tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72889508505643958952024-03-12T17:53:37.995-05:00Ad MajoremMarketing. Advertising. Leadership. Growth. Improvement.Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.comBlogger219125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-75231759172168015742023-03-04T17:12:00.000-06:002023-03-04T17:12:50.785-06:00Book Review: Nothing Gets Sold Until The Story Gets Told<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nothing Gets Sold Until The Story Gets Told: Corporate Storytelling for Career Success and Value-Driven Marketing</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>by Steve Multer </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Message Master Media, 234 pages</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTYVc3fO1Q8qj28W3AjsO0mh_TmjwaOlnMff8k4MyvvZ98RYcm_ehaCgY-U7BVTNBETw1i1qLcsekSelboPk5Q5p9AxX5HSzI85f-WV9PmHbtTIzHmQHGiIBFtYc3aGA1on_LdA3-FjVmSKBsqjZdnQC4pDQZbQ_fIa_SjEoVgQtC5GV2SAW4CaZ7Wg/s225/Nothing%20Gets%20Sold%20Until%20The%20Story%20Gets%20Told.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTYVc3fO1Q8qj28W3AjsO0mh_TmjwaOlnMff8k4MyvvZ98RYcm_ehaCgY-U7BVTNBETw1i1qLcsekSelboPk5Q5p9AxX5HSzI85f-WV9PmHbtTIzHmQHGiIBFtYc3aGA1on_LdA3-FjVmSKBsqjZdnQC4pDQZbQ_fIa_SjEoVgQtC5GV2SAW4CaZ7Wg/s16000/Nothing%20Gets%20Sold%20Until%20The%20Story%20Gets%20Told.jpeg" title="Wisdom for marketers" /></a></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If you’re in the marketing business, you know the difference between selling and telling.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But what if that difference isn’t what you thought?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You might think <i>selling</i> is what you want to do, and it requires a convincing pitch, versus <i>telling</i>, dismissed as just reciting facts and figures. “Show up and throw up.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A new book turns that old wisdom around.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Selling <i>is</i> what you want to accomplish, but this new book says that telling – telling a story – is what closes the sale. In <b>Nothing Get Sold Until the Story Gets Told</b>, Steve Multer explains the role of storytelling in creating an effective message. It comes naturally for him because he tells stories for a living as a corporate presenter, spokesman, and public speaking trainer.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That’s right, a corporate presenter. It’s a perspective marketing and advertising people may not have considered, but Multer has a keen eye for all forms of marketing communication. Early in the book he describes an early form of content marketing -- from the 19th Century no less.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The Too Much Information Age</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Much of the foundational thinking in the early chapters will ring true to marketers. The book describes in layman’s terms how our brains receive messages, categorizing them as no-value, low-value, medium-value, and high value. Very few messages make it to the high-value category, the ones that speak to us on a personal level first. Chapter 4 is a perspective in knowing your audience, which is the first rule of advertising. Chapters 5 and 6 are about clarifying your message. Successive chapters are about how to create and deliver the message.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is not a trite book about public speaking, either. Multer debunks hackneyed advice like “open with a joke,” “tell a funny story,” or “shock your audience to gain their interest.” Those are tropes that don’t give your audience anything meaningful. (If we're honest, Super Bowl advertising has become a showcase for similar tropes that don’t give the audience anything meaningful.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Passion is a word that comes up in the book frequently. That may not always be appropriate in an advertisement, but it is always appropriate in preparing an advertisement. You know how when you see a great ad, you know that the work has been loved by the people who made it? That’s passion showing through.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">By the time you get to the chapter “From Corporate Speak to Human Conversation” you’ll see that this book really does apply to marketing and advertising, not just presentations. That said, we’re all presenters at some point in our work weeks. You’ll find a lot of solid advice for effective storytelling, including even how to make power point (and Zoom) work for you, not against you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Coming back around to the title, we might agree that the best advertisements have always been the ones that tell stories. An ad that tells a story is always going to be more memorable. My <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/two-rules-of-effective-advertising.html" target="_blank">two rules of effective advertising</a>: (1) Impossible to describe the ad without mentioning the product. (2) Impossible to forget what brand created it. Stories make that possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Between each chapter is a short essay by someone who tells stories: an art historian, a musician, a documentarian, a playwright, a rabbi, an actor, others, and me. Yes, full disclosure, I contributed a page to this book, which naturally told a story about presenting an ad campaign to a client. Read my story <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2021/03/my-advertising-strategy-killed-dr-seuss.html" target="_blank">here</a> but look for Steve Multer’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Gets-Sold-Until-Story/dp/B0BL6HBNT1" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></p></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-89930152815517413722022-03-05T21:25:00.003-06:002022-03-06T14:45:58.000-06:00Book Review: The Sea We Swim In by Frank Rose<h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><b style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The Sea We Swim In: How Stories Work in a Data-Driven World<br /></span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">By Frank Rose<br /></span></b></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">W.W. Norton & Co., 256 pages</span></b></span></span></h3><span id="docs-internal-guid-efd9b4ae-7fff-b457-0045-fe4d10bf15f5"><div><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></div><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re drowning in stories.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the 2010s publishing became democratized – anyone could publish a website, a blog or microblog, which is what we used to call social media. Everyone could tell a story. Very few people tell stories of quality, but now anyone can try.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s Frank Rose’s world. He’s a certified member of the media industrial complex, the creative class, the techno-elite, call it what you will, and he writes about this world in a recent book, <b>The Sea We Swim In</b>. The story – er, analysis – is at times convincing, scary, informative, partisan and above all insightful. If you work in media or marketing, read it.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjv8zlEq9-C3sVdfacn0UUW8aVrbaHg9FTHSqxUfzwfdmVOkUCYpH7vTK8WHKCNhHrvsabvJX_YNA9rkhCTTV3dyWKlfsXTZWEsaUo3ugWjqMn-MWAT1R-zbCOpbuMnt1R6P8_LY_81MxPlU4TQibu1SGYnXNLRILh9FCeBuLDxjQBEVIh7FOWPIgr6YA=s500" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjv8zlEq9-C3sVdfacn0UUW8aVrbaHg9FTHSqxUfzwfdmVOkUCYpH7vTK8WHKCNhHrvsabvJX_YNA9rkhCTTV3dyWKlfsXTZWEsaUo3ugWjqMn-MWAT1R-zbCOpbuMnt1R6P8_LY_81MxPlU4TQibu1SGYnXNLRILh9FCeBuLDxjQBEVIh7FOWPIgr6YA=w211-h320" width="211" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rose uses the words "story" and "narrative" interchangeably, which is a sign of the times because all politics today seems to be a contest of narratives instead of the dialogue it should be. If you lean left, you will enjoy Rose’s passages of progressive narrative. If you lean right, your patience will be tested.</span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interestingly, that’s a foundational point Rose makes early in the book: that our perceptions of stories are shaped by the degree to which we identify with them. Rose quotes Princeton neuroscientist Uri Hasson, who says that by the simple act of telling a story “I’m making your brain similar to mine.” Ah, the goal of every advertiser, reached not by stating a benefit, repeating a USP, or showing a dog or baby, but by telling a powerful story. Later he quotes cognitive scientist Roger Schank, who explains that “human memory is story-based.”