Hasta La Creative!

Earlier this week my colleague Sam Granleese posted an entry on this blog debating the notion of user pay content? I thought therefore it might be a nice follow up to have a little look at another emerging market; that of Virtual goods.
Now, virtual goods are certainly not a new idea. We […]

An instructive video that reviews a lot of successful examples of social media campaigns in BTC, BTB or even in Politics. They all made a huge return on investments by starting a social media activity for their business. by Socialnomics

His name is synonymous with advertising genius. Got Milk? That’s his. There Can Only Be One. That’s also him. Now, Jeff Goodby backs Pepsi. He’s also launching an online “Twitter-centered” campaign. To all the advertising geeks reading this, if there was any doubt in your mind about going digital, then let this be your reassurance. If this man is doing it, you damn well better.

In times like these, we need a quote from the man himself. “I like big fonts,” Goodby said.

He’s obviously referring to his 117 year-old Victorian house. That’s really the topic here. Goodby has inspirational and evocative words painted on the outside and inside of his house, words that evoke what takes place inside.

It’s this house that seems to have played a part in Goodby’s digital switch. See, he needed someone to paint the words on the house, and it was done digitally. Upon completion, Goodby created a Web site: www.poemhouse.org and promoted it on Facebook. The rest, needless to say, was history. Once captured by the blogging fanatics, publicity instantly ensued: Tweets, re-tweets, traffic, publications, you name it.

If this is not a prime example of digital prosperity, then I don’t know what is. This small event exemplifies the marketing shift occurring today. The shift that more agencies, like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, have adapted should be adapted elsewhere. The key here is versatility. The new wave of advertising professionals are versatile (like me!! ):  They take classic technique and weave in a digital mind-set. They are more marketable and more valuable. Now, if more could firms could see that value, maybe we could even afford to live off of it.

Rena Prizant is a Copywriter, Ad Creative, SEO Gal, and mammal in the Chicago area. Visit www.RenaPrizant.com or @WriteLeft.

Há alguns dias, o Daniel Sollero avisou sobre uma apresentação que ele havia subido para o SlideShare, intitulada “The Fake Innovator’s Dilemma”. Trata-se da apresentação de um paradoxo que se encara diariamente: ao mesmo tempo que o falso inovador quer algo novo e original, ele procura uma solução segura, com um histórico de sucesso comprovável.

Vale a pena bater um pouco nesta tecla, já que muitos daqueles que querem inovar não parecem perceber quando o seu briefing pede um absurdo destes.

Afinal, o que define realizar algo novo? Seria a vontade de fazer como uma marca arrojada faz? Talvez. O problema é quando o briefing pede para fazermos exatamente o que uma marca arrojada realiza. Diferença sutil ao primeiro olhar, mas que é fácil de perceber quando a peça está na rua.

Se buscamos a novidade ou a forma de fazer da novidade um atributo da marca, não podemos oferecer como solução aquela que estão todos procurando, a não ser que efetivamente tenhamos algo de novo para contar. Se o Twitter é a bola da vez, vale a pena lançar uma conta na ferramenta apenas para constar? Se o site institucional de agência está com os dias contados, vale a pena lançar uma simulação de presença digital, com meia dúzia de fotos no Flickr, um vídeo no YouTube e um verbete apagado na Wikipedia? Só porque alguém já fez? Acho que não.

Também não parece que vale a pena ser o só o primeiro a usar determinada tecnologia. Cases como “o primeiro vídeo interativo publicitário no YouTube” ou “a primeira empresa brasileira a utilizar QR Codes” falam muito pouco se não estiverem bem amparados por uma boa idéia. Não é o caso de usar uma ferramenta nova por usar. Cairemos fatalmente no erro de apenas constar ali.

No fim das contas, a questão de inovar pode ter releituras do passado. Pode comportar até o que uma empresa mais descolada já fez por aí. Mas é o caso de ter algo novo para contar. Alguma outra faceta ainda não explorada, algum feature matador. Algo que transforme aquele esforço de comunicação em único, e não mais um numa ruidosa pilha de intervenções diárias que temos que agüentar.

Em suma, eu posso até considerar o que uma outra empresa já fez. Mas para fazer diferente, da concepção criativa às metas de sucesso, para estabelecer um diálogo ainda mais eficiente com os meus consumidores, para, enfim, fazer algo que seja pertinente.

Se eu fosse um cliente e precisasse “inovar”, talvez fosse isto o que eu pediria à minha agência. Mas enquanto eu sou agência, não custa sonhar.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Our latest launch for client Virgin Mobile.
Virgin Mobile’s Members’ Lounge is the pointy bit of a new approach to Telco marketing based around rewarding members for their custom, rather than hooking them in on fancy plans and deals and then forgetting about them.
In the new world of Virgin Mobile, members get benefits like:

Access to […]

Sometimes the past is fulfilled with wonderful memories of friends, music, good times and lots of laughter. Or, the past should remain exactly where it is, especially when remembering how you dressed, your bodily piercings, and that mullet with the spiked top that would never go out of style. If you remember the mullet, do you recall these lyrics?

Buying bread from a man in Brussels He was six foot four and full of muscles I said, “Do you speak-a my language?” He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich”
By: Men At Work, “A Land Down Under

What in the heck is Vegemite, anyway? Until writing this post, I didn’t know, nor care. Then I found out that Vegemite is actually produced by Kraft Foods, and that Kraft has developed a new Vegemite formula and has rolled it out in Australia…

My first thought: “Would this be the next huge marketing FAIL, akin to the New Coke Formula back in 1985?”
Knowing absolutely nothing about the product, I had to do some research. What is Vegemite?

Vegemite is similar to the British product Marmite, which is a tacky paste, brown in color, with a salty “beef broth” or “meaty-like taste.” Marmite is usually spread on toast or biscuits but can also be mixed with hot water to make a drink. Marmite is made out of yeast extract saved after the beer brewing process. During World War I, the flow of Marmite to Australia was interrupted and an Australian cheese company, Fred Walker & Co., commissioned an Aussie scientist to come up with similar replacement.

Vegemite was introduced with great fanfare (including a national naming contest) in 1923. The naming campaign was a big success; the product flopped. Despite various marketing efforts, Vegemite sales remained poor. Kraft purchased Walker & Co. in 1926 (forming the Kraft Walker Cheese Company) and in 1928, changed the name to Parmite, which killed Vegemite’s tiny though hard-won market share. Vegemite never recovered.

So, with plenty of Vegemite on-hand, the Kraft Walker Cheese Company started giving it away with Pontiac automobiles and cheese products. Sales responded positively; then, the British medical association proclaimed that Vegemite was a great source of Vitamin B. Sales increased more. By World War II, Vegemite was in 9 of 10 Australian homes, had become part of a soldier’s daily ration kit, and was even carried by Aussie’s traveling abroad due to lack of availability in other countries. Today, Vegemite is one of the most well-known global brands and outsells Marmite in Australia by huge margins.

Kraft tried to extend the brand with a cheese and Vegemite “single,” but failed. However, marketing contests, such as limerick and song competitions, boosted sales. Then, following the war, the baby boom hit and Kraft jumped on Vegemite’s Vitamin B content for infants;

“…baby care expert Sister Mc Donald, said in the Women’s Weekly that “Vegemite is most essential”, further cementing Vegemite’s reputation for nutrition and wholesomeness. Infant Welfare Centres were recommending babies have their quota of Vitamin B1, B2 and Niacin. Vegemite had them all!”

By the 1950’s, Vegemite was to Australia what apple pie is to America, aided in part by consumer-oriented campaigns initiated by J.Walter Thompson.

On July 7, 2009, Kraft released a ’second’ Vegemite. The new Vegemite is a mix of Vegemite and cream cheese, is less salty, spreads much easier, and supposedly tastes better. To coincide with the release of the new recipe, Kraft is running a competition to give the new flavor a name, hearkening back to the competitions that worked 50 years ago. Kraft recently launched a comprehensive marketing campaign to name the new Vegemite, drawing on the successes of past campaigns that involved the public.

In fact, the new campaign mixes both traditional and Social Media, including an interactive website that includes fun facts, the naming contests, and the history of Vegemite. The new Vegemite can be found on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Below is the one of several commercials. This one has been extended to be 48-seconds long:

And, just as in the early days, J. Walter Thompson was chosen for creative expertise. While some wait to see if this brand extension will be a coup or a pile of crap, early research shows that Vegemite has more brand affinity than Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Nike (globally);

The research analysed 1.5 billion posts across 38 languages within social networking sites, blogs, message boards, and online news. The results discovered 479,206 mentions for Vegemite, with brand affinity found more often than any other product globally.

