Advertising’s innovation problem: fear of failure

Don’t be fooled by the talk in the ad industry: it is as deeply conservative as accounting. I’ve always found that odd, considering it’s a place where it’s OK, even expected, for 45-year-old men to dress (and often act) like 20-year-olds. Yet when push comes to shove, advertising refuses to take many chances. This isn’t just on the client side, either.

That’s my last takeaway from Skittlesgate. The commentary I’ve read, even from the self-appointed social media experts, is distressing, some of it just factually wrong. In advertising, everyone talks about trying new, different, even daring approaches. They rarely do them. They’re scared of failure. There's a stigma to it. This is diametrically opposite to the attitude of Silicon Valley, where failure is viewed as an important part of the innovation process.

And why not. Look at the commentary out there about the Skittles site. Mind you, this is a package goods Web site that a few thousand people would normally visit per month. I'm reminded of Allen Iverson's "practice" tirade. "We're talking about a candy Web site?" The story has been predictable. Agency.com got vilified for “stealing” from Modernista. Then some people thought it could have some value. Finally, the naysayers looked for holes. Look, some people wrote about putting Skittles up their asses! This is the worst thing to happen to social media! Skittles has “pulled the campaign” because it rotated the landing page from Twitter search to Facebook! Never mind that it rotated the page from Wikipedia to Twitter search originally. Oddly that didn’t warrant claiming the brand “pulled” the campaign. People are even debating whether this was “planned.” (It was.) But in digital, the magic is you try things, you see what works, you adapt. That’s how it works.

Skittlesgate reveals the underbelly of the advertising industry. It revels in failures, real and imagined. (I don’t think you can plausibly say Skittles.com has failed.) It loves nothing more than tearing others apart. This is not just a traditional advertising phenomenon. That would be amusing if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s corrosive to innovation. The way forward in reaching consumers in innovative, effective ways through digital media is trial and error. Is Skittles.com perfect? Far from it. Is it an attempt to do something very different? Yes, it is. Most would play it safe, as Agency.com and Skittles could easily have done. They could have created a Taste the Rainbow casual game, and add in a “viral” option for uploading your photo to a Skittle and emailing it to friends. Instead, it not only talked the conference talk (“consumers are in control”) but it walked it, albeit imperfectly.

There are some, like AKQA's Lars Bastholm, who have offered reasoned critiques of the site. Most, however, have just settled into the typical vitriol and deathwatch scenario. I’ve seen it before with Honeyshed and many other efforts to try something undeniably new. There’s a price to pay for this reflex to tear into anyone who dares cross the status quo. It's dangerous for what should be the most innovative part of the industry to ape the backbiting and navel-gazing of the traditional ad world. I’ve always thought the industry needs one more awards show, The Fails, which would award those who tried something new, came up short and learned from it.

Comments

[Tom Cunniff]

People who do advertising for a living are trained to be provocative.

Propaganda does not reward subtlety: it rewards huge successes (Mickey Rourke), huge failures (Mickey Rourke) and huge comebacks (Mickey Rourke).

And it roots for huge failed comebacks (Mickey Rourke).

When you marinate long enough in this environment, you can begin to think that this way of thinking is normal and healthy.

It's not. It's polar thinking. Out here in reality, the Skittles thing will neither save the brand or destroy it. It just ain't that important. Brands succeed or fail over the course of many years, not 140 characters.

With that said, I think it's perfectly valid to ask what Skittles was trying to accomplish. Isn't successful experimentation the result of knowing why something worked, or didn't?

[Craig Elimeliah]

Did no one think that exposing the Chatter section to Twitter wouldn't spark a rainbow of profanity and absolute ridiculousness?

Ever see a news report with some punks walking by in the background, they cant resist acting like idiots which almost always end us with a middle finger or some ridiculous pose that rolls evolution back 1000 years.

A brand needs a gate keeper, someone who is molding and moderating the message that is being put out there, the public cant be trusted to participate nicely in a campaign like this. Way too idealistic and risky.

Social media should be used to gauge and flow but the message has to come from a much higher place.

[Jim Calhoun]

Why innovate when snark is so easy to produce and fun to consume?

Seriously, innovation takes hard work. It takes strategy. It takes creativity. It takes coordination. Approvals. Legal reviews. Risk assessments. But more than anything, it takes fearless people willing to man-up to the risk.