</span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></h3><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Nine Elements of Story</span></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></h3><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The main part of the book is nine chapters describing the elements of story: Author, Audience, Journey, Character, World, Detail, Voice, Platform, Immersion. Two insights about Audience are especially worth noting. The first is that society has flipped from an oversupply of attention and undersupply of information to the opposite. “Time is the only unit of scarcity on the Web,” says Tony Haile, founder of Chartbeat and CEO of Scroll. The second is about the nature of attention, that it means engagement. “If you treat your audience like so many eyeballs, that surface interaction is all you’ll get.” Take note, clickmongers.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The chapter on Platform includes a serviceable taxonomy of platforms, in case you’re in the club that senses this is an overused and hence vague term. It reminded me of the false strategy of early Integrated Marketing Communications, that we should somehow “surround the consumer” (who didn’t want to be surrounded anyway). In Rose’s view we might find a more successful strategy to “invite the consumer” by telling stories in some combination of platforms now available.</span></span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></h3><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Pros and Cons of Immersion and Engagement</span></span></h3><div><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div></span><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Immersion” is the last element of story, but it’s also a theme running throughout the book, and a note of caution. Earlier in the book he explains how Christopher Nolan’s <i>Inception</i> was completely understood by gamers, who are accustomed to organizing different worlds and levels, just as the movie’s story was told. This isn’t eyeballs, it’s engagement taken to another level. What happens, however, when the audience is telling the story? The creative director and proprietor of a London VR arcade told Rose, “I realized I wasn’t the storyteller, </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were,” referring to his audience.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Technology is developing faster than our ability to see its social impact. If you use any social media you already know that. Consider something more insidious, though. Rose describes a meeting at the Entertainment Technology Center, a think tank funded by the major Hollywood studios. The leader of its Immersive Media Initiative tells Rose, “The ultimate goal is effectively to have multi-sensory input that you can’t tell what is real and what is virtual.”</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Uh-oh. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To his credit, Rose, seemingly deadpan in tone, then writes, “I was starting to wonder about this whole immersion thing.” He increases the worry level when he segues to a story about an ETC scientist who struggled personally with what is real, having disgraced himself as an on-air ABC News consultant with a completely fake résumé, later resurfacing with a different name as an AI industry executive. “I realized the entertainment industry was a great opportunity for AI,” he states, with apparently little self-awareness.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Read this book, because it’s an essential view into what we’re developing – and perhaps what we’re becoming. Meanwhile, remember that the best marketing is stories. Preferably truthful ones in which we can indeed “tell what is real.”</span></span></p></span>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-350998649385859362021-03-23T19:13:00.000-05:002021-03-23T19:13:15.427-05:00Book Review: Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr<p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon<br /></b><b>By Colin Bryar and Bill Carr<br /></b><b>St. Martin's Press, 304 pages</b></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />"You, too, can build a business behemoth - <i>just like Jeff Bezos</i> - by following the proven method of Working Backwards!"</span><p></p><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Colin Bryar and Bill Carr don't come right out and make that promise, but their book <b>Working Backwards</b> openly invites you to adopt Amazon's business methods. They both left Amazon years ago, but "can't imagine doing business without (these principles)." Given their success, you can understand their enthusiasm - and perhaps your own curiosity about what made Amazon so successful.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Working Backwards: Book Summary</span></h3><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first half of the book, "Being Amazonian," lists the elements of their corporate culture: leadership principles, hiring process, organizational design, prose narratives vs. PowerPoint, consumer focus, and managing inputs vs. outputs. The second half of the book tells stories of how these principles led to successful product launches: Kindle, Amazon Prime, Prime Video and AWS.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kZWhLvZDYr-HFX5_Y8Gu0_yQyjcCdwsFWmtWb8VCdF0WhUIBsAxzahsQvG8i4ale0aj_bfOkvidg68FoJz1gnftuB13XORN_jyG2rhVuwyV_A9nik174OStMwuV9Q1hDUWku45wf96wV/s2048/Working+Backwards.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1347" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kZWhLvZDYr-HFX5_Y8Gu0_yQyjcCdwsFWmtWb8VCdF0WhUIBsAxzahsQvG8i4ale0aj_bfOkvidg68FoJz1gnftuB13XORN_jyG2rhVuwyV_A9nik174OStMwuV9Q1hDUWku45wf96wV/w131-h200/Working+Backwards.jpeg" width="131" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite how neatly the book summarizes all of the lessons, there's a real-life messiness to the narrative because Amazon admits failures on the road to success, and the authors are honest about those journeys.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This review focuses on two elements of their corporate culture, communication in prose, and the consumer focus.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Communicating: Narratives and the Six-Pager</span></h3><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My whole reason for reading the book in the first place was a sense of vindication about the superiority of memo-writing, especially over PowerPoint.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You may have heard that Amazon banned PowerPoint in favor of six-page memos, or "narratives" that present the meeting material in one cogent, organized document. The authors describe how the company realized PowerPoint may enable a great presentation but it rarely catalyzed insightful discussion. In a memo to employees, Bezos said "a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related." PowerPoint, he added, "gives permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas." Hear, hear!</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How this works in practice: there is "an eerie silence at the beginning of Amazon meetings" while those assembled take 20 minutes to read the memo. (Don't you love the idea of not having to do the homework before showing up at the meeting?) The authors describe the company's reaction to the PowerPoint ban, and difficulty in changing to the six-page memo, but they stuck to it and now it's enshrined in this book as a principle. They even wrote, within the book, a six-page memo about how to write six-page memos.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Working Backwards: Start with the Desired Customer Experience</span></h3><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Every marketing thought leader, guru, Twitterati, and conference speaker has always spouted some version of the wisdom that innovation must start with the desired customer experience. In this book you can read about <i>how</i> to do it vs. just hearing yet another sermon about it. PR pros will delight at the idea that new product innovation at Amazon begins with the writing of a press release, a document they call PR/FAQ. This is akin to writing a new product concept for BASES forecasting, but the example they give on page 109 starts with an amazingly clear first paragraph that's better than most new product concepts I've seen in my career. Just like the six-page memo, this press release with FAQs focuses the team's thinking.