agile advertising - burt at cannes lions

FINALISTPRESENTER

AGILE ADVERTISING.Build, measure, learn.

GUSTAV VON SYDOW@vonsydow on Twitter.

I used to be one of you... my last gig was as a Planner at Daddy and for a short time at CP+B,

after they acquired Daddy last year.

But I decided to give up what was essentially my dream job to go work on another dream.

I’m now the CEO and founder of Burt, a software company helping marketers to do amazing work.

Gustav von Sydow

Gustav Martner

I founded to Burt with Gustav Martner (currently Exec. Creative Director at CP+B Europe) to adress

challenges we faced together on a daily basis.

Mid nineties.Big bang launch

Static contentArchivedOne sizeOne way

Fifteen years later.Iterative improvements

Rich applicationsReal-time

PersonalizedSocial

The founding idea was that we had seen the web change drastically in the last 15 years...

Mid nineties.Big bang launch

Static contentArchivedOne sizeOne way

Fifteen years later.Same, same.

But online advertising - at least on a large scale - remained pretty much the same.

Sure there were promising technologies, but they were complex to use so the tools and processes that were used on large scale were antiquated.

CopyboxThe writing tool for digital marketers.

www.copyboxapp.com

Meme MachineDead simple

ad personalization.

www.mememachine.com

RichCampaign metrics

that matters.

www.richmetrics.com

So we set out to create a set of tools that would make it easy for marketers to update how they made and measured their marketing activities.

TODAY ISNOT ABOUT

TECH/TOOLS.

It’s about the process enabled by technology.

TODAY ISNOT ABOUT ”DIGITAL”.

101001010010100101010010101001101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010010100010100101010011010100101010010101010101010100101001010010101001010100110101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101001010001010010

EVERYTHING WILL BE DIGITIZED. EVENTUALLY.

But I’ll be using ”digital” as an example.

MOBILEVIDEOBANNERS &RICH MEDIA

Or more specifically, ”online display advertising”.

TODAY ISNOT A

CASE STUDY.Case studies are often outliers. What makes them

gripping often also makes them irrelevant.

”YES. BUT DOES IT SCALE?”

Evaluating new opportunities in advertising, one should always ask - ”does it scale?”

SCALE ACROSS AGENCIES.

You should be able to apply new technology/methods across all types of agencies.

TECHNOLOGY IS RAW MATERIAL, NOT AN IDEA.

And beware of when technology in itself is the idea... great advertising technologies that scale

include ”color”, ”movement” etc.

REACH. REACH. REACH.

And don’t forget. It has to reach alot of people.

”MECHANIZED SALES”

Unless we have reach, our trade is irrelevant, since there are better ways to deploy small scale

marketing efforts.

TODAY IS NOT ABOUT

INSPIRATION.

To be unique, focus your sources of inspiration collection on other forms of expression.

TODAY ISNOT ABOUT

THE FUTURE.

”FRAMTIDEN”We love talking about the future. Everyone’s a

futurist/expert these days.

It’s very much a don’t-miss-the-train kind of mentality. All the time. Everywhere.

”FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE”

WHO CREATED THE FIRST BANNER?

The concept of first mover advantage has been largely discredited in general business, why are we

still believing it in advertising.

AT&T, 1994

Besides the amazing viral effect ;) of being part of this deck, what have AT&T gotten in return for

pioneering the banner format?

TODAY IS ABOUT...

WELL. TODAY.Advertising is about getting massive reach today.

Not about predicting the future.

In this talk, we’re going to focus on improving what we have and tweak how already do things in

already big channels. Solve existing problems.

NOT LIKE THE OTHERS.

To sum up: this is not the average advertising festival speech. When I arrived I got to looking into

the conference magazine...

Apparently the $500B industry that is advertising is going down in flames.

Don’t miss the train...

In the future blablabla....

And more doomsday advice.

Blablabla...

HOW TO MARKET A MARKETER:

1. WIN A BUNCH OF AWARDS.

AND/OR

2. ANNOUNCE THE END OF THE WORLD.

Cannes Lions combines both, which might explain why it’s the premier event to land new business ;)

What I’m saying is that you can take it easy. Don’t worry too much about the future.

OPTIMIZE FOR NOW.

Great advertising connects with ”the now”. Advertising is tactics - don’t be fooled even if the

word ”strategy” gets thrown around a lot ;)

THAT’S WHAT WE GET PAID TO DO.

We get paid to get results now. Or at least in the next quarter. Very few good advertising activities

don’t achieve tangible result within 90 days.

YOU CAN DO IT.

What I’m talking about applies to everyone. Creatives, planners, account, devs, clients etc. And you can start using the ideas on monday.

