years, Affiliate Window has seen mobile clicks
grow from one in a hundred to more than 40 per
cent of the network’s traffic. Whilst conversions
for handsets may still lag, concerted efforts to
optimise mobile propositions have seen the gap
close.
We no longer have to prove that mobile is an
important part of the performance mix, instead
shifting the focus from highlighting the growth
in numbers into actual strategy: what does
mobile mean within the channel? Where are
the opportunities? Who are the advertisers and
publishers driving the mobile agenda and pushing
innovation? What are the business models that
are succeeding and how should we accommodate
them within the current performance marketing
landscape?
It’s important to focus the discussion on
smartphones rather than the wider ‘mobile’ piece
that incorporates tablets. The distinction between
handset and tablet is pronounced. Smartphones
are used casually, in periods of downtime, often on
the move when we need quick access to certain
information, speculatively and when we’re impatient
or impulsive. Their role as a ‘bridging’ device will
transform how we interpret purchase paths.
Apple has driven adoption and engagement, and
despite Android accounting for greater take-up,
we don’t see this translate into sales and traffic
recorded through the network.
Looking at smartphones from a performance
marketing perspective, the focus has to remain on
the m-commerce piece. We need to ensure we’re
doing the fundamentals well: capturing the clicks
and sales. In many respects the industry has done
so inadequately to date with sizeable retailers still not
capturing sales due to a lack of affiliate tracking on
m-commerce sites. Affiliate Window is 95 per cent
tracked: market leading but still with work to do.
Our technical fix launched in early 2013 that
redirected traffic from advertisers who were leaking
affiliate commissions is part of a wider initiative.
Visibility on clicks and sales driven by handsets and
(crucially) which publishers are driving them should
help raise the profile of smartphone opportunities.
As a retailer, this should be the number one priority:
track and then optimise.
Beyond m-commerce the industry has yet to
clearly define products and services that are a
natural fit for the channel. Networks are starting
to evolve app download campaigns, but this
presents a further dilemma: advertisers create
apps to engage with consumers and in doing so
build a walled garden often shutting publishers
out of repeat purchase, a customer retention tool
rather than acquisition function. Should we expand
the world of affiliate marketing to offer campaigns
based around customer engagement via ‘value
add’ (rather than transactional) apps or FMCG
companies that traditionally haven’t spent money
within the performance channel?
Regarding affiliate traffic, it’s not enough to simply
import existing publisher databases and expect the
sales to follow suit. Much mobile marketing remains
unsophisticated and is heavily skewed towards
the Display model or incentivised downloads
(gaming rewards in return for interacting with a
brand). Publishers generating higher percentages
of smartphone sales to date are very different from
the incentive heavy lists that dominate traditional
programmes. Content built around travel is
succeeding as are email publishers and those who
are brokering Display deals. Networks need to carry
out some hard graft to discover and cultivate new
and innovative ‘mobile’ publisher partners.
Focusing on our traditional affiliate success
AFFILIATE WINDOW
Tel:
+44 (0) 844 557 9240
Web:www.affiliatewindow.com
Twitter:@AffWin
KB.indd 46
14/03/2014 12:48
PERFORMANCE
FOCUS
stories for a moment, they clearly see mobile as an
exceptionally important conduit. The geo-targeted
functions that smartphones offer have been paying
dividends for voucher code publishers who can flag
offers and discounts to consumers by location. With
the emergence of Apple’s iBeacon technology, we
can expect this significant opportunity to become
better optimised with pinpoint distribution of
information, deals and incentives.
Being able to serve ads, suggested
complementary products, deals and discounts
based on someone being in touching distance of a
specific product is compelling. Beyond this, what is
to stop aggressive, guerrilla tactics from competitor
brands, especially those without a high-street
presence?
The online to offline opportunity is also one that
offers traditional performance models a significant
shot in the arm, as well as driving sophistication
within the channel.
For publishers, it’s now possible to target
consumers at various stages in the purchasing
cycle, with mobile a natural conduit for doing so.
