Google wave. Boring, boring, boring.

I've been hearing bits and bobs about Google Wave and as with almost anything Google (or Apple) touch, seems that most people are like kids after too many sweets just thinking about the next new thing.
So I went to my favourite browser (Google of course) and searched Google Wave and went here. What greeted me was an excruciatingly boring 1 hour 20 minute video / seminar introducing the product.
For a company that seem to do so many things so well, it really shocked me just how crap this is. I suffered about 15 mins of it and am still non the wiser about why I should really care about Wave.
Maybe I need to trade my collared shirt for one of those "I'm a geeky kinda alternative dude" blue t-shirts to get my head around it?

The world's fastest nudist

This guy claims to be the world's fastest nudist. Watch him running around NYC. Turns out to be a very smart bit of viral marketing by Zappo's, an online shoe retailer. I think this guy has definitely been to the Will Ferrell school of acting. Watch the video, it's funny.

A thinner you!

This is a simple and I imagine very popular business idea - get skilled digital artists to alter personal photographs to illustrate what you would like like if you lost a certain ammount of weight.
It's a vain concept, but people are vain, so I think it will be popular. I think they should do 'a fatter you' as well, so that you get an image of youselef as you currently are, plus the thinner you as a motivator to lose and a fatter you as a deterrent to eat that extra cake. They could also overlay terribly depressing statistics about how your life expectancy, chances of getting diabetes, etc are all going to change by x% depending on whether you're fatter or thinner.
God, how depressing. I'm off for lunch now.
Thinner You via Srpingwise

Social media vs. Advertising analogy

John V. Willshire runs a great blog out of PHD London office called Feeding the Puppy. One of his recent posts includes an interesting presentation that manages to use every istockphoto image of a bonfire to build an analogy of how social media campaigns differ from advertising.

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

You should check out John's blog and keep it bookmarked, there's a lot of thought provoking stuff gets posted there.

Population sizes of virtual worlds from KZero

Here's a really interesting graphical representation from KZero of the population sizes (based on registered users) of many different virtual worlds. A wonderfully simple to understand chart that shows how long the world has been in existence, the size of the population base and the average user age.
It's clear immediately how popular these worlds are with kids and teens, with Habbo being the most popular overall world very much in the 10-15 year old market and sites like Poptropica and Club Penguin doing very well in the 5-10 year old segments.
A few years ago all the buzz in the market was about Second Life and it is interesting to see that their population of registered users is still relatively very small - only a fraction of the bigger kid focused sites.
This all has long term implications for how todays pre-teens develop their social skills and the 'norms' they become accustomed to. Mark Holden of PHD wrote a brilliant book recently about the future of the media agency and one of the things he hypothesises is that today's kids will have a complete blur between their virtual and real world identities, where they don't separate the two in the way that the 'analogue generation' do. You can read Mark's full ebook here.

What does 200 calories look like?

This feeds my fetish for all things visual as well as a mild obsession with food. A really simple but very interesting way to show the calorific content of different foods by showing an actual image of that quantity of food that delviers the 200 calories. From infosthetics and wisegeek

Infographics

I love infographics. It seems like such an amazing skill to have, to be able to take lots of complex data and graphically represent it so that people who often have little understanding of the complexities of the subject can easily grasp the core information.
In the world of media, there is a lot we could learn from this discipline to get us away from the endless charts and numbers.
Check out this slideshow on Flikr below.

British Airways brand experience - it's the little things that make the difference

I had to fly to London from Beijing via Hong Kong overnight last night and straight into the office in London. I'm lucky enough to get to fly business class and am a bit of a geek about comparing different airlines. The BA flight from Hong Kong to Heathrow was on a brand new plane with their new Club World cabin. It was interesting that half the seats in business are rear facing - one of them mine. I've never sat facing down the back of the plane and as we jetted off, it was a bit strange. The flatbed seat was the comfiest I've been in and I managed to get quite a bit of sleep, but what really made the flight was the breakfast. I think for anyone Enlgish, especially if you live overseas, there's something symbolic and indulgent about a full English breakfast.
I'm not usually too hungry when it comes to airline food, but this breakfast was fantastic. As I was enjoying it we flew over the british coast as dawn and they might have well piped "Rule Britannia" thru the cabin.
There was a lot of nice things about the BA product, but the small thing of getting the breakfast just right - and serving it with HP sauce - really made it a great brand experience.

