Advertising Ourselves to Death

This Is Not A Blog Post

Ok, well maybe it is. But I have to say I am drawing great inspiration from a campaign underway in the Atlanta market for Clear, a wireless internet provider.

The first piece of marketing I came across was a series of bright green balloons tied up outside a restaurant, with the Clear logo and the message "This is not a balloon." Unfortunately for the wireless company, this was the same day that Clear, the airport service for frequent travelers went under.

Despite the poor timing the guys at Clear have made a powerful entrance into the Atlanta market, not by talking bits and baud, or even speed. Rather they are making people rethink their world with a seemingly non-stop supply of message that recast park benches, restaurants, and even busses. ("This is not a bus. It is another place to watch streaming video.")

Each of the pieces is clean and simple. There's the setup line, one sentence to pay it off and the logo. No explanation of what Clear is, no pricing offer, no paragraphs of legalese. I can only imagine someone having to beat back efforts to make every piece tell the whole story.

In a nice change of pace, they use TV to do the heavy lifting, rather than just tease the consumer. The spots explain that Clear is an alternative to basic WIFI and even internet service from other cellular companies. 

Here however, Clear was again snakebit. Check out their spot which features cupcakes and sprinkles to explain the service. See if it doesn't remind you of the much funnier Verizon Wireless spot using sprinkles to explain their Friends and Families service. Someone is selling a lot of sprinkles these days.

The work is apparently from a Los Angeles shop called Secret Weapon Marketing. And despite a few stumbles, beyond their control, the work is a great example of how the pieces can work together, if you plan accordingly.

Oddly, the one piece of marketing that doesn't measure up is Clear's web site. I'm willing to bet it was done in-house or by a separate firm. Because the tone is entirely different, with boring stock images and 1-2-3 process that is devoid of any excitement. Oh well, for want of a good digital strategist.

Louis Vuitton's bag of stupidity

[by Todd] Seriously, there are some folks at Louis Vuitton that need to be unemployed.

Last fall Danish artist Nadia Plesner started selling the t-shirt shown here on her site to raise money for victims of genocide in Darfur. She calls it a Simple Living t-shirt. And offers this explanation:

My illustration Simple Living is an idea inspired by the medias constant cover of completely meaningless things. My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs apparently is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.

Perhaps not the most pointed of commentaries, but the shirt makes a nice statement about pop culture and desperation of Darfur's victims. The shirt existed in relative obscurity for five months, that is until the folks at Louis Vuitton got stupid.

In February, the Intellectual Property Director decided this was the perfect time to flex some muscle and throw down a cease and desist letter, complete with patronizing comments. (Here's a PDF of the letter.)

“Although we applaud your efforts to raise awareness and funds to help Darfur, a most worthy cause, we cannot help noticing that the design of the Simple Living Products includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights, in particular the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore Trademark to which it is confusingly similar. We are surprised of such a promotion of a counterfeit bag.”

“As an artist yourself, we hope that you regognize the need to respect other artists’ rights and Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights which include the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore trademark.”

What pray tell could have possibly led anyone, with any modicum of authority, to think this was a good idea? How did they think for one moment that sending a threat would play out well for them? To her credit, the artist wrote back and tried to give them a graceful way out, pointing out that the bag was a generic reference to all such accessories. (Here's her response.)

"However, I must inform You, that the bag in my drawing is inspired by - and refers to - designers bags in general – not a Louis Vuitton bag. If you take a closer look, you will also notice, that the pattern in my drawing is not the pattern which is used in the design of a Loius Vuitton bag. The name Louis Vuitton is in no way mentioned or referred to, neither in my drawing, nor in the campaign as such.”

Correction, the company's name wasn't mentioned, until now. To add insult to stupidity the designer brand, which has invested millions to cultivate its image, is pissing it away by now filing suit against the artist. Go ahead and set a Google News filter on this one, and watch for it on the network morning shows.

And of course the letters and lawsuit have helped the artist's cause. I asked her by email if sales were up. I got a response in 20 minutes.

Yes, all the writing about the story has definitely helped the sales! My lawyer has advised me not to give any numbers just yet, but as soon as I can, I will let you know.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised to see the design licensed and on sale in a civic-minded shop near you soon. Which means others will follow suit, and soon Louis Vuitton will need a pad of C&D letters to keep up with demand.

Now that's brand stewardship.

This just in... Who cares?

[by Todd] Can someone tell me, in 30 minutes or less, why I should care at all about Twitter? Seriously, I'd love to figure this out. According to Leigh companies need to have their ear to Twitter in order to get the first glimpse of brand nightmares headed their way.

