Monthly Archives: June 2009

Return on Strategy

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Ad agencies make money selling stuff. Want a TV commercial? That will cost you $350,000. Want a billboard? $25,000. How about a direct mail program? $125,000. Website? $75,000, if we don’t have to outsource it. If there is commissionable media…all the better.

 

As an ad guy coming up in the business a great day was one during which you presented brilliant creative and the client approved it with excitement, energy and money. If the creative really worked and sales followed you could just smell success.

 

But, today, as a brand planner the real excitement comes from presenting a brand strategy that lights up a CEO. When s/he reads the paper or the screen and breaks out in a smile and says “You get me” that’s the home run.  A brand strategy is not the creative, it’s the idea that leads the creative — it is the long term idea that makes the money.  I use a line in presentations all the time “Campaigns come and go, but a powerful branding idea is indelible.” Powerful branding ideas are how agencies should make money. Their ability to deliver on that idea should be the key to remuneration. Therein lies the ROS (return on strategy) conundrum.

 

Any thoughts on how to make this work? Drop me a note at steve@whatstheidea.com Peace!    

 

The “H” Word.

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Ever since my kids were old enough to talk I’ve taught them not to say the “H” word. It is one of America’s favorite words, yet it is one of our most insidious. Hate. “I hate broccoli” was always met with “Don’t use the H word.” In our house the word hate was viewed as worse than a curse.

 

Though I’m not big on parenting other’s kids, I heard myself saying don’t use the H word yesterday to a child at a graduation party. It had been a while, but it reminded me of how I used to do it to my kids — with a big, surprised smile on my face.  When I said it to a 6 year old in front of his uncle, the uncle had my my back. The boy kept quizzing me “What’s the H word? Hell?  

 

If everyone played my game with kids and meant it, we could start something really big. Words do matter. Try it sometime. Please. Peace!

The Great American Spanking

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This recession has been kicking my ass. Never a good saver, like most Americans I have been leveraging assets and looking to future earnings. This was okay while everyone else was doing the same and banks encouraged us along, but when the banks and bank insurers went under, the News Hour turned to fright night, and millions lost their jobs, I got religion.  Being an ad guy in my bones, I remain positive, even as my work days and consulting fees dwindle.

 

Most American’s have been spanked and I hope we have learned our lesson…as individuals and as a country.

 

There are signs that we may be turning the corner economically. Though, ad spending was down in 1Q, senior executives are talking about signs of budget life. Jobless claims have slowed and a slight bump in retail sales are two other good signs.

 

Mr. Positive, here, believes this smack in the butt is going to make us stronger. Each and every one of us: college kids, newlyweds, first time home buyers, retirees and their elders.  Individually and as a country we need to focus on what we need. When we buy and use more than we need, things get risky. We must get back to fiscal and environmental responsibility. If we do, the goods we purchase will mean more, we will take better care of them, and life, I suspect, will be fuller. It will also give us more time to put tunes on our iPods. Peace!

 

Changing the paper paper.

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I write a good deal about newspapers and how that business is changing. I do so because there’s a big newspaper close to home, Newsday, that has great potential, but, as is the case with many papers, is nervous about real change.

 

What paper newspapers don’t seem to understand is that their online properties are really poised to win the news and local information war. Why? Because they have the content and the ability to deliver it (fact-checked) in near real time across a lot of media platforms: video, audio, pictures, feeds, and written word.  

 

I haven’t looked behind Newsday’s curtain and know there are smart people with money doing innovative things, but at the end of the day I think they’ll take the paper paper, turn it into flash and HTML, and debate the monetization issue.  Along with News Corp., Cablevision (owner of Newsday) is one of the few companies with the resources and footprint to reinvent the online news business…but they need to lose the fear and think different. In 10 years online news sites will be the sites of choice. Peace!  

Social Media Insanity.

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I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that every employee, especially those young and fairly wired, sends somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 plus messages a day to consumers, prospects and business partners on behalf of the company or brand; a message being a communication from a land line phone (inbound or out), email, letter, instant message, text, blog post, tweet, or face-to-face conversation. Fair? Do you know who is managing those messages? No one. 

 

The only place where a company’s messages to consumers, prospects and partners are managed effectively is the marketing and sales departments.  And that’s a bit of a leap of faith, based on what I’m seeing. Good brand and sales managers, good public relations people and good executive management know the value of a powerful, prepared corporate or brand messaging. They understand a well conceived brand strategy, conveyed and carried out by an entire company, provides a power of which General Patton would be proud.  The cacophony of employee messaging taking place today, thanks to the all the comms channels and lack of brand stewardship, is watering down the managed messages we send into the marketplace. Have you ever tried to talk in a normal voice while hundreds of hungry ducks are quacking around you?  