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The rest of the chapter describes in Amazonian terms how they think through the market opportunity, source of volume, economics, P&L, external partners, and feasibility hurdles. You will nod your head at all of these steps, but the news here is how, having started with the customer experience in mind, they never lose sight of it amidst the numbers and analysis.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Something from an earlier chapter explains how Amazon organizes for innovation. You've probably heard of Amazon's "two-pizza rule," referring to the number of people who can be fed by two pizzas. Often described as a limit on the number of people in a meeting, it's actually the number of people allowed on a product development team. The authors explain that they tried this concept in other functional areas but it only proved necessary for speedier product development.<br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, I recommend this book</span></h3><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A friend once observed that most business books can be written as 14 PowerPoint slides, i.e., most business books are not as analytical and insightful as 300 pages would suggest. That's not the case here. After one of the most serviceable book introductions I've ever read, each chapter reads quickly and clearly. All that practice writing six-page memos instead of PowerPoint decks obviously helped.</span></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-58044479709746533662021-03-03T16:05:00.000-06:002021-03-03T16:05:31.878-06:00My advertising strategy killed Dr. Seuss<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As a newly-minted account executive at Leo Burnett, in a meeting with our clients at Keebler, my copy strategy presentation for Quangles multigrain chips was built around the well-known Dr. Seuss story, <i>Green Eggs and Ham</i>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_Zp2BBWIskevY3dFhXvm6DK0VGATx0tKDPg_A-pNZzOOakiz6n8ZFSFEUIuTwOak6V6wNY36bLdWN8yzXirY9NINT2t3zz0-61jPJgUSwLPd-joYG7_N2NtfyBeV1XpKzid7mnTvV_cG/s576/Green+Eggs+and+Ham.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="576" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_Zp2BBWIskevY3dFhXvm6DK0VGATx0tKDPg_A-pNZzOOakiz6n8ZFSFEUIuTwOak6V6wNY36bLdWN8yzXirY9NINT2t3zz0-61jPJgUSwLPd-joYG7_N2NtfyBeV1XpKzid7mnTvV_cG/w200-h145/Green+Eggs+and+Ham.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The killer visual</i></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This approach made sense at the time, because consumer research indicated that heavy snackers wouldn't love the idea of a multigrain chip. So we likened the challenge to Sam I Am convincing his target audience to eat Green Eggs and Ham.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than write umpteen Power Point slides, most of my presentation was a dramatic reading of two or three passages from the book, and a single presentation board featuring the story's climactic moment. We passed around copies of the brief when I was done.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My boss at the time, Jeff Hiller, encouraged this approach and had me rehearse it a few times to maximize the effect. And what an effect it had.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We sold the strategy.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then the next day, Dr. Seuss died.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later that week, the client jokingly asked me not to feature him in future presentations.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm not sure if my advertising strategy killed Dr. Seuss, or if he's rolling in his grave this week, but he left a lasting legacy. Regardless of how you feel about Dr. Seuss Enterprises pulling six of his books, remember that his many other works - including <i>Green Eggs and Ham</i> - still have incredible value.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-86217541500144953962021-02-10T11:28:00.000-06:002021-02-10T11:28:58.095-06:00Fiverr, the Super Bowl and the Gig Economy<div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Fiverr, the freelance platform where you can sell gigs for as little as $5, may have wasted a million times that amount on Super Bowl LV.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>The Super Bowl is an awareness-building showcase, so there’s no doubt Fiverr succeeded in getting their name out there by buying a 60-second ad.<br /><br />But name recognition doesn’t go very far unless people also know what your product or service actually <i>does</i>, and on that score Fiverr’s ROI may have been weak.<br /><br />Here’s why I think that – and why I care.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Four Seasons Total Landscaping… and Press Venue</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>The recipe for <a href="https://youtu.be/XelsNvpibpQ" target="_blank">Fiverr’s Super Bowl ad</a> started with a good list of ingredients. Small- or medium-sized business owner: the on-camera narrator was Marie Siravo of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Entrepreneurial mindset: Siravo says “success is often right place, right time.” Real people, non-copywriter language: “When opportunity knocks at your corrugated garage door, you roll that puppy up.” And it’s a Super Bowl ad, so cultural currency doesn’t hurt: Siravo’s business was the improbable site of a Rudy Giuliani press conference to contest Donald Trump’s loss in the presidential election.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8CSxC7G6Pxo_d4E5s8DJ_wZQJRWk3OBH81SWHbXYvrOHWcVaxJQ9nvsAYQcd0xQzz7wktveRYSCqg3n1Ho5N5c0wWIPQQdG0dZ0EXKXln5ZQtCUDOprAFYI3WFvBjK11baqTEC_pJuENb/s640/fiverr-four-seasons-sb55-2021-640x360.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8CSxC7G6Pxo_d4E5s8DJ_wZQJRWk3OBH81SWHbXYvrOHWcVaxJQ9nvsAYQcd0xQzz7wktveRYSCqg3n1Ho5N5c0wWIPQQdG0dZ0EXKXln5ZQtCUDOprAFYI3WFvBjK11baqTEC_pJuENb/w200-h113/fiverr-four-seasons-sb55-2021-640x360.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A message to you, Rudy</i></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">All of the above gets across in the first 17 seconds. After that, it’s hard to follow. Siravo tours her facility, which has turned into a futuristic greenhouse staffed by workers at computer screens doing… what? She mentions graphic design and web development, but it’s not clear that’s what these people are doing. And if it </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">were</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> clear, has Four Seasons turned into a plant-based WeWork office space? Suddenly, an employee exclaims, apropos of nothing, “We found a fifth season!” </span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Then a businesswoman wanders in asking where the lobby is, to which Siravo answers, “This is not a hotel.” That’s an obvious reference to Giuliani’s press conference, which was originally announced as taking place at the Four Seasons Hotel and was instead held at Siravo’s similarly named landscaping business.<br /><br />In other words, the commercial clearly trolled Trump. But the tagline, “Freelance services on demand,” while a good summary of what Fiverr does, is not a good summary of what the commercial communicates. 1-1/2 stars out of 5.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caveat Venditor: My experiment on Fiverr</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>My interest in this commercial was sparked by a work experiment on Fiverr, which went public in 2019 and reported $107.1 million in revenue for that same year. They earn that revenue by taking a 20% commission on all transactions. These aren’t high-dollar transactions. According to Priceonomics, only 1% of Fiverr sellers make more than $2,000 per month, 96.3% make less than $500 per month, and the vast majority of those make less than $100 per month.<br /><br />Thus, my attention was drawn not by big money, but curiosity: How cheaply could one buy marketing services like social media, graphic design, copywriting or web development? The best way to get the answer was to use Fiverr myself.<br /><br />My first step was to follow my own advice to clients: make sure you know what you sell, to whom you’re selling, and against whom you’re competing for the sale. In my case, it was marketing plans for small- and medium-size businesses, startups and franchise businesses. My competition was easy to define: similar sellers on Fiverr. I did numerous searches for the same services and saw a wide variety of approaches by other sellers, which I used to refine my own thinking and create a gig.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqP4ih8unSC1Z1a5Y8_aULOKzfgFB5bnj3P5dMdbK6ctKlGsqg-TrlIWrL94tpP-10oT3lSqBlc1MbhRhr_D1oOpljvQL38_QYT1JSTyHxupe_pUjMkOcqNfDVNGaKOBRjKt8-v0Er7s-W/s725/My+gig.