Ugo Orlando - Digital Brand Strategy

Ugo Orlando November 2011

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E S P E M E I S A S C H O O L W I T H I N T H E E D H E C G R O U P, A C C R E D I T E D B Y E Q U IS , A A A C S B A N D T H E F R E N C H S T A T E.

MANAGING A BRAND STRATEGY

THROUGH THE DIGITAL MEDIUM,

IS IT BETTER DONE IN-HOUSE

OR OUTSOURCED TO A

COMMUNICATION AGENCY?

A R E F L E X I O N O N T H E C U R R E N T S T A T E A N D T H E F U T U R E O F

D I G I T A L C O M M U N I C A T I O N S T R A T E G I E S F R O M E X P E R I E N C E S

I N N E W M E D I A C O M M U N I C A T I O N A G E N C I E S A N D I N T H E

M A R K E T I N G D E P A R T M E N T O F A S O C I A L G A M I N G C O M P A N Y

UG O OR LA N D O Y E A R- G R O U P G R A D U A T I N G I N 2 0 1 1

T H E S I S A D V I S O R: M R. D E N N I S D A V Y

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the

EDHEC-ESPEME degree 2011

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The opinions expressed in this document

are the sole responsibility of their author.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to:

• Denn i s Davy , Thesis Advisor, for his time and his precious pieces of

advice.

• Far id Humb lo t , Student at Edhec/Espeme, for the discussion we

have had.

• L . J . , Digital Planner in a large digital company, for the interview we

have had.

• Ol i Madget t , co-Founder of We R Interactive, for the discussions we

have had.

• J é rôme Rémin iac , ex-Head of New Media at TBWA\Auditoire, for

the interview we have had.

• Francesco Tosa to , Game Designer at wooga, for the discussions

we have had.

• Cé l ine Ver leure , Founder at Olfactive Studio, for the interview we

have had.

• Thorb jörn War in , ex-Head of Marketing at wooga, for the

interview we have had.

And also:

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“THE BEST W AY TO PRED ICT THE FUTURE

I S TO CREATE IT . ”

PETER DRUCKER

( 1 909 -2005 )

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INTRODUCTION

e a re a l l d ig i ta l b rand

s t ra teg i s t s . Wh i l e search ing fo r

a f l a t , a job or love , we do th i s

on the I n te rne t : no t expec t i ng a

d i rec t re sponse , bu t manag ing a

g loba l b rand image , i nvo l v i ng con tac t s ,

bu i l d i ng re la t ionsh ip s and show ing i n d i f f e ren t

spheres who we are . Beyond promoting ourselves, we will see here how to

do this with a real brand: an emotional relationship

between a product and its customer. A brand should

be recognizable and meaningful. Some might think the

digital medium is just another tool to communicate

the brand to the customer.

However, the digital medium itself opens a wide range

of opportunities. In a few years, no brand will be

communicating to consumers anymore, but with the

customer instead. This shift has been happening for a

few years and is turning advertising into a bi-

directional communication-relationship.

W

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Customers already communicate through brands. If

someone checks-in a Starbucks, s/he is communicating

another message compared to someone who is posing

with a McDonalds hamburger.

The whole issue is then to communicate through the

customer or the potential customer, trying to drive

dialogues and to enhance talkability, constantly giving

him/her the opportunity to be exposed to the brand

image, to enjoy a meaningful brand experience and

eventually to share brand content. Even though the

brand can orchestrate the customer, it will never own

him/her.

Throughout this thesis, we will try to ascertain

whether a company can manage its digital brand

strategy in-house or should call in a specialized

communication agency, and which kind of agency.

First, we will analyze the working atmosphere,

comparing the methods, the processes and the people

at the agency with those at the advertiser.

The next part will acknowledge that the digital

medium is much more complex than the other main

forms of advertising (film, radio, print, event, street).

Therefore, a communication campaign using a

complete set of different digital tools would deserve

the label “360° Digital”, just like one involving film,

radio, print, event, street and digital is currently called

“360°”.

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We will then focus on the future of gaming mechanics

in the advertising world, as well as in the world in

general.

This thesis explores the present and the attempts of

brands in the digital medium, which open

opportunities for talented people to shape them.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNO W LEDGEM ENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 INTRO DUCT IO N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 FO REW O RD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

PART 1 . HOW DO THEY WORK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

1 . 1 . THE PEO PLE IN THERE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1.1.1. Working Atmosphere ...................................................................................................... 20

1.1.2. Strategy Mindset ............................................................................................................... 23

1.1.3. Product Knowledge .......................................................................................................... 27

1 . 2 . THE CREAT IV ITY PATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 1.2.1. Who Is The More Creative? ......................................................................................... 31

1.2.2. The Decision-Making Process ..................................................................................... 35

1.2.3. Relationship With ROI ................................................................................................... 38

WHO I S WHO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

PART 2 . 360° D IGITAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2 . 1 . THE CO NTENT I S IN THE HO USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.1.1. The Corporate Website ................................................................................................. 47

2.1.2. Who Should Be The Community Manager? .......................................................... 48

2.1.3. Pushing & Pulling .............................................................................................................. 51

2 .2 . MASTER THE TO O LS F IRST ! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.2.1. Community Management: Let The Conversations Start .................................. 56

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2.2.2. Social Media Advertising: Facebook Ads ............................................................... 58

2.2.3. Dedicated Websites: A Personal Experience ....................................................... 60

2.2.4. Viral Films ........................................................................................................................... 60

2.2.5. Mobile Apps: Brand Content At Your Fingertips ................................................ 65

2.2.6. Flashcodes: Connect To Real Life ............................................................................. 67

2.2.7. Captchas: To Transform The Existing Tools ........................................................ 69

WHO I S THE MO RE 360° . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1

PART 3 . THE GAME LAYER ON THE TOP OF THE ADVERT IS ING WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3 . 1 . IN-GAME ADVERT I S IN G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

3.1.1. The Old Schools ................................................................................................................ 78

3.1.2. The Social Era ................................................................................................................... 80

3.1.3. Which Structure? .............................................................................................................. 83

3 .2 . ADVERGAM IN G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 3.2.1. I AM PLAYR: The Perfect Match ................................................................................ 85

3.2.2. “If You’re Going To Crash The Party, Bring Some Champagne” ................ 89

3.2.3. This Is Real Life ................................................................................................................ 91

3 .3 . THE GAMIF ICAT IO N OF THE WHO LE BUS INESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 3.3.1. Great Gaming Mechanics ............................................................................................. 94

3.3.2. Under Construction ........................................................................................................ 96

WHO WILL MASTER THE GAME? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

CONCLUS ION & RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

TABLE O F I L LUSTRAT IO N S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 L ITERATURE REV IEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 APPEND ICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 18

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FOREWORD

This section provides a short introduction of the writer’s working

experiences, which will explain the reason for choosing to write this thesis.

These three internships provide an almost complete profile:

• Dixx i t , an editorial web agency near Paris, France. This involved a

lot of web writing and being in touch with corporate communication

issues. 3 months.

• TBWA\Aud i to i re , an event ad agency in Paris, France. This was

about working in the new media department as a mobile project

manager and assisting the new media consultant. 4 months.

• wooga , social games developer (2nd worldwide) in Berlin, Germany.

The initial position was as a Social Media Marketer but developed

finally into having a lead on the Community Management strategy. 6

months.

These three experiences were very instructive.

Dealing with Digital Communication issues, both within an agency and

directly at the advertiser made it possible to think from different

perspectives, which is necessary to succeed in this job.

These three internships were followed by internship reports, which are

provided in Appendix 2 (in French).

This includes the writer’s very first EDHEC-ESPEME internship at Adecco

(temporary work agency, 2 months, in Nice, France). Although this

contributed to building a solid professional profile, this experience will not

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be referred to any more in this thesis, the reason being that this was not

related to Digital Communication.

Methodo logy

The research question chosen for this thesis is the following:

Managing a brand strategy through the digital medium, is it better done in-

house or outsourced to a communication agency?

This topic deserves serious analysis, as it includes a lot of other pertinent

questions, such as:

• Can brand managers think about their business objectives and their

communication messages at the same time?

• How can relationships between advertisers and advertising agencies

be better?

• Could certain advertisers teach some agencies how to communicate?

• When are digital publishers able to advise advertisers on their brand

strategy?

• Are advertising agencies indispensable stakeholders for advertising

projects?

• If “the medium is the message”, do media shape brands?

• What if an agency invents a product?

As whenever someone feels special about anything, there is a room for

innovation and every attempt has been made in this thesis to bring new

ideas in the digital communication field, via different sources of inspiration:

• Personal experiences: The above-mentioned EDHEC-ESPEME

internships made it possible to adopt different perspectives in the

digital communication field. So, digital communication topics, both at

the agency and at the advertiser, will be analyzed.

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• Courses: At EDHEC-ESPEME as well as in Karlstad University

(Sweden), especially Marketing and Communication-related courses

provided a great inspiration.

• Talks, blogs, white books: Of course, every consumed and

appropriated content becomes part of oneself. Those added a little

something to this thesis.

• Interviews with professionals: Either from advertisers, agencies or

publishers. Always key players and very well-informed people. Either

face-to-face, via email, via twitter or during informal discussions.

• Introspection: Of course, introspection let every piece of information

interact and fall into place, to finally give birth to the following…

Nota bene

All photographs, illustrations and text in this document are personal creations - except when

specified otherwise.

For any further piece of information, please feel free to contact:

mailto:[email protected]

This thesis can be downloaded by visiting http://tiny.cc/ugosthesis

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Agency-people have different

mindsets than their clients.

Let us compare the atmosphere at

the advertiser with that at the agency

and see which process is the best fit

for which communication issue.

Who are the people in there?

What is creativity going through?

How are decisions made?

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1.1. THE PEOPLE IN THERE

Let us compare the workforce and methods of the agency with those of the

client (=advertiser). Pragmatism versus imagination? Fun versus formality?

Jeans versus ties? Some statements given are just clichés, other ones are

quite true, but are agency and advertiser people so different?

1.1.1. WORKING ATMOSPHERE

What i s a good work ing a tmosphere ?

Digital-communication-wise, a company offering a welcoming working

environment would be:

• All-ears to best practices

• Open to new ideas

• Not stuck in old-fashioned corporate offline communication

• Ambitious about its brand equity

• Stable enough to build a long-term strategy

• More into PowerPoint than Word

• More into Instant Messaging than Emails

• Understanding of the product and the communication tools.

Do we have more fun i n the agency ?

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Of course, it depends on which advertiser we are comparing our

experience to. The market greatly influences the open-mindedness we can

have at work.

In addition, a large communication agency with an aging management (and

mindset) is less likely to provide an enjoyable working atmosphere for an

out-of-the-box digital planner, for instance. However, if it really is aging, it

precisely needs out-of-the-box people to help bring added value to the

advertiser.

