i [love] marketing.

are you ready to blow your million dollar idea away?

If so, here's an amazing opportunity. MDC Partners offers you a million dollars for 51% stake in your new ad agency. Sounds like a sweet deal. A sweet deal for MDC, that is.

There's at least one problem with this whole idea. First, I can't help but think that it came a decade too late; back then, ambitious and smart people were obsessed with founding agencies, and the hefty amount would be more than welcome in those dot-com bust days. (A side note: even back then, doubt that someone would be happy with a 51% cut, but anyway).Today, ambitious and smart people fund their own tech startups, and in what may come as a great surprise to MDC execs, none of those startups deal with advertising business.

Simply, "great talent" today has actually figured that money's not in advertising. It's in many, many other things that you can create, build, and execute online. If brands wants to use those things - that's great. But MDC's criteria that, in order to be considered for their contest, you need to do "brilliant work, you want to make brands famous, and you want to drive results for clients" sound, in the context of digital innovation, close to arrogant. Guess what, smartest kids in town are a little bit more ambitious than making some brand famous.

Second, if the idea is so awesome, why VCs or angels haven't already thought of it? VCs are notorious for NOT investing in agencies. Now, those guys are entrepreneurial, money-making oriented people, willing to invest in anything and everything with a potential to return their investment. So, if they are investing in plethora of start-ups, yet curiously leave agency business aside, there must be a reason for it. Hint: not enough money.

And third: there may be, after all, some people who, in MDCs own words, say "let's spend our lunch hours for the next three weeks putting something together." I am sure there are plenty of those who dream about having their own agency during their lunchtime (for the rest of us is still hard to simultaneously sleep and eat, but those are very talented individuals). The main problem is that those people are going to have their own agency almost always through client relationships, or to put it more crudely, by stealing a client away from their current employer. Worse things have happened.

The bottom line is that all those smart, entrepreneurial, and driven people whom MDC wants to entice with a lucrative 49% offer are already doing something else. That something else is curiously unrelated to marketing communication, and now may be the time for MDC to ask themselves why (maybe someone should offer them a million bucks to figure it out, too. Wouldn't bet, tho.)

Not only those people are doing something else, they manage to find money for it without help of a traditional industry middleman, be it in advertising agency or a publishing company. Just ask Bud Caddell. Instead of asking a publisher to back up his first book, Bud has secured the funding according to the true rules of the web, by asking people to contribute through KickStarter (Bud's book itself is a collaboration, too.) 

But the biggest, and a very real problem is that brands have also figured this out. They are starting to give money to startups directly (think PepsiCo10) in exchange for collaboration in the relatively new marketing areas of mobile and social media. Some industry people have apparently figured some of this too, as they created Victors&Spoils. These things are new, interesting, and where the money and action are.

So, yeah, an awesome idea, MDC. I'd almost say "a million dollar one," but that brings me too close to home.

the problem of ego

 

It's not rare that advertising and ego go together. Just look at the recently ended Cannes Ad Festival - amid all that mad twittering about how many times someone has seen Ben Stiller, how hungover a person is, or whether someone has lost their voice from all those drunken conversations at the Gutter Bar - it is a celebration of individual creativity, personal talent & genius, and creative accomplishments in advertising. Yes, in advertising. You are not helping people do something better, you help companies to sell more products. Congratulations.

Yet, it seems incredibly hard to keep this perspective in mind, and to sort of realize that advertising celebrity is, well, not a "real" celebrity - if that still means anything. Just an example: the fact that Jeff Goodby is finally on Twitter even has become a recent news item in an industry trade publication. You can follow him here, if you get over the fact that, as a primer of sheer advertising genius, his name there is Jeff Badby. I am, personally, blown away by the creative twist.

Or, if you want to know Alex Bogusky's globe-trotting whereabouts, just go to the new MDC site. There, in Alex's own words, you can, with a little help of time slider, follow around MD execs. That is, if you really want to know. (I wonder if a paid team of paparazzi is next, just in case we are curious what David Doft ate.) Alex adds that MDC highlights great individual talent, and apparently, high-tech stalking is the best way to convey it. 

And exactly there resides the biggest problem of turning people who are successful in advertising into something of a rare and special species (of course, aside of the apparent obnoxiousness of that whole deal). And that problem is: if digital media offer any lesson, it is that creativity, talent, and an accomplishment are not an individual thing. Gone are the days of David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach fame (actually, they are still alive and well in Cannes, not that anyone cares); new things are now are created incrementally, collaboratively, and interactively. The same way that small ideas fare better than big ones online, small contributions combined into something new and interesting that grows over time and through even more contributions, may as well replace a lone "creative genius" of the past.

So what do we have now? Aging "gurus" with their agency machines well oiled to generate "big ideas" vs. hundreds of startups with their small ideas + the digital environment that is exceptionally good in creating a shared value and in continuously introducing new forms of cultural capital. Who has, in the long run, better chances in succeeding? 

Of course, if everything else fails, ad execs can always put themselves in an ad.

Why Nike’s “Write the Future” is Rewriting the Past

 

Everyone is talking about the new Nike World Cup spot, and with a good reason: it's a beautifully told story that transcends media formats to deliver a truly emotional and inspirational experience. In 30 seconds, it appeared that Nike finally cracked the code by combining what's it best at with the power of digital distribution. And, Weiden + Kennedy showed us what it means for a brand to truly participate in culture.

Or, did it? Is this really still a way to build a strong digital brand? It's clear what Nike tried to do with its spot: to insert itself into the culture around the World Cup. And that's fine - without this connection, as the popular argument goes, Coke is just a soft drink, Google is just a search engine, and Nike's nothing more than a pair of sneakers. People need symbolic power of brands in their lives, because it turns their connection with products into something with cultural meaning. Brands help them navigate the world, understand their role within it, and broadcast the message about who they are. In this believable, albeit slightly needy scenario, all that brands have to do to reclaim their relevance is to sneak into popular conversations and become something that people use to tell their story better.