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="725" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqP4ih8unSC1Z1a5Y8_aULOKzfgFB5bnj3P5dMdbK6ctKlGsqg-TrlIWrL94tpP-10oT3lSqBlc1MbhRhr_D1oOpljvQL38_QYT1JSTyHxupe_pUjMkOcqNfDVNGaKOBRjKt8-v0Er7s-W/w200-h198/My+gig.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My gig on Fiverr</i></td></tr></tbody></table>In the process I realized that while my career has been built on longer-term, mutual-benefit relationships, Fiverr is much more transactional. So one line in my gig description was “years of experience, delivered in days.” From there, Fiverr guides you on creating basic, standard and premium levels of your gig, plus producing a short video to introduce yourself (and attract more clicks from prospective buyers). No, I did not price my services at $5. Let’s just say all my prices were in the three figures. (I could always say “no,” right?)<br /><br />An entrepreneur contacted me wanting to franchise his house-cleaning business. He’d been operating for a few years with some success and was looking for advice. We found each other because my profile emphasized franchising, and I’m a Certified Franchise Executive with the International Franchise Association. I liked him immediately: classic entrepreneurial personality, very focused and driven, knew what he wanted. Best of all, he was a very experienced buyer on Fiverr, and was generous in coaching me on how to make the most of the platform. It was a fun project and he gave me a 5-star rating.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caveat Emptor: Viva the Gig Economy</span></h3></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;">Fiverr, and other platforms like it, can be effective agents of the gig economy. They act as lead generators for sellers and problem-solvers for buyers.</div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A buyer, however, needs to understand that most sellers, making less than $100 per month, are mainly working a side hustle vs. full-time employment. As such, the initial assignment should have a narrow, well-defined scope, so neither side risks a lot. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take care before hiring – make sure it’s the right fit. And, like Marie Siravo, you may be on a tight budget anyway. As a B2B software CMO told me last week, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Upwork (a Fiverr competitor) helps me scale on a startup budget.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;">That brings me back to the disappointing Super Bowl commercial. Fiverr was right to focus on a small business like Four Seasons Total Landscaping. But they completely missed the opportunity to portray freelancers as the ones generating the entrepreneurial vibe. Maybe they were too focused on trolling Trump, or too corporate in their perspective, or too enamored with the creative execution itself. All of the employees working in the facility seemed to be just that, employees, not freelancers.</div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; margin: 0in; text-align: left;">Perhaps next time, Fiverr will consider asking its own freelancers to pitch ideas.</div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-67925665502397634412021-01-24T19:10:00.000-06:002021-01-24T19:10:39.268-06:00How Short Should Ads Be?<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ads keep getting shorter, but not subliminal.<br /></span><br />Way back in TV advertising history, there were 60-second ads. Some people still remember those; there was even <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/rip-tv-commercials/615586/" target="_blank">an article in <i>The Atlantic</i> looking back on them, wistfully</a>.<br /><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ads used to be longer</span></h3></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like most GenXers, I grew up with :30s and :15s on TV. Conventional wisdom, after I joined the industry but before bandwidth permitted online video, was to run :30s until awareness reached some level when :15s could take over as reminders or reinforcement.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZN_nLYupWjQHGViqbawHzzR8gR5LSyCDJNOmu20Znoiau1VBVmIKDJgL0WX3S2wdr4EO442uWPgAxuYeXHy3oAW5244P4yR8AIhyphenhyphenKIT8mZJvEjEadl9CnyQExL4C1ZDPXRqG-WPli1_e/s400/Miller+HL+1-second.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="400" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZN_nLYupWjQHGViqbawHzzR8gR5LSyCDJNOmu20Znoiau1VBVmIKDJgL0WX3S2wdr4EO442uWPgAxuYeXHy3oAW5244P4yR8AIhyphenhyphenKIT8mZJvEjEadl9CnyQExL4C1ZDPXRqG-WPli1_e/w200-h133/Miller+HL+1-second.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Miller High Life ran 1-second ads in<br />the 2009 Super Bowl, featuring<br />the late, great Windell Middlebrooks</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit;">During my international career, I became familiar with :20s and even :10s. In Argentina, where I lived and worked for three years, ads could be any length client and agency wanted, because media time was bought and sold on a second-by-second basis. So, we made :17s, :36s, :52s, etc.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe that Argentine flexibility is going global. 30-second units are still common on linear TV, but audiences can be reached on other platforms that allow for all sorts of possibilities. Bandwidth has improved and the shift to mobile devices and mobile-friendly formats, like YouTube and TikTok, permits shorter ads and new rules for what makes effective communication. The six-second format is common.<br /><br />But does the six-second format <i>work</i>?<br /><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shorter ads <i>can</i> work, but...</span></h3></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Magna Global, the IPG media research hub, has studied ad lengths across different video platforms. Their 2015 study found that even 5-second ads could build awareness, but it took :15s or :30s to drive brand favorability and purchase intent.<br /><br />A lot changed in <a href="https://magnaglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Magna-IPGLab-Snapchat-Does-Every-Second-Count-1.pdf" target="_blank">Magna's more recent study, just published in the last few weeks</a>. This time, they found :06s and :15s to be similar in their ability to drive search intent, brand preference, and purchase intent. Why would that be?<br /><br />One reason may be the platforms on which they ran the test: Snapchat, a video aggregator (i.e., YouTube) and a Full Episode Player (FEP, perhaps a streaming app like Hulu). Audiences are already accustomed to short ad lengths in these environments, and there were no :30s tested for comparison.<br /><br />The Snapchat part of the test was interesting because more people watched :15s all the way through, but they were all placed mid-roll, about ten seconds into the content, so perhaps viewers were really staying for the content, which might explain the other finding that these ads were slightly less convincing.<br /><br />YouTube was different. Viewers didn’t like the :15s, which were skippable after six seconds, but keep in mind that all of these were pre-roll ads, meaning that they were a barrier to the selected content. On the FEPs, :15s were better-received, but may also have been more expected during a 20-minute TV program.<br /><br />None of these findings should surprise us, especially when you consider:</span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Linear TV wasn’t part of the test and neither were 30-second ads. It would be instructive to have these points of comparison.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">The three viewing platforms in the test give individualized watching experiences, which may improve the ability of short copy to get across its messages, and also lead to less patience for longer ads.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">We don’t know the quality of the ad creative shown. There were four brands included (Clinique, Mini, Lego and a “major CPG brand”) but we can only assume their ads were adequately memorable and persuasive.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On that last point, not only do we not know the quality of the ad creative, we don't know if it took full advantage of the format. Traditionally, :15s were (mostly) just shorter versions of :30s, both seen on linear TV. Newer formats, like a six-second pre-roll on YouTube, are seen by an individual person watching a very small screen. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">That calls for a different creative approach, and opens creative avenues instead of closing them.