I s Facebook bad ?

It is common knowledge, that Facebook1 is currently:

• the biggest social network and content-sharing platform in the world2

• the best opportunity to monitor conversations

• the finest targeting solution available.

Except for the last point above, letting employees access and enjoy

Facebook at work is an opportunity for them to come up with efficient

communication ideas and, more importantly, it educates them to use

Facebook for professional purposes, which is never a bad thing. Keeping

them away from Facebook blinkers them partly to what is happening in

their surroundings.

Although communication departments usually do have access to Facebook

and other social networks, too many advertisers still block Facebook for the

rest of their workforce, arguing that it is killing productivity: management

by objective should definitely remedy this.

Conver sa t ions

1 Mashable (2011): http://mashable.com/2011/01/12/obsessed-with-facebook-infographic/ 2 Current status of Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

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Topics such as inspiration, design, technical tips, innovation, strategic

insights, beliefs about targets are more present at the agency’s lunch breaks

- as well as any other marketing or creation-related conversation. There

also tends to be a lot of pretentiousness at the agency. Being creative and

knowing about the latest campaigns are true strengths in this environment.

Therefore, this competition might lead to aimless conversations, but when it

comes down to it, everyone knows more about the surrounding world and

their competitors’ creations and strategies, which makes the whole agency

more innovative and cutting-edge.

This is one of the reasons why agencies are still needed by advertisers: they

are more aware and creative, because the conversations between and

among their employees are driven this way.

At the advertiser’s, on the other hand, the conversations usually remain

about the core business of the company. The expertise is then efficiently

shared and has the best place in communication materials, but

communication tools (such as creativity, Twitter scheduling solutions or

target drivers3) are not mastered the way they are in agencies, unless the

communication department is big enough for the people there to get to

share with each other.

In some companies (e.g. big worldwide retailers or companies from the new

economy), we can find a digital marketing department big enough for it to

be dynamic and to share knowledge. However, in most cases, the in-house

communication department is not large enough, so only a couple of

employees share vague tips.

3 A "driver", in advertising jargon, is the feeling a campaign creates within a target, for it to

adopt a given behavior (buying a product, for instance). The driver could be "nostalgia" or "self-

respect" for instance.

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1.1.2. STRATEGY MINDSET

What does “ s t ra tegy” i nvo l ve f rom the adver t i se r ’ s

per spec t i ve ?

• Events: Product launches

• Growth techniques

• ROI objectives

• Analyzing pieces of data

• Quantitative KPIs4

• Hard skills

And f rom the agency ’ s ?

• Events: Campaign projects

• Target insights

• Brand image objectives

• Gathering best practices

• Qualitative KPIs5

• Soft skills

D i f f e ren t de f i n i t ions ?

Thus, the single word “strategy” involves very different notions and drivers

in both of these working environments.

The mindset is therefore quite different whether we are in an agency or

with its client. Advertiser-people are usually better at “marketing with

numbers” while agency-people will prefer “marketing with letters”. Each of

4 KPI = Key Performance Indicator. In this case, quantitative KPIs could integrate gross sales,

number of clients or market share. 5 In this case, qualitative could mean brand awareness, user satisfaction or the press coverage.

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them often has a whole background within this specific side: numbers or

letters. So when one says “marketing”, “communication” and “campaign”,

this will most likely mean “numbers” to the advertiser and “letters” for the

agency.

D i f f e ren t s t ra teg i s t s ?

At the advertiser, a strategist is someone who will study and report on the

market, in terms of purchasing power. This person will for instance define a

day when a product will become profitable.

At the agency, a “strategist” is someone who will successively analyze and

come up with a work plan as follows:

• Background: market facts gathered from research and knowledge in

fields such as sociology, economics, neurology or demography.

• Target: who is the customer, potential customer, who is the one who

will not be the customer, what are their needs, beliefs or aspirations?

• Driver: the strategic insight driving the target’s behavior:

“Innovation”, “Beauty” or “Power”, for instance.

• Best practices: how competitors or other advertisers managed to

solve similar communication issues.

• Current versus Desired perception: what the target thinks about the

brand before vs. after being exposed to the campaign.

This whole process will lead to a so-called “Strategy” which is the message

to be delivered to the audience – most of the time linked to a benefit. The

Media-people and the Creative-people are not fully involved in this stage of

the process.

Even though there will always be different perspectives on the same

advertising projects, “the people in there” need to coordinate their

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strategies as much as possible. Because different stakeholders can have

dramatically different perspectives on a project, requirements have to be

clearly defined during the briefing phase.

Se l f -p romot ion

In addition, the agency will have a secondary objective: self-promotion, for

PR, HR and new business purposes. As most of the communication agencies

need to grow, because the majority of outsourcing advertisers choose

agencies according to their portfolio, the self-promotional strategy is not to

be forgotten when hiring an agency.

T r ia l and Er ror

Digital planners from advertising agencies use data from the market

(including surveys, known figures or studies) and knowledge from their

background in areas such as neurology, sociology or economics. They also

often rely on their intuition: this is where their added value lies, as digital

planners, but this is also a leftover from the old way to market a brand.

A short example from the e-business industry: the A/B tests6. These involve

separating several buckets of users, giving them two different experiences

and comparing the KPIs. On an e-business website for example, 50% of

users would have a “BUY” button on the left-hand side. The rest of them

would have it on the right-hand side. Running a few other A/B tests and

comparing revenues after a few weeks should design the perfect data-

driven user funnel.

This is very easy to do in IT industries, as you can give two different users a

completely different version of your product, which can hardly be done for

6 First actor was Amazon. More explanation on Clickz, 2004:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1704390/a-b-testing-mathematically-disinclined

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a brick-and-mortar retailer. Amazon is commonly known as the inventor of

the A/B tests.

“We don’t mind testing a lot of weird ideas. At the

end of the day, numbers tell you how good your

idea was.”

Interview with Thorbjörn W.

Coming from Sweden, Thorbjörn Warin was hired

at wooga as the Head of

Marketing. He then moved

moved onto a new startup

in Berlin: Hitfox.

More and more companies do not try to understand facts any more, they

just run tests and figure out what to do next. This is the case of wooga, on

the startup landscape, but some advertisers from the old economy are

finding out the benefits of the “trial and error” method.

A/B tests are a very common thing to do in the IT industry. According to

Tim Harford, a British economist, this is spreading out to the whole of

society7.

In these situations, the advertiser does not need a bunch of surveys before

creating a campaign: one less field to take care of for the agency - one less

reason to be needed.

7 Watch Tim Harford’s TED Talk, 2011: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html

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1.1.3. PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE

We know what we are do ing

The advertiser’s marketing people work, have lunch and attend meetings

with their co-workers - the ones who make the products. They know about

every aspect of them, they know about improvements, potential new

products, they know about the strategy and the most valuable sectors to

target. They can see the product growing and often suggest improvements

to it.

“In some gaming companies, we really feel the

influence of the marketing department on the

products. Working close to each other is very

precious. The agency, on the other hand, doesn’t

usually come up with very relevant ideas of

improvement. But they come in with completely

fresh eyes!”


Advertisers know exactly what they are selling and whom they are selling it

to. They are not bothered by other accounts from other industries. At the

same time, they are less experienced at selling different kinds of products.

They know their market extremely well but are less in touch with trends on

the global market. Nowadays, almost any kind of product needs to be new!

Every product launched needs to be innovative and every old product needs

to receive a new image once in a while. Sometimes these products are sold

by old industries, and in this specific case, the company needs to hire people

who are more up-to-date with the current trends - but not too much.

Over - t rendy peop le i n the agency ?

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Agencies tend to apply a “winning” and “trendy” communication

recommendation to any kind of advertiser. This sometimes works, but

people from the agency sometimes become too comfortable with this and

think a magic recipe can work all the time. They want to be first to share a

set of photographs, possibly a day or two before the usual trendy blogs -

which their co-workers check daily - do. This unfortunately does not make

them efficient ad-men & ad-women. In reality, light painting + Facebook

connect + street art + blog activation does not result in an “epic

advertising win” all the time.

This is good for an agency to keep a constant eye on trends. It is a threat

for them to be too focused on “what’s hot” – for egocentric purposes - and

to forget about marketing basics: linking the product and the customer.

Agencies need both people with egocentric drivers (often juniors) and other

people with ROI and customer satisfaction drivers (often seniors).

This way, juniors will tend to be innovative and follow trends - for the heck

of it - and seniors will put this into the customer’s perspective - for the good

of the business. Agencies need to balance their workforce this way. A lot of

them do. Those who do not, do not stay alive for long, as advertisers can

not see any added value in asking them for digital communication

strategies.

D i f f e ren t Peop le , D i f f e ren t Areas o f Exper t i se

It is also essential for a campaign to involve both product-oriented people

as well as consumer-oriented people. If an advertiser feels close enough to

its market to conduct a campaign on its own, then it does not need to

outsource its strategy to an agency.

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In most cases, the product-people still mix fairly well with the agency-

people. However, relationships are not always so easy, resulting in

frustration in both sides. For best results, both parties need to understand

and work extremely close to each other. What is more, hiring in-house-

people at agencies and agency-people in-house is always worthwhile when

it comes to optimizing skills.

Do adver t i se r -peop le change jobs j u s t a s much as agency -

peop le ?

Agencies are known for their young, thus volatile workforce, but as a

matter of fact, marketers also move quite often8. This would not be so

much of an issue if they sold the same product in another company, but

they very seldom move to a competitor and most of the time move to a

completely different industry.

Moreover, a new Head of Marketing wants to change things quickly to be

well seen by his/her management. It is not rare then that s/he calls a new

pitch with different agencies, even though sales have been doing well with

the current agency. A recent example of this behavior is IKEA France, which

allegedly ended a very long relationship with the agency “la chose”, and

clearly discouraged it from taking part in the pitch9.

Beyond this occurrence, workforce turnover at the advertiser does not help

marketers to know their product better and does not improve relationships

between agencies and their clients.

8 According to Steve Harrison : http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/491875/Why-clients-buy-so-

bad-work

9 Source will remain confidential, but was involved in the process (2011).

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in Campaign: "Marketing directors are often hired in

the context of a publicized crisis and the demand is

for a quick fix. They need to be given time to invest

in a big idea, but shareholders want immediate

results."

Malcolm Earnshaw (Managing Director of ISBA)10

10 Source Campaign UK, 2005: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/491875/Why-clients-buy-so-

bad-work

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1.2. THE CREATIVITY PATH

Agencies are known to hire more creative minds, which constitute their

main added value. Creativity is still within reach of clients, but ROI pressure,

process and culture most of the time suffocate disruptive11 ideas. Saying

something unexpected at a meeting involves less risk if you are a

copywriter than a brand manager.

