Brands see value of global digital vision

1 May 2008 | By Justin Pearse

It may very well be called the world wide web but the approach to the internet by many brands has been far from global. The last few years have seen digital becoming an increasingly crucial element of a brand's marketing and business strategy. But the reality is so often a disparate collection of websites spread throughout the world, with no unified vision or operation.

This though is starting to change. As our front page story discovers, Bacardi has spend the past two years in digital "housekeeping", unifying its digital strategy globally. Making the brand fit for digital purpose, as head of digital Ian James puts it. It's now a long way from the 50-odd sites James inherited.

Unified global strategies enable local territories to be much fleeter of foot in digital campaigns in addition to providing a consistent brand message in a shrinking global market.

James goes so far as to warn that big brand budgets will be held up in their march online until all big brands go through the process of global digital housekeeping.

One problem, as James points out, is that UK digital agencies tend to be domestic and tactically focused, raising the concern that clients' needs are outrunning their agencies' capabilities. There are few global digital agencies. Profero, announcing its US move last week, is one. AKQA is another. But digital agencies will need to find industrial scale on continuing low margins. The Willott Kingston Smith 2007 Survey found digital agencies reporting the highest growth but with margins consistently trailing other marketing disciplines.

One answer to this is outsourcing. AKQA, in its Adwatch winning Tipping Pot campaign (page 16) outsourced the actual shoot and our feature on page 21 finds a raft of specialist production agencies finding booming work from digital agencies. Digitas's digital production agency, Prodigious, based in Costa Rica is moving to take on work from across the Publicis Groupe.

As we open entries for this year's Top 100 Interactive Agencies guide, it will be interesting to examine the impact increasing globalisation of client's strategy has on the agency marketplace.

Justin Pearse, editor, NMA  justin.pearse@centaur.co.uk

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