Modernista! Modified

Unless you’ve been under a rock, then you’ve probably already heard about the site redesign of the Boston-based ad agency Modernista!. If you haven’t, check it out for yourself here. (And for a little more background, check out the recent Advertising Age article on the site relaunch here.)

So, let’s separate the buzz around the execution for a moment and dig into concept that’s professed on the site itself:

Do not be alarmed.
You are viewing Modernista! through the eyes of the Web.
The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control.

Here’s the moment where I have to call bullshit. (Gee, that didn’t last long considering that this message appears on the site’s home page overlay of their Wikipedia entry.) There is very little that is out of their control.

- A Facebook page as your about section? Manufactured.
- A YouTube page with your agency reel? Manufactured. (And I’m wondering if AFTRA is scrambling to find a way to call foul when it comes to talent rights implications, even if the agency is using the page for self-promotion purposes.)
- A Flickr page with your print work? Manufactured.
- A Del.icio.us page of links to point towards your interactive portfolio? Manufactured.

Granted, linking to the Google News search results page as your press area is a bit gutsy, especially if you consider the possibility for negative press (such as the current no. 2 and no. 3 results), but it’s hardly the ballsy move for which they’re getting credit. And as for their Wikipedia entry, there have already been some accusations of steering the content…and regardless, the Wiki community is pretty pissed off about the whole deal in general.

The main goal of any advertising agency’s web site is to sell that agency — their ethos and their approach — for the sake of attracting clients and new business. Period. Anything besides that is secondary in nature. The Modernista redesign, in my humble opinion, doesn’t accomplish that in the slightest. It’s a parlor trick…though a damn good one. Show me a salesman that doesn’t have a solid set of parlor tricks and I’ll show you an unemployed salesman. But to claim that it is anything that’s more innovative, more progressive, or more visionary than that is to show that you truly don’t understand the beast whose mouth you’re sticking your head into.

[On a side note, I have to wonder if those hot shop kids down in Miami are kicking themselves for not thinking of this one first.]

[On a side note to a side note, I just noticed that aforementioned hot shop still hasn't figured out how to properly embed Flash into a website so as to not require a click to activate that content...on their own freaking website! It's only been...um...two years since that change was made. And Microsoft just gave them how much business?]

Doubtless to say, I’m sure that there are companies and brands that will buy into Modernista’s line of how they understand today’s digital landscape. I think it’s safe to say that these are companies that don’t have a clue about it themselves. Web 2.0 (and I shudder every time I’m forced to type that tag) is not about parlor tricks, PR stunts or, as I like to call it, “jazz hands” marketing. No, no. There’s real power to interactive and digital marketing when it’s done right.

Ultimately, Modernista is walking a dangerous line. Why dangerous, you ask? Because they’re teetering on that razor’s edge between showcasing their work in a strikingly imaginative way on one side and on the other being considered flat out spammers and parasites by the underlying online social communities they claim to understand.