John Winsor

Fees, Lies and Advertising

I had an epiphany a couple of days ago when leaving the Denver airport. In the last 6 months the airport parking management has replaced pay booth attendants with self-serve technology that allows drivers to speed up their exit from the parking garage by not having to deal with anyone. The result has been not only faster service for the customers but also has given the airport management the ability to cut their expenses through a reduction in staffing.

Then, reading Thomas Friedman’s latest op-ed piece in the NY Times really drove the point home. The latest economic turmoil has highlighted the fact that other businesses are doing the same thing. We are in the midst of an economic paradigm shift where technology is replacing jobs making companies more efficient but producing long-term unemployment issues. It’s happened before. First, with the agricultural revolution then with the industrial revolution and now with the collaboration revolution.

What’s this mean to the advertising business? We’ve certainly seen the effects of the collaboration revolution in other creative businesses including music and photography. Digital technology has allowed more people to participate in the creation of creative output driving down prices in a radical way.

I’ve been on the road for the last month talking to a dozen CMOs of Fortune 500 companies. There’s a lot of frustration out there. The biggest is the cost of creating advertising both in terms of time and money.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the people. There are fantastic people both on the client side and the agency side. It’s in fact a broken system.

Businesses act based on the way they are compensated. And, the majority of agencies are compensated by selling their people’s time. Compensation is based on the number of FTE’s or full-time employees working on a piece of business. In the age of collaboration the FTE model is broken. The fact is that many agencies make more money when they put more people, or say they do, onto a piece of business. Likewise, it’s more profitable to take more time to do something. If a project should take a month there's no disincentive for most agencies to drag it out longer.

One of our clients called a couple of weeks ago saying, “You’ll be excited because we can move the deadline back one month on a project.” Our reaction was, “No thanks.” You see, we believe in fixed cost pricing. Just like the Denver parking lot we’ve used technology to become a lot more efficient. Each project, from concepting to production is a fixed price. We feel that this aligns our interests with our clients. In order to make money we need to be more efficient through the use of technology. We make money when we deliver great work faster, using fewer resources. That’s what clients want.

If advertising industry is to thrive in the age of collaboration we must address the root of the problem, the way we are compensated for our work. If we don’t many companies won’t survive the current economic transformation that’s underway.

Let’s come together, all of the great people from great clients and great agencies and fix this. Sure our businesses will be transformed and probably be a lot smaller. But, if we don’t collectively grab the bull by the horns and proactively transform our businesses then they will be transformed without our input.

 

Welcome to Victors & Spoils

The news is out. Another adventure begins. I love the start of a new adventure. So much anticipation. So much excitement. It always comes down to the team. Standing at the beginning of this adventure, Victors & Spoils, is especially exciting with the amazing team that’s come together. My partners Evan Fry, Claudia Batten, Scott Beck, Chris Marks, Dana Vallely and you (That’s right, you. More on this later.) comprise a crew that I’ve always dreamed about having on a big adventure.

Victors & Spoils is the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles. Our goal is to provide businesses with creative solutions to their marketing, advertising and product-design problems, by engaging the world’s most talented creatives.  

Brands need an alternative to current ad agencies and crowdsourcing platforms. One that offers the strategic direction, engagement and relationship management that agencies deliver today but one that also delivers engagement, connectivity, creativity, and ROI that crowdsourcing platforms have the potential to deliver.

It’s time for a new agency model. One built to address some of the biggest forces changing the face of business today. Radical transparency, the consumer’s demand to be more involved and a growing cost consciousness regarding clients’ budgets have all made crowdsourcing especially timely for today’s marketers. However, the crowdsourcing paradigm is a bit unruly for most clients. The number of possible solutions created and the effort to keep things on strategy for a brand can be overwhelming.

At the core of Victors & Spoils is our creative department. It’s not a typical creative department made up of art directors and copywriters but one in which everyone from art directors and copywriters to strategists and producers come together to solve a brand’s strategic problems. Our creative department is a global digital community where anyone who wants to participate can.  People will not only be rewarded by the solutions they develop both individually and as a group but also for participating in the community, itself, and helping others develop their skills and talent. In an effort to guide this participation, members of the creative department will earn a reputation ranking that will help determine a share of the revenue from each project.

As on any journey, things will change and develop new paths. I’ve been blown away already by how fast things are moving and the amazing excitement that clients have expressed. This is going to be a wild ride.

We look forward to figuring this new paradigm out with you.

Do Influentials Really Influence Anybody?

