This was an interesting article in the NYTimes last week about Ad agencies building their own brands and intellectual properties. The thinking goes, since they do it professionally for brands now, why don’t they build their own and gain the revenue? They cite a few agencies that are following this model includes Bartle Bogle Hegarty (under their Zag division name), and Brooklyn Brothers. Other agencies that follow this model includes Anomaly (who makes it part of their DNA to get skin in the game) and Droga 5 (which created an disastrous product last year called “HoneShed”, which was their version of MTV meets QVC on the web. They are re-launching it because it did so poorly).

For this article they focus on a blog that Bartle Bogle Hegarty (Zag division) created called “Mrs-O”, a blog that focused on Mrs Obama’s fashion/style and to become “a central resource for tracking her style and providing as much designer information and commentary as possible.” The article cites the start up cost for the blog ($2,000.00), minus the cost of at least 14 agency staff members who contribute to the posts. The URL is www.mrs-O.org.

I think this is a great idea and applaud the agencies to pursue the building of their own properties and brands. But I think the execution is less then ideal, and sort of gently reminds me of an known truth in our industry - which is traditional agencies just don’t ‘get’ digital.

Let me discuss some of the issues I see with www.mrs-O.org from an digital professional POV:

First, the domain is totally wrong. With the inclusion of ads and Google AdSense on the site, its obvious that Zag wants to monetize the site. But in doing so they used an .org domain, while having no requirements for registration — they are perceived by the common public to be of non-commerical entities. While there are other examples of the .org domain being used as an commercial site, many people question whether it is ethical to do so. Doing a quick search I have found other mrs-o domains that are available including www.mrs-o.us or www.mrs-obama.info. Either of them would be more appropriate for the blog URL.

Second is the cost. While custom blogs may take time and resources, what I see is a simple Wordpress blog, using an free ‘theme’ template. Installing Wordpress on a server is extremely easy (if there are no customization, no edits), takes no more then 20 minutes. Ok, add some AdSense ads, and banners. Transfer or redirect domain to the server space. Add some posts. Create settings. I really can’t see this taking more then a several hours to get up and running. I’m just talking about the blog I currently see, which is very plain and off the shelf looking. So lets say it took 8 hours to build this blog (a very generous amount of hours) and times it by a very nice rate of $100.00/hr, we are talking at $800.00 to build this blog that is live. Add $9 to register the domain at GoDaddy.com and another $10 a month for server space for an hosting company, that is my analysis for the cost of this blog. But $2,000.00 — as cited in the article, I don’t know about. And with 14 staff contributors, I think you would get more then 1 post a day on the blog, which is what the blog currently has.

Lastly, I think a huge opportunity is wasted by not having affiliate links or click thrus to items on the posts. If the blog is about Mrs. Obama’s style and what she is wearing, then besides writing about it, fans would probably would like to know where to buy the goods. Where are the links? A great example of a product blog that not only writes about the goods but show you where to go to get them is www.uncrate.com (one of my favorite blogs).

Ultimately, Zag has done well with the blog as per the article states — good traffic, book deals, leveraging the content to other ad networks. But great ideas will never truly be articulated to their fullest potentials if you don’t bring in the professionals to execute and launch these ‘products’ successfully.

Having the idea is half the battle. Agencies, especially good creative agencies will be full of them. But executing and executing well is what separates the thinkers and the do’ers. Agencies like Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Droga 5 will never fully master the digital channels without brining in the ‘digital’ specialists.