If this was an election, the early results would show that the new Vegemite is a serious contender; however, all the votes haven’t been cast. Based on my research, I believe that the new Vegemite will most certainly take space in Australian kitchens.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, blogger and aspiring writer. To contact Jeff, leave a comment here, or find him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Today somebody asked me why I love social media. There are so many reasons and it’s hard for me to choose only a few. So I did what any other social media savvy individual would do: I posted the question on Facebook, Twitter and other outlets. I was able to use social media to explain why I love social media and I think fellow blogger Jenna McWilliams says it best: “Social media is not a trend, but a fundamental human urge to communicate,” and now we have more ways to do so. So, my top five reasons:

1. 1-800 customer care number? Consider it a thing of the past. Remember the time when we had 1-800 numbers? We’d wait on hold for eternity to finally get connected to someone in another country who was so far from executives that we were sure our complaints or problems would never be heard. Social media has changed that. Now companies have to listen to their customers because unhappy ones can broadcast their displeasure through social media. Also, it’s no longer a one-way conversation. Some companies have jumped onto the social media bandwagon (as they should) and created accounts to ask consumers to help create and improve their brands.  Two most notable examples are Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea and Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice.

2. Efficiency of reaching consumers. Look at social media this way – imagine all of your customers coming together on a daily basis and talking about topics that pertain to you and your company, thereby spreading even more information about your company and gaining more recognition and consumers. One of my favorite quotes comes from my mentor and good friend, Griffin Farley of 22squared: “Don’t plan for the ones you reach, plan for the ones they reach.”

3. Being connected (this was the most popular answer I received after posting the question). When something happens to ourselves or to someone we know, we share it with others through pictures, comments and tweets.  More importantly, it’s a new way to get news, support, and advice on anything.What better way to educate yourself on advertising and marketing than by following an expert in a specific field? Who knows, it could even get you a job (Tweeter Neal Schafer had it happen to him after he started his blog and web site).

4. Creative campaigns. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if I had a TiVo, all I would record are commercials. I like advertising, but not because I want to learn about the products. I like the  creativity used to showcase a product to consumers. And now with social media, they’re becoming even more creative. Viral videos, Twitter giveaways, Facebook fan pages, etc. I can’t get enough of them. Old school + new school = awesome, consumer-activity-inducing campaigns.

5. The best thing about social media? It is changing the way we think. And with the exponential growth of it, no social media professional can be sure of where these new media will lead. But I can tell you that it’s exciting to see the evolution.

Megan Green is a freelance propagation planner who has had her work published on PR News Wire, as well as many other outlets. Contact her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or at megankategreen@gmail.com.

AdWeek and Harris recently released a poll asking those not involved in the advertising trade what they thought of advertising’s “relevancy.”

The results show that most find that our jobs, as a whole, are rather irrelevant.

Advertising’s down, no doubt, and now Adweek’s heaping salt on the wound!

Well, Mr. and Mrs. America, let’s look at a life without advertising. A life of relevance.

First of all, without advertising, we would not have free access to television. Advertisers in essence pay for the shows we watch by running commercials. By the same logic, the web in that state would not be as comprehensive as the one we experience now. Radio would be a paid service with subscribers. Programs and shows with relatively lower ratings would be immediately slashed since they would no longer be able to support themselves.

The cultural art form of advertising would be lost.  The circle of life would be disrupted.  Just as life influences advertising, ads influence culture.

Without advertising, creatives would be cubicle-bound and non-imaginative. Serious. Boring. Sex would not sell, and neither would honesty. No one would fight for the cause. PETA would consist of two guys fighting for animal rights, and no one would care. Animals wouldn’t be cool to wear. Or not wear. Or own.  Times Square would be dimly lit. Your favorite beer would be just “BEER,” as the term ‘generic’ would dominate store shelves. Color would be sparse. Trendsetters would be trend-less. No brands, no logos, no icons or spokespeople. No sexy models, sexy shows, or suggestive commercials. We wouldn’t know who to vote for, or why. Four hour erections? Who’d need the pills, let alone use them? No body-image, no silicone implants, no tummy-tucks. No Jon & Kate. Michael Jackson would just be another singer. No Hollywood trailers, stars, starlets, tramps, red carpets, or blockbuster openings. No E! TV, no TMZ. No Paris, Lindsay, Nicole, or reality TV. No Tila Tequila.

