The Quisenblog

Got room on your list for one more resolution for the upcoming year? If you’re a marketer, you won’t go wrong picking one of these:

1) Think mobile. Already, it is reported that more than 40% of smart phone owners have made a purchase by using their smart phone. In fact, about half of them made the purchase while in the store. The mobile phenomenon is just getting bigger. By 2014, it is predicted more people will access the Internet via smart phones and tablets than with all other computers combined. So if your web site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll miss a lot of web traffic.

Use 2012 to shore up your mobile interface. Optimize for the 4-inch screen. Make the experience rewarding for your visitors. Don’t make them scroll or endlessly click to open more pages. Forget Flash. Make your site clean, readable and well-organized.

2) Get serious about online video. Be honest. Would you rather plod through a bunch of IKEA assembly instructions, or watch a video of someone putting the piece together? It is this preference that has propelled YouTube into being the #2 search engine in the world (and the #3 most-visited site). People aren’t just going there for cat videos anymore. With more than 40 hours of video being uploaded EVERY MINUTE, there’s a staggering array of all types of content hosted on YouTube. Internet viewing is up over 35% this year (with mobile viewing up even more). The average American web user spends 7 hours a month on YouTube (stats from Pixability). Videos with key word-rich titles and descriptions work wonders with getting you found on Google and other search engines. And—going back to resolution #1—YouTube is already optimized for mobile, so your videos are available to a much wider market.

3) Plan ahead for the Election season from hell. This year, with the Citizen’s United ruling in the books, money will be pouring into political campaigns like never before. And probably 99.99% of it is going to be spent in the same mass media (TV primarily) that you’re planning to use to reach YOUR audience.

Chances are, Q-4 air time is going to be a scarce commodity. Darned expensive, too. So make 2012 the year to think tactically. Traditionally, it is thought you must make 12 mass media impressions on a subject to incite action. Challenge yourself to cut that number in half. Create edgier commercials. Reach your audience in unexpected ways. Make sure your online efforts complement what you are doing offline. Make sure the communications all grow from the same “brand narrative.” Speaking of which…

4) Integrate, integrate, integrate. Sounds obvious. Yet recent studies show only about 17% of businesses feel they do an “adequate” job of integrating their social media into their overall marketing mix (source: eMarketer.com). Understand how you can best use the platforms available to you. Don’t slide into the habit of “dumping” content on as many social media pages as you can. Have a content strategy for each platform, and stick to it.

5) Focus on what works. The last few years have been more than a little overwhelming when it comes to new opportunities in the way of engagement platforms (Google+ is but one of the latest examples). It’s easy to get the feeling that if you’re not on board with the latest and greatest, you’re falling behind.

In 2012, take a trip up to the 10,000 foot level and decide what’s really working for you. Forget the pundits. What works for YOU? Find the platforms that produce, and stick to them. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but also, be careful not to spread yourself too thin. If you’re going to invest your time and resources into a platform, do it right. Then make sure it delivers.

So go ahead, pick a resolution. And revisit it every month or so just to see how you’re doing. And with a little planning, you can count on a killer 2012.

Happy Holidays one and all, and thanks for reading in 2011!

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“The problem isn’t that we set our goals too high and miss them. The problem is we set our goals too low and hit them.”

The above quote, attributed to the great Michelangelo, succinctly describes one of the biggest challenges we marketers face today.

Marketing has become about incremental change, about “small victories.” The language we use to describe what we do comes straight from the battlefield: campaign, tactics, challenger brand. So marketing becomes about “winning,” regardless of how small or significant that win is.

We add tactics. We “flesh out” campaigns. We celebrate little victories.

All this is well and good. But the road to Truly Amazing isn’t paved with little victories.

Yes, it is important for marketers to set achievable goals. But I submit it’s just as important to set at least one “unachievable” one.

What’s the one account you’d love to snare, but don’t feel it’s realistic? What “game changer” in your industry would flip the market upside down? What “surprise” could be added to your offerings, regardless of cost, that would propel your brand to top-of-mind?

Rather than treating this as a pie-in-the-sky goal, set is as a long-term one. Then ask yourself a couple of questions: Is what you’re doing now moving you towards that goal? And, who do you need to be in order to attain it?