In time, our understanding of this will broaden as
we begin to appreciate the cross-device picture. A
single publisher can now target a consumer via their
“FOR PUBLISHERS, IT’S NOW POSSIBLE TO TARGET
CONSUMERS AT VARIOUS STAGES IN THE PURCHASING
CYCLE, WITH MOBILE A NATURAL CONDUIT FOR DOING SO.”
mobile with a push notification email on a Monday,
and then re-target that consumer a few days later
when they may be ready to purchase on a desktop.
Publishers now have multiple routes to market
and can support a consumer through the various
iterations of a purchase cycle.
Elsewhere, mobile price comparison has caused
ripples rather than waves. For email publishers,
mobile provides a real opportunity given more
consumers are accessing their emails on their
smartphones and tablets than their desktops and
any lead generation campaigns not offering mobile
optimised templates are missing a fundamental
shift in how people are picking up their personal
communications.
Affiliate Window’s data has also seen certain
sectors significantly over index for mobile sales.
Group buying and anything that has a sale’s
urgency about it inevitably converts better.
Commoditised products with lower basket
values such as DVDs and CDs are classic mobile
purchases.
Email publishers promoting these types of
products are getting the double hit of their traffic
being more readily accessible. For companies like
Groupon, email publishers can comfortably see half
of their sales flow through handsets.
Other sectors, such as travel and telecoms are
seeing huge traffic ramps via mobile even if the
conversions are not there. Indeed publishers are
well placed to evolve their commercial models to
take account of this, click deals and call tracking
both lend themselves well to mobile and advertisers
should be looking beyond classic CPA payments
to take account of how publishers are driving
consumers’ interest via smartphones.
Kevin Edwards
Strategy Director
Affiliate Window
KB.indd 47
14/03/2014 12:48
48KNOWLEDGE BANK
Crowdsourced testing: liberating
the creativity of digital agencies
‘Technical issues’ are a well known source of
anxiety and frustration to many recording artists.
When a musician goes on stage, they want to put
everything into the song they’re about to play –
not wrestle with squealing feedback every time
they approach the mic stand.
So it is with creative and digital agencies. When an
agency designs a new website for a client, it wants
to put all its energies into making that site as good
as it possibly can be. It doesn’t want to spend the
last few days before the deadline franticly trying to
test the software, or the first few days after release
fixing bugs for a displeased client.
Creativity should be an agency’s main focus. But
traditional methods of software testing don’t always
enable this. Testing internally can draw an agency’s
resources, developers and PMs away from creative
work for days at a time. What’s more, looming
deadlines can mean that internal testing isn’t as
thorough as it should be and is often completed
without using professionals.
And if testing isn’t thorough, it can also hinder
creativity later on. A need for post-go live fixes
can burden developers with extra work, resulting
in ‘developer burn’ and compromising quality on
subsequent projects.
Crowdsourced software testing liberates digital
agencies from these fundamental limitations of the
in-house approach. It does this by bringing together
thousands of professional software testers from
across the world to comprehensively test apps and
websites.
This approach frees up designers and developers
to focus on what they do best – creativity – without
lengthening the normal test period of a few days set
aside at the end of a project.
The scale and efficiency of the crowdsourced
model also heads off the risk of post-go live fixes
burning out developers. The vast number of testers
not only increases the number of devices that can
be tested on, but also means that the concentration
of each tester remains high – on average, each
individual will test on just 2 or 3 devices. This
eliminates the ‘browser blindness’ experienced by
members of a small, internal test team – a gradual
depletion of concentration with each new device
that’s being tested on.
Consequently, the threat of bugs wreaking havoc
after a site’s release is minimised, and that site is
more likely to function and display correctly on a
much wider range of devices. Development costs are
“CREATIVITY SHOULD BE AN AGENCY’S MAIN FOCUS.
BUT TRADITIONAL METHODS OF SOFTWARE TESTING
DON’T ALWAYS ENABLE THIS.”
lowered as a result, and the positive impact on an
agency’s bottom line can go back into building up its
creative capacities.
BugFinders have developed a crowdsourced
testing service that is tailor-made for digital and
creative agencies. We have a worldwide community
of over 54,000 professional software testers in 99
countries, which can be utilised at a moment’s
notice to perform comprehensive testing on a large
ecommerce site in just 1-3 days.
