The Agency of the Year nod went to Questus, a firm that’s going so far as to producing a documentary on the challenges it and its peer advertisers face (there’s a clip on the iMedia website). Starcom won for Campaign of the Year, for their social media campaign for ESPN, pumping up the 2011 NFL draft at a point when negotiations were fraught between NFL players and owners and the season’s sheer existence seemed questionable. Other winners were Ignition Interactive for Digital Boutique Agency of the Year, AKQA for Most Innovative Agency Website, Media Storm for Best Agency for Video, The Hyperfactory for Best Agency for Mobile, 22Squared for Best Agency for Social, Razorfish for Best Agency for Out-of-Home, Digitas for Best Agency for Integrated Media and iProspect for Best Agency for Search.

To address these challenges, many agency owners and creative technologists have sought out resources to help them mitigate the burden. Yet many struggle to find, evaluate and deploy the best tools available to keep teams from getting bogged down in emails, lost files, version control, prolonged approvals and the overall project management process so they can focus their attention on their true talents – the creative process.

A typical scenario involves a number of point solutions pulled together to address different facets of the same problem. Agencies might implement Skype to help teams easily connect via IM or video conference, Dropbox to share larger files, or Google Calendar for scheduling and task reminders. At first glance, many of these tools seem like viable solutions and are attractive due to their low-cost and ease-of-use. However, it quickly becomes evident that managing a growing number of disparate tools and getting everyone on board to use the same tools in a consistent way – if at all – is a significant hurdle. Ironically, in the attempt to bring people together, the sheer number of tools separates people and processes with information becoming more and more decentralized.

Alternatively, agencies’ other options are high-priced, bulky and complex solutions that require hardware, trained IT staff, and hours of consulting and configuration. These solutions often prove to be too complicated and frustrating for users, resulting in mutiny or team members simply solving their own problems in other ways. These experiences leave many agencies disillusioned and even fearful of new technology.

However, a middle ground between these two extremes is emerging. Niche players are receiving funding and working fast to tack on additional and more comprehensive services. At the same time, the large-scale solution providers have made efforts to simplify processes and functionality through consulting services. Both groups have fine-tuning to do, but it’s evident they’re closing in on a middle ground that finally points towards a true definition of collaboration. Ultimately, agencies should set their sights on solutions that comprehensively address all their unique needs without sacrificing ease-of-use and simplicity. Tools should be cost-effective and an “organic” addition to current processes within the agency, so teams can fully adopt their benefits.

For instance, SK+G, an advertising and marketing communications agency, is leveraging Central Desktop’s SocialBridge platform to address these challenges. The platform is an online collaboration workspace specifically for advertising, digital and creative agencies. The platform’s consolidation of video and creative file markup tools, time tracking, task management, Gantt charts, web conferencing, social sharing, chat and other tools is changing the way SK+G and other creative agency teams collaborate both internally and with their clients.

“We needed a tool that brought together social capabilities, document sharing and creative markup tools and team collaboration under one umbrella to help us better serve clients,” said Jennifer Cuny, director of creative services at SK+G. “Not only are tools like these providing a simple path for team collaboration, but they have enabled us to streamline our traditional processes – even down to how we assign tasks, keep on top of projects and approve creative internally and with clients.”

It’s apparent through SK+G’s and other agency testimonials that agencies are seeking one solution that combines all the tools necessary to ease the agency’s end-to-end processes from creative development to project management to client services delivery. They’re finding that the most effective tools are those that come together on a middle ground and maintain ease of use, yet have a comprehensive set of services that will truly allow creative teams to get back to their natural teamwork and creative processes.

That’s what today’s most successful new companies demand from their advertising partners. Oh, yes – and ways to measure both. Quickly, so as not to waste precious marketing dollars and time on creative executions and ad buys that don’t make the web servers hum or the phones ring.

In other words, they want image advertising plus direct response “immediate results” – but minus the over-the-top sales pitch (think Dan Aykroyd’s hilarious “Bass-O-Matic” spots on “Saturday Night Live”).

Thankfully, creative agencies have discovered new ways to deliver direct response advertising while also supporting a more polished brand image. And fortunately for media buyers and brands, technological developments and access to volumes of consumer and other data have helped make measurement instant – and instant adjustments to both creative and media-buying strategies a reality.

