Adverghetti Junction

They just don’t seem to exist. And there doesn’t seem to be any reason why not. OK, every now and again, an agency produces out of its proverbial hat a campaign it calls integrated that actually does some justice to the term. It just doesn’t happen all that often.

I’m not going to sit around naming names, but I will explain why I think it happens and what can be done to resolve the problem.

You want to reach a wide audience. You know you’re going to create within your “integrated” campaign a full set of elements: Radio, TV, Direct Marketing, Online, Outdoor. Because that’s how to reach your maximum potential audience. Isn’t it? Well yes, and no. Integrated campaigns are all about creating awareness, and then getting people to want to find out more information. In this day and age, that information comes from one place – the Internet.

Making an integrated campaign work properly requires communication. Whether it’s cross-agency, or just multi-discipline within the one agency, communication issues are rife. No one really talks to anyone else until they need the work done. I don’t really understand why, seeing as communication is what we’re all supposed to be good at in this industry.

So how do we make it work? Involve specialists. Involve them early in the project. That means specialists in each field that you want to use in your campaign. Planners and strategists are great, but the bigger picture isn’t the nuts and bolts of how a campaign comes together. You need people who understand what can and can’t be done in each medium to really push boundaries across the board. Oh, and to talk to each other. It’s absolutely imperative! Don’t talk and you end up with 95% of the integrated campaigns that are out there. Nothing really driving anyone anywhere from the TVC, and no one really knowing where to find the additional information. It isn’t just a case of making some banners that look a bit like the TVC. Sorry, it just doesn’t cut it.

So, to my mind, the important thing here is to consult early, with the client and experts in one room, and don’t be afraid to bring in outside expertise. If you feel you could benefit more by partnering with a post-production house for your TV side, a digital production house that can make valuable suggestions, a marketing agency that knows how to get the information you need to the people that need it, do it and bring them in at the beginning of the project. The money you spend here really will save you thousands of pounds later on, and it’ll win awards left right and centre. Don’t overload the meetings with a bunch of people who won’t be able to make the integration work – you need the experts, no more and no less. Involve a strategist to start with, and a planner once you’ve worked out what you’re doing. They’re not needed in between.

I know this is somewhat controversial, especially to some of the larger agencies – it’s a control issue; how do you relinquish control of the overall project and retain quality? That’s really the easy bit, but gets hidden by process. It’s about communication, it’s about pushing boundaries, and it’s about asking questions. Asking questions of oneself and of others. Are we really producing the best possible thing that we can? What could we do this time around that we didn’t do last time? Did we honestly learn from our past mistakes, or did they get consigned to a filing cabinet. And there you have it. We just don’t learn from the past. I’d love this to become a real discussion across the industry, and I think it’s something that might well start to make an impact on the industry as a whole, if we make it happen.