Google's tips for agencies striving to work at the pace of digital

In the report, the internet giant compiled a list of tips from its own experience in Silicon Valley, as well as interviews within digital agencies (including its own stable of agencies, which includes BBH, AKQA, 72andSunny, Big Spaceship and a few others).

As several commenters pointed out, none of the digital creatives Google featured are women. Despite this, the list offers a thought-provoking look at how client-agency relationships might evolve—and even adopt some of the product-development techniques pioneered in the technology industry.  

Here's what Campaign Asia-Pacific gleaned:

1. Physically (or virtually) co-locate

According to John Boiler, founding partner and CEO of 72andSunny, the agency had to change the physical space of its office to adapt to working at a higher pace. “We built a wall...," he said. "At any time you can see people moving up and down the wall—strategists commenting on the creative work and the creatives commenting on the runup work.” Because the wall was a constant work in progress, it enabled the agency to constantly improve the work in real-time.

Winston Binch, partner and chief digital officer of Deutsch LA, finds it important that teams are kept together. “Rather than sit by department, we are sitting by account," he said. "It encourages accountability and allows people to focus on the extra iterations.”

While Matt Howell, global chief digital officer of Arnold, believes in involving clients as contributors instead of just approvers. “The decision-makers are part of the team," he said. "The rate of work accelerates and the relationship improves because of this joint ownership.”

2. Add technologists to the creative team

“Expand your core team’s skill set by including developers, digital experts, and freelance specialists based on project needs,” advises Google.

Michael Lebowitz, founder and CEO of Big Spaceship, said his top tip is to pair designers and technologists on each team, as does Binch.

“I err on the side of mixing it up when I assign people to a project, I let people try working on another brand, in a different medium, with a different partner,” echoed Patrick O'Neill, ECD with TBWA Chiat Day LA. “More times than not, you get new kinds of thinking by having that attitude.”

3. Develop T-shaped talent

Purely vertical experts are no longer viable employees in a swiftly changing world. Desirable employees are highly skilled in at least one area, highly collaborative, empathetic toward different perspectives and interested in many other fields and skills, according to Google.

4. The “minimum viable” brief

Borrowed from the tech companies, which quickly build a ‘minimum viable product’ with only the features needed to make it functional enough for real-world testing, the MVB should cover as much as is needed for creatives to glean the information they require from real-time testing, and shouldn’t take more than a day.

5. Hackathon mode

Also inspired by tech companies, hackathons are day-long events where technologists quickly crank out ideas and build software.

AKQA often has one-day offsite events that go from briefing to concept to idea presentation in under four hours. “Just because you have more time doesn’t guarantee your work will be better,” said Rei Inamoto, CCO of AKQA. "Some of the best ideas I've seen at AKQA have come from that sort of condensed, intense lack of time.”

6. Iterate and test campaigns

“Be more prolific than epic,” advises Greg Anderson, CEO of BBH New York. “You don’t have to lose your standards to be prolific, but it allows you to learn and create the next thing by getting your ideas out of the way quickly.”

Just as in software development, where a product constantly evolves with fast and flexible responses to feedback, agencies can collapse the creative process: rapidly building out executions in tangible form, testing them and optimizing early and often to get to the best version, Google said.

Anderson drew a parallel between BBH’s approach to campaigns and “a portfolio of stocks”. “If we have $1 million, we think about spending it on getting 10 things into market at once to see where we should pull or double support,” he said.

7. Partner (with the client) on pilot projects

It’s hard to constantly iterate if you have to wait hours for permission. “We didn’t want to launch and leave, it's software," Lebowitz said. "Imagine what the world would be like if Adobe had stopped at Photoshop 1.”

One method agencies can use to get the biggest bugs out of the way is to use clients as beta-testers, advised Google. “Once the client partner is on board, set the team up for success in this trial period.”