Getting these answers correct puts you on the path to something big. Suddenly that seemingly “unachievable” goal is on your radar. Verbalize it. Share it with others, and let them figure out how they can contribute to attaining it.

Since his passing a few weeks ago, much has been written about Steve Jobs and his management style. What seems to be consistent with Jobs was that nothing he proposed to his product engineering team was considered “possible.” In virtually every case, engineers would complain that the technology didn’t exist, or the time frame too narrow, or something else made it impossible for what was in Steve’s brain to make it to market.

But Jobs rarely settled for incremental change. At a time when a “small victory” would have been developing a Walkman that played both sides of the tape, Apple engineers did the impossible, and gave us the iPod. Instead of giving us a Palm Pilot with more functionality, Apple did the impossible and gave us the iPhone.

Funny thing about “aiming high.” At some point, you just might hit it.

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There’s been a lot written in many corners about the need to tell a compelling “story” about your brand. At its heart, a unique, believable story provides a great way to make a brand more “human” and more relatable to people.

While many brands are taking this advice to heart, one thing that often sets them back is that they believe the story they are crafting needs to start with the brand, product or service. But in reality, any compelling story, whether you are writing a short story, screenplay or creating a narrative for a brand, starts with the audience you’re trying to persuade. We start with the audience’s needs, desires and experiences. Then truthfully communicate how our brand is an integral part of that story.

By way of example, I’d like to share this American Airlines ad from the 1960’s that sold the idea of First Class Business Travel. First class travel for business was (and is) a hard sell—tickets could be three or four times as much as ordinary coach travel. How could a company possibly justify paying such a premium for what most CFO’s would understandably view as a commodity?

American Airlines went about it by telling a story about the importance of “freeing the businessman from the usual annoyances” so he or she could concentrate on “winning the battle.” Reading the copy from this well-worn tear sheet (which I’ve been toting around for a few decades now) is next to impossible, so I’ve transcribed it here:

Was this ad successful? Truthfully, I have no idea. But I have to believe the story a business traveler gets from this ad would mean a heck of a lot more than a photo of the airline’s airport lounge or a claim that its seats are six inches wider than coach seats. He or she would get the idea that this airline respects what I do, and it actually delivers on ways to make my life easier.

In other words, when your create your brand story, don’t forget the main character.

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When Steve Jobs passed away last week, the world not only lost the visionary that gave us (in no particular order) the personal computer, the graphic user interface, the mouse, desktop publishing, the iPod, the online music store, the animation behind the “Toy Story” trilogy, tablet computers and smart phones.

It also lost one hell of an adman.

While I can’t attest to Jobs’ level of involvement in the creation of advertising for the Apple brand, from the stories I’ve heard, he was quite involved with the ad team at TBWA/ChiatDay. One thing I’ve learned in my many years in this business is that clients tend to end up with the advertising they deserve. Clients who settle for dreck usually end up with dreck. And clients who demand and champion great work will end up with great work.

Looking at the body of work for Apple, it’s easy to surmise Steve Jobs was a great client. Most likely not an easy one. Demanding to be sure. But great, in that he refused to settle for schlock.

My favorite Jobs story (as told by TBWA Creative Chief Lee Clow) was in regard to perhaps Apple’s most famous ad–the Ridley Scott directed “1984″ Super Bowl spot that launched MacIntosh. According to Clow, the week before the Super Bowl, Apple’s board refused to air the spot. “Under no circumstances will we pay for this to air,” they were said to say. At which point Jobs turned to his partner Steve Wozniak and said “I’ll pay for half if you’ll pay for half.” The very idea that a client felt so strongly about a concept that he would reach into his own pocket to pay for it is beyond inspiring. No wonder the folks at Chiat would walk over glass to work on the business.

For an all-to-quick summary of some of Apple’s best work under Jobs, Creativity released this “Top 5″ this week focusing strictly on Apple ads. I present it here for your enjoyment.

We’ll miss ya, Steve.

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Recent research revealed that 70% of smart phone users are never more than three feet from their phones. Their smart phone is the first thing they check in the morning and the last thing they check before going to bed (sound familiar?).

People’s relationships with their smart phones is one example of how the “always on” culture of contemporary life is affecting us. Where once we had the ability to be “in touch” 24/7, now we’re expected to be. What used to be considered “down times” are now opportunities to check in or catch up.

One side affect of the “always on” society is an affliction some social psychologists have dubbed the “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO). This refers to the blend of anxiety, guilt and irritation we may experience while checking email, clicking through to links from our Twitter stream or seeing who’s checked in around us on Foursquare.

Deep down, we know that at some point, the technology that keeps us connected ends up serving as more of a distraction. We feel the pangs of wanting to disconnect. But then we think, what if I miss something?

How’s this for irony: the very technology that connects us with so much has us fearing we’re not connected enough. In this short video from Fast Company, author Scott Belsky refers to this as “Reactive Workflow.” Reactive Workflow comes about because of effort it takes to deal with all the stimulation that comes to us, primarily via new technologies.

One of the things that happens in our reliance on technology is we cease to be creators and instead become responders. We may be linked to our world 24/7, but is our work getting any better?

What ever happened to thinking time? To the ebb and flow of life? To the idea of self-reflection? Traditionally this “down time” gave thoughts and perspectives time to gestate. It was a powerful ingredient in the problem solving recipe.

Most of what we do via today’s new communications platforms is a reaction to something else. We might be checking our email ten times an hour, but we’re not creating nearly as much as we used to. Or as we should.

As marketers, there are two edges to the Fear-Of-Missing-Out sword. First, the realization that we can easily succumb to it, and spend our precious time in reactive mode as opposed to creative mode. And secondly, that the people we’re trying to reach with our communications are struggling with the same issues.

The best way I can think of to approach this from a communications standpoint is to keep things simple. Messaging. Products. Promises. Don’t ask customers to jump through a lot of hoops. Be relevant. And be authentically helpful.

Most importantly, we can keep ourselves from falling into the FOMO trap. Don’t be afraid to power down from time to time just to give yourself some space. If you didn’t look at your email until 10 a.m., would the world really come to a screeching halt?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling the need to check my email.

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“No. Matter. What.”

When Southwest Airlines dedicated themselves to being “THE low-fare airline,” they didn’t address it by saying “we’ll cut costs wherever it’s feasible.” They said they were THE low-fare airline—no matter what. So whenever someone from within the organization presented a business case that the airline could attract more business travelers by having wider seats, or by serving hot meals or by allowing business passengers to pre-board, instead of looking for a way to implement these initiatves cheaply, they dismissed these ideas all together. Because they got in the way of them being THE low-fare airline—no matter what.

When Nordstrom dedicated themselves to providing out-of-this-world customer service, they didn’t put a lot of “ifs” or “excepts” into it. Want to return something without a receipt? No problem. Want to return it after it’s obviously been worn a time or two? Still no problem. Want to return it, even though you don’t even know for sure it was bought there? Chances are they’ll take it. And do it with a smile. (There’s one urban legend that a man actually returned tire chains for a refund, even though Nordstroms never carried tire chains.)

Without a doubt, “No matter what” will cost you money. It may cost you some sales. It may cost you some customers. It may force you to eat some expenses. But if your brand vision is truly meaningful to your customers, and if you’re delivering it uniquely as no other organization can, that doesn’t matter. You just built and owned a valuable niche in your industry. And while others may try to copy your success, they will fail, because they’ll waffle on the “no matter what.”

One of the biggest challenges in implementing what could be a break-through Brand Vision is getting the whole organization, from the C-suite down to the street level, to buy into it and “live it” in their day-to-day transactions.

“No matter what” creates a narrative for your organization that everyone can relate to and re-tell. It eliminates wiggle room for interpreting your Brand Vision. It puts it on steroids, and eliminates the need for case-by-case interpretation. If I’m a sales clerk at Nordstroms, and I know my charge is to offer “uncompromised service, no matter what” I suddenly have permission to do whatever it takes to create a great customer story, without having to run it upstairs or refer to a policy manual.

Would your business look differently, or operate differently, if you added “no matter what” to the end of your brand vision?

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Back in 1947, the then-Creative Director of Grey Advertising in New York fired off a memo that began the biggest metamorphosis the advertising business has ever known. It read:

“There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately, they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that showing people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there’s one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion, and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.”

