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Digital Advertising Strategy Countdown

In his overview of the forthcoming Ten Commandments Of Digital Advertising Strategy series of articles, AKQA's Saher Sidhom runs down the complete list. Agree, have a bone to pick or your own commandments to add? Then blog it or comment on the NMK site...

Feel free to start or join the debate around digital advertising strategy in this dedicated blog:
http://10commandmentsofdigitalstrategy.blogspot.com/

By Saher Sidhom, AKQA

[Register and post your own comments on this article below...]

1. Focus on results

At present, the case for investing in digital marketing is largely disjointed. Few go beyond comparisons with TV advertising, arguing that digital provides superior reach and is more measurable. This view is too simplistic.

The digital world needs to look beyond the din of self-congratulation and consider the role it can play in enhancing a senior marketer’s plan. The issue here is not about digital as a medium, it is about the changing nature of brands, consumer’s power and ultimately effectiveness is not about whether digital should be considered but why and how it should be used strategically, going beyond mere media arguments.

2. Respect the audience

Marketing and advertising have always used military terminology when talking to audiences. Terms such as campaigns, targeting, hits, impact, penetration, segmentation, firepower and bang for your buck all sadly still exist amongst today’s marketers. This cannot go on. Consumers are increasingly media and advertising savvy particularly in the digital domain.

Time and again online audiences tell us that they find online advertising annoying, disruptive and irrelevant – and yet we continue to create ads that do just that. We need to respect our audience in the digital domain. The challenge is to ask ourselves how we can be more relevant, more engaging and more entertaining so that we have a new value exchange between the advertiser and the audience.

3. Digital is more than online

In the mid nineties everyone wanted to have a website without knowing why. Today the paradigm has shifted. Now it is digital media that we should be considering. Digital is more than a website, it’s a film trailer on your 3G mobile, it’s an interactive transvision screen in a train station. Digital as media is everywhere. Digital content such as digital films, music, etc is everywhere.

The opportunity is in understanding what the rapid convergence of devices such as iPODS and increasing prevalence of digital content such as video gives us. We focus on key characteristics that makes digital a great opportunity: the fact that it allows instant interaction, closing the distance between thought and action in a single click.

4. Ideas dictate implementation

Integration is not about matching luggage. Media power is not about confusing the ‘buy’ with the ‘why’. The quagmire that surrounds media neutrality has stopped us from exploring the reasons why we should always execute integrated ideas in exceptional ways. We should put our thoughts into a big, compelling and ‘neutral’ idea and focus the execution with bias to the virtues of the medium. In fact it is not media neutrality that we should explore, it is media bias.

5. Work in a core team

Integration starts with the client. For marketing and advertising to deliver value it must be fully integrated into the client’s organisation all the way to the boardroom. On a tactical level the client must have a ‘helicopter’ or ‘birds eye’ view of all marketing activity, ideally, a core team or steering group should be assembled and tasked with collectively contributing to the big idea. This steering group should be neutral in their thinking, true to the brand, but utterly focused when they put ideas to action.

6. Stop advertising and start engaging

This is especially true online. In the beginning there were commodities, then trademarks, then brands, then commodities again. Branded content, reputation and behaviour have become the new definitions of the brand. Digital is central to this new way of thinking. It offers interaction, relevance, advocacy, engagement and involvement.

Today, brands are defined by content as much as they are by their advertising. Develop and distribute content that is relevant, wanted and indispensable to people. Be innovative in how the brand and the idea are experienced by your customer online. Creativity is crucial.

7. Measure everything (against the first commandment)

Online is by far the most measurable medium. Treat statistics as input and never lose sight of the original objective. Always remember that effectiveness and value can be demonstrated in many more ways than just increased awareness.

For example, you can measure the time somebody spends interacting with a viral film. This has been shown to be as much as 9 minutes – a long time for a consumer to spend choosing to have fun interacting with your brand. There are new ways to measure and evaluate digital brand activity.

8. Pioneer the way technology is used

There is always an innovation or a format that hasn’t been tried yet. The sad truth is that advertisers online are behind when it comes to how people are using the medium.

Digital audiences are ahead of the game when it comes to innovation. Napster, blogging, podcasting and tagging are just a few of the innovations made by the users of the Internet, not advertisers or service providers. There are ways to spot the best technologies and exploit them competitively.

9. Tell the truth

People go online for the truth. The Internet is the number one source of information for most people. Not just because people find information there, but because the information delivered by the Internet is close to what economists call 'perfect information'. In other words, a comprehensive search online delivers everything you could possibly need to make an informed decision.

This calls for digital advertising that lives and dies on genuine human insights, and truths that go beyond a ‘USP’ to deliver real trust.

10. Take courage

You don’t stand a chance if you are doing what everybody else is doing, saying what everybody else is saying, and advertising where everyone else is advertising. Courage will take your audiences places they haven’t been, it will be valued in its own right, and most importantly it will inspire action. This is about taking things head on it is about making your conversation with the user truly personal. Any brand should aim to differentiate itself. To do so its guardians need to make brave decisions that enable it to break the tedium of rubbish advertising that populates media today without adding to it. Truly creative campaigns and agencies were built on the courage of those involved as well as their creativity.

The Ten Commandments are written as a series of ten articles that are easily digestable, collectable and useable. Each article deals with a fundamental principle in the formulation and development of digital strategy from Objective setting to evaluation. The articles are full of examples and case studies from both our work at AKQA and within the digital industry in general. We hope you find them as useful and as valuable as we have.

Blog

Feel free to start and join a debate around digital advertising strategy in this dedicated blog:
http://10commandmentsofdigitalstrategy.blogspot.com/

About AKQA:
www.akqa.comAKQA is a global interactive agency that uses innovative ideas and technology to deliver results for the world's leading brands. They were named Creativity Magazine's first ever Interative Agency of the Year in 2006 and have been twice recognised as 'most respected agency' by New Media Age. Their global staff of over 350 people is based in five offices across San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, London and Singapore.