TODAY:

1. LEARNING FROM HISTORY.

2. LEARNING FROM OTHERS.

3. LEARNING FROM YOURSELF.

TODAY:

1. LEARNING FROM HISTORY.

2. LEARNING FROM OTHERS.

3. LEARNING FROM YOURSELF.

IDEA PRODUCE

THE CREATIVE PROCESS:

Though the name implies something super dynamic and exciting, the creative process is a

very linear process.

”FINAL DELIVERY”

ME = BIG FAN BTW.

Even the best practices (I recommend checking them out btw) emphasize the ”final delivery”.

Traditional Product Development Unit of Progress: Advance to Next Stage

Waterfall

Requirements

Specification

Design

Implementation

Verification

Maintenance

Problem: known

Solution: known

Though every agency use different words to descibe their unique, amazing process, they’re all based on the same classic manufacturing model.

IT’S MANUFACTURING, NOT CREATIVITY.

”LEAN PRODUCTION”

Doing more with less.

But manufacturing has actually moved on to a model for creating more value using less work,

and so should we.

”Lean production” originated from Toyota, emphasizing to eliminate waste by removing all

activities that does not create value.

”Create continuous process !ow to bring problems to the surface.”

”Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the

situation (Genchi Genbutsu, 現地現物)”

”Become a learning organization through relentless re!ection

(Hansei, 反省) and continuous improvement (Kaizen, 改善).”

BUILT TO LEARN.

A process for learning is the key to eliminate waste in any kind of workflow.

BUILD

LEARN MEASURE

The process for learning is easy. Trial and error.

LESS WASTE.REDUCED RISK.

INCREASED OUTPUT.

1. $150B IS WASTED EVERY YEAR.

2. 19% OF ALL ADVERTISING FAILS OUTRIGHT.

3. 67% COULD GET SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT WITHOUT ADDITIONAL SPEND.

Source: What Sticks

And there’s a lot of waste, risk and potential for improvement in online advertising.

”LEAN ADVERTISING”?

The ideas have been successful in everything from cars to software startups (respect to Eric Ries and Steve Blank!!!). How do they apply to advertising?

IDEA PRODUCE MEASURE

Well, the first step is to add a measurement component to the creative process.

IDEA PRODUCE

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

CAMPAIGN 1

CAMPAIGN 2

LEARN

MEASURE

And then use this to learn for use in your next campaign.

BASIC MATHS:

10%, 10%, 10%, 10% = +45%

Consistent campaign drives compounded increases in quality.

Which is not a new idea of course. In advertising, it was pioneered by David Ogilvy in the 50s.

”I never skate to where the puck is, I always skate to where to puck is going to be.”

BLABLABLABLA... COMPETITION, CHANGE ETC.

The problem is that the Ogilvy way of doing things assumes a rather static media landscape, but it’s

now changing faster and faster.

0 sec? 2 sec? 13 sec?And no idea when it starts...

30 sec.From start to !nish, full screen.

The level of predictability makes it exponentially more complex to predict what will work.

30% of all ads are placed where users can’t see

Most ads aren’t visible long enough to make an impact

+10 ads share the same page

There’s just no such thing as average anymore.

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?

MEDIA? CREATIVE? DIGITAL? PRODUCTION? RESEARCH? PUBLISHER? AD NETWORK?

THE AD NETWORK’S AD NETWORK’S AD NETWORK?

AND WHICH PERSON?

BLABLABLABLA...ROI.... MEGA DEEP

INSIGHTS OF INTRINSIC HABITS... SPECULATION...

GUESSWORK...BLABLABLA....

”EXPERT”

The way we usually solve challenges in advertising is to appoint experts. But experts doesn’t scale.

EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBLE.

Everyone has to be committed to improving. That is one of the key principles of the Toyota Way.

WANTED: A WORKFLOW OPTIMIZED FOR ADAPTING TO CHANGE, NOT FOLLOWING PLAN.

”AGILE ADVERTISING”

The process of being quick learn, adapt and improve.

So ”Lean advertising” doesn’t quite describe the high velocity dimension of what I’m getting at. So

”agile advertising” seems like a better phrase.

BUILD

LEARN MEASURE

It’s the same loop.

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

LEARNIDEA 2

IDEA 3

IDEA 4

IDEA 5

IDEA 6

IDEA 7

IDEA 8

But instead of waiting to measure and apply the learnings on the next campaigns, we change and

optimize the existing campaigns.

ALL ON BOARD?

TODAY:

1. LEARNING FROM HISTORY.

2. LEARNING FROM OTHERS.

3. LEARNING FROM YOURSELF.

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

LEARNIDEA 2

IDEA 3

IDEA 4

IDEA 5

IDEA 6

IDEA 7

IDEA 8

WHAT?

The first question is naturally:What do we measure?

Metrics is the number one pain for display advertisers.

