Last week Jon Bond became an investor, advisor and strategic partner with Victors & Spoils. In the last few months, Jon and I spent a lot of time talking about the future of advertising, not only between ourselves but also with dozens of clients. Jon has a clear, expansive vision for the future. I’m excited to be working with him. Here’s a conversation we had over the past couple of weeks. Buckle your seat belt. The future is at the doorstep.
John Winsor: Lately, we’re seeing some big culture shifts taking place. Just this past week, I was struck hearing that YouTube celebrated its 5th anniversary and reached a milestone of more than two billion views a day. It’s clear, as a society, we’re moving from a world of scarcity to one of abundance. Do you think it’s still possible for the agency models built on an old cultural paradigm to help clients survive (and thrive) in this new world?
Jon Bond: Traditional agencies are threatened by abundance and see it as yet another tool to commoditize their already tenuous position in the marketing hierarchy. They see abundance as simply over-supply, tipping the balance of supply and demand toward commoditization. But change also produces opportunities. The new generation of creative people who rise to define the job of "curator" will thank the advent of abundance for making this new profession possible, and in fact necessary. Traditional shops cannot easily adjust to this new age because it would mean enduring a painful transition. Their legacy issues are their weakness.
I love ad people and the ideas part of the business. It's the “business” of the business that really sucks and brings down the rest of it. Sometimes you have to destroy something you love in order to rebuild it again, and that is what the new models, like Victors & Spoils, will do. There will be pain. But there is no alternative to the slow, painful death that has been eating away at the soul of the business for the past 15 years.
JW: In our careers, we’ve both seen clients go to the big agencies of say 500 people to gain access to the 25 folks who are really pushing the work forward. Clients want the best creative work without having to pay for bloated agency infrastructures, but the current paradigm is built on a full time employee (FTE) compensation model. This means access to the top 25 talent comes with a price tag that includes the cost of the other 475 people at the agency. How will increasing client demand for higher quality at a fair price impact the current size and scope of agencies?
JB: In the current model the top talent are underpaid and the bottom people are overpaid. That is true commoditization. FTEs are commoditizers because they reward hours versus results and talent, which isn't advertising - it's the post office! If we want to regain the top talent we've lost, we need to take a tip from Hollywood and make the rewards of stardom spectacular.
JW: You’ve been out talking a lot to some of the most interesting and progressive CMOs. What are they saying?
JB: CMOS are about efficiency. They want it better, cheaper and faster, and if you can't do one of the three, you are out. Unfortunately, the only recourse has been to get shops to cut price, which only serves to drive more talent out of the business, make us worth less to clients and incentivize them to pay us even less. We need to embrace tools – technology, new models, etc. – that enable us to deliver more for less in less time, without making people work harder for less money. The old must die to make way for the new. And, the only alternative is outright extinction.
JW: It seems the whole concept of aggregating place-based assets under a global holding company is being threatened by the radical shifts taking place in society. In your opinion, what’s in the future for holding companies? Will they exist? If so, what do you think they’ll look like?
JB: Holding Companies? What is their true purpose? Businesses cannot exist without a purpose that serves a customer. I believe holding companies are the traditional agencies of the corporate world. They are generic because they try to be everything to every client. The holding companies of the future will be more specialized and will be great at something. For example, maybe Google will own the “data driven” holding company and Facebook will control the “people driven” one. Each will have a diametrically opposed view of the world, and an epic battle of ideologies will ensue, which will not be won by either side because they define the essential ways in which people differ by nature. There will always be a large market for both.
JW: You’ve got a big vision for the industry and the future of advertising. What’s your next move?
JB: My goal is to reinvent the industry by bringing the power back to the practitioners the way Hollywood has done it with DreamWorks and stars owning points in their movies, or having their own production companies. The advertising business sucks, so what are we afraid of losing at this point? Change is our friend and the more dramatic the better.
