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All People Making "Creative" Need to be Technologists

From the Weiden & Kennedy Blog: 

I’ve pretty much had it with the term “Creative Technology”. I’m a “Creative Technology Director” myself, and even I’m over it: already it seems clichéd at best, and at worst, bordering on the meaningless. Here’s why.

Full story: Why We're Not Hiring Creative Technologists (via @daveknox)

Brand Promise vs. Brand Purpose

I spend a good part of my week working with brands trying to do more  and do it better in the social space. The vast majority of the brands I work with are well established, generally low consideration, but well-loved products. These are brands that have been built over years via TV, price promotions, and some couponing. They struggle, as you might imagine, with what to do and say in the social space. Mainly because they have no real purpose. 

I don't say that dismissively. But, it's true. There's not a really good reason a lot of these brands exist beyond generating incremental profits for the company that makes them (and who generously sends me money every other week! Thanks guys!). The best brands - or at least the ones that seem to have some real momentum in the minds of consumers - seem to have some clearly articulated purpose, are values driven, and see their role in society as integral to everything they do.   Without that purpose, it's hard to maintain quality interactions with consumers because - unless you are a wildly entertaining brand a la Skittles recently - it's hard to get consumers to care about much beyond your new flavor or your price. 

Brands need a purpose.Beyond a promise. A promise guides messsaging, it helps the consumer understand what they'll get from the brand or how the new features will work or what the benefits are. But, we humans care more about actions than words. In some cases - the best cases for brands -  we actually care about what the brand is doing, how it's living in the world, and what it's contributing into the network of connections we've all made with each other. And, when branding is really done well, we come to brands - we learn about them, we try them, add them to our consideration set - through the work in the real world that brands are doing. And, for the best brands, those actions are driven by a higher sense, a higher purpose. 

And, without that clear sense of purpose, the reason for existing, it's hard to generate real meangingful connections with people. And, without those, most of a brands social efforts will be kind of empty and, ultimately, not very valuable for people or the brand.  

 

Branding/Naming: New Model Agencies

Here's a good example of how attention to detail and good copy writing can recast a tired topic. There's tons of stories in the press about how young agencies are strarting up to challenge the old agencies. A boring story would call them "new, young agencies". Smart copywrighting makes them "New Model Agencies", which works on a couple good levels. "New Model Army" was not only a great, punk-ish band that plenty of music weasels will remember, but it's a cool nod to military history, where Cromwell was responsible for putting the first real professional army into place in England. A little twist in copy makes a big difference. 

Staying Motivated, Staying Ambitious

Early yesterday morning, after an hour of cranking on a deck, i realized it was my 5 year anniversay at my employer. I threw out a quick post on Twitter suggesting a new "law". Basically, it's this: The longer you stay in corporate america, the harder it is to make great things.

It got a bit of reaction, mostly negative. I shouldn't have posted it without context, in hindsight. I think it's real, and to me it's an important motivator, a watchout, a warning sign, which is why i posted it in the first place.

"Great" is a key term. And, i think "great" is relative to the culture/environment you're in. Company ABC has very different expectations and strategies and goals compared to Company XYZ, just like what's "great" in Niger or Chad may not be "great" in Tokyo or Silicon Valley. The challenge to anyone in a well established corporate culture? Stay focused on external benchmarks, on the innovators, on the dudes in a garage with 10K from YCombinator that are coming to decimate your "strategic advantage".  Don't let your cultural blinders keep you focused on your corporate navel or your boss, or this quarter's objectives, or that single metric. Keep on eye on how the state of "great" keeps changing.

The other term is "make something". When you've been in one place for sooooooo long, it's easy to just keep the wheel moving. Its a lot easier to keep the current machine - no matter how shaky or out of  date -  operating smoothly. We can make Incremental improvements, but still be proud of efficiencies, productivity, etc. instead of starting something new that's vitally needed for longer term personal, professional, corporate or cultural success. Change, when it's meaningful and innovative, is hard. Really hard, especially when there's heavy, long term investment in a status quo that's been quite successful.

Finally, "make something great" doesn't just mean "make something that exists better". To me, i still believe that those that have been given talent, resources, opportunities and tools should have ambitions to make the world a better place. "Great" means having a social and historical impact. It's not cool these days to be nakedly ambitious, but i'll say it: I don't want to leave the planet without trying to do something historically noteworthy. Even if it's just in the company where i work, i want to leave a mark. I believe we should be shooting at making something, something that's noteworthy, something that people will remember because it had a lot of impact or helped others, something that is great.

So, i'm staying motivated, staying ambitious. I'm fighting the hypothetical "laws" of corporate physics.