The Creative Director that composed that memo was William (Bill) Bernbach (1911-1982), who two years later would co-found an agency that would become the first to demonstrate the success a marketer can attain by fully serving the interests of the reader or viewer.

Bernbach would have celebrated his 100th birthday this weekend, and this provides a fitting time to pay homage to the man who single-handedly saved us from the hacks of the “Mad Men” era.

Bill not only supervised and championed great creative work for clients like Volkswagon, Avis, American and El-Al Airlines, Polaroid, Ohrbach’s and many many others. He elevated advertising into an art form that people actually enjoyed, critiqued and talked about.

He proved that smaller clients with smaller budgets can outperform industry leaders just by forming a human connection with the audience. He changed the way agencies worked. His model of creating teams of writers AND art directors to tackle creative assignments has been the standard in the industry for going on 50 years. And above all, he inspired tens of thousands of creative people to get into the business (yours truly included) by demonstrating the ad business to be a place where creative ideas could be championed.

Bill was a storyteller. His team worked endlessly to discover the “story” DDB’s clients had to tell. Then they told them in a way that was relevant, respectful, and above all, true.

Despite being associated with some of the most attention-getting advertising of his or any era, Bernbach never gave short shrift to the business disciplines behind it. He famously said “good ideas build sales, but great advertising builds factories.”

Bernbach’s point of “art vs. science” in his memo of 64 years ago is also of relevance to marketing practitioners of today. Endless articles, ebooks and webinars are published that fill us with “best practices” and “how-tos” for the various new media and social platforms. But what often gets lost in all this is the importance of the art of persuasion.

Today, we might give such thinking a haughty name such as “permission marketing.” Bill just called it “treating the customer with respect.”

What do you say we pay that respect forward?

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In this “micro-post,” we give an “attaboy” to a marketer that’s done a fantastic job figuring out “what business they’re really in.” That marketer is the electronics retailer Best Buy.

If I were to ask “what business is Best Buy in,” you might be tempted to talk about “what they do” rather than “who they are.” You could talk about how they carry the latest technology, have well-versed sales and support people, and even note how they have a liberal return/exchange policy. But all this would be missing one key component—understanding what holds a customer back from buying.

Talk to anyone who’s about to part with hundreds or thousands of dollars in order to get the “next big thing,” and you’ll hear one over-riding concern: the fear that what’s “new” today will be obsolete tomorrow. That’s the way it goes with technology. And most times, that investment you put out for the latest and greatest is gone with the wind.

Best Buy obviously gets this.

This television spot cites an initiative called the “Buy Back Program.” Essentially when your new doo-dad gets outdated, Best Buy will buy it back when you trade up to get the new stuff.

Technophobia may have met its match.

A marketing exec I know once compared obstacles to purchase to the baggage on an airport carousel. The buyer isn’t going anywhere until all the bags are removed.

Best Buy just removed a huge steamer trunk.

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Evidently a lot of folks out there think creative briefs are a waste of time.

That’s the conclusion you could draw from the response to this article over at AdAge.com. Why would so many feel creative briefs have become irrelevant, and who is to blame? Some blame clients for cramming too much information in them, or for being too “boilerplate.” Others blame agencies for not being creative enough in their approach to briefs. Others say briefs don’t take into concern the prospect’s point of view. One commenter even went so far as to argue “The brief is dead.”

It’s true the “traditional” brief leaves much to be desired in these days when marketers are pushing more and more initiatives, talking to more different audiences and being involved in a variety of Social Media platforms that require creative decisions to be made on the fly. The tightly-defined “packaged-goods-era” creative brief (that spelled out everything from the exact size of an ad to what “mandatories” need to be addressed) is way too confining when it comes to developing integrated multi-platform campaigns and programs. What if, for instance, the creative team determines the best solution to a client’s problem isn’t necessarily a print ad, but a web video series? Will the brief let them consider it?

Yet without a brief, how will agencies and clients stay on the same page?

For an industry that supposedly embraces “change” and “bold moves,” it’s interesting how a lot of us have gotten locked into approaching problems the same old way, even when we have evidence that way is no longer working. It’s time agencies and clients reconsidered the brief to once again to make it a useful tool in these days of multi-channel dialogue.