1.2.1. WHO IS THE MORE CREATIVE?

Creat i v i t y Requ i red i n the Agency

Creativity should be everywhere in an advertising agency. This is the point

of it, as clients call agencies because of their lack of fresh ideas and

flexibility. For this reason, during a job interview at an agency, for pretty

much any position, one would be asked about ideas, advertising taste,

innovation, thoughts.

Even those who may never be involved in the creativity process, such as

front desk or accounts people, are usually expected to have a creative

mind. ust for them to represent the agency in the best possible way in front

11 "Disruptive" in advertising jargon: qualifies a communication strategy as being purposely

original, innovative and astonishing. A disruptive campaign breaks codes to rise up above

competitors, but is still in line with the brand strategy and the message to be delivered. In

advertising, being called “disruptive” is positive.

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of clients. Below is a scene from AMC’s Mad Men, where an account

executive at the fictional agency Sterling Cooper – says “I have ideas”.

More and More Mandatory a t the Adver t i se r

To efficiently deal with the digital shift of their audience, companies hire

communication staff who are able think out of the box, precisely because

the digital medium is new and best practices are yet to be invented.

Creativity is needed in connection with these topics:

• Strategy: Obtaining a vision of how a brand should position itself, be

seen and be managed.

• Customer Care: Getting close to the customers and being very

reactive.

• PR: Putting magic into press releases and relationships with the press

and diverse stakeholders (such as potential clients, influencers,

potential hires, other agencies or providers).

Source: AMC’s Mad Men (2007)

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• Advertising: Having someone in-house still validating disruptive ideas

from agencies, even though they sometimes are not perfectly

respectful of the history. Below is a 60’’-long film from the agency

Men at Work for the grocery retailer Auchan (2011) saying

“Discounts on what you like, and even what you don’t”. These ideas

are often seen as disrespectful and are thus hard to sell.

Source: http://vimeo.com/17594933

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No advertiser would have had this idea by itself, but in-house creative

people are still necessary to let it happen.

UGC, fo r User Genera ted Creat i v i t y

Bloggers and hard-core fans are often even more tied to a brand than a

brand manager, a product manager or a community manager. One good

thing that both advertisers and agencies tend to do is integrate the

community in the creative path, not only managing communities and getting

some feedback from them, but really embedding key opinion leaders in the

communication strategy.

This is at a very early stage. La Redoute – a French apparel retailer as well

as a pioneer in online communication and especially social media – is doing

this a lot12. For instance, a bus tour lead by bloggers was held all over

France: customers could try on dresses and get advice from rather famous

fashion-bloggers.

This was run in-house and would have been less comfortable to organize

with an agency:

• Important bloggers would rather get in touch with a person who is

working closer to the product.

• The organizational process has to be very fast and flexible, as an

agency will not wait too long for a client validation on this kind of

topic.

12 Watch the interview (French) of Gwenola Toulemonde, Social Media & Brand Content

manager at La Redoute, by Grégory Pouy (2011) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al6zPejELhg

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On the other hand, agencies typically know better how to identify and

efficiently reach out to key opinion leaders.

Warner Bros (France) also held an even more remarkable blogger

experience set-up. They gathered together and shot a movie of a bank

hold-up. Bloggers are then intended to make the buzz happen13. The

campaign has not been totally revealed at the time of writing this thesis,

but it is known that this event was run by an agency.

A more basic way to get User Generated Creativity is pulling ideas from a

Facebook fanpage for the name of a product, or a forthcoming feature.

This is more about engaging customers than getting really good ideas from

them.

1.2.2. THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The In -House Poor Pa th

Often, in small busineses, everyone is part of the creative process. In

startups, this means the CEO is a visionary, and has an eye on everyone’s

innovative ideas. Sometimes, it is not the best creativity ever, as this

depends totally on the CEO’s profile and is not balanced by different

perspectives.

In general, developing a whole advertising strategy in-house is motivated by

very specific reasons. It is “quite rare” for big companies, according to this

key player in the industry.

13 More information about the « Pour un avenir moins sûr » influence set-up (2011):

http://www.viedegeek.fr/article/event-batman-arkham-city-ou-comment-braquer-une-banque/

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“The only client that I can think of that does that is

Innocent Smoothies in the UK. One of the founders

is an ex-ad man, so it's not surprising that their

brand strategy is so closely managed and

maintained by them.”

Interview with L.J.

L.J. has experience both at the advertiser and at the

agency. She now works as a

planner for different brands,

within one of the largest digital

companies in the world.

Who i s I nvo l ved a t the Agency ?

In the agency, this means that almost everyone can attend brainstorming

sessions and share ideas. Then, creative teams take this, to give birth to a

sharper core idea. This step is very precious. It lets people with different

areas of expertise share their perspectives. Some clichés for instance:

• A youngster is more likely to have disruptive ideas involving the

digital medium.

• Someone who is really concerned about the environment may be

more motivated to find cutting-edge techniques to sell a clean car.

• Someone who had cancer feels good with anti-smoking accounts.

• Someone who is/has been a parent knows more about the insights

involving babies or kids.

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• A woman is more likely to find benefits in lipsticks. In the illustration

below, secretaries from the fictional agency Sterling Cooper were

asked for inputs, as the Creative department was only run by men.

In addition, everyone feels very useful to the company and involved in a

final creation. In the end, feeling creative, even if one is not part of the

creative department, is very important, from an HR perspective.

…And a t the B ig Agency ?

Bigger agencies tend to be less flexible and to involve only the most

relevant people in the process. Reasons are simple:

• As there are more accounts, someone who would like to attend every

brainstorming would not have time for his/her regular job.

• As there are more employees, brainstormings would be very messy.

However, if you have heard about a project, nothing prevents you from

sharing an idea with the relevant people. This process is partly the reason

why Jérôme Réminiac believes what follows…

Source: AMC’s Mad Men (2007)

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“Some agencies with aging management are giving

very valuable communication advice, but are

bringing no added value on digital topics. Smaller

agencies are usually more dynamic and more

relevant to get involved with digital topics: their

consultants being digital natives.”

Inteview with Jérôme R.

Jérôme Réminiac was the

founder of the New Media

department at TBWA\Auditoire.

He has now moved to

freelancing projects.

1.2.3. RELATIONSHIP WITH ROI14

Pragmeat i v i t y a t some adver t i se r s

In ROI-oriented companies which do not need advertising agencies,

creativity is only a nice-to-have bonus: pragmatism being a more valuable

competence.

“In our field of advertising, creativity is important,

but if it comes down to a creative person or an

analytic person, I would rather hire an analytical

person. It is fun making assumptions, but in the end,

data will always tell you where to go. So it’s good

14 ROI = Return On Investment

39

to be creative, but totally mandatory to be good at

analytics.”


However, this is a lot about the marketing technique that is required. For

very simple calls-to-action, data is always more valuable than intuition and

originality.

“The vaguer the action, the more creativity is

required in its marketing. We at wooga only

require a simple action.”


As a matter of fact, Marketing with letters desperately needs creative

minds, whereas Marketing with numbers only involves efficient data. Bigger

advertisers than wooga are moved by brand equity KPIs, for which reason,

in-house creative folks are absolutely essential.

P re s sure a t the Adver t i se r

In communication, and especially in digital communication, efficient ideas

are the ones that make conversations happen. If they make conversations

happen, they are very surprising and unusual. Unfortunately, these bizarre

ideas do not arise by themselves, they need a whole atmosphere for this15.

Big companies with aging management (not related to the biological age of

the board members, but to their mindset) sometimes are closed to new

structures of thinking.

15 Watch "where good ideas come from", by Steven Johnson (Writer and Speaker, 2010):

http://vimeo.com/21694892 and his talk (2010):

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html

40

Furthermore, a traditional advertising agency that is part of a big group

carries a heavy structure and will be centered on tools, instead of ideas,

which often does retain out-of-the-box minds, which is a pity for the

agency’s work quality.

F l ex ib le and Young Bus ines se s

On the other hand, a small new agency will give birth to ideas first, and will

then ask about which media to use for this purpose.

On the same track, a startup will have storytelling posters all around their

offices, saying “Dare if you dare”, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”, “Failure is key

to success”, “Go fast and break things”, “Be fast, be bold”, “Nothing

ventured, nothing gained”, “Rule n°1: there is no other rule”, “If at first you

don’t succeed, call it 1.0” and so on.

This whole risk-taking and open-mindedness culture incubates all sorts of

ideas, which meet and sometimes collapse into a great innovative thing.

wooga even makes its employees sign a simple paper more or less

acknowledging they should share any idea they have.

Out o f S igh t , Out o f Wa l l e t

“Are agencies wasting my money?” clients often wonder. Briefs sometimes

remain unclear on one key point: is the advertiser pursuing ROI or Brand

Image?

Even agencies that are working very closely with their clients are not quite

their employees. The consequence of failing to fulfill a goal would only be

the loss of an account, not being fired as a person. This makes agency-

people slightly more free to try things out. This is often a good thing for

“above the fold” Brand Image, but sometimes remains a failure in terms of

41

short-term ROI – depending on the type of campaign, the industry, the type

of agency and so forth.

Still, in general, short-term ROI is often better taken care of by a few

marketers in-house. A brand image is better designed by agency-people,

partly because they are not working at the advertiser, which removes a

brake to creativity.

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WHO IS WHO?

Advertisers may have the knowledge - agencies have to know how. At this

point, a few things are obvious:

• Old-fashioned companies need small and dynamic digital agencies or

independent consultants to carry out their digital strategies.

• Modern companies can either hire an agency or build a whole digital

communication department with disruptive people, who are getting

the right budget (as La Redoute did).

• Old-fashioned agencies need to hire persons who understand the

digital landscape.

• Startups do not need (and can not afford) anyone.

It all is a matter of culture and flexibility. Would this mean that

entrepreneurs and small companies are better able to do business?

Here is a comparative SWOT chart summing up this first part. This shows

Strength and Weaknesses of In-house employees in carrying out a digital

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brand strategy. The second part shows Opportunities and Threats in

outsourcing to advertising agencies.

44

45

46

The digital medium is so rich and important

that no brand can possibly do without it.

Let us announce it: a communication

campaign can be called “360°”, even

though it is 100% digital. In fact,

the digital media are plural.

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2.1. THE CONTENT IS IN THE HOUSE

A brand has to be present on every relevant digital medium and to deliver

its message in a specific way, but it is not about focusing on the tool. From

the in-house perspective, the corporate culture is the most important, as it

helps to bring brand content.

