Zuckerman’s latest book, Music, will probably be even more up my alley. Take a look here:

Andrew Zuckerman Music Trailer from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

You can buy the book on Kalahari here.

A couple of favourites from the past few weeks…

THE BEAT OF NEW YORK from tim hahne on Vimeo.

If you’ve been there, you appreciate how this captures it

Last Moments with Oden

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Tearjerker. ‘Nuff said.

Massimo Vignelli from John Madere on Vimeo.

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

An incredible mini documentary on surf photographers.

The majority of these media agency heads discussed how – in ten years time – the majority of them would become full service marketing communications agencies, offering a range of services that encompassed “anything the marketer required”. This reflects somewhat of a universal dilemma for the industry, where almost every specialist sector is trying to move into a full-service space.

So firstly, we have to ask, why?

The simple antecedent to this is an industry which globally is in the very public throes of an acute personality crisis, founded in a struggle to accurately define the value that each player creates. The natural urge of each of these media agencies is to extend up and down the value chain, channelling David Copperfield in trying to blind the client with an array of glittering options rather than redefine how they answer a brief and solve the Chief Marketing Officer’s (CMO’s) problems.

Consider how the CMO of the late 90′s and early 2000′s would manage their marketing. They would generally craft high level strategy, and then bring in their Knights of the Round Table (hat tip – Joseph Jaffe), typically their ad agency – as lead agency and brand custodian, – their PR agency, digital agency, direct agency, events agency, and maybe a strategy or market research agency. A proverbial bunch of cats in desperate need of herding. Now as Mark Sherrington always reminds me, there is no need for a lead agency if you have a lead client, but there are many of his peers that haven’t proven to hold the same mettle that he has.

As we moved further into the 2000′s, Mr Consumer became much more of a moving (and more empowered) target under an environment of intense media fragmentation, a rise in digital consumer connectivity and activism, exploding brand choice and declining advertising trust. The bankable results of tried and tested communication methods crumbled and ideas didn’t fit that neatly into channel silos anymore. Resultantly, as agencies found it harder to solve CMO problems, so the CMO’s in turn found it harder to marry their agencies‘ value with their agencies’ invoices. Agencies needed to adapt. Fast.

So agencies took the view that they could either do better job, and even better, earn more revenue, from crab-walking across the channel spectrum. This crab-walking took one of two approaches; either, for example, an ad agency would buy a PR agency and put them in an “integrated group”, or they would buy some big name talent in a horizontal skills space and launch their own additional channel divisions and thus become “integrated”.

The problem though, lies in the fact there is no value in being ‘full service’ or ‘integrated’ alone. If the internal ideation, strategy development and creative conceptualisation still happens in silos, there is no objectives-based solutions to the marketing or communication problem, no equal share of voice in strategy development, and no true channel-neutral or channel-agnostic communications solutions.

So where do agencies go?

There has been much debate about the future of agencies in the media space. While the stock response has been a move to full service capabilities, there have been many who have argued that there will be a finite split between those who create ideas, concepts and strategy – the creators or idea generators, and those who execute those ideas, concepts and strategies – the executors. The thinking here goes that those with excellent strategic and conceptual brains will sit in one agency to generate ideas, and then hand those over to execution teams at one or multiple ‘doer’ agencies to produce and deliver those ideas to market. The problem is splitting the two is that it divorces two parallel processes that are critical in crafting robust strategy; in that strategy should inform execution, but execution should also inform strategy. You can’t turn off people’s ideas, and in the world of marketing and advertising, ideation doesn’t happen to schedules and milestones. Ideas can be developed in execution that can, and in many cases should, make fundamental changes to strategy. If ideation and execution are finitely divorced, this critical upward spiral of ideas into those that not only solve the brief but the problem above it, is stunted.

Others argue that agencies in their current form will die a speedy death, and the sword on which they’ll fall will be crowdsourcing. Scores of independent conceptual and strategic thinkers together with scores independent execution specialists in channel areas will bid for the work. The downfall of this approach for me is that whilst it is easy – and undoubtedly valuable – to crowdsource ideas and concepts (see IdeaBounty.com for the best example), it is incredibly difficult to crowdsource teamwork and execution. And it’s impossible to crowdsource the basic organisational support structure that is required to run larger campaigns for big clients. Finally, if everyone is freelancing, crowdsourcing will become unmanageable unless there are some selection processes to control submission volume and quality.

The result may be a hybrid agency model which maintains core support staff and some guiding lights in strategy, idea generation and project management to provide a backbone to an external, more selective (perhaps members-based) crowdsourcing model. Is this enough value for a client, or would they just create those structures themselves? I’d bet on the latter – many already are.

I don’t think anyone has the definitive answer right now; the industry, consumers and clients are evolving rapidly at the moment, and there will be more blood on the floor before the hypotheses are truly tested. Personally though, I would suggest that the changes should be less in the headline-grabbing, industry wag-horn blowing external structures, and more squarely focused on the internal structures of how briefs are processed, how strategy is developed, and how solutions are built.

