free scribbles

Traditional Advertising: Time to Change

If the goal of your job is to film :30/:60 movies and/or win awards then you're a pompous ass. 

I have tried to write this post about 15 different ways without coming off too harsh, bitter, or angry, but it's impossible.  For anyone who follows my feed or occasionally checks the url, you know that I've been silent for a long time.  I figured I would come back with a bang.

Traditional advertising is easy.  I can come up with an incredibly snarky idea, maybe it's a TV spot or a magazine ad.  I can slap a logo at the end of it, spin it, and get a client to buy it.  Then I can sit back and wait for all the glorious praise to come my way.  "It's f#*%ing awesome man. You're a creative genius." 

But that's not the point of advertising, is it?  The goal is to solve clients' business problems creatively and more importantly, increase their revenues.  To do that, you have to know who their consumers are, what they want, what they like, where they are susceptible to messaging, etc.  Bottomline: You need to become the people that you are trying to reach.  Then, you can figure out how to get them to buy company X's product or service. 

So why do we (in the advertising industry) still measure success by awards and Super Bowl Spots?  Every day, thousands of Digitals (my definition: web designers, developers, copywriters, marketers, etc., I'd use digital natives, but that already has a definition) work hard to create lasting impressions for clients.  Maybe they are websites, mobile applications, in-store kiosks, or something equally engaging. 

I know what traditional advertisers are thinking right now,  "We do that too, we pitched an iPhone app to a potential client. iPhones are all the rage right now and they are digital.  I'll tell you what, you can build it if they buy the concept, but we'll design it."  Developers, you can cring now. 

Uh oh.  They've latched onto a buzzword.  Too bad the target audience can't afford iPhones.  I'm not saying that some Digitals don't think this way too, but the reality of working online is that the medium is constantly evolving, screens are getting smaller, interaction principles are changing, and the barrier to entry is still low. Constant change and the reality of a communication, not broadcast, channel forces Digitals to spend equal time producing as learning. 

Let's face the facts, Traditionals (television, radio, and print designers, copywriters, etc.) and Digitals pretty much use the same tools to do their jobs: cameras, photoshop, illustrator, flash, etc.  And while they have changed over the last few years, the medium that the final product is produced on, in the case of Traditionals, hasn't changed much, or if it did, it took 5+ years.  The digital medium can change in the matter of months.  Just look at what the iPhone has done to the world of mobile phones. 

Digitals have to be prepared for this or become obsolete.  They have to think strategically because its not as simple as knowing that a standard magazine page is 9x11.  The work has to jump off the screen, operate the way the user wants and stand the test of time because redesigning the work is not a quick turnaround (as much as people like to think).  The work also has to match the established metric goals.  Every page view can be counted, every second reading is tallied, and every purchased is tracked. 
Yeah, we can count impressions, but we can count actuals too, can you do that with a television spot?

Does a television spot solve the client's problem? Maybe, if its as simple as building awareness, but is it the most effective way? Think about the end of just about EVERY commercial that you didn't fast forward through because of your DVR, I bet there is a URL for you to look at.  And a website to visit that last well past the 30 or 60 seconds of the TV spot, there you can read, email, and interact with the company. 

It's time to start thinking smarter not cleverer.  I encourage everyone out there to be a constant student of the world. 

The digital medium is only going to gain more ground as it becomes the only effective channel to engage with customers on their terms.  And the customers only want to talk on their terms, not yours. Those Digitals out there now may very well be able to produce a television spot but those Traditionals who are unwilling to learn something new EACH and EVERY day are bound to suffer the fate of the dinosaurs: Extinction. 

Links of the Week

1. IconShoppe ~ Royalty-free stock icons for the web

2. Demystifying Usability : What color do you like? The usability of look and feel (strategy with icons, images, branding elements)

3. Buu Nguyen’s Blog » The 5 Types of Poor Architects

4. Westfield Comics - Mike Kunkel Interview

5. Veer: Ideas: Community Hotness Edition™

6. twitabit: post your tweets here when twitter is down

7. hackerdashery: Web Browsers and Memory Fragmentation

8. MindCanvas Review - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

9. Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

10. Minimal

11. DonnaM » Blog Archive » How many items in a navigation bar

12. New Sites Match Agencies With Untapped Talent - Advertising Age - TalentWorks

13. Interaction Design - Interaction-Design.org: HCI, Usability, Information Architecture, User Experience, and more..

Site Launch: The New Today's Military Website

Today was a big day in my professional life, a year's worth of strategy and creative development culminating in one website launched on the interwebs. 