 

Ironically Stupid Email of the Day: Intellidyn

Note: I'm not a) in the email marketing business anymore b) in the home mortgage/banking business. So, should i trust a spam/unsolicited email from someone that promises me better targeting if they can't get it right with me?

note: I've also unsubscribed multiple times from these guys.

 

Whether you are targeting customers or prospects, only those meeting your credit criteria who have equity will qualify.  Let us accurately screen for both. Most important, avoid promising customers relief via home equity loans only to disappoint them when their homes values do not support the assumed levels of equity. Employ the most accurate Home Value screens available, combined with sophisticated response models that pinpoint homeowners in your markets who will most likely to respond to your home equity offer.

Please let us know if there's a need to achieve higher response rate and conversion rates while lowering your marketing costs.

 

Regards,

XXXXX XXXXXX
Intellidyn Corporation

 

Great Social Media job at General Mills / Tell Your Friends

This is a cool, rare opportunity at General MIlls. We're hiring a social media leader to help us take our game to the next level. What we've done to date is good, but we want to be great. Please come help us. Details here:

http://jobs.generalmills.com/minnesota/marketing/public-relations-and-social-engagement-manager-%28brand%29-jobs

(note: I'm not the hiring manager, so please follow the link for the job to ask questions and learn more about the role).

 

A couple decks on Modern Branding / Modern Planning for the archive

A couple decks i found (but didn't write) and wanted to put in one place. Thanks to Paul Isakson (www.paulisakson.com) and Adrian Ho (www.zeusjones.com) for the inspiration on this stuff.

 

Paul Isakson - MOdern Branding (2009)

Zeus Jones - Modern Branding (2009)

Faris Jacob - Strategy for the Post-Digital Age

Chloe Gottlieb (R/GA) - Shift From Designing Websites  ( especially the New Creative Team, slide 44)

Of course: Story Building vs. Story Telling

Best quote from this Fast Company article:

"Creative teams, the participants are told, now need to behave more like improv actors -- "story building" instead of storytelling -- so they can respond in real time to an unpredictable audience."

And, another good one from John Bond:

 "Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it."

 

 

 

The Digital Brand Advertising Maturity Model: Phase 1 -"TV on the Internet"

A lot of big brands are still trying to figure out digital marketing. They are taking a hodge-podge approach to their efforts, with a little bit here (SEM), and little bit there (their website) and maybe a little excitement dashed in (their facebook presence/twitter stream). But, before big, mass market brands can truly wrap their heads around the concept of being "modern brands", they should get comfortable with what they are doing with basic web display advertising. That is, "TV on the Internet".

TV on the Internet

Big, slow, classic mass-market brands have built their whole marketing model around TV. Their planning calendar is driven by their TV buying and TV production cycles, delivering "campaigns" that are like carpet bombs of 30 second tv spots. Their research tools, processes, and partners are designed to deliver the one true "insight" that will make a great TV spot. The creative messaging is driven and shaped by all the tools they use to conceptualize, vet, test and create their TV spots. The marketers and researchers there have built - literally- whole careers on being great at managing and guiding these processes, blending, when it's done well, the science of marketing and the art of advertising together to create breakthrough work that infiltrates our culture. Via TV.

It's a big, well oiled machine that we all take for granted, and we assume, because the machine has always worked so well, that it will also output great digital marketing. But it can't create great digital marketing. Because it was designed.for.creating.TV. That doesn't means the digital marketing that comes out of this systems is bad. It's just not what digital marketing could be.

Before brands shoot for "great", it's worth understanding what "good" looks like. Here are the characteristics of digital campaigns that are "TV on the Internet":

• A single, broad target - Typically, defined by demographics, like "Moms with kids in the house, 30-55".
• Key Objective: Awareness - These campaigns are really very much like TV, in that they are  designed to deliver an impression. And that's pretty much it. All the cool interactive stuff that you can do online? Clicks, conversions, online ad driven actions don't really matter in these campaigns.
• Creative: Persuasion - The goal of the creative is to persuade and change attitudes, not drive action.
• Campaigns: The campaigns tend to flow at the same rhythm as TV; run for a couple months, and then go dark.
• Media: "Set it and Forget it" - These campaigns don't get optimized when they run. They are planned and run and aren't really optimized that much over the course of the campaign. 
• Media: Focus on Reach - Like TV, the main objective of the media buy is almost always to maximize the number of people reached by the message. The placement - where the creative runs - is important, but generally, reach is favored over relevance.
• Measurement: Offline impact - These campaigns don't measure impact by what happens online.  Like all ad efforts, the most value is placed on what happens offline. Cash register rings. Sales in the big box, or the market, or the retail outlet. 
• Learning Cycles - The learning cycles of "TV on the Internet" campaigns, as far as i've seen, tend to be like an annual cycle. The iteration and learning cycles tend to be six to eight (or up to 12 months). 