The problem is, we are today dealing with a completely different sort of culture. Yes, World Cup is a big and awesome event, but how it’s going to play out in the lives of soccer fans next month is part of the emerging digital culture, and not some symbolic inspirational culture that Nike – and other brands – are so desperate to penetrate.

Digital culture is based on tools, incentive systems and ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with brand or cultural symbols. In other words, how people get inspired and motivated, how they identify with something, and build their identity online has refreshingly little to do with brand stories told through 30-second spots.

This year’s Cannes Young Lions 48 Hours Ad Contest bubbled up Chatroulette for a Better World, aimed to raise awareness of the clean water problem. Why does it matter? What it offered is a simple execution, and more importantly, plenty of inspiration without representation. Go to Huffington Post to see what’s new, you may as well became a “Networker,” “Moderator,” or “Superuser.” Go to 7-Eleven and buy something, and you can unlock some Farmville animal, courtesy of Zynga. Stumble upon the new Mitchum deodorant site, and you may end up there for a while watching videos of the “Hardest Working ______ in America.” Or, start following the World Cup in a few weeks, and you will probably be equally interested in what all other soccer fans are saying about it on Twitter as in the soccer itself.

All of this suggests a new sort of networked, reciprocal, gift-based, game-like digital culture today -- and digital culture is quickly becoming popular culture. Apply badges, likes, cues, contests, and make-believe social settings to the World Cup, and all of the sudden you have a completely different beast you are dealing with. Why didn’t Nike do something with it? It’s World Cup campaign may have played out completely differently if it used all these things to inspire fans to connect with each other, with the global soccer culture, and with the Nike brand, for that matter.

"Write the Future" tells a story about how the World Cup is the stage where players can achieve immortality. It's meant to inspire not just for soccer fans but also people in the industry that things, after all, may work out for the better. The Internet, sadly, will never offer this sort of culture they are hoping for to make their brands relevant there. Only a lot of missed opportunities.

Why? Because it is this other sort of culture, digital, that gives people ability to play with who they are and to explore who they want to be. It doesn’t give people stories to consume or to talk about, it allows actively making them. Or, to stay true to the theme, it lets people write the future.

Here's an idea for brands: crack that code, and you may as well be doing the same thing.

void.

 Last Wednesday, I went to an event titled "Creating Digital Culture". It was a crowded event, with the prominent names in the marketing industry: Hashem Baiwa (Director of Digital Strategy, Droga5), James Cooper (Digital Creative Director, Saatchi & Saatchi), Mike Geiger (Chief Digital Officer, Goodby), Matt Spangler (Digital Marketing Entrepreneur), Taras Wayner (ECD, R/GA), and Rick Webb (Co-founder, Barbarian Group). Moderator: John Winsor (Director of Strategy and Innovation, Crispin). I wanted to write my take on it afterwards, but somehow couldn't really decide on what to say. I failed to get inspired.

As so seemed the participants on the panel. What was very obviously lacking in their discussion (aside of a single female participant) was the enthusiasm. How?? Like, digital media are the most interesting and fun and creative thing that happened to marketing since it was invented, and those people can't get excited enough to offer an original opinion? Their interns and junior planners are probably more psyched about the web then they are.

To be fair, though, the questions we heard were all the usual suspects: what's the next thing in digital? what's the agency of the future? how does it look like, what's called? where do you find planners? where is creativity? I've been hearing those same questions since 2006, and they were lame even back then.

Most likely, if you haven't figured it out by now, it's either a) not very likely that you ever will or, b) the question is wrong. I choose b). So, first, change the questions. Change them.

Second, how about a little mixing up with who the panelists are? I mean, these people are a great draw for the crowd, but how about giving them (and us) a break? Like, why not inviting some smart planners or good creatives (instead of their bosses) to say how they actually - in real life - solved some problem and addressed some challenge. Bet there would be more interesting insights. And then, those people are on the rise in their own careers: they are passionate, and interested, and ambitions, and curious. At least, they'd show some excitement.

And I would love to see some of the most talented digital creatives up there: for example, Creative Directors Diana Hong and Mehera O'Brien would make an amazing panelists (yes, they are girls!! and they are the most incredible professionals!). And so would Amber Finlay and Johanna Beyenbach and Kristen Hengst and Michal Pasternak. And, also would Ivan Askwith and Lee Machmeyer and Matthew Danniels and Adam Liebsohn and Gene Liebel and John Antoniello and Jeff Wong and Michael Surtees.

Those people are smart and talented and motivated and fun and they do the work while their bosses are trying to figure out the meaning of that same work. They know how the digital agency should look like in order to function better; they know who they need to collaborate more in order to get the work done; they know what are blooming trends in digital - because they encounter all those challenges daily. And after all, if you'd like to talk about digital environment, why not create a sample that's actually (in terms of age and gender) a good representative of that environment?

Web is a proof that best ideas come from literally anywhere. So why asking the same old people the same old thing over and over again, in a vain hope that they will give us a different answer this time around?? Maybe before we go on to find the next agency model, how about a new panel model? A model in which the panelists get to sit in the audience, and some in their audience get to climb up there. Just for a change.

And, if this sounds naive, see the videos from the evening yourself.

Reciprocity may be good for you.

While spending time on the Internet this morning, I came across the Freakonomics Twitter page. Which would by all means remain forgotten beyond 20 sec I spent there (unfortunately not that much interesting stuff shared) if I wasn't annoyed and amused (at the same time) by the fact that: a) Freakonomics does not follow ANYONE - yes, zero, and b) that their Twitter page is an attempt to "keep the conversation going".

