They’re stress producers and blood-pressure boilers that many an IR agency or marketing design firm executive knows all too well: the delays in getting clients to plow through the review and approval process, the mad dash to the FedEx office to beat the evening deadline. And the incessant tick-tick-tick of printing schedules in the background.
For many of us in the business of professional creativity, often the hardest and most annoying part of our daily toil is not the actual business of writing copy and designing brochures, but all the in-between things we have to do to deliver the work to clients and then get them to respond in a timely fashion. Oh those pesky clients. How they interfere with our art.
Now many of the delays and expenses involved in client project reviews may soon become things of the past, at least for the cyber-minded. Salvation might be no further away than that nifty little telephone plug sticking into the back of your office desktop.
An unscientific survey of IR agencies and design firms suggests that a small but growing number are using the Web as a medium of client interactivity to review and modify works in progress. Call it collaborative online client relationship building. Or perhaps using technology as a means to facilitate team building, an applications sister to data conferencing, videoconferencing and audioconferencing.
Essence of Extranets
The techno-jargonites among us recognize this phenomenon as a specialized use of a new incarnation of the Internet, namely so-called ‘extranets’. That’s the use of the Web to build private networks within the Internet that serve as a common platform for communications. Not just within a company, they are also accessible to designated suppliers and clients. Imagine giving your clients access to your company’s internal phone system, only with pictures and information delivery thrown in.
Here’s the essence: instead of printing out incremental color versions of, say, an annual report in the design stage, some IR agencies and design firms have discovered that the Web can be a safe haven to post updated works-in-progress. The client, whether across town or twelve time zones away, accesses a private, password-protected corner of the creative agency’s Web site. Review discussions are held over speaker phones. Changes can be made in minutes, with a new file uploaded for viewing. The client pushes the ‘reload’ (or ‘refresh’) button to pull down the new version, and presto, the revised work appears.
No airplane trips. No hassles with overnighting packets. No buck-passing around the client offices. Just real-time client review. Anytime.
Not-so-Earthshaking
Consider Carl Thompson & Associates. Based in Boulder, Colorado – while certainly a bucolic university town, Boulder doesn’t immediately spring to mind as an IR hotbed – the 17-year-old firm has grown into a sizable, successful agency with a national reputation for creativity and flair in serving its niche of small to mid-sized clients.
The firm’s commitment to technology is a large factor in its growth, says Shirley Thompson, co-founding partner and wife of ex-Hill & Knowlton executive, Carl.
‘We’re not in New York or Chicago,’ she says. ‘The World Wide Web means we can live where we want and provide service to clients almost anywhere. Geography is not really a factor.’
Thompson says the Web recently proved to be a life-saver for an annual report project the firm was assigned by an Oregon-based manufacturer of mobile homes. Midway through the project, the client filed for a secondary offer. In turn, the annual report’s text and much of its design had to be completely revamped in a hurry.
Meanwhile, the printer’s drop-dead due date for delivery of materials was fast approaching. If that was missed, most likely the finished report would not be available in time for the annual meeting. Few investor relations clients would look kindly on that scenario, no matter what the rationale.
But with both ends working in front of computer screens locked on Thompson’s Web site, the changes were made in a matter of a few hours, not days.
‘That saved our butts,’ she says.
Avoiding Crisis
As the Web becomes more accepted as a platform for client presentations and review, perhaps it will save more than the avoided crisis and otherwise lost account. It might just win new ones.
Doug Wright, founder of the Manhattan-based annual report and collateral designers Wright Communications, tells how his agency’s Web prowess proved to be a major advantage in scoring the annual report assignment for Union Camp, the large international paper products company. Posting the previous year’s annual report on its Web site, Wright took the project through a series of proposed changes on how to adapt it for electronic Web viewing. With the added razzle-dazzle of the real-time show, the prospective client was thoroughly impressed. The account was won.
Then there’s the question of client expectations. Mike Scherb, Union Camp’s director of corporate advertising and marketing communications, stresses that using the World Wide Web for client presentations involves more than cost savings and avoiding the time-draining drives from company headquarters in New Jersey into Manhattan. It involves a two-way level of confidence between design firm and client that for some others might not be well-grounded. ‘The designer must have the confidence to tell it exactly like it is, and the client needs to have the confidence to know that what is being presented is the best possible solution available.’
Scherb, who started his career as a graphic artist, says his background made it a lot easier for him to review changes on the Web. But for IROs without that experience, ‘the Web might pose some problems.’
Still, the bandwagon is rolling, in large part because IR departments just don’t have the time to spend in long-winded meetings. ‘As IR departments are downsized and people are squeezed for time, they want to see faster results from the work they’ve bought,’ says Doug Wright. ‘We have to move quickly.’
He offers anecdotal evidence. In 1995, Wright’s firm was developing an ad campaign for the sports division of one of the major US television networks, which had recently been acquired. The artwork had to be approved by the network’s executives in New York, Los Angeles and Maryland, and deadlines were tight.
Rather than courier or deliver the work to the individual offices, Wright posted it on the Internet in so-called ‘jpeg’ format (that’s a file format that helps transmit and view graphics online), and then telephone-conferenced with all the participants. Again, the results were new efficiency and enhanced productivity.
Will Web-based client presentation sessions become commonplace?
One factor is the tech learning curve of IROs. As more online-literate professionals move up the ranks, they will be more accepting of less personal schmoozing and more electronic networking.
And then there’s the simple expediency of it all. Says Wright of the IROs he sees discovering new ways to put the Web to work, ‘Once they taste the candy, they want it all the time.’