Francois posts about a couple of new research reports that point to the fact that influenctials might not have as much influence as we believe.

My hunch is that the world of influencing is much more complicated than we think it is. Case in point. I've been watching the company Lululemon and the rise of yoga clothing with interest as an emerging trend. Yet, I thought they only made women's clothing. Recently, two friends, both designers, showed up with very interesting, but different, jackets. I asked both where they had gotten their jackets. They both had discovered Lululemon from their wives and really liked the men's clothing and the brands story. Well, I had to check it out. And, indeed, they were right.

No matter how much advertising Lululemon did I would have never walked in the store without being inspired by my friends.

Influence does work.

It's Not All About You

I've thinking a lot lately about the celebration of "You." It is wonderful to see the power of the people rising. Yet, I wonder if many marketers aren't running from one side of the boat, full control of the their marketing, to the other, consumer generated marketing. It feels like giving full control of a brand's marketing to the people is an abdication of responsibility.

The future lies in the middle way of co-creation built on two-way dialogue and consumer generated insights that drive real marketing innovation and deepen a conversation.

Dog Generated Media

In a very fun spin on comsumer generated content, Purina's Secondnature House Training Solutions has been running a contest entitled, The Poop Confession Contest. Here's what they have to say:

Every dog has his or her day—especially the courageous canines that have shared their darkest, dirtiest secrets with us. Thanks to secondnature®, they don’t have to hold it in any longer! Watch their videos and vote on your favorite Poop Confession Contest entry now.

The contest is now down to Busta, Gericho and Lulu so be sure to vote before the 25th. 

It goes to show that getting customers involved can be fun and easy for any brand.

Google and Eepybird's Deal is a Tipping Point

The Google and Eepybird.com deal should usher in a new era of consumer generated content giving consumer's access to revenue from advertisers like Coke and Mentos. This deal only adds another nail in the coffin of the traditional content production model.

Feeling Left Out?

It seems everyone from Proctor & Gamble to J.P. Morgan Chase is playing in the social media space. Are you?

To catch up with what's happening, The Times did a nice overview of what's happening in the wild west of social media marketing.

Joanne K. Bradford, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for advertising sales, put it this way:

"When blogs and Spaces first came out, people said no one would be willing to advertise on them. Consumers have voted. They said this is where I’m spending my time, and if you want to find me here, you have to get used to the fact that everything is not pretty and rosy here.”

Welcome to the world of Co-creation!

Current.TV's VCAM

If you're a marketer and not familiar with Current.TV's VCAM, you should be. VCAM stands for Viewer Created Ad Message. The program is all about unleashing the power of the people to produce ads for companies.

People can go to the VCAM section of Current's site and get ad assignments, then go shoot their ads. Once shot, the ads are uploaded to the site and then voted on by other viewers.The best videos will then be shown to Current.TV's 28 million cable viewers. The producers also have the ability to win money.

The current assignments are for Mountain Dew and Pop Secret popcorn.

Current's model seems like a good way for brands to experiment in the world of Consumer Generated Media, in a controlled way.

YouTube Underground Contest

YouTube and Cingular have connected to introduce The YouTube Underground Contest. Ad Age says:

In what is perhaps YouTube's biggest sponsorship deal to date, Cingular Wireless has agreed to back a search for the site's most talented unsigned bands. The promotion strikes at the core of rival MySpace, which was founded on the premise of exposing unsigned artists to large audiences online.

The promo video, above, has been viewed over 390,000 times in a day and a half.

How could you connect with YouTube?

Bud.TV

After getting 700,000 downloads of this year's Super Bowl ads from Anheuser-Busch's own sites and adding another 22 million people watching the commercials on video.google.com and video.yahoo.com the folks at AB decided to get in the content creation game with Bud.TV.

Anthony T. Ponturo, vice president for global media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch told the New York Times today, “the Internet will be equal to or better than television.” 

Those words have media execs shaking tonight with the prospect of one the biggest advertisers (AB spent $919 million across all media in 2005) going into the content business.

Intriguingly, Bud.TV will also let consumers mash-up their own commercials on one channel appropriately named, Bud Tube. Other content from Bud.TV will  also have the ability to be repurposed on other sites like You Tube.

When advertisers and consumers can get together to have their own creative dialogue the very nature of advertising and media will change. Talk about moving beyond the brand!

A friend reminded me today that we can no longer concern ourselves with the evolution of marketing and product innovation. In this age of co-creation, we all must focus on enabling the transformation of marketing and innovation.