</span></div></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's always nice to have more time to get your message across, and :30s will continue to run on TV. But newer formats may prove to be a useful piece of your overall plan.</span><br /></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-15027153416248105922021-01-15T13:45:00.006-06:002021-01-24T19:25:31.952-06:00Artificial Intelligence vs. Genuine Creativity<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Will Artificial Intelligence replace Creativity?<br /><br />No, but it might help it, in a roundabout way.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What is AI? What can it do?</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Nearly all AI work today is based on successes in <b>machine learning</b>. Think of machine learning as having enough data and enough processing power to think through analyses that would take humans too long to do. Imagine a mountainous, time-consuming task that needed to be done, however slowly.<br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br />Here’s one example. For half a century, scientists have been mapping the three-dimensional shapes of proteins that are responsible for diseases like cancer and Covid-19. They refer to this mapping as “unfolding,” and doing it for just one protein takes a long time and a lot of money. Up to now they’ve “unfolded” only a fraction of the 200 million known proteins. The work done so far was recently fed to an AI program called “AlphaFold” which used it to do decades of work all at once. The results have been <a href="https://predictioncenter.org/casp14/doc/CASP14_Abstracts.pdf" target="_blank">published online</a> for review by the scientific community.<br /><br />Did AI cure any diseases? No, but it advanced the work of scientists trying to do so.<br /><br />Can AI advance the work of creativity?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How to approach AI</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Some AI experts will tell you to approach AI with three questions in mind:</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">1) Is the task genuinely data driven?<br />2) Do you have the data needed?<br />3) Do you need the scale that automation provides?</span></h4><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="background-color: white; font-size: large; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">On that last question: If you have a decision that needs to be made more than once per minute, then yes, you need the scale; if you have a decision that needs to be made only once per year, then probably not.<br /><br />Does creativity answer “yes” to all three questions? What kind of creativity are we talking about? A painting, a sculpture, a novel? An advertisement? Let’s focus on advertising for the moment.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Advertising, Big Data and AI</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">We can’t say the task of creating ads is “genuinely data driven.” Sure, advertising ideas for a particular client or project may entail data or feature a data point, but even that isn’t a matter of computation. Nor is the task so routine that we create ads at a rate of more than one-per-minute. (OK, it feels that way sometimes.) Variations on an ad, however, might drive that kind of scale. Personalization of ads, for example, might be accomplished with AI that considers not only the recipient’s name but their past purchase history and other data. That’s already happening in most online marketplaces, and don’t forget that direct mail is personalized. But these are all variations on an ad created by humans.</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: large;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO37nIksFPlia7ZZzdsRJwa-IHm06duGVk-0YH9jaxtDh22lf69WOAgrq0v2OOmc5T8k175CJ1fmKXYGDV0FpOPAPiz8LFx0iPQ8rdzAvGnR4imXybpIiHOasDfR2GUFf2Ps7BAdvYv2_/s320/Mapping+a+protein+copy.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="266" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO37nIksFPlia7ZZzdsRJwa-IHm06duGVk-0YH9jaxtDh22lf69WOAgrq0v2OOmc5T8k175CJ1fmKXYGDV0FpOPAPiz8LFx0iPQ8rdzAvGnR4imXybpIiHOasDfR2GUFf2Ps7BAdvYv2_/w166-h200/Mapping+a+protein+copy.JPG" width="166" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>It's a protein,<br />not a creative brief</b></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There have been attempts to create at least one kind of advertising with AI: movie trailers. The first experiment was back in 2016: someone wrote a program, based on consumer reactions to movie trailers, that could lift scenes from a movie and sequence them in 30 seconds that would effectively convince people to see the movie. <a href="https://youtu.be/gJEzuYynaiw" target="_blank">Judge the results for yourself</a> and see here <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/2/18055514/fox-google-ai-analyze-movie-trailer-predict-success-logan" target="_blank">a more recent experiment from 2018</a>. More recently, Netflix invested in technology to automate trailers for their content, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netflix-trailers-made-by-ai-netflix-is-investing-in-automation-to-make-trailers/" target="_blank">while adding personalization for its subscribers</a>, which makes sense for an individualized setting like your Netflix account.<br /><br />Setting aside the irony that movie trailers are already quite formulaic, we see that AI made an ad. But does anyone really think that the studio marketing head won’t ask the machine for revisions? What about the movie itself? Could AI create a full-length, cinematic feature?<br /> <br />This may depend on one’s world view.</span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Keep AI in perspective</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">AI can certainly enable a human being to see new possibilities. For example, large amounts of data may help us predict future changes in consumer behavior. Knowing these possibilities may lead to a new insight on how to position a product or service. There’s great value in AI when it comes to aiding our thinking process. It can give us insight that inspires creativity. But that creativity is human, not artificial.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">At an AI conference, a very intelligent professor of computer science said, “There’s no aspect of human cognition that can’t be modeled on a machine.” At the next break, I sought him out to learn more. He explained his world view that humanity – the human mind – is essentially physical, part of the physical world, and therefore can be modeled. Yes, he explained, machines will gain the ability to make cinematic features when AI develops enough to mimic every function of the brain. I asked, does it follow that humans are essentially machines? Incredibly, he said, “Yes, that’s a fair statement of how I see it.”<br /><br /><span style="line-height: 15.6933px;">I see it differently. Creativity takes judgment, and human judgment comes from each person’s uniqueness, and their interaction with other people’s uniquenesses, to create something with passion and imagination. Perhaps, like me, you believe that we are more than machines. We have a spirit, a soul if you will, that animates us and gives us the ability to create sculptures, novels, choreography, and advertising. No machine can ever replicate that.</span></span></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-52499535236859941052020-11-22T19:21:00.001-06:002021-01-15T15:32:43.748-06:00Book Review: If Then by Jill Lepore<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">By Jill Lepore</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Liveright Publishing, 432 pages</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The guys who invented predictive analytics never saw failure coming.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s
the upshot of Jill Lepore’s latest book, <b>If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation
Invented the Future</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ostensibly, it’s the story of Simulmatics, founded in 1959
on the idea that with enough data collected in one place, everything and
everyone would become predictable. The name is an attempted portmanteau combining
the words “simulation” and “automatic.” You’ve probably never heard of
Simulmatics because it folded in 1970, but during its short history it played a
role in electing John F. Kennedy, mismanaging the Vietnam War, seeking answers
to 1960s social upheaval, and speeding the presence of mainframe computers at
advertising agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If Then:
Book Summary</span></h4><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The founder
of Simulmatics was Ed Greenfield, a midcentury ad man, but not like Don Draper.