According to Miriam-Webster dictionary, the word "conversation" is defined as an: "exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas". 

Good talk, Freakonomics.

there's something wrong with marketing metaphors

I have been thinking about metaphors (in marketing) a bit, and what they are good for. Some of the most popular representatives are: "influentials", "social influence", "tap into community", "break through the clutter", "building buzz", "bottom-up", "social currency", "viral video", and "consumer control". (Disclaimer: I acknowledge that Noah likes this topic, but I suspect that we in fact are interested in two completely different phenomena related to the concept of a "metaphor", so not linking to his stuff here.)

I am mainly thinking about free and deliberate use of the above terms as metaphors to address the complexity of social behavior in digital media. Metaphors are, in reality, great rhetorical devices but often extremely poor explanatory tools. For example, whenever someone uses "break through the clutter", they assume that: a) there is an agreement on its meaning: i.e. that everyone else uses that term in the same way, b) that there is a clearly identified situation that this term refers to, and c) that just by using the term, they explain this situation.

Neither of which is correct or, for that matter, helpful. Why? Well, it contributes to the status quo in the industry: despite of the fact that they employ the metaphors, marketing people continue doing what they know how to do best - bicker with each other, watch Mad Men, build minisites, rip off their clients, create flash banners, and go to award shows. The new media environment and its actual consequences for clients' businesses remain on some PowerPoint slide, locked in a metaphor of choice that is very easy to understand but equally hard to explain.

To rely on metaphors in fact just prolongs the illusion of having the challenging situation under control (something like: if we name it, we understand it). But naming a problem does not solve it. It just makes people talk more and more about it, and invent their own variations on the theme. Second, metaphors work retroactively. They can only apply to things that already happen. But they can't actually predict if that same thing is going to ever happen again. So, in a way, they are on the verge of useless.

Digital media have been around for a while now, and people are still creating minisites that may "go viral", but that will definitely "break through the clutter". They seek to target "influentials", and "tap into the power of community". It all works perfectly together.

Except, that it actually does not. What's missing is the evidence that a connection between "viral" and "video" actually exists. It's a perfect crime, as Baudrillard would say.

How would a marketing world without metaphors look like? Instead of being intimidating, the world of not knowing how to name something - and how to connect something new to something familiar - should in fact be liberating. Why? Because it actually takes off the pressure of predicting the future based on the past (and the business of future-telling this is by no means an easy feat).

The role of metaphors in society was (and still is) to transfer knowledge from previous generations in order to illustrate new situations, and, to use a model or idea from one domain of human experience and apply it to another. It can be incredibly inspiring if it offers fruitful insights and innovative ways of approaching a situation. But it can also be incredibly stifling when a metaphor actually masks the novelty of a situation.

Seems to me that we are currently struggling with the latter.

a series of totally random, and possibly extremely useless, discoveries

I have just realized that when I type letter "t" in my browser there is a whole bunch of (to me previously unknown) Twitter services. I have been freelancing at some agency last week, and was looking for some twitter data, and came across all this stuff. While I am not very quick to confirm if those things actually make any sense and/or are useful, I thought I should post them here nevertheless and let people decide for themselves. So ... there's TweetRush (really, no idea who would find this interesting & why). Then, there's Twitrratr which claims it allows you to discover "what people are really saying on twitter" (um, as opposed to ... what?). The service then divides the updates in categories "positive", "negative", and "neutral" (according to some content analysis which I sincerely hope is a major duty of some poor intern) and gives the REAL opinion on your brand, product, or personality. But since the numbers rarely reach 4 figures, I am not quite sure why would anyone care. Twistori also found its way in my browser last week, and that's the one I actually always liked. Next is Twitterholic which calculates the number of followers (wrongly correlated with popularity). When I used it for my Twitter screen name, I have also gotten a list of "similar people based on location and/or description." One of them lives in "candy land". Totally makes sense. Anyway, there is also TweeterLocal, which uses the same Adobe Air platform as Tweetdeck but filters all tweeter feeds by location. Does that even make sense? (I guess the answer is yes if you are somewhere like sxsw, i.e. temporary at some location together with a number of people you know). There is Twitpic which is alright, and TweetDeck which some people use and some don't, depending on their emotional - and otherwise - investment in Twitter. Finally, there's Qapture, which i am not going to say anything bad about because a) it's just been released and i am not yet tired of it; b)  it is time-based; and 3) it is a possibly useful filtering tool for those who are into it. But mostly it's an accumulation of people with the biggest followings in a certain category, and basically amplifies their influence. The raw number of followers is only an indirect indicator of influence b/c it talks only about the size of your network and not about its dynamics (how info spreads there, who pays attention and who doesn't, who RT your stuff, etc). But whatever. Numbers are again so low that I am not sure if any brand should care (e.g. most clicked to content has 233 clicks. I think that may be even worse than banner ads' click-through rates).

p.s. the image above is of Follow Cost, and after initial, very short lived excitement, I discarded idea as pretty dumb, because, when you really think about it, the number you get as an output means NOTHING. And this makes it a great illustration of what you get from most of Twitter services. :)

the only rule in digital is that there are no rules

The other day I have seen this Faris' article in AdAge, and then I saw quite a few people RT it on Twitter as "wise words". It seems to me that I am the only one who thought that there is nothing new, and much less wise, in that article. It's an arbitrary list of 9 "golden rules for the web" which are supposed to do .... exactly what? I mean, nice descriptions and observations are always welcome, but I would prefer if people were talking more about "HOW", that is about specific case studies and tactics and all hard thinking and testing that went into it. And no, I don't mean mere examples of campaigns, I mean real data which yield real insights about real challenges = data that can be analyzed, repeated, and improved. 