 But, while digital marketers might scoff at these campaigns, they work for marketers for a couple important reasons:

• They are relatively easy to manage - Agencies and marketers can work and execute these campaigns pretty easily, assuming the marketers don't try to over-work the banners.
• They work - A lot marketers are finding that banners work well. At the very least, they drive brand metrics. But, they also drive sales offline, too. 
• They are predictable - Brands can these campaigns pretty easily, and they are getting more and more predictable in their ability to drive results. 

These aren't the sexiest digital campaigns. You'll never see these on the front cover of AdAge. But, these campaigns can form the foundation of great brand-building efforts. They can drive regular results, can be pretty predictable, and can provide marketers with "ground cover" to do more, innovative, and more interesting things.

But, "Modern Brands" should be providing more than advertising, more than their own message. That's the next phase in the maturity of digital brand marketers. 

Next up: PHase 2- Data Driven Brand Marketers

 

 

Wanted: A Turnkey Solution to test display ads (Fast, Iterative Learning w/Real Dollars)

I realize this post may open the floodgates of email from the gajillions of readers of this blog, but the "lazyweb" could solve a  problem i've been wondering about. (And note, this is my personal page, and it in no way reflects the opinions or positions of my employer and is not a solicitation of a proposal) 

The Setup:

A lot of the brands i come into contact with are classic, big, mass-market brands. They focus mostly on TV or some sort of instore promotion as a way to grow their top-line sales. As a result, they put tremendous amounts of time and energy into getting their advertising message perfect. This creates a planning cycle that often starts 18 months or so before the :30 second spot airs. 

As these brands move to online advertising, their planning cycles aren't really changing that much. Digital gets planned along with the tv, the creative is often linked explicitly to the tv in the name of "integration", and therefore the digital creative is often planned at least 8-10 months before it "runs". And, a similiar amount of energy/time/planning goes into getting the digital message (the words, the visuals, the consumer "target", the tone, the call-to-action) perfect before they launch. Its' like we're planning our banners like we plan our TV spots. 

Note: It's going to seem counterintuitive to many of us, but the majority of these campaigns focus only on awareness. That is, they aren't concerned about a click, or any sort of action. These are mass-reach, impression driving campaigns, not CPA/CPC, response based campaigns. 

The Challenge: 

We should be able to plan and execute our digital display ads so much faster and cheaper. The growth of exchanges and the proliferation of ad networks has created a flood of cheap, not-quite-free banner space (see: Mediamath, contextweb.com or, for better, higher quality contextual placement Brand.net). There are amazing tools out there that make it easy to do data-driven targeting of the creative unit. There are crazy powerful tools that make it easy to dynamically create, in real-time, creative units from a library of images, messages, and other creative elements (see: Teracent, X+1). And, there's a growing supply of providers who can match up in display impressions w/back office sales data (at least for the industry i work in).

With all this data, all this display space, all this measurement, why isn't there a product that brands can buy that enables them to do the following: 

• Have a known period of "testing" (like two months)
• Put a known amount of working dollars into the market (not much money, mind you)
• Have a set of two to four consumer "targets" to test
• Have a set of two to four different creative messages to test
• Have a known result to test against (in this case, cash register rings in the store, not clicks, necessarily)

The goal: Come out of a 1 to 2 month test, with a higher degree of confidence that they've got an advertising message that will drive instore sales with a specific consumer segment. And, all this by putting a significantly smaller proportion of the annual marketing budget (like a fraction) to work, before the bulk of it is committed.

The desired outcome: Risk management for the main campaign; a higher confidence in the combination of message, media placement and consumer target. And, do this in a way where the brand doesn't have to work that hard at it, where it's NOT a big production, and where the brand can learn fast. 

The need: 

This has got to be productized, like something a brand could (almost) buy with a few clicks. This should be something that a brand could buy, a) in a turnkey way b) for a known amount of money c) with a known amount of "working" dollars required. This would be delivered as a service, with some support from the vendor in designing, producing and executing the program. It would be delivered in a standardized window (e.g. 1 month of planning, 1-2 months of testing, 1 month of analysis) with known/consistent deliverables (that would enable cross test comparisons)

There's got to be a productized version of this out there somewhere.

No brand would be interested in:

• Some technology that the internal/external IT group or agency group can use
• Smarter ways to buy media
• Buying media directly from exchanges and or networks
• Brands won't want to hear about your dynamic, real-time, multivariate testing capability. they'll want this to work automagically
• Dynamic optimization
• Your agency creative, strategy or production services
• Campaign management tools
• CPC tools or SEM mgmt tools
• Any sort of customized project from some agency

They'd be looking for a turnkey solution that can be bought off the shelf. There's got to be something like this out there....But i've looked, and i can't find it. 

Lazyweb, any ideas?