Mainostoimisto – Advertising Agency – W.Steinmann – Helsinki, Finland

News: We’re the only ad agency at SIME competition

W.Steinmann is the only Nordic advertising agency chosen by Northern Europe’s largest Internet conference SIME as one of 150 companies on the Rising Stars of the North competition. Other competitors to name a few are this year’s most talked about music service Spotify, world’s largest Muslim lifestyle community Muxlim and mobile engagement company Blyk.

The jury comprising of the leading professionals in online communication and technology has screened hundreds of companies and narrowed the shortlist based on uniqueness of innovation and level of interactive media being part of the companies’ services or products.

Comments Managing Director Jussi Harju: ”To be recognized as the only ad agency from the Nordic by the leading internet authority SIME proves that our vision of the online communication and progressive consumer engagement is absolutely correct. The fact that SIME chooses all the nominees via a screening process instead of an application process sends a clear message of the relevance of our approach to all the marketers around Europe.”

About SIME

SIME is northern Europe’s largest conference about the Internet and digital opportunities.

Sime website

About the Rising Stars of the North

“The SIME Awards team has screened through hundreds of companies in the Nordic countries in its pursuit of finding the hottest rising stars. A first thinning has given an outstanding top level by more than 150 companies.”

more info on the SIME Awards website

About the SIME awards

“The SIME Awards were created in 1996 to honor excellence in online communication, business practice and technology, recognize the individuals and organizations responsible and inspire the Scandinavian Internet industry to world-class performance. SIME Awards shall contribute to an improvement of the creative and businesslike standards and expose the industry to potential clients.”

SIME Awards website

Blog: Talking about marketing to marketers

Sometimes it’s good to be ancient. You get to know a lot of people and sometimes have access to them.

I have been talking now to around 10 major decision makers in the marketing/communications field about their vision on the shape of the agency of the future. Thanks to everyone I’ve already met. More discussions to follow.

Here is small recap on what has been discussed, please note that these topics are nothing new – not re-inventing the wheel here:

Agencies cannot rely on the traditional copy/ad model of working too much longer.

Since the fragmentation means that we have millions of possible channels to choose from and if communications design changes from creating “small miracles” (Markku Rönkkö) to longer term narratives the core creative output has to allow that. Opinions vary from planners coming to the forefront that fun a network of specialist creatives to strategist/conceptualist hybrids forming the team of the future.

Lot has been said about our industry where the – basically handcraft based – know-how of our creatives is losing relevance. There is always a better illustrator/layout artist one connection away, and sometimes the words needed have to be stylistically very different from ad speak. Sometimes, dramaturgy is more important than scriptwriting.

This seems to be one of the issues that almost all people are thinking about, how to make the agency’s product more versatile and relevant in the myriad situations it might be needed in.

The next wave of talent isn’t interested in working at agencies anymore.

There are a large amount of young talented people that see alternatives to the traditional agency career path. They either possess specialist skills that they want to develop, or they just like to work at a more leisurely pace – reasons vary but the conclusion remains that agencies have been losing pull to attract the best talent.

If the agencies wish to remain relevant this conundrum needs to be solved in some fashion, either by creating workable virtual teams or by fixing something that is wrong within the agency structure. There also are a lot of people that still wish to work at the agencies, but the trend is clear that their appeal has diminished in recent years.

Change management should be an offering.

Everything changes all the time at a rapid pace, and so if the client’s wish to become reactive instead of pre-planned they need help in doing so. Ideas are the core offering but allowing idea delivery is as important if the client’s organization is built on buying traditional advertising. This is different from the traditional project management side of things, it usually needs deep insight on the client’s reality and even possible staffing/body leasing solutions.

Here is just a few topics covered, more to follow and I am looking to publish the results of the interviews in some narrative form when they are all concluded.

Petri Lattu

Blog: Hooray, web typography rise up!

Interesting news, Mozilla is planning to expand the web typography universe by introducing a new type format – cutely called WOFF.