That's especially challenging as an agency, since your primary concern in life is to not get fired. And with good reason. Take a risk and you're very likely to get crapped upon by your peers, lose that lucrative account, and send your staff home all because you advocated doing something a little different.

It's pretty much guaranteed that on the off chance you do innovate -- especially once your original vision has been beaten beyond recognition by "the process" -- the risky path you've championed is certain to be rewarded with ridicule from all angles. The case study above proves that.

As the champion, you face a whole new set of challenges against the expectations you've set. You need to deliver meaningful impact. Unfortunately, the thing you launched doesn't at all look like the original brilliant idea you cooked up while sucking on a hookah pipe, prone on a conference room table, asking a bunch of brand managers questions like: "If Mr. Clean were a safari animal, what would he be and why?"

Without fail, your efforts are met with snarky reactions from all sides with nearly zero chance of counting on support from your peers. "Oh, that's so tactical it can't be anything but lame." "Oh, that is so engaging it will never deliver ROI." "It's cute, but it just doesn't scale -- you're better off with TV." "Oh, that's derivative of such-and-such." "Oh, that ad format needs to be 1000px wide and 1000px tall before it means anything" And so on. It' a zero-sum culture.

And you're right about the Valley. Ridiculing failure happens, but it's not the culture. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and we all like to watch and comment on that. The fact is failure happens, and the culture here embraces this reality. With risk comes reward. Innovation brings spoils.

When people are faced with challenges here, we help each other solve problems -- no matter how challenging that may be or counter-intuitive it may seem to outsiders. In restructuring my sales team, I had the good fortune of consulting my very smart and experienced peers with no questions asked -- it is expected that you help your peers with the challenges they face, because they know you'll help them when you're in a pinch. If they can't count on you when they're in a pinch, the system breaks down (and you're pegged as an unreliable outcast).

This culture of reciprocity does not exist in the ad world. I'd go so far as to argue that the cultural underpinnings of reciprocity, which is the pyschological basis of social media, is another reason the left coast is pounding the right in terms of social media innovation.

I love the ad industry, and I love digital advertising. But from the left coast (and a technology provider to the industry) I can tell you your observation here rings true to me.

Regards,

Jim Calhoun

[Alan Wolk]

Hey- not every "self-appointed social media expert" was piling on.

But the industry has a history of this.

When "Think Small" and "Lemon" came out for VW back in the '60s, they were vilified for making fun of the product (among other things)-- "Mad Men" even had a little fun with that.

And "1984" the spot everyone will tell you is the best TV commercial ever was also widely criticized for not showing the product, being way too metaphorical, etc.

**And while I am in no way suggesting that this Skittles campaign is the equivalent of the aforementioned spots** it's not surprising to see the negative reaction. It happens in every creative industry: any movie, book, TV show that veers from the norm is criticized by those who have a vested interest in the old way of doing things. Until it is the old way of doing things, in which case it's genius.

Silicon Valley is the exception. It's too bad we can't learn to be more like them, but our industry is not structured to reward experimentation or even encourage it.

[@davehonig]

Well Said @bmorrissey! These are the best of times for Innovation. Some of the best innovative ideas have occurred during A down economy. Much of what we have today has been build around another innovoative idea that may of failed initially but has continued to both improve and evolve. Brands cannot be afraid to embrace innovation, Especially in times like these. I have said many of times, 2009-2010 will be looked back as the years where innovation paved the way for brands to spend the huge $$'s we have always expected. The difference with Innovation today is that we have all learned from our mistakes in the past. We are much smarter, more mature and listen more effectively :)

We cannot be afraid of Innovation.

@davehonig

[Sean]

I think the pile-on effect we've seen with Skittles is more a reaction to hubris than a reflection of an innovation problem.

While it is fair to say there is a lack of true innovation in adland (sorry but repackaged YouTube videos, rebadging a third party technology, an online QVC and anything else based on reference outside "the industry" don't count as innovation").

We (as an industry) have no issue getting behind fresh thinking (even if we do ultimately wrestle to take credit for it). In fact, I think the ad industry can often be far too generous to perceived innovation.

The Modernista site which has been so often referenced in Skittlesgate is an example of something which was almost universally lauded. Another is Crispin's Whopper Sacrifice (and from an agency so thoroughly disliked, I might add)... and we only have to look at what won big in the shows last year for more examples which have been lavished with praise.