But, try as I might, I fail to see Twitter as anything more than a curiosity among a precious few nerds.

Hang on. Let me back up my rant and try this again.

Leigh is right, every company on the face of the planet should have a plan for responding to consumer outcry. And no plan should be complete without incorporating listening to and responding in the UGC world. But deciding just when and how to respond is the truly tricky part.

Way back in News 105 (a.k.a learning how to write a news story) we were told that key elements of newsworthiness were timeliness, proximity and impact. So that two-car crash that tied up rush hour traffic for you is a big story at home, but not likely to matter much to people a couple hundred miles away.

Of course all this was long before anyone created a blog, or "twittered" (damn, that just sounds wrong). Suddenly geography isn't the easy calculation it once was. And timeliness has been sliced down to nano seconds compared to what it once was. But impact, that remains the gold standard. Which brings me back to my rant.

Companies need to keep a keen focus on asking "Who cares?" whenever an issue pops up on the radar. If person X, blogging on a site with five links raises an issue, then I care a lot less than if it is on a site frequently cited on 100s of other sites.

Double ditto with Twitter. Yes, I want to know what's being said. But I can't imagine ever pulling a play book off the shelf and initiating a disaster response program based on a Twitter. All too often it's just a handful of like-minded technophiles whispering among themselves.

The critical skill required is an ability to understand what makes news. Shame on any public relations agency or brand agency that isn't studying daily how stories move between the user generated world and mainstream media. But never let three executives talking among themselves about something they found on Twitter trigger a full-scale response.

So I would add the following to Leigh's game plan. Call on professionals. Either keep a public relations firm on retainer, or have one in your Rolodex. Then, when you hear a whisper on Twitter, or see your brand on Technorati, call on a pro and ask them to help evaluate the risk.

After all, there's nothing worse than a company taking a spark of unrest and pouring fuel on it to create a full-blown conflagration.

Here's to clients with guts (and guns)

[by Todd] 3 a.m., Times Square -- Never in my wildest professional daydreams would I have pictured this. (And believe me, I can conjure up some amazing daydreams.) Here I am in the middle of Times Square with a platoon of Marines, producing a new commercial and web site.

Being part of the television production is cool. But that's hardly the thrill. No, I am standing here in awe of my clients' desire to approach marketing in an innovative way that would paralyze most marketing execs.

That's right, I am holding up the United States Marine Corps as a gold-star example of how to market in the 21st century. And if any CMO ever tells you that their company is too conservative to embrace a new way of thinking, point them towards The Few, The Proud.

Let's start with some basics. I work for RMG Connect, which is affiliated with JWT. The United States Marine Corps has been a client of JWT for 60+ years, and that's even though government regulations require that the work goes up for review every four years. RMG Connect handles the direct marketing online and off.

There are a dozen major agencies I know of that split work along these "above and below the lines" tasks. Precious few have figured out why that division should remain on paper only.

Now, consider this marketing challenge.

• Your target is the ever elusive 17- to 24-year-old.
• Your competition is touting money for college and skills. You? Your offer is 13-weeks of unmitigated pain as a path to the promise "first to fight."
• Propensity to enlist is at an all-time low, and the political arena is stacked against you, to put it mildly.

And then there's one more challenge that should send shudders down the spines of anyone who's worked at an agency. Your clients are trained warriors. They are just as likely to be assigned commanding troops in battle, as they are approving creative briefs or wading through segmentation data.

If you ever get such an opportunity, jump, in, as fast as you can.

When it came time to plan a new recruiting campaign there was never a question of whether or not the concepts should have full interactive extensions. The only question was how far out front of the television commercial should the campaign debut online.

And the online elements aren't retooled versions of the TV commercial. Instead the client, expected, and got plans for a web site that stood on its own strategic merits.

While the television crew is following the Silent Drill Platoon across the country, the interactive team is right there, with its own documentary crew. We're talking to Marines, former Marines and average folks about the role of the Corps in today's world.

This is a bold new world for a 231-year-old institution that has held forth that consumers have to earn their way in. Messages were delivered in blunt, typically somber tones. Using the words of others, far outside the chain of command was unheard of. Until now.

Maybe its the Marines ingrained philosophy of adapt, improvise and overcome. Or maybe it is the fact that the command staff in charge of recruiting and advertising aren't burdened with 20 years of building a marketing career by making decisions that won't get you fired.

