Tocquigny

Any agency worth its salt says it is an agent of innovation. However, this innovation usually applies exclusively to client projects or proposals for new work. I say “usually” because, as I read a few weeks ago in the New York Times, a small number of agencies are beginning to innovate for themselves – selling their own products and dabbling in start-up projects.

After reading this article, my natural reaction was, “Why isn’t every agency doing this?”

The easy answer is that most agencies aren’t willing to invest in staffing for “ideas,” which goes against the traditional model of hiring according to project need. The problem here is that delivering a full load of consistently great products to existing accounts in addition to focusing on new client work is hard enough. Going beyond that is difficult for many and can be a crusher of new ideas.

The other answer is that most agencies don’t know where to start. Do agencies encourage employees to innovate, and then back it up by fostering an atmosphere of entrepreneurship? Have agencies tapped into the full potential of their current talent, beyond their skill sets in Creative, Interactive, Media, etc?

Even for well-intentioned firms, the answer is no.

Fortunately, Tocquigny is ahead of this curve, which was illustrated recently by BuzzBrawl, our web app that gained renown at SXSW. BuzzBrawl is a product of innovation beyond the campaign, and a big step in the right direction.

I don’t expect many agencies to go too far down this road, but they should. While the sacrifice and paradigm shift might cause some short-term pain and raised eyebrows, doesn’t it sound appealing to be a thought leader (prospects love this) as well as being virtually recession-proof (employees love this) over the long haul – all while still doing great client work (clients love this)?

Still not convinced? Have you asked your staff recently? Ever heard of Google?

As a social responsibility enthusiast, I was engaged and inspired by TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie’s keynote earlier today at SXSWi.



If you know the TOMS Shoes story, you know the company gives a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased. They call it the “One for One Movement,” and it illustrates the kind of strategic corporate social responsibility that truly can be admired. After all, giving attracts and retains customers, employees, and partners.



It’s this foundation of values that can spur sustainable business success. It just has to be executed irreproachably.



Interestingly enough, Mycoskie announced today that on June 7th of this year, TOMS will make a huge announcement that will change them from a shoe company to a “One for One” company. TOMS has figured out how to create sustainable business - and social success - with shoes, and now they’re working to replicate it once again.

Innovation, as it is, can come in all shapes and sizes. We talk a lot about innovation in technology and business, but I see true beauty (and business value) when organizations and people can find ways to seamlessly integrate that sort of innovation with social innovation.

After all the strategic competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy is not a new concept, but these new organizational iterations, where social responsibility is integrated from head-to-toe, certainly present some structural ideas to consider.

The automotive industry has SEMA, consumer electronics has CES, and film and arts has Cannes. A short category-specific festival where industry giants converge to celebrate the past and share ideas about the future. For interactive, that festival is SXSW. It’s become a prophesier of what’s next for all things interactive. Twitter, now a mainstay for communicating with consumers in the digital space, got its big break here in 2007. The geolocation war between Foursquare and Gowalla was fought in 2010.

Located just 3 blocks from the convention center, Tocquigny has benefited immensely from the first hand glimpse into the future of digital communication. But in 2011 we took a proactive approach. Instead of waiting for the buzz to produce winners and losers, we tracked trends in real time with a purpose-built web application called Buzzbrawl. And we were tickled to discover CNN caught the Buzz about our buzz-tracking tool.

The news giant stopped by our View 512 party on Friday to demo the site and interview Craig Saper - Buzzbrawl’s brainchild. Below are excerpts from the article, which can be seen in its entirety on CNN.

“…The site provides a real-time look at the conversation happening in the media and on social media networks…

“…Saper wanted to move away from subjective trends list put out every year and find a quantifiable way to discover the top trends of SXSW…”

“…At any given time the site shows what’s trending based on conversations people are having on Twitter and mentions in the media. The site also shows where the majority of the conversation is coming from…” 

“…The screenshot … shows PC mentions were more positive than Mac mentions at 11 a.m. Saturday. All Things Digital, Mashable and TechCrunch were the top sources of the conversation. For PCs, the top sources were All Things Digital, The New York Times and TechCrunch. Overall, PCs were beating out Macs…”

“…’We’re really happy about…providing…a free tool to make sense of data and analytics,’ Saper said…”

Check out Buzzbrawl to see what’s trending in interactive right now. 

If I were the only Monday morning quarterback critiquing last night’s Super Bowl ads you might expect to see a list of my 5 favorites, 5 duds, and plenty of self-promoting discourse about product positioning, creative excellence, and blah, blah, blah. But I’m not the first, thousands of bloggers beat me to it.

Instead let’s chat about last night’s digital integration fails, citing my favorite spot of the night (ok I had to) as a perfect example of how marketers are just barely missing the mark. Watch the ad…

Very cool. And the curves on that thing, whoa, looks like Ms. Ladybug went through a gender transformation. Last night this made me thirst for more information about the 2011 Beetle - (this is also known as an ad doing its job). So, like most Americans, when I’m thirsty for more information I hop on Google to get the story. But apparently VW doesn’t think like me. Below is a screen grab of the results returned as I searched for “2011 Beetle”.

Concept car images, automobilemag, examiner, and motortrend…really? Hey V-dub, your $3 million spot did its job…I actually cared about a Beetle last night. So why didn’t you buy ‘2011’, ‘Beetle’, ‘VW’ and sponsor the results for the time frame during the Super Bowl so I could get some more info? I mean, why not drive me to an incredible purpose-built microsite with sneak-peek photos, behind the scenes design work and a history of the slug-bug to supplement this great ad? Integration fail.

Takeaways:

1. Understand and predict behavior; if this marketing effort goes exactly to plan, then what?
2. Timeliness is key; for one moment in time I was excited about the 2011 Beetle, it may never happen again.
3. Mass media and digital content are both the chicken and the egg; there are no rules for which comes first.

To VW’s credit, the Youtube page is very cool and they now (at 2:00pm Monday) are sponsoring results on Google (albeit to a youtube channel with no additional information).

You already know that in 2011 people will use social media to share more than ever before. What you may not know is that the more people share about themselves the smarter your business can be.