2.1.1. THE CORPORATE WEBSITE

Conten t i s K ing

In a corporate website, a user-friendly interface and some well-written

content are very important, but it is not only about a campaign or a

smooth shopping experience. A corporate website’s main strength is its

opportunity of giving valuable information. The content is king and the

advertiser knows this better than anyone else.

The O ld - fa sh ioned Ones are Not So Demand ing

Old-school advertisers will believe they absolutely do not need advertising

agencies to write content for them. They know their company better than

anyone else and they disagree with the saying “It’s not what you say, it’s

how you say it”.

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Either not asking professionals or buying very bad work from one, led until

a few years ago to really bad websites, precisely for brands that are worth

a lot more, and deserve a lot better.

The New Coo l K id s Know How To Do I t

SEO16, Inverted Pyramid17, fast-browsing, user funnel, social features, …

some people know these words, some do not. Hiring people who do and

are used to making good corporate websites is always useful, even in the

B2B area. Yet, these competences do not have to be at the agency, as

creativity is really limited on these kinds of jobs. Internalizing web designers

and content writers is totally fine: their decisions would not lose much of

their meaning going though validation processes - while creative insights

might. The main reason why editorial agencies exist and have work is

mainly because of the lack of dedicated workforce at the advertiser’s.

2.1.2. WHO SHOULD BE THE COMMUNITY MANAGER?

At the Agency : a P ro fe s s iona l

New jobs such as community management evolve within agencies, as

conversations are about innovative tools.

Digital agencies are specialized and the community manager has been

present for a few years already. Over time, agencies have tended to offer

more and more permanent contracts.

16 SEO = Search Engine Optimization 17 Inverted Pyramid = Web writing technique enabling efficient user-catching and an enhanced

user-experience

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At the Adver t i se r : an I n te rn ?

There is still some time left until advertisers from the old economy give

enough importance to a community manager and figure out they should

have done so earlier. In too many companies, a poor Facebook fanpage

and Twitter account management is given to a poor intern who has no

impact on the company at all.

Somehow, in this “new job” field, it seems as if the companies representing

biggest brands are always catching up with agency or startup

organizations. This is the reason why they need agencies, otherwise, quality

digital communication would never reach the mainstream.

At the Adver t i se r : Not A lways !

Other companies have already made this shift happen and a community

manager is a senior web project manager: being a brand-spokesperson

towards the consumers and a consumers-spokesperson towards the brand.

Just the way La Redoute is doing.

“Facebook is central in our communication process.

[…] We show making-ofs to the fans before those

new TV spots are shown on TV”

Hughes de Pietrini (2011)18

Another “just in time” best practices creator is LOFT, a clothes brand which

has carried out a couple of innovations with Community Management,

18 Watch the interview with Hughes de Pietrini - Orangina-Schweppes (France)’s CEO - during a

digital communication press conference (French): http://vimeo.com/26013840

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listening and reacting a lot to users’ requests19. These companies are still

rare on the mainstream market such as retailing. Then, they are known as

being innovative, which is an unintended bonus to their communication!

I n S ta r tups : Bus ines s -Savvy Peop le

Startups understood before everyone the need for Community-ninjas or

Users-go-to-guys being also Business-savvy – to use their vocabulary. Small

organizations need solid Marketing and Business Skills to oversee the

economic landscape and suggest suitable digital solutions.

Olfactive Studio20 has made Community Management the core of their

Business, as products are co-created after the community’s ideas.

“Small brands could do what we achieved with

Olfactive Studio. But mythical brands such as

Chanel or Dior would have no interest in doing it”

Inteview with Céline V.

Céline Verleure (an EDHEC Business School

alumna) is the Founder of Olfactive

Studio. She understood the essential

role of Community Management and

is performing this function herself.

Community Manager job advertisements often cover a very wide range of

topics. Especially in startups (see below with Amen, a Berlin-based startup

19 See explainatory article : http://mashable.com/2010/06/18/ann-taylor-Facebook/ 20 A startup which used Facebook to build its product (fragrances), creating a best practice in

the industry : http://facebook.com/LeBlogDuParfumQuiNExistePasEncore

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on the cutting-edge) but also in some companies who understood the

strengths of quality community management.

2.1.3. PUSHING & PULLING

Knowing the Produc t

Of course, in today’s digital landscape, users own the brand more than the

company that has created it. For this reason, it is very important for brands,

both big and small, to be aware of their online reputation, and to operate

in the areas where key trend makers are. To act efficiently, community

managers or web project managers need to be very close to the product

managers, or to the product itself.

Source: amenhq.com, 2011

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The C loser , the Be t te r

Knowing the company to interact optimally with the community is one

thing, but doing it the other way around is also very important. One key

case study for this – getting input from the community to change something

within the company – is LOFT, an American fashion retailer.

At first, the brand posted their new pants on Facebook, worn by a

professional model. The most surprising thing was the reaction of fans:

”While many Fans acknowledged that the pants looked good on the model,

they complained that the pants were “not universally flattering” and would

“look great [only] if you’re 5’10″ and a stick like the model in the photo.”

The post led several women to request — politely, of course — that LOFT

show the pants on “real women.” “, according to Mashable21.

The day after, LOFT managed to publish pictures of the same pants on real

women, getting fans behind the scenes, as they were LOFT employees (see

pictures below).

21 Full article on Mashable, 2010: http://mashable.com/2010/06/18/ann-taylor-Facebook/

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Before - Source: LOFT (2010)

This is in-house content, and would not have been possible if run through

an agency – or at least not that fast. Feeling really close to your user-base

makes them feel really close to your brand, which is very precious!

After - Source: LOFT (2010)

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Lack o f Adver t i s i ng M indse t

A counter-example is scheduled posts: no Community Manager is behind a

screen while posting, but scheduled a post earlier. This is used for posting at

weekends and often leads to disengaged fans, and sometimes to community

management failures.

Here is a case study from the same brand as before, LOFT. Below is a

scheduled post assuming New York would be sunny on a particular Sunday:

Not very engaging for fans. Lots of other Community Managers from

advertisers actually make beginner’s mistakes, such as not language-

targeting posts (how often have you seen something in a language you

could not understand on your newsfeed?), not geo-targeting (publishing at

night in particular parts of the world), publishing links without pictures to

Source: LOFT (2011)

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appeal to the eye, never ever asking questions to raise levels of

involvement.

In addition, there is a lack of advertising background at the advertiser.

Practically no one talks about “drivers” or “insights” in a meeting about

how to manage a fanpage, at the advertiser’s.

It is absolutely necessary for companies to either master the tools better

(even in a startup) or to hire a communication agency to take care of this.

It is also essential for an agency to be very reactive, as in the future best

practices such as this of LOFT (2010) will be asked for by advertisers. At

this point, agencies that will not have very good relationships and very

efficient processes with their clients will not be needed any more.

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2.2. MASTER THE TOOLS FIRST!

The content is king, and the king of content is in-house, but what would

great content be without the right tools to wrap it, diffuse it and even sell

it? If advertisers can usually deal themselves with content, agencies remain

the kings of the tools. Let us analyze what a 360° digital approach could

involve.

2.2.1. COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT: LET THE CONVERSATIONS START

V i ra l i t y

Virality is not just a buzzword for qualifying YouTube lolcats22 or a lot of

senseless retweets. Virality can be orchestrated for communication

purposes; you only have to add a secret ingredient called talkability23 to

your master recipe!

22 A portmanteau from "lol" (laughing out loud) and "cats". This defines a YouTube trend,

because the most watched and shared videos involve cats in funny situations. 23 Ability for a story, film, campaign or brand to be shared and talked about. This factor is

essential in today’s advertising landscape.

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Below are the key performance indicators for one campaign managed by

the agency Buzzman for Tipp-Ex24 “a hunter shoots a bear” (2010). These

KPIs are all about sharing, the creative key being talkability.

Almost any product can be sold and benefit from a great digital

advertisement. Buzzman did it for Tipp-Ex, apparently rather boring

products (correction fluids, pens or tapes). Another KPI – the ROI – was

also very positive, as sales increased considerably a few weeks after the

launch of the ad: 30% up, compared to the previous back-to-school period.

24 Tipp-Ex is a brand from the Société Bic (France). The « a hunter shoots a bear » campaign

will remain an innovative best practice and still earns awards (in fall 2011).

Source: Buzzman’s case study (2011)

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Talkability can also be sustained from the offline side25, but will always take

place online.

I n f l uence

This is also a key competence at advertising agencies. Relationships with

influencers are very valuable, and agencies often have to organize fairly

expensive events or clever set-ups to perhaps obtain a blog post about a

product launch, for instance. This is called, activation or influence. As

advertisers typically do not have enough ideas, do not have contacts, did

not identify best practices and do not have time for influence purposes; an

agency is therefore totally indispensable.

2.2.2. SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING: FACEBOOK ADS

The P lace to Be ?

Facebook Ads are known to be the most valuable and best targetable

advertising solution, in almost any industry, not exclusively online, but in the

whole physical world.

In the other hand, Facebook ads constitute with flash banners the not-so-

noble and not-so-creative side of digital communication. Consequently, if

one wants to bring traffic to a website from a dedicated audience, Social

Media Advertising is the right thing to use, but activities which require more

commitment, and a less direct call-to-action probably will not always opt

for Facebook ads. 25 This operation from BMW China was very unexpected, but a bit awkward. The media

coverage was negative as the culture is not used to very disruptive advertising techniques, the

audience did not appreciate being orchestrated: http://www.bmwblog.com/2011/08/31/bmws-

crop-circle-marketing-campaign-confuses-chinese-media/

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“The vaguer the action, the more creativity is

required in its marketing. We only require simple

action.”


This quote appears in this thesis for the second time - but it is worth being

highlighted twice.

The End o f Demograph i c s

Targeting an audience according to their beliefs, behavior, connections,

likes and interests is totally new in the advertising landscape and goes far

beyond typical demographics. According to Johanna Blakley26, “shared

interests and values are a far more powerful aggregator of human beings

than demographic categories. I’d much rather know whether you like Buffy

26 The Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (California, USA).

Source: Johanna Blakley on TED (2010)

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the Vampire Slayer rather than how old you are. That would tell me

something more substantial about you” (2010)27.

2.2.3. DEDICATED WEBSITES: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Another tool of the 360° digital landscape, and probably the oldest one, is

the dedicated website, but these are not only corporate websites, as

described earlier in this thesis28.

They can be corporate websites, and agencies can bring editorial added

value, but when run through an agency, these websites are often much

more entertaining, consistently embedded into a campaign planning.

This is a good thing, since for a few years only dedicated websites with a

unique user experience have been rising from the crowd. This is great news

for the quality of advertising – showing care and respect towards the

consumer.

Dedicated websites are the easiest digital set to sell to advertisers – the

most classical form of digital advertising – but are not necessarily the most

efficient ones. They should be supported by a more embeddable support,

such as the viral film.

