Digital agencies in this country: an even-handed analysis of why they’re generally not that good
Where to start?
A few points:
1) Other countries do it much better than the UK.
2) There’s no real reason why the UK should be so shite. Tough conditions such as low budgets (Subservient Chicken) and big brands (Ikea, Nike, BMW etc.) can produce classics in other countries.
3) UK Digital agencies are now easily in their second proper decade of mediocrity.
So here’s the major reason why: in the UK, digital advertising is still thought of as the nerdy, poorly-hung virgin to the Veyron-driving superstar that is Above The Line (I exaggerate to make a point). The glamour, budgets and salaries are all still in conventional media, and so therefore is the talent. I’m not for a second saying that is right, or good for the business, but if we’re all going to be honest about it, we have to admit that a job in a digital agency is only marginally more attractive than one in a direct agency.
The problem with this is that the vast majority of digital creative jobs are taken by the people who came closer to the bottom of the class at St Martins/Watford/Bucks/Wherever. Of course, there are a few exceptions and the blurring of lines between the two disciplines means that some of the talent inevitably crosses over (is it any surprise that probably the UK’s best-ever digital campaign, Met Police Knife Crime, was done by a big senior team in a big ATL agency? And ditto last year’s online Phillips films), but in general, a digital agency has a smaller and lower quality talent pool to choose from. This in turn means that the work doesn’t really get any better and the job remains as (un)tempting as ever.
Fortunately, some ATL creatives are making the crossover (eg: Alex and Adrian at Glue) and might help to bring things on, but the problem remains that for many digital agencies, much of life is spent doing the digital version of someone else’s ATL campaign, so less creativity is required, less job satisfaction is available and again, the job is less tempting to the best in the business. Also, if ATL agencies have good digital briefs, why would an ambitious person want to restrict themselves to a single medium?
Oddly enough, I have noticed that the digi-guru types (lots of places seem to have one; I’m not sure what the real job title is, but you know who I mean) in big ATL agencies are foreign. They seem to be in it for the chance to do great stuff, not because they couldn’t hack it ATL. Perhaps it’s just a matter of perception: in other countries they have great digi work to look up to, so find it entirely reasonable to aspire to that. They might also have less good/glamorous TV to entice them away (yes, I know UK TV is also pretty poor at the moment, but it’s still better than the digital work).
What’s also funny about this is fact that in 2007 there were doomy, industry-wide warnings that if a creative didn’t have any digital work in his or her book by 2009 they’d be a dead dinosaur, forever banished from the advertising industry. Well, that’s patently turned out to be complete bullshit. It’s nice if you’ve got some but it’s far from essential if you want a big job in a big agency. The emperor’s new clothes aspect of the medium has led to the feeling that ‘wolf’ has been cried (I know I’m mixing my fairy tales). When will digital be a really big deal in this country?
Another part of the problem is that much of digital’s success has ridden on the back of ATL. Cadbury’s Gorilla and John West Bear weren’t designed as virals. They just spread through the interwebz because they were a fucking brilliant TV ads (read the Ad Contrarian on this very subject). Another example of the best ATL-ers doing the real biz (same with Nike Write The Future) that makes digital waves.
So what’s the solution? Unfortunately, like most people who work primarily in non-digital, I’m not sure I care. I can be inspired by great work from around the world and see the UK’s ATL agencies get the closest to emulating it. If the UK’s digital shops don’t smack it out of the park it’s hardly a reason to lose any sleep.
One question… (actually two if permitted).
1) Why is online activity now dictating what happens above the line?
2) Does anyone have any examples of how online presence converts to hard sales. And I don’t mean Tesco online.
??? Answers to “whatthefuckgoodisonlineanyway?.com”
i have observed a UK digital lag from the pages of Campaign magazine over the years. and i honestly think that it’s partly because UK advertising has gotten way too sensible and planner-y and craft-y over the years.
and the online environment is about trying things out and winging it to see what works. you can’t control it. and you don’t have time to polish it.
and now that the digital dust has settled a bit we’re realizing it’s fundamentally hostile to advertising. which makes complete sense.
the thing is that pure digital is often dick waving for a very small audience.
it gets interesting when it’s linked up to other media, when it becomes interactive.
and agencies that get traditional as well put that jigsaw together better.
amv are doing it better than most – walkers, knife crime, sainsburys etc
Digital work =
A) Facebook/Twitter/insert latest internet favourite site version of an MB Games classic + rubbish prize the ‘user’ has no chance of winning.
B) Dull crowdsourcing idea about five people will enter, four of them will work at the agency that made it.