Is there a prescription out there to make the creative brief relevant once again?

Our view is that the traditional agency creative brief is a throw-back to a time when it was assumed that we could manipulate consumer behavior by crafting the “right” message. The overriding question behind every brief was “What do we have to say to make you buy from us?”

Today, the consumer has access to many sources of information (not just the marketer) and in general, she puts less weight on what a marketer says than what she hears from friends, family and her community. As a result, successful marketing is not primarily about communication anymore; it is about transparently demonstrating an understanding of a consumer’s problems and concerns and addressing them in a unique, meaningful way. The question for marketers today is “Who do we have to BE in order to attract you as a customer.” It involves operations as well as marketing, as well as an on-going communication stream. In order to lead to success, any iteration of a creative brief must acknowledge this truth.

The next generation creative brief should start with the organization’s Brand Vision, which answers the question “What’s the one thing we want people to feel (and think of) when our name is mentioned, that is unique, meaningful and true.” Putting this thought at the forefront of every brief, whether for a branding ad campaign, a social media promotion or a price-and-item ad, assures that whatever the communication, it will be crafted with the intention that receivers will walk away with the same emotional take away. The brief itself needs to be acknowledged as a flexible document that serves as the “starting point” for both agency and client.

Yesterday’s “campaigns” have given way to today’s “content platforms.” As conditions on the ground change, and as new opportunities or obstacles surface, so, too does the nature of communication.

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The marketing spoils often don’t go to the marketer with the best product. Or to the marketer with the biggest name. Or the most money. Or the widest distribution. Or even the most loyal customers.

Many times the marketplace winner is the marketer who does the best job understanding and meaningfully addressing its customers’ pain points.

One present-day marketer who has done an exemplary job of crafting its offerings to directly address customers’ true needs is the automaker Hyundai.

Hyundai has always been an underdog in the U.S. auto market. It was a latecomer with a hard-to-pronounce name and the baggage of coming from a place (South Korea) that’s not especially known for producing top-notch automobiles. The logical play for Hyundai would have been to stand first and foremost for “value,” and hang its hat on a position of “being a cheap version of a Nissan.”

To its credit, the automaker knew it had to do something different. “Value” is a nebulous concept that can mean different things to different audiences, so Hyundai had to find a way to connect with car buyers to assuage both their spoken and (most importantly) unspoken concerns. The marketer wisely settled on the concept of “assurance.”

Initially, the automaker manifested this position by offering what was at the time the most comprehensive warranty in the industry: ten years or 100,000 miles. This gave the automaker automatic cred in the marketplace.

But here’s where Hyundai hit a homerun. It understood that “assurance” wasn’t restricted to just a warranty; it was essentially a commitment to take all the risk out of buying a new car.

This was really exemplified in 2008, when the U.S. economy tanked. Financial insecurity ran rampant. Sales of big ticket items plummeted. Well-established auto brands like Toyota, Honda and Ford each saw sales drop well over 30%. It was during this period that Hyundai expanded its “assurance” positioning by offering to let buyers return their Hyundais to the dealer in the event that they should lose their paychecks, with no negative credit ramifications. Immediately, sales jumped 14% (see more about the story in the following video), and before long the other major automakers went to market with their own version of “assurance.”

Most recently, Hyundai again found a creative way to manifest “assurance,” this time guaranteeing a trade-in value for buyers.

Suddenly, this odd-ball Korean car maker has surpassed many well-known marques here in America. And I would wager to say the reason isn’t that the car-buying public fell in love with design and performance of the Santa Fe. It has everything to do with understanding the needs and anxieties of the car buyer and getting to work to build initiatives that might scare the bean-counters, but that emotionally connect with car buyers.

One of the beautiful things about the “assurance” Brand Vision is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with functionality. It’s not a claim for better gas mileage, better performance, more cargo room or even a lower sticker price. Those things are fluid, and can change. Hyundai succeeded in tapping into authentic customer anxieties that will always be around.

Consumers have real needs, real fears, real anxieties, many of them unspoken. The marketer who does the best job of understanding and addressing these “real needs” stands the best chance of emotionally connecting with the consumer.

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