This new form of image and direct response creative has converged with new analytic capabilities at the intersection of the retail and service sectors and the Internet. Start-ups now demand their agencies deliver fresh, compelling creative as well as media buys that offer instantaneous and measureable proof of return on investment (ROI).

The results of this approach can be stunning. Take Priceline.com, a company my agency was fortunate enough to meet more than a dozen years ago. Within less than six months of its 1998 launch, 62.5 million consumers reported they were aware of the name – the fastest branding of a new company in history, according to The Brand Institute.

More important, Priceline continues to enjoy record sales and a 20 percent compounded growth rate thanks in no small part to brilliantly executed creative and a media buying program that constantly challenges the status quo.

Why are companies like Priceline successful? Because an ROI-centric advertising program works in a world in which consumers make instant decisions and “click” to “buy now.” No longer is the goal solely to build a brand, or to stimulate intent to purchase. Instead, the objective is to generate an actual purchase and to be able to explain as much as possible how and why that purchase occurred so that additional purchase activity can be stimulated.

By tracking key ad components, correlating ad airings and website activity, and calculating the resulting response rate and cost of acquisition, an ROI-oriented advertising program can deliver unsurpassed value and assure client retention.

Relying on time-honored metrics no longer is enough. For example, research shows that the majority of consumers reached through television advertising respond by visiting the advertiser website, often located through a branded search engine, for more information. Understanding the link between ad airings and client-related search activity is an additional way to assess the impact of a campaign.

However, tracking the consumer response an ad or series of ads triggers is only the tip of the iceberg. Through the use of complex analytics, media buyers can test and assess strategies and optimize ad spends. As results are achieved and the cost of acquisition becomes clear, campaigns can be scaled and results extrapolated.

An ROI-focused approach to media buying addresses both the long and short term. Rapid and unpredictable changes in the media and economic landscape make real-time testing more critical than ever before, while tracking and analytics enable a media-agnostic identification of best-performing channels. The result is a customized, hybrid approach that focuses on what the client company seeks to achieve, as opposed to simply repeating what has worked in the past.

All this is not to say that longer-term brand objectives no longer are important. Cultivating and maintaining a trustworthy brand is an integral part of what drives response – especially ongoing response. However, as consumers increasingly embrace mobile technology, understanding “now” behavior becomes an extremely important consideration for everyone with an interest in advertising.

Partners pick the specific services — anything from banner ads and landing pages to business cards and logos — and feature private-label offering pages on their sites. Typical turn-around time is 48 hours. Partners can also jump in on joint marketing through the Inkzoo partner directory, as well as customize commissions and reselling structures.

2adpro is also introducing a new affiliate program, in which affiliates earn commissions on sales referred via customized URLs and Inkzoo banners.

turn-around of 48 hours

ADOTAS –

In steps smart outsourcing.

Let’s take a look at some brand agencies that we all know that have successfully tapped into technology partners to better outsource campaigns.

Razorfish, one of the largest interactive marketing companies in the world, has always taken a progressive, smart outsourcing approach.

“We do see a value in email as an acquisition and engagement tool and rely on partners to support us in targeting, reaching and building engagement workflows as an extension of our media and search strategies” said David Baker, Vice President of Razorfish.

Outsourcing is not new. What’s changing is its perception. Traditional advertising agencies are looking toward new media companies to complement the services they offer clients.

For example, Don Low, previously of HL2, partnered with traditional companies like public relations agencies and reporting companies. Now, he is constantly thinking about how to add more value for clients from a technology marketing partner.

“Harnessing expertise by seeking smart, savvy partners for augmented services is key to an agencies’ ability to stay current and ahead of the curve.” He attributes this general shift in perception to the convergence of CMOs calling for tangible analytics and the unparalleled explosion of communication that’s replaced traditional media.

In general, agencies are rethinking the benefits of partnering with vender companies like us Marketfish for list-based marketing, as well as Google for search-engine marketing, RapLeaf for studying social footprints and BlueKai for data exchange.

