I’d be remiss to inform you if I left this out- last night at the Dayton Ad Club Hermes awards, we won 2 bronzes and a silver. Very disappointing. Overall, there were fewer entries, and less people at the show. Noticeably absent this year were Graphica and Wilson Advertising and Design. Considering Wilson got caught last year submitting work that wasn’t placed by the client- and had to return their Golds, I can understand why they didn’t show up this year; but Graphica almost always enters some amazing work for Crown Equipment and I was sad not to see it.
Our winners were Silver for the BioFoundation letterhead and cards, and bronzes for Early Express variable data direct mail, and the Second Street Market posters.
Some of our work that didn’t get in was better than what won. One piece I should have entered in a different category, and I plumb forgot about another that I should have entered. Judges can be so fickle.
Not to worry, we’ve already started on next years award winning work.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising

Quick, who’s your agent? Don’t have one? Not an actor or a pro sports jock? Don’t worry, we don’t call them that yet, and it may not be the term du jour, but it’s one that will be critical in the next ten years.
An agent is going to filter content for you, and hopefully just you. Current examples are when you shop at Amazon and you get all those suggestions- “people who bought “Potato chip collecting for dummies” also bought… or when my TiVo selects shows I may like based on what I watch. Mass marketers feared the 500 channel universe because audiences would fragment making it increasingly to introduce new products like the square potato chip, while niche marketers were celebrating the advent of the potato chip network, which featured chips, chips and more chips, 24 hours a day.
If there is one problem that hasn’t been solved yet for the coming TV over IP, it’s how to let audiences know what shows are worth buying and what isn’t. The great thing is, we will no longer have to have an assigned date and time to watch the first episode of “The Potato Chip masters,” it will be available on demand, any time we want, for as long as we want.
Agents will make all the difference. Radio used to be the primary agent for the music industry, you’d hear a song, like it, and go buy it. The second level agents were your friends, the guy at the record store and music magazines. Now, with idiots like Clear Channel homogenizing radio nationwide, local record stores a dying industry, you are left with friends. These days communities of like minded connoisseurs are getting together on the web and invariably, a few people become the influencer of the group- these are the new “agents” of influence, and over the next 10 years they will become more and more important to anyone selling anything.
You will need a network of agents and communities for them to infiltrate. You will also need agents to steer you to the communities, but these already exist, to an extent in search engines. If you search, and the community is solid, it should show up in the first 10 screens of your search. Communities are still learning their way to build themselves. We have yahoo groups to join, and there are peer networks like myspace, tribe and friendster, and specialty sites that focus on topics like Slashdot that bring people interested in the same thing together, over time, these will become your filters for your personal information system, through RSS feeds and AI agents that sort and aggregate content based on your interests- think of it as askjeeves meets a real butler/friend/teacher type.
If there is one-reason newspapers are having such a hard time keeping subscribers it’s because they never really understood their role as agents for a local community. They were supposed to be the one stop agent for their community first, regional second and national and global third. It was up to them to make the regional up to global relevant to their local community, and to be the leader in pollinating the local leaders.
This brings up something; all agents have ranks. Sort of like the military, only different. It’s not the number of people that you influence and direct that is most important, it’s the number of other agents. The agent system is viral in nature, and the number of nodes of influence you reach are critical to the rank you will achieve.
Explaining viral marketing is a subject for another entry. But for now, take a look around and think- who ARE your agents, and what are they doing for you?

