A market never gets saturated with a good product, but is very quickly saturated with a bad one*

*Henry Ford.  It's good that he can't see the auto industry today, the poor fellow would probably re-die. Anyway, that's not the point. What this sentence reminded me of is digital marketing "products" in 2008. I really don't think that ads, branding campaigns, and promo efforts were ever more boring, quickly "saturating the market."  Lessons learned don't sound convincing enough. While I am marginally interested in yet another lame mention that "consumers need to be engaged", I am more curious about who should we thank for the awesomness of digital marketing today?

If I had to rank campaigns by 1) futility of the effort; 2) waste of client's money; 3) display of a thorough non-understanding of the digital space, my personal favs would be: 1) AT&T Speak in Thumbs, by Atmosphere BBDO - I was silent for a moment when I saw this one, unsure if someone put me in a time machine as a revenge for something I said on my blog or, this is a cruel joke on Atmosphere BBDO (by someone who approved the campaign), or both; 2) J.C. Penny Doghouse by Saatchi&Saatchi - this one is no worse than any 30-sec spot, just longer (much, much longer). Does something that lasts 5 minutes and regularly takes the equal amount of time to load count as "viral" video? Isn't then file sharing of feature-length videos also "viral"? Funny how the standards work ... Anyway, the campaign plays with honestly retarded stereotype of male's insensitivity + it cost way more than the attention it generated. Not even mentioning the sales-lift here since J.C.Penny asked to be included in the fed stimulus plan on Dec. 24 + it's sooo long, who has that kind of time & attention online? Also, what's up with Kevin Robert's "i am a royal douchebag" blogging?? (someone should pass him a note that economic times are, well, tough); 3) Digital Drag Race for Intel - it breaks my heart to mention Razorfish again here, but this campaign, after almost 2 months, generated 12 video entries and 10 YouTube channel subscribers. BUT - to be fair - the live digital drag races are planned to be held on January 9&10th in Vegas AND are yet about do wonders for the campaign :); 4) Sprint's Plug Into Now - I just don't like Flash used like this; more importantly, entertainment value is moderate and the potential for the long-term interest is marginal ("my body just made 50 mil new cells" ... ok, I have to go now). Never been a big fan of robot-like voices, too. 5) Fiat Eco Drive by AKQA - there's a lingering question of why to over-design an interface for a great service and, more importantly, why to design it sooo terribly. Note: the target audience is ADULT MALE, and the interface looks like this.  I am sure that there are many many more sad digital marketing efforts, but this is all I could remember just now. What's worse, as time goes by, I have increasing problem differentiating between campaigns by these agencies. Not only they are all equally bad, they are for the most part each other's imitations and variations of the same formula (not sure what the formula is, tho).

But, since this is the time to make New Year's wishes, if I could choose, I would like to see more stuff from these agencies: 1) Crispin, Porter + Bogusky - whatever Crispin delivers, generates [not always justified] buzz, but they are the only ones who created a campaign that combined great understanding of the audience, of their client's brand, and of the medium used for promotion - think Whopper Freakout; 2) Anomaly - true to their name, they don't fail to generate a steady stream of campaigns that are always slightly different than what everyone else is doing: Converse & Identitee; 3) HUGE - their deliverables will not exactly spur consumers' imagination, but their clients always know exactly where each dollar of their budget is spent + HUGE knows that brand experience = user experience. And this is why users come back to Family.com & JetBlue.com. 4) Barbarian Group - they have yet to prove themselves with more campaigns, but since they have some of the smartest people in the industry, I am eager to see what they will come up with. Putting them here for their potential, and for "I saw it on CNN" + Getty Images moodstream; and 5) Big Spaceship - not sure if this one really belongs here, since they are mostly a production studio, but ever since HBO "Voyeur" thingy with BBDO I can't help but thinking that there's a lot more to them than just executing someone else's ideas. To conclude: these 5 companies are very different from each other, and I think that's great: diversity of market players is really the key to innovation (in contrast, all traditional & big digital players are pretty much the same ...). So, not only that the outcome of a competitive market is innovative products/solutions, but the continuous transformation. Those people compete on both on innovation & on their expertise. Plainly said, that means that it's not very likely that they will ever saturate the market with the bad product. They won't even deliver two products that are the same. Hope that clients take notice.

