Digital design, think creatively…

But make sure you integrate the skills into the bloodstream of the business says Thom Newton.

When we started 35 nearly five years ago a few of us had knowledge of digital design, although our work in this area at that time had primarily been on consumer branding projects.  When it came to corporate or shareholder communications projects there was a distinct difference about what clients felt was worthy of interactive communications. Consumer audiences were earmarked for a dynamic and interactive experience while corporates more likely to be offered something static and less engaging.

In terms of the structure of 35, we’ve always resisted the temptation to divide our studio into separate corporate and consumer teams - or further, to create a split between digital and non-digital designers. But at that time, the conventional wisdom was ‘how on earth, in a world of specialists, could one team be competent at designing for both audiences?’

Fast forward to 2008 and things are less cut and dried - and our agency structure has developed further.

As an example take the work we are currently doing with Tesco. Whether you are an analyst or shopper when you visit tesco.com, or tescocorporate.com, you will expect a fulfilling experience. Faster, cheaper broadband at work, home, the coffee shop or hotel lobby has raised our expectations. You expect the navigation and content to be streamlined and tailored to your individual requirements.

With audience expectation in mind - and the desire to reflect and integrate ‘Tesco-ness’ - we are creating a corporate.com experience that unifies investor relations, corporate citizenship, media and employee communications under common brand values. We’ll be using ‘off-line’ communications – the leaner printed reports - to drive people online to enhanced content and an interactive experience, which encourages audiences to keep coming back.

This shift to increase the emphasis on digital media (with its inherent accessibility and environmental benefits) and the increased understanding of what it can offer audiences, means that we, and agencies like us, have to be able to deliver potent communications through a multi-channel approach – to the consumer who shops online and in store; to the shareholder who reads her annual review from cover to cover, but who also wants regular updates on share prices.  And, not only are there multiple channels to deliver communications, in many cases individuals span more than one type of audience group – the employee shareholder, the shareholding customer, etc.  It is crucial that brand communications are delivered consistently and in an integrated way whatever the medium and whoever the audience. All of which puts demands on the traditional design-driven communications agency.

Getting ‘digital’ into the bloodstream – i.e. integrated into our thinking, values and culture - has been a challenge and we’ve tried several approaches over the years. We’ve learnt a lot from each of these approaches, and each has suited our situation at the time.

When we launched and started to grow, we took the dedicated ‘digital partner’ approach, essentially to help us implement our digital concepts. These relationships worked well because we shared similar values with the partners we chose, making it easier to operate as a team and share the vision for each project.

This was an invaluable process; we learned a lot. Certainly, it informed our understanding of where natural synergies lie and what level of investment we would need to build our own capability. It helped us make the decision to develop our own digital offer, and informed how far this offer should go. We now have the resource inside 35 to design and realise concepts across a range of digital disciplines.

We still draw the line – and I suspect we always will - at the point where brief is no longer about communications, but about technology. So we leave ‘back-end’ services, such as building Content Management Systems or hosting websites, to the technology specialists. We still apply the partnership model in these areas so can help our clients make informed choices.

Ultimately, however you want to develop your business, whatever skill-base you think needs to be integrated, the same principles apply - you have to get it into the bloodstream of the organisation. For us with digital it had to become part of our thinking, integral to what we do.  Now it’s not just a practical output, but adds value to the creative thinking that makes us who we are.

Thom Newton
Thom Newton is Managing Partner at 35 Communications.

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