That being said, we do also like to point out the flaws and pile on the grief when a brand or another agency trumpets loudly their "innovative" work especially when there are legitimate criticisms that can be made against it.

[David Armano]

Brian,

You've hit on something very deep here. Now as someone who has been critical of a couple of initiatives (Subway & Honeyshed) I've tried to do show in ways that would not only tear down, but provide insights along the way. We live in an age where everyone can and will have an opinion, and so this important issue goes beyond the Ad industry.

That said, yes—within the Ad industry, there seems to be a sickness that punishes people who try. Look at how defensive this conversation began with a "they stole our agency's idea" bit. That's the industry heritage coming out loud and clear. It would be like someone "stealing" Google's one input search design.

I think it's OK to be critical, to call out where things can be better—but there's a line when you take joy in someone else's misfortune. That's where things get a little nutty in the industry. But at the end of the day, the jury is still out on this whole skittles thing. I don't see how it's being written off as a failure. It was a simple idea that wreaked chaos on an entire network and if you ask me, the joke is on us for being sucked into it so effectively. It was almost by design.

Personally, at the end of the day—this whole thing captivated me. Maybe I'm not the target audience. (hey, I'll eat them if they are in front of me) or maybe we all need to stop thinking in marketing speak as I just did and really reflect on what went down in the past couple of days. I thought it was a phenomenon. But that's just my opinion.

Great post. It will get all of us thinking about risk, innovation and the willingness to try.

[scott crawford]

"It's just fear, dread and anxiety, Mikey." (Anybody else remember the Thirty Something episode.)

[AbbieKendall]

If I were leading the Skittles marketing group, I would have included in this campaign the strategy and plan for driving the conversation about it in the social media realm.

Great marketers love to learn, and the Skittlers could be social marketing thought provokers (and possibly leaders) by telling us about their campaign. What was their impetus and strategy? How did they set goals and metrics? Was this campaign a test of a concept, or a tested concept? What's the next move in the campaign, or is it over?

I wouldn't expect the Skittlers to reveal propietary or sensitive competitive information. But, they provoked this conversation, so they should be talking--without apology--about the interest and excitement they've generated and what it means to their brand and customers.

[krwlos1]

Speaking of AKQA and microsites, it was an interesting opportunity to compare the launch of visa.com/go with skittles. Obviously these are two very different companies with different audiences and customers, but the visa brand message comes through much more crisp, polished and clearly communicated IMO. Having said that, I applaud the skittles experiment for its innovation and for catapulting the brand into the world of relevance (at least for now). We're still talking about it, and in the end, it's just rainbow-colored sugar.

[Chas Edwards]

Amen, Brian. Innovation requires risk-taking. Obviously Skittles might have thought through the angles better before launching this campaign, by I applaud the effort. I was on a panel at a major agency a year ago and my fellow panelist summed up the agency dilemma like this: "First you ask us for a proposal for something that's never been done before, then you ask us to provide 3 case studies to verify that it's worked in the past."

[slowmo]

My beef with the Skittles website is whether it rips off Modernista. That's immaterial to the discussion.

My problem is with the approach.

This approach does not require a website at all. Visitors could just go straight to these sites via search queries on Skittles.

This is a seeding/SEM strategy, not a campaign platform. The client can save major bucks by disseminating interesting/unique/exclusive skittles content to the right blogs, social networks and forums.

It's also the wrong campaign strategy for Mars as it requires Mars to relinguish ownership over Skittles brand values while legitimizing ANY consumer opinion on the Skittles brand. It could be a Jack The Reaper twittering and you wouldn't know.

Simply put, Mars have officially lost control of their Skittles branding. They have absolutely no idea how Twitter and other social network sites or services can work for them or against them.

I prefer this approach to social media and it will work better, especially if the target audience are hardcore gamers:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.90892

Given that there is a multi-player version for the downloadable advergame toolbar, you can round up your gamer friends through Twitter or IM for a surprise gun-fight against Killzone's villains, the Helghasts.

This post is a reporduction of a post I did at another blog but the interest in this topic wasn't there.

[slowmo]

"My beef with the Skittles website is NOT whether it rips off Modernista. That's immaterial to the discussion."

When it comes to digital campaigns, the big idea, the brand, the strategy and the technological execution must work hand in hand.

[Alicia Arnold]

Great article Brian!

Innovating is never easy. To illustrate the point, I use an activity to help clients understand what it feels like to innovate. I'll share it with you.

