Editorial Articles

2008 was a strong year for digital. The team at BD Network speculate what this year will bring after a significant period of change, investment, a few fads and the odd buzz word.

There are many views about what trends are going to pop up in 2009, some suggest it will be the year of mobile (again) whilst others are confident that search will continue its dominance over display advertising. A particularly nasty acronym suggests that VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) will be key to the continued success of online retail. Nothing new on the surface as we're all now used to aggregation & price comparison but VRM will afford even more empowerment to consumers and where they choose to spend their hard earned cash. The prospect of e-commerce going 'social' is an appetising thought and entirely possible considering the ever strengthening figures.

I think the trend will be less specific: not so much about core concepts or consumer propositions but more about the methodologies and thinking used to approach a digital idea. Agencies need to adapt their methods this year as big design and build budgets face a decline compared to 2008. What clients choose to enhance rather than build will be a key decision. Optimisation is the trend I'm putting my money on - and indeed the business plan for 2009.

Importance will be placed on the way in which agencies, suppliers and clients approach these challenges applying appropriate thought processes and skills in order to maximise budgets and return. This is the way it should always be, but let's face it, there hasn't been a particularly tight focus on return over the past couple of years, sure it's central to retail, search and acquisition strategies but within the broader brand communication environment it's been under played. ROIs and KPIs are quickly becoming standard language of the client brief, and it is most welcome.

An 'evolution of services' is something at the heart of all this. Are the ways in which agencies respond to client problems last year going to be right for 2009 or do we need a bit of a tune up? The digital industry has never really known poor times, OK we derailed ourselves 5 or 6 years ago but we've never experienced recession unlike our TV, print and direct cousins, do we have the methods to work within the crunch whilst still delivering value to our clients? Do we think fully about success criteria at the conceptual or technical design stage or is this a retro-fit element - be honest!

If optimisation is the key to delivering project success in 2009 it needs to be done from a number of perspectives - creative, technical, user experience, planning and from within client services. I discussed this topic recently with a few key people (Ben: Head of User Experience, Christo: Technical Director and Gary: Client Services Director). The following transcript is from a Skype chat that's still ongoing:

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Drew:
There’s lots of discussion out there about how the recession will affect the industry, yet in spite of this I think digital and specifically online will grow. Where do you think the areas of opportunity are likely to be and how will we seize them? Certainly, we'll be asked to downsize and up-scope projects (i.e deploy smaller projects but make them work harder)

Ben:
The suppliers that would be best suited to this environment would be the ones that can think outside the established digital marketing methods and truly embrace social media. Traditional web set-ups simply don't work unless there's something for people to talk about or share. Why would people share information about a product or service unless it was truly remarkable? So, the key to delivering low-spend ROI is to create products or services that people want to talk about. The most remarkable products and services are those that help people achieve their goals.

Drew:
Where's the monetisation? We've seen a lot of web 2 thinking (or desire) by clients over the past few years, much like the way a lot of offline brands have been thinking about CSR or 'green' initiatives. With the crunch in full effect do you think these ideas now become 'nice to have'?

Ben:
The need to "monetise" everything is the reason why many offerings fail. What we need to be concentrating on is how strategy and design decisions affect the people that are going to be using the products we create. If we really support their needs we create trust. Once we've gained trust we can establish authority. The money will come as a by-product of this - eventually.

Gary:
There are different sides to optimisation. Some sites will always be more task based and are unlikely to become goal orientated. What a lot of sites need is a team who can analyse performance in a completely objective way and recommend strategies for improving whatever positive outcomes they are trying to achieve. These outputs can be pretty simple - reducing the number of steps to complete a process or adding a sense understanding and security to something more complex. Agencies that quickly and effectively interpret online behaviour in terms of user experience, brand and commercial objectives and then produce short and long term optimisation strategies will be critical to clients' success.

Drew:
There's a common disconnect client-side between marketing, sales & technical teams, between brand communication and product functionality This lack of alignment and collaboration often leads to a lack of appropriate action. The presumption by non-technical teams is often that the technology can't be fixed or is too expensive to fix, whilst the common opinion of a product team is that marketing simple doesn't work hard enough! In order to get results you've often got to think like creatives, plan like marketers and execute like coders.

Christo:
Most of our recent success has come from opportunities where we're given that kind of role. Working for a big brand as their 'black ops' team enables us to uncover opportunities that just aren't apparent by any other means. We can come up with an idea and deliver it in a fraction of the time and budget than it would take under normal circumstances. The ability to 'mash' technology together in order to get results quickly is so important this year.

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Encouragingly there's a lot of positive thinking about how the digital industry will likely capitalise on the predicted doom and gloom of 2009, many of these views are shared within the wider community both at the board room and at the workstation, let's hope that the need for return doesn't go away when things start to look a bit brighter. Perhaps we'll discover the low energy bulb of digital marketing, the hybrid engine of technical development and hopefully the evolution of an industry under less than ideal circumstances.

I'm confident and quietly optimistic about this year - the year of optimisation.