Enjoy!

My point being that recently after financial crisis, many long time professionals has been let go due to redundancies. These people are professionals who I looked up to when I entered the industry and now they are given the boot – Not the way I thought these guys would retire. However, this is just one aspect of the dilemma. At the same time when senior professionals are exiting industry, there’s really not that much flow coming in.

I’ve spoken to many of my industry colleagues in other agencies and it seems like they’ve noticed the same phenomenon. There’s plenty of very creative people coming out of schools, but for some reason they don’t want to apply for a job in an agency. Many of them start their own one man band and choose freelance projects based on their interests. Others form creative collectives that  splits the overheads, but still gives them the freedom of freelance work.

That’s all very good and many new agencies are building business models based on large freelancer network and centralized project management. So far there’s no single agency in our market who has actually managed to sustain this way of organizing. I feel it’s due to our small market, where freelancers have enough work to source projects without agency in the middle. This then leads to small “networked” agency without a real applicable network.

Anyway, back to the discussion with the editor. One thing that worries me is the education in finland. I urge you to watch the Hyper Island video below. There’s huge amounts of info about HI, but one thing that sticks out is the fact that “Sandy” is on a trajectory to become an agency CEO. A modern age ad agency executive who’s fluent with transmedia concepts and a new agency structures.

My question is… where are the future leaders of our national ad-industry? Is Finnish advertising facing the same faith as Nokia, where the magnitude of changing market is overlooked until the gap is too wide to close without dramatic overhaul.

We as an industry, have always looked to sweden and analyzed what they’re doing, but it feels almost like we’ve given up like we did with Nokia. Farfar has come and gone without any comparable Finnish success story. Daddy merged with CPB produces outstanding creative globally. Hyper Island just opened their office in New York… Not sure how Aalto University compares, but I don’t see them working with agencies too much.

Personally, I’m on a mission. I still believe that by challenging existing structures and embracing the change there’s still hope. If you feel like you’re the future of Finnish advertising, drop me a line and let’s have a cup of coffee.

Pax vobiscum.

-Joni

P.s feel free to comment.

Think of any marketing effort no matter if it’s TV-commercials, print campaigns, direct, virals, campaign sites, mobile applications, retail marketing… whatever you can think of. The fact of the matter is that all of these tactics have a life span. Some live longer and most are very short lived.

Now, how much is spent on the tactic at hand doesn’t even really matter, the truth is that at some point either the product that’s been marketed changes or the target group is not relevant. Might even be that the industry sector withers down and the life of that marketing cycle will end.

This leads to the a point where the marketing has to be redesigned and communicated. So to do that, marketers need to re-invest to start the next lifecycle.

To anwser the question I proposed in the headline… The one marketing investment that increases in value over time is the data that the customer leaves behind when he/she interacts with the brand.

That data will give the insight on why someone did what they did as well as why the didn’t. From the search engine to mobile app and from the cash register to customer service, this data will enable the new marketing tactics to be more relevant and more effective.

Still, when discussing this matter with colleagues and customers alike, most seem to agree but very few actually has a strategy to implement this.

For professional service, I think the new agency model needs to address this factor and have the understanding of data-analysis built into the planning processes. Traditionally it’s the media agencies who have these capabilities, but during my time in traditional agencies I felt that it’s still very disconnected from marketing planning.

So, next time you’re thinking about how will “this and this” affect the marketing, give it another spin and try to think “will this tactic/strategy produce the kind of data that I can use”.

“this notion of creatives coming together with technologists. It’s not about just the art director and writer anymore, it’s about technology, the interaction designer, all these people coming together. It’s probably been happening for a while, but that’s now entering larger agencies.”

Amen.

To create truly outstanding work, this needs to happen. However, before it can happen the artists and the technologists and IA designers must want to come together and truly mesh. It’s not something that can be forced upon anyone who doesn’t have the will to embrace this new co-existence and that’s what is holding so many people and agencies back currently.

Everyone knows that in order to do business, agencies need to expand to digital. Problem is, on a personal level very few senior creatives and agency execs really want to start learning.

No matter, nature will take it’s course in any case… Evolve or fade away.

The end of winter 2009, UNIQLO launced a small blog widget and bookmarklet made huge movement.

A nice follow-up for the Super Sexy CPR by Forthnight lingerie.

Great concept!
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Now that we’ve got you interested in learning CPR and the abdominal thrust, go get properly certified by taking a class through one of the many certifying authorities in your local area.

Wonderful rebranding of the historical Claridge’s Hotel in London.

Personally, the encounters that I’ve had with brands with a long heritage, seem very cautious in doing something that might shake the perception of the brand and it’s perfectly valid point of view.

However, the case in question is a superb example how a traditional brand can be modernised to reach new customer base without upsetting the esatblished customers.

The design is by a London agency Construct and you can read the case study from Creative Review.

The Super Sexy way to learn CPR.

In case of an emergency, please follow the procedure described in this brilliant viral campaign for Forthnight lingerie.

It’s nice to see that other lingerie brands are capable of doing clever advertising besides Agent Provocateur.

This was left behind in my drafts folder. Since it’s still quite feelgood commercial, I’ll post it in case you missed it when it first came around.