Advertising agencies often have the worst websites in the world. There is something about the combination of the massive egos, the ‘big idea’, and the discovery that they can make things move around the screen interactively that tends to lead to disaster.
Recently I heard Ogilvy had launched their new global website: ogilvy.com. I first visited it in trepidation. What horrors await? But it turned out to be seriously awesome.
The best thing about it: it’s all about the user rather than being all about Ogilvy. It brings together uniqueness and relevance to create awesomeness. This sounds so incredibly simple but it is critically important and so many people get it wrong. The site is almost entirely focused on the ideas and writing that come from the 18,000 Ogilvy employees around the world, rather than being all about the business itself. Which do you think their potential clients and employees are more interested in?
So they got the strategy right. They also got the execution right in a number of impressive ways. The site has a very flat structure and very clever navigation, allowing you to access a whole range of content with very few clicks. They’ve used minimal animation, and built the Flash in a best-practice way allowing you to bookmark or email URLs for individual pages. They’ve used lots of big text which makes always makes things look cool. It loads quickly. It doesn’t make your eyes hurt or your head spin. The site even works in the text-only browser on my old Blackberry which is extremely unusual for an agency site.
These are tough times for the advertising industry. Agencies are facing down a financial crisis that is driving clients to slash budgets and expect more for their remaining dollars. At the same time consumers are spending more and more time on the internet, and making advertising work online requires very a different mindset and approach. The models that have worked since the Mad Men era aren’t working anymore, and no one knows quite how to fix them. There couldn’t be a more important time for Ogilvy to be leading the industry through its online presence.
I was thrilled to see one of my blog posts on their homepage, “Stark Realisation”. I do work for an Ogilvy company so I could just be sucking up to the mothership. But I’m not nearly that devious. Check out the site and decide for yourself.