The scale of BugFinders’ community means that
we can test software on thousands of combinations
of devices, browsers and operating systems,
simultaneously. To increase efficiency, we ‘gameify’
testing, turning it into a competition in which testers
compete with one another to find the most valuable
bugs.
Our testers are paid per bug, and the rates we
pay are variable depending on the stage a project
has reached – towards the end we may raise rates,
incentivising testers to dig deep to find any remaining
business-critical bugs. Almost every defect on a
website will be identified.
There is also another way in which internal testing
can compromise creativity – a need for post-go
live fixes can damage relationships with clients and
prevent an agency’s creative resources from being
deployed at all.
Not only does BugFinders’ approach eliminate the
risk of creative brilliance being tainted in the eyes of
clients, we also provide agencies with enterpriselevel test exit documentation.
This can be used to demonstrate quality to clients,
strengthening relationships and differentiating
agencies from their competitors.
Our community’s international nature means that,
if required, BugFinders could launch a project on
a Saturday night. This flexibility is combined with
a fixed price, offered at the outset of a project, so
agencies don’t have to worry about unforeseen
problems raising testing costs.
This way, agencies can confidently stride on stage
and give their audience something spectacular that
actually works as well.
BUGFINDERS
Tel:
0844 870 8710
Web:www.bugfinders.com
Twitter:@BugFinders
KB.indd 48
Martin Mudge
Technical Director
BugFinders
14/03/2014 12:47
book review49
Analytics
and excel
Data analysis expert Wayne L Winston’s new book helps tech-savvy
marketers and data analysts solve real-world business problems with
Microsoft Excel. Natalie Mortimer takes a look.
Billed as a way of “helping tech-savvy marketers
and data analysts solve real-world business
problems”, Marketing Analytics is a Microsoft
Excel-based book, which gives a comprehensive
look at all aspects of marketing analytics, from
how to create data spreadsheets to measuring
social marketing.
Written by Wayne L Winston, a professor at Indiana
University, the book was created from Winston’s
course notes while teaching at the Kelley School of
Business, and the idea behind Marketing Analytics
is to show the reader how to utilise Excel to improve
their marketing results and techniques instead of
investing time and money into more expensive
analytical tools.
With a step-by-step approach, the book consists
of 11 topics including customer value and market
research tools, and is then broken down into 45
chapters. Each chapter comes with a downloadable
Excel file containing data and solutions and is
helpfully illustrated with screenshots of the various
steps and sections of the Excel file so that you don’t
get lost in a sea of functions and formulas.
How easy it is to follow depends on your existing
knowledge level of Excel. Winston says the only
prior knowledge you need is “how to use the Copy
command”, however novices may struggle at first to
get their heads around some of the more technical
language – I had to re-read a couple of paragraphs
to fully understand the steps and the jargon which
features heavily throughout. That said, the tone and
language is extremely readable and the book is
written in a modular fashion meaning you can skip
back and forth or even cut out the parts that you
don’t feel are relevant to you. There’s also a handy
guide in the introduction that shows if you do need to
read a different chapter before diving into another.
Throughout the book Winston uses a set of
scenarios as examples and this makes some of
the more dry topics, such as ‘using Excel charts to
summarise marketing data’, a little easier to digest
and process. For example he uses a fictional cafe
called Le Petit Bakery to demonstrate how you would
tackle analysing sales and trends of its cakes, coffees
TD_35_09_MAR19_WILEY.indd 49
and smoothies. By making use of these
scenarios it really helps you to put the
Excel steps into context if you are not
navigating around the downloadable
files at the time.
One of the most interesting
sections of the book is the
final section on internet and
social marketing. Drawing on
topical and current events
such as the ‘Gangnam Style’
viral YouTube video and Miley
Cyrus’ controversial 2013 VMA
performance, the topic covers
networks, viral marketing
and text mining. In particular
the viral marketing chapter
was extremely insightful and
showed how mathematical
models of viral marketing can
attempt to show if a video will
either go viral or fall into the
internet abyss. If you don’t
have a head for figures and
aren’t working within social
marketing it might be best
to skip this section though
– you could easily end up
cross-eyed and confused
with the amount of complex
“an extremely detailed guide that is useful for
anyone working in the marketing world.”
equations that pepper the pages.