While my part was small, helping to ensure that we hit deadlines, met the client's expectations, and remained on strategy, it still leaves me with an immense feeling of pride and appreciation for those who contributed and I think I speak for my boss, David, and myself when I thank all of them for their roles, especially the creative team, Brad, Nicole, and David for architecting, writing, and designing the site, and the development team, Tunde, Paul, and Erik, for taking words, pictures, and processes and making them work.    Many other people touched this project and I would be remiss to not thank Andy, Jill, Steve, Andrea, Josh, Sheetal, Katie, Kristen, and Andy as well. 

Finally, I want to thank some other people who dealt with me flipping out occasionally when things weren't going perfect, Christian, Julie, and Lisa & Kacey (For whom my efforts are for). 

It is definitely not a site for everyone, but we hope delivers for those seeking out what it offers. In a future post I will have to elaborate on what I do. 

http://todaysmilitary.com

Why I Hate the Latest UPS Campaign

Warning: The following is a subjective rant on advertising. 

The latest UPS whiteboard ads continue with Andy Azula in front of a stark, clean dry-erase board.  However, this time he stands and directs a "magic" board that animates and can be manipulated like it has buttons.  Can I do that in the conference rooms at my office? Can you?

The beauty of the original campaign was in the simplicity of the message.  Throughout our childhood and in many of our professional lives, we have been educated by people writing on chalkboards, drawing diagrams, writing lists, and clarifying concepts for individuals. 

Mr. Azula was able to simply describe the shipping process to the American population with a brown marker and an eraser.  He showed movement, change, and the UPS brand without any fancy devices.  Slate even described it as mesmerizing.

From what I've seen of the last two ads and the affiliated website, I wonder what has changed in the campaign.  Have they run out of ideas?   Using whiteboard-esque visuals does not make this same campaign and sometimes evolution is a bad thing. Certainly in this situation. 

Qualities We Should All Have...

I am participating in the Institute for Advanced Advertising Studies (IAAS), a sixteen week program that educates young professionals in all the aspects of advertising from strategy to creative that is run by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA). 

During this week's lecture on Brand Planning, which is considerable more than I am going to address, the speaker put up a slide which held his characteristics for a brand planner:

1. Voracious for information
2. Always learning
3. Adapts well
4. Collaborative
5. Engaged with material
   
6. Generous with ideas
7. Humble
8. Intuitive

While he didn't out right say this was only applicable for brand planners, it made me think about what I would want in an account manager, producer, art director, developer, information architect, copywriter, maintenance worker, waiter, journalist, garbage man, administrative assistant, video editor, rocket scientist, librarian, etc.  Here's my list:

1. Voracious for information
2. Always learning
3. Adapts well
4. Collaborative
5. Engaged with material
   
6. Generous with ideas
7. Humble
8. Intuitive

You'll notice the similarities between the two. 

What do you think?

A Better User Experience Analogy: An Iceberg

I'm not oblivious to the intricacies of good, logical, and effective website design, but as someone who works on the client side of the business, I miss out on a lot of the real work (not for lack of effort, as anyone on my team will attest) that goes into a website.  More important than how it looks is how it works for the user. 

A good website offers an experience not only derived from where the necessary buttons, fields, and images are on a page, how they look (Do you understand when you need to click them), but also what they and the rest of the page say, and where they go.  And once you get to that next page, where does the next page come in? 

Recently, I read and reviewed The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett but I wasn't as succinct as Trevor van Gorp of affective design in translating the value of the book to those less familiar with web design. I saw the book as a good outline of the process from strategy to final visuals filled with good analogies along the way, but I primarily built on my previous experience at each of the planes and strengthened my understanding. 

Trevor's iceberg analogy better expresses the true nuances of a website, especially when time is short and design knowledge is lacking (A complaint I hear of clients up and down the hallways of work).  The visual look and feel of the website is only the superficial that lures a user in.  It is the strategy which drove the project and the skeleton, logic, and underlying code that makes for a healthy website which makes users want to come back.