Source: Forrester

Lack of proper metrics Ad quality is too low Other

IS ”ROI” THE PROBLEM?

There is usually a big focus on ”ROI” when metrics comes up. But is that really what hands-on

marketers should focus on?

$ $$$

INVESTMENT PROFIT

{”KPIs”

Our job is to understand the underlying metrics driving profit, rather than auditing the ROI.

$ $$$

INVESTMENT RETURN

{”KPIs”

FOCUS ON KPIs, NOT ROI.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD KPIs:

AUDIENCE REACH AND RELEVANCE - PEOPLE

”SOFT METRICS” - BRANDING

DIRECT USER BEHAVIOR - CLICK STREAM

SALES - NOT THE SAME AS PROFIT

THE THREE A’S OF METRICS:

1. ACCESSIBLE - THINK ”YOU TUBE VIEWS”

2. ACTIONABLE - OTHERWISE SKIP IT

3. AUDITABLE - METRICS ARE PEOPLE TOO

BENCHMARK.

The first step is to benchmark what you’re up to, to get a decent idea of where you stand.

3

2008 Year-in-Review Benchmarks

Flash Ads

Overall Click-through Rate (CTR)

Click-through Rate by Creative SizesFigure 3

Source: DoubleClick DART for Advertisers, U.S. advertisers, a cross section of major ad sizes only, January – December 2008

0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0.40%

Half Page Ad (300x600)

Wide Skyscraper (160x600)

Vertical Rectangle (240x400)

Large Rectangle (336x280)

Medium Rectangle (300x250)

Skyscraper (120x600)

Leaderboard (728x90)

Square Pop-Up (250x250)

3:1 Rectangle (300x100)

Vertical Banner (120x240)

Full Banner (468x60)

Rectangle (180x150)

0.22%

0.10%

0.33%

0.12%

0.12%

0.06%

0.08%

0.18%

0.07%

0.05%

0.05%

0.10%

Click-through Rate by Industry VerticalFigure 4

Source: DoubleClick DART for Advertisers, U.S. advertisers, a cross section of major industry verticals only, January – December 2008

0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30%

Auto 0.12%

B2B 0.08%

CPG 0.09%

Financial Services 0.06%

Media/Entertainment 0.11%

Retail 0.10%

Tech 0.10%

Telecom 0.08%

Travel 0.09%

Wellness 0.09%

But benchmarks are a bit tricky. They vary greatly by advertiser category.

3

2008 Year-in-Review Benchmarks

Flash Ads

Overall Click-through Rate (CTR)

Click-through Rate by Creative SizesFigure 3

Source: DoubleClick DART for Advertisers, U.S. advertisers, a cross section of major ad sizes only, January – December 2008

0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0.40%

Half Page Ad (300x600)

Wide Skyscraper (160x600)

Vertical Rectangle (240x400)

Large Rectangle (336x280)

Medium Rectangle (300x250)

Skyscraper (120x600)

Leaderboard (728x90)

Square Pop-Up (250x250)

3:1 Rectangle (300x100)

Vertical Banner (120x240)

Full Banner (468x60)

Rectangle (180x150)

0.22%

0.10%

0.33%

0.12%

0.12%

0.06%

0.08%

0.18%

0.07%

0.05%

0.05%

0.10%

Click-through Rate by Industry VerticalFigure 4

Source: DoubleClick DART for Advertisers, U.S. advertisers, a cross section of major industry verticals only, January – December 2008

0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30%

Auto 0.12%

B2B 0.08%

CPG 0.09%

Financial Services 0.06%

Media/Entertainment 0.11%

Retail 0.10%

Tech 0.10%

Telecom 0.08%

Travel 0.09%

Wellness 0.09%

Or creative sizes for that matter.

INDUSTRY, FORMAT, CONTENT, TIMING,

COUNTRY, DEVICE ETC.

And a bunch of other stuff.

INDUSTRY, FORMAT, CONTENT, TIMING,

COUNTRY, DEVICE ETC.

AVERAGES ARE (ALMOST) MEANINGLESS.

Besides using them as a sanity check, averages are pretty hopeless.

TODAY:

1. LEARNING FROM HISTORY.

2. LEARNING FROM OTHERS.

3. LEARNING FROM YOURSELF.

SELF DIAGNOSE.

Instead of just comparing yourself with others, you should become good at helping yourself out.

VS.

A

B

Source: What Sticks

Small tweaks can have an enormous impact.

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

Creative A Creative B

Intends to buy Colgate

+10x

Creative execution is by far the biggest lever for creating effective online advertising.

