I’m talking about the digital life that explores the future needs of the marketplace. If you exploit those needs, you can create, sustain, and grow a business.
Sounds simple, right? Yes, it is simple—but absolutely not easy.
In life’s new digital age, digital agencies and traditional agencies alike are missing the mark.
The new digital agencies are great at overwhelming their clients with all the wonderful creative bells and whistles to dazzle and entertain. They will explore possibilities until you stop them. But they have difficulty making it all happen in a way that makes sense.
The traditional agencies, on the other hand, are not as good at exploring what can be done on the web—but, if a client has an idea or a direction, they are adept at exploiting it. They always have been. They did it with radio and television, and they are doing it with the web. Where they fall short is in pushing the boundaries of exploration.
I’m an explorer who likes to exploit. And I think the answer to the inadequacies both of digital and traditional agencies is to explore AND exploit.
It’s time to turn curiosity about what comes next into real action. Explore first, then make it happen. Clients are demanding leadership. They’re not quite sure of exactly what they need, but they do know for certain that they need something.
The solution, as I see it, is to help clients change their cultures.
If you can help them see why they need to make the transition from buying an audience to earning an audience, you’ll set them on the new course. They will soon learn that they need to give to get; that they need to go from monologue to dialogue; and that, in the new web and digital age, it’s all about becoming a publisher.
“Okay, that’s a great theory. Can you show me what you’ve done?”
That’s a question I’m very happy to answer. To see all this theory put into action, just click through to The Food Channel®.
We pioneered this site for the food industry, to give everyone an example of what I mean by being in the publishing business. It’s a site dedicated to “All things food.” It’s a living, instantly changing, extremely generous site that gives people a reason to come back to it several times a day. It’s a dialogue site that covers events, offers videos, provides recipes, gives people a virtual water cooler for hanging out, and even puts forth perspectives both on the consumer and the business sides of food. It’s an ongoing story that gets fed daily. It’s simple, transparent, and all about people and food; and, if you use a little imagination, it could be about cars, or home improvement, or travel, or just about anything.
New dialogue sites such as The Food Channel are the future—not only of communications, but also of business as a whole.
I don’t have to show you articles to spell this out for you, although I have them; you can find them in any major publication that is analyzing the advertising and communication industry. All signs are pointing to the way we’ve decided to go.
We’re exploring life like the new digital agencies, and exploiting it with a well-thought-out marketing plan like a traditional agency would.
It takes wild creativity and sound discipline to make it in the new communication world. It’s what life is telling us it needs.
That’s it, from the edge of the world,
Bob
Note: this entry is a response to the article “Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready to Lead,” published in Advertising Age® and written by Ana Andjelic. In the article, Ana Andjelic comments on organizational theorist James March’s exploration vs. exploitation dichotomy. Her article was originally published on her blog, i [love] marketing.
Image: Lewis and Clark West to the Pacific by Frank R. "Bob" Davenport. Photo and copyright held by the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc.