This morning, under the surreal glow of advertising's mecca, we are filming Marines spinning 10.5 pound rifles. But we're also interviewing a 68-year-old veteran who, though blind, made sure he didn't miss a moment.

We're talking to mothers who have watched their children (boys and girls) grow into Marines, and along the way take their families into lifestyle they never could have imagined, and now would never live without.

And when they're done talking to us, it will all be online for the world to read, copy, and use however it likes. Because the Marines understand that marketing is about a lot more than selling product, or enlistment. It means contributing to the public discourse and respecting the places where your prospects reside.

Oohrah.

Full-contact brainstorming

[by Todd] I admit it, I don't play well with others. <Insert laughing of colleagues, past and present.>

A colleague once told me her underlings feared coming to my brainstorming meetings.

"Your team is brutal. People toss out an idea and immediately everyone is trying to club it like some baby seal."

Bless her heart, it made my day.

Brainstorming is all too often an excuse for a half dozen people to bill time to a job without bringing anything meaningful to the mix. Even worse they want to be coddled for the effort.

If you are in a brainstorming meeting, you damn well better bring your A game. That means having at least one kick ass idea. Further, once you toss out your idea there is no back peddling. You are obliged to defend it in the face of all fire until such time as it succeeds or needs to be buried.

You're sitting in that room because a client believes you have lots of good ideas that will improve their business. Their career is on the line. Weak ideas are going to get them fired. Half-baked, pie-in-the-sky crap will get them flushed out of a career. If you don't feel the urgency then you have no business  at the table.

So for those who need a way of measuring their work, I offer this series of If-I-Were-In-Charge rules.

1 brainstorming session where you have nothing -- you should go home and reconsider your choice of careers.
2 brainstorming sessions where you have nothing -- you should be fired.
3 brainstorming sessions where you have nothing -- your boss should be fired for not firing you after the second.

Or we could follow Adliterate's guidance and dump the practice of brainstorming entirely.

For my money the optimum number of people for an idea generation session is two with no facilitator hanging on. Two people that have a vested interest in the quality of the outcome and can switch seamlessly between divergent and convergent thinking until they get to the right idea which they both then build upon.

I can't understate the value of finding someone who can call bullshit to your face and expects you to do the same back for them. I have that relationship with the ECD on my accounts. I've had it with an account director and even the director of development at previous agencies.

A good friend once called it the battle to be the smartest person in the room. I call it a requirement of a successful agency.

Delusions in the corner office

[by Todd] Account planners, help me out here. What does it mean when your client thinks it's doing great delivering critical services, but the customers have a vastly different view? Technical explanations aside, I'd call it big trouble.

So it was with great fascination I read a recent report from Forrester called Help Wanted: 21st Century Agency, a rather brutal assessment of how advertising agencies are doing living up to their client's expectations. Let's start with this little nuke from the introduction.

Agencies believe that they play a critical role in marketing success, but marketers see things differently. On aggregate, agencies score a dismal Net Promoter rating of -21%.

Innovation and technology are at the core of the dissatisfaction, according to the report. Agencies think they're rocking the house with innovative thinking and executions. Clients think they suck.

Take a look at the chart. There's a  40-point gap between what agency execs believe and their clients believe. Even more stunning, agency leaders thought they were doing a better job at delivering Internet advertising solutions than TV. Damn, that must be some high-grade stuff they're smoking

In fact, marketers view advertising agencies as least competent among service providers to deliver marketing technology. In the midst of this technology-induced media shift, marketers realize that agencies:

• Lack skills in emerging channels
• Overstate their role in marketing success
• Must be held more accountable for results

At the risk of sound self-promoting, the report highlights the rise of customer centric marketing. Maybe that's because those of us "below the line" have been forced to justify our budgets from the beginning. I wonder if that arcane division of agency work will be erased swiftly when the gods of brand advertising are forced to labor among us mere mortals.

Marriott vs Jet Blue, lessons for all

[by Todd] Bill Marriott I love you. In clear, compelling terms you have built the case for every CEO in the service industry to invest the time in talking directly with customers online. Marriott's new blog Marriott On The Move is a rich mix of corporate message, individual humility and a willingness to be controversial.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start with Marriott's own introduction to his blog.

I'm venturing into uncharted territory as I launch this blog. A year ago, I didn't even know what a blog was -- until my Communications team began telling me about all the blog traffic on travel and tourism. Now I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly.