I’d love to hear what you think.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV, Marketing & the Web

Rumors. Apple rumors in particular, so juicy. Let’s hope I don’t get sued like the poor Harvard student with his thinksecret site.
I have no inside source- just read on Macnn.com that Apple may be buying TiVo- and this makes me happy and a little worried.
Happy because TiVo is too good to go the way of the BetaMax, or to lose out to cable companies and satellite companies selling DVR’s to their customers. Time Warner has a DVR that records hi-def, but the interface is pathetic compared to my beloved lo-def TiVo. Apple in their latest releases of software have said- this is the year of High def- even adding hi-def capability to the free with every Mac editing software iMovie. They had Sony’s chairman out on stage with Steve Jobs bragging about the new HDV camera during MacWorld. (I’m lusting for the HVR-Z1U camera- $5K). Apple buying TiVo would bring HD to my TiVo fast. Yeah.
The fact is, a TiVo box is just a little Linux computer with a hard drive (always too small a hard drive too), Apple OSX is the best version of Unix out there- it would be easy to port the TiVo functionality onto a Mac.
TiVo isn’t really a hardware company (they are now practically giving away the box) anyway- they are a software and subscription company. They sell an interface to your TV programming, and a data feed of what that programming is. That is what I love and pay for- not the box.
Apple could take TiVo to the next level by taking that data- like I want every show with Kelly McGillis in it, and record it, and use it as an iTunes music store for TV. Think about it- you miss tonight’s episode of “Lost” because you are on a blind date- you go home, click on your Apple iTelevision link and buy the show as a download to your Apple TiVo- and it delivers in HD via a bit torrent type download. This is the future of programming.
The worry I have is that Apple doesn’t have great luck at running a subscription business. E-world was a flop, and I constantly read about problems with .Mac Apple may not be ready to keep TiVo as it is and that would be a mistake.
Time will tell. Apple is usually good about keeping secrets, so we should know if this is true in the next 2 weeks.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV

I had an interesting meeting yesterday with a struggling arts group (and, no, they don’t have to be synonymous: struggling/arts group).
They are a performance organization and tour globally. They can draw at the Kennedy Center, but not at home. Could marketing be an issue? Of course.
For years a graphic designer has handled their advertising. Beautiful ads, exquisite imagery, no sales. (Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?)
So, of course, we can do better advertising (a snappy headline, a call to action, some emotional tinkering, the whole create lust- evoke trust® thing). But, a little informal research told me there was a deeper problem- the brand isn’t delivering the goods.
Suppose you went to buy a pair of Nike track shoes, but the store wouldn’t let you have them without buying a pair of really ugly shit-kicker boots.
That’s what this group was doing in their performances. Come to a show to see an emotionally uplifting, amazing good time, great show-but, to get that, you have to sit through the “culture lesson” they think you need which is going to go over like a root canal without anesthesia.
No amount of great advertising can overcome delivering a product that is only half what’s promised, at least on a repeat basis.
So, before you think your advertising needs help, do a little brand check up. Ask customers what they expect from you when they buy (our client the Pizza Factory delivers not only amazing imaginative pizzas, they deliver peace of mind that when you order the office lunch from them that you will get an amazing dining experience which will make you look like a hero to your boss) and then deliver that PLUS something extra special. It’s not up to you to decide what their expectations are, it’s up to you to know them and exceed them.
When you have figured out what they expect, then check your brand to see if it fits their perception: Apple- easy to use technology, Harley Davidson- macho motorcycles for true Americans, and see if you fit with your brand.
This arts organization is killing itself by trying to tell its audiences what they should know instead of giving them what they want. Not a model for success.
That’s why Volkswagen is going to have a hard time selling it’s Phaeton (a $70,000 luxury car) and Honda never moved a lot of S2000 2 seat sports cars (why this car wasn’t an Acura I’ll never know).
And that’s why Apple computer would be in deep trouble if them made a computer that was as complicated as a windows PC.
Make sure your brand performs what it’s supposed to.

What do you think?