JW: Thanks, Jon. I’m stoked to be working with you to fulfill this vision. This is going to be fun...John Winsor
Showing posts with label John Winsor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Winsor. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
John Winsor: Harry and Boeing: The Update
Wow. What a wild week. What started out as a question I posed to the world about how to handle the rejection letter my 8-year-son, Harry, received from Boeing has turned into a global conversation with amazingly positive results. Here’s what happened in a week:
* Tens of thousands of people have read my post about Harry.
* Hundreds of people have retweeted it.
* Sandy Ward at the Future of Flight invited Harry to Seattle and offered to host the “Harry Winsor Design Your Own Airplane Show.”
* Tara Cashman from the Museum of Flight invited Harry out for a tour.
* The SeattlePI picked up the story.
* ABC affiliates in Denver and Seattle shot a nice spot of Harry.
* Several business and aviation blogs have written stories.
* The NY Times wrote a nice piece.
* AdFreak posted something, as well.
* Forbes, SmartPlanet, SocialMediaBiz, TheStreet.com, among others all ran something.
* It even went international when Rhein-Zeitung, in Berlin, picked up the story.
* Alaska Airlines jumped into the conversation on Twitter and reached out to Harry talking about his experience.
* A wonderful Boeing engineer reached out on his own and took the time to write an amazing letter to Harry about the future of plane design.
But most impressive of all was Todd Blecher, Boeing’s Communications Director, who jumped into the conversation in such a positive way. He started by commenting on the post. He tweeted, even though Boeing has only had a Twitter account for two weeks. He even called Harry asking him if he’d like to come on a tour of Boeing. That call made Boeing a hero to an 8-year-old boy.
I also thought it was interesting what Todd had to say to the NY Times, “We’re expert at airplanes but novices in social media. We’re learning as we go.” Todd gets it. Today, the best brands find ways to act more human. And, Todd made Boeing more human. He's added value to the Boeing brand and showed that the company is willing to engage with consumers in a new way. His actions and attitude are the future of Boeing communications.
Boeing should give Todd a big promotion.
All the business stuff aside, thanks to all of you for inspiring Harry. When you're eight, creativity can be a fragile thing. Harry is inspired and has gotten a huge boost of confidence for his art. It's incredible to see the community rally around him and change the world, one little step at a time. John Winsor
* Tens of thousands of people have read my post about Harry.
* Hundreds of people have retweeted it.
* Sandy Ward at the Future of Flight invited Harry to Seattle and offered to host the “Harry Winsor Design Your Own Airplane Show.”
* Tara Cashman from the Museum of Flight invited Harry out for a tour.
* The SeattlePI picked up the story.
* ABC affiliates in Denver and Seattle shot a nice spot of Harry.
* Several business and aviation blogs have written stories.
* The NY Times wrote a nice piece.
* AdFreak posted something, as well.
* Forbes, SmartPlanet, SocialMediaBiz, TheStreet.com, among others all ran something.
* It even went international when Rhein-Zeitung, in Berlin, picked up the story.
* Alaska Airlines jumped into the conversation on Twitter and reached out to Harry talking about his experience.
* A wonderful Boeing engineer reached out on his own and took the time to write an amazing letter to Harry about the future of plane design.
But most impressive of all was Todd Blecher, Boeing’s Communications Director, who jumped into the conversation in such a positive way. He started by commenting on the post. He tweeted, even though Boeing has only had a Twitter account for two weeks. He even called Harry asking him if he’d like to come on a tour of Boeing. That call made Boeing a hero to an 8-year-old boy.
I also thought it was interesting what Todd had to say to the NY Times, “We’re expert at airplanes but novices in social media. We’re learning as we go.” Todd gets it. Today, the best brands find ways to act more human. And, Todd made Boeing more human. He's added value to the Boeing brand and showed that the company is willing to engage with consumers in a new way. His actions and attitude are the future of Boeing communications.
Boeing should give Todd a big promotion.
