At some point, in the general Western region of the world, marketing & communication people had the luxury of focusing on creating beauty rather than on squeezing numbers out of advertising. Good, bad or grey, those times are reaching full termination. That's what Ilia Uvarov (Executive Creative Director & Head of UX, R/GA London) says, elaborating more on the challenge of playing Cupid between business strategies and valuable consumer experiences below.
Romania also went through this for a while. Wait, no, over here this has actually been going on since 2008 or so.
So, in that way, everything starts aligning. We have access to similar technologies, we have a globalized culture to approach in ads, we mostly work in much the same parameters, when speaking digitally.
So, in the name of relevance, let's hear what R/GA London is doing these days. In short, ultra-targeted, ultra- tailored real-time communications.
Ilia Uvarov has been with R/GA London since 2008, relocating from R/GA New York, where he started in 2004 as an Interaction Designer.
Varianta in limba romana a interviului, aici.
R/GA and the evolution of digital communications
Brands have matured and become smarter about what they want. The focus has shifted towards delivering on KPIs versus creating something beautiful.
The tasks have become bigger and more intricate, in particular, in terms of aligning with business strategy and orchestrating multiple players and platforms.
What differentiates R/GA is our ability to transform and help clients do the same. Our success is strongly dependent on having strong strategic partnerships. Whether it’s Fortune 500 brands or startups, the approach is very much the same. We help companies identify their target state and take them on journey there.
Also, for me, the key change is that nothing is static anymore. Whether it’s a billboard, a video or a digital tool – everything has to evolve at the speed of business and culture. We typically aim to create things that are connected to a broader ecosystem of products and services.
Trends. Real-time & functional integration
We’ve been recently focusing on ultra local, super-targeted, real time communications for such brands as Nike and Google.
Simply put, technology creates new opportunities to engage an audience. Typically it allows to tailor communications based on context and target segment.
For example, for Google we’ve created an outdoor campaign that leveraged digital signs to provide pedestrians with local insights. This work both celebrated and leveraged Google Now.
Digital has significantly democratised the marketplace and raised customer expectations. Consumers have become smarter about differentiating between perceived and real value of brands which, in order to compete, have re-focused on providing better services.
We belive that the road to success is via „functional integration” which implies creating highly orchestrated scalable experiences for consumers.
Local flavor
Globalization made it impossible for brands and societies to evolve in isolation and cross-cultural influences are very significant in our work. Having said that, every culture has its own communication codes, rituals and expectations which can’t be easilty transported via email or video conferencing. There is nothing that substitutes actual human presence and eye contact.
In our work, whether it is platforms or campaigns, we try to balance these nuances and optimise for local audiences.
Festival attitude: R/GA
Prizes help us attract the best talent. They provide reassurance to clients and drive awareness but in the end are secondary to delivering against a given set of project objectives and KPIs.