Lepore delightfully introduces him: “He was like a ten-million-volt Looney
Tunes electric magnet, a giant red-handled iron U that pulled everyone toward
him.” His personality, his ability to influence others, was what propelled him.
As evidence, the story includes a lot of bold-faced names, especially from
Democratic Party politics, which is what Greenfield cared about most.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed,
he built an impressive team. Lepore introduces the other main players early,
and efficiently. Harold Laswell, the influential communications theorist.
Eugene Burdick, novelist and self-styled adventurer. Alex Bernstein, mathematician
and computer programming pioneer. Ithiel de Sola Pool, a social scientist
specializing in technology. Bill McPhee, a FORTRAN programmer – and this is
such an emblematic aspect of the story – who wrote “the core intellectual
property” of Simulmatics while he was committed to Bellevue. Yes, a mental hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-B9QHt4ndEP2ZcOAKrDqThek6nDknPSeqnVCb2mMU88JZEXd9EeNNo9fjnjH09kBet-CAUW1EMI0BqbUf8qpPtnz77vLeVvryNXgmFaarFTXS4Q6MOaQjevxoiYpIYAgZZVgpK_mRdte/s350/If+Then.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="230" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-B9QHt4ndEP2ZcOAKrDqThek6nDknPSeqnVCb2mMU88JZEXd9EeNNo9fjnjH09kBet-CAUW1EMI0BqbUf8qpPtnz77vLeVvryNXgmFaarFTXS4Q6MOaQjevxoiYpIYAgZZVgpK_mRdte/w131-h200/If+Then.jpg" width="131" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Punchcards<br />on parade</i><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like any
startup, the group had big plans. They bragged they had invented “the A-bomb of
the social sciences.” They called it a “People Machine” that could predict the outcomes of
advertising campaigns and government policy initiatives. Sadly, they couldn’t
get out of their own way. They overplayed their true role in JFK’s winning
presidential campaign of 1960. They overpromised how they could help the New
York <i>Times</i> analyze the 1962 midterm elections in real time. They overestimated,
tragically, how Western-style social science techniques could understand
Vietnamese culture. They oversold their value to blue chip brands but opened
the door to a legion of market research providers still selling soap today.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One gap
in the story: What projects did they actually <i>finish</i>? The only projects fully
described were the political ones, and there was only fleeting mention of
having sold studies to various corporations, like Bristol Laboratories, Philip
Morris, P&G, and some others. Simulmatics was always starved for data, so most of the
projects had little effect. Still, it would have been interesting to read more
about those episodes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eventually
Simulmatics folded, although some of its work survived in projects undertaken
by individual team members, thus laying the groundwork for today’s data-driven
marketing. They accomplished just enough to push things forward, but not enough
to get pinned with credit or blame for what we have now. Oddly, Simulmatics’
most accurate predictions came not from data but from the very human insights
of Ithiel de Sola Pool. He envisioned with eerie accuracy the role of
technology in our lives today: the interconnectedness of the World Wide Web,
the ubiquity of social media, and the rise of “mobile computers,” today’s smartphones.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why
Simulmatics matters now</span></h4><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lepore’s
book is thoroughly researched and well-written. It’s a solid history, which is
why Simulmatics matters: because we learn from history. Here’s what I took away:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>No data.</b>
It shouldn’t have been surprising, but was nevertheless shocking, how
Simulmatics never seemed to have data that were complete or accurate. In an
almost poignant moment, Lepore writes, “Pool raised the question that
Simulmatics would never really answer: ‘What is the data we would need for this
model?’” Ad agencies, which had data, filled the gap, bringing in their own IBM
mainframes and offering the services to clients directly. Today we have plenty
of data, but we still have to answer the question: Which data do we need to
solve this problem?</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>No
humility.</b> The Vietnam phase of the book is a troubling read. Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara in 1962: “Every quantitative measurement we have shows we are
winning the war.” That might have been all too true; Lepore points out that
military progress was measured by “the number of insurgents killed,” with the
implication that indiscriminate killing ran up the numbers. Humility is a
function of introspection. Are we thinking things through? Are we seeing the
big picture? Are tracking the right metrics? These questions are relevant to the
work we do today.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>No
humanity.</b> Lepore points out that computers can simulate a flight because
physical laws like F=<i>ma</i> are constant. “But the computer simulation of human
behavior … is much more difficult. Behavior is not a law.” If, as some
Artificial Intelligence experts say, the brain is just a very sophisticated machine,
then eventually we will create a machine that can think like a human brain. But
there is a (so far) unquantified human element that no series of If-Then
scenarios in FORTRAN, C++ or Python could ever predict.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Simulmatics
failed where other succeeded. There’s still lots of room for modern failure,
which is why these lessons from the past are important.</span></p></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-11418729447222318472020-11-19T15:53:00.003-06:002021-01-24T19:27:22.033-06:00Two rules of effective advertising<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">What makes effective advertising?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">There are <a href="https://www.scientificadvertising.com/ScientificAdvertising.pdf" target="_blank">classic volumes</a> and numerous listicles that purport to answer this question. There are numerous research methods to <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/publication/1970-01/Ipsos_Connect_ASI_Connect_Flyer_2016.pdf" target="_blank">pre-test advertising</a> or measure it <a href="https://www.acemetrix.com/" target="_blank">in-market</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Data only help us make well-informed decisions; data can't write copy for us. Despite the advent of language-generating programs like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-3" target="_blank">GPT-3</a>, data won't drive creativity, although it can (and perhaps should) help us formulate strategies.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">How do I know if advertising is effective?</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These are </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">not</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> rules for how to write effective advertising. Every copywriter has rules and methods that work for them, as it should be. Very few will consult a 12-point article when sitting down to create an advertisement and a 2-rule blog post would be no less presumptuous. These are rules for the rest of us to keep in mind when writing a creative strategy or evaluating creative work.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Rule 1: Impossible to tell someone about it without mentioning the product.