Are magazines really dying?

I was thinking of subscribing to Wired and the above is their offer (US residents) - US$10 for 12 issues and they give you a T-shirt as well. GQ had a similar priced offer (below).
I know that times are bad for publishers but when magazines with good quality content, like Wired are virtually having to give their product away (I'm sure $10 wouldn't even cover their p&p costs) and most magazines circulations and readerships are still falling at the same time, do people really value them anymore?
The magazines are obviously existing on the ad revenue alone which seems like a very, very risky model because when you're clearly this desperate for readers, it's hardly a convincing story for those advertisers to give bukets of cash in return for a few pages of ads next to more ads.
I think the big publishing groups need to seriously innovate and should be looking to aggregate their content and make it simple for people to build custom published magazines which pick out only the specific content they are interested in from the whole portfolio of titles. I think many pwople would pay for this as long as the content was good and you could select to do it either with or without ads or possibly set an advertising / content threshold.
We're hoping to get an experiment like this off the ground soon with one of our clients. Hoping to...

The story of mini laptops (netbooks)

There's an interesting article at Wired, talking about how the popular mini laptop computers came to be. They make a really interesting point that the netbooks totally buck the 'laws' of the category which has always been an evolution of performance, storage and capabilities. The netbooks are essentially stripped down laptops, probably of about equal performance to a laptop from 5 years ago. They are proving incredibly popular though because 1) they're cheap 2) they're small and light 3) their performance is perfectly fine for most general usage.
This last reason is interesting and I've been struggling with this myself for some time. I've been thinking about whether to upgrade my 4 year old Acer laptop now for a while and when I was on holiday in the States went into a Best Buy fully intent on walking out with a shiny new toy.
But when I was in there the sales guy killed it by asking me "so, exactly what will you be using it for?" After a bit of a pause, I admitted it was for casual internet surfing, putting photos onto Faceboook (I never PS them) and occasionally writing a letter. No photoshop. No WOW. No 3D AutoCAD. No Kung Fu Panda animation.
He still tried to sell me the latest laptop with bells and whistles but even he couldn't come up with a reason why it would genuinely benefit me. So I left with a packet of M&Ms instead of a new laptop.
I did recently buy a nice white HP Mini but for the same reason most people are buying them I think - for my wife primarily to use and take out with her because it will fit in her bag. I also think our daughter will love using it and will be handy for when we're in cafes and restaurants. I'm curious to see how much use it actually gets and what role it ends up playing in a household that already has an iPhone, a 'big' laptop and a wii. Let's see.
Back to the article... the issue that software companies now have is also that the vast majority of people don't need the functionality of the lastest applications (eg. Adobe's CS4) and can use free online apps instead. This further reduces the need for a big hard drive or quad core processor. It's quite easy to imagine the netbooks very soon just coming pre-loaded with a suite of useful links for free online apps to cover 99% of user needs.

Interesting media

This is an interesting example of new media. In the right instances I think this could be used very creatively.

Microsoft's perspective on the role technology will play in our future lives

This makes me wonder if this is the kind of world my children will be experiencing when they are college age?

Amazing 3D Projection

Watch the video. It's amazing.

555 KUBIK_ extended version from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

This was a projection onto a gallery in Hamburg to create optical illusions. I would love to do a project like this.

Innovate but simple way to drive sales on slow days

A London clothes shop has an innovative way to drive sales - a daily discount equivalent to the temperature that day. The hotter it gets, the more discount they offer. This is a smart move as typically retail sales drop when the weather gets hot (apart from ice cream) and as we're talking about London, the discounts the retailer needs to absorb are never going to be too big, are they?

Story from PSFK

Google Motion Graphs

This is an amazing gadget add on to Google Docs, which allows you to review 5 differnt data variables at once. Most useful is that it allows one of those variables to be time, so you can see how the data changes over time.
In the graph above, if you hit the play button you'll see 30 cities in China, with 3 highlighted - Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou. The vertical axis is time spent online each week and the horizontal axis it time spent watching TV yesterday. The size of the bubbles is population (of 15-24 year olds) and the colour is a warmth scale of how much newspapers they read.
When you hit play, you should see how over just 5 years, the time spent watching TV has fallen dramatically as the time online has increased. I've highlighted Hangzhou in particular where this is especially pronounced. The colour coding also highlights that these 15-24 year olds are reading less newspapers in 2009.
This is a great tool, you should try it.