While there are so many ways to reach customers, there’s no simple way to reach customers, and you can’t just buy one form of media and expect to achieve the penetrating results most clients want.

One clear example that Don brings up is the notion of Client Relationship Management (CRM). Not too long ago, CRM was perceived by agencies as more science, less art.

Optimizing campaigns based on desired outcomes can seem dry versus coming up with the million-dollar idea. But helping agencies realize the science behind the art and showing their clients how to be more results-driven within specific market segments — for clients adds up to dollars well-spent.

With an open mind and a solid approach, agencies can package adjunct services to create a dynamic platform from which to launch a client’s integrated marketing strategy with executable outcomes and precise analytics. This allows them to focus on what they do best — developing creative strategy and account management — while vendor partners do the heavy-lifting of implementing new marketing tactics.

Through these partnerships, agencies not only differentiate themselves, but also provide clients with increased results and the analytics to prove their success. The key is to be open and nimble — to do what you do best, and leverage exceptional expertise with like-minded organizations.

In the end, the best idea and its robust offerings win by producing creative and measurable results.

If you’re on the client side, it’s not your imagination either; superfluous layers of agency bureaucracy — the smug multitudes of managers, directors and functionaries — really do just get in the way and make it harder for you to meet your deadlines.

The tools of modern business (smartphones that are never off, or those red email exclamation points) cause pretty much everyone on the client side to behave like bipolar amphetamine junkies. Clients pay lip service to “strategy,” but in practice they’re slaves to crisis, reprioritizing objectives on-the-fly as events unfold.

Agencies must scramble to keep up, especially in the agonizing final stages of many projects, when the client suddenly introduces dozens of trivial changes at the 11th hour (“You know what? I liked the smaller polka dots. Can we change the polka dots back to small? But not too small.”).

This puts agencies in a difficult position, since they tend to deliver the most value when clients keep their cool, exhibit patience and think strategically. But clients control the purse strings, so it would seemingly behoove agencies to figure out a way to match the client’s pace and thus remain relevant and valuable.

So I’ll posit a potentially heretical question: when creative is mostly finished and the client wants to hem and haw over the size of a few polka dots, do agency staff really need or want to be involved?

If you could build an intelligent system that would put the client in the driver’s seat for the final stages of a project, the answer might be yes.

Why Is Creative Still Hard-Coded?

Presently, creative is, in software development terms, “hard-coded.” Agency designers work behind the scenes and the client only ever sees creative in fully baked form. This approach ensures the integrity of the creative, but it also necessitates that every subsequent change, no matter how simple, be a manual exercise that chews up agency resources.

Imagine if websites were still hard-coded like this; posting a short update to Facebook would require 20 minutes of HTML updates. Forget about sharing things across social media with the click of a button; Twitter, LinkedIn, etc would each have to be painstakingly updated one by one. When all was said and done, you could easily spend a few hours pollinating the web with your most recent brain fart on the awesomeness of “Glee.”

No wonder clients get frustrated. Making lots of small updates is not where agencies add value, and it’s not what they’re currently built to support. Mistakes happen. Delays creep into the process. Everyone drowns in email.

This is bad for business. Over the long run, clients could lose enthusiasm for the agency model and take their dollars elsewhere.

Invite the Client Into the Sandbox

If one were to build a system that would hand over at least some control to the client after the high-level creative direction has been developed, how could it be built?

First, transform every element of every creative project into a variable that can be modified on-the-fly. Then, write computer programs that codify the creative process. Many layout, typographic, and color principles can be mathematically defined, which means they can be programmed.

Clients’ brand guidelines are largely rules-based, which makes them programmable. Ditto all the artistic techniques that have been digitized by tools like Photoshop.

Consider that companies are already building taxonomies for abstract creative concepts. At GettyImages.com, type “cool” into the search box. You’ll be given a choice of three interpretations of what “cool” could mean, along with an array of conceptual, compositional, and technical filters.

Once you have a dynamic, programmable, environment for the client to play around in, establish rules and creative boundaries. If the campaign concept is “cool,” don’t let the client apply a hot pink color scheme. If the concept is “sophisticated,” don’t let them use a photo of a circus clown (unless, of course, it’s a particularly dapper circus clown).