No PSA’s warning that your brain on drugs was scrambled. Or that kids shouldn’t smoke crack and that crack kills. Rather than axing the marketing budget first, corporations would axe employees. And that would be just fine, because there would be no PR effort, no big news story, therefore no downside.

Life would go on, but it would be bland and tasteless. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpace: no need for them.

Take a picture of the Cold War-era Russia and apply it to a life without advertising. Cold. Drizzling. Muddled.

The link to this study is now unavailable.  Was the issue so unimportant that Adweek pulled the article? Or was the study published on the wrong day?

Luckily, I printed it:

In an AdweekMedia/Harris Poll last month, respondents were given a chance to say they don’t feel strongly about the industry one way or another, and nearly half of them took it. Asked to characterize their overall impression of “the advertising industry in general,” 47 percent said it’s “neither negative nor positive.” Predictably, those with a negative view of the business (9 percent “very,” 28 percent “somewhat”) outnumbered those with a positive view (2 percent “very,” 15 percent “somewhat”). (The total exceeds 100 percent due to rounding.)

If such numbers count as not-so-bad news for the ad business, responses were less positive on the question of whether consumers find advertising relevant to their lives (”By relevant,” Harris told respondents, “we mean how it connects to things that are ongoing in your daily life”). Given the effort put into aiming the right ad at the right target, the numbers here were pretty lackluster. Eight percent of respondents said advertising is “very relevant” to their lives, and 42 percent said it’s “somewhat relevant.” Thirty-two percent termed it “not that relevant” and 14 percent “not at all relevant,” with the rest unsure.

Can you say “OUCH!”?

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. Reach out and touch him: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.

Advertising and marketing have taken new directions with the recent integration of social media and consumer advocacy. Agencies have been forced to rethink their ideas and strategies to reach their consumers. One such agency, 22squared, has done just that with the help of its SVP Director of Brand Marketing, Brandon Murphy.

I had the opportunity to catch Mr. Murphy on the phone this past Friday and ask him about the company’s model, The Friendship Model: How to Build Brand Advocacy in a Consumer-Driven World.

“I think that basically it’s an approach for brands to build advocacy. When we first introduced this thing, it was mostly an internal thing, and actually still is. In essence it was an internal way to focus the agency on what marketing was about today, what a person does to make and maintain a friendship, earn enough respect, and I guess enough attractiveness for a consumer to advocate for them like a friend would advocate for a friend,” Murphy said.

Murphy says one of the hardest questions companies face when creating campaigns is the question, “How do we build advocacy?”

“A lot of times it comes down to not what you say but what you do,” he said. “How can we get the customer to interact with us. Your next customer could turn into your next 10 customers. It’s a pretty simple idea.”

Griffin Farley, senior brand planner from 22squared, has a great saying for this: “Don’t plan for the ones you reach, plan for the ones they reach.”

How can this model help an entire agency? I listed those questions and responses below:

Megan Green: For people now looking for work in progressive ad agencies, why is it important for them to know about advocacy, social media and word of mouth?

Brandon Murphy: The simple reason is because that is how brands are growing now. Brands aren’t growing by increased awareness, they are growing with people talking about them…that’s how people are choosing products and what brand to use.

MG: Media Planners are specialists at reach and frequency. Are those still important skills to know when advocacy is the end goal?

BM: I think there is always going to be a critical mass of people you have to reach to keep your brand afloat. You look at our agency, it’s not like we don’t do media plans, it’s just that we’ve changed how we do our media plans and how we engage the customer. For media planners, the one thing is that it is no longer about buying space and just calculating reach or frequency, it’s about getting opportunities for the customer to talk.  Media planning has gotten to get more strategic and inventive to get messages to customers.

MG: When you brief Creative Teams, does the Friendship Model help them get to a better creative deliverable?