Simply put, I have two main objections about this kind of insight-delivery: First, thinking about the rules is always contextual, and bound to how we think about web right now, in 2009. When I was interviewing people from the industry in 2006 for my dissertation, everyone from Tribal to R/GA and Organic were talking about "online video". The future of digital is online video. Why? Because it was summer of 2006, when YouTube's usage rocketed and online video was a big next thing. It was for a while, indeed, and then, well, it then become one of the things that you can do in digital space. So, I learned there and then, all rules are fads, and claiming that something applies for the whole year, and for the whole web, is um, a stretch. Second, "rules" like this are terribly terribly general and vague, so they can apply to everything and anything. Which is exactly their point: you can't prove them wrong. And if you can't prove them wrong, you can't prove them right either. They may work, but they also may not work. These are not rules, these are nothing more than interesting observations. If observations are treated as rules in this industry, then here's another one: no way anyone will ever figure anything out if it takes them seriously.

blasphemy.

Found in my mailbox today.

At first, I was not sure what this thing is (a pamphlet? a tourist guide?) and then my false-patriotic feelings (I still belong to a different nation, after all) got quickly replaced by: a) wonder why, for the love of god, J.Crew is sending me their catalog when I have never ever laid a foot in their store; and, more importantly, b) what's up with this imagery?

This weirdness actually makes sense, for the very obvious reasons. (but they do not make it any more appealing, tho). Tough times not only evoke social cohesion, but also crave for the sense of a higher purpose. This is a nice reminder of both (just in case J.Crew shoppers forgot what the name of the country they live in is, and how great it is). Then also, shopping for patriotic reasons HAS TO make sense. The reasoning goes like this: you feel part of something bigger, you shop in the name of nation, and you benefit America.

Um, no. You shop those damn preppy overpriced clothes at J.Crew and you benefit J.Crew. The bigger problem that I have is that J.Crew seems to equal its "look" with America. If it uses America as inspiration, how about some diversity in those button-down shirts? Second, how ridiculous would this look if the name of some other nation were on the cover (Germany? Serbia?) Nationalistic claims aside, I see zero correlation between J.Crew and America. And I hope it stays that way.

What is this??

This morning when I typed in "Facebook" in my browser, i got these 2 sites first. Um. (They are by the same company, and the second followed the first when I tried to exit). Now, I may be completely uninformed and oblivious to this kind of spam (advertising?) but my first thought was "whoa, interstitials!" Definition of interstitial for those who are blessed not to know anything about them (by CNET Networks): "The Prestitial appears to all users accessing the site from the front door" (ha, didn't know that the web has "doors"). So this thingy above kinda falls under the category. Weirdness settled in, however, because after all this is Facebook we are talking about. In my mind, this kinds of advertising was reserved for the free-falling magazine industry. Apparently not. But hey, as long as the unmistakable FB targeting works ... :)

brands + social media **[disclaimer]: the most boring post ever

I didn't have time to write this note about this while it was happening, but I haven't forgotten :) While I am completely over-bored with the same stuff about how brands should behave on the web, i came across an interesting example first hand. And I am writing it here ONLY because i think it is important that brands' micro-neglect stuff like this become visible.

Time Warner Cable guy, Jeff Simmermon, is on Twitter, and all those unfortunate people allocated to do "digital communication" in conglomerates like TWC, he is paid to stare at the screen and wait for someone to say on Twitter "Time Warner" (usually in combination with "SUCKS") so they can start following them. Then they repeatedly poke disillusioned customers with the same question "is there something i can help you with?". At first I thought that it was a good brand move (micro-interactions are real important, after all) and that behind it is a genuine concern. The guy even showed some traces of humor.

But then, here on my blog, the old thing got confirmed: it's not enough for brands to just be there in the social media, they've got to behave like their customers. Social media is not just another channel of communication for brands. It is an entirely new set of relations, and it often requires building the brand from scratch there. So, as Faris repeatedly points out, be nice or leave.

There is a larger point here, however. Your communication is not your brand, your service is your brand. Until your service is great, your brand is going to suck. If you are nice in social media, you may mend that relationship a bit, but only to the extent that customers  may be willing to put up with your crappy service because you are nice (think Frank at Comcast). But the sad truth is, no matter how nice you are, there's no real loyalty there. Only awesome service builds real brand loyalty.

Anyway, back to the story. Namely, the dude responded to my suggestion that his company better offer some good service instead of just using Twitter with the following: "Thanks for the tip -- we should have something ready for your approval shortly after lunchtime :)"

Lovely & totally endearing.

is there something i can help you with?

Time Warner guy on Twitter. His updates are strangely repetitive. I wonder why ...

the man who wanted to be king

I know it's not nice to make fun of people, but sometimes there should be exceptions to this rule. Especially  when you get to have the close encounter with "The King of New Media". I find this guy hillarious and almost endearing ("Google me, beyatch"). While others are just gurus, divas, and specialists, this man is no less than a King. And Twitter is his kingdom. The proof? He's a hard-working finalist for a Shorty award in advertising (you know, that's when you manage to mobilize enough friends and relatives to vote for you on Twitter), and sent out a real-world press release about it. It would be a real bummer if he doesn't win. This is either a developing case of megalomania or a person who believes that there is no such thing as enough publicity. He's not alone , tho. Oh, and yes, he offers his definition of the "new media" on his site: "the short answer is "it's not old media"". King's wisdom is profound.

this is also [unfortunately] regarded as creative

For comparison with Whopper Sacrifice-type of creativity, see this Coke Zero promo advergame thing. It' inventively named "Coke Zero Dance Hero" (awww, copywriters were involved, too). Aside of being really painful to watch (all those Flash billable hours ...), I am super-curious how many people actually found this site; of those who found it, how many cared to load the game (hey, you can also download it, b/c you know, people love downloading & cramming their desktop with one-time shit like this); and of those, how many cared to play it for an extended period of time? or shared it w their friends? And how is this game relevant for anything, except if you want to be weirded out by a creepy tongue? This is ALSO regarded as a creative effort...um.