2.2.4. VIRAL FILMS

“Making the buzz happen” is an overused expression. These words actually

are buzzwords, which sometimes, are not totally empty. Within a relevant 27 Cf. Johanna Blakley’s TED talk – ”Social media and the end of gender” (2010):

http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender.html 28 Cf. The article written in early 2008, trying to define digital brand strategy as it was being

born: http://findsubstance.com/2008/02/21/digital-brand-strategy-whats-that/

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strategy, viral films can be a huge gate for brand content and a power

brand exposure tool. Yet, a couple of mistakes are to be avoided.

Too Much Awesomeness !

Be surprising, be disruptive, be cool, be viral, be very fun. Do not be too

much like this. Do not stay stuck to the brand image. Always remain

respectful about it and in-line with the previous advertising tone.

Too Much Brand Conten t

A viral film is to be shared. Even though a certain category of people likes

to share good commercials, thinking this is mainstream is a typical ad-

person’s distortion, as this is actually a niche.

Source: Pear-Drop’s viral film (2011) http://vimeo.com/28056336

Mainstream people share videos because they are fun, short and make

them feel smart for having found the video. The sharer should not feel like

an advertising medium.

Above is an example of a well-balanced (Awesomeness versus Brand

Content) film.

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Also, soft-branded content may suppress barriers in the target’s mind. If you

think you are watching a funny video, you will be more likely to buy, taste,

like the product than if you are aware that you are watching a commercial.

Or at least, you will keep the product/brand in mind.

M ix Pre - ro l l w i th V i ra l F i lms

If the advertiser buys pre-roll space to be played before a YouTube video

or a VOD (Video On Demand) program, this should not be the place for a

viral film. Again, social network users do not like to feel as if they are being

orchestrated like sandwich-men/women - even though the aim is precisely

to make users share this soft-branded content.

Not Enough Brand Conten t

On the other hand, brands are sometimes barely present in their own films.

This might be too bad as they are expensive to produce for almost no

outcome because logos are barely noticeable.

Below is a “not enough branded film”. Source:

http://www.imheremovie.com/ (2010). Who is able to notice the “Absolut

Vodka” typography in there? This brand content might be too soft to be

spotted, but is probably intended to be closer to a piece of art than to a

commercial.

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The product not being present at all in the movie, only the advertising

world noticed that Absolut produced it. Specialized blogs talked about it,

but the video was then shared just like any other beautiful and well-

produced short movie. Of course, outcomes in terms of sales will not be

worthwhile – but is not a KPI for this kind of campaign. However, the

results in terms of brand image are not even guaranteed.

J u s t L i ke the Other Ones

Commercials that are alike are not new in advertising industry. However, to

a certain extent, brands blend into the trend and lose their identity:

consumers forget about a strong brand image and just see the same trendy

films.

A poem, catchy and fast-paced pictures showing youth and energy,

products all through the movie without them being really noticeable, a

“duty” tagline and a pure logo in the end. It seems that Nike29 and Levi’s30

29 Cf. Nike’s commercial “Vive le football libre” (January 2011): http://vimeo.com/18911762

(French) & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH06ltXfhvA (English) 30 Cf. Levi’s commercial “Go forth“ (June 2011): http://vimeo.com/27525961

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have found a winning technique there: it indeed guarantees them a lot of

exposure.

However, their respective agencies (Leg Agency, W+K) were of course

aware of the power of these short films, but they were probably not afraid

of losing some brand uniqueness in the long run.

Adidas Originals31 somehow played on the same field, which has been

confirmed by Magic Garden Agency, on its own fanpage.

This mindset can be held for a while, but will most likely lose effect over

time. Worse still, it may make the brand equity weaker, because of troubles

for the target to recognize the brand amongst all the other ones

31 Cf. Adidas commercial "all originals” (September 2011):

http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=B5-fFNMXiLU

Source: Magic Garden Agency’s fanpage

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communicating via the same strategic insights, with the same kind of art

direction. Copying other brands is typical agency-behavior.

Web-Ser i e s

A long-term form of a viral film is the web-series. BNP Paribas created a

very relevant planning strategy (2010)32:

• Time 1: the web-series “mes collocs” was launched on Facebook

• Time 2: once lots of viewers are addicted to the series, BNP Paribas

shows its sponsorship

• Time 3: 360° communication set-up (tv, cinema, print, event)

A 360° campaign can actually start from the digital medium and be an

offline success. The web is not always used as a relay. It is more and more a

central place for advertising ideas to happen. This is also an ideal media for

the first phases (teasing) and last phases (PR and activation) of multi-media

campaigns.

2.2.5. MOBILE APPS: BRAND CONTENT AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Ant i -D i s con t inuance

In the past, advertising had no other form than disturbing its viewers, such

as a TV spot for instance. Right now, these mainstream commercials still

exist, but a lot of advertising is now interactive and sneaks its way inside its

target’s free time.

Users open an app while waiting for someone or when they are in the

subway. They basically do it instead of grabbing their pack of cigarettes.

They come of their own accord and get exposed to a brand, which makes

the message much stronger.

32 More details about “Mes colocs” can be found in the case study: http://vimeo.com/26115580.

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Counter-examples of advertising material that tends to be more about

interaction than about disturbance are pop-up pre-roll videos (those short

promotional messages preventing you from watching a video on YouTube

or Dailymotion).

Adver -u se fu l - ta inment

The biggest application store – the Appstore, by Apple – has a policy

stating that any application should definitely not be 100% promotional and

should guarantee a minimum amount of usefulness and/or entertainment.

This is very good, as it pushes advertising agencies to be more creative to

deliver quality content that users are going to be happy with and use for a

long time, instead of promotional websites which often show high bounce

rates33.

As shown below, the vitaminwater France iPhone app (created by

\Auditoire in 2009) integrates some packshots, but had to offer a game and

a geolocation service to make sure it would pass the Appstore barrier. In

this application, brand exposure is melted into useful features and mini-

games. This app participated in setting standards in advertainment - ahead

of its time - and it was one of the first campaigns that would deserve the

tag “adver-useful-tainment”.

Nowadays, some mobile campaigns go even further, with City quests34

including giveaways. Some of these remind creatives to connect the street

with the digital.

33 Bounce rate: typical web traffic metric showing how many users visit a website and leave it

immediately (within 10 seconds), rather than keep being exposed to its content. 34 See the MINI operation in Stockholm (Jung Von Matt, 2010): http://creativity-

online.com/work/mini-mini-getaway-stockholm/21622

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2.2.6. FLASHCODES: CONNECT TO REAL LIFE

Another tool for 360° digital campaigns is the flashcode. Admen can be

very creative with flashcodes (see original uses of flashcodes below). User-

engagement, City quests, Curiosity35, Advergame, User acquisition,

Networking36: a single flash code can do a lot. It is a simple 2D printable

image with a connection to the digital world, which can be powerful.

35 See the Coolway operation in Berlin (managed in-house, 2011): http://toutattache.over-

blog.com/article-berlin-street-cool-marketing-78861752.html 36 See personal job-seeking in the IT field in Berlin (personal, 2011): http://toutattache.over-

blog.com/article-f-code-me-i-want-a-job-79714688.html

Source: Ugo Orlando’s portfolio (2009)

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Being embeddable into an actual 360° campaign, flashcodes usually get

more online coverage than 100% online operations. Funnily enough, one

should sometimes go out in the street, for the sole purpose of getting back

to the digital!

Campaigns containing flashcodes often involve gaming mechanics, such as

badges, level-ups and competition.

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2.2.7. CAPTCHAS: TO TRANSFORM THE EXISTING TOOLS

A captcha is a little box that asks users to type what they can see in an

image in order to verify there are not robots. See a typical example below.

Examples of captchas - Source: Public Domain

Over time, some other forms of captchas have been seen. Sometimes, you

had to answer a very easy question or solve a very simple operation, which

actually made it interactive. Users had to pay attention to this “2+3”

operation – mixed into random curves and rings in order to confuse robots

– and finally type 5 into the text field.

This might soon be taken over by advertising37 – it was crazy leaving this

attention and engagement unused for so long – here as well with some

gaming mechanics, to put a minimum amount of fun into it.

As shown below38, the user has to interact with a brand in order to enter

the website, either by just typing a slogan (engaging and memorizable), or

by playing a mini-mini-game interacting with an image.

37 Source: http://www.techi.com/2010/04/captcha-advertising-coming-soon-to-a-website-near-

you/ 38 Examples from the provider http://www.adscaptcha.com/ (based in New York) for the

advertiser Philips.

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Adcaptcha’s business development seems oriented to agencies, as they may

want big brands to advertise, they want their agency to pitch this idea first.

Agencies are a great intermediary when it comes to canvassing something

innovative for the company.

Source: Adscaptcha.com (2011)

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WHO IS THE MORE 360°?

The right content without the right tools will not reach the right audience.

However, the best tools with no content are just empty Twitter accounts.

Of course, both have to evolve hand-in-hand: clients have to surround

themselves with social-media-aware people. Agencies and consultants need

to understand communication issues beyond the scope of the tools.

“The social networks do not have a good image

with advertisers. I would say small agencies and

freelancers are the best ones at understanding the

marketing impact of a great Facebook strategy.

This has to be explained to the advertisers.”

Interview with Jérôme R.

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Lots of banks39 have now made it possible to open an account via Twitter.

They were most likely advised by a consultant or an agency to make it

possible and known.

However, if community managers are needed for debugging or customer

care issues, changes have to be followed up quickly by product managers,

and community managers need to have a deep understanding of how

products are made. Therefore, gaming companies or e-business websites

need to hire in-house community managers. No matter how large they are,

it matters how large their userbase is – and it often is indeed large.

The advertiser had better use an autonomous agency but must be willing to

communicate with the people in there on a daily basis, delivering

information, validating their communication choices but also reacting

quickly to their feedback from the community feeling.

If the advertiser plans on communicating via the digital medium over the

long term, then they might consider hiring a creative, autonomous and

experienced person to carry out 360° projects. This person should then be

able to have an influence on the company’s product. The top management

indeed tends to trust agencies rather than in-house people, and in-house

people tend to pitch fewer out-of-the-box ideas than an external

workforce.

“Clients have become much more aware of the

importance of digital marketing, even more so in

the last few years - as we can see in the shift in how

marketing budgets are allocated.

39 At least Bnp Paribas or La Caisse d’Epargne in France, many more all over the world.

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“But most of the big clients - with aging

management - still need to be advised on the best

way for them to use digital and that knowledge

comes from agencies.

“The agency expertise can vary a lot as well: the

traditional agencies may not know enough about

digital to come up with the best social media

strategy, and some digital agencies do not have in-

house technical knowledge to make a good mobile

app, for example.

