Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I’ve been enjoying the entertaining farewells to 2011. Videos, memes, and pretty much anything digital. But I think the more important part of any happy new year reflection is gazing forward at 2012. I won’t detail my theory on the future of agencies in general, or give advice like this. Instead, my crystal ball shows very clearly the immediate future of my own agency. Because — as with any business based on talent — our fate is clearly written in our open job opportunities.

PLEASE PASS THE LINKS BELOW ON TO SUPER SMART, NICELY AMBITIOUS FRIENDS. While the specifics are all about H+K Strategies 2012, I truly think you’ll find this list serves as an accurate prediction of the marketing and communication industry as a whole. Happy New Year.
Stay with me after the jump, or go straight to the job specs:

• Head of Digital Studio
• Senior Digital Strategist, Consumer Packaged Goods
• Director, Change + Internal Communications
• Director, Issues + Crisis
• Intern, Food & Drink

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I always regret not going home for Thanksgiving, as it is one of the my favorite days of the year. No gift pressure. Just food, family, friends and football. I’ve resisted the urge to spray some pepper on the turkey below because today is about the best of America and my country’s roots as a nation made strong by immigrants from all lands. Now that I am one myself, this really hits home. I did however balance the sweet sentimentality of this Rockwell painting with an old favorite Thanksgiving theme video embedded below. People here in the London office didn’t quite get the appeal, so it might be an American thing. You’re welcome.

Norman Rockwell: Thanksgiving

Well, Internet Week 2011 is over and from what I can tell, it was jam packed five days with a diverse array of events. Although hashtagged as #IWE (E for Europe), it seemed fairly London media industry centric, to the extent that the Hospital Club was the official HQ. In unconference style, anyone can hold an event during the week. Simultaneous offerings mean you have to make choices as to what to attend (as you somehow squeeze a few sessions into your work week). It also means we are extremely grateful to all the folks that flocked to the WPP Stream London breakfast, hosted here at H&K. Titled Always on Events: How the Internet can help you build a year round community for your real life event, our theme seemed a natural for both IWE and Stream.

It is not always easy to hold a true Discussion, vs a standard presentation where the speakers do all the talking. But I was delighted that many of our participants jumped right in to debate the different aspects that help a community stay together after an event is over. Because it is the interaction between attendees that is the real secret to any event’s success. My co-leader was Rob Blackie, the MD of Blue State Digital London. His five tips for events that rock made a great wrap-up. Let us know if you have any to add. Lots to think about for Stream itself, IWE and your special event as well.

Trying to prep my bit for the WPP Stream London IWE event in our bar tomorrow, I got totally side tracked. Google launched brand Pages on Google+. Hurrah.

Have been waiting and watching for this since forever. Well, since G+ itself launched. There are many feature-led business reasons I think this is so important for brands. But, in my gut, I really really want all the people working on the brands we represent to feel the rush. To beat their competitors off the starting blocks. To be an early adopter brand.

Those are my emotional reasons. The top practical ones include:

• Hangouts
  • The much touted live video tool you can use for everything from a user focus group to a press briefing (video)
• Ripples
  • A lovely visualization of how a post is shared (video). Clearly, identifying top contributors and influencers is key for our clients and Google knows how to provide tools to help. And it’s free.
• Direct Connect
  • This is huge. Users can type +BrandName in Google Search and get a direct link to that Brand’s Google+ Page. It’s not just great for users, it is a reminder of the real power of Google overall.

There is nothing better than to learn by doing. And early adopters learn more, faster. Facebook is almost eight years old; Twitter launched in 2006. Neither was built for brands and, to be honest, many brands are still not sure what to do there. That’s ok. Have a play with Google+ and it just may help your company get serious with an overall social strategy. It’s not a zero sum game and I think the future is a multi-platform place.

We have been doing Workshops on Google+ (and other things) so ping us if you want to know more. And please do circle me.

Any real life event — be it a pop concert, an unconference like WPP Digital’s Stream, or a breakfast session during Internet Week — creates an automatic community. Most event communities, though, are ephemeral. Once the crowd goes home, that group of interacting people disappears.