Data from CHina Media and Marketing Survey 2004-2009

Great presentation design

This 3-minute video presentation called Built to Last won first prize in The Congress for the New Urbanism video contest a few weeks ago. The rules for the contest were simple: "Create a 3-minute maximum video that illustrates how the principles of New Urbanism - density, design and walkability - can effectively respond to current environmental challenges that we face."
(From http://www.presentationzen.com)
It's an interesting message in the video but it's also a great example of how to present effectively. Most people (including me) would not be able to create something this polished, but the style could easily be replicaed with static powerpoint slides.

IKEA Beijing

I had to go to IKEA in Beijing last week and was amused to see several people quite happily having a nice sleep on the furniture. This was about 5 in the afternoon.

Female consumers in China (from CNN)

Crap marketing

There's a really interesting contrast of marketing videos by rival sports brands Adidas and Puma on DesignNotes. One is so-so, the other seems hopelessly try hard. See if you agree which is which...

First off, Puma:


And next Adidas:


I can tell you as a Mancunian that the flat, uninspired drawl of the Ting Tings in the Adidas video has nothing to do with their Mancunian accents and I think everything to do with fact that they are probably reading from a $cript provided by the Adidas marketing department. "Yeah, these are the best kinds of gigs.. [becasue we get paid a $hit load of money for a few hours work]"

Maybe I'm biased?

Media convergence

In an interesting example of media convergence, The Economist has made its entire magazine available in audio format.
From their site, "the audio edition contains word-for-word recordings of all articles published in The Economist, read by professional broadcasters and actors. It is ideal for anyone who wants to listen to articles while travelling, exercising or just relaxing."
If you subscribe to the magazine, the audio is free. If you don't then you can purchase each edition for US$8.
I think this is a brilliant idea, partly because it takes great content and broadens the reach through a very relevant channel, partly because it adds value for their existing customers, and partly because as one the first major publishers to do this, they will surely benefit from a spike in readers/listeners from people curious to sample this new format.
Good luck to them. Have a look here.

Lane Crawford Fashion Blog

Lane Crawford have launched an interesting blog campaign where they have got famous fashion photographer Tommy Ton, to take pictures of interesting fashions he sees out and about while going to the leading fashion shows around the world. I think this is a brilliant example of the company using new media to provide engaging content which is very relevant for Lane Crawford and helps to further establish their positioning as retailer of top end latest fashion.

The only criticism I’d have is that it only seems to reside on the Lane Crawford site and it doesn’t seem as easy as other blogs to become a follower or add to an rss feed. Check it out …

Luxury goods culture in China

There's an interesting post on www.littleredbook.cn about luxury goods in China. It's only a straight forward overview perspective, but if you're interested in this area, it's worth a read.

Free samples

It's nice to see someone else has a liking for tactile, printed things. Tim Milne from Aromatic has started a concept in the UK with the Royal Mail to send out 30,000 of these sampler boxes with a range of products from toiletries to candy to books and music.
I particularly like the idea about sending people the first chapter or two of a book - an idea we also had recently for one of our clients. In the digital world we live in there is something pleasantly satisfying about ink and paper.
From The Long Tail blog

HSBC lets travellers compile their own magazines

This is a great bit of marketing from HSBC Premier. At Heathrow T1, they gave travellers the opportunity to hand pick up to 32 different articles from a range of magazines to be bound into their own, pensonal title. What a brilliant idea - great brand and product fit, engages with the customer and adds value. The consumers in the video seem pretty happy.

Courtesy of PSFK

This is an interesting development for book writing. Get a famous author to write the first and last chapters of a book and then recruit 28 budding amateurs to fill in the middle. THe book will be released digitally chapter by chapter online from March 10th.
From Springwise via PSFK

Agent Provocateur valentines day mobile campaign

Warning, this video is for adults only.


Original version here

It's the latest marketing campaign from UK lingerie firm, Agent Provocateur. In the video, a woman exacts her revenge on her boyfriend who has to work late on Valentine's Day. As you'd expect there's a lot of sexy lingerie on show which may in itself be fairly shocking to some people, but it's the ending that shocked me. Watch the video to see for yourself. It may seem harmless fun, but if the situation were reversed, it certainly wouldn't be seen as acceptable.

Apart from that, it is a good example of relevant and engaging content which I believe was downloadable onto iPhones, so I'm sure got seen more than a few times.

