Integration is Key April 23, 2008

Highly integrated products are my favorite types of branded utility. The more your product can work with and complement other products, the higher the satisfaction level of your consumer. In order to develop a more highly integrated product, you must establish two things

1) A collaborative model within your agency or company. Today is the universal launch of Facebook chat, a perfect example of deeper integration within an already established utility. Facebook provides many of the functions that other websites provide, while aggregating them all under one brand. Sharing pictures, chatting and messaging are all executed in one portal. Then the features of each utility are integrated within each other. If someone goes offline while you are chatting with them, you can send them a message. Engineers from each team must work together to make this possible.

2) Don’t let your strategy and marketing be confined to the walls of your building (or maybe intranet in this day and age). A willingness to think outside of your product and your company is key in developing branded utility. I think the business world calls this… partnerships. I referenced the Nike+ and iTunes example in my last branded utility post, but it is a stellar example of thinking out side of your walls. On the surface the two companies are very different. They began with identifying the core values and needs of their consumer. Then found a way to collaboratively become a relevant part of their target’s routine

I think it could be fun to brainstorm potential future branded utility partnerships. What do you think? Also, check out Noah Brier’s post on branded utility. There are awesome ideas in here!

Interview: Doug Wyatt, Strategic Digital Media Specialist at Mediacom (Chicago) April 15, 2008

 

 

Doug is a TexasMedia Ex from the University of Texas working as a Strategic Digital Media Specialist at MediaCom in Chicago, IL. His job involves educating clients about digital media and consulting with the agency’s digital media planners about campaign strategy and integration.

I interviewed Doug during a trip to Chicago this Spring. Here’s what he had to say:

On collaboration…

• In the digital world, nothing happens without media planners and creatives constantly collaborating.
• Trust and loyalty are the keys to agencies education their clients on the importance and workings of digital media.
• A lot of agencies still believe that media agencies are just buying and planning the vehicles for creative. Clients tend to have more respect for media-only agencies than creative boutiques do, and are starting to demand that digital creative bend to the media executions, instead of the other way around.

Interview: HR rep at Digital Media arm of a global ad agency March 31, 2008

AdBridge caught up with this Recruiter to talk about interdepartmental collaboration and how his HR department is adapting to the generation gap in the workplace:

On collaboration… 

•  It depends on the client and the holding company more than anything else. Two agencies will struggle to collaborate if they are owned by competing holding companies or if the client has multiple people managing multiple agency relationships.
• Internal collaboration between departments is tricky because employees are over-extended. When departments fail to collaborate, everyone loses, but it happens mostly because people are too pre-occupied with their own projects and deadlines to be able to contribute to a colleague’s as well. Territory battles are a reality, but stress is the bigger factor. 

On Millennials…

•  They tend to do well in digital because their co-workers are closer in age.
• HR departments really are actively working to adapt agencies to generational differences 
•  Millennials want everything too soon. They expect to get promoted quickly because they perform their duties well, but don’t understand the other factors at play.
•  Millennials tend to “top out quickly” because they lack management skills and have a hard time delegating day-to-day responsibilities. Promotions are about putting employees in charge of people, not just projects.
• Ad agencies are structured with intermediary job titles (Assistant Planner > Planner > Supervisor > Director) so that employees can gradually prepare for management roles. Hierarchy is an unfortunate side-effect of that model.