Comments

[Alan Wolk]

Gonna call you out on JetBlue.com Ana.
I don't think it lives up to the brand's reputation.
Even did a post on it: http://is.gd/eDOI

It lacks the functionality of even kayak.com in that you can't search flights from all 3 NYC airports. Or see what the round trip fare is all at once. (I'm rarely flying one-way)

Compare it to the new Canadian airline Porter Air: flyporter.com which is just a cleaner interface.

Since most people's first and main interaction with an airline is with a website, that's pretty key.

On the other hand, I think your assessment of Crispin is spot on: they try and everything really does look like someone who cared had something to do with it. You might not like everything, but better that than not remembering it.

[Ana Andjelic]

Alan, when I learn of any other agency that can directly relate the traffic on the client's site with the client's stock price, I will be happy to revise my statement. Until then, it stays. JetBlue is also one of the strongest air travel brands; the site's got to do something w it, don't you think? :)

JetBlue flies only from JFK - hence prob. the lack of the possibility to search from all 3 airports...

Also: I don't think that I know any other agency has such a meticulously developed usability testing process. If there's no 2-way fare displayed, there's prob a good reason for it. Their research has also shown that people tend to buy more tickets when default passengers is "0" instead of "1" - it's not very common-sense, but again, those guys know what they are doing. They test so much that they are truly accountable for the each button selected. Not to mention something crucial like 1- or 2-way fare...

That said, I am sure your objections as a user are to the extent valid. But - as you probably know - there are always 2 actors in the web dev process, the agency and the client.

[Alan Wolk]

Actually Ana, Jet Blue flies out of all three NYC area airports-- JFK, Newark and LaGuardia.
So there goes that defense ;)

Your description of Huge's process explains the rest.

JetBlue's brand story is all about their customer-centric focus: they were the airline that focused on what their customers wanted.

My point wasn't that the website was awful, just that it did not match the customer-centric focus of the brand.

The "probably sell more tickets like that" comment is telling: I'm sure that's exactly why they break it up like that. But it doesn't create a better experience for the customer. Just a more confusing one.

Hence the title of my post from last May: Consistency Is King

The website experience is inconsistent with not consistent with what the brand or with the ersatz "Jetting" campaign they've been running.

Contrast that http://www.virginamerica.com which provides a running total of your flight in a floating widget on the side. Or http://www.kayak.com which provides all sorts of useful costumer-centric tricks.

[Ana Andjelic]

Well, I tried :)

The problem w consistency is that JWT actually owned the "happy jetting" campaign and that they have not AT ALL coordinated their efforts with HUGE. This is not a new problem of digital media / traditional media campaigns, where different agencies who handle different media do not communicate.

Again, since HUGE takes a lot of pride in their user-centric focus, I find it hard to believe that they would create the site that does not reflect that. But here's where my knowledge ends, and someone from HUGE who actually worked on the site is better suited to address your critique. If I worked on that, or any other HUGE's project for that matter, I would be happy to continue this conversation with you. What I can answer is that I think that HUGE does what they do well - design great user experience sites. But our opinion on this can surely differ.

Virgin America is a great brand & a great experience (which should equal), I agree. Kayak is an aggregator, and as such belongs to a different category.

[Alan Wolk]

So who do you think is responsible for the lack of coordination between the people who build the website and the people who do the advertising?

Is it a client issue?

I can't but think that if I had an airline, I'd make sure the website was at the heart of the marketing efforts and that everything stemmed from there, since the website would be the equivalent of my retail store.