“However, it is not rare to have 3 or 4 creative

agencies working for the same client: 1 main ATL40

agency which is responsible for the main brand

strategy, a digital agency, a direct agency and

possibly a small keen start-up mobile specialist

added in if the digital agency is too expensive.”

Interview with L.J.

The following comparative SWOT chart aims to sum up this second part,

showing how helpful and harmful can in-house or outsourcing solutions be,

in the scope of how they use the whole set of digital communication tools.

40 ATL for Above The Line: an advertising strategy targeting mass media to deliver messages to

a large and mainstream audience - typically an offline TV + Radio campaign - while BTL (Below

The Line) investments are usually less expensive and their ROI is much more accurately

mesurable - typically a 100% digital campaign.

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75

76

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Games and gaming mechanics

are playing a bigger and bigger

role in advertising campaigns.

Beyond this, a whole “gamification”

of the business is happening.

Will advertisers need agencies to

make this “mutation” happen?

Seth Prietsbach’s TED talk (which will be introduced in this 3rd part)

called “The game layer on the top of the world”

has to be given credit for the title of this part.

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3.1. IN-GAME ADVERTISING

Engagement and experience are key factors in today’s brand issues.

Advertising inside games, which users are hooked on, exposed to, and live

positive experiences with.

3.1.1. THE OLD SCHOOLS

F I FA & PES

When conducted correctly, in-game advertising offers a lot of key

advertising space:

• Connected to a positive user-experience

• Present all the time but not ignored

• With potential interaction, or at least possible screenshots to be

shared.

Most of the time, this is not done correctly, and the most present brand is

the game publisher’s brand. It is fine doing self-promotion, but too many

“EA sports”41 banners in FIFA turns out looking like an empty outdoor

billboard in the street saying “call this number to advertise in this space”.

Although, even if it looks ridiculous, this is part of a whole strategy, but

these advertising present a lot of drawbacks:

41 EA Sports is FIFA’s developer, while Konami is the company behind PES games.

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• Limited reach

• Not updatable

• Not behavior-sensitive

• No interaction: tendency to ad-blindness, just like on an actual

football pitch.

In addition, the whole business model is old-school: users buy the game

once and then track is lost. EA and Konami cannot find out how many times

their clients’ logo is viewed, and cannot bill them in consequence.

Above is a screenshot with a lot of different brands. These images remain

quite seldom. Even though the user is exposed to brands such as Nike,

laCaixa or Turkish Airlines, this is pure brand image: nothing more than

watching a football game. And most of all, no specific targeting is used,

which is a thing of the past. Now, here is to the next generation of in-game

advertising…

Source: Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 – via IGN

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3.1.2. THE SOCIAL ERA

Social games are usually played on Facebook and some other social

networks, recently on Google+ for instance. That social games are a

society phenomenon is not to be argued about anymore, as “3 billion hours

per week gaming online, and there are 500 million global gamers now who

spend at least an hour per day playing.”42. These pieces of data are

evolving every day.

Social game companies know their users better than classical gaming

companies. Before playing, a Facebook user usually has to authorize the

developer to know about their demographic data, if not about more

information. Moreover, it is part of social gaming companies’ job to

measure and cluster user behaviors, so they can offer the most relevant

message. For instance, a user known as being volatile may be offered more

items to be kept in the game a few more minutes a day.

Every adperson would say the same: the more data, the better. The future

of a digital brand strategy is about social games. Below are a few

examples, which are far from being optimized.

Zynga & Dreamworks 43

Zynga is the social games leader by far44, both in terms of users and of

revenues – the 2 main KPIs in the industry. This operation was more into

brand image than into call-to-action.

42 Data provided by Amy Jacques (2011):

http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/9053/1027/Play_on_player_A_look_inside_

the_social_gaming_phe 43 About the partnership: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/20/zynga-and-dreamworks-partner-for-

kung-fu-panda-2-marketing-deal-in-cityville/ 44 See the Facebook developers’ updated leaderboard:

http://www.appdata.com/leaderboard/developers?show_na=1

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A loading screen including visuals of the Kung-Fu Panda movie and a

buildable drive-in theater showing Kung-Fu Panda within the game offered

a huge visual exposure to the mainstream movie: Zynga’s game CityVille

was played by about 75,000,000 people every month, and about 15,000,000

every day45 during the advertising period.

Just like any alternative communication set, in addition to this exposure,

Zynga, Dreamworks, CityVille and Kung-Fu Panda got further exposure on

the PR side, as this was quite an innovation for a large audience.

45 Monthly Active Users (MAU), data from Appdata™ Independent, Accurate Application Metrics

and Trends from Inside Network:

http://www.appdata.com/apps/Facebook/291549705119-cityville

Source: CityVille

on Facebook

(2011)

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wooga & In te r f lo ra

It was made possible, right from the Farming Game “Monster World” to

offer flowers from the real world and to have them delivered to whoever

users like. They had to pay for it, Interflora paid wooga for each purchase,

but not for each click or each view.46

This partnership for Valentine’s Day (2011) was about brand image of

course, but also call-to-action and revenues.

Here as well, the step forward is to use data much better, offering a specific

service for different targets. Below are the missing features to make it

actual new media buying:

• Showing the best-known brand for every geographic market

• Offering males and females different call-to-action copies

• Selling concert tickets instead for those who “Facebook-Like” the

artist who will hold a concert in a 10-mile radial-zone on Valentine’s

day evening, or similar artists

46 Other similar partnerships can be checked out on intermediary companies’ references, for

instance: http://www.trialpay.com/game-developers/

Source: CityVille on Facebook (2011)

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• Suggesting a voucher in a restaurant instead to those who are known

as having above-average incomes and whose lover is living in the

same city.

3.1.3. WHICH STRUCTURE?

Facebook offers very fine targeting, probably the best one ever since the

beginning of advertising. And Social Games offer a huge amount of

available time for brands to sneak into users’ minds.

“Online marketing completely rules because the

more data you can have about people, the better

your ROI is.”


This space has remained unused for too long. Even though Zynga’s and

wooga’s operations are far from perfect, they have been quite valuable,

and most of all innovative. Game developers and intermediary companies

usually get stuck to call-to-action, but there is much more to do, notably in

terms of brand image and brand experience.

Advertisers usually deal directly with publishers. In cases when this involves

special technology, third parties can be involved, but they cannot be

compared to advertising or communication agencies.

This kind of advertising looks either like pure customer acquisition or like

sponsorship. In both cases, brands usually do not need detailed advice as to

whether or not to get involved. In addition, publishers come from the new

economy and adopt a very pragmatic approach, billing their clients either

by view or by acquisition. The process is so quick and simple that most of

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the time, there is no reason to call an agency: publishers can then enjoy a

full margin out of the advertiser’s spending.

Some slightly different sorts of social games – developed deliberately in

order to offer space for brands – belong to another sort of advertising:

advergames.

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3.2. ADVERGAMING

Any advertising operation that aims to fool the consumer will be a serious

failure in the long run, if not also in the short run. Lots of advergames are

in the form of a Facebook application, gathering personal data and trying

to “make the buzz happen”, but simply moving a canvas from a website to

Facebook does not make a game “social”.

Some other developers or agencies advocate respectful gaming mechanics

and end up offering a quality brand experience.

3.2.1. I AM PLAYR: THE PERFECT MATCH

I AM PLAYR is a game on Facebook which is about living a footballer’s life,

literally through his own eyes, as it mixes game sequences, with POV47 film

sequences.

An Innovat ion

What the British developer We R Interactive has done with I AM PLAYR48

(2011) is to make it fun to play, and moreover to make it fun to play with

brands.

47 POV for Point Of View. Movie technique showing what the character is looking at. 48 Know more about the game: http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/11/i_am_playr.php

Play the game: http://Facebook.com/iamplayr

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This game is definitely fun, disruptive and innovative. Even though it does

not look like any other social game, several characteristics definitely make it

a social game:

• It is more fun to play with friends

• You can purchase virtual items with real money

• It has daily rewards

• It is evolving and has an undefined lifetime

• Users evolve along with their avatar.

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As the above Venn diagram49 shows the I AM PLAYR model, is at the

crossroads of:

• Product placement: like in movies, the users have an experience and

brands are shown

• Social games: as explained, it really is a social game with rich content,

game mechanics which make it – above all – fun

• Advergames: users have to interact with different brands, not only

one, which prevents the game from becoming boring.

A model that is respectful to the consumer and efficient for the advertiser.

Going further, this model could be called “sustainable advergaming” as it

combines different perspectives of advertising and gaming. What is already

certain is that it is an ethical model: both advertisers and users are

respected and have fun.

49 Personal work, brought to the attention of We R Interactive’s main Community Manage, who

validated it as being on track with their projects.

Source: I AM PLAYR on Facebook (2011)

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A New Genre o f Adver t i s i ng Space

At first, I AM PLAYR’s sole sponsor was known to be Nike and the news

was spread about a game perhaps made especially for Nike50. However,

there is also a lot of Redbull to be seen in the game. And little by little

brands started to join I AM PLAYR as advertisers: an Alfa Romeo is now to

be won if the player scores enough goals in a defined number of games.

Nike is very present within the game, but not only: the user has to see the

brand throughout a very long interactive movie, but one also has to

become involved very deeply in the product experience.

50 See full article, before the launch of the game, probably from a teasing press release (French):

http://www.influencia.net/fr/archives/check-in/nouveau-jeu-nike-social-gaming-foot-

cinema,70,1127.html

Source: I AM PLAYR on Facebook (2011)

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Without losing any fun at all, the player visits Nike stores with his girlfriend,

and he has to struggle to get a sponsorship contract with Nike – his agent

puts pressure on him to score in key games and become famous.

To make the user interact a lot with the Alfa Romeo brand, for instance,

one has to select one by one the desired options for the car, as shown

above.

All this brand content is put into a very high quality game, with customized

film sequences. The product placements are not annoying any more,

because the consumer is respected, with expensive design.

3.2.2. “IF YOU’RE GOING TO CRASH THE PARTY, BRING SOME CHAMPAGNE”

Respec t the Consumer

This is a very popular saying amongst agency people. The French agency

Buzzman has made it one of its mottos, acknowledging anyone a brand

tries to interact with, should enjoy a high-quality experience.

This was originally a quote from Bob Thacker, senior VP – Marketing &

Advertising at OfficeMax: “The secret is respecting the consumer. You are

interrupting their life. All advertising is unwanted, so if you’re going to crash

the party, bring some champagne with you”.

The right moment, the right medium and the right message are not enough:

a very good production and the right moment is necessary to “borrow”

some attention from the target.