Smashing Magazine

I stumbled across this fantastic site this evening which I'd advise you to check out and bookmark if you have any interest in graphic design. There's an interesting blog and a section entitled 'inspiration' where there are collections of wonderful design examples groped into themes such as - movie posters, vintage fonts, stop motion videos, etc.

Check it out here

Marketing in a recession

Maybe I'm just not in a great mood, but I'm getting a bit sick of everyone and his dog giving the same two bits of advice for marketers in a recession:
1. Don't even think about cutting your budget, spend more!
2. Shove all your spend online, it's the ROI medium

It's not that I necessarily disagree with these bits of advice, but they already seem to have turned into the mantra for agency folk. Playing devil's advocate (as I so frequently do), let's just think about the two statements.

There are several studies showing that brands who maintained or increased their investment during a recession were more likely to be more successful in the years that followed than those brands who decreased their share of voice. It seems quite logical too - if competitors are dropping their spend, then you can get a disproportionate SOV.

The problem is that this is a bit simplistic because we haven't faced an economic crisis of this magnitude since before marketing studies were being conducted, so what happened 'last time' isn't necessarily the best indicator of 'this time'. When you see companies going bankrupt that 12 months ago most people probably considered very solid - I think most CEOs and CFOs will want to ensure they are still operating in 5 years rather than thinking about what their market share might be if they increase their spend now. There's also a category consideration. The additional SOV that you get during the recession is surely going to have different levels of impact depending on the product category. Having twice the SOV for luxury cars when nobody is buying probably won't really make that much differece, but I can see how for FMCG, it seems logical.

When it comes to online, you can't disagree that online lends itself to fantastic analysis. What bugs me though is that just because you can count it, doesn't mean it's always going to be the best option. There's lots of evidence to show that for many mass market products, mass media channels offer better value than online. I know that search and performance marketing are very controllable and effective channels, but surely they also perform well for well known brands that consumers have confidence in. Dropping all of your brand investment may not be a wise mid-term approach. There's also the lack of evidence - does anybody really know that shifting money to digital is the best thing to do in a recession? Even during the last recession 10 years ago, digital marketing and online consumer behaviour was totally different.

Maybe (just maybe) it could be in some of the ad agencies interests to push online because of the production dollars they can bring in?

Anyway, that's my thoughts. As I said, I don't necessarily disagree with the advice, but think we have a responsibility to be a bit more thorough and considered before making sweeping generalizations.

I'll get off my soap box now...

The man with five mistresses

Click fraud blackmail

I've just read an interesting article on TechCrunch about a company called LeapFish in the US, who punished a client who declined to advertise with them by clicking on their Google link 50 times (Google charge on a cost per click basis so this may have cost a few hundred US$) and then emailed the client to inform them of this in the hope they would re-think their decision. Full article here. Nuts!

Here in China it is fairly common for some media owners to blackmail advertisers who don't support them by threatening negative PR stories unless they get what they deem a fair share of the media budget. A few years ago we encouraged several clients to stand up to this and even spoke to a TV station about doing an expose but unfortunately most of the clients deemed it too risky.

Airship advertising

We were having a meeting in the office (37tf floor of an office tower in downtown Shanghai) when this airship camre careering past. The image isn't great as my camera focused on the dirty windows rather than the blimp but you can see the effect.
The blimp has a huge LED style screen on it's side which was playing a 15" car TV commercial (no sound). The first time it went past almost everyone in the office ran to the windows to have a look. The resolution of the screen made it look very low quality, although I can't argue that it achieved cut through. By the time it had circled us four times, it had started to annoy me though.

Promotional items as a media channel

I read an article recently on Media Post about the cost effectiveness of using advertising specialties (promotional gifts) as a media channel. This site is registered users only, but you can view the original research at the Advertising Specialties Institute.
The article claims that on a cost per impression basis in the US, it is cheaper to use branded caps, pens and bags as an advertising medium than any of the mainstream media - TV, newspapers, magazines, etc. This is certainly interesting for anyone who works in media, especially during these difficult economic times when cost effectiveness is more important than ever.
When I read the full report I thought the methodology looked extremely flawed. For example, in working out the cost per impression for a cap, the total impressions are worked out as: worn 6 times per month, for on average 7.1 months and each time it is worn, an average of 79 people come into contact with it = 3360 inpressions for a single cap. Using claimed recall for complex analysis like "on average how many people do you come into contact with each time you wear a cap" is going to have a huge error margin. I find it hard to believe that the average promotional cap is seen by 80 people every time it is worn or that they are worn on average 45 times - I've received dozens of these over the last 10 years and they are generally worn at an event and then thrown away or into the back of cupboard (there's my reliable sample size of one).
Furthermore, the comparison of a single brand logo with a full commercial, especially audio-visual is very difficult as the impressions certainly aren't equal in terms of how powerful they are to evoke shift in behaviour.
The study does have some interesting questions regarding favor towards the companies providing promotional items which probably not surprisingly, is generally very positive.

Despite its flawed methodology, the report is still worth a read if you work in marketing and I'm sure that for the right brands with the right objectives, promotional items could work a treat.

More on the future of cars

A few people have kindly read the blog and sent me content related to the post below about the Future of Cars.

Firstly, this article from The Guardian (The Guardian) about Mitshubishi launching a compact electric production car this year in the UK.

This car sounds like a great initiative however, I still think it's largely a token gesture. In the test drive the car ran down 50% of the battery after 22 miles (36 km) and 50 minutes of driving. It takes 6 hours on to charge thru a normal plug in, so it's really only going to be suitable as a car to get you to work or the train station and back again at night before parking in a covered garage with electricity supply for overnight recharge. With only 200 cars available this year at an estimated cost of GBP 750 (US$1250 / RMB 7,500) per month, my prediction is that they will be bought and driven very visibly by companies wanting the public to think how wonderful and green they are.

With much larger sales volume of 180,000 vehicles in 2008, BYD Co. (Build Your Dreams) seems a more interesting prospect to watch. This is ca ompany whose core business is battery technology but have diversified into electric cars - very much the prediction of the Economist analyst in the video in my earlier post. They got a big boost when Warren Buffet invested in them and the Chinese government is apparently considering offering subsidies to help offest the 150,000 RMB (GBP 15,000 / US$ 23,000) retail price.

They're not the prettiest of cars, using the old Toyota Corolla body, but with a back up petrol engine and a reasonable price, they look like a realistic in market option. They've secured distribution in Europe and recently participated in the Detroit auto show, so it will be very interesting to watch how they progress in 2009.

Here's a link to the aritcle about BYD and also thier website.

Finally, here's an interesting picture I took recently outside a mall in Shanghai. I guess you could call this a hybrid vehicle - it's a Roewe 75 (the olde Rover 75) with a Jaguar leaper glued onto the hood. I'd love to know what the owner wanted people to think when they did this.

The future of cars

I saw this fascinating documentary on Fresh Creation about the auto industry and specifically why people are not driving far more fuel efficient cars. It's a 48 minute programme but well worth finding time to watch.
It reveals how 35 years ago, Shell and General Motors adapted a standard production car to be capable of 159km on 1l of gasoline, up to 20 times more efficient than some of the most popular vehicles being sold in the US today. A combination of self serving oil companies and short-termist auto makers have done everything they can to bury any progress in this area, apart from token gestures designed for PR pieces.
There is extended segments with a big cheese at Opel (GM) who succeeds in looking totally out of date and untrustworthy, especialy in comparison to many of the other individuals in the programme who talk with such authentic passion.
An analyst for The Economist predicts that the future of the automobile could very well lie in Silicon Valley with the tech companies, rather than with the existing auto companies. This, he argues, is because the critical factors to success are about how to harness new technologies - batteries, power management, software - which are not the core competencies of Ford, Chrysler, GM, et al. Add to this the crippling debt and tiny market cap of those companies compared to many of the technology companies and it's not a difficult scenario to imagine.

It also reveals a laughable perspective on how Toyota came to lead the way with alternative fuel technology and the Prius.

Finally, it profiles a small independent company, Telsa Motors who are making gorgeous, high performance electric vehicles.

Watch the programme, it'll make you think.

Dramatic Shift in Marketing

German agency Scholz and Friends have made a really nice animation to bring to life how much marketing communications has changed.



