Have you seen “Giving”, a short 3-minute film created by TrueMove, a Thai mobile telecommunications company? It tells the story of two families – one facing extreme hardship and the other in a position to help. It showcases the beauty of giving without expecting anything in return. I saw it during a digital storytelling session at Advertising Week. This might just be the best 3 minutes of your day. And who knows – maybe it will inspire you to take action in your own community.
Category: marketing
Beautiful: The Writer’s Filter at Advertising Week
The lines to get into the sessions at Advertising Week are long. People begin to queue in The Times Center 30 minutes before the start of each one. This makes for an opportunity to chat with people I might not otherwise meet. I ask them about their businesses, their marketing challenges, and what they hope to learn in these sessions. They’re quick to tell me the good stuff – the popularity of their brands and the ideas that went right. What’s more interesting to the writer in me lies in the grey messy mass of TBD initiatives.
One Director of Advertising at a large consumer packaged goods company told me that they’ve made a fortune on the back of an animated character who represents the illness their OTC medicine is meant to eliminate. Now in the age of social media, consumers want to interact with that character but since he is the animated representation of the illness, he’s not going to sell product for them via Facebook.
“So what are going to do?” I asked.
“That’s a good question,” he said. “We have no idea. We fight a lot over it.”
If I was at Advertising Week representing a company, I don’t know that I would be so bold as to ask pointed questions without easy answers. It’s liberating to be there to dig, write, and illuminate the stories that are not so readily seen. It’s freeing to be there as someone just trying to learn rather than someone who’s trying to teach. It’s fun to be marketed to instead of being the one doing the marketing.
Beautiful: I’m at Advertising Week This Week
Today I’m off to start a week-long journalism stint covering Advertising Week, the largest annual advertising industry event. As pre-conference coverage, I’ve written pieces about Google Glass as the next best personal assistant, voice-controlled photo and video editing, drones in the field of journalism, and blended learning’s promise to revolutionize education through technology.
I’ll be writing 3 features per day on cool finds, interesting people, provocative ideas, and leading edge innovations in media, marketing, and technology. You can see all of my posts on the conference at http://www.allvoices.com/users/Christanyc. On this blog, I’ll draft a more personal piece each day on this experience chasing down my stories. Comments, feedback, and questions are welcomed and appreciated on both sites.
Beautiful: To Read Seth Godin is to Love Him
Seth Godin is the Yoda of modern times. He is well-meaning and honest in his crankiness, and I love him for that. I also love him because despite what the world tells you about personal and professional image, he is unabashedly, unapologetically himself.
His email is sethgodin@gmail.com. His blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, doesn’t even have a vanity URL. His company isn’t some clever title; it’s just his name at http://sethgodin.com. I’ve never seen him give himself any kind of title except “author”. His tagline is “Go Make Something Happen”. (If everyone took that advice, imagine how evolved our world would be!) He thinks all marketers, colleagues in his own chosen profession, are liars and he tells them so; it’s the title of one of his most successful books and he’s not apologizing for that either. His popularity is based upon his inability to tolerate BS in its many forms.
He doesn’t let anyone off the hook for being less than they can be. He doesn’t stand for people who refuse to rise to their potential, nor for people who pump themselves up through image rather than substance. He believes that just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we should avoid doing it.
How do I know these things? I’ve never spoken to him. I’ve never asked him any pointed questions about life, work, and the world. I do read his writing, and this is what I hear in his words: stop waiting; stop making excuses; be authentic; stop pretending to be someone you’re not and be who you are. Those are messages to live and work by.
Beautiful: The Best Class You Can Take Is Practice
“The only way I know to get anything done is to work like hell.” ~ Robert Spekman, my MBA marketing professor at Darden
A few years back, I contemplated going back to school to get my PhD in education. Robert was one of my favorite professors at my Darden MBA program and I spent a good amount of time with him during my two years there. When I was thinking of going back to get my PhD, he was one of the first people I talked to.
He was in New York for a meeting so I met him at the restaurant of his hotel and we had breakfast together. I told him about my own history and how my education literally saved my life. I explained that I was a bit worried about applying for a PhD in a field in which I’d never formally studied. Robert told me I had the best experience of all: I lived it. He followed up the line above with this – “Take all the classes you want in any subject. Until you actually sit down and do the work, with your a*s on the line for results, it doesn’t matter.” And with that I put my fear aside and applied.
Things didn’t exactly go the way I had hoped. I only applied to one school, Columbia’s Teachers College, and I didn’t get in. (You can read about my rejection letter here.) It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. And I never forgot that conversation with Robert, nor the lesson he taught me. I use his advice all the time. I’m grateful for his support, but I’m even more grateful that he didn’t coddle me with exclamations of how great I was, or intelligent, or talented, or any other load that he could have told me to just move the conversation along. He showed me that I already have what it takes to have an impact in a field that means a lot to me. I didn’t need another degree; I just needed to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
Step 277: Mad Men Commercials – A Celebration of the Quality We’re Looking For
Have you seen these retro vignette commercials interspersed throughout Mad Men? I was curious about them so I did a little hunting around. The Smith Winter Mitchell Agency, the agency featured in the commercials, is the brainchild of Rocket XL in New York. These vignettes showcase how a fictional 1960s ad agency, SmithWinterMitchell, develops campaigns for six iconic Unilever brands (Dove, Breyers, Hellmann’s, Klondike, Suave Hair, and Vaseline), combining witty historic parody with modern ad footage. They also showcase these iconic brands and celebrate their heritage on a hit show that is culturally and contextually relevant.
The artistic direction of the commercials is interesting, thought there was something else about them that grabbed my attention. I was drawn to the risk that Rocket XL took by building story with their commercials. They didn’t see this campaign as 30 – 60 seconds spots that happen in isolation. They gave the audience credit for their intelligence; they trusted us to connect the dots across the decades, as well as from Sunday night to Sunday night. They have a distinctive look and style that make them memorable, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, allowing us to laugh a little at the ad guys we spend an hour with every Sunday night.
Our country is craving simplicity in the midst of this economic downturn. Somehow, we glorified complexity for far too long and it got us into dangerous territory. We lost our way when we started to throw around phrases like derivative pricing and sub-prime mortgages, without fully realizing how low their downside could take us. Rocket XL is portraying simple products with a simple message – they have stood the test of time and they’re still here with us with the same quality they’ve always had. Sounds simple, but it’s hard to fulfill on.
On the surface, these are just commercials for ice cream a shampoo. But they’re making us smile for a much more profound reason – we’re looking for reliability and stability in a time when all the ground beneath us is so uncertain. These products have stood the test of time and they’re proud of that. I’m not suggesting that a Klondike bar can take all of our cares away. I am suggesting that products and people alike should flaunt what they’ve got – and if what you’ve got is a track record and history of fulfilling the brand promise you made, then that is no small feat.
Learn more about Rocket XL and they’re cool brand blueprint here.
Step 237: Do You Want to “Arrive”?
I always know that something is afoot in the universe when the subject of a conversation I have with a friend is echoed in a conversation I have at work the very next day. Last night I had dinner with my friend, Courtney, and we talked a lot about “arriving”, both in a professional and work sense. I met Courtney through my yoga teacher training and as new teachers we’re both trying to find our way through the complicated maze of the wellness industry. She and I are both contemplating full-time career moves as well.
We talked about relationships and living in New York City, a city whose residents strive to arrive in every aspect of our lives and yet are also always reaching for that next rung up. After all, most of us moved here to prove we could make it here, and therefore make it anywhere. (Thank you, Frank, for writing that succinct, poetic line to describe our complicated, collective goal.) Because we live in this delicate balance of thriving and striving, it’s hard to know when we’ve actually made it.
I work full-time as a product developer for a premium financial institution. Like many luxury brands, our brand halo has always had the understanding that once you carry our brand in your portfolio, you’ve made it big time. It’s a sentiment that’s served us well except for one tiny, recent glitch: many young people (young Gen X, Gen Y, and Millennials) don’t feel like they’ve made it yet and therefore don’t have a sense of belonging with our brand as they do with many others. It’s a tough nut for us to crack since we’ve spent over 100 years touting ourselves as aspirational and a recent market study showed that young people today are choosing to grow up later in life than previous generations. The real risk for us is that if we don’t grow loyalty among the youth segment now, we actually won’t be relevant to them once they do feel like they’ve made it.
I’m a cusp Gen X / Gen Y so I understand this mentality. In truth, I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel like I’ve arrived and a large part of me doesn’t want to feel that way. I live in New York City because I actually love striving, pushing my limits, and the feeling I get from growing, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, every day. Honestly, if you’re not interested in growth and change, I would recommend living someplace else. New York City is just too difficult a place to make your home unless you love to push yourself every day. I love New York City – I’m probably a lifer – but it is not for everyone and I understand why people choose to move. There’s no shame in that at all; it’s just a matter of priorities.
