mUmBRELLA: Everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella

mUmBRELLA has been operating since the start of 2009 and is ostensibly a place to pass commentry about Australian new media and traditional media. Recently Simon van Wyk of HotHouse passed comment about the state of play of the interactive industry in Australia.  In his own words, it was a rant, but if had removed the odd expletive and lightened up on the caning of AdLand, it would have become a whitepaper. The facts that remain are that his viewpoint and observations whilst requiring the odd appraisal and scan with the Politically Correct meter here or there are so close to the mark, it’s not worth worrying about. The guts of it is that he has proposed an Industry code of practice for us boffins who profess to be a part of interactive. Brave moves, one which you must and are obliged to tip your hat in respect too and more importantly, we should follow, because they make good old fashioned common sense.

This caused a stir within the Areeba offices, as there are many experienced and veteran practitioners of the art who I rub shoulders with. The one which Simon & I had revisions on was point 8 – we think it should be reworked to be: “Our job is be enablers.  Our job is to enable our clients to better sell product to their customers”. Splitting hairs really, but none of us wanted to be caught on a Saturday selling product down at the local at the front line. I’ve been there before and it ain’t pretty. We’d prefer to be (pick one): 1/ out on our bikes 2/ playing the PS3 3/ down at the pub 4/ with the family. Or in my case, all of the previous. At once.

Guest post: Interactive agencies need to stop being advertising agencies
Simon van Wyk, MD of HotHouse, is over advertising agencies

Industry Code of Practice:

1. I will always propose the least expensive, simplest solution to any problem.
2. I understand Google is the homepage and I will ensure everything I do is sensitive to this fact.
3. My job is to facilitate business. When I start talking brand dialogue it’s only because I can’t find a way to really add value.
4. My job is to help you with the interface between your company and the customer on the web. They are using the web for utility; my job is to find that utility wherever it may exist.
5. We’ll be clear about the returns.
6. We have a chance to do things better to improve from our learnings.
7. The Internet has changed the world; let’s make sure we treat it with the respect it deserves.  It took us many years of TV to develop the technology to skip ads.  Let’s not clutter our communities and forums with useless messages that add no value. Consumers want to hear from companies who are relevant to their circumstance; let’s work with that.
8. Our job is not to sell our ideas to the client.  Our job is to sell the clients product to their customers.

IE6: Internet Explorer 6

Microsoft has released IE8 yesterday (March 19th 2009), which ostensibly means the slow (and long overdue) demise of IE6, which still, by anyones measure is on WAY to many computers out in the WWW. You can download it at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer page.

So. What novel ways to coax your site visitors to upgrade?  This was spotted by my colleague Simon Julian this afternoon.

Hugs for Monsters goes straight for the jugular – I almost spilt my Friday afternoon beer on my desk after reading some of these in his entry Overly Judgmental IE6 Splash Pages

In Simon’s estimation: Funny. I concur.

http://hugsformonsters.com/

Network Navigation

I’ll paint a scene for you – you represent an organisation that is either:

Type A -  multiple facilities i.e. buildings, infrastructure, assets, location. Diversified stakeholders that cover the spread across corporate, general public, specific interest groups, educated and newly aware of your offering.

Type B – is the custodian of a collective group of self sustaining brands, identities and personas i.e. the business is the umbrella marketing and operational owner of a family of best of breed products.

These represent what my esteemed colleague Simon Julian terms ‘Network Navigation’ focussed sites. Yes, you can be part of both groups whereby representation of multiple channels and being all things to all people, is a mandatory requirement. Because of the sheer volume of enquiry that they undergo both Types have site visitors that have an interest in visiting the website with the goal of learning and want an outcome to be firmly fixed into:

Type A: Where the locations are, How to get there and When to get there and what will be there when they arrive.

Type B: What product, what other products, where to buy and product specifications themselves

These are the logical outcomes of such sites. It’s what I term a somewhat ‘brochureware’ type of existence. Point & Shoot. Aim & Fire.

However, if you pause for a moment, consideration needs to be given to a raft of other areas which can be communicated – staffing & recruitment, company news, event information, shareholder enquiry etc. Existing customers and clients looking to revisit and search for updates. To extend this, these stakeholders could come to the website for specifications, support documentation and if you want to embrace Web 2.0 these very same visitors are looking for validation and confirmation via other user viewpoints – blogs, testimonials, experience driven endorsement.

Underlying all this is the driving need to clearly represent the ‘Network’ or family of products, facilities and services that the whole business represents. I’ve recently been involved in some work in network navigation website strategy and a cursory look around has yielded the following:

Epworth Health http://www.epworth.org.au – Type A

This site is really well setup from an information layout point of view, and considering it is a hospital, the branding is not too bad. I particularly like the visual treatment in the primary navigation offered around the overarching Epworth organisation umbrella vs the different facilities locations. 2nd level primary in the upper 3rd of the page is good and drills down to content with quality layout landing pages. Colour treatment could be better, but really clutching at straws here. 9/10

Museums Victoria http://museumvictoria.com.au – Type A

Again, a visually strong site, with expected branding which is par for the course for this sort of institution. Lack of a breadcrumb is a killer. Structure of events and the information design around event treatment falls away badly as the information across pages is inconsistant. On the upside, navigationally, you are always aware where you are on the site and it is easy to get around via the persistant navigation.  Annoying how it is optimised to barely skip through the screen fold – this minimal information presentation can lead to an excess of clicking around to get information being split across so many screens. 7/10

Wilson Sporting Goods http://www.wilson.com – Type B

Strongly branded, taking the product approach harnessing the strength of the parent brand and than shelving off to the 14 different sporting endeavours as required. Brilliantly executed aside from the Employment Opportunities area which is laughable in its simplicity and glaring lack of branding compared to the rest of the network. Also the dealer search arriving via the evil popup window warrants a -1 point. 8/10

Coca Cola Amatil http://www.ccamatil.com.au – Type B

Representative of Coca Cola, Goulburn Valley & Powerade, this is an average representation of how an umbrella brand can pale next to the strength of its subsidiary brands. Drilling down to find the brands themselves is a chore and you are left sitting there not even being able to decipher them, due to the miniscule size of the images, the errors on the page and the generally poor information design. Layout for shareholder information is a challenge too. Corporate Image representation is poor.  4/10

Mars http://www.mars.com – Type B

Aside from this site being devilishly slow, a strong representation of the brands from the umbrella perspective with succinct summaries and leads to the individually localised and branded websites. The site presents both flaws and strengths. There has been some strong effort at offering marketing led insight with a high level of visual interactivity, however it is let down by the somewhat skimpy treatment of key areas of information which umbrella company focussed visitors would be looking for. 8/10

Volkswagen AG http://www.volkswagenag.com – Type A & Type B

Austere. Minimalist. German. Not many people are aware that Volkswagen AG own Audi, Volkwagen Automotive & Commercial, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Seat, Bentley, Skoda & Scania. Easy to move around, the navigation is particularly easy to use and follow, mitigating the need for a breadcrumb. It could be argued that implicit notification of additional layers of navigation would be useful, but really just a minor point. 7/10