Roundtable Report- Creativity is not just a banner campaign

Sponsored by: Aquent

Guests Attending:

Steve Huston,  Aquent
Robin Langford,  Netimperative
Melina Jacavou, Propel London
Barry Gelie, Reed Elsiever
Sue Nunn, Aquent
Simon Lubin,  Friction TV
Jennifer Murphy, Netimperative
Jo Underhill, Property Finder
Ty Roberts, Addicted2tv

The debate began with Steve asking just how we define the word ‘creativity’ within the context of digital advertising. He argued that creativity is more than just ‘pretty pictures’, and outlined four ’key principles ‘ of creativity.

1. The Great Idea – ‘This means that it will work not only on a website but on the back of a No 10 bus and on a stand in Tesco’s’.

2. The Craft-  ‘Typography, sensitive use of colour, detail, the look and feel, the experience’.

3. Being Crazy- ‘Letting yourself go and thinking laterally’.

4. Digital Integration- ‘Understand the technology and production of the projects that you are creating. Delivery of a project that has not been led creatively leads to disaster’.

In terms of creativity, Steve said he had has seen ‘an aspect of decline in our digital world’ and would like to see more innovation beyond standard banner campaigns. 

Barry Gelie at Reed Elsiever said that creativity was being hampered by too many ‘checkpoints’ within organizational structures, resulting in compromised visions and ‘everything looking the same’. 

Sue Nunn at Aquent said some of the most creative people she has encountered are in smaller agencies. These people have subsequently struggled to find work at larger, more established agencies. Sue thought this was down to creativity being perceived as ‘a threat to egos’ within big firms that have long established working practices and standards.

Steve then asked the panel to provide examples of truly creative online campaigns.  Ty Roberts, from Addicted2tv, showed some of his agency’s work, which demonstrated the range of briefs and parameters imposed by clients.

The first example, a Colgate toothpaste campaign, showed a series of frames which told a linear story encouraging consumers interaction to get free sample.  Ty said the ads increased consumer purchase intent by an impressive 20%. 

The second example, a 2003 microsite and CD-Rom for the Sony Ericson T310 with an inbuilt Tony Hawk mobile game, was an early example of peer-to-peer marketing- allowing users to create their own wall graffiti and send on to a friend.

The final ad, for a James Bond exhibition sponsored by The Times, tiesdin the newspaper’s brand values with the James Bond theme, adding puzzle solving elements using The Times crossword.

Steve asked those in creative agencies how they come up with their ideas and what methods and environments inspire good ideas.

Ty said a typical brainstorming period would involve 2-3 days talking, and he stressed it was important that people don’t open their laptops straight away during the thought process. Steve agreed with this method, saying people often need to step away from their machines, pointing out that ‘creativity is not a computer’.

Jo Underhill at Property Finder thought that creativity leant itself to better to branding campaigns- but this was a key problem. She said that the Internet is still regarded as a response medium which meant many advertisers go the ‘search and direct response route’ when allocating their online budget. She thought more information and demonstrable data on internet branding campaigns were needed to get advertisers to invest in creative campaigns.

The conversation moved on to looking at the rise of video ads. Ty thought Youtube worked well as a platform to post videos, as the infrastructure is all in place- negating the need for your own video hosting platform. However, he was cautious about relying too heavily on big campaigns that would take up a lot of bandwidth. While this is great for people on 20MB broadband connections, what about those still on 2MB?

The discussion moved on to the role of awards in nurturing creativity. Many in the panel thought the typical entry fees were too expensive and awards are just ‘another products that magazines sell’. Sue argued that now awards are established, they should be free to enter- with funding coming purely from sponsors and tickets. This in turn would help awards to encourage real creativity by leveling the playing field amongst agencies.

Steve thought that creativity within the digital industry was following a typical ‘commoditisation curve’, where after a period of innovation, creativity growth slows and eventually flattens out- becoming a price lead market. He used the example that many people are just following a pattern of creating a banner then uploading it to an ad network- with little innovation involved.

Melina Jacavou from Propel London agreed, saying that many agencies that were once creative just become ‘production houses’ once they have reached a certain level of maturity.

Jo then turned the debate onto the growth of using tracking and web analytics to measure campaign success. Although using tracking is useful, Jo argued that it was stifling creativity as it once again favours search and direct response campaigns and ‘branding’ goes out the window. Ty agreed, and said that marketers need to understand the deeper implications of the metrics they are using.

The panel went on to look at recruitment and company structures, and the role this has to play in encouraging innovation.  Barry felt that staff retention was key in nurturing creativity in a business, and Sue added that this came down to instilling good work/life balances within the company structure. She thought agencies need to focus more on producing quality work rather than completing multiple projects at speed, as she said quality work will build a reputation and bring in the money in the long term.

Melinda saw a ‘starvation’ of real talent in the digital sector, and Ty agreed, saying “there’s not a shortage of people, but there is a shortage of good people”. He felt agencies should have more appretinceship schemes in place to seed new talent.

As the debate came to a close, the panel concluded by looking at the main action points that could help the industry in general move towards more creativity. Barry felt that more structure to aid creative thinking was needed, while many in the panel felt that more input from agencies was needed, alongside greater education at the client level in unlocking the potential of digital media.