I started to think about this when we expanded our Demystifying Digital conference from a single event in 2010 to an ongoing platform. And, as a volunteer director for Stream, I have seen firsthand how an annual event can grow into an always on community. TED, Cannes Lions, Burning Man — these cult happenings connect people all year.  Some of their success is organic; some is due to smart community building by the organizers. Given the much heralded ability of the Internet to build communities online, it seemed a natural topic for a Stream Local Discussion. How do we use the social net to fan the interaction sparked by a real life event into an ongoing, connected society? Join our IWE session on 08 November and share your experience and techniques.

We need some UK shoppers who are in market now for a research project we are doing. Can you help?

Share your journey as you look for your next smartphone.
Receive ≈£130 ($200) towards the purchase

We are looking for people between 18-45 who:
• Are about to purchase a new smartphone, but have no clear brand affiliation or preference
• Use the Internet to conduct product research prior to purchase
• Can document their shopping journey over 2-4 weeks, including post purchase

Is this you? Just email our Caroline Bourdeau right now.

If selected, you’ll need to share your search for the right smartphone on your social spaces of choice (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) Plus, you’ll get access to a secure site where you can post a live diary of your experience in researching information and seeking advice. We’ll provide guidelines, but it is pretty easy to do.

Our staff isn’t eligible, but please share with your friends.

I’m excited to be here at our office in Copenhagen polishing my presentation for tomorrow. This is our third full day D2 conference of 2011 following on the London event in June. We are blessed to once again have top shelf speakers from Facebook, Google Mobile, TNS, Wikipedia and especially welcome a new addition: Google+. In an input survey we are doing with our clients to structure the next conference, we had more clients asking to learn about Google+ than any other platform.

Follow #HKD2 for snippets from the day. We will be posting some of the presentations afterward. My short but sweet talk below to get the ball rolling. It explains what we mean by Demystifying Digital; feel free toping me if you want the voice over.

Just got out of a seminar where John Battelle was the guy on stage saying the smartest things. The rest of our team is over at the Google Sandbox or maybe looking for the Twitter Beach Lounge. Tomorrow, I scored a ticket to the Facebook reception but our client Say Media is putting on a bigger party with the hot electro dance punk band Friendly Fires.

SXSW? No. Welcome to Cannes Lions 2011 where there are as many people attending from the lands known as Silicon Valley (or Tech City) as from some actual countries.

Invasion of the Attention Snatchers

Of course, this has been going on for a while. As consumers have transformed into users, marketers must follow. As the audience’s attention has wandered far from the telly ad and deep into their iPad, agencies have added talent that know what heat mapping and usability testing mean.

Our own H&K seminar tomorrow features a creative powerhouse with an addiction factor all brands would die for. By bringing Peter Vesterbacka, the Mighty Eagle of Rovio Mobile, to the Debussy Theatre, we hope to share a little of the pixel dust that make Angry Birds such a magically success story. Please join us on 21 Tuesday at 5:30pm in Cannes or via Twitter everywhere.

Thursday was one of our big events of the year. Demystifying Digital—affectionately known as D2—is an ongoing, invitation-only H&K EMEA program that brings social platforms and our interactive communication experts together with brands. The content is geared to to live up to our goal of ‘demystifying’ and to offer H&K clients practical, hype free information.In other words, ‘news we can use’.  (I think too often the digital brotherhood falls into the trap of every religion where a layer of mysticism ensures the need for a guru to translate.)

The funny thing about a private event, though, is of course it is also public. We taped, pix and tweeted the day. Tony Wang, the head of Twitter’s new London office, was one of our speakers and in his honor I collected some of the #HKD2 tweets via Storify.

(More presentations and video content to come over the next week.)

@ThomasCrampton and Sir Martin talking about the state of digital at #streamasia [twitpic]
- @jasonoke

Now, I am partial to Ignite, but this is the can’t miss session at Stream. Like his talk last fall, this isn’t a documentation of all Sir Martin had to say, but rather what his audience here found most worth tweeting (that I was able to capture). So it is a tad agency-centric.

Never a bigger audience or more attention for the post lunch graveyard shift. An hour with Sir Martin.
- @jonnylang

Sir Martin Sorrell on stage @ #streamasia. It’s been a bumper year for WPP.
- @JonathanNguyen

Update: Here’s an offstage interview from the event where Sir Martin talks more about social. Check what he says about PR agencies.

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