All the business stuff aside, thanks to all of you for inspiring Harry. When you're eight, creativity can be a fragile thing. Harry is inspired and has gotten a huge boost of confidence for his art. It's incredible to see the community rally around him and change the world, one little step at a time. John Winsor
Friday, April 23, 2010
John Winsor: Flipped is Out
I am pleased to announce that my new book, Flipped: How Bottom-Up Co-Creation is Replacing Top-Down Innovation is out. Well, it's not totally a new book. Doug Seibold, Eileen Johnson and the good folks at Agate Publishing suggested that we republish my 2004 book, Beyond the Brand. Both of us felt that the book needed to be updated and that the original title didn't really capture what the book was about. We decided to go back to the name I had initially proposed to my first publisher, Flipped. To update the book, I put the full manuscript up on a wiki and invited people to participate. 79 people kindly offered to contribute to the updating the book. (I'll do another blog post with a list of these wonderful folks tomorrow.)
So much has gone on in world of co-creation in the last six years. I've been surprised and humbled that the things I wrote about still ring true.
Power to the People
People today expect the ability to co-create and lead innovation, forcing companies to devise creative solutions to be competitive in this new bottom-up age. Such an environment generates opportunities for companies who are creative and intimately listen to the cultures they are involved with; joining forces with other creatives including artists, journalists, filmmakers and musicians to create new ways of expression and creation. The resulting products that demonstrate a real understanding of their customers in the context of their lives will be successful. Instead of thinking globally and acting locally, the successful philosophy will be to think locally and act globally.
In the vast middle of the market, people will continue to treat brands as resources. These people do not have the time or the energy to be proactive in developing their own, relevant products. Instead, they will allow their peers to do most of the heavy lifting in creating new cultural materials – and then adopt those products as their own. Brands that connect with people’s imaginations, that inspire, provoke and stimulate, helping them interpret the world that surrounds them, will be successful. Brands that are able to make the transition to provide honest, original, cultural materials, offering space for co-creation will win. Proactive people will carefully weed out and broadcast those products, and companies, that they do not trust. Many companies have already discovered that being good corporate citizens can be good for their brands. In this new era, it’s the creative citizens of a community – the people and the brands – that will help companies survive by co-creating from the bottom-up.
Enjoy the book and be sure to give me a shout if you have any comments or thoughts.
John Winsor
So much has gone on in world of co-creation in the last six years. I've been surprised and humbled that the things I wrote about still ring true.
Power to the People
People today expect the ability to co-create and lead innovation, forcing companies to devise creative solutions to be competitive in this new bottom-up age. Such an environment generates opportunities for companies who are creative and intimately listen to the cultures they are involved with; joining forces with other creatives including artists, journalists, filmmakers and musicians to create new ways of expression and creation. The resulting products that demonstrate a real understanding of their customers in the context of their lives will be successful. Instead of thinking globally and acting locally, the successful philosophy will be to think locally and act globally.
In the vast middle of the market, people will continue to treat brands as resources. These people do not have the time or the energy to be proactive in developing their own, relevant products. Instead, they will allow their peers to do most of the heavy lifting in creating new cultural materials – and then adopt those products as their own. Brands that connect with people’s imaginations, that inspire, provoke and stimulate, helping them interpret the world that surrounds them, will be successful. Brands that are able to make the transition to provide honest, original, cultural materials, offering space for co-creation will win. Proactive people will carefully weed out and broadcast those products, and companies, that they do not trust. Many companies have already discovered that being good corporate citizens can be good for their brands. In this new era, it’s the creative citizens of a community – the people and the brands – that will help companies survive by co-creating from the bottom-up.
Enjoy the book and be sure to give me a shout if you have any comments or thoughts.
John Winsor
Monday, April 12, 2010
John Winsor: It's Only the Beginning
The business of marketing is in the midst of a massive cultural shift. While buzzwords like co-creation, mass-collaboration and crowdsourcing are all the rage, there’s actually a much bigger and deeper change going on with the way work gets done.
Three disruptive forces: the expectation of transparency, the further digitization of the workforce and the rise of the curator class, all coupled with the current macro-economic conditions, have changed the world of marketing forever. Like it or not, from professional creatives to consumers, people want to be involved with your brand.