The real value of this analogy is not for those close to the work, but those who are clients and work with the clients, allowing everyone to be on the same page, realizing that all those approval steps that came along the way weren't for the sake of protocols but the creative process.  But it doesn't hurt for those close to the work to get it too!

I've embedded his presentation because there is nothing like a good visual analogy to make a point.

   

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Asics New Advertising Campaign

This week Asics, the number three manufacturer in performance running shoes, unveiled its latest campaign.  By returning to its roots of "Anima Sana In Corpore Sano," the company hopes to reach out to the casual running community as the performance running community is dwindling in size. 

First, I had no idea that running was suffering, but apparently I am too far out there to realize it.  Second, the question of who their real target audience is raised by this campaign.  Their lifestyle message hopes to inspire individuals to not only see running as an activity, but a way of life.  The execution, however, leaves something to be desired as it appears soft and noiseless. 

In my college days, I would have had them hanging on my walls (Baptism is my favorite), but now I don't have the space or decor for them.  As an avid, obsessive, and occasional performance runner the messaging appeals to me.  What defines a casual runner? 

I'm trying to not be biased, which is a challenge, but do they understand a hard run in the rain as a renewing experience or do they stay inside?  My hope is that this campaign changes that, but it certainly has a lot of work to do and a quiet voice to do it with.  I'm not alone in my opinion, as Adrants states, "...they feel like a Nike campaign on Zoloft."

In fact, I think that one of the other images I caught at The Guy Behind The Guy, are louder and better at targeting casual sneaker wearers.   Although, I'm not certain that they're real.  But, we'll have to see how the sales come through in the end.

 

Brands are Built on User Experiences

Relationships can be built out of convenience, love, or hate. 

Ideally, a relationship comes from a level of mutual love.  More often, it comes from convenience, which can be anything from proximity, necessity, familiarity, to a dislike or hatred for the alternative.  As the Arabian proverb says, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  We all have relationships that fall into one of these three buckets. 

A consumer's interaction with a brand is analogous to a relationship.  A good brand is convenient.  A great brand is loved. Likewise, a bad brand is hated.  Unlike personal relationships where love can be hard work, great brands are also convenient.   The type of relationship a consumer shares with a brand is subjective, but the principle remains universal. 

Brands use a variety of tactics to make "friends" with consumers.  They craft mission or positioning statements about what their message is, how they will deliver it, and the principles surrounding their organization.  Advertisements are created to promote their messages and products.  Websites are constructed to act as digital storefronts or company libraries open to the public.

Marketing increases a brand's visibility and means more friends in the short term.  A good experience with a brand increases the perceived value and means more friends in the long term.   Actions speak louder than words (and increase the bottomline).

Numerous other variables weigh on a consumer's decision to purchase including cost, quality, loyalty, and external recommendations.  For a staple item like diapers, one week we'll buy Pampers and the next time, we'll buy Huggies.  Because our experience with both brands have been about the same from a performance standpoint, cost is the decision point.  They are both good brands. 

For a durable good like running shoes, I loyally purchase New Balance because they last, have a simple numbered model system which allows for easier determination of which shoe is an update (of a shoe that worked for me), are reasonably priced, and are made locally.  NB is a great brand (for me).

In both of my personable example, I did not mention any marketing campaign as a deciding variable, because they it didn't factor into my choice.  All brands mentioned have multi-million dollar advertising running.  If I bought shoes based only on advertising, I might buy Nike.  If I bought diapers by the character on the front, Pampers (with Sesame Street). 

Meanwhile, the internet has changed the way we research brands.  We check out their own sites, look at all they have to offer, but we also check third-party vendors, like Amazon, and read hundreds of reviews from consumers just like us.  Some were scorned and others found that the brand fit them like a glove.  We no longer rely on our own opinion or the facts, but on the assessment of others which we can determine value from.  Even further, a brand's website, which may have nothing remotely to do with its actual product better make it easy for you to find the information that you (and thousands of others) are looking for, be it a customer service number or better yet, a way to email customer service.  And someone had better reply!

As we will see in 2008, the online world will have further implications in the real world and marketers need to begin thinking beyond the :30 spot to what happens next.  They need to do it without botching anything else up either, cause the last thing any of us wants is a drunk friend who comes into the party yelling all about himself and ruins it.