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Advertising, Everything you want to know about advertising, VW advertising

It’s always easy to see what someone should have done, when you’re not the one having to do it with a few million people watching.
Advertising is the same way. Come up with the greatest TV spot since Mean Joe Green for Coke or Apple’s 1984 ad. Everyone has an opinion, thinks they have a great idea, and then says “Wow, advertising would be a fun job to have.”
Well, it is fun, except for clients who want everything yesterday, and want to pay you a week from next Tuesday for the work they got 3 months ago. And, oh yeah, the potential client who passed your shop up because you told him the truth about what he should buy with his budget, only to go to some big lame shop who had him spend 3x more for half the creative- and then the guy tells you that your ideas are too “big city” and that you should teach his wife how it’s done.
And then, there’s The Apprentice, the TV show, where the Donald sends teams of amateurs out to create an ad campaign in a couple of days. You know, there’s nothing to advertising anyway. Well, last night, the “street smarts” and the “book smarts” both failed miserably in creating a campaign for the new Dove body wash.
Yeah, millions of eyes on them, real pros to help them, and two absolutely terrible ads were produced. So, what does this prove?
Does it prove that there is something to this business; a craft, an art, a bit of psychology, science, that great ads aren’t done by committee? The easy answer is yes- it proves it.
But, let’s look at the flip side, probably 20 million people watched this train wreck production of two crappy ads, and Dove body wash is probably better known now than it was on Thursday morning. That even bad advertising works. Yeah, that explains why a certain local Honda dealer who has done the ads people love to hate for years keeps doing them. It explains why that potential client is happy with an agency that does crap for him. It explains why everyone and their mother think they can do this (yet I have to admit that every once in a while my Mother comes up with a good idea).
I had a new client this week ask me about their new “logo.” I tried to explain to them that it wasn’t really a logo; that it wasn’t something I could see from 10 feet away that I would recognize instantly for what it was. I told a logo is something you recognize, a brand is something you would be willing to pay extra to wear, or even want to tattoo on your body.
And while there are lots of ads out there that are perfectly adequate, how many do you really want to watch over and over? How many would you pay to see? Me, I buy books of great ads, I have a collection on our server, and I even asked the Nike Store if there was a way to buy the reel that was running on the 4th floor in the theater.
I’m a freak. The rest of you love to skip the ads (except on most Super Bowls).
And then after the Super Bowl, you all think you can come up with something better.
So, would all of you out there who think what we do is easy, go watch this episode of the Apprentice. Lucky for the budding apprentices, Donald only fires one of you. For us, they fire the whole team.
Does it still sound like fun?
Thank you Donald for showing the world that advertising isn’t something for amateurs.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Advertising, Everything you want to know about advertising

Super Bowl. It’s supposed to be the world championship of advertising. Apple set the standard for excellence with its million-dollar ad launching the Macintosh in 1984. This year, we saw the most mundane, weak, el-crapo advertising ever.
Particularly bad were the car ads. Ford, three times the same ad for a car I can’t buy today. I kept waiting for a different ending, nope. Same stupid grin on the frozen idiot who drove his new Mustang convertible with the top down in a blizzard. The other ad, carried on the “scary biker” stereotype (recycled concept from a Mercedes ad- and others) with a pack of bikers being scared off by a row of “Tough trucks.” Excuse me, but, in case no one in Detroit has noticed, the people buying motorcycles today, the Harley’s they drop $8-$30K on, they don’t look like that or dress like that. They also buy trucks, just probably not Fords, anymore.
How about telling us about what makes a Ford truck a good value? Make the product a hero, while describing what differentiates it from a Chevy, or a Dodge.
Or a Honda, another vehicle I can’t buy today. The Ridgeline is a nice truck I’m sure, but, it looks like a Matchbox toy truck- tell me, calling it a 1 ton truck, with a bed that looks like it’s 3.5 feet long, doesn’t instill confidence. How about comparing it to something I might know- especially, since I can’t go out and drive one.
Same thing for Cadillac. Three new fast cars, that I can’t buy yet. Wasn’t “we build excitement” the line for Pontiac? Build excitement about a car I can buy.
Let’s just call this automotive flirtation, not advertising. One of my cardinal rules of marketing is don’t tease when you could deliver. It’s about wasting the consumer’s time. They value it, you should too.
Volvo offered to take me into space, but wasn’t that an ad for Virgin Galactic, not the Volvo- wait, it was Volvo wasn’t it? I don’t remember.
Toyota is still bragging about the Prius, using cool effects, but, do the crunchy granola types watch the Superbowl?
Car advertisers all fail.
But then again, how many good car ads are there?
How many car brands out there really get the connection to their intended market?
Mercedes got it for a while, but then because of mega agency mergers, they had to switch agencies, no matter how good the work was.
Mini, of course has gotten it, all on a budget for less that what Ford spent for their 4 ads- well maybe a little more. An Agency that has ideas, there is a good start.
VW had it too for a while, but that was only because they were the first to tie in trippy indy music with trippy indy cars, at least that’s what all the young yuppies thought when they bought the first German cars that proved that Germans don’t always get the engineering right.
Car brands have to take a look at Harley Davidson. Here’s a company that has a brand that works. Here’s a company that builds motorcycles almost as poorly as the American car companies build cars, yet sells them all. HD makes more money off licensing than from selling bikes these days. There was a day when the Chevy Bowtie had that kind of power, but it’s long gone now.
US car companies tried to trick the consumer offering cars that were the same, only different- Firebird/Camaro etc. It didn’t work.
Another cardinal rule of advertising- don’t fake it, keep it real.
Real differentiation, real reasons to buy one instead of the other. Substance over style.
So, take note. Next year, if you want to sell cars on the Superbowl, remember:
Don’t tease.
Don’t fake it.
Deliver real differentiation, and a way I can relate to owning that car.
The Super Bowl is the wrong place to play with selling cars.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV, VW advertising