This is very similar to a presentation i put together to try and highlight some of the problems currently in the industry in China. The industry here has developed so quickly and the challenges are so vast - geographic spread, thousands of media outlets, hugely diverse consumer groups, government regulation, lack of research and data... Over the last six or seven years, agency networks have enjoyed boom times and the biggest agencies now have dozens of clients and literally thousands of staff.
This pace of growth and change has meant that the focus for agency management has often had to be on simply managing the growth (ie. not messing up). It makes sense then that you tend to revert to what's known and familiar (and easy). The same goes for many marketing departments.
I sense though that the industry here is reaching a tipping point and the 2009 economy might just get us there a bit faster. More marketers seem to be realizing that the 'one-size-fits-all' approach actually only really fits one, and that it doesn't matter how cheap things are if they're the wrong things to invest in.
Hopefully more marketers and agencies will embrace change, building collaborative and constructive relationships with each other.

3D billboard in Russia

The images above are for a campaign PHD Russia did for Rexona men's deoderant. The outdoor environment is very cluttered in Moscow, so to stand out, they turned around 50 billboards into 3D installations with a hand thrusting out from the canvas with the bottle of Rexona.

This production technique has been around for several years but isn't often used. The product awareness from this campaign apparently rose 40% which serves as a reminder that amidst all the talk of UGC, twitters, social networks and user experiences, there are still a lot of more 'traditional' opportunities for effective marketing communications out there.

Car buyers in Shanghai

The video shows a young Chinese couple in a Buick dealership in Shanghai. She is furious that he won't buy her the car and has a tantrum. The words at the end of the video translate to 'rich person'.

Social Media Threatens the Corporate Ad Agency
by: Scott Goodson

The corporate ad agency has been around since J Walter Thompson founded his company in 1864. After WWII, American and British agencies opened offices in cities around the world to advertise products to greater number of consumers. In the 50s TV transformed the industry and money made off the TV was astronomical. Smaller players were gulped down. Medium size players were merged and expanded all in the interest of maximizing profit derived from the expansion of TV advertising.

"Ok, ok," you say "enough of the history lesson". Trends in advertising, the economy, and the rise of the internet are all transforming the industry in ways never before seen and at a pace that is leaving many faces flushed. Most of the corporate agencies have been punished on Wall Street. IPG is down around $3.68 per share.

Emerging innovation driven agencies are influencing things beyond their size, doing huge campaigns with greater efficiency and doing things faster and with more flexibility while the corporate agencies do what they can to protect their revenue from TV advertising.
The Financial Times today reports that two-thirds of advertising agencies are not prepared for the industry changes prompted by social networks and new forms of digital media.

“The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, which will publish the “Social Media Futures” report compiled by Future Foundation next week, has warned that advertising agencies face growth of just 1.2 per cent a year by 2016 if the industry fails to tackle the changes to the media created by sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Social networks enable consumers to pass on information about products and services, and recommendations from friends are more influential than traditional forms of advertising.”

The article goes on to quote Moray MacLennan, chief executive of M&C Saatchi Worldwide:
“The current downturn will accelerate these trends in agencies as everyone is looking to innovate and stand out from the crowd.I don’t think [social media] is a replacement for paid-for media, it is just going to be a challenger for [consumers’] time and attention.”

Social networks themselves are still figuring out how to make money from advertising on their sites. Pricing for generic banner advertising on social networking is relatively low compared to other sites, because their users are logging in for communication rather than commerce. In this brave new world, advertising’s most prized accomplishments are suddenly being seen as corporate milestones of a bygone era.

Will the legacy corporate agency model survive in its current form? A few remain competitive. Some are doing better than others. Most continue to derive much of their revenue from TV advertising.

Corporate agencies in the industry have reacted to the collapse of the traditional model by laying off staff and restructuring. Taking traditional advertising’s place of course is the internet. The net is the media to be reckoned with and to build the marketing business of the future around. Among the most significant aspects of this transformation is the fact that the web does not offer the same financial booty TV advertising once did.

So how will the large corporate agency be able to sustain itself on the business model being born in January 2009?

Clients have changed and what they’re demanding of an agency has fundamentally changed. Clients have seen how nimbler and more innovative agencies can do what the big guys do more efficiently. In these economic times, they can certainly capitalize on the problems confronting the corporate agencies.

For someone like myself who runs an independent agency, the challenge is sustainable growth. And this is where the legacy agencies have always had one considerable advantage. They have been able to rely on long-term relationships for consistent revenues. But these days, with all that's going on, clients are more open to alternative agencies - agencies that they may never have considered for a huge account.

Original post
http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/social-media-threatens-the-corporate-ad-agency-.html