The wealth and breadth of information in Marketing
Analytics means that you get an extremely detailed
guide that is useful for anyone working in the
marketing world. However, it is not a light read and
unless you are working on the accompanying files
at the same time, the book can be quite difficult to
make sense of in parts. Overall though the content
is clear, well demonstrated with good examples and
backed up by suggested exercises to test out your
newly acquired Excel skills.
Marketing Analytics: Data-Driven Techniques
with Microsoft Excel by Wayne L Winston is out
now and available in paperback and e-book. To
purchase, visit bit.ly/1ikQD7A.
14/03/2014 13:20
50girl guides
doing good
with digital
As The Drum continues to champion the digital leaders blazing a trail for young
women to follow, Angela Haggerty catches up with Zone’s UX design director
Julie Dodd, who was behind the original iPlayer and who now looks to harness
the power of digital for the greater good.
In January this year, BBC iPlayer broke
through the 300 million monthly users barrier
and reported an average of 10.2 million daily
requests. For Julie Dodd, UX design director
at Zone, it’s pretty impressive to have on her
CV that she was one of two people to design
the original face of the iPlayer for its launch in
2007. Maybe surprisingly though, she doesn’t
consider it her most favoured project.
Rather, Dodd is these days applying her user
design skills in a sector she feels more naturally
drawn to – the third sector – and it’s a project for
a major charity currently under wraps that Dodd is
most excited about.
“I’m particularly interested in how digital
can support social good,” she says. “I find the
commercial challenges very interesting in what we
do, but really I think digital has enormous power to
do good, and I’d like to be somebody who really
champions that.
“Being in an organisation like the BBC, which
is publicly funded, I always felt a strong sense of
responsibility to the people paying for the work
we were doing. But my family are all a bunch of
do-gooders, so I think it probably comes a lot from
there too,” she laughs.
Dodd has been at Zone for five and a half years,
having begun her time at Public Zone before it
merged with its sister agency in 2011. At the
agency, she engages her interest in harnessing
digital for social good, but prior to her time there
she was involved in building the foundation of the
BBC iPlayer, which transformed the broadcaster’s
digital relationship with viewers.
“In those days, most households had only
one computer,” she reflects, explaining how the
evolution of services such as iPlayer required
ambitious foresight to drive them forward. “It didn’t
live in a social space, it usually lived in a study and
it didn’t really belong in the heart of the home in
the way computers do now.
“We could already see it changing. We could
see the early adopters who had laptops watching
TD_35_09_MAR19_GIRLGUIDES.indd 50
YouTube videos in the kitchen, so short-form video
was already working, and if that was working it had
to be possible to make long form video work.
“It was a really interesting point in time in
digital because we had a real sense that there
was something in it. Initially, all of the audience
feedback was telling us that there wasn’t,” she
laughs. “I’m a great user advocate. I really believe
in listening to people, but sometimes you have to
really watch what they’re doing, not what they’re
saying.”
Dodd moved into the user design discipline after
an initial interest in graphic design following her
departure from university. She gained a degree in
cross media design at Bournemouth, but is a great
believer in design and digital disciplines such as
coding as a craft, and is irked by an “insistence” in
barrier, but I’ve always been surrounded by people
who are very liberally minded.
“That said, there have been times in my career,
and I’m not particularly proud of it, but I have put on
heels and lipstick in order to get things agreed when
more traditional senior men were involved. I had one
boss who was very like that – I’m not sure if he was
aware he was like that – but when I needed things
signed off I wore a shorter skirt. I’m not sure if that’s
printable,” she laughs, “but it’s true.
“Marketing seems to have really diversified,”
she adds, “but technology wise it’s still massively
male dominated. We joke about the fact we’ve got
three or four female developers because that’s very
unusual in a team of nearly 30.”