</span></h4><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">You know advertising is <i><b>memorable</b></i> when someone is willing and able to describe it. The retelling will only be as accurate and complete as the ad's story was compelling. But the retelling doesn't matter if the product isn't part of the story.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Two ads that make the product part of the story are <a href="https://youtu.be/UGS4HMqoNqM" target="_blank">Amazon's tale of two friends</a>, a priest and an imam, who order the same gift for one another, both using Amazon's mobile app, and <a href="https://adland.tv/adnews/metamucil-regulars-2004-030-usa" target="_blank">Metamucil's "The Regulars,"</a> in which three co-workers visit the restroom at the same time daily, due to the, uh, product benefit. (This latter example also shows you what a product demo can be, as well as offering a pack shot that goes with the story.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Rule 2: Impossible to forget what brand created it.</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">You know advertising is <i><b>persuasive</b></i> when the recipient remembers the brand as well as the product. Common ways to improve the odds of success are a brand name linked to the product benefit (Chapstick, although they've let people use the name generically), a brand associated over the long-term with a clear positioning or benefit (Nike, athletic performance) or campaign elements consistent enough over time that they're easily recognizable (IBM, still using the blue letterbox treatment for almost 20 years).</span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAvpmdgmTRh1mHpJBj_hKzYaenXmGH27vie4O1LJ_aWrd961Cu-j4zKSmakFmRhKEfmjUksrEiozYP61EFOKlQrmoFcwKyzHIaRRDbl7iVP0DZl4lTXDgplhcXcWpwpxOxrllHSoN4aGsC/s2048/Metamucil.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAvpmdgmTRh1mHpJBj_hKzYaenXmGH27vie4O1LJ_aWrd961Cu-j4zKSmakFmRhKEfmjUksrEiozYP61EFOKlQrmoFcwKyzHIaRRDbl7iVP0DZl4lTXDgplhcXcWpwpxOxrllHSoN4aGsC/w105-h105/Metamucil.jpeg" width="105" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><i>Rule #2.</i><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The two ads cited above follow this rule, too, mainly because the brand and product are so closely linked.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Be careful, however, because the degree of difficulty goes up if you're launching a new product that would take your brand into an adjacent category or even segment.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">DO try this at home</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Be a consumer. Try this as you encounter advertising during the day, even/especially banner ads, billboards, any form of ad. See if it's impossible for you to tell someone about the ad without mentioning the product, or impossible to forget what brand created it.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">If you try this experiment at work -- well, be careful. Look closely at messaging strategy and product portfolio. Almost every time, advertising that breaks these rules came from business strategy that failed to consider them in the first place.</span></div></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-65672118081840624302020-11-18T15:14:00.003-06:002021-01-15T15:36:42.583-06:00What is Ad Majorem?<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Thank you for
visiting my blog, Ad Majorem. </span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When it
started in the late 2000s, it was a view on modern marketing from within a large
advertising agency.</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now it’s a view on
modern marketing from the perspective of a CMO.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The title, Ad Majorem, is part of </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_maiorem_Dei_gloriam" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: #cc6600; line-height: 107%;">a familiar Latin phrase</span></a></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> and loosely
translates to English as “to the greater.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in, there is always an opportunity for
better marketing: stronger consumer insights, more powerful ideas,
channel-neutral marketing plans, and accountability so we know what sells and
what doesn’t.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">There’s also
always an opportunity for better marketing <i>people</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s important to me that team members keep
learning as they go, staying curious and maintaining a perspective of
continuous improvement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re happier
when we’re learning and growing, so that will continue to be a theme here.</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The “ad” in Ad Majorem means </span><em style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">all</span></em><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> marketing communications, from social media to direct
mail to Internet gaming to television commercials. To most consumer audiences
all of these are advertising. My </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveschildwachter" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: #cc6600; line-height: 107%;">professional experience</span></a></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj65wqwd4jw16InwexPwmPc0tAN0K44rwlXLKlsbH3TwgmB63iL6_1tS7dPGu3t6FlGFg-igwkxHcgv-bU9m_3MuZiAVovdD5MPZqlG2LtHzPmywR21Nhrj0cSPu49iSawet_JjThPPNFi8/s275/Reams+of+data.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj65wqwd4jw16InwexPwmPc0tAN0K44rwlXLKlsbH3TwgmB63iL6_1tS7dPGu3t6FlGFg-igwkxHcgv-bU9m_3MuZiAVovdD5MPZqlG2LtHzPmywR21Nhrj0cSPu49iSawet_JjThPPNFi8/w200-h133/Reams+of+data.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">in these
channels provides a perspective that is part specialist, part generalist.</span></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">A lot has changed since 2009, not all of it “to the greater.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re at a very inauspicious moment, with
uncertainty, threats, deepfakes and divisions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This blog has always avoided politics, and will continue to avoid
politics, because there are too many wannabe pundits in marketing and
advertising already.</span></span></span></span><div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">That said,
there’s always hope for the future, so the tone here will be hopeful as well as
honest.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t come here for dirt,
fear or loathing. The closest I’ll come to that is self-criticism of the
marketing business. Occasionally I’ll stray into a review of a campaign but
only in service of a larger point.<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Please comment. Otherwise this wouldn’t be an honest look at
an industry where communication with consumers should be two-way, not just
one-way.</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">One thing <i>hasn’t</i> changed since I started this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ad Majorem’s reason for being is to keep
myself honest on embracing the challenges and changes of modern marketing. My
hope is that you, too, will derive some professional growth from i</span>t.</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-14517853803953114462015-05-04T09:17:00.002-05:002015-05-04T09:17:36.642-05:00Chances Are You're Watching TV While Reading This Post<br />