When I think about the youth dilemma facing my company, I think we’ve got one clear choice: Do you want to be a brand that rewards people once they feel like they’ve arrived at some idealized financial state or do you want to help people strive, accomplish, and push their boundaries no matter where they are on the “arrival spectrum”. That’s a very different kind of brand attitude that requires a new overarching brand strategy and quite a shake-up at my company. It’s a question worth pondering and acting upon – living in a state of limbo and identity crisis doesn’t help anyone, and in actuality it’s a sure-fire way to become irrelevant. Eventually, you’ve got to say “this is who I am” and be with the people who support that.
Step 207: How Greg Verdino’s Ebook Inspires Me
I love Greg Verdino’s blog. I find him interesting, controversial, and wicked smart. He’s also humble, curious, and consist and constantly learning and sharing. He started up his blog almost 4 years ago; I’ve been reading his blog for about a year. Mostly, Greg writes about social media and marketing though conversations (in any form) and relationships always seem to be his underlying topics to me. I’ve been looking back over a number of his posts as I prep the curriculum for the marketing class I will be teaching at LIM College in the Fall.
On my plane ride back from vacation, I finally read Greg’s ebook 4 & 20 Blog Posts, a selection of his writings from his first two years of blogging. As someone considering a career shift, I found his book and back-story very inspiring. Greg was “the social media guy” at Digitas when he started blogging and a brilliant marketer. Then he went to crayon, and now is part of Powered, a full-service social media agency. Conversations are now the mainstay of his profession. I think that’s a great answer to the “what do you do for a living?” question: “I talk to people.”
You don’t need to be a marketer or involved with social media to enjoy Greg’s ebook, the same way you don’t need to be a chef to enjoy Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations. Yes, if you love talking with and listening to customers in a variety of ways, Greg’s writing will be not only enjoyable but incredibly useful to you.
Greg is a guy who enjoys his life, has undergone a number of personal and professional changes since beginning his blogging life, and shares that every day with his readers. He gives us big ideas to chew on, visions that inspire us, and calls to action that makes us want to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the work that most interests us, whatever that work may be.
Give his ebook a read (it’s available for free download on his website) and let me know what you think. Greg’s book microMarketing will be published by McGraw-Hill in August.
NY Business Strategies Examiner.com: Interview with Don Mathis, CEO of Epic Advertising
I recently had the opportunity to interview Don Mathis, CEO of Epic Advertising. Don’s varied and accomplished career is a great example for all of us who have many professional interests that we’d like to pursue. He’s someone who has never been put into any one box. Don’s career took many twists and turns from the military to media to management consulting and now into advertising.
For the full interview, please visit: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2901-NY-Business-Strategies-Examiner~y2009m7d7-Interview-with-Don-Mathis-CEO-of-Epic-Advertising
My Year of Hopefulness – Small Audience
Seth Godin wrote a terrific post today relating the contrast between concert opening acts and rock stars to the different grades of marketers. He has some very good advice for all of us: Seek out a small audience who thinks you’re a rock star and then grow that audience. Don’t go out into the market as an opening act and have the market shape your work based upon something else they love (the rock star). You want to stand on your own two feet and have customers who love you and will back you exactly the way you are.
Many companies are so hungry for growth, so hungry for fast, quick wins, that they do whatever they have to do to their products and services to make them appeal to everyone. Of course some other companies focus so closely on one tiny piece of the market that they exclude others who might also benefit from their products with just a few weeks. So what’s a company to do?
A few ideas:
1.) The “Me-conomy” seems endless. The personalization trend can be seen everywhere in the market. Is it possible for a customer to customize some piece or your product or service to make it suit them perfectly? This allows you to serve a number of different groups with just a few minor changes to your product. Think about what adding colors and engraving to the ipod did for that product!
2.) There are a lot of ways to slice and dice a market into segments. Is there a segment that you can serve that’s small enough to provide something special to them while also having a wide enough appeal to enough people to meet your costs and profit goals?
3.) Look for holes in the market. Many companies are set on being fast followers. They don’t want to get out there, innovate, and build something new. Fear holds them back. They’d prefer to watch others, copy, and paste. The saddest part about this kind of ambition is that it never allows you to be the first in the market to fill an unmet need that makes consumers grateful and loyal to your brand. You’re just an opening act in that scenario. You want to be the first association a customer makes with a new product or service. You don’t want people to say, “Oh yeah, there’s that option, too” about your brand. So get out there, talk to people, and find a way to provide a service or product that makes their lives easier.
While it’s fun to play in the market, it’s more fun to build a market and delight customers with a product or service they never even thought was possible. Your following will be filled with early adopters at first so learn from them, get their input, improve your offering, and other people outside of that early adopter segment will catch on. Be a rock star.
Christa Avampato 