BM: The Friendship Model does a few things. First, it gives a sense of direction in work and strategy. We always still do the right things in understanding a customer and how a brand can fit into a customer’s life. The key thing is to think entirely around a problem and all different ways to solve it. Sometimes it’s something really cool or something simple. We’ve looked back and told a client, “it’s not a TV campaign you need, but it’s an associate campaign,” like we told Buffalo Wild Wings and Lincoln Financial. Second, [the model is] something else that makes them work better, it forces you to figure out what the brand’s purpose is. If a brand has a purpose beyond just selling something, as a customer you’re more likely to invest in it.

MG: Has the Friendship Model helped your New Business Team win accounts or peak interest among search consultants? What feedback do you hear from them?

BM: Well the good thing about the Friendship Model is that it really does help filter out clients that are right for you and clients that aren’t right for you. The client typically hates it [the model] or loves it. It’s a nice screener for us and prospective clients. It really puts ourselves out there and we’re really passionate about building advocacy.  Also, search consultants really like it. Search consultants are tasked with bringing agencies that bring in business. With this model we can focus on the things that bring in sales. We can tell them how much they can expect to increase sales given an increase in advocacy or reach of other people. That’s really been super attractive to some consultants.

MG: Does the Friendship Model help Account Service strengthen the relationship with the clients? Do clients value the philosophy?

BM: In two ways. One, it’s kind of a gut check for us. The way we act and the people in our agency – it creates a pretty high road for us to walk in terms of being passionate and doing the right thing. You know, it’s interesting if you think about the relationship between friends, it’s not all nicey-nicey and how can I serve you. It’s real. It gives us a nice path to travel on how we build relationships with clients. Two, it most importantly gives our clients something to circle into. Clients always have business goals, but doing it through a filter of building relationships and advocacy gives the client a way to lead that they hadn’t had before. Most of the Friendship Model is based on what we currently do for our clients. It feeds the development on how to win over customers and act differently than other brands, like Publix Super Markets, Inc.

MG: Finally, as Director of Brand Planning, what skills do you look for when you hire Account Planners that want to work for 22squared?

BM: Planners have to be insatiably curious and really, really good at writing and getting ideas across to people. Those two things are core building blocks for planners. Something else we look at is planners who are always able to take a different look at things than most people. Whenever I hire a planner, I make sure they are not only smart, but smart strategically and creatively. Our planners are much more active in participating in the creative. We look for planners that understand how to engage a customer and not just about bringing a message but about where we engage, how we engage, and the content and value of the brand. Planners are provocateurs by nature. At least we want them to be. We want them to cause people to look at things differently. They need to be the glue that holds people together.

Want more information on The Friendship Model and what it means? Check out this video that 22squared put together, “I Love Blank”, or Brandon’s white papers.

Megan Green is an advertising and marketing professional published on PR News Wire, as well as many other outlets. She specializes in social media and is currently looking for a full-time advertising position. Contact her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or at megankategreen@gmail.com.

I have been around the marketing and advertising block a time or two and I’ve seen some changes – some great and some not-so-great. However, with the advent of social media, I have seen a series of trends that I find truly disturbing: over- or underestimating social media’s importance. So, as a public service, here are three trends to avoid.

Scary Trend #1 – Not Giving Social Media Enough Credit.
While I think it’s great that many companies are jumping into the social media fray, there are some who think that social media is “for the kids,” so they underestimate its importance as a communication tool. They hand over the social media reigns to an intern in order to give him/her some “busy work,” rather than realizing the ramifications of a social media strategy that is not carefully planned. If you’re going to incorporate social media into your marketing campaign, do so deliberately. Don’t blow it off or do it halfway.

Scary Trend #2 – Giving Social Media Entirely Too Much Credit.
Some companies (and I’m not naming names!) have decided that since social media is so popular, it should take the place of an integrated communications strategy. They eliminate the rest of their marketing plan and hire a social media guru to do what an entire marketing department has not been able to do, thus setting up said guru for failure. Social media is merely one tool in your arsenal, but it does not take the place of an integrated strategy.

Scary Trend #3 – Too Much To Soon
If you’re at all active in social media, you know this scenario all too well: you start following a company on a social media site because you like the brand. Next thing you know, you’re bombarded with promotional messages, product information, and generic messages, much like getting stuck in the corner at a party, talking to some blowhard who only wants to talk about himself. If you don’t want to engage your customers in a dialog, then skip social media and buy some spots, already.

Sara Barton is a copywriter, social media strategist, and avid blogger who is in search of her next opportunity. Contact her via twitter, LinkedIn, or her blog.