Firstly, in terms of talent, thinking will win. Too many traditional agency ‘strategists’ exist to deliver retro-fitted rationales to already-created TV campaigns. There’s no client value here – it’s driven by agency revenue, not the client problem. Strategists will have to become the guides, leading multi-disciplinary teams to co-create strategic idea platforms and their tactical delivery – together. The key to this multi-disciplinary strategy development is the influence of executional or tactical brains sitting around problems and looking up to higher strategy platforms, and being led by a true strategist understanding a full stakeholder view of the business problem looking down to the execution. And every seat at the table truly has to have an equal voice. The problem has to be looked at from all sides. Time-consuming? Yes Expensive? Yup. But valuable? Business relevant? Definitely.

At the heart of this co-creation will be the problem, not the brief. If we’re honest, the communications industry has become very good at solving briefs, but very poor at solving business problems. Strategy, ideation and tactical delivery will be much more fluid, adaptable and, to use the current buzzword, ‘agile’. Planning will be structured around solutions to problems that are less time-based and more result-based. Lighting many small fires will win over the bonfire approach of old, and consumers will hold the matches.

While creativity and innovation will naturally retain their pulpit status, the traditional agency view of creativity will have to continue to spread beyond the traditional products of audio and visual art. As Gareth Kay elegantly describes it, moving from “advertising ideas to ideas that can be advertised”. Campaigns

Transparency and measurability will become paramount. We’re an industry that loves to let clients believe that we shouldn’t play by the same rules as other professional business services. Want influence at the board room table? Start by talking the same language as the FD, being crystal clear on how you deliver value, and be prepared to back it up with a business case, not creative awards.

In my opinion, there’s too much talk at the moment about who should be leading the brand delivery – traditional agencies, digital agencies etc. I believe that’s a red herring. The idea that solves the problem, not the delivery channel, must win – every time. And thats about changing how we create and deliver ideas, with every channel specialist working collaboratively on an equal footing.

The initial promise of integration was objectives-based, idea before execution and truly channel-neutral delivery. For me, the current problem in the industry is less the external structure of what the agency will look like (and the terminology we use to describe it), and more about the internal operational processes of how service delivery is strategised and conceptualised, from the brief to the problem and back to the solution.

It’s a fascinating time to be in the marketing/communications/media industry. Rules are being created and broken at an incredibly rapid pace. There is no doubt that the we are fast approaching a crossroads, with decisions being made that will leave some on the right revenue road, and others in the proverbial dust. Which side will we be on? I believe the former. But whatever your view, one thing is for certain. Keeping your head in the sand is the sure way to run through the crossroads and over the abyss.

It’s highly recommended.

UP THERE from The Ritual Project on Vimeo.

I’ve had a good crack at David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system over the past year or two, and I’ve found it a little too complex for my liking. The contextual design (@home, @computer) simply doesn’t work for most entrepreneurs – whose work life and home life is a blurred line – or creative people, whose ideas are not limited to standard work settings. On the other hand I’ve tried various paper-based methods, which work better for me as a visual thinker, but I still miss an underlying structure.

Making Ideas Happen is based around the premise that ideas are everywhere, but it’s execution that counts – to quote Einstein, it’s “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. Scott’s Action Method system is purpose built for those in creative and entrepreneurial industries; a simple action-orientated approach to projects built around action steps, references and backburner items. I’ll let you buy the book to get the detail here.

But where the book excels is in the illumination of the key drivers behind the success of the best idea executors in global business. Scott covers the skills required to ‘kill’ ideas so as to maintain focus on the brightest and best ones; the role that communities play in keeping execution momentum; and the critical role of ‘self-leadership’ in building execution teams.

The key premise is simplicity and focus. Two core concepts that have defined the way that I look at effective productivity. So I’ll keep it simple: Read this book.

Buy it on Kalahari or Amazon. Follow Scott on Twitter here and check out the Action Method.

Social media as a marketing platform was all most marketers could talk about in 2009. Helped by mass worldwide adoption, as well as wilting marketing budgets in the face of the global economic meltdown, every chief marketing officer was under pressure to ‘get on Facebook’.

As the dust settles, companies have burnt their fingers in their forays onto social media platforms, many because they operate in industries that don’t lend themselves to the free visible flow of customer interaction. Some have suggested that these brands should give social media a skip, but there are examples that have lit a path to success.
I’ve been consistently amazed at the haphazard rush that many local corporate brands have taken to get involved in social media, without a true understanding of their product and customer environment. Many of these have been in the more demure financial services industry, which has a predominantly higher level of ‘grudge purchase’ products.