Dodd says that the visual design sector has
seen a better balance in gender over the last
“I have serious diversity concerns about social
economic background. It really bugs me when I see
job specs that say ‘must have a degree’.”
the industry that a degree is essential, pointing out
that such restrictions have led to a lack of social
diversity.
“I have serious diversity concerns about social
economic background,” she explains. “It really
bugs me when I see job specs that say ‘must have
a degree’. I think that’s completely inappropriate
and it’s led to a real lack of social diversity in the
digital world generally. Design is a craft profession.
So is coding. It doesn’t require a degree.”
While Dodd has real concerns over the lack
of social diversity in the trade, she believes that
changes in the gender imbalance are moving in the
right direction, but in some sectors there is still a
way to go.
“I’m certainly conscious of the difference
between genders but I think I’ve been quite lucky,”
she says. “I personally have never found it to be a
couple of years, and she sees a relatively 50/50
split in applications when recruiting. However,
there are still notable differences higher up the
ladder.
“In terms of a senior level, certainly I found when
I first became a creative director that I was in a bit
of a minority – not a complete minority because
the BBC has very fair standards of employment,
but I wasn’t surrounded by that many women in
the discipline,” she says. “It’s quite a new discipline
overall, but it was certainly male weighted.”
She adds, however, that it has “changed a
bit” since she left the BBC after nine years at
the broadcaster and during her stint at Zone.
For Dodd, she has proven her credentials in her
chosen field and is firmly settled in an area of her
industry that combines her personal ambition of
using digital to make a bigger difference.
14/03/2014 13:01
TD_35_09_MAR19_GIRLGUIDES.indd 51
girl guides51
14/03/2014 13:01
52agency q&a
small agency,
big ambitions
Simon Bollon heads up growing Leeds media independent Boutique Media and the recently launched Boutique
Digital. He has big plans for the next five years, aiming to build Boutique into the largest media independent based
outside London. Here he shares his vision for the future with The Drum Network’s Richard Draycott.
Where did the Boutique Media business come from
and how has it evolved over the years?
David Byrne set up the business in 1985 and it was
pretty much the first media independent in the north.
I joined 10 years ago and we rebranded as Boutique
Media two years ago to refresh the business and bring
it into a modern environment.
The key thing was to give ourselves a stronger
position in the market. It was apparent to us that the
big media agencies were only interested in the bigger
pieces of media business and the smaller agencies
were picking up the business they weren’t interested
in. So, with that in mind we needed to give ourselves a
position in the marketplace that said to clients: ‘We’re
not on the scale of the big media agencies, but that’s
a good thing. We don’t want to be the scale of those
agencies, we can offer you a point of difference.’
We’re never going to try and deal with the huge
multi-million pound media accounts. We are never
going to want to pitch against the big agencies. We
are for clients who are trying to find an agency that
is going to be a better fit for them in terms of people,
experience and culture because that isn’t always going
to be the big media agencies. The challenge to us was
not being seen as just another small media agency so
we created a relationship with Mediacom, which means
as and when required, or is relevant to a client, we can
trade through Mediacom, accessing its group rates and
so on. That relationship gives us a scale and resources
that the other, let’s say smaller, media agencies can’t
compete with, so we literally have all the resources that
you would associate with the UK’s biggest agency.
How is Boutique Media structured as a business?
There are now three directors – myself, Steve Smithson
and Elliot Jones. Elliot recently joined as digital director
and the business is actually split into two – Boutique
Media and Boutique Digital.
I have an overseeing role as a managing partner if
you like, although we don’t really do titles. I generally
oversee the running of the business, which covers
client acquisition and any kind of pitching, client
relationships etc. I am also active in terms of managing
accounts and client relations. A key selling point for
us is that if you work with us you will have a director
working on your account at all times, they will be your
lead point of contact throughout the relationship.
You recently launched Boutique Digital – how long
had that development been in the pipeline?
We were doing some digital and we were leveraging
TD_35_09_MAR19_NETWORK.indd 52
the resource in Mediacom, but we’ve got a very clear
idea in terms of what our agency is going to look like
in five years’ time and we will be positioning ourselves
more as an all-round communications agency.
