Learning from failure
The agency recently worked on a contest for teens where entries could be submitted either online or via SMS. Razorfish and the client both expected large amounts of mobile entries, but 95 percent of the entries came from the web. The investment in texting was nowhere near the return.
"We try to take warning from that and tell our clients, 'Just because your consumer is texting with their friends, it doesn't mean they want to text with you,'" Kokich says. "It was an expensive mistake, but it was a good one to learn from."
In a sour economy though, brands aren't always willing to take similar risks.
"In the past, if you brought a client a strong idea, there was a good chance you'd get funded, and funded quickly. That's not the case now," he says. "People are more cautious with their budgets."
Still, clients want to work with digital agencies because they offer the ability to look immediately at the metrics to determine if a campaign is working.
"There is much more of an appetite on the part of clients for programs that deliver strong short-term ROI," he says. "Right now, marketers are moving more toward programs that can cut the cost and marginalize costs in the short term."
Razorfish's prestigious client list includes Coke, Kraft, Audi and Levi's, but that doesn't mean every client is necessarily playing it safe during sour economic times. Best Buy has been a Razorfish client for eight years, and increased its digital marketing every year from 2001 to 2003. In each of those years, the company emerged in a much stronger digital position, according to Kokich, and the big box retailer continues to forge ahead, recession be damned.
"Some clients will continue to stay conservative, but I've got to hand it to Best Buy. They are continuing to take risks and are open to innovation," he says.
The next frontiers
To get to the fully integrated Web 3.0 campaigns Kokich envisions, strides need to be made to connect all the channels, perhaps none more so than in the still fledgling world of mobile. While he concedes that mobile has been greatly over-hyped, Kokich is excited about the strides the medium has made. Mobile will be the center of client marketing programs, Kokich says, thanks in large part to a change in advertising philosophy.
"You aren't going to a see a lot of push advertising on mobile," he says. "With the advancements in mobile internet connections, there's an opportunity to have deep engagement with consumers wherever they are. We're reaching a point where penetration is high enough where we can really start to be creative."
One example of how Razorfish is doing this is through a new European campaign for Audi. Neue Digitale, a Razorfish-owned agency based in Frankfurt, Germany, recently rolled out a campaign where mobile users place an Audi Q5 wherever they imagine. For example, users can take a picture of their garage with their mobile phones and virtually place an Audi outside. They can take a picture of water and place an Audi driving across it, then send the picture to their friends.
The other area that excites Kokich is digital out-of-home. Razorfish has worked with AT&T to implement Microsoft touch technology in AT&T stores, letting customers place a product on the tabletop computer to learn more about it. Kokich sees touch screen walls and surface tables as a complete game changer, one that will transform the advertising experience.
"It's a new area where we're still learning in terms of what value consumers need and what you can provide," he says. "It's a whole new way of engaging with consumers in a completely different environment; you're not at a desk, you're not at home."
As consumers interact with touch screens and table-top computers, they'll undoubtedly have their mobile devices with them, making it easier than ever before to move from one medium to the next for more information, perhaps making digital out-of-home the final piece in the quest for Web 3.0. "It is completely able to transform the experience," Kokich says.
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Rich Cherecwich is associate editor at iMedia Connection.
