The IPA / we are social

Here are all of the posts tagged ‘The IPA’.

IPA Social: 10 conversation starters

by Robin Grant in News on 12 October 2009 at 16:25

Social Media is a conversation. That seems to be one thing that we all agree on

Last week, Nathan, Sandrine, Leila, Simon, Seb and I went along to the launch of IPA Social, where Neil Perkin presented their 10 conversation starters:

You can read all 10 in full here (which I highly recommend doing):

As the IPA’s President, Rory Sutherland says:

At a time when the population of Facebook is now greater than all but three countries in the world, and when BT is delivering customer service via twitter, this is an area which forces us to question many of our ingrained assumptions about advertising, brands and intangible value.

and from Mark Earls’ scene setting essay:

For all the excitement today around the Twitters and Facebooks, the tougher problems for the advertising industry to get to grips with are all rooted in the way social media – the stuff that connects humans with other humans – changes the game for our clients and society at large.

IPA Social is an admirable initiative, one which we’ll continue to participate in, and their 10 principles are an excellent overview of how brands need to come to terms with social media, representing the thinking of some the greatest minds in modern advertising (all of whom are good friends of ours). The launch event was also a great evening, focused on starting conversations rather than presenting a revealed truth.

However, it still was very focused on traditional ‘advertising’, with a large proportion of time spent hearing about VCCP’s Compare the Meerkat campaign. We split out into groups towards the end of the event and in the group I led, we discussed whether campaigns like Compare the Meerkat are really social media campaigns. Although the campaign has rich presences in social media, we’re weren’t sure that was a factor in it’s success. We felt it was the strength of the creative idea and the media spend at work here – and the fact that Oasis’ Rubberduckzilla has substantially more fans than Aleksandr the Meerkat on Facebook, despite no attempts to engage with social media helps re-enforce this point. It was felt that real social media campaigns are ones where the conversation itself drives the success of the campaign (like our This is Now campaign for Ford).

I also couldn’t miss joining in the discussion about which types of agency were best suited for social media. The point I made was as follows. Over the last ten years digital agencies stole a march on above the line agencies by building bigger, better and more motivated specialist teams. This let them innovate faster and develop a critical mass of best practise that accelerated the skills gap between them and their above-the-line competitors. Specialist social media agencies will do the same to digital and other agencies. To use We Are Social as an example, who else has a team of twenty experienced practitioners, entirely focused on innovative, creative and effective social media marketing and communications? Each day and each new hire widens the gap between us and those in pursuit.

Overall, I left feeling comforted that the specialist agencies’ lead in social media was safe for some time to come…

tagged: advertising, Amelia Torode, Asi Sharabi, Compare the Meerkat, Faris Yakob, Graeme Wood, IPAsocial, Jamie Coomber, John Willshire, Katy Lindemann, Le’Nise Brothers, Mark Earls, Neil Perkin, presentations, Rory Sutherland, social media, social media agency, social media marketing, The IPA

We are very social

by Robin Grant in News on 21 September 2009 at 14:12

Twestival by Jon Cartwright

After speaking at NMA Live’s Twitter for Brands, the IAB’s Travel Forum and Simon’s keynote on measuring online political behaviour, all in the last few weeks, it seems we have an even more relentless schedule of speaking engagements coming up over the next couple of months. On the off chance you might actually want to tag along, I thought it worth telling you about them in advance…

ad:tech, London, Tuesday 22nd September
I’m participating on an IAB hosted panel at ad:tech looking at “what to do when things go bad: the power of reactive social media” alongside Nick Jones, Director of Interactive Services at the COI and others. This is free to attend, so get yourself down to Olympia for 3pm tomorrow.

Drinks and Digital Marketing Summit, London, Tuesday 22nd September
The impact of social media on the drinks industry is up for discussion on a panel with wine bloggers and drinks marketers that I will be part of at the The Charlotte Street Hotel. It’s rumoured that Oz Clarke will be in the audience, so get yourself an invite and I’ll see you there at 6:30pm tomorrow.

IPA Social, London, Tuesday 6th October
Ok, so we’re not actually part of the line-up, but Nathan, Sandrine, Leila, Simon, Seb and myself will be there to contribute to the debate (as we were last time). The evening has the potential to go down in history as the moment adland woke up to social media. Whatever happens, you don’t want to miss it.