Respecting users by building quality gaming mechanics into a brand

message is starting to be a standard for the industry as it shows great

involvement behaviors. However, this mindset currently is only wide-spread

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within agencies. The “a hunter shoots a bear” Tipp-Ex campaign

(mentioned earlier) is an excellent example of this51.

This philosophy goes against all the traditional above-the-line agencies

selling mainstream products by interrupting the consumers during their…

• TV program: film

• Radio program: audio

• Way to work / Way home: billboards

• Information gathering: press

• Internet browsing: banners, pre-rolls, pop-ups.

Here, the consumer chooses to consume the product, which makes the

message considerably stronger, and the brand much more memorizable.

Hopefully, advertising will not be seen as an annoyance again, in the next

few years.

The Ro le o f the Agency

Advertising agencies can certainly reach out to game developers, like

publishers, to get their client’s brand into a game mechanic. However, as

this does not require being embedded in any further communication set-up,

the client can just skip the agency step and go ask the publisher directly.

There are only two prerequisites:

• Knowing about these new advertising spaces and being able to

identify the right support for the desired digital brand strategy

• “Bringing the champagne” instead of being stuck to a short-term ROI

objective.

51 More details in 360° Digital > Master the tools first! > Community Management > Virality

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Of course, the agency is able to fulfill those requirements, but if a company

is aware of these objectives, has sufficient skills in-house and has regular

needs, it is perfectly imaginable that it will skip the cost of an agency.

3.2.3. THIS IS REAL LIFE

Get the Targe t to P lay , Then Se l l Au then t i c i t y

The following talk by Jesse Schell - a very influential Game Designer -

(2010) is about how brands manage to get their target into the virtual

world, for the “real” world to feel even better. The strategic insight is

actually about reality, according to this talk (from 10’30’’): in other words,

this is an authenticity driver.

This also gives a short overview of how important the gaming industry is. In

addition, there is a hypothesis about gaming and competition dynamics

becoming closer and closer to our lives, at least in the Western world.

Par t o f L i f e

Good games bring an actual service to their players. It is thus only a matter

of time until they get a brand to enjoy it – and pay the developers, as did

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the British clothes retailer Topshop with a game from SCVNGR52 (2011),

and earlier with Instagram53. This operation combined location data with

gaming mechanics and real life giveaways, as clothes were then gifted to

the winners54.

52 We will deal with this company again in The game layer on the top of the advertising world >

Gamification of the whole business > Under construction 53 A very successful photo app for smartphone. 54 Source: http://www.techdigest.tv/2011/08/topshop_scvngr.html

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3.3. THE GAMIFICATION OF THE WHOLE BUSINESS

Not only do advergames integrate gaming mechanics. Being loyal, sharing

brand content or reading a newsletter is sometimes rewarded. Even some

business-people from the retailing industry should make it fun to interact

with their brands.

“In the digital economy you are rewarded at each

next level you reach. As nowadays, online and

offline lives are so well connected, the real economy

will be more and more inspired by that.”

Interview with Farid H.

Farid Humblot (an EDHEC ESPEME alumnus) is a

professional in the Community

Management field, he is notably

interested in young companies,

brand content and gaming mechanics.

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3.3.1. GREAT GAMING MECHANICS

The Da i l y Appo in tment

In social games, this takes the form of a daily reward: every consecutive day

you log into the game gets you a better gift, so you do not want to miss a

day, otherwise you will get back to a small gift. This daily appointment

makes the game (brand) part of users’ (consumers’) lives.

For business, it can be used in pop-up stores for instance. Showing up at a

certain time, between certain dates, allows you to either meet a star,

receive free samples, get to know exclusive brand content or find help for

your current issues55.

Geo loca t ion

This has been used since geolocation was made possible, starting for

instance with Geocaching, back in 200056. In communication, this takes the

form of city quests, war games, exclusive retailing57 or Coupons: several

startups indeed offer deals via geolocation.

The Uncer ta in Reward 58

The uncertain reward is known for being enlightening. Studies have shown

that being unclear about the aim of an action produces greater results than

when it is about a known reward.

55 « Mes colocs »’s pop-up store in the heart of Paris, helping future flatmates to meet and deal

with paperwork. See in 360° Digital > Master the tools first! > Viral films > Web-series 56 For more information : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching 57 See vitaminwater France’s iPhone App (by \Auditoire, 2009) 58 See Marketing Science/Vol.22, No.4, Fall 2003 > The Effects of Effort and Intrinsic Motivation

on Risky Choice > Intrinsic Motivation as a Moderator of the Impact of Effort on Preferred

Rewards > The Role of Intrinsic Motivation: Discussion (p.487):

http://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/centers/mks/articles/51d0762ea0_article.pdf as well as Tom

Chatfield’s (Gaming theorist) TED talk (2010): http://tiny.cc/tom-chatfiled-ted-talk

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This is used a lot in community management: when a brand is organizing a

mini-contest, users become more involved when it does not say specifically

what is to be won.

The b inary ca l l - to -ac t ion

Source: Tipp-Ex Experience on YouTube (2010)

Using the same uncertain

reward mechanic, the same

way, the opposite campaign

shows a binary choice at the

end of a teaser video. This

involves an uncertain end,

which is much more

appealing than one simple “continue the experience” call-to-action button.

This minimum amount of gaming dynamics still participates a lot in making

a promotional message both successful and respectful to its users.

“Leve l Up ! ”

In business, badges

were widely used by

Foursquare first

(2009), and a lot of

other actors have

been following this

trend, which makes it

die by itself – or will

have done so by the

time this document is

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read (see the above slide59). However, a visionary person will probably

make a badge-rebirth occur.

Below is the text that is too small to be read above (Sebastian Deterding):

Comparing yourself to your friend is then a strong motivation for becoming

further involved with a brand. This is used a lot in loyalty programs, in

which you compare yourself with an imaginary picture of your-ideal-self

who can afford greater gifts than you with loyalty points. The point system

is not so new but the gaming mechanics make it deeper. Extended to real

life, it could really change our social behavior.

3.3.2. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Know Your User s

Too many gaming mechanics are broken, unbalanced and thus inefficient.

The gaming layer is still under construction and brands need to have the

mechanics tested. In there, communication agencies specialized in games,

perhaps developers themselves, are still the best suited ones to deal with

this question.

59 Taken from an insightful presentation by Sebastian Deterding (2010):

http://www.slideshare.net/dings/pawned-gamification-and-its-discontents

“An infectious disease is currently spreading across the Internet: the badge measles. It all started innocently with badges on Foursquare and other location-based services like Gowalla and foodspotting. Then it jumped online: Yelp! gave badges for adding reviews, as did TrustedOpinion. DevHub considered badges “so 2009” and provided cute monsters for being a good blogger instead.”

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For instance, females play games because they are bored, males play

because they are competitive60. This is indeed a strong statement, involving

very different mechanics to get both targets interested in the brand.

However, gender segmentation is one of the most basic ones, targets are

now divided into tiny breadcrumbs: this is a whole job to identify clusters

and address messages specifically to them: a communication agency’s job.

An ex-planner at the British agency DARE confirms the

above statement: “Competition is not for everyone. A

generalization but women tend to prefer non-

competitive and cooperative play. Know your users,

and playtest with them.“61.

Se th Pr i eba t sch a t TED

60 Source, Saatchi & Saatchi - from the agency side then! (2011) :

http://www.slideshare.net/Saatchi_S/gamification-study 61 Full article: http://thesmileexperiment.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/stuff-with-gamey-bits/

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SCVNGR and LevelUp!’s founder, Seth Priebatsch, gave a TED talk (2010)62.

This is a remarkably visionary presentation about game mechanics, with a

lot of examples, which according to him “just suck, they are not very well

designed”. This is the reason why the gaming layer is under construction.

62 Watch Seth Priebatsch’s TED talk (2010):

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_top_of_the_world.html

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WHO WILL MASTER THE GAME?

The Targe t Sh i f t

A typical social games paying player is a 43-year-old woman, not a 15-year-

old boy63.

The usage of the web has shifted in the last few of years from consuming

content to creating and sharing content. On a medium where self-esteem

within a semi-private audience is a more important driver than ever,

sharing positive results – in any game – is a strong motivation to spread

brand content.

Brands should acknowledge this shift, as users have already done. Agencies

are communication professionals, experienced in target definition, who

seem to be more able to drive the change. However, very pragmatic and

63 Commonly known fact in the gaming industry. Read more about it (2011):

http://www.slideshare.net/ctrottier1/designing-games-for-the-43yearold-woman/

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disruptive advertisers such as small companies in a new market can totally

surprise everyone and innovate in this area.

Adver t i se r + Agenc ie s + Gaming Company

In addition to their dynamics, game designers should really be watched by

the whole economy as their business models usually are very valuable and

their marketing techniques are most of the time very efficient and

innovative.

Gaming companies are therefore the first ones to efficiently build on this

game layer. It is very strategic for marketing people to observe gaming-

people and perhaps to do business with them.

Just like almost every new trending topic, agency-people are typically more

aware of it and keener to make unusual partnerships than in-house people.

Here as well, startups or flexible companies can easily do it efficiently if they

want to. The future of advertising-people depends on what the gaming-

people are currently inventing. Let us get into the game.

The following comparative SWOT highlights that both advertisers and

traditional advertising agencies surprisingly do not know a lot about

gaming yet.

Just like TV in the 60’s, the web in the 90’s, the social media in the 00’s, the

advertising will most likely take a while before integrating this trend of the

decade to come. Its reactivity is exemplary within the whole economy,

though. What is for sure is that first 360° to integrate gaming layers in their

campaign recommendations will soon master the game, alongside their

clients.

101

This chart shows that agencies need to integrate gaming mechanics – not

only a minimum amount of it – in order to keep providing an added value

to their clients.

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103

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CONCLUSION & Recommendations

o s t b rand managers ca l l i ng on

adver t i s i ng agenc ie s to ac t on the

d ig i ta l med ium , do not do i t fo r

d i rec t sa le s bu t fo r a b rand image

purpose 64. I f i t i s no t fo r repu ta t ion , i n -

house t ra f f i c managers , fo r i n s tance ,

mon i tor ROI da ta more e f f i c i en t l y .

“No agency can do user acquisition as well as we

do it. But my department would not be good at

building a brand.”


Partly for the reason described above, 50% of

brands employ social-media dedicated people65. This

does not mean they do not ask agencies to work

with them, but it still implies that brands give a

growing credit to their digital strategy. 64 Source: Marketing Magazine UK (2011): http://marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1098242/Brands-

social-media-long-term-investment-finds-study/ 65 Source: New Media Age (2011): http://www.nma.co.uk/news/half-of-brands-employ-dedicated-

social-media-staff/3030935.article

M

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There is work to do for these people, as they

currently are not present enough for members of

their communities on social networks. Too few

complaints and questions are solved (29% on

Twitter66, 5% on Facebook67).

