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AgencyCritique is Eric Holter’s web strategy blog that helps creative service firms improve their web strategies and their own websites.
One of the symptoms if the “Creativity Barrier” as observed in many agency websites is the rigidly controlled textarea. This is almost universally seen in Flash-based agency websites since the boundaries of a Flash based web page’s layout are locked to the dimensions of the movie file. If there are too many words for a particular page the designer must add scroll bars or up/down arrows to enable text scrolling.
Chicago agency closerlook is a relationship marketing firm specializing in healthcare (pharmaceutical, health insurance, and health information technology). They have an excellent agency website that builds upon tight positioning with a significant content strategy. So let’s break it down:
When I perform my crits of advertising agency websites the first aspect I evaluate is positioning. Positioning is a foundational element for an effective web strategy.
Positioning is defined as “what you do,” “who you do it for,” and “what the benefit is to them.”
Here’s a list of articles from the past month’s issues of Advertising Age that are worth a second look from a digital media and web strategy perspective. If you only read one I’d recommend the article from the October 27th issue by Rupal Parekh and Abbey Klaassen–”As the Lines Blur, Digital Agencies Are Taking Lead
In my RISD days I studied letter-press printing and wood engraving. Achieving great typography in metal type is a laborious task. For example, tightening-up letter spacing requires taking file to metal. Setting type by hand gave me a deep appreciation of excellent typography. So I sympathize with designers when they make this common web design mistake of using graphic text in place of real text.
I’m honored to have been made an official consultant for the Second Wind Network! Anthony Mikes founded Second to “help smaller and mid-size advertising agencies, design firms and related businesses to be better.” Second Wind has been offering resources, communities, articles, white papers, books, conferences and consulting to agencies for over twenty years.
Last week’s Ad Age had a lengthy white paper insert on “How Commercial Ratings Changed the $70 Billion TV Market.” I’m fascinated by how digital technology changes the way advertising is delivered and sold on television. The white paper traces negotiations between advertisers and media now that there’s quantifiable data on how well commercials perform in light of ad skipping and time shifting technology.