If today there are more campaigns like Coke Zero then like Whopper Sacrifice, this is because people still like to define creativity in marketing as "making funny stuff". Yea, art director + copywriter + of course a Flash dude because web is all about "telling stories in Flash" and creating "immersive environments". Um, actually it's not.

if it were this simple ...

I've recently read Umair Haque's article "Edge Patterns: From Owning to Sharing". Generally, I am a fan of Umair's writing, but this one was a bit in the category of things that lack the "how to do this in reality" component. It surely sounds nice that "yesterday, we built advantage on owning assets. tomorrow, we will build advantage by sharing assets." [my response: and today, we are really not so sure how to build advantage.]

Everyone who talks about sharing mentions Zipcar, and Umair is no exception. My question: if the idea is so awesome, why are there not more examples? I find it hard to believe that everyone else lacks vision, and/or is so backwards that they fail to see the business potential of "sharing". Maybe they fail to see it because in order to create the advantage on sharing, there needs to be some business model based on it. Linux is the most famous example of investing free labor in return to intangible compensation (recognition, prestige, development of one's own skills), but Linux can hardly be categorized as business. So what kind of business model should we be hoping for? Apparently, the one with a different locus of value, which focuses not on the product itself, or on the customer itself, but on the relationship between the two. And then it charges premium for bringing them together - and consequently for maintaining and managing this relationship. It does not sound so new now, does it? If you take away the "premium pricing" component, you get any social media "business" where people and products are brought together for, um, no charge at all. Another thing is, NikePlus has already tried something like this - that is, to own & operate a relationship between people & products, as is iTunes. And the problem is, you can't really lock this relationship down (which is the problem of all closed systems). And, if you don't lock it down, you can't make money, etc. etc. Zipcar is a closed system too, and I wonder how it is going to compete once others start offering the same service, like Hertz. What's the source of advantage going to be then? Price, place, promotion, blah ... all the "boring" stuff of the old business model. Or ... something else that no one really has figured out yet on the level of the real-world examples.

In fact, the question is not necessarily the one of "the fabric of value creation is breaking apart"; the challenge is the one of the relocation of the value. Everyone will choose to share once the real or perceived value of sharing surpasses the value of owning.

The "economic" point that "the pressure for sharing in a hyperconnected world is too strong to resist" is, in fact, hardly an economic one as Umair claims ("too strong to resist"? what's that, an urge? an itch?). If there's an economic claim to be made, it's the one of benefits: when there are more economic benefits in sharing, more people/businesses will do it; and more b-models based on this will emerge. Until then, we are stuck w inscrutable terms like "value creation, next-gen." Sounds like something from Star Trek.

a sure sign of crisis

Apparently, NYT idea of innovation is to bring in BONO as an op-ed columnist. A damn brilliant idea, all the while New York Times regular columnists in design, advertising, and/or fashion can't seem to ever get right these days. The reason people don't buy and read newspapers & magazines is that these media hire people who are simply not experts. Or, more correctly, who used to be experts in their heyday (sometime in the 80s) but today lost to the new definition of expertise (more heads are better than one. competition breeds innovation. sharing adds value. and there is no better promotion then self-promotion). Anyway, what reminded me of the growing trend of finding better stuff online then in New York Times is this awesome find via TinyGigantic.  I  wrote about the similar thing last week in relation to NYT article on Vogue. The main take-away: worse than broadcasting of a "wrong" opinion is broadcasting of an old-fashioned one. Wrong opinions often spur a debate; the only thing that archaic ones can spur is the ridicule.

really, what is wrong with vogue?

New York Times article from December 31st asks what's wrong with Vogue. Well, the same thing that is wrong with New York Times. No idea who wrote that article, but to me the question seemed terribly reminiscent to one old lady asking another how does it feel to be young. Both are clueless, but they surely have memories. NY Times article asks a good question - but it sadly lacks the tools&expertise to answer it (just think Stuart Elliot and advertising. The two should not be related under no circumstances. Speaking of, I should check what Mr. Elliot is writing about these days. I bet on radio jingles). Anyway, the NY Times critic, by way of conclusion, quotes: "Editors of Ms. Wintour's generation, like the designers they champion and the photographers they protect, have a depth of knowledge not easily reproduced." The question, for me, is SHOULD it be reproduced, and more importantly, is that knowledge still relevant in the world of 2009. Like, who cares about old expertise when there's new expertise? What once deemed to be shocking, "astonishing", and cutting-edge, today is really not. Illustration: Michael Roberts (the fashion director of Vanity Fair, quoted in the article) found it "astonishing" that Vogue published a picture of Nadia Auermann having sex with a swan (hardly, see the photo above). The picture is from the early 90's.  Yes, that was almost TWENTY years ago. If that's the standard of "shocking" & "exceptional" for Vogue, then no wonder it's in deep shit. Nadia Auermann is probably already a grandmother, Helmut Newton is dead, and yet wierdly enough, someone STILL remembers that photo (how old is Mr. Roberts exactly??) AND the editor who put that photo in the magazine is still THE authority in the fashion world. Like the hairstyle of its chief editor, Vogue thinks that being "classy" means keeping the taste unchanged over (many, many) years. Maybe it's just me, but there's something weird about the woman who has the same hair for 30+ years. It's time to redefine the notion of "classic" -- the reality is, things need to change in order to stay the same. Continuity resides in transformation, not in constancy. That's what's wrong with Vogue. And yes, also the fact that it's unforgivably cheesy. (Some great comments are here).