Historically we’ve been a media buying and planning
agency, but we do more than that now. We know
looking forward that clients are going to be looking for
communications agencies able work across the full
plethora of communication platforms, be that search or
television or social media, whatever is relevant to them.
I think the landscape will change somewhat. I think
what we see at the moment in terms of pure digital
agencies, they are probably going to find that they
need to be doing more. It’s happening in PR agencies
because traditional PR is becoming less important.
The logical step for us was to improve our digital
offer and offer a more integrated approach to clients.
We realised that we needed a head of digital so we
appointed Elliot.
Does being a smaller agency mean you can move
the agency on and make changes happen quickly
compared with some of the bigger media players?
There’s no question that flexibility is a key part of how
We simply resigned the account in as professional
manner as possible, saying to them that we picked
up the business on the basis of our service offering,
our people, our culture, but in practice their culture
doesn’t fit ours, so it wasn’t a relationship we wanted
to pursue anymore. It’s very difficult to do, particularly
if it is a profitable piece of business, but essentially if
I didn’t want to come into work and I didn’t want to
deal with somebody, I wouldn’t want anybody else
in the business to be doing it, otherwise they are
not going to want to come into work on a Monday
morning, and if we are put in that position, then we
are buggered.
As media buyers I’m sure you are pretty hands on
with the finances, but how do you keep a close eye
on the cash?
Cash flow is vital in a small agency business and the
profitability that you achieve on a client is absolutely
key. Again as a smaller business we can control our lot
better. We’re not going to pick up a client because it’s
nice turnover, but terrible profit. That suits a big agency
perfectly, but it’s not our bag, we will pick up a client if
we think we can service them appropriately and they
“We’re not going to pick up a client because it’s nice
turnover, but terrible profit. That suits a big
agency perfectly, but it’s not our bag.”
we will be able to grow. If a client needs something in
a certain way then we can do it. We can shape our
business in accordance to client demands. We’ve
all done the big agency network thing and we know
flexibility is a difficult thing for the big agencies. The big
network agencies tend to be large beasts, so small
sized flexibility is key for us.
When things go wrong or a client isn’t working out
for you, how do you deal with those issues, and
how regularly do you review clients?
Reviewing clients, again because we are small, we are
able to do that on an ongoing basis, because a director
works on every account. That means that at least one
director will have a really good understanding of every
client.
Recently we had a case where after about a month
the guys who worked on one of the client accounts
didn’t want to answer the phone when they called.
are going to benefit from us working with them, but if it
wasn’t profitable we wouldn’t do it.
If we were to have this conversation in 2018, what
would you want your agency to look like?
I suppose the first answer to that is, doesn’t everybody
go into business to make money? I went into the
business to work for myself, to grow a business using
my entrepreneurial streak, but you’ve got to have a
long-term progression plan for the business.
Our aim is to be the biggest independent media
agency outside London by 2015, with billings of
around £20m-25m. We are on target for that, with
our growth in double digits every year. 2012 was triple
digit growth, so we are progressing. I think we would
also like to be in different geographical territories too.
I think the Boutique brand could work successfully in
different territories, be that Newcastle or Manchester,
for example.
14/03/2014 13:00
agency q&a53
Boutique Media is a member of The Drum Network. If you would like to find out more about The Drum
Network and how it can help support you and your growing agency visit www.thedrum.com/network
TD_35_09_MAR19_NETWORK.indd 53
14/03/2014 13:00
54the lAST WORD
A better
way to
find an
agency
Paul Kitcatt, chief creative
officer at Kitcatt Nohr, has the
last word this issue and uses
his soapbox to rant against
the absurdity that is pitching.
But it’s not just ranting for the
sake of it. He even provides a
novel solution. Let’s just hope
someone’s taking note.
My agency is good at pitching. It is, however, the
most ridiculous, wasteful, time-consuming and
fatuous way for clients to find an agency, and vice
versa.
It costs a large amount of money, and wastes weeks
of time. All of which agencies must recoup from their
only source of revenue – their clients.