Parts of what I’m suggesting are already feasible (my own company Canned Banners is a narrowly focused example of rules-based banner ad design). Agencies ought to consider the benefits of divesting themselves of the agonizing final steps of many creative projects.

There’s a big risk to not at least entertaining this concept; clients will eventually choose the path of least resistance, and if clients perceive agencies as being unable or unwilling to conform to the way they do business, they will find more suitable means of building their marketing messages.

Any advertiser can now plug into a real-time market of display ad impressions, retarget visitors, track potential customers as they navigate around the web, and optimize ad content with intelligent analytics. The once-hallowed territory of media companies and ad agencies is evolving into a highly automated commodity marketplace accessible to millions of advertisers.

However, there is a big, clunky bottleneck in this brave new market — the vast majority of display ads are still being made “the old-fashioned way.” While there has been an explosion in ways to automate media buying and targeting, relatively little attention has been paid to streamlining the creation of the ads themselves.

This may not seem like a critical problem yet, but as competition heats up, the industry will need to figure out how to create thousands of inexpensive banner ads on a weekly or even daily basis, without sacrificing too much creative quality. The players that are able to solve this problem will unlock immense economies of scale and thus enjoy a key strategic advantage.

Below I offer my opinions on three possible ways to remove the bottleneck and streamline the creation of display ads. My list of solutions is by no means exhaustive, and I’d love to hear other ideas.

None of this should be interpreted as an indictment of ad agencies, designers, or the “classic” process of developing ad creative. It’s simply a fact that the legions of new display advertisers will not have the 4- or 5-digit campaign budgets required to develop custom ad creative. Plus the agency process requires too much overhead to ever scale up efficiently.

Solution One: Use software that algorithmically combines and optimizes ad content to create “the perfect ad.”

Such a purely automated approach would certainly scale up nicely, and I’m sure it has had successful applications (type “display ad algorithm” into Yahoo!), but it seems like something out of a 1950s-era film reel. The one where a pipe-smoking man in a white lab coat tells the viewer how super-intelligent “electronic brains” will have solved all the world’s problems by the year 1980.

Sarcasm aside, this solution is way too complex for the vast majority of advertisers. Perhaps we can revisit this option in another decade, assuming I haven’t been taken prisoner by Banner Ad SkyNet.

Solution Two: Outsource design to ultra-cheap sweatshops.

Can you quickly churn out inexpensive display ads by locking an army of designers in a basement and paying them peanuts? Yep. Will the banner ads be any good? Some of them.

Wow, this sounds pretty great, but is it the least expensive option? Nope.

Even the most cut-rate shop still requires extensive human interaction and overhead just like an ad agency, only in a very compressed form. And what happens when demand rises twofold? Fivefold? Tenfold? Do you purchase more and more workstations, rent bigger and bigger warehouses, and comb the countryside for naïve and desperate designers?

This might continue to be a cost-effective solution for a little while, but it’s a stop-gap measure that will yield diminishing returns until it eventually collapses under its own weight.

Solution Three: Let advertisers create their own ads using sophisticated and flexible templates.

I believe this is the most promising solution, at least in the near term. Yes, I’m aware of the multitude of craptacular “make your own banner ad” websites out there, which may cause some readers to scoff. However, there’s no law that says self-serve display ads need to be tacky.

My company Canned Banners offers professional-looking templates and a clean, user-friendly interface. An advertiser can create a new ad in a matter of minutes, and the results emulate what they would get from an agency or freelancer, only at a much reduced price. Template flexibility is key — after a template has been customized with an advertiser’s text, images, logo, and color scheme, the resulting ad is almost completely unique (in case you’re worried about all ads looking identical).

It would seem that creating ads from templates resolves several major obstacles to unlocking display’s long tail. It’s an on-the-fly solution that matches the pace of digital advertising far better than the back-and-forth process of working with a designer.

Templatization makes very efficient use of designers because a single original template can be customized into hundreds of unique ads. Self-serve systems become cheaper to maintain as they scale up. Finally, templatized ads fit within the budget constraints of the millions of advertisers that have been, until quite recently, shut out of the display ad market.