These brands, especially those like short-term insurance and medical schemes, offer products that are usually complex, and that customers choose because they feel they have to have them as a defensive purchase, rather than buy them for more positive reasons. However, there are plenty of other brands that fall into the ‘simply unsexy’ category, which have had trouble ‘glamming’ themselves up for social media.
For these brands, social media is a difficult prospect. Firstly, and most obviously, customers don’t necessarily want to have a relationship or interact with a brand that they’re not entirely happy about buying in the first place.
Secondly, these brands often offer complex products that customers don’t understand, and there are proportionately more customer complaints than in other industries, merely because these customers don’t understand what they’ve bought. Ultimately though, this is a scary prospect for corporate Boards, where any service weaknesses are aired very much in the public domain.

Very often, these brands end up trying to use social media purely as a customer service channel, which can open up a deluge of customer complaints, which more often than not gets ignored altogether or negatively affects the brand. There are those that have persevered and succeeded though, and one of the most successful social media campaigns in the UK offers some insights into creating social media experiences in these industries.

Read the rest here.

Check it out:

The previously clear waters between the definitions of research and insight have become muddied, as so they so often are by marketers. So let’s be clear – in my books, research is a process of gathering and evaluating information regarding consumers’ perceptions of or preferences for products and services. It involves qualitative and quantitative processes to analyse and collate data into a form that allows marketers to turn that information into insight, that can be used to drive strategy.

Insights on the other hand, are those nuggets of what I can only call ‘actionable understanding’ – fresh and not-yet-obvious truths, that are developed through more creative and deliberate processes of filtering research results. Many people don’t take this critical step, choosing rather to blindly put raw research data into presentations as a method of ‘showing the client we’ve done some research’ without actually extracting the value of that research into actionable insights to create creative and idea platforms.

Research has to be viewed through a prism of different elements that all make up an answer to the brief, starting primarily with a very clear definition of the marketing problem. It’s always concerning to see how much quantitative research is presented to clients which has very little, if any, bearing on the actual marketing problem. The raw qualitative and quantitative research data should be used as stimulus for the insights process, along with many other stimulus elements such as technical staff interviews, competitive retail walk-throughs, etc, to provide a bank of inputs for an insights workshop.

To be relevant and valuable, strategic and creative concepts have to be based in true customer insight. Reporting on raw qualitative and qualitative data is rarely insightful. To know that 400 people think that your product is ‘great’ is not an insight. To know that 75 of those people use your product in a way that is different from the way you intended, which leads you to enter discussions with your technical teams to develop a brand extension which develop vast new markets for your product, is.

Every marketer, ad man (or woman), PR executive advertising or digital marketer has to embrace social media skills within their focus areas – it’s a resource-wide skill requirement. The sea change of how marketing and communication is being conducted in a post-digital world means that social media has taken a platform (as opposed to a channel) role, even beyond traditional media such as television or print.

Many social media players will say that marketers should outsource to social media agencies, as they would digital or PR  agencies, but in my opinion, this is a false choice. Visit every PR agency, advertising agency, digital agency, BTL agency or even events agency, and they will tell you all the great things that they are doing in social media as support platforms for their communication initiatives. Social media is simply not another marketing channel.

Recently, a few of the highest profile social media thinkers have been making moves to PR agency groups, the most notable being David Armano. Armano’s move, as one of the guiding lights of social media strategy globally, to the Edelman agency served as a lightning rod for discussion around the fit between social media and public relations.

The debate centred around opposing views of where social media as a skills set would end up settling, both in terms of organisational structure and relating to agency partners. As much as social media experts will say that they hold unique abilities in developing and translating campaigns on social media platforms, I believe that this requires a deeper understanding of customer engagement.  Whilst social media is a marketing-wide skill requisite, it fits most neatly being driven side-by-side with public relations skills.

Let’s be frank, before the term ‘earned media’ became a buzzword amongst the social media crew, it’s essentially exactly what PR agencies have been doing for decades. Public relations (much wider than media relations alone) is all about connecting a brand to its audiences, using media pitching to create free publicity (earned media), events and one-to-one interactions to drive word of mouth and brand engagement (sound familiar?), the influencing of opinion leaders (ditto) and the creation of public campaigns to educate and affect perception of target consumers about the brand (still with me?).

Social media lives on a digital platform, but digital platforms are the delivery vehicle; the understanding and strategy goes back to customer engagement theory. There is absolutely no doubt that crafting social media strategy requires hand-in-hand development with digital agencies, as they best understand the possibilities and capabilities of the digital platforms. But when tying into broader marketing strategies that solve business issues, I believe that the strategy will not be driven by digital agencies or digital specialists but led by those with communications and customer engagement experience and skills – both traditional public relations skills.

I posed the question of whether social media’s most natural fit is with PR to Steve Rubel, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital on Twitter. His answer summarised my thinking in 140 characters:

“I believe lots of agencies will be involved in social media but that PR will often drive the strategy.”

What do you think? Where do you think the future of social media strategy will lie?

It’s a long journey ahead, but after witnessing what was for me a life-changing experience, I can’t wait to start.