If we bought a car in a similar fashion, we’d ask
six manufacturers to show ideas for a range of cars
they’ve never made, to do things no car has ever been
asked to do, from materials that don’t exist, designed
like no car known to man, at a cost no car could ever
be made for. Not only to show the ideas, but to make
the cars, at least as prototypes. Then we’d choose one
manufacturer, but buy none of the cars they’ve shown,
but something completely different. And the rest would
get thrown away.
How often does the work created for the pitch
actually run? Rarely. The client, on appointing you, will
explain why they couldn’t possibly approve the ideas
you’ve shown – too brave by far – and then reveal their
most pressing need. It won’t be much like the one in
the pitch brief.
So agencies spend thousands of pounds answering
made-up or heavily doctored questions. The losing
agencies waste their money. The winner does too,
since none of the work can be used, but they can try to
make it back over the next few years.
At least the client meets a team of people they want
to work with. Except they don’t. Though the client often
asks to see the people who will work on the business,
no agency ever fields more than one or two of them.
Why? Because
all agencies know the
client wants a good show at
the pitch. And the people who are
best at pitching are those who’ve done it most
often, and they can’t possibly work on all the business
they pitch for.
It doesn’t matter that much, however, since the client
team is also largely composed of senior people you will
rarely see again.
So what pitching amounts to is this. A number of
agencies spend a vast amount of money, and one
wins. The winning team meets the client team at
the pitch, and thereafter twice a year at The Ivy. The
winning work, and the losing work, goes to landfill. A
group of minions who have never set eyes on each
other then meet and work out how to do whatever it is
that actually needs doing.
Is there a better way? As a client, you could start by
looking at agencies’ work properly. Ask to meet the
people who do the work, not for a formal presentation,
but to talk to them. Ask to talk to the clients whose
work you are shown.
It will take forever if you see 16 agencies, as can
happen now. So don’t. Shorten the shortlist. All
agencies have websites. Go window shopping first,
and save time later.
And don’t ask your incumbent agency to re-pitch.
It’s cruel. You’ve
called a review because
you don’t love them anymore.
Take them out and shoot them,
right away. How often does an incumbent win
a re-pitch? Six per cent of the time. They always try,
because agencies are full of relentless optimists. But
94 per cent of the time it ends in tears.
See four agencies, and choose two for a live brief.
The one who does the best job gets the business. You
run the work.
Agencies will still get the thrill of the chase, but with
less wastage and better odds. Clients see the agency
in action. The people who will work together get to
try it out. And the first campaign goes out of the door
within days.
Paul Kitcatt is the chief creative officer and
co-founder of Kitcatt Nohr. With over 25
years in the business, Kitcatt started off as
a trainee copywriter, and worked his way up
to executive creative director in three and a
half years. In 2002, he founded Kitcatt Nohr,
along with Marc Nohr, Vonnie Alexander,
and Jeremy Shaw. Kitcatt and Alexander
continue to run the agency today.
For more blogs go to thedrum.com/opinion
TD_35_09_MAR19_LAST_WORD.indd 54
14/03/2014 13:03
DIRECTORY55
THEDRUM.COM/DIRECTORY
EMAIL MARKETING SOLUTIONS
THE DRUM DIRECTORY
Here you will find a selection of our online directory advertisers. To view their
company profile, work and case studies go to www.thedrum.com/directory
Contact Stephen Young on 0141 559 6070 or [email protected]
AGENCY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
Synergist
Tel: 0870 444 9656
Contact: Nick Lane
[email protected]
synergist.co.uk
DIGITAL MARKETING
Regain control and visibility
with the complete agency
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AGENCY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
Sohnar Ltd
Tel: 0800 880 3008
Contact: Tracey Shirtcliff
[email protected]
trafficlive.com/thedrum
Tel: 0845 838 0612
Contact: Alan Black
[email protected]
blackad.co.uk
Tel: 0207 183 6668
Contact: Tom Head
[email protected]
http://lab.co.uk/
Comprehensive agency
management from quoting,
resourcing, scheduling,
timesheets through to billing:
• Improve efficiency
• Increase profit
Silver Egg Media
Tel: 01254 664282
Contact: Chris Balme
[email protected]
http://silvereggmedia.co.uk/
DESIGN
R.O.EYE
Tel: 020 3440 4235
Contact: Donna McNelis
[email protected]
www.roeye.com
JH
Tel: +44(0)1376 533388
Contact: James Mollard
[email protected]
www.vcg-group.com/catapult
Tel: 0115 933 8790
Contact: Jamie Huskisson
[email protected]
www.wearejh.com
The creative communications
company that helps you tell
your brand story.
