Is pitching the best way to drive value?

This week the Chairman of AKQA (an global digital agency many designers would say were at the top of their peer pole) went on record this week in the NMA magazine. asking clients to establish a better spirit of partnership and that clients generally reduce the number of digital pitches they hold. He said "agencies and clients need to work together so the client can find the best partner for their needs."

I commend both Ahmed (AKQA) and Morgan (Tribal DDB) who re-iterated the point, as some would see it as brave taking this lead. We are all aware that the commercial reality of running a service business is that the time scheduled for teams working across strategic, technical, creative and project management needs to be paid for for agencies to survive. It is true that in web design and online marketing there is often a culture of fear in marketing departments that have felt they did not get value for money last time around or are nervous about briefing agencies for accurate costings. The well documented skills shortage affects client and agency alike and to ensure EVERYONE gets better value for money, a reduction in project based pitching is something digitalAim preaches to its clients. If a client is unsure about how best to scope a brief for accurate costing then seek independent advice that is the hole that digital Aim seeks to fill for marketing and brand managers. For more information about digital Aim's independent support in briefing more effectively for better creative and financial response from web design agencies please feel free to contact us or review the digital Aim services page.

Don't forget about SEO in TV landing sites

For the second time today I saw the dazzling (if drastically unbranded) new Playstation 3 TV campaign. The high drama involves dogs throwing grenades and gangsters suitcases of money exploding to reveal Sony Playstation's new Playstation 3 URL for ThisisLiving.TV .
I saw this and wondered who would have planned such a major launch around a new URL (subject to Google's sandbox / quarantine) and using a domain suffix designed for TV companies and production houses and that has very little consumer awareness.
When I searched for "Playstation", "Playstation 3", "PS3" on Google.co.uk (other that 1 in 4 searches showing the URL in the paid for PPC listing) the new high profile launch site remained invisible through the most common consumer search method. I fear that the site will have been planned by ad agency TBWA. From further investigation online it seems that Sony briefed the agency Ramp Industry to plan a Web 2.0 independent User controlled platform for discussion about the PS3 functionality (called 3 speech) before allowing TBWA a long leash over the online response mechanism for the site. I found www.thisisliving.TV to be a highly over indulgent piece of rich media Flash site. It took much longer to load that the displayed pre-loader graphic and the navigation is so explorative (and unintuitive) that you soon become frustrated as each room move requires a return to the main screen, a hotel reception area. I found some user posted dancing videos but many moderator’s dances were still in place suggesting not many 'real people' have yet taken part.
Beyond the URL issue - I doubt that this site will survive 6 months after the end of the TV campaign. I'd have expected better strategic thinking from Sony and TBWA - come on guys - broadband access does not mean we can forget everything learnt over the last 10 years.