Well there are some who blog a big game about how the industry needs to change, and there are some of us who do something about it. My last post was about six months ago when I announced the plan to acquire Nitro. This was to be the first time a major Digital shop would pick up a significant above the line player. So I’ve been busy to say the least.

I’m humbled so many of you have encouraged me, and a few of you (you know who you are) have flat out harassed me to keep writing the blog.  I give in.

So keep those RSS readers pointed this way, I intend to get back to my weekly routine.

Gaston

Today Sapient is announcing plans to acquire Nitro Group, a leading global advertising network with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and a highly coveted client list that includes Mars, ConAgra, Volvo, Nike and Foot Locker.

This is an historic acquisition in the advertising space in that it represents the first time a digital agency has moved to expand beyond interactive in a meaningful way to include brand-led broadcast advertising, often referred to as “above the line” advertising. 

Actions brand louder than words

Agencies large and small, from the traditional to the digital, all claim to having discovered their own, unique brand of secret marketing sauce that will integrate every experience into one compelling consumer connection and solve all marketing woes.

Some take the design du jour approach, clumsily pushing traditional ad approaches into emerging, channel  environments like mobile or social media.   Others avoid the question altogether and simply abandon traditional channel options to blindly follow the migration toward digital opportunities with more buzz.

It’s not that they don’t get it.  It’s that they just don’t get it all. 

We always believed the Internet would change everything

The $500 billion/year communications industry is in the midst of a dramatic upheaval as brands and their marketing partners struggle to keep up with today’s ever-elusive, technology-empowered consumers.  In fact, this is the main reason traditional advertising agencies are so focused on digital -- because media consumption is moving away from television and into digital media in record numbers.  However, while the role of television is changing, it is not going away; it’s evolving to become more digital as advances in TV sets and set boxes enable a more interactive experience.  Couple this shift with the rise of online media and advancement of mobile and in-store displays, and you quickly see that a) advertising is increasingly more digitally enabled and b) creating connected experiences across all of a consumer’s touch points is increasingly important.

The acquisition of Nitro Group, coupled with the tremendous success and evolution Sapient is experiencing within our marketing services and e-commerce business, yields a “one-of-a-kind” brand engagement offering.  We have the opportunity to help our clients shape their customers’ experiences -- from the moment a brand’s attributes are expressed in advertising, through to deployment via digital media and then in sales and service with cross-channel commerce. 

Sapient stands alone as a company capable of connecting these component parts in one holistic, integrated and powerful way.

No other company can lead with strategy and deliver multi-channel marketing combined with multi channel commerce on a global scale.

The acquisition is referenced in our press release) and discussed in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. You can also follow us in LinkedIn (Sapient Interactive Group) and on Twitter (SapeInteractive.) 

Last but not least. We have produced about a dozen  IPhone apps in the last couple of months alone, and a couple of Android initiatives are in the hopper. We see this as a booming opportunity, a completely new market ready to explode.

 Makes me want to dust off that old tag line "Architects for a New Economy" - I think I still have a mug with that on it :)

This is a huge thing for us right now. Clients are asking us to “create media for me” – “we need to do more with less”. We are producing a ton of original branded content to be distributed on the web.  Whether it is short or long form videos, tutorials, demonstrations, or simply branded entertainment for sites like YouTube, or Facebook Apps, and widgets. Clients are much more educated on the power and value of these tactics

We have all read about the decline of media spending across most mediums. The online space has not gone unaffected this time. If fact we have seen quite a few of our clients reduce their overall media spend. What may be counter intuitive to some given how negative consumer sentiment is that the media we are buying is performing better from an ROI perspective for many of our clients. The dramatic drop in the cost of premium online media, but only a slight decrease in response rate drive this effect.  This means we are buying much more for less on our client’s behalf and they are getting better results, which in turn means they decide to increase their spend. We see this as a very positive indicator of what’s to come.

It’s no secret most advertisers are reducing their 2009spend. This means choices have to be made on what to cut down on, and what tocut out altogether. We are experiencing a trend in which client s are reducingthe total number of agencies the work with, therefore although their overallspend dips, the “per agency” piece of the pie is growing. There are winners andlosers of course, but fortunately performance focused digital agencies like oursare ending up on the winning side of this more often than not.

This past holiday season was an absolute bloodbath for retailers. Industry analyst reported a 31% drop in retail sales through traditional channels in Q4 2008 vs. Q4 2007 – ecommerce only dropped slightly by 3%, but was up by 7.5% for the year from 2007 according to Comscore.  That said Retailers are scrambling to invest in bolstering their ecommerce capacity for next season, and the clock is ticking. They have a small window from now to July or August at the latest to be ready for the holidays.

We are seeing, and Forester confirms increased demand in this key area for us. 

That’s enough doom and gloom for now people. This week I will focus on positive trends I am seeing in the market.  While the economic downturn has slowed things down for most, it has actually accelerated some much needed retooling within marketing organizations. This spells opportunity for agencies that are prepared to retool themselves too.

Stay Tuned…

As a marketer, I recently found myself in an interesting situation. I was in the market for a new car for my wife, and was involved in pitching a car account all at the same time. In every single interaction we had with the potential clients they made reference to the sales funnel, and I wanted to call bullshit. The sales funnel that you are most likely familiar with (awareness, consideration, lead, conversion etc.) is not entirely wrong, but it drives the wrong type of thinking. I bet some business school professor who never spent much time with real prospects and real customers designed this funnel. This stuff resonates with the “I run the marketing department on a spreadsheet” types, but does not work well for those of us who understand that understanding consumer behavior is a prerequisite for manipulating their behaviors.

Buying a car is 80% emotional, 20% practical. I’m much more likely to buy a car that fulfils most of my emotional needs, and a few of my practical needs. I am far less likely to pull the trigger on one that fits most of my practical needs and few of my emotional ones. Love is blind.

 If you fall in love with a car, not unlike a girl you will stop seeing the flaws. In fact you will start to justify your choice with flawed logic.  “If I buy a two seater I will save gas since I will drive it less” – In today’s economic environment we can’t pull any punches. We need to create emotional demand.

Here is my new funnel (well it’s much more of a loop) 

Buzz, intrigue, explore, experience, crave, cave, flaunt. Which in turn creates Buzz.

Enjoy!

Ok so I try to never blatantly promote the agency on my blog. I rather stick to my rants than sell Sapient, but that said I couldn’t resist today. Check out our new site. http://www.sapient.com

There are basically three cool components to this thing.

Publishing Model – Our site will effectively change every week. One week we may feature a cool new technology we are playing with, another we may choose to feature a new project, or simply support one of our favorite charities.

Our Portfolio – We recognize regardless of whether you are looking to hire us, or looking to come work for us  - you want to see the work. We have just begun to scratch the surface on publishing our entire portfolio. This thing will go back as far as the 90’s and will feature great projects like the original Apple Store we designed, and many more. – Look for more work to be added every single week.

Our thinking – we will share insights from some of the worlds most talented marketers, and technologist – all of which happen to work on our teams.

Last but not least – this thing is far from being done or polished

Enjoy!

OK this rant is bound to sound like I’m contradicting half of what I’ve said in the past. Let me be clear, I’m not one of those creative types who denounces all research and refuses to have their work tested or measured; in fact I’m usually the poster child for embracing it and informing my ideas through observing people. This post is about the value of a fresh perspective and intuition. It’s not about whether or not we should pay attention to client’s research, but rather when it should be introduced into the ideation process.

So I’ve always preached this simple process for developing big ideas.

Define the Intent, inform the idea, Develop the Concept, Verify it, Realize the idea, and Evolve it.

I swear to you guys, this works every time.  The formula works, but only if you follow the process to the letter. Very often teams choose to cut corners to save time and money, but that’s a mistake. Often we rationalize skipping a step, because the client seems to have already done all of the up-front work for you. Don’t get yourself get caught in that trap, specially if the client hands you a 400 page, 25 pound leather bound research brief that they call the Bible.

Remember why they hired your agency; the odds are they did not have all the right answers. They may have an idea of what they want to say, but you can be assured they don’t know how to say it. Remember David Ogilvy’s famous quote “why buy a dog, if you intend to do your own barking?”

So before you crack open that brief do your own thinking, only after you have developed a bunch of rough concepts should you read the clients research to help validate that one or more of your teams ideas align with the insights. Those initial uninformed ideas tend to provide the best foundation for the final campaign.

Our team gets in a room and starts to throw ideas around. We come up with a bunch of uninformed answers, and even more questions. We then go out to the world and observe consumer behavior, we talk to their customers and even their competitor’s customers, but most importantly we want to hear from the people who don’t even buy the stuff. This is the most important bit, all this happens before we have any pre-conceived biases that could be created by their research.

Take very good notes, then dive into every single page of their book. You are more likely to develop breakthrough ideas this way.