It is the agency’s job to advise their clients on

reaching out to their customers. But, once this

educational work is over, it is the advertiser’s job to

interact with its communities.

Below is a summary of strengths, weaknesses of

advertisers in managing their own digital brand

strategy, and of the opportunities and threats of

outsourcing it to an advertising agency.

66 The Drum (2011): http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/10/13/71-companies-ignore-consumer-

complaints-twitter 67 Source: Social Bakers (2011): http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8149-companies-respond-to-just-

5-of-questions-on-facebook

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Of course, the final advice on whether one should

outsource one’s strategy depends on the

advertiser’s size, budget and objectives, but it also

depends on the agency’s evolution.

In a digital world in which everyone has control

over everything, agencies need to progress by

integrating competences from the startups’ universe,

the gaming universe and the high-tech business

universe.

Advertisers also need to evolve and hire more

managers with advertising backgrounds, which is

helpful when keeping smooth process and good

relationships with agencies.

This shift is exciting. Not everyone will be part of it.

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“ I T I S NO T THE STRO NGEST O F THE SPEC IES THAT SURV IVES ,

NO R THE MO ST INTELL IGENT THAT SURV IVES .

I T I S THE O NE THAT I S THE MO ST ADAPTABLE TO CHANGE . ”

CHARLES DARW IN

( 1 809 - 1 882 )

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Page 1 – Thesis Cover Personal Work – Photography: Matthias Heiderich, Berlin (2011) Page 18 – Part 1 Cover Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Berlin (2011) Page 32 – Account Man saying “I have ideas” Source: AMC’s Mad Men (2007) Page 33 – Party in the supermarket Source: DocNews (2011) Page 37 – Secretary being consulted Source: AMC’s Mad Men (2007) Page 43 – Part 1 SWOT Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Berlin (2011) Page 45 – Part 2 Cover Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Berlin (2011) Page 51 – Amen’s Community Manager Job Advertisement Source: amenhq.com/jobs (2011) Page 53 – Loft, before Source: Loft (2010) Page 53 – Loft, after Source: Loft (2010) Page 54 – Loft, Facebook Thread Source: Loft (2011) Page 57 – “A hunter shoots a bear” campaign results Source: Buzzman’s case study (2011) Page 59 – “Taste Communities” Source: Johanna Blakley’s talk at TED Page 61 – Pear Drop – The Date Source: DocNews (2011) Page 63 – Absolut - I’m here Source: Fubiz (2009) Page 64 – Adidas - all originals Source: Magic Garden Agency (2011)

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Page 67 – vitaminwater iPhone app Professional Work at TBWA\Auditoire (2009) Page 68 – Coolway guerilla campaign Personal work, Berlin (2011) Page 68 – Original use of flashcodes Personal work, Berlin (2011) Page 69 – Examples of Captchas Source: Public Domain Page 70 – Examples of Captchas used in Advertising Source: Adscaptcha Page 74 – Part 2 SWOT Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Berlin (2011) Page 76 – Part 3 Cover Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Oostende (2010) Page 79 – Leo Messi in Pro Evolution Soccer Source: Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer via IGN (2011) Page 81 – Kung Fu Panda loading screen Source: CityVille on Facebook (2011) Page 82 – Kung Fu Panda game view Source: CityVille on Facebook (2011) Page 86 – I Am Playr Venn Diagram Source: Personal Work (2011) Page 87 – I Am Playr - Nike Source: I Am Playr on Facebook (2011) Page 88 – I Am Playr – Alfa Romeo view Source: I Am Playr on Facebook (2011) Page 91 – Jesse Schell talking Source: Jesse Schell’s talk via G4TV (2010) Page 95 – Shoot the Bear // Don’t Shoot the Bear Source: Tipp-Ex on YouTube (2010) Page 95 – Badges slide Source: Sebastian Deterding on Slideshare (2010) Page 97 – Seth Priebatsch talking Source: Seth Priebatsch’s talk at TED (2010)

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Page 101 – Part 3 SWOT Personal Work – Photography: Personal Work, Oostende (2010) Page 103 – Conclusion Cover Personal Work – Photography: Matthias Heiderich, Berlin (2011) Page 106 – Conclusion SWOT Personal Work – Photography: Matthias Heiderich, Berlin (2011)

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LITERATURE REVIEW

This thesis, like most of the thesis bringing new content and new topics to

think about, got its inspiration from really different sources. All kinds of

content collapsed, sometimes after an incubation period and then gave

birth to some ideas and theories about the future of digital brand

strategies.

As well as long casual chats and lonely swimming sessions, the following

sources were involved in the making of this thesis, directly or indirectly.

Most of the below occurrences were recommended by curators interested

in either advertising, either gaming, sometimes in both.

Wh i te Books

The Social Super Ego http://www.socialsuperego.com/pdf/SOCIAL_SUPER_EGO.pdf Proximity BBDO, 2011 The 2011 state of Community Management http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe/the-2011-state-of-community-management The Community Roundtable, 2011 The Effects of Effort and Intrinsic Motivation on Risky Choice http://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/centers/mks/articles/51d0762ea0_article.pdf Ran Kivetz, 2003 Le Social est l’Avenir de la Communication http://www.slideshare.net/up2social/up-2-social-le-social-est-lavenir-de-la-communication-8712085 Up2Social, 2011 Du Brand Content à la Brand Culture http://enquete.testconso.net/docs/brandculture/DuBrandContentALaBrandCulture.pdf QualiQuanti, 2011 Tendances, Défis et Enjeux de la Publicité Online http://www.sri-france.org/actualites/sri/142.html SRI, 2011

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Ta lk s

Gaming to re-engage boys in learning http://www.ted.com/talks/ali_carr_chellman_gaming_to_re_engage_boys_in_learning.html Ali Carr-Chellman, 2011 Face Time http://www.g4tv.com/videos/51619/face-time-zyngas-brian-reynolds/ Brian Reynolds, 2011 When Games Invade Real Life http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/ Jesse Schell, 2010 The Game Layer on the Top of the World http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_top_of_the_world.html Seth Priebatsch, 2010 Gaming Can Make a Better World http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html Jane McGonigal, 2010 Social Media and the End of Gender http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender.html Joahanna Blakley, 2010 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html Tom Chatfield, 2010 What Physics Taught me About Marketing http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_cobley_what_physics_taught_me_about_marketing.html Dan Cobley, 2010 How to Start a Movement http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html Derek Sivers, 2010 Life Lesson from an Ad Man http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html Rory Sutherland, 2009 The Tribes We Lead http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html Seth Godin, 2009 Spaghetti Sauce http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html Malcolm Gladwell, 2004

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I n te rv i ews

Comprendre les médias Sociaux par l’Exemple: La Redoute http://gregorypouy.blogs.com/marketing/2011/08/comprendre-les-m%C3%A9dias-sociaux-par-lexemple-interview-de-la-redoute.html Grégory Pouy, 2011 Hugues Pietrini: : « On est dans une logique de défrichage et d’expérimentation » http://vimeo.com/26013840 INfluencia, 2011 L’intimité est-elle possible sur Internet http://www.influencia.net/fr/actualites1/intimite-est-elle-possible-sur-internet,65,1219.html We Agency & INfluencia, 2010

Ar t i c l e s

Can the Next Instagram/Hipstamatic/Klout/Angry Birds Be Born Within an Agency? http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2011/08/can-the-next-instagramhipstamatickloutangry-birds-be-born-within-a-agency/ Mobile Inc, 2011 Brands See Social Media as Long Term Investment, finds Study http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1098242/Brands-social-media-long-term-investment-finds-study/ Marketing Magazine (UK), 2011 A Look Inside the Social Gaming Phenomenon http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/9053/1027/Play_on_player_A_look_inside_the_social_gaming_phe Amy Jacques, 2011 Mini Getaway in Stockholm http://creativity-online.com/work/mini-mini-getaway-stockholm/21622 Creativity Online, 2011 Companies Respond to Just 5% of Questions on Facebook http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8149-companies-respond-to-just-5-of-questions-on-facebook Econsultancy, 2011 Companies Ignore 71% of Consumer Complaints on Twitter http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/10/13/71-companies-ignore-consumer-complaints-twitter The Drum, 2011 Berlin: Street, Cool & Marketing http://toutattache.over-blog.com/article-berlin-street-cool-marketing-78861752.html Toutattaché.com, 2011 BMW’s Crop Circle Marketing Campaign Confuses Chinese Media http://www.bmwblog.com/2011/08/31/bmws-crop-circle-marketing-campaign-confuses-chinese-media/ Horatiu Boeriu, 2011

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Obsessed with Facebook Infographics http://mashable.com/2011/01/12/obsessed-with-facebook-infographic/ Mashable, 2011 Captcha Advertising Coming Soon to a Website Near You http://www.techi.com/2010/04/captcha-advertising-coming-soon-to-a-website-near-you/ Techi, 2011 I Am Playr, Immersive Football Game http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/11/i_am_playr.php Contagious Magazine, 2010 Stuff with Gamey Bits http://thesmileexperiment.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/stuff-with-gamey-bits/ The Smile Experiment, 2010 How to Make your Advertising Five Times as Effective http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2010/01/how-to-make-your-advertising-five-times-as-effective.html Welcome to Optimism, 2010 Digital Brand Strategy? What’s that? http://findsubstance.com/2008/02/21/digital-brand-strategy-whats-that/ Stephen Landau, 2008 Why clients but so much bad work? http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/491875/Why-clients-buy-so-bad-work/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH Campaign, 2005 A/B Testing Mathematically Disinclined http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1704390/a-b-testing-mathematically-disinclined Brian Eisenberg, ClickZ, 2004 Social Gaming, quel intérêt pour les marques? http://www.kiiwiigames.com/interet-marques-social-gaming Kiiwii Games, 2011 Olfactive Studio, Première Marque de Parfum Participative http://www.influencia.net/fr/actualites1/olfactive-studio-premiere-marque-parfums-participative,67,1856.html INfluencia, 2011 Consumer Enpowerment http://www.docnews.fr/actualites/consumer-empowerment-revolution-marche,10532.html Marine Catalan, DocNews, 2011 Les Marques à l’Assaut du Social Gaming http://www.marketing-alternatif.com/2011/10/24/les-marques-a-lassaut-du-social-gaming/ Joëlle, Marketing Alternatif, 2011

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: UPDATED CV

APPENDIX 2: FORMER INTERNSHIP REPORTS

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APPENDIX 3: UPDATED CV This is my current CV, including all my experiences until fall 2011.

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APPENDIX 4: PREVIOUS INTERNSHIP REPORTS Here you can find my previous internship reports (French). Those may contain confidential information. Please use them only to appreciate this thesis and do not share them.

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