DESIGN
Tel: 44 (0) 207 748 7481
Contact: David Jacobs
[email protected]
www.greatmindsdesign.com
DIRECTORY_2.indd 55
SilverEGG Media offer bespoke
marketing solutions for companies
hoping to boost their online and
offline presence. Specialists in
SEO, Content Marketing
and Rebranding.
Visualsoft eCommerce
Tel: 01642 633604
Contact: Sarah McCormick
[email protected]
www.visualsoft.co.uk
79™
Tel: 01484 487951
Contact: Behrooz Saeed
[email protected]
www.weare79.co
A digitally-focussed marketing
agency that finds compelling
ways to connect with audiences,
build brand relationships and
deliver excellent ROI.
Bray Leino
Tel: 01598 760 700
Contact: James Doel
[email protected]
www.brayleino.co.uk
We exist to help our Clients and
their brands thrive in an everchanging world. Not just to be
ready for change. But to steal a
march on change.
INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS
R.O.EYE offer a comprehensive
range of digital performance
services including Affiliate
Management, Social Media,
Email Marketing, Mobile and
Lead Generation.
BSS
Tel: 020 7419 3800
Contact: Rachael Glynne
[email protected]
www.bss.org
Communicate by voice, mail or
online – BSS Contact, BSS Reach
and BSS Digital – our three core
elements combine seamlessly to
provide the best ways for you to
reach your customers.
PR
Responsive e-commerce experts.
Instead of a jack-of-all-trades, you
work with an agency focussed
where the best work can be
produced, time after time.
Figure 11
Tel: 0131 243 2575
Contact: Iain McMenemy
[email protected]
www.figure11.co.uk
A full service communications
agency delivering PR, online &
offline comms, strategic advice
and relationship building to
organisations of all sizes.
SEARCH
ECOMMERCE
Digital creative agency based in
Marylebone, London. Creating
beautiful website, digital
campaigns including SEO & SEM
& video productions
The only email marketing solution
designed specifically for agencies.
Instiller is white label, easy to use
and can be customised for each of
your clients.
INTEGRATED
ECOMMERCE
VCG Catapult
Great Minds Design
Lab is a creative digital agency
with technology expertise,
working with lifestyle brands
in retail, food & drink, health
& fitness, golf & marine.
DIGITAL PERFORMANCE SERVICES
Digital copywriters and trainers
since the web were a lad. Crazy
strong in financial services.
We work with AXA, RBS, Tesco,
Vodafone – and agencies.
Tel: 0870 41 777 41
Contact: Adi Toal
[email protected]
www.instiller.co.uk
INTEGRATED
DIGITAL MARKETING
COPYWRITING
Blackad
Lab
Instiller
Based in Teesside, Visualsoft is
one of the UK’s leading eCommerce
companies, providing website
design, development and online
marketing services to over 550
online retailers.
Hit Search
Tel: 0845 643 9289
Contact: Andy Donaldson
[email protected]
www.hitsearchlimited.com
Hit Search are an online marketing
agency with specialisms in SEO,
PPC, Attribution Modelling and
Conversion Rate Optimisation
aimed at helping our clients
grow online.
14/03/2014 12:41
want timesheets?
job & project tracking
cost analysis
production management
invoicing. scheduling
time sheets
CRM. sales analysis
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key to making us
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GUS GRANGER. 70kft.
desktop, smartphone & tablet
love streamtime.
If you want to capture more time & materials, get a free demo of Streamtime
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Streamtime could benefit your creative business - visit us www.streamtime.net
14/03/2014 12:40

uplifting offices

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