DigitalAgency

BarCamp Scotland:

Yesterday's BarCamp Scotland at Edinburgh University School of Informatics.

It rocked.

Though the attendees where mainly technology guys, I found the presentations, products and thinking were in the main, pretty brilliant.

I was disappointed that there weren't more people there from the advertising, design and marketing communities. (From agencies, web developers or client side marketing departments.)

Either they were unaware that it was on, which perhaps reflects on how close they really are to what's happening online. Or they had better things to do.

Whatever reason, I think they missed out. They could have learned a lot and seen what's available/going on in their own backyard.

The passion, enthusiasm and solutions presented were as infectious as they were insightful.

Good to see Russ and Alex from Whitespace there. (The Flock presentation even used Alex's GoogleSightSeeing to illustrate part of their talk.)

As you'd expect everyone was blogging the event, and there's a sizable pool up on flickr.

And I was delighted and surprised to see the ratio of Mac's to PC's slurping up the free WiFi, was about 10:1

My favourite presentations where from GroopIt, Revish and Flock.

But I missed stacks, there was so much stuff going on. (Though I wasn't too fussed about missing the SecondLife presentations)

Hope there are more of these things in our neck of the woods, and if one pops up in yours, do yourself a favour and get yourself there.

Thanks to Alice too for hastily rearranging her weekend, and coming along to fly the DigitalAgency flag.

Adding a bit of much needed academic rigour to my crude, working class, mercenary marketing agenda ;-)

(Below: DigitalAgency's very own Dr Alice Bartholomew chats with Jon-Paul of Dunedin-arts.com)

My blogging desk:

This morning, Iain asked in a post, about the desks we blog at.

This is mine.

Wanted to get it posted early as I'm out most of the day, but will post fuller report later.

The shot below is demonstrates the power of cropping, my desk area is in a mass of wires, papers, files and boxes etc, but the good old crop tool comes to the rescue.

It's not what you say, it's what you do:

When you start a new business like ours, competition doesn't just come from good companies. Some pretty shabby ones try and get in on the act too. Which is why we think one of the biggest commodities to be traded in the world of Web 2.0 is 'Trust'.

A good question from Marketing Directors, for any agency operating in this new space is: 'Don't tell me, show me'. (In order to differentiate those who talk a good game, from those who actually deliver.)

For example if a consultant suggests you have a blog, ask to see their's first.

Somebody recommends podcasting, what can they show you to underscore their thinking. If they wax lyrical about wiki's get them to show you some.

(Better still get them to put one up for your brand. Wouldn't you like to see everything you stand and work for up in the online equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica?)

Of course, with new marketing techniques and ideas cropping up almost weekly, not everybody will have killer metrics or credible case studies to convince you, but at the very least they should 'know a man who does', or more pertinently show you someplace online where their recommendations are already working.

And of course be as open as possible about what is possible. (If you know what I mean.)

Trust has always been a basic requirement of any business relationship. But now, with so much new stuff out their, with more need for open-ness in marketing, with more consumer-generated media, citizen journalism and brand transparency, trust from all parties is more vital than ever.

Some interesting Brands we've worked with in the last 12 months:

I’m not trying to impress you by name dropping here, (when you see the details of the kind of work I’ve actually done for these brands, you’ll see that I’m not going to give Mother any sleepless nights.)

However, I hope it shows how I like variety, can adapt to lots of disciplines and varied briefs

1. Microsoft. (Freelanced, working on creative development at Mason Zimbler a technology agency in Bristol. MZ have a chunk of the  M$ Developer, B2B and Student Relationship accounts.)

2. Adobe. (MZ again, working on the new amazing version of Acrobat and Reader.)

3. Bank of Scotland. (Working for Whitespace on creative content for corporate business pages.)

4. GP Plus. A private medical practice I helped develop a corporate i.d. for with the Designer; Lucy Richards. The idea was that all advertising, sales literature and corporate graphics, where written in the Doctor’s own illegible hand.

Everything was of course, totally incomprehensible. (Hence, subtitles under each bit of promotional item, translating whatever the Doc had written.)

5. Graham Cornthwaite. This boy truly is a world class Photographer, who's work has appeared in D&AD quite a bit. But, an ex-Art Director at Collett's, he’s also got a good eye for other peoples work.

When living in Rome he bought 30 processed super-8 films from a flea market. These old films had never been picked up by their owners from the chemist they’d left them at years before.

We are now painstakingly cataloging everything on them in the hope of coming up with some Technicolor gems from the 60’s and 70’s

The idea?

