Here's part 2 of the interview with Allan Kent of Saatchi & Saatchi AtPlay, for part 1 have a look here.

On being the head of AtPlay:

Online marketing focuses quite heavily on the deliverables (ROI). Do you think creativity in advertising online has flourished or suffered for this?

Flourished for sure. If people are tuning out your advertising what do you do to make sure your message is not only heard, but acted upon? And as you say, online we can measure pretty much everything, so you’re always accountable - and should be. So we really have to work hard to make sure what we’re doing is going to do the best for the client that it can possibly do. I’m going to try say this without sounding like a major suck-up so here goes: we should always be trying to do the best for our clients anyways, so it’s a good thing that the transparency and accountability forces us into that behavior. Didn’t work, did it?

Can an award winning and beautiful site be search friendly?

Yes. I’m not the search specialist here so correct me if I’m wrong, but the creativity of the site should not need to be hamstrung by the technical underpinnings. This might have been the case in the past, but if you look at a site like CSS Zen Garden where the same semantic markup is displayed in a multitude of different and innovative ways, you can see that a site can be search (and accessible) friendly without looking like crap. At this point I have to direct you to my mate Bruce’s CSS Zen Garden entry.

Why do the Loeries seem to focus on awarding work that delivers no results other than creative awards?

Is that still the case? If it is, the answer would be, because they acknowledge the “big idea” and the creative execution of that idea. Sometimes an idea that works hard for the brand and delivers tangible results might not be the most creatively inspiring thing you ever saw. So these award really clever ideas, irrespective of whether it worked or not. I think it is best to always show the effect that a campaign had, as well as showcasing the idea behind it.

And finally: What are your top 6 favourite blogs to read?

Here’s 5 that spring to mind:

• Swissmiss provides a stream of interesting bits, not related specifically to online.
• Chris Brogan has been running a Social Media 100 series and provides ideas and overviews.
• Uwe Gutschow - not because he used to be my boss but because of the way he distills and shares what’s happening in online marketing.
• TED blog for timely updates of new TED videos.
• Digital Experience is all about experiencing interactivity, you know, in the real world.