The exciting thing is you can take advantage of the new tools being developed in this new age. Just look at the exposure Doritos received from its crowdsourcing efforts. Two weeks after the Super Bowl the four Doritos spots owned the post game marketing conversation. Together they had nearly 18 million views, or 40% of all Super Bowl ads online.
The tide is shifting quickly. How can you thrive in this new paradigm? Brave brands, including Doritos, have begun to knock down their marketing walls and explore the world of abundance. They are discovering that there are many ways to do it:
1. Starbucks, Dell and Best Buy have all set up idea marketplaces that allow customers to share their product innovation and marketing ideas. This is a great way to open the flood gates to let people play with your brand. Get ready. They’ll love it.
2. Cisco has involved customers to produce its latest Flip video commercials. Consumer generated videos worked well for Flip because of what it is, but it can work for anyone. Your customers have the tools. Let them tell the story.
3. LG used Crowdspring to engage a large community of consumers and designers to design a new cell phone. What a great way to get new ideas in the product design process.
4. And, Unilever dropped its agency Lowe and used Ideabounty.com to crowdsource its TV spots for Peperami. They wanted more ideas and more value. In fact, they loved what they got so much that they awarded an additional prize-winner.
Every day there are new tools that emerge that allow you to collaborate with people on current social media networks, from Facebook to Twitter, or their own community. The key is to use the right tool to solve the right problem.
It’s only the beginning.
So, how do you use the mass collaboration and crowdsourcing tools available to build more momentum for your brand? How do you manage the unruly and talent rich crowd, while maintaining the speed, flexibility and cost savings of the new digital ecosystem? Here’s what we’ve been learning about doing marketing in this new world:
1. Focus on connecting with your consumers - While pundits love to point out the failures, there are already many successes. Mystarbuck’s ideas is a good case in point. What started out as a small way to capture product ideas from customer’s has become a major driving force for Starbucks’ innovation. Two years into the project the brand has received more than 80,000 suggestions, hired a staff to deal with such an outpouring of involvement and turned 50 of the suggestions into innovative products that now sit on the shelves of stores. But, most of all Starbucks turned customers into passionate fans and got them involved in the brand. Follow Starbucks’ path. Get customers involved, listen to what they want and engage them in innovation. Start to experiment.
2. Develop strategies that can inspire great work from a crowd of creatives, strategists and consumers – You have to play an active role in working with any crowd. Writing a strategic brief for a crowd is much different than writing it for an internal team. You have to not only write a great brief, but also participate in an ongoing dialogue as the work moves along.
3. Focus on getting more people involved – Look for ways to broaden particpants, from customers to top creative and strategic talent. Use social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to create more momentum. But remember, it’s great to ask for participation but that goes two ways. Many people think of social media as a broadcast tool. It’s not. It’s the start of a conversation. We can all learn something from Barry Judge, the CMO of Best Buy. He’s out there blogging, tweeting and participating in a conversation. He solves problems and gets feedback from his followers.
4. Focus on ideas – Open Source marketing and crowdsourcing allows for an overwhelming number of ideas to be developed to solve your marketing or product design problem. To keep up with the volume, the very structure of marketing organizations must change. The mentality has to become more iterative. Faster.
There are lots of different ways to play with crowds. You can start by running a project on one of the public crowdsource platforms, such as Crowdspring or Innocentive. These platforms are great to get mass participation, but they rely on you to write the brief and creatively direct the crowd. Another way to go, especially with more strategically sensitive projects, is to use a smaller, private crowd, which is a strategy we’ve implemented with a lot of success.
While it’s anybody’s guess what the precise future of marketing will be, one thing is for sure: This new model of marketing can be seen as a threat to what you do or a powerful force to distance yourself from your competitors. This new model no longer tries to control the brand but recognizes that a brand exists in the collective consciousness of culture. In this new model, guidance and inspiration go much further than command and control.
John Winsor
Three disruptive forces: the expectation of transparency, the further digitization of the workforce and the rise of the curator class, all coupled with the current macro-economic conditions, have changed the world of marketing forever. Like it or not, from professional creatives to consumers, people want to be involved with your brand.
