That Interweb

If you go into a new biz pitch without an interactive strategy, you're an idiot.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine was super excited about a business pitch he was working on. He'd developed some work he thought was ground breaking. He was over the moon and couldn't wait to go to the pitch. Yesterday I asked him about it. Poor boy lost the pitch.

"Why?" I asked.
"Because we didn't do interactive," he replied.
"What, you just had banners and no strategy?" I asked.
"No, we did nothing. No strategy. No banners. Nothing. I insisted we do some but my bosses shot me down."

WTF?! What kind of moron doesn't pitch interactive in today's business world? I realize many agencies aren't up to the task of creating a true, comprehensive internet strategy but to not even try is simply asinine. At the very least you should have some banner ideas. It's simply a cost of entry nowadays.

And to any clients reading this, if your agency of record doesn't have an interactive strategy, fire them. They are doing you a disservice and don't deserve your business. Plus, they're fucking idiots and if they're screwing the interactive side up so badly, you have to wonder what they're doing to the rest of your business.

TV. A Great Way to Screw Up a Good Idea.

I heard a facinating story on NPR while driving to work a while back. It was about John Breen and his efforts to prepare his son for the vocabulary section of his upcoming SATs. John is a computer programmer who takes world hunger very seriously. So he bundled these three things into a website called Freerice.com that has donated more than 24 billion grains of rice to fight world hunger while at the same time, improving the vocabulary of users.

I first thought, "Wow, that's amazing." My second thought was, "Thank God that guy did it. If an ad agency had that assignment they'd have fucked it up."

Seriously, think about what your agency would have done. Probably spent a ton of money and time on research. Next, they'd create a TV campaign and buy media placements. They might do some print or posters or some other targeted OOH. At the end of the day, they'd have a killer campaign that would have raised world hunger awareness and maybe even got some rice to people who need it. Of course, they would have spent tens of millions of dollars in the process.

Breen spent maybe two or three months programming a site and then let it lose on the internet. The cost was probably several nights and weekends of his free time. But he reaped enough rice to feed 950,000 for a day.

The challenge to all of us is this: If we take TV off the table, what would we do that would move the needle? Ask yourself that question every time you meet your client or agency.

I want to choose. I really, really want to choose.

Every guy watching this spot is dying for him to choose the "€œMile High Club"€ door. Maybe, just maybe, we'€™ll see some skin. Maybe a little side boob. This spot is screaming for a microsite that will complete the experience and absorb the consumer. But there's no URL at the end of the spot. In fact "€œLifeiswhatyouchoose.com"€ doesn'€™t exist.

If you're desperate for skin, you might think to try becks.com. But that'€™s a lot to ask of a consumer when you simply could have changed the final title card to "€œLifeiswhatyouchoose.com"€ and have the URL redirect to becks.com where you can in fact complete the story (though with way too much effort).

I have to believe that someone in the agency said, "Maybe the site should be Lifeiswhatyouchoose.com."€ Why it'€™s not is anyone's guess.