when the excess of creativity is unecessary*

*No, I am not talking about that awesome and truly memorable J.C. Penny "Welcome to the Doghouse" holiday ad (altho it def applies). What caught my eye earlier tonite is some weird drama going on at Moschino's shop window in the Meatpacking. And I gathered that the plot is the following: gnome-sized snowmen, with the help of a reindeer in an oversized-dog sweater outfit holding a giant hammer in its ... yea, "hand", are breaking into the store all the while the very much alive lady-mannequins are looking on, completely unflustered. Sounds like something coming from a 30-sec spot copywriter. Anyway, since I personally find Moschino an Euro-trash, fake-gold-is-cool, & over-the-top brand that only Russians find classy, I remained equally unflusterred. (as a matter of fact, I hope they take everything away and burn it in the Santa's igloo on the North Pole.)

the problem with forecasts

The end of the year is known for releasing "best of" / "worst of" lists, forecasts, & trends that will "shape" the next year. While I heart lists, it's the trends that I found real dumb. And no, I am not alone in this. Predictions usually go from plain ridiculous to rather obvious and to those that are there for shock value - "blogging is dead", "podcasting is dead" that no one but Armano really takes seriously. Speaking of Armano, what's up with those copyrighted little cartoons?? ... um, anyway. So, this year, stuff that caught my eye in "ridiculous" category, by self-proclaimed futurist Marian Salzman, are: "technology and media advances will help people to create a self-curated, media-driven Third Place to escape the pressures of home and work" (um, that's REALLY new) & my fav "global leaders, individuals, industries, communities, and governments (sure you haven't miss anyone here??) will join together to begin a "reboot" of global systems, allowing them to operate in a more robust and sustainable way". Besides the fact that meaning of this sentence eludes me, it is so general that it can't be proven wrong. That's the problem with trends - they really don't mean anything: they explain nothing and they predict nothing. So they are pretty useless when applied on the year past (um, what where the trends of 2008? did they "come true"? does anyone care?), and also when used as predictions. I don't think anyone with their straight mind will base their decision-making on the those 2 "predictions" above. The trends also fail the criterion of falsification =  a statement can't be proven wrong. and what can't be proven wrong, is not right either - just ask Carl Popper. So they are basically just someone's [unfounded] observations ... the same way Malcom Gladwell is an "expert" on influentials. And (while I am at it), not only trends have no explanatory/predictive power, they also fail to work as "scenarios" because they are disconnected from any context / interaction with other unfolding events. Ok, now to "plain obvious" predictions category, courtesy of IPG Emerging Media Labs: favorites include "the semantic web will create more sophisticated, intuitive, refined ways to filter information and services, based on users' personal preferences. Early attempts include StumbleUpon and Twine" (and yes, happy new 2004) & "now, it's about engaging customers in conversation and managing relationships online" (um, ok) & "Zen Tech Warrior is the consumer who wants to be digitally connected on their own terms" (awesome, the same sentence every year for many years now [minus the "zen tech warrior" title]). There are also some other forecasting exercises, but at least the guys from ReadWriteWeb make it a collaborative effort AND admit that they usually get SOME of  their predictions right ... takes the pressure off :) At the end, I really liked the idea of replacing predictions with things to look forward in 2009. Much more inspiring & also prob way more likely to happen.

feeling good is just one app away

I've seen Brian's article  on Kraft FB app, and went to Kraft's site to read more about their charitable efforts. After clicking on the "Community Involvement" link, the following page [not found] was displayed. Well, so much for it. While it's always awesome to hear about corporations' charitable efforts, I wonder what happens when Facebook becomes a place for them. Apparently, the idea works (alleged "more than 25,000" people added the application thus far). You can also fight global warming by adding (Lil) Green Patch, but since there's no brand behind it, it's a different story (still, I am tempted: the app - just imagine! - saved 96,124,167 Sq ft of Rainforest). Seemingly, social activism has never been easier (doesn't even require leaving the house). So, what is really going on here? In case of the Kraft app, I call it "social-activism-as-a-marketing-gimmick". First, it seems that - in their effort to feel good (no blame), people find it exceptionally convenient to delegate [their] social responsibility. Where? Well, to the brand, where the whole thing starts from and ends with (the brand created the application). So - um - it is about the brand. The possible outcomes of the Kraft's app thing in this case are: brand recognition, a short-terms sales lift (always a tricky one), or (yes) the number of meals distributed. I bet on the first one). Second, it is really not a giant surprise that a community involvement initiative is going to succeed on a social networking site. People want to feel good; and they want to feel socially responsible. And, who better than other people is going to provide a more valid confirmation of this? There is no easier way to achieve the validation by others than by merely doing add+send some "let's save the world" app. In this case, what is called a "cause marketing" seems to me as nothing more than - yet another - brands' effort to capitalize on people's social habits (in this case, "do-good" ones. And honestly, I can see that brands feel that with these ones, they uncovered a giant bag of dollars).  It is not impossible to combine a brand with community involvement & social causes. Designing a system of action that creates opportunity for people to DO something socially responsible is an option. Very smart people Lee Maschmeyer and Nancy King write about this in more detail (and with considerably more knowledge) on their awesome blogs, Transformation Design (Lee) and See Change Happen (Nancy). Both of them work in digital marketing, and no, neither of them talks about a FB app.

how, and more importantly, why this ended up in my FB feed?

Is this one of the "social media strategies" that agencies developed for brands to "connect" with consumers on social networks? And, why does it not offer the option "none of the above"? Out of sheer curiosity, I clicked on "Pantene" (no, I really don't care whether I can buy it online or not). As a result, I got a graph with the survey results. What does it do for the listed brands, beats me. As for what it does for me, it annoys me. [nonexistent option: "less about Sponsored Poll"]

image vs. reality ...