C) Banner ads, but increasingly Facebook ads because these actually work
D) A campaign that requires you to tag something on Twitter, or yourself so you feel like a cormorant after a particularly grizzly encounter with the RSPB
Digital is too obsessed with the medium and not why we use it. Imagine ATL creatives creating work around the functions of the TV remote/DVR/RGB channel.
I can’t believe you’re talking about this.
what about campaignlives leading story about a Coke ad that has been banned by the ASA for misleading consumers! Gotta go, can’t wait to see what else there is to read… oooh a cd i’ve never heard of from agency republic (are they still around?) is leaving amid a restructure… come on ben, keep up.
yes, i agree on the gorilla john west thing.
if a client comes to you and says they want a viral, i like to say to them, ‘well, you do understand that most things that are sent around are either full of sex or swearing or animals shitting themselves’. so we will have to compete with that?
and they say, yes well obviously our brand values aren’t that, but if you could do something just as funny, incorporating our brand values of ‘fresh, contemporary and irrelevant’
When I was working at BBH, they invested heavily, and I mean heavily, (big ‘H’, Granby Elephant Bold Condensed type) in ‘Digital’. Getting in the ubiquitous Swedes, the digi-cd from the US, a shit-hot Brazilian team and lots of those super-sized Macs. Every brief came with the now mandatory, ‘show how the idea works in the digital space’ (I love that line). Trouble was, the clients the agency had didn’t buy any of it. They just wanted their usual ATL stuff and would then give those ideas to their specialist digital agency. All the potential was there, but most of the work ended up being ‘pro-active’, produced more in hope than anything else.
Sounds like big Ben and his big senior teams at big senior atl agencies have run out ideas for big shiny tv ads and need to have a pop at something.
Don’t blame you mate. Just how big were this big senior team?
digital guys get paid very well for their mediocrity. i think you’d be surprised ben.
i don’t think we’ve got beyond search and banners in the uk?
some muppet will quote akqa and their nike id to me, but i don’t think examples of utility count.
if we’re talking about branded digital advertising. we don’t really do that. though, there are quite a few case studies that lie and say we do.
i’m off to upload a video of me shitting on the andrex site and tweet about it to my followers. both of them.
There are too many digital agencies who regard themselves as a closed shop. I was once turned down for freelance at one of these places because, in the words of the CD, “we can’t take the risk”.
If digital wants to make an impact it’s got be more open-minded.
In the meantime, we’ve got to educate clients about what is and isn’t possible in the medium. I spent the whole of yesterday morning arguing with someone who wants “a presence on Facebook to increase brand awareness”. *Sigh*
Dom, has AKQA done anything as good as Knife Crime or Phillips?
Love your pot noodle spoofs, but I don’t know anything else you’ve done.
Make me jealous and I’ll stop having a pop.
Very true point at the tail end: awesome TV ads are going viral, its not even a digital campaign. Same for Old Spice.
Bernardo Carvalho
Head of Digital
http://www.bravomedia.co.uk
sorry ben, but the fact that you just had to ask what akqa have done aside from pot noodle discredits your ability to talk about digital with any authority whatsoever.
it’s also telling that the only ‘digital’ ideas you seem to rate are essentially glorified pieces of content.
The mere fact that digital spend is on the increase signals that clients are increasingly looking to invest in digital channels – there are some great bits of work out there, but it seems you’ve glossed over them, perhaps you were not target audience? Success shouldn’t be measured by how many bloggers/tweeters/facebookers ‘mention’ your brand. Success should translate back to sales. I suppose the difficulty with digital is translating the display back to sales. There is tracking available across all kinds of digital work now, but not as far as the till. I suspect when the link is made, there may be a period where investment in Digital may actually start outstripping traditional media. Who knows. It’s all speculation, isn’t it.
Perhaps as an ATL Guy, you could consider widening your remit and taking on digital briefs that don’t have an answer that is twitter/facebook/microsite and then you’ll start seeing possibilities.
wonderfully belligerent post that made me laugh.
However in my eyes if you want to know why UK digital is shit, you should look at the ATL agencies. Hand me down budgets and demands for matching luggage, from ATl to digital agencies on big clients, means that good ideas are stolen, snaffled, stamped upon or deliberately not sold through to the Big Clients by the ATL agencies. Even media agencies stifle attempts to create digital movement campaigns that rely on no paid for media, because they can see their margins erode. Also having to sit through meetings where ATL creative teams come up with “revolutionary” digital ideas, whilst asking where iPhone apps are bought from, causes even the most evangelical digital team to die inside.