Made perfect sense when he said it. I believed it then, and I believe it now. There are gazillions of people involved in the making of a film or video, and each has his or her own things to advocate. The director’s ultimate job is to bring all of it together through an educated and critical eye, with the goal of producing the best possible experience for the audience.

The instructor, an episodic television director by profession, knew I directed spots, and had made it known that he didn’t think much of spots, in general. He pointed toward me, and continued, “…unless you’re directing commercials. Then the director is the ultimate advocate for the client.”

Never one to be shy, I argued. Not because I was insulted, but because he was wrong.

“But, if you only advocate for the client, you’ll make spots that suck,” I countered. “Commercial directors, if they’re any good, are advocates for the audience. It’s just that they’re translating the client’s message, rather than the screenwriter’s.”

Point made, point taken. Cut to: Now.

The web isn’t film and it isn’t TV, and people don’t watch or browse. They search. Not always in the literal sense of “search” as we mostly think of it, but, yeah most of the time, literally. I like to think of it as: They seek.

They might seek through a search engine, or category filters in an app store, or by scrolling thumbnails in a dashboard. They could be seeking information, entertainment, connection, communication, or all of the above.

What they seek, specifically, has to do with what’s on their mind this minute. Next minute, it’s something different. What they experience depends on what we put out there for them to find.

As in film, there are gazillions of people involved in the making of the stuff we put on the web for people to find. Technology, IA, design, UI, UX, tracking, measurement and content are just some very broad things these gazillions of people advocate. At some point, someone has to bring it all together.

It’s rather nice that the term, “Creative Director” has the word “Director” permanently embedded. Because I believe the Creative Director must be, at the core, the advocate for the user.

In too many places, the Creative Director is simply the advocate for design. Design is critical. And a design-driven creative director can be a very good thing. But to do the job, the CD has to go beyond design, because the user does. Same with UX specialists.

But only because the term UX too often doesn’t really refer to the complete experience of the user. Too often, it gets mired in the details around navigation, and neglects little incidental things like the quality of the content. Someone has to see the forest, and that someone is the Creative Director.

So whether you’re a copy-driven Creative Director, or a designer, or UX, or content-driven Creative Director, remember that the important part of your job isn’t about what you can put into a piece that lives on the web. It’s in what people get out of it.

In fact, in the first hour after the iPad launch announcement on Jan. 27, Mashable reported an average of 3,000 tweets per minute about the soon-to-be-released device. Flurry reported that the number of iPhone developers adding tracking codes to new projects nearly tripled during the month of January, a sign of substantial iPad anticipation.

As the executive creative director at POP, a Seattle-based digital agency, I’ve lead teams that helped Fortune 500 brands craft and implement their mobile marketing strategies. If you work in mobile, your phones were probably ringing almost instantaneously as Steve Jobs left the stage. Clients started asking us for strategic counsel on the iPad, and since then we’ve been imagining and creating iPad experiences that fit into their larger marketing strategy.

Here are some creative considerations I’ve taken into account when developing for the iPad:

Take a holistic/cross-device approach: While consumers are eager to devour this exciting new device, it’s our responsibility as marketers to take a step back to ensure the brand experience is cohesive across all digital and traditional channels.

The experience should be customized for each individual device, but absolutely must deliver the same level of experience quality that the consumer has come to expect from your brand. A consumer’s experience on a mobile device is ultimately a reflection of their relationship with your brand and a poor experience on one mobile device can actually degrade the brand.

Enhance and expand the iPhone experience: Be careful not to simply reproduce your brand’s iPhone app on the iPad. The iPad offers a unique set of features and functionality; capitalize on them to enhance your brand’s mobile experience.

Consider The New York Times demonstration at the iPad launch event. The experience reading the paper’s content was more similar to how we read a physical newspaper today — but on steroids — than the current NYT iPhone experience.

Unlike the linear, static iPhone app, users can interact with the Times on the iPad, pulling up photo galleries, scaling text and utilizing video integration. The iPhone app works very well for the platform it was built on, but if you were to replicate it on the iPad you’d be missing the enriched experience that lives up to the device’s potential.

Stay true to your brand: As creatives, it’s all too easy to get caught up in trying to replicate Apple’s way of design: simple; beautiful; approachable.

Don’t get overly enamored with these attributes alone; remember to keep your brand values and brand in the forefront when approaching design. Yes, consumers will be interacting with your brand on an Apple device and will have certain expectations for the design and experience, but you still need to align the experience uniquely with your brand.

Add an element of surprise and delight: Don’t miss an opportunity to make your application memorable. The hardware and software of the iPad allows us creatives to step outside the bounds of the expected and take a typical interaction and make it unique and fun. The shake functionality Urbanspoon incorporated into their iPhone app is a simple yet noteworthy example.

Time is of the essence: Like any new technology, being an early adopter of iPad apps will have its advantages and disadvantages. Before diving into development, take a minute to weigh the pros and cons of timing. Launching an app in stride with the iPad’s release can generate buzz around your brand and help you stand out among the sea of apps that are sure to follow.

Look at the success Shazam has experienced on the iPhone. Released a mere 16 days after the launch of the App Store, Shazam capitalized on the unique capabilities the iPhone offered, successfully capturing the essence of what consumers could do with the device while delivering a fun and useful experience. Being an early adopter put them on the map for most consumers.

Yet, it can also be beneficial to wait until you’ve had a chance to design for an already-available device. Patience equals perfection. The longer the device is out on the market, the more informed our design decisions can be. Apps featured in the iPad launch event were completed with only two and a half weeks of development time. Imagine the potential of the apps this device can deliver after we’ve had six months of time to develop on it!

There continues to be new and different ways for consumers to digest information. The iPad is leading the charge, literally putting information at consumers’ fingertips. Following these guidelines can help you capitalize on the iPad’s unique feature set by building apps that are smart, easy to use and, most important, of good value to users.

Creatives love toys. Take a walk around your creative department — if you don’t find a ton of toys scattered across desktops and perched on cubes, you either (A) made a wrong turn into accounting; or (B) have draconian office decor rules that resemble a gulag and you really should lighten up.

Toys are fun. Toys have personality. Toys inspire creativity and remind us that the entire world isn’t one giant spreadsheet with a deadline — even when it seems it is. The problem with toys, beyond inspiration and diversion, though, is that they’re not usually all that useful.

Enter tools.

Tools do things. They accomplish something. They help you achieve or lighten your load. In the digital world, tools organize, sort, research, remember, file, retrieve, respond and a whole host of other things that you can’t or won’t do on your own. You might play with a toy, but you use a tool.

The problem with tools, though, is obvious to most any creative. They’re boring. At best, they’re invisible — at worst, they’re dreadful, clunky and intrusive. Which is why, when creatives are creating digital things for clients, their first impulse very often is to create a toy.

A while back an interesting discussion about augmented reality broke out on my Facebook wall. Most of the people participating in the discussion were digital creatives and most of them had the same opinion: AR is cool and all, but beyond making cityscapes and flowers grow out of the paper you’re holding in front of the webcam, what does it do, really?

I suspect that some who espoused this opinion were, in fact, stating that the joy of the toy was fleeting and were wishing for more toy joy to be built in. Still, I suggested that when presented with an opportunity to create AR, we think of more ways to use it as a tool. The logic being: the technology is fun to play with.

That’s its nature. It comes embedded with the properties of a toy. Make a tool out of it, and you’ll have that rarest of rare things — a fun tool. Or, if you’d rather, a useful toy. Either way, the hybrid animal is superior to the purebred.

But the logic isn’t just about AR. It’s about digital — and creative, in general, now that the world is so influenced by digital. Think about it. How many apps do you have on your phone? How many apps do you have that you’ve messed with once or twice, on the day you downloaded, and haven’t launched since?

If you’re like most, your answer is: a lot. The ones you use regularly are the tools. The ones you play with once are the toys. The ones you like using regularly are the fun tools/useful toys. That’s the goal now.

If we want to engage customers and prospects with the brand, it helps to engage them regularly. A toy may provide joy, but the joy of a pure toy is usually fleeting. A branded tool may accomplish much, but without emotional reward in its use, no connection is made between the user and the brand.

Some apps, some sites and some AR executions have proven that the divide between toy and tool is not impenetrable. Play with that for awhile, then put it to use.