Famouser.

This past Friday afternoon an anonymous op-ed was posted on AgencySpy. The article attempted to identify some agencies that are ‘doing it right’ with respect to interactive work. The writer listed three: The Barbarian Group, Firstborn Multimedia, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Regardless of the fact that there should have been more agencies on that list, the article itself was quickly relegated to the sidelines, as creatives, and yes, even the heads of some of the best interactive shops launched a series of personal attacks against each other. Traditional vs. digital creatives, full service agency vs. interactive shops, and sadly even boss vs. ex-employee. The mud was slung far and wide in a shameful public display that is sure to be the subject of much debate in the upcoming week.

As one commenter ( domanijon ) aptly noted, “The industry has definitely been acting its age lately - after all i guess it is a confrontational teenager right now.”

I didn’t comment on the post. To be honest, I don’t really want anything to do with that conversation. A lot of the companies represented there are ones that I have either had great experiences with, or hope to work with in the future. So I’d rather just stay out of it.

In my experience, I’ve always looked to interactive agencies to help bring a conceptual idea to life. I’ve never hired an interactive agency to fill a conceptual deliverable that is needed to round out a campaign. Of course, that is because I am mainly an interactive creative... That’s my job. But big traditional agencies with no interactive capabilities do this all the time. There are a lot of old-school creatives out there that for whatever reason (fear perhaps?), still think interactive is a joke.

One needs to look no further than at comments like this: “You are hired help. Nothing more. If it isn't you, it will be someone else. Flash = picking lettuce.”

We as an industry need to make this right. Because the process of working with external interactive agencies is in most cases, crucial to making great online work. The reason is simple, and it’s not because traditional agencies suck; they don’t (well, ok, some do). It has to do with creating opportunities further develop the work.

This was explained to me by a well-known commercial director during an interview we did for a behind-the-scenes video (the director will remain nameless because the campaign is still unreleased). One of the questions had to do with his opinion on the process of working with agencies. He said he loved working with agencies, but that there was a simple reason that directors don’t work in agencies: because the work would never get any better if they did.

His argument was that the process of selecting a director actually created a new creative opportunity to push the work further. The massive amount of energy required for an agency and client to come to agreement on a campaign is exhausting. If the director was a part of all the conversations that led to him/her directing the spot, the work would never evolve. They would get beat up along with everyone else. But having the director enter the process at a later stage allowed them to change their perceptions of what the work should be. And the work gets better as a result.

His example was in reference to creating television. So how is this different from the interactive process? It isn’t. And we shouldn’t be treating it like it is.

The work we do as interactive creatives working on the agency side is best when we use this crucial opportunity between client approval and production to more fully develop our creative. When this new perspective and a new toolset is added to the mix, we have an opportunity to challenge the campaign and push it further.

Which is why all of the great shops that were (or weren’t) mentioned in the AgencySpy article need to be a valued part of our process. We should be using them as partners, and they should get credit for the work they do. But based on what I read this weekend, we’ve got a long way to go.



The article, and ensuing shit-storm can be found here.

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Get ready for a pseudo-intellectual musing with nebulous (non-applicable, even) data as proof-point, followed by a personal, yet industry-related insight that by sheer coincidence happened to occur while speaking on a panel at ad:tech. Here goes...

A quick google search yielded the following:

# of results for 'simple' = 736,000,000

# of results for 'complex' = 260,000,000

Question: 'simple' outnumbers 'complex' by 3x the article results on google because...

a. Simplicity is more difficult to define than complexity, logically resulting in more attempts to expound upon its meaning.

b. Simplicity is more desirable than complexity, and therefore is the topic of more debate as to the means of attaining it.

c. Seriously, make your point already, dick.

d. That was the only example that worked out in your favor (try 'simplicity' vs. 'complexity'...).

My point with simplicity, as it applies to interactive creatives is this: KIFS. Keep It Fucking Simple. This goes for internal creative director presentations, as well as client presentations. If you can't explain the core of your concept in a sentence, you are in big trouble.

I was speaking about something completely different on the panel at ad:tech when this idea slipped out of my face, and it ultimately became a bigger point than the one I had intended to make. The idea of a single-sentence explanation of your interactive work is an important one, because when we talk about things 'going viral' or becoming 'sharable' or 'spreadable' or 'social', we are essentially saying that your concept is pure enough to be communicated quickly amongst a group of friends (we can put aside the quality of the idea for a moment here and just assume it is awesome or funny or culturally relevant).

So why should it be a single sentence? Because that’s about all the time your user is going to give you when they talk about it with a friend, or tweet it, or post it on facebook. If they can’t communicate the heart of your project that quickly, they probably won’t get it in the first place, and certainly won’t bother trying to explain it to others. I’ve seen enough full-page descriptions of online ideas, complete with multiple pages of comps to know that if the core of the idea isn’t pure, none of that extra work is going to sell it through. Note: this doesn't mean that the execution necessarily needs to be simple, there are plenty of examples of beautifully complex interactive work out there, but if you want your user to walk away with a clear takeaway, then, well, your idea needs to be clear as well.

Therefore it’s logical that the creative process should begin with the simple exercise of trying to communicate the core of your idea in this short format. (for the really talented creatives: see if you can fit it in a tweet). This will help you when it comes time to show the CD or The Client. They’ll get the idea faster, see how it can be sharable, and you’ll get the opportunity to take the idea further… assuming it is a good idea in the first place… but that’s a whole other pseudo-intellectual musing.


(Now that I think about it, this is a pretty complex post for the topic of simplicity…)

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