The closing of digital arms inside the big players as senior management claim there ATL teams now understand digital (if it wasn’t so tragic i’d fucking laugh), has only lead to more hand me down crap.
Claire, how do you know I don’t take on those briefs? How do you know I don’t see possibilities?
And MP, I rate plenty of other digital ideas but the ones I mentioned are the best from the UK. The best non-content one is probably that balloon race for Orange or the never-ending website for the same client.
The Ikea thing where you win the stuff they put up on Facebook is great, as is Nike Plus, but of course they’re from other countries.
What’s actually very telling is the fact that the UK has never won a Cyber Lion Grand Prix.
What’s driving the rise of southern aid agencies? | Jonathan Glennie…
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…
@jon
at least you’re not bitter
Oh there we go : “Cyber Lion Grand Prix” the other great way to judge digital work. Pfffff.
You wouldn’t say that if you had one.
@vessel, hahahahahahahaha me? never
There’s plenty of decent digital teams and work out there Ben, but you are right that mostly they are limited by what they can achieve because the spend still goes above the line. Leigh & Scott (Stella Lost Souls), Rich & Simon (Pot Noodle at Glue, btw)
The point is, or should be that agencies will no longer be ATL/DM/Digital, they need to be all things now, because a good idea should stretch across whatever media is appropriate, not pigeonholed by lines marked out in the 1950’s.
PS I’ve just started reading your book, I’m only a few pages in at the moment but so far with sparrow sizwed wasps knopcking about, it feels about as realistic as your sounding of the death knell of digital….
UK ATL is shit as well.
The UK’s best ATL shop were voted ‘direct agency of the year’ at Cannes last year. Our ATL is the world’s ‘direct’.
Weird one this Ben, but as a creative I actually find digital a lot more fun/interesting/satisfying to work on than almost anything else these days.
Anyone else with me?
Agencies like Poke and Fighting Machine do some smashing stuff. Is any of it world class? Who gives a fuck. Any advertising that manages to be even slightly playful in this day and age deserves 10 big chocolate medals.
IMHO (as they say on t’internet).
PS: Wish agencies would stop differentiating between “Copywriters” and “Digital Copywriters” though. The hippy cunts.
IMHO.
All this negativity – it’s tragic. A lot of UK digital agencies produce terrible work, yes. But a lot of UK ATL agencies produce terrible work too. What’s new?
Sorry if i’m a little behind the times here but, whats a digital?
OK, I’ll say again:
1. I’m not saying ATL is brilliant right now either, but ATL teams have produced the UK’s best digital work.
2. I’m not saying being something other than world class is a crime (particularly if non-WC agencies are fun places to work at). Sure, some digital briefs are fun/interesting/satisfying. I never said they weren’t.
3. I’m not sounding the death knell of anything, particularly not digital advertising, which I think is as healthy as any other form. If you think I am then read my post again.
4. Gromp: none of this is new. That’s the point I’m making: over a decade has passed and the UK digi agencies have nothing to compare with the best of the rest of the world
5. Snappy: f you think my novel is unrealistic now, just wait till the giant cockroaches appear.
6: I notice in all these whiny comments that absolutely fucking NOBODY has pointed out a world-class game-changer from a UK digital agency. Please, prove me wrong, otherwise I’ll just have to assume I’m not.
It’s an interesting debate this one.
I think gout-legs is wrong not to consider the importance of utility. What you do is a key element of who you are. Especially in a digital space – where people are going to do stuff – watch, learn, experience…
But, whereas with TV or even Cinema, where you’ve got an unwritten social contract that ads will be there, there isn’t that with the internet. It’s why people still don’t enjoy a ‘takeover’ ad. No-one is waiting for an online ad. No-one.
And, fundamentally, it comes down to ‘is it interesting?’. What’s the idea? Same as it ever was.
From my experience, the digital creative teams often have no interest in the broader concept of a brand. There are some exceptions but, as I see it… good ‘traditional ATL’ teams get the concept of brand ideas….that come to life in communications and in all aspects of the brand. However, as some noted above, many digital teams see technology and want to use it – regardless of what the brand needs to communicate, sell, promise or behave like. Now…this isn’t always true…and examples above have shown how BIG IDEAS can be born in digital arenas that chime perfectly with the brand’s needs and business needs….but invariably a digital team won’t consider for one second how their idea will affect the sales team, the customer service team, the R&D team etc etc….or what the broader consumer experience should be beyond the digital. The earlier post about great names links into this – those great names built great brands – connecting ideas from ad to packaging to sales team. They created powerful and compelling voices, ideas and behaviours for brands that travelled into every part of the brand ….and thus into every part of consumer experience. And modern digital teams, as a whole, don’t.