Grab a rubber band and put it around the fingers of your right hand. Now, slip the fingers of your left hand through the rubber band. Pull your hands apart. The tension you feel is akin to the tension of innovation. The greater the innovation (i.e. the further apart you pull your hands), the more tension you feel.

To make innovation happen a number of factors need to align. Similar to the 4P's of marketing, agencies need to focus on the 4P's of creativity:

Person - how creative someone is
Product - what makes something creative
Process - how people use and apply their creativity
Press - the climate surrounding the person, process and product in which creativity grows or is crushed

To address advertising's innovation problem, it becomes a question of, "What is the real problem?"

I agree fear of failure is an issue. Creativity crushers abound. When presenting a new idea, we feel proud and vulnerable at the same time. We are also quick to judge and kill ideas rather than build them up. So, perhaps The Fails would be beneficial! That is - as long as we (both advertisers and clients) are open to making and learning from our mistakes.

I find many clients want to leapfrog and transform their businesses, however, they underestimate the amount of work, rigor and change leadership that is required to innovate. It takes openness to risk, patience, resiliency and tenacity to keep the essence of innovation alive from concepting through implementation.

[Digitalent]

I think advertising has lost its nerve because too many practitioners are old. Sorry to sound like a hardcore ageist, but take a close look at a lot of shops. The creative directors are more worried about their mortgages than their portfolios. It doesn’t help that account people – and accountants – have gained so much power and influence over the years.

I think digital hasn’t lost its nerve – but mostly because it never had much nerve. As we’ve discussed before, most digital has direct marketing connections, so they need to deliver results – and do it in an efficient and economical fashion. I’m not talking about the cutting edge shops. Just the rest that comprise the bulk of the arena.

And then, as you’ve pointed out, there is the critique factor. It’s like the advertiser who fired his agency when its Super Bowl spot didn’t score high in USA Today’s poll. Clients are vain, and don’t want to be embarrassed – even when they do come up with something innovative. Human nature trumps cajones every time.

[slowmo]

Skittles Pulls Twitter Campaign
by Laurie Sullivan, Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 7:00 AM

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101437

[BigJimSlade]

@Digitalent,

Read Randall Rothenberg's "A Manifesto on Interactive Advertising Creativity" at http://www.randallrothenberg.com/. It's a great article, and summarizes some of the tension between the 'new Agencies' and the BDA's.

It explains why slave-like devotion to ROI is not in an Agency or Client's best interests. The interweb is more than just a sales channel, it needs to be utilized to tell a story about a Brand just like other media.

Efficiency for efficiencies sake disregards an Agencies most important role. To build Brands.

[Andy]

the old Jay Chiat school of "shock, awe and submission" is a huge problem. you don't invent things under that philosophy. but I think there's a bigger problem.. an identity crisis?

.. and please (reading comments). this isn't about account directors vs. media vs. creative being the problem. the fact that people are still speaking on those terms is ridiculous. the old thinking of one skill set/department "owning" creative simply doesn't work anymore.

i think agencies need to decide one path or the other #1 mad scientists of invention or #2 theatrical storytellers/content directors. it's too hard right now to find people with skills and mindset to be both.

more thoughts here: "A Failed Philosophy of Invention: Why Advertising Ideas Suck." http://tinyurl.com/cy9pj9

[mcluhead]

Perhaps the real issue is that the industry rewards stunt marketing (e.g. Skittles, Whopper Sacrifice).

[mcluhead]

@bmorrisey

Also, btw, "fear of failure" cannot be the problem. Most digital firms focused on web development don't really analyze whether their efforts generate contribution margin. Without that, there's no way a campaign can actually fail.

If anything, you probably mean there's a fear there's a fear of ridicule. That may be but I've never seen it from colleagues or myself. If anything, I've noticed that, when it comes to digital, the most important thing is generating as much revenue as possible with as little time and cost as possible -- usually on a tight deadline.

The biggest challenge in online advertising is the industry's failure to demonstrate that their websites and banners produce incremental sales. If they avoid figuring out how to show results, and the money keeps coming in, everyone's happy producing...as long as the checks cash.

Until that day of reckoning, digital agencies are about money, awards, and getting out of the office to enjoy life. These are all good things of course.

But if you want innovative work to come -- we need to have a baseline understanding of what works and what doesn't -- preferably from the perspective of an CFO.