To cut together something wonderful, and beautiful of trendy Italians from way back when, and sell it on to Prada or some other primo Italian brand.

DigitalAgency, and particularly Alice with her passion for Photography, also represent Graham. And are helping him with his Blog and online marketing.

Oh, and Graham was Mike's wedding photographer, and has agreed to do it again, however many times this is necessary, at the same 1992 prices.

6. Baby Yoga. DigitalAgency are currently developing, with production partners, a baby friendly yoga and relaxtion dvd aimed at young Mum's and their sprogs. It's based on a on a weekly course that's been successfully running for several years. The idea is to distribute the dvd to young Mums who, because of geography or poverty, are unable to get to, or afford the course. One idea is to approach the private sector, or indeed social services departments for funding.

7. Boots. Last year, on behalf of a somewhat challenging client, we pitched a NPD idea to Mother and Boots over an agonsingly slow eighteen month period. The idea was to launch an innovative new baby product. Eventually Boots dithered, the main client bottled-it, and (due to totally unconnected reasons), Mother lost the business. Oh Hum.

8. MessageLabs. The launch of a big, shiny, new advertising campaign for the world’s leading email protection experts. Great fun, lousy money.

9. Yell/Mother. Pitched an idea to Mother about a way for Yell to monitize a new online product. Mother, who we're pitching for the business, liked it, and included it in their proposal.

10. Orange. Alice and I have had a NPD idea that would be great for a mobile phone company. (We think Orange might be the best people to pitch it to.)

Before we do, we have to film a kind of undercover documentary/reportagy movie in a bunch of mobile phone shops. Which should be nerve-wracking/fun depending on which school of psychology you subscribe to.

We'll blog our progress as and when things develop.

 

Dr Alice Bartholomew joins DigitalAgency:

And Mike's delighted. (In a way that it's impossible to be more delighted about.)

Alice has joined DigitalAgency, as a creative partner. (Yippee! WoooooHooooo! Shut up Mike.)

Her interests span from strategic and creative evaluation, to qualitative research, to photography and the investigation of consumer cultures through visual ethnography.

(Alice will tell Mike, in small words, what that all means later.)

With a doctorate exploring children’s experience of advertising, Alice has a unique understanding of the youth audience and contemporary consumer psychology.

She has a passion for revealing customer insights and identifying exciting opportunities for brands in the evolving media landscape.

Her main role at DigitalAgency, apart from keeping Mike in line, is to add deeper strategic planning and thinking, to complement Mike's creative doing.

'Hey, I've had a great idea! Let's start a 'Digital Agency!':

It seems that every time I look at Brand Republic these days, every advertising agency on the planet is ‘repositioning’ itself as a ‘Digital Agency.’

Good idea.

But I have to smile ruefully when I see the ‘Digital Agency’ news feeds.

In 1997 I saw how the web and advertising were going.

It occurred to me that a Digital Agency was indeed a good idea.

I’d bend anybody’s ear who’d listen, and tell them I thought Digital Agencies where a big deal.

Trouble was nobody was listening 10 years ago, nobody I spoke to really ‘got it.’

In frustration, I registered the domain DigitalAgency.com, and waited patiently for the world to catch up.

Looks like they did.

Day One.

For DigitalAgency.com, this is Showtime.

It's hardly auspicious though: No clients. No income. No staff. No offices. Just me.

(Apart from that things are going gangbusters.)

I'm starting up with little more than, what I hope is, the right attitude. A ton of enthusiasm, and a great desire to see what it's possible to achieve on, with and because of Web 2.0.

What I bring to the party is 25 years of experience of doing it the old way, as a copywriter and small agency owner. But for the last few years I've been evangelising the impact of the web on our business, and advising anybody who'd listen, to take it seriously and gear up for it.

I suppose now, I'm taking my own advice. (And thankfully, the world is catching up, and the pain of web 1.0's false start, seems no more than just a bad dream.)

We can all start anew, and see what's possible.

When I was 17 I used to wallpaper my entire bedroom with ads from the Sunday magazine supplements. Great ads, full colour dps's of inspiration and craftsmanship.

They filled me with wonder, envy and a burning desire to be part of it.

With Web 2.0, history repeats itself.

The way I feel about working and growing in this new marketing environment is every bit as intense as when I was a teenager starting out in advertising. Only this time, hopefully, I'm a bit smarter and have more to offer.

Launching DigitalAgency here and now, is part online experiment, part exercise in collaboration and an energetic exploration into personal and business growth.

WoooHoooo!

Bring it on.