 

And what’s even most concerning is that many of today’s brand champions, people at the helms of big marketing budgets, are out on the talk circuit spreading the word that brands are owned by the consumer – the conversation, they say, is in the hands of the consumer. OMFG. This is insanity.  (This video of Best Buy CMO Barry Judge is one example.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rebranding

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I’ve been in touch with a few tech CEOs over the past year and I know it is not easy being them; they are responsible for financing, product development, legal, the code, usability, hiring, business metrics and last but not least strategy. 

 

The true test of a great CEO, though, is what happens after these two words pass through his or her lips “major rebranding.” “Major rebranding” is code for we don’t have a focused strategy. Sadly, most rebranding assignments often yield a PowerPoint deck filled with marko-babble, a logo (nice), tagline (generic), a visual symmetry discourse and bill for some serious money.  Most of the bill, by the way, pays for tactics.

 

Branding is all about strategy. It is forward looking, consumer-facing, fresh, it pushes the culture (business or societal), and all the heavy lifting is done before any visual tactics or art are employed. The precursor of a branding idea is a suit strategy and it should reflect each and every element the CEO cares about (see first paragraph).  When the suit strategy talks to the CEO and makes him/her smile, the rest of the job can begin.

 

If you run into a CEO who when commenting about a rebranding project says “I’ll know it when I see it,” give the check back and run.  

 

 

Two Kinds of News.

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There was a time when breaking news only came from radio, newspapers and TV. Then the Internet arrived and it became immediate. Mobile phones and Twitter apps introduced us to big news events reported in seconds from virtually anywhere.

 

News is free. It may be ad-supported but the horse has left the barn when it comes to making money on news.  Breaking news (the best kind) is no longer appointment-driven. It hits us in real-time over the closest device. Technology has made news 1s and 0s. It’s information. And free.

 

Analysis, on the other hand, is where the money is. A well turned, well contextualized story, is worth paying for. Hearing Steven Colbert’s fun spin on something is worth an appointment. Reading Thomas Friedman’s analysis of Obama’s Cairo speech is not like hearing about it from your neighbor (not that there’s anything wrong with neighbors).

 

As the news reporting business evolves and changes thanks to the Internet, I think we will begin to see two forms: generic, aggregated news (free) and in-depth, bi-lined, star-value analysis (paid). 

 

Content is still king and as we mix the great content in with the chaff — and offer it for free — it loses value.

 

See Change or Sea Change?

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I’ve been in a number of meetings lately where I’ve referred to doubling the size of the market. Real marketer’s ears always perk up when you talk about big rather than incremental growth. Here’s an example of how one might double a market. 

 

One fine summer day a few years ago, Mike Piazza, the much publicized catcher for the New York Mets, emerged from the dugout and walked into the on-deck circle with blond hair. Theretofore, Mike had been a brown haired man. That one moment in time gave every man in America permission to color his hair. Mike did it, not to cover up gray, but to have some fun. A fun, televised, sunny summer day. It was not planned (that I could tell) yet it was a huge and potentially market-changing moment. 

 

If Mike Piazza can have fun changing it up, why shouldn’t the rest of us? Had a smart hair color marketer taken this serendipitous moment and run with it, the hair color market might have doubled. Most of the time marketers try to plan change — sometimes they have to sea change…and pounce. Peace!  

A Message to Management.

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Need to do an overnight category message analysis…including online? There’s a nap for that.

Need a full-blown, 8-city market test in a week? There’s a nap for that.

Got a back door invitation to a new business pitch in two days and haven’t cracked the consumer insight yet? There’s a nap for that.

Need a new integrated campaign because the one you’re presenting tomorrow broke on TV last night? There’s a nap for that. It’s called good people.

There’s a saying in advertising “The overhead goes up and down in the elevator every night.” To that I would add "overhead is much more effective when pounding out a powerful branding idea." Great people and great strategy allow everyone – especially agency management – to sleep better at night. Peace!   

 

Snap Out Of It.

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I was reading Creativity Magazine this morning and David Nobay of Droga5 in Sydney quoted Charles Bukowski — “As the spirit wanes, form rises.”

 

Translated, this means we fall into ruts or expected ways of doing things as our senses deaden. Mr. Nobay suggests this happens when the economy is in the shizzer. The “suits” exert more control over the “creatives” and business becomes unusually usual.  I wrote a couple of days ago about the adgorithm, the new form of statistically driven marketing, another symptom of this lack of spirit thanks to the poor economy.

 

I’m with Mr. Nobay…and always have been. The best digital agencies are those with a high degree of creativity in their blood. The best media companies, the same. The best healthcare agencies and direct shops, ditto. Spirited people help marketers break out of ruts.

 

I recently walked into a design boutique in a very creative part of NYC and could hear a pin drop. Smart people. Nice Mac Books. Stiff aroma of coffee. But no giggling. Little childishness. Was I listening to quiet fear?  Let’s all snap out of it. Peace!