Why not?
(Great comment, BTW.)
Also, all advertising must either be entertaining or useful. Digital can be either of these, even more so than ATL (you have no BACC or time limits and there are far greater tools of interactivity). Why are UK digi agencies making less with more?
Out of curiosity, and moving out of the world of the advertising industry, just what has the UK done online that’s of interest?
I ask because i honestly can’t think of anything, i could be wrong. But maybe that is why it’s falling behind those countries where online business is just as healthy as the online advertising business, and with the ideas (and some cyber grand prix) to match.
I always click on the online ads because I know it costs the advertiser money when I do. Serves the bastards right for being so annoying. I never, ever, buy anything.
@Ben
Isn’t it simply that an understanding of technology, as required by digital creatives, is more the preserve of a scientific, and therefore less ‘creative’, mindset?
[…] digital middle Posted on January 20, 2011 by theescapepod| Leave a comment (inspired by a post at Ben Kay’s stimulating blog) The past decade has seen much thumb twiddling and huffing and puffing over the role of […]
Didn’t AKQA win a cyber grand prix with that eco:Drive thingy?
great, recent digital work from the uk:
monopoly city streets
nike true city
orange balloonacy
fiat ecodrive
mclaren the race
Yes they did.
I take it all back.
What’s eco:Drive?
On the other point, I don’t see why people have to be that technically minded to have good ideas in digital. To implement them, yes, but not to think them up.
Hang on, I’ve looked eco:drive up. Very clever. That’s one. Any more?
sorry steve, you miss understood.
i meant that if you don’t take into account the digital things that provide utility.
Everything is shit.
The one thing the americans have got right is the balance of entertainment/brand/product.
Most of their great digital work doesn’t rely on the invention of utility.
That’s where we get it wrong i believe.
Because then we stray away from ideas and into product design.
eco drive is a perfect example of the inventiveness of utility and product.
Does it make me want to buy their car or re-appraise it in any way?
Nope. It’ll just tell me not to ride the clutch.
Hello again.
I wasn’t necessarily disagreeing with you, Herr Kay. On the contrary. I was just making a (half-arsed) point along the lines of “Hey, we might not have world class digital work, but we have some world class digital agencies!” The standard of their work will depend, as ever, on the standard of their clients. And most creative, innovative clients happen to live abroard. In tax havens. Because the UK is an expensive toilet cubicle to conduct business in.
Now please wash your hands.
Fuck no, you DON’T have to be technically minded to think up digital ideas.
Can we send this notion to the gas chamber?
Yeah, eco drive is clever, but fucking boring.
Hats off for the award but I couldn’t get to the end of the description. I tried but then I broke my jaw yawning and had to go to A&E.
My bad.
Joseph Heller invented the digital industry in the UK:
digital agencies don’t attract incredibly talented staff because they don’t have budgets because they can’t justify their existence/moneymaking potential because they don’t have indredibly talented staff making brilliant work.
Ben – from March 1st the ASA remit covers online marketing sites. However toothless the ASA may be I doubt that clients will want to cross them too often.
The upside is that we won’t have to look at GoutLegs having a crap on the Amdrex site…
Holy shit, so distracted have I been by this yawny debate that I have only just spotted some topical online content. The first Walkthroughs of Levels 18 and 21 of Bubble Ball.
Why not check Campaign’s Top Ten Digital Ads of the Decade: they’re all great, all have won loads of awards (national & international), and only Nike+ is not from the UK.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/970510/Advertising-Noughties—Top-10-digital-ads/
yeah, you won’t “HAVE” to…but…you know you will.
Modern Toss meets Kickers. Made by a UK digital agency. C’mon these are funny.
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/55483097
Gout-legs I had to look and you ain’t well mate. I think you’ve got..oh the answers in your name.
They are quite funny. Not funny enough to pass around IMHO, but quite funny.
Can someone tell us if AKQA invented the whole Eco Drive concept (rather than Fiat themselves) or merely do the web interface?
Fuck driving economically.
That’s a good point Gilbert. I’m fairly certain RGA just brought functionality and design to the genius idea that is Nike Plus. Not that it was easy, but they rode someone else’s brains to every award in the world.
Do these digital people do ANYTHING? (smiley face etc.)
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The eco-drive idea did come from AKQA and they reengineered the car to incorporate it.
no they didn’t damo.
dij d l od brod kast i . communications The radio broadcasting of audio signals encoded in digital form.
[…] So here we are in 2011 and the UK advertising industry in the UK is still not quite firing on all digital cylinders. […]