Blogging will allow me to do what I've been doing for years -- on a global scale. Talking to the customer comes easily to me... At every hotel, I talk to associates, from housekeepers to general managers, to get their feedback. I call it "management by walking around." Like my parents, I value the input from our associates at all levels. I make lots of notes -- and my best ideas almost always come from our people in the field.

Just two weeks after launching the blog, Marriott used it to herald the staff at the Islamabad hotel that was hit by a suicide bomber. He's jumped into the debate over immigration reform and mixed it up with smokers over the company's ban at all properties.

So what? Well talk to the folks over at Jet Blue, where they are running their CEO ragged trying to balance the message of their missteps of the past few weeks. Ask them how much it would have helped if there as a running dialogue with David Neeleman that started on the day of weather fiasco? Want to bet his humility and candor would have been in every story from the very first piece?

For all those who fret over the value of a blog on the corporate site, I'll point you back to Marriott's fundamental argument for his.

Bottom line, I believe in communicating with the customer, and the internet gives me a whole new way of doing that on a global scale. I'd rather engage directly in dialogue with you because that's how we learn and grow as a company.

Kodak kicks its own ass

[by Todd] Reportedly this was an internal marketing message intended to energize Kodak employees about the company's plans for the digital space. So of course it hit YouTube, where it is spreading like mad.

"Now you won't have to be a Navajo code breaker to use digital. And they're all going to look like freakin' Annie Liebowitz shot them, because they'll automatically adjust the lighting and composition for you... How's that for advanced? Booyah!"

This isn't your father's Kodak any more. Yet for all it's self-mocking, the piece remains true to the revolutionary world that Kodak once commanded.

Agencies, NBC is out to eat your lunch

[by Todd] Great little piece in BusinessWeek Online that ought to serve as a mile marker on the road to hell so many ad agencies are travelling.

NBC Universal Digital Studios wants clients to let them develop and produce the media agnostic marketing for their campaigns. Want a slick commercial, no sweat. How about a clever viral video to kick it up a notch, or a related game that plays on the cell phone? Just leave your check at the door, and your agency on the curb.

The piece notes that negotiations for the first clients to sign on have been underway for about three months. At the heart of the pitch is brutal reality that companies will have to offer something of value to consumers for their time. Television networks are packed with content that typically advertisers used to be happy just to wrap their messages around. Now consumers want more.

Marketers know it. Networks understand it. Agencies are ignoring it, as Jon Fine notes with the sublety of a sonic boom.

As for the ad agencies now feeling the tectonic plates rumble and the fear rising, well, nothing is stopping you guys from making like networks and creating your own programming, as some of the smart agencies have done for some time.

Nothing but inertia.

Update: It doesn't escape notice that top execs from NBC Universal Digital Studios have recently been tapped to head AOL and Discovery Networks. You don't think those groups would want to bypass agencies and work directly with clients, would they?

The A-Team

[by Sunni] Editor's note: I have just started a new job. Nancy is immersed in full-time employment and working on her PMBA. So there is a minimal amount of time we can devote to blogging. Apparently, however, we have oodles of free time for instant messenging -- and our conversations usually cover advertising industry issues. You know, what we should be blogging about. It could be possible that we lack time management skills. On the other hand, we're refining and enhancing our theories through discussion. So that these brilliantly refined and enhanced theories do not get lost in the vacuum of IM, I'm going to post our latest conversation word-for-word (besides some minor edits to the worst of the typos and off-topic remarks). By all means, join in our discussion...

Sunni says:

are you talking about Second Life in any of your marketing classes? because it is the ONLY thing any marketer is talking about these days: http://secondlife.reuters.com/

nfallen says:

no, we're looking at more high-level business management and strategy stuff right now. But thanks for doing your very important job of keeping me updated. This might be something I could very well use in our gambling project...

nfallen says:

...when we're talking about new delivery systems for worldwide customers, this could be a good match.

Sunni says:

this would have fit with your consumer behavior class -- are you taking any marketing classes right now?

nfallen says:

just the one... and it's not a lecture class, we're just doing this big project.

nfallen says:

BUT, I'm taking the Consumer Behavior teacher's next class in the spring. It's the Marketing Communications Strategy class -- it will DEFINITELY come into play there...

Sunni says:

if he doesn't bring it up, you have to -- it should be a whole class by itself! it's my theory that the only people that use SL are marketers and journalists doing "research" -- there are no where near the number of members that would warrant reuters having its own "news channel" devoted to SL

nfallen says:

What you're saying is that the only people using it are marketers and journalists, but they're so into it that they're creating hype that doesn't actually reflect the number of average joe people using SL?