Have you ever taken a trip to another city and saw a billboard for a local TV news broadcast and thought you never left home? Newscenter. Eyewitness. Storm Team. The names the same, only the call letters and the station number and network affiliation change. The graphics package, the logo, the taglines and even the way the news is reported is similar. Ho Hum.
Someone bought a franchise.
The McDonalds of news. Billions and Billions served, the same exact thing. Only the locations have changed to protect the innocent minds who tune in – in less and less numbers.
On top of it all, the use of channel numbers, ie. “Newscenter 7” or “2 News” means nothing when the viewer watches on cable- and tunes in on another frequency. With the advent of Digital broadcasts, the VHF numbers (2-13) will disappear, and that bandwidth will be used for other purposes, so why do local stations keep using a number that’s going to go away? Beats me.
There are also call letters. WRGT, WHIO, WOIO, that come from the days of morse code. It’s time to ditch call letters altogether- it’s time for URL’s. Can you imagine finding this site if it was YHLNUYKUS? Television over IP is coming, it’s time the local broadcasters realize that their programming will have be a consumer branded experience, that someone will want to subscribe to, just like you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. If you want information about what’s going on in Osh Kosh, you get it from Osh Kosh Central, or the Osh Kosh TV, via a subscription.
Local broadcasters aren’t going to be needed to deliver national or syndicated programming, just the local content they provide. News, weather, community, locally produced programming are all that’s left that consumers won’t be able to get from a server somewhere. Local advertisers are going to be particularly hard hit. How will they reach local viewers?
The answers there lie in the “set-top box” that is going to call up programming, or store it for viewers (think TiVo). Are you willing to pay more to watch a program without interruption, or watch ads targeted to you to cut the cost of programming? Most would say yes, if the ads are good (imagine being able to rate an advertiser- thumbs up, thumbs down, 3 thumbs down, you never have to watch again- 2 thumbs down and the advertiser has to pay more to reach you- but if they get three thumbs up, they don’t have to pay for reaching you).
Local broadcasters- now called content providers, will work to customize programming to reach certain parts of a community that advertisers are trying to reach. College sports teams and local pro sports teams will become more valuable as they start negotiating rates directly with their fans. This gets more and more complex with funding of pro- sports, but the market will figure it out.
There is more to this local content provider story, especially when you start talking about radio, king of homogenized product, but that’s for another entry.

So, what do you think?

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV