Well, what do you think? Six months ago, I wouldn't have pitched any client outside of a super young funky brand with web2.0 principles, especially in Finland! But, take a look at that new buzz word at the moment for example, Facebook.
Yes, I hate to mention it again but it's the first network I am taking seriously.
I for one have setup a detailed but quite funny profile and I have also set up a network for entrepreneurs in Finland focusing on digital ideas. My old colleagues in Australia who are all extremely successful business men are using it to communicate between one another… Quite impressive considering we are all over the age of 30 don’t you think? But…
Just 12% of marketers say that Social Networks, blogs, mobile etc are important to their business plans says Reuters:
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Online Media Sales VS Quality Content & Readership…
Web 2.0 VS flat HTML…
Raise any thoughts out there?
Are there any online medias, in particular newspapers who are going to think outside of immediate sales & ROI! What about good old fashioned quality content & readership. Well, we know that to do this online, you need to take a few steps back and look at the overall infrastructure, information architecture & standards that exist online, but wouldn’t this impress your readers! Don’t you Media folk understand that you need short term and long term strategies?
Yes, it seems that the new heads of a few Medias out there in the Nordics believe that the first & only online strategy is to drive traffic to their sites! OK – We all know that this needs to happen to justify a profitable business but, what about the long-term strategy? This whole new framework built around web2.0 and beyond is not simply a fad – you hear about it everyday so do something…
I’d love to here about other strategic thoughts on this… more so, as to how we can break through the thick heads of some of these guys. I understand these guys are great in sales and media but please, please, also understand that if your going to go online, you need to think much more in advance than the next quarter! It’s no longer about flat HTML pages that are simply loaded with information, irrelevant of what the user wants… Why do we still have to scroll down pages and pages of information to find out about what we are interested in?
I set a task for you if you don’t believe me! Go to your own newspaper or 3 favourite newspapers online, and within 3 clicks find 10 pieces of information ranging from lottery results, long term weather forecast, archived information about Tony Blair, detailed statistics on recent voting polls for your local counsels & so on…. Don’t just think about 3 clicks but think about how the common user would think & how my mother who is retired, yet still reads the newspaper would be able to find the information!
If anybody does this please let me know…
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OK - Proof that the Digital market is growing here is truely evident. There are about 10 decent digital creative shops here in Finland and maybe only 3-4 profitable with good strategy & true forward thinking ideas...
But every media agency & traditional ATL agency seems to be taking steps to get those 3-4 decent shops under them...
If I have never been more serious in my life! if there are any brilliant creatives with a damn good belt of experience under them who want to join methen let me know!
3-4 decent creatives here & 10-20 globals wanting to consolidate and bring a digital team under them... seems there is room for more! It's definitely a global thing but in a small place like Helsinki, it is so very evident and there is a rather big lack of choice!
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OK - Personally I worked my way through the Ad industry the old school way... I worked my hindside off & did every possible thing I could do to be recognised and employed by the agencies I thought to be the best in digital. I also topped this with further study & became a creative / programmer on the side so that I knew everything there was to know about Digital (well as much as possible so that I wasn't and AD or PD with no f%&#king idea!
But I think there is a problem here in Finland with really good talent... Why? Here's why...
Really hot talent from Finland might choose to go abroad with their skills to the UK, possibly closer regions like Sweden etc...
The standard way to get into the industry here is to do a 1 year traineeship at around 500euros a month if your lucky! OK - the money sucks badly but you do learn a lot in this time BUT I have noticed that there is a serious lack of applications when we advertise! I am talking about big agencies also - Carat, isobar etc...
In London, I am sure that when a leading agency advertisers a role, there are 100's of applications!
So I guess, if your in London, struggling to get the right role in an agency, understand and can speak the Finnish language (good luck), then this is a good place to come...
The great thing here is that when in a traineeship you will get to be involved with a great deal of work! Yes, trafficking & reporting will be the core but you will also get to be involved creatively if your good enough!
So if by chance there are some hot Finnish speaking grads out there that dont mind a rather poor salary & want to work in the Nordics email me...
Very interesting to see where the iPhone ends up! Could it be Apples first real failure? Difficult to say and to be honest I think it will be different regionally. For example, here in Finland, people are very 'faithful' to Nokia...
Not only is Nokia from Finland, but you get very good service here! OK the phones are often crap, especially these first generation symbian business phones but I have taken my work phone e70 in to be fixed and while the phone sucks, I take it to their main store downtown and recieve it back within 2-3 working days!
I feel the iPhone will be lead by trend setters & not users who want true functionality... OK - The internet will be brilliant and nice to have functionality of an iPod etc.... but as a phone - Just not so sure. Another interesting perspective on it all: http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=117354
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Isn't it about time YouTube localises its platform? Yes, they are doing this but I would have thought this be done quite a while ago! When living in places like Finland, you soon realise that not only do these guys speack another language but they are pretty patriotic towards localisation of content...
Besides there is an enormous potential of localsied media revenue for these players isn't here! I guess I am just really wondering where a business that was acquired for 1.6 billion puts its resources, aside from legal!
Some pretty cool stuff coming out of Nokia... Being that I mentioned in my blog yesterday that they began as a rubber company in a town called Nokia in the middle of Finland!
http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/SportsTracker/
“Nokia Sports Tracker is a GPS based activity tracker that runs on S60 smartphones! Information such as speed, distance and time are automatically stored to your training diary. To be able to use application for real, you need Nokia S60 3.0 or 3.1 phone with Bluetooth GPS device or Nokia S60 3.0 or 3.1 phone with integrated GPS.”
Guess what I am getting to add to my toy collection?
Further growth in the Nordics with FarFar (another isobar agency) building plans to extend its offices to New York...
http://adage.com/cannes07/article?article_id=117163
An article by Bradley Johnson in the AdAge highlighted that media spend is indeed reducing overall & then continued to talk about the growing marketing services sector with some discussion about the natural progression of Digital in the US.
I thought at this point it’s interesting to discuss exactly where budgets are distributed should there be any media & creative agencies out there interested to discuss the new digital era , namely web 2.0 initiatives!
I think the one problem in Finland is the lack of maturity in the market with clients not understanding that if we focus on branded content, social networks and further web 2.0 type initiatives, that we still need to make money from the creative strategy and the project! Off-course it can reduce creative & media budgets for a client if done cleverly but is there anybody out there from a Media agency that feels like there is a danger of loosing revenue & if not, what have your solutions been? One is to change the digital revenue models which I am currently in the process of doing but what other solutions have we seen…
The other discussion here is exactly who is taking on this work? Creative agency or Media agency… there is this blurred space – kinda like the grey card in photography that I don’t truly believe is owned by either or. While not a problem it can again confuse clients somewhat e.g. should it be lead by media agency, creative agency or even worse… traditional agency!
Good to hear any thoughts on this new era of digital and the huge grey space we are evolving with now!
I know this isn’t really the place but I have now officially been in Finland for one year and two days & I thought I’d share with you some of my key learnings so far... some digital and some not but it's all harmless fun:
1) The Finnish media/publishing houses seem to spend more time, much like the old fashioned media / publishers taking people out for diner & spending money impressing them on how much they can drink rather than actually building business. No problem though… 50% of my drunken nights out in Finland are funded by the medias – Thanks to those of you who read this J
2) Number one Social Platform in Finland is www.irc-galleria.net They have some decent content within but from a framework perspective it’s terrible and follows no rules – check out the advertising on the homepage. They do have some rich communities though and the advertising thins out when you get deeper within.
3) Biggest acquisition in the last year in Finland was between IRC Galleria & Sulake (Habbo Hotel)… Watch this space! Could it be a combination or Habbo / IRC Television coming up!
4) Nokia is actually a place in Finland. Can you believe the company started in Nokia making things with Rubber? Then they went to cables… and well now look at them! 10 out of 10 for creativity in the name! But 100% for making billions!
5) Most digital agencies here really have no idea about Strategy… 95% of them are production houses and I’d say there are a handful of real thinkers here. This is a problem as most clients can’t seem to get it in their heads that strategic thinking is required – rather than pretty pictures…
6) Everybody in a media agency thinks they are creative. I’d love to hear about all you guys in the UK. I would say this is a global issue as all media agencies are changing their demographics to ‘Communication agencies’ that specialize in creativity etc… How can someone with a business marketing degree be creative? You tell me… I do know some good creative’s though in media agencies but far and few…
7) Finnish dogs don’t say WOOF… They say HOW!!! Yup… not only is the language near to impossible… the dogs are even different in a Finns eyes! I’ll come back to the language later in other blogs!
8) Bar tenders in Finland don’t know the meaning of ‘fill up my pint’… That’s right, I remember when I was a bar tender in Brighton, many years ago and every geezer from London would say ‘fill up my pint mate’ - well I advise you not to try that here as its pretty standard… 400ml is standard but they serve in pint glass!
9) Finnish men are more than happy to walk around naked with their friends. And I don’t just mean in the gym changing room. Yes, taking the sauna naked, walking around summer cottage naked… you name it – it’s extremely common. Difficult go get used to but you kind of have to really!
10) Finnish women are hot!
I have sat in several strategy meetings over the past few days with clients, and the constant closing discussion is, let’s sit down and look at this after the summer Michael. Is it my poor insight into the digital landscape around the globe, or are the rumors of this Nordic summer true?
Yes, it’s true… even the media & advertising business stops… After enduring such a long winter of cold & dark weather, long days, not so educated clients, bad internal processes & what more… it seems I have to put my goals for this network on hold & head out to the summer cottage for sauna & Koskenkorva (Finnish Vodka)…
Is this way of life bad? Well, it’s actually a beautiful thing – put aside 9 months of brutal winter!
But the point is… we in the industry, are probably next to Wall Street brokers, the hardest working slugs around the globe but for those of you wanting a not so stressful environment to work in, that perhaps is lacking quality people with good skills, then Finland is the place for you! – all you have to do is learn the lingo, put up with -20 degree weather for most of the year & you’ll be fine!
Michael Trenerry
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 29 Oct 2009
Total Posts: 104