[Ana Andjelic]

Is it the client issue? Or agencies' issue? Let me know once you buy an airline :)

I think the client is probably satisfied with the website's business otherwise it would fire HUGE. Again, the reason I listed HUGE is the proven accountability of the sites they build. People use their sites and client makes money. Knowing where your money goes as a client is not something that most agencies can prove with their campaigns.

[Alan Wolk]

Right-- but I can't but think that things would be more effective overall if the client made sure that what they were doing on the website aligned with what they were doing with the marketing and advertising. Or are you saying that it doesn't matter so long as the website has proven accountablilty?

[Ana Andjelic]

Hey -- I am not sure I follow anymore. You are saying that JetBlue is doing a bad job with their site despite the site's traffic, tickets sold, and it's being one of the main revenue-generating channels for JetBlue. Also, if I understand correctly, you think that the user experience on the site is bad (and misaligned with the brand experience) based on your own disliking vs. it being created by a company that does user testing every month to see what's the customer drop-off rate on the site, if & where it happens, and how to improve user flow and purchase path if necessary.

In case on JetBlue, I think that site experience is way more important for the brand and for the company than any "happy jetting" minisite or some equally umeasurable promo effort.

It comes down to what's called "moments of truth" - does a minisite impression buys plane tickets or each accountable step in the purchase path on the site?

[Alan Wolk]

Whoa-- you're doing a mash-up of two different trains of thought. Though I suspect you know that ;)

I think the website isn't a good reflection of what the brand is about- it may be tested up the wazoo, but as a consumer, I think it's pretty mediocre, especially compared to Virgin America -at their website lives up to the airline's image. There's no right or wrong answer here Ana-- my subjective opinion as a consumer is that the site is a let-down.

Now as for aligning the advertising and website, I'm not sure why that's a bad idea. I was pretty explicit that if I were in charge, I'd make sure the advertising was a reflection of what was on the website and not the other way around. So I'm not sure

(a) where you got that I was suggesting a Jetting microsite (WTF?)

or

(b) why you took that as a hostile statement. I was asking why you thought the client allowed two completely unrelated marketing messages to exist (the Jetting campaign and the website) since it would seem that a single unified message (a la Virgin Atlantic) would make more sense. So to repeat, that was a question unrelated to my feelings about the actual website.

So to summarize in an attempt to avoid further confusion and angry words:

1. We disagree about the website. I'm looking at it as a potential customer, using subjective criteria, you're looking at it as a digital marketing professional, using objective criteria. So we can agree to disagree here.

2. I was in no way, shape or form suggesting anything vaguely resembling a Jetting Microsite (did you really think I'd recommend something like that?) and was just commenting on how it was unfortunate that they did not maintain consistency throughout their marketing messages.

This comment has nothing to do with my feelings about JetBlue's current website and everything to do with my belief in the value of a consistent marketing message.

I then asked your opinion as to where you'd place the blame for that mistake, since so many companies tend to make that same error.

Hope this makes things clearer.

[Alan Wolk]

Upon re-reading that last comment came off as much angrier/nastier than I'd intended. Trust me that my frustration was with not with Ms. Andjelic, but with myself for not being able to get my point across clearly. Mea culpa

[Ana Andjelic]

Yea, it seems that we are having some trouble communicating here. It's like that sometimes with the written word. I have nothing else to add to my argument without repeating myself here, so:

1) a lot of people dislike Virgin America site, too and call it a crappy experience. Everyone has their opinion, but I trust HUGE who are in the business because they are experts.

2) it would be ideal if all marketing efforts are aligned, but that is still exception rather than a rule since different agencies have different expertise (digital, traditional) and for whatever reason they don't communicate. But also, when a single agency owns the whole campaign, it also may not turn out to be ideal, because of the lack of different expertises under one roof - just think Sprint Now by Goodby. Not great.

We can talk more once we meet in person. Suspect we'll come to an understanding more quickly.