The exciting thing is you can take advantage of the new tools being developed in this new age. Just look at the exposure Doritos received from its crowdsourcing efforts. Two weeks after the Super Bowl the four Doritos spots owned the post game marketing conversation. Together they had nearly 18 million views, or 40% of all Super Bowl ads online.
The tide is shifting quickly. How can you thrive in this new paradigm? Brave brands, including Doritos, have begun to knock down their marketing walls and explore the world of abundance. They are discovering that there are many ways to do it:
1. Starbucks, Dell and Best Buy have all set up idea marketplaces that allow customers to share their product innovation and marketing ideas. This is a great way to open the flood gates to let people play with your brand. Get ready. They’ll love it.
2. Cisco has involved customers to produce its latest Flip video commercials. Consumer generated videos worked well for Flip because of what it is, but it can work for anyone. Your customers have the tools. Let them tell the story.
3. LG used Crowdspring to engage a large community of consumers and designers to design a new cell phone. What a great way to get new ideas in the product design process.
4. And, Unilever dropped its agency Lowe and used Ideabounty.com to crowdsource its TV spots for Peperami. They wanted more ideas and more value. In fact, they loved what they got so much that they awarded an additional prize-winner.
Every day there are new tools that emerge that allow you to collaborate with people on current social media networks, from Facebook to Twitter, or their own community. The key is to use the right tool to solve the right problem.
It’s only the beginning.
So, how do you use the mass collaboration and crowdsourcing tools available to build more momentum for your brand? How do you manage the unruly and talent rich crowd, while maintaining the speed, flexibility and cost savings of the new digital ecosystem? Here’s what we’ve been learning about doing marketing in this new world:
1. Focus on connecting with your consumers - While pundits love to point out the failures, there are already many successes. Mystarbuck’s ideas is a good case in point. What started out as a small way to capture product ideas from customer’s has become a major driving force for Starbucks’ innovation. Two years into the project the brand has received more than 80,000 suggestions, hired a staff to deal with such an outpouring of involvement and turned 50 of the suggestions into innovative products that now sit on the shelves of stores. But, most of all Starbucks turned customers into passionate fans and got them involved in the brand. Follow Starbucks’ path. Get customers involved, listen to what they want and engage them in innovation. Start to experiment.
2. Develop strategies that can inspire great work from a crowd of creatives, strategists and consumers – You have to play an active role in working with any crowd. Writing a strategic brief for a crowd is much different than writing it for an internal team. You have to not only write a great brief, but also participate in an ongoing dialogue as the work moves along.
3. Focus on getting more people involved – Look for ways to broaden particpants, from customers to top creative and strategic talent. Use social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to create more momentum. But remember, it’s great to ask for participation but that goes two ways. Many people think of social media as a broadcast tool. It’s not. It’s the start of a conversation. We can all learn something from Barry Judge, the CMO of Best Buy. He’s out there blogging, tweeting and participating in a conversation. He solves problems and gets feedback from his followers.
4. Focus on ideas – Open Source marketing and crowdsourcing allows for an overwhelming number of ideas to be developed to solve your marketing or product design problem. To keep up with the volume, the very structure of marketing organizations must change. The mentality has to become more iterative. Faster.
There are lots of different ways to play with crowds. You can start by running a project on one of the public crowdsource platforms, such as Crowdspring or Innocentive. These platforms are great to get mass participation, but they rely on you to write the brief and creatively direct the crowd. Another way to go, especially with more strategically sensitive projects, is to use a smaller, private crowd, which is a strategy we’ve implemented with a lot of success.
While it’s anybody’s guess what the precise future of marketing will be, one thing is for sure: This new model of marketing can be seen as a threat to what you do or a powerful force to distance yourself from your competitors. This new model no longer tries to control the brand but recognizes that a brand exists in the collective consciousness of culture. In this new model, guidance and inspiration go much further than command and control.
John Winsor
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