Digital design has needed these kind of tools for a long time now, the browser compatible fonts work from legibility standpoint but limit the brand (or individual) expression palette. We can now design from ground up and make sure that the aesthetics are totally in line with the desired message.

sIFR has been useful and much used in the past, but rendering large masses of type is extremely arduous and needs lots of processing power.

Possible apologies for a nerdish topic, however I feel that tools like these expand the toolset that we as designers have and elevate the web typography standards to new levels.

More here.

Petri Lattu

Work: Finlands 1st Stereoscopic 3D ad

Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk wanted to launch a new, more precise version of the world’s #1 selling prefilled insulin pen, FlexPen.

For the launch event, we – together with Nitro – created Finland’s first stereoscopic 3D ad.

View a non-stereoscopic version of the video below [in Finnish].

Cases: Pepsi Brandstreaming

Objectives

Our task was to take Pepsi Max where its main target group spends its time – on social media and networking sites on the web. Another goal was to get more visitors to pepsi.fi.

Solution

As the traditional process of creating marketing communications does not meet the demands of contemporary marketing, i.e. the need to react in real-time and to have permanent presence in social media sites.

So we created a process that enables communication with consumers all-over the web and we can take part in conversations wherever they take place. We broke free from the traditional model of online marketing and set our playground to be the entire web.

We take part in conversations with the target group about the things that interest them and have a visible presence at the sites where they spend their time. The user Pepsi Max Suomi (pepsimaxsuomi) produces daily brand-related content that is relevant to the target group, without overemphasizing the brand too much, as the target group would not appreciate it.

We created a ground-braking, cost-efficient model, where we made possible for Pepsi Max to be present at numerous social media sites and aggregated the content created at several locations to a stream of content that updates many times per day.

Through continuous measurement we know what the target group is interested in and can help them in the transformation from passive receivers of advertising to active, conversational brand fans.

Blog: School of Optimization, part 1: the basics

At the W.Steinmann School of Optimization we learn how the contemporary internet marketing can be made more efficient using the methods of progressive marketing. The first part delves into what optimization is and why it should be a part of every marketers toolbox.

“The content production for our website was really expensive. We’re not gonna touch that.”

One of the most underexploited opportunities of internet marketing lies in optimization. Too often the content that ends up on the pages, stays there carved in stone and unaltered until the the entire website is demolished to give way to a brand spanking new website after two or three years.

Websites are being redesigned mainly because “they don’t work”. Even though they were planned to achieve certain goals, they won’t serve the current need. At this point, most marketers don’t stop to wonder “how should I improve my current website to match the changed situation.” Instead, they go ahead and place an order for a new website.

It goes without saying that the most cost-effective option would be to develop the current website. This is where optimization steps in.

“So what is this optimization then?”

By optimization, I mean a systematic process, where certain element on the website is being changed on the internet page and the effects on the user’s behavior is measured and analyzed. After that the necessary actions are taken to find the best alternative. This process is used for example in search engine advertising and it should be deployed in display advertising as well.*

A simple example: the advertiser wants more subscribers to their newsletter. They change the front page’s  link from “newsletter” to “subscribe a newsletter” and follows the web analytics if the users use the link more than before. If not, the advertiser tries some other wording, until the best combination  is found.

A more advanced advertiser uses tools which automate showing the options and choosing for this process. For example the Google’s free  Website Optimizer service enables finding the best solution for the combination of multiple pictures and text.

“But wait a minute, our website works well already. There’s no need to change it.”

That’s surely the case. But take a moment to think what it would entail if the website would work even better? If the conversion rates would incread by 10%, if the time spent on your website would be minute longer  or – heavens forbid – if you would sell three products instead of two to every customer through your website.

By the way, did I mention that I’m talking about your current website and actions, which actualize on the bottom line  already during this fiscal year?

In the second part of the School of Optimization we learn from the bank robbers.

Timo Paloheimo works as a Digital Planner at W.Steinmann

*) Optimization is about the same thing  the traditional direct marketers have done for years, it’s called  testing. Internet just makes it more faster, even real time.