Silverpop EMEA Client Summit, London, Thursday 8th October
Silverpop’s Client Summit is invite only, if you are going along, I’ll be speaking in the afternoon

Social Media in Business, London, Friday 23rd October
I’ll be part of a panel debate on “The Future of Social Media” towards the end of the day, but the sessions they’ve got on beforehand look great – so grab a ticket now.

Media140, London, Monday 26th October
Gareth Jones, Revolution’s Editor and Mel Exon, Managing Partner of BBH Labs and I are on the opening panel, “Can you change a brand in 140 characters?” . If you can at all make it to this event, I’d advise you to – the previous Media140 conference was brilliant and this one looks even better.

Understanding Digital Creative, Dublin, Thursday 5th November
I’ll be heading to Dublin to speak at Understanding Digital Creative, an evening event that forms part of ICAD’s Design Week, alongside the chaps from Agenda 21 and Folk Creative.

Monitoring Social Media 09, London, Tuesday 17th November
At Monitoring Social Media 09 I’ll be talking about how we helped Skype set-up and run their real-time social media listening and responding programme. This is the first conference in Europe dedicated to this topic – it will be good to delve deep into the issues…

Account Planning Group Sweden, Stockholm, Wednesday 18th November
The Swedish account planning community invited me to Stockholm for the evening to sprinkle a bit of the We Are Social fairy dust as part of their series of events on planning in a digital world.

Interactive Advertising Festival, Madrid, Wednesday 25th November
I’ll be in Madrid for IAB Spain’s Interactive Advertising Festival, running a 100 person(!) workshop on Social Media (let’s hope their English is good, as my castellano is non-existent).

The Battle of Big Thinking, London, Thursday 26th November
Sandrine is a contestant in Campaign and the Account Planning Group’s Battle of Big Thinking, up against people like Jonathan Mildenhall, Coca-Cola’s VP of global advertising strategy and creative excellence, Guy Murphy, JWT’s worldwide planning director, Rick Vlemmiks, British Gas’ marketing director, Robin Wight, chairman of the Engine Group and Will Harris, Nokia UK’s marketing director. As you can see, she’ll be up against some formidable opposition – however it pans out, you’re guaranteed “a year’s thinking in a day”.

tagged: ad:tech London, APG Sweden, conferences, Drinks and Digital Marketing Summit, IAB Travel Forum, Interactive Advertising Festival, IPAsocial, Media140, Monitoring Social Media 09, NMA Live, Silverpop EMEA Client Summit, Social Media in Business, The Battle of Big Thinking, The IPA, Understanding Digital Creative

The future of advertising and agencies

by Robin Grant in News on 22 January 2009 at 14:29

This week, the IPA published a report snappily titled Social Media Futures – The future of advertising and agencies in a networked society. A 10-year perspective, the launch of which was covered both by the FT:

Two-thirds of advertising agencies are not prepared for the industry changes prompted by social networks and new forms of digital media

and Campaign:

For agencies used to what one senior executive calls a “broadcast mindset”, the social networking phenomenon and the way it empowers consumers can seem seriously scary. Which makes this week’s warning from the IPA that, when it comes to social media, the majority of agencies “aren’t getting it” all the more disturbing.

The Campaign piece includes some good analysis of the state of play, including this from Mark Collier, Managing Partner at Dare:

Social media should be viewed as a discipline in its own right and doing it properly will require genuine specialists who live and breathe it. But it will need to be closely allied to core marketing strategy and execution if it is to be relevant and effective.

And this from Steve Henry, the former TBWA\London Executive Creative Director:

The current agency model needs rethinking because it’s run out of steam. Remember that a lot of digital agencies are ten years old and you have to ask if they’re flexible enough to seize the opportunities on behalf of clients. Many clients are starting to feel that the agency they need doesn’t exist. That’s to say one that understands the mechanics of social networking as well as delivering the upstream strategy and thinking.

These are the very reasons we set-up We Are Social in June last year (combined with a similar malaise in the PR industry), and I’m confident that what we’re doing addresses Mark and Steve’s concerns head on.

As part of the launch of the report, the IPA also held an event on Monday evening, which Nathan, Sandrine and myself went along to – nicely summed up by PHD’s Dan Hosford: