The World is full of Interesting Things...

It's hard to do this presentation from Google Creative Labs justice in words.

Suffice to say that there is something there for everyone and every slide's a winner. We've featured a few of these items in these pages previously but as a roundup of all that's been cool online and off in the last six months this is hard to beat.

It takes a wee bit to load but my goodness it's worth it.

Most Ad Agencies aren't results focused!

Before all of our ad agency friends take too much offence can we just point out that this is supported by data from The Fournaise Marketing Group so please take any complaints up with them!

Their recent global study showed that many client marketers worldwide think their agencies are inssufficiently "results driven".

They interviewed 1,000 marketers around the world and found that 65% thought their agencies paid too little attention to return on investment. In the most developed advertising markets of W. Europe, USA and Australia as many as 70% agreed with the statement.

74% of respondents felt that their agencies didn't even have the tools and insights to allow them to focus their campaigns on the right audience. Which begs the question why they continue to retain them?

Another 71% are concerned that their creative agencies are far too driven by awards success and portfolio building and too little by delivering increased brand sales for their existing clients.

Overall, only 35% of global advertising agencies were described as "result drivers" focusing on improving their clients' revenues, while a further 43% were "result pretenders" presenting themselves as committed to proving payback on marketing expenditure without adequate processes in place to actually deliver accountability.
Finally, a dissapointing 22% of agencies were criticised as "dreamers" who "lived in the old 'Adland'" and had completely failed to adapt to the demands of the new media age.

Which camp does your agency fall into?

Sourced from WARC 14 April 2010

The Power of Language

One of the basic rules for efficient online creative is the integration of a strong “call to action”, this being a key element to help generate response. But sometimes you don’t need a great offer to make people act; the power of language can be sufficient. To illustrate this idea, I recommend you read the work of Dustin Curtis, a specialist of user interfaces (and former neuroscience student). He undertook a study on his blog which generated interesting results. According to him, the use of a strong "personal command" combined with the word “here” is the most efficient call to action in terms of response. Have you noticed the same thing with your blog/web site/creative?

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Source: Dustin Curtis – You should follow me on Twitter

On The Buses - Miami.com

Miami.com Bus Advertising - Right Side, originally uploaded by fotoJENica a/k/a Jenny Romney.

All too often artwork for bus advertising forgets the canvas it's using, or - worse - simply cuts up a press ad and sticks on the side. But why simply repurpose an ad when you can get as creative as this example from Miami.com? Making the most of the medium it uses and reflecting the city it serves, it's a cracking example of how to go about things right.