Blurring Lines: Microcelebrity & its Paparazzi

Clive Thompson's piece in the latest issue of Wired magazine addressed the issue of microcelebrity and the reality of how it is changing society.  The lines between real life and second (online) life are becoming blurred as our digital persona is gradually having more impact outside of the interwebs.

A microcelebrity, as defined by Thompson, "is the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions but to a small group - a thousand people, or maybe a few dozen." 

The internet is not creating these individuals, be it Peter Hirshberg, David Winer, or even yours truly. But with every blog post, video or photo upload, we are allowing web users throughout the world, be they known to us or not, to get a better picture of our lives.   Therefore, all our actions require us to manage our identity more stringently than before as paparazzi start rummaging through the garbage and skulking in nearby bushes (well not really). 

And like real celebrities, even the most mundane or arbitrary acts take on greater importance, as the article's Hirshberg photo calculation exhibits.  Facebook's Beacon has raised the most concerns from famed microcelebrities and average joes alike as their every online act becomes telegraphed.  As someone who is not on Facebook, I turn to the well-known blogger Charlene Li of Forrester, wrote about her own personal experience with Overstock.com.

Other social media pundits, much smarter than I, state that Beacon is paving the way for what will become microadvertising, where identity (claimed interests, hobbies, and actions) replaces demographics as the way that ads are served up.  And I tend to agree that as the Internet, which like direct marketing, can be measured, analyzed, and quantified, is gaining ground as the lead channel of communication.  Messaging will no longer need to rely on whether or not 18-34 year old males might be watching, they are watching AND they're watching right now!

But, my argument to this point is that, microadvertising is very similar to word-of-mouth marketing, which conveys an individual's advocacy or disdain, not just general acceptance.  What if Charlene hates here coffee table? is her profile going to say that she returned it to overstock?  And what weight do her purchases carry on my decisions or interests.  I don't need any furniture right now.  Several comments to the Internet Evolution post voice this same point. 

The main argument against Beacon has been about privacy issues.  Most sites which have implemented the code don't announce that this will be posted on facebook.  Users have been caught unaware of what their network has been told.  And Public Relations experts are also concerned as to how much involvement marketers should have in the conversation that is social networking.   There is a place, but is it as ads served up by our friends.  Sometimes, this is best put in the succinct art of Hugh Macleod.   

I remain optimistic as I do hope to gain some microcelebrity from freescribbles.  I wouldn't write if I didn't want someone to read what I have to say. But I don't need you to know that I bought a circular saw at homedepot.com until I've cut something with it and promote it myself.  Advocacy over purchase. 

UPDATE: As I wrote this, Facebook apparently caved to the privacy criticism and will update Beacon to have a clearer opt-in option to allow users to understand and participate freely.   Small steps to make the system more friendly to the users while allowing marketers to still play.

The Evolution of Creativity

Going through the reader this morning, I was enraptured by a guest post from David Armano on the Influential Marketing Blog.  David is a talented blogger in his own right at Logic+Emotion, but his post regarding the evolution of creativity inspired me. 

I don't like to be confined to one discipline in anything.  I'm aware that I don't know everything and must leverage those experts I work with to complete projects, but the notion of being more of an active participant in the design, interface, and development of a campaign is enticing.  Through observation I have learned much of each discipline and at points I may think that if I just did it all myself it would get done a lot quicker.  I say quicker and not better because as the notion of collaboration and networking hierarchies gains ground, leveraging the intellectual capital of others provides a stronger and better marketing campaign.

In the traditional construct, my job role is that of client relationship, deliverable managements and marketing strategy.  But, that's not how I want to think, nor should, and neither should the team I work with.  This sort of new thinking becomes an internal wiring of the brain, which is analogous to the working team mechanism necessary in the coming years: collaborative innovation and participation, where job title does not define the team role.

By stimulating each of these lobes, we not only improve ourselves, but the products that we produce.  The above image's final sentence states, "The result is a holistic approach to creativity that is effective across multiple touchpoints and experiences."  Thus, it serves the wider community and leads to further individuals to work with, learn from, and hopefully teach. 

Creativity will take a while in this new model, but it will gradually move at a more rapid pace as each individual's brain becomes more intuitively collaborative and each team begins to adopt the ability to step into another's shoe and resolve the conflicts between an Information Architect's logic and an Art Director's quest for beautiful aesthetic.