... one of my favorite topics here. This is really nothing new, but I don't think it can be mentioned enough times. On the image above: package & image & reality (eeeeww). More stuff here - for my favs, scroll all the way down. The video is pretty illustrative too (ignore the music, tho). [also, no idea why i had to post this on thanksgiving]

5 things that are wrong with stuart elliot

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/business/media/13adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28adco.html
http: //www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/business/media/15adco.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/media/26adco.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/business/media/04adco.html
+ bonus one: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/business/media/16adco.html

this is not a joke.

This is awesome. I suppose this means that President Obama's win offers a longed-for accountability to online advertising. The "huge ROI" is to be attributed to in-game Obama ads. Mind all on-ground volunteers, incredible campaign outreach, and actually useful online tools, like tax-cut tracker. Obama won b/c of the in-game ads. Speaking of desperate, whoever is interested in learning more about achieving Obama-like success for their brand, can attend Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit - prospective attendees, please register at this nothing less than amazing, pure state-of-art summit's website. Your online ad ROI has just been found.

razorfish discovers that the web is social. and all of it, too

Judging by its look & feel, the only thing missing from this picture is a unicorn. Otherwise, Razorfish's FEED Consumer Experience Report would be a perfect fairytale. [and by fairytale i mean something that has nothing to do with reality]. Think for example the FEED's "finding" that 22% of the respondents use Twitter, or that 40% of them said they made purchases due to seeing ads on social networking sites (A question: how come that the agency with a strong media buying capabilities is allowed to run a survey confirming that people click on ads? oh, never mind). Last time I even noticed an ad on Facebook, it was offering me the service at Park Avenue United Methodist Church and to "never shave again" (no, I haven't clicked on either). I got somewhat entertained by Brandon Geary's contribution "More Value for Your Message: Advertising as a Service", where he lauds Nike Human Race [Fiasco] as an "event that provides a real service." Sure it does - for Nike. For runners, not so much. Speaking of Nike Human Race, seems that ebooks are making their major, and let's just hope, final comeback: R/GA has just released a compilation of glossy photos from its Human Races - truly amazing and inspiring images, page after page. Can be customized, too. Do they have much to do with the reality of the Human Races? Probably as much as the FEED report has to do with the actual consumer experience.

top 5 marketing agency sites (+ shitlist)

I have already been thinking & writing about marketing agencies' identity crisis & about their blogs, and a bit about their sites, too, so I guess now it's time to pick up where I left off with this last one. The way I think about agencies' websites is that they are display of 1) agencies' capabilities; 2) reflections of an agency's unique approach to consumers, brands, and business; 3) sign of a clear identity. When someone's site has all three of the above + clean, simple + minimialist design & navigation = great agency site. So I ranked the sites by these criteria. My all time fav are 1. Bond Art & Science site (yes, still), 2. Undercurrent, 3. Zeus Jones; 4. HUGE, and 5. LOVE Creative. Bond Art & Science and Undercurrent are great b/c their content&presentation&site format IS the web. Prob. also great b/c the sites tell a lot about the agencies' culture & the way its people think about digital. Also shows confidence in what those people can do, rather what these agencies has done in the past (which would be an old-school approach). Zeus Jones does the same thing a slightly less convincingly. HUGE brings in a different angle - accountability - as it displays highly-coveted numbers on its front page  [e.g. 120 million monthly visitors to sites designed & developed by HUGE]. Beautiful and clean look&feel of the site also sets expectations for prospective clients. V confident design & clear messaging about who the agency is and what it an do. The top-5 runner-ups are The Barbarian Group (a bit zzzzz but shows 2)) & Modernista (I really don't like their site, but it also scores well on 2) so I put it in). Leading the shitlist and slowly entering the all-time hall of fame is 1. Razorfish's "all-flash" site, followed by 2) truly scary DDB, which is disturbing if only for the butchered butterfly; 3. Grey, which made the list b/c of little aliens that I find very endearing; 4. shared place by Leo Burnett and Publicis & Hal Riney - loading time indefinite & navigation: impossible. Finally, let's not forget the agency for the digital age, R/GA (I actually think their site is just plain (not plain good or plain bad), but the logo (and bob greenberg) are so overwhelming that it actually made it here). Bonus rankings: best sound effects - Razorfish & Leo Burnett; Most confusing: Saatchi & Saatchi, uniquely featuring very timely "Bob Ideas Gallery"; Worst navigation: Leo Burnett; Fragile-to-nonexistent identity: McCannErickson; Preternatural reliance on color red & on Cannes Lions: Ogilvy; Who-cares-information (a.k.a. sales pitch of the year 2006) & giant fireworks (a sure indicator of cheesiness) on the front page: Tribal DDB.

i was waiting for something like this

This is a dream comes true. On October 17th 2008. Ok, now seriously. Which world these people exactly live in? Better yet, what is the year they live in? I haven't heard that anyone uses the word "killer app" since Google was invented. Speaking of Google, aren't they doing contextual (yes, that's one type of targeting, other two being behavioral and demographic) advertising almost since about that time? Many, many, years later in the same advertising land, ad networks discovered that the best chance for their banner ads to survive is to be targeted. At least, that's the talk of the town. If users can forget the bad rep of banners, it's really not such a bad move. It works the best when used in the combo w impressions & click-through rates metrics. Just like in the good old days. Too bad Mad Men didn't have the Internet back then. They would have used it in exactly the same way.

where are PR people when you need them?

This is the response that I got from Vizi's CEO when asked to unsubscribe from their email list (there's no way to do it automatically). Now, I don't know what Vizi is, and I also have no idea how I ended up on their list in the first place, but is it just me, or this is indeed a highly inappropriate way to respond? A PR team needed asap ...

i should be liking it, but i am not

This is one of those ideas that if you have them, you should ask yourself why no one else have done this before. Quite a legitimate question in this case. Sounds like an awesome idea, but in fact has nothing to do with what branding is. The brand that these peeps create can be the most interesting thing in the world but it will never ever say anything about its products. Because it hasn't got any. The concept is that people create A brand, and then this brand is auctioned for whichever amount by a company that thinks the [demo]created brand is appropriate for their products. This by default means that people's experience with those yet-non-existent products is not going to be calculated in the brand. This is way too self-referential for my taste. Brand in the abstract world, people and products in reality. I am sadly aware that this is how most brands work, but using the web for the efforts like this looks like a jump in the wrong direction. On the other hand, things like "Name This"or Edopter, that never fail to work and are examples of a *meaningful* crowdsourcing. Shouldn't web be used to solicit interactions between people and [branded] products & services? [great brands are not causes of interactions but their outcomes] You know, like Google, and Netflix, and Amazon, and even Pizza Hut and Nike Plus. Not to create some simulacrum-brand and then call it democratic just because it's created by many and not by a single company. For me, real democracy happens at the point of execution, when we choose or not choose to use brand's products.

Flash-ed Out

I had no idea what is this promotional site is for (altho I found out later that's for Cadbury Schweppes Spring Valley). I just know that I was flashed out while trying to figured it out. After a truly immersive experience that lasted for what seemed like eternity in internet minutes, I ended up on the page above. My inner "neglected sensible". Looks ugly (don't draw any conclusions ...).  What this prompted me is to think of all those flash sites that I usually laugh at (I wrote some about this in my Google Chrome post). And there are quite a few of them, and counting. Even UNIQLO, whose work I usually love, created a flash minisite, together with some ear-piercing Japanese tune. Some other recent examples are this and this (altho the list can go on). I don't get it. Using flash to create video or some other video-like narrative is no different than a 30-second spot (except it usually does not last 30 seconds). I have to sit through its story (and i have stuff to do...) Sure thing, the story might be emotional or fun or whatever the story wants to be, but why would I come back again to hear it twice? (and sure as hell I am not putting that little monster above to my facebook page) There's nothing there for me - it doesn't do anything for me [except making me sit through it]. There are much better ways to put Flash to use ... for the most obvious examples, think Google Chrome, Viewzi and Hulu.

a bit of thinking about customer research & banking

A friend of mine told me a story about a company who was pitching for some big bank, and lost it. Apparently, they got the customer research part wrong. That is, they overdid it. They also seemingly asked the wrong questions. I am all for the planner's classic role as a voice of the consumer. But can we have too much of that voice? In this particular case, a company pushed consumer perspective more than brand or business category perspective. In fact, they totally ignored business goals & category insights. How did they managed to do that? Well, it seems that a thorough user research revealed that people don't know and don't care about the difference between Roth IRA and traditional IRA (fictional example -- i just made this up), so account planners in question just went straight ahead and told that to the bank. Made their recommendations, too. Aside of the fact that this can make the pitch team look arrogant, or ignorant [or both] in front of the client (who still knows a thing or two about their own business), it also revealed something else. That something is the manner in which some acct planners do customer research. It is fairly expected that people won't know and won't care about the above mentioned difference if they are asked in that way. But if they are asked, do you plan retirement now, or later, or never, the answers would be different. If they are asked if they plan to move to Florida, or go to Europe, or cruise around the world when they retire, the answers would be even more specific. If they are asked how they think about money in terms of risk and how they calculate the future, the insights can really help both those people and the client. But this requires a way broader research approach (and also, dare I add, some knowledge/interest in sociology, ethnography, and design research). In this broader approach, customers needed to be treated holistically, as people, not as bank users. Then, it is the context of someone's particular life that matters. (Or, as Dan Saffer puts it, "by fixating on tasks, [one] won't look for solutions to the problem as a whole"). Third, in life, everything is connected to everything else. So even if you asked about their daughter's wedding, you may end up getting a good insight about what level of risk that person is willing to take in life, and this may offer a good idea for designing a suitable retirement plan. Just don't ask specific banking questions. Why? If you do, you will never be able to make something better than what already exists -- and more importantly, you won't be able to seamlessly fit into people's life & transform their [future planning + risk calculating = banking] experience. Which is what great branding does. And what designers  have been doing forever. Like IDEO, for example: "when IDEO tackles an assignment, they properly believe it’s lazy to ask people what they think about a product or idea. Instead, they choose to observe people using the product (or engaging in an activity) ... [then they ask] how can we change this interaction so that the user gets more our of it?" (via blog of a very smart guy Leland Maschmeyer). And yes, as steve Steve Jobs says "a lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them". Or, in this case, they won't be able to tell the difference between Evergreen Mountainview Health and the trip to the Carribean.

3 signs of [great] (tele)marketing

Recently i've been frequently called up by telemarketers. On 3 rare occasions when i actually did pick up due to some confusion, i've: 1) been offered car insurance (i don't own & operate a motor vehicle); 2) i've been told "please hold, all representatives are busy assisting other customers" (but you've called me!!!); and 3) i have been addressed in Spanish (i am not Spanish and/or Latin American). Awesome targeting. It's good that no time & money is wasted.

R/GA likes when the site is confusing. and labeled.

This is the redesigned BAM site. I liked their old site more :( It took me forever to notice the "cinema" link (at the bottom of the page). It is hidden below the oversized & purpose-less slideshow. To get info on BAM offerings - which is also usually the MAIN REASON people come to the site - i had to  scroll down to the links in fine print "cinema", "performance", "art", "literature", etc. But the real fun starts on category pages. movies are listed in a loooong line. info overload alert. vertical listing makes navigation difficult & browsing less-than-fun. Don't mix asian movies with  the 39 steps with african cinema with some ongoing retrospective. the whole thing cries for some form of guided navigation. and the "R/GA" tag at the bottom reminds me of the "intel inside" marketing move. this actually may not be a bad idea, as it takes away the need for agency marketing. agencies' products speak for themselves. pretty cool (when the product is good).