BANNER BEST PRACTICES:

1. MEDIA/CREATIVE INTEGRATION BIGGEST DRIVER.

2. SHOW THE LOGO. ALL THE TIME.

3. SHOW THE PRODUCT. IF APPLICABLE.

4. STATIC OUTPERFORMS RICH. THINK PRINT, NOT TV.

5. DIRECT. SIMPLE. OBVIOUS.

”SPLIT TESTING.”

Once you have the fundamentals right, it’s time to start learning from a live campaign. And the best way is to compare, not with others, but yourself.

ZYNGA AND THE USE OF DISCOUNT PRE-TESTING.

Social gaming and other viral products have pioneered rapid testing and optimization.

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

Creative A Creative B

Intends to buy Colgate

+10x

Split testing allows you to spot differences early.

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

Site A Site B

+10x0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

Site A Site B

Creative A, performance by site Creative B, performance by site

But the problem is that - as we touched on earlier - different executions work different under different

circumstances.

Site A Site B

+10x0 %

15 %

30 %

45 %

60 %

75 %

Site A Site B

Creative A + Site A, performance by Geography Creative A + Site B, performance by Geography

And goes deeper...

You end up with a tree structure with all these different variations and outcomes.

0%

0,25%

0,5%

0,75%

1%

“Worst” Average “Best” “Bestest”

+10x

By using the best combination for each exposure you can create enormous ”lifts”.

Which has been well known, and talked about forever. But for different reasons, ”one-to-one”

marketing is not deployed on a very large scale.

CLOSING UP:PUTTING TWO AND

TWO TOGETHER

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

LEARNIDEA 2

IDEA 3

IDEA 4

IDEA 5

IDEA 6

IDEA 7

IDEA 8

HOW?

And then there’s that little detail of applying the ideas and lessons learned in practice...

SIMPLICITY.

The first thing to keep in mind is to start out with a minimal execution to test your idea.

SIMPLICITY = FASTER TIME TO MARKET EASIER TO TEST

BONUS FEATURE: LESS TO UNDERSTAND FOR CONSUMERS

Start off with one simple execution of an idea. In a banner for instance. One format is enough.

PACK SHOT EARLIER?WHERE’S THE LOGO?

ANIMATION NECESSARY?

TOO MUCH MESSAGING?

Self diagnose and make that if you’re breaking any rules and best practices, you should be aware of

what rules you’re breaking, and why.

A

B

Create variations for split testing. At this stage I recommend doing widely different variations. In

some cases completely different ideas.

A B

C D

Buy (or convince the publisher to give you) some media and run a quick and dirty split test, to see

how consumers respond to your variations.

0 %

0,3 %

0,6 %

0,9 %

1,2 %

1,5 %

Creative A Creative B Creative C Creative D

Click-thrus

Choose a proper metric (which is a separate workshop, I’m afraid) and eliminate the waste.

Focus your efforts in the stuff that seems to work.

START SPENDING ON MORE MEDIA,

FORMATS ETC.

Once you’ve condensed your basic idea, you can start expanding on the with more variations,

formats and progressivly increase media spend.

OPTIMIZE.

Monitor and switch on automatic optimization where it makes sense to personalize the

messages. With the right tool you can optimize against any kind of effect.

BENCHMARK.

Once you’re over and done with, do a quick followup and benchmark your efforts. Call in the

audit people if that’s your thing. Wait until the next campaign to make deep analysis.

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

LEARNIDEA n 4x

For those of you paying attention, ”agile advertising” puts four feedback loops into play.

LOOP 1:SELF-DIAGNOSE

LOOP 2:SPLIT TEST

LOOP 3:OPTIMIZATION

LOOP 4:CROSS-CAMPAIGN

THE FOUR FEEDBACK LOOPS:

WRAPPING THINGS UP:

1. THE TRADITIONAL CREATIVE PROCESS IS RISKY.

2. ”AGILE ADVERTISING” LOWERS RISK AND INCREASES OUTPUT BY TESTING IDEAS EARLY.

3. THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS IMPLEMENTING THE FOUR FEEDBACK LOOPS.

SPEED.The faster you learn the sooner people will pay

attention to you, and not your competitors.

IDEA MEASUREPRODUCE

LEARNIDEA n

Usability testingFunnel analysisCohort analysisReal-time alertingPredicitive monitoring

PM softwareScrum

JIT scalabilityMVP

5 whysCustomer archetypesSmoke tests

Flow optimizationWorking conditionsTime managementCreative leadership

Ways to increase your velocity thru the loop.

Thanks: Eric Ries and Steve Blank

LEARN.It’s really a simple idea. Spend time testing and

learning, not speculating.

YOU CAN DO IT.

And as I said, anyone can do this. It works better the more people are involved, but ”agile

advertising” allows even just one person to get a big influence on the end result.

THANK YOU!

www.burtcorp.com

twitter.com/vonsydowvonsydow@burtcorp.com