Hasta La Creative!

LONDON – Aardvark, the social media search engine that recruits Facebook friends to help give advice, has fully rolled out of private beta and is keen on giving a human touch to the standard search.

LONDON – The National Magazine Company (Natmags), is to publish a one-off commemorative magazine to celebrate the life of the late Michael Jackson.

LONDON – Despite an unfavourable court ruling, resulting in a £3m bill in damages and year long prison sentence, The Pirate Bay is thumbing its nose at copyright holders once more, this time gunning for YouTube with the launch of a free streaming online video service.

Fleming Creative Group, a Vancouver-based print/digital design agency, discovers how creativity and peace-building go hand in hand. Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director, explains how Palestinian, Israeli and Canadian teens collaborate through Peace It Together.

In yet another effort to hipify itself with a generation that’s never heard of The Sears Catalog let alone even noticed the store in a mall as they scamper by it on their way to Justice, American Eagle or Claire’s, retail giant Sears has hired Disney cutie Selena Gomez for its back to school effort.

Soccer ball? Nope. Stuffed animal? Nope. Baseball glove? Nope. Squeaky toy? Nope. Slipper? Nope? SPDR Bone from State Street? Yup.

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 first stumbled across the displayed ad in Washington D.C. on the side of a bus stop.  Struck by the image of George Bush, I stopped to survey it.  Even as a Bush critic I was somewhat taken aback.  Taking one of the most memorable images which represents a sliver of the ultimate failure of the previous administration seems brilliant on the surface.  The ad and its organization, changeAidsobama.org, are certainly achieving the type of alluring controversy it intended.  However, is the ad successful?

Despite its stop-you-in-your-tracks appeal, does the ad effectively communicate the negligence of government (more largely, the country) towards the AIDS crisis in D.C.?  In my opinion, no.

The ad is highly successful in catching the viewer’s eye and even more so in creating feelings of enmity in order to motivate people into action.  Yet, its brutish approach distracts from the message at hand: AIDS.  Sure, the letters are plastered across the bottom of the ad, but the image is so stark that I hardly noticed it.  In fact, the over-the-top approach even detracts from the message rather than strengthens it.  In this sense, this is not a successful ad.

Although the message is strong, its meaning is muddled in what comes across as more of a partisan jab (not unintentionally) than an appeal to a cause.  For a social issue as important as the AIDS crisis, the ad actually undermines the message and goal.  Though the title of the organization’s website endorses Obama in certain fashion, the page itself is rife with criticisms of his negligence.

Ironically, the ad only furthers the negligence it seems to wholly abhor.

Dan Davis is a Freelance Writer carving out his growing resume, specializing in copy writing, and subjects from sports to the arts.  Contact him on LinkedIn.

Google, the leader in Search Engine technology, handles approximately 66% of all search engine traffic. So much, in fact, that when Michael Jackson died and his name spiked, Google thought that it was a coordinated attack.

Much like AT&T did two decades ago, Google is fighting back over anti-trust allegations although no formal investigation is underway.

Dana Wagner, the Googler known as “senior competition counsel” explains in the New York Times that “competition is just a click away.”

Google has been on the PR warpath, partially due to regulators watching its every move. Other tech companies such AT&T, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft suffered much of the same thing when it became apparent that there was no “real” competition. Google is clearly the leader in the search category, and it’s possible that the only “competition” may be from the US Government’s possible intervention. In November of 2008, the Justice Department killed a deal between Yahoo and Google due to concerns over market domination. But who is kidding who, right? Google already owns the market.

There are other investigations taking place. The Justice Department is investigating Google’s hiring practices and the Federal Trade Commission is researching the ties between the boards of both Google and Apple. But nothing’s been aimed at the heart of Google.

…unlike other technology giants in years past, Google has not been accused of anti-competitive tactics. But the investigations and carping from competitors and critics have Google fighting to dispel the notion that it has a lock on its market, even as it increases its share of search and online advertising.

However, Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, stated;

“Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.”

Google’s lawyer, Mr. Wagner, agrees that the company is a great success. He also noted that the environment is turbulent and highly competitive. Further, he said that Google wasn’t looking for sympathy, but simply telling its side of the story.

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.

LONDON – ZenithOptimedia has signed an exclusive solus deal with Five to buy the entire online ad inventory surrounding the broadcaster’s coverage of cricket’s Ashes series this summer.