"Ninety percent of consumers are multitasking while watching TV. On average, Millennials and Xers are doing three additional activities while watching TV, typically surfing the web, emailing, texting, or social networking." -- <a href="http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-DDS_Executive_Summary_Report_Final_2015-04-20.pdf" target="_blank">Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey</a>, fielded November 2014.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqsGnlsRZBuyY7VIAssLhfpjZXVeKhyphenhyphenr0MTDKuwusaBA2qU3ke7vGaZDXi7M7Zuej1mAp6TQPKUxUvS1Gq0Rg2AwBZc0gSQnyfJWcmKM3Ih4pBdcy3z7Z4i8s6kObO_VqazFQmIXDRt8aA/s1600/Screen+shot+2015-05-04+at+9.06.24+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqsGnlsRZBuyY7VIAssLhfpjZXVeKhyphenhyphenr0MTDKuwusaBA2qU3ke7vGaZDXi7M7Zuej1mAp6TQPKUxUvS1Gq0Rg2AwBZc0gSQnyfJWcmKM3Ih4pBdcy3z7Z4i8s6kObO_VqazFQmIXDRt8aA/s400/Screen+shot+2015-05-04+at+9.06.24+AM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-DDS_Executive_Summary_Report_Final_2015-04-20.pdf" target="_blank">Source: Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey</a><br />(Click to enlarge)</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-5948045477117297132015-04-29T14:01:00.002-05:002015-04-29T14:01:37.348-05:00Happy Twitterversary<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eight years ago today I tweeted for the first time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To celebrate, Twitter lost 24% of its market value yesterday.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Twitter hatches</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although I didn't remember exactly <i>what</i> I tweeted that first time back in 2007, nor the exact date, I very clearly remembered the circumstances. Twitter had suddenly taken SXSW by storm the month before. I was on a business trip to Europe, reading an article about it in <i>The Economist</i> and decided to give it a try.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Signing up back then was very different: You SMS'd to 40404 and by exchanging text messages you established a username and got started. Coincidentally, just the other day I discovered <a href="https://discover.twitter.com/first-tweet"><span class="s1">a site that will find your first tweet</span></a>. I entered <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveS1"><span class="s1">@SteveS1</span></a> and suddenly it all came back to me:</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96zKHhtS38hJ_FuLIeZnRHxEGZgK8H894G0wBn5_sGy7z1LN6yc4gf2YzYubOppfU6jSQlU4uiirTq4Vtgfxw3s-xr-FBzHYZ7RnWnmAUTq0kQqWPC6ykJCLZ2kX8-P7Dwq24eHx4ojc8/s1600/Screen+shot+2015-04-29+at+1.05.38+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96zKHhtS38hJ_FuLIeZnRHxEGZgK8H894G0wBn5_sGy7z1LN6yc4gf2YzYubOppfU6jSQlU4uiirTq4Vtgfxw3s-xr-FBzHYZ7RnWnmAUTq0kQqWPC6ykJCLZ2kX8-P7Dwq24eHx4ojc8/s1600/Screen+shot+2015-04-29+at+1.05.38+PM.png" height="207" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>(Yes, I misspelled "coffee". So sue me.)</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Twitter lays an egg of its own</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday afternoon <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/twtr"><span class="s1">Twitter's stock price</span></a> was a fairly typical $51.19, but then their (somewhat) disappointing 1st quarter results came out prematurely and a day later shares are trading at $38.98. That's about a 24% decline, not far from <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/07/technology/social/twitter-ipo-stock/"><span class="s1">where it was on Day 1</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is that bad? Not really, for two reasons.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First, this news puts Twitter in proper company with the rest of the tech world, subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Just because Twitter is famous doesn't mean its stock won't go up or down.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Second, they're still racking up some impressive ad revenue, "only" $435.9 million in 1st quarter, which was 74% above the same quarter a year earlier. Yes, it was a drop from the previous quarter, but their chief sin seems to have been missing financial analysts' expectations, which were more like $456.8 million.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The real question is whether this news represents a real weakness in ability to attract ad revenue. Or as Twitter CEO Dick Costolo put it, the company had a "demand problem". Here again, they're in proper company. Many emerging media platforms have this problem, because advertisers aren't sure how or whether a new medium fits in their overall mix.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I'm not an investor in Twitter, so I can watch this play out with merely professional curiosity — what about you? Any thoughts on the future of Twitter?</span></div>
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-66076165362958556752015-04-24T17:19:00.001-05:002015-04-25T13:47:54.442-05:00Display Ads: the New Subliminal Advertising<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the days of <i>Ye Olde Marketing</i> there was a belief in <b>"subliminal advertising"</b> -- the idea that TV commercials would be spliced with fleeting images, usually sexual, to overpower your psyche and make you buy something you didn't need.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_stimuli"><span class="s1">the science behind subliminal stimuli</span></a> is interesting, it's never really been used in advertising and we have <b>no</b> examples of it ever working. Most of the urban legend is based on a 1957 movie theater experiment <a href="http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp"><span class="s1">that never actually happened</span></a>. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Comedian Steven Wright sent this up with one of his 1980s one-liners: "<i>I saw a Subliminal Advertising executive….but only for a second.</i>"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Online Display is the New Subliminal Advertising</span></b></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This all came to mind when reading the Internet Advertising Bureau's <a href="http://www.iab.net/viewability"><span class="s1">latest viewability standards</span></a>: "Desktop display ads to be <b>considered viewable if 50% of their pixels are in view for a minimum of one second</b>."</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkPwfds_CD2Bw6Z7B_V6KE8J-9zvPS1D_G2xA2Ws8sWrjOzYgJdqDQpvaLxtGCfJeTWi_a5e-COH1uyvJaSQaBNnyNBNYuUP7iPeav8qT6w0u_mvP25NRNjq5tOJ2luB2S1c6vIz3DUt1/s1600/Steven+Wright.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkPwfds_CD2Bw6Z7B_V6KE8J-9zvPS1D_G2xA2Ws8sWrjOzYgJdqDQpvaLxtGCfJeTWi_a5e-COH1uyvJaSQaBNnyNBNYuUP7iPeav8qT6w0u_mvP25NRNjq5tOJ2luB2S1c6vIz3DUt1/s1600/Steven+Wright.jpg" height="200" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Banner ad?</b></i><br />
<i><b>I didn't see any</b></i><br />
<i><b>banner ad.</b></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">50% of the ad for just one second. We used to call that subliminal advertising.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a not very subliminal display of honesty, the IAB press release on this topic is headlined <a href="http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_release/pr-121614"><span class="s1">"100% Viewability Measurement Is Not Yet Possible"</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Advertisers know this, as <a href="http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/kraft-rejects-75-85-impressions-due-quality-issues/295635/"><span class="s3">Kraft says it rejects 75-85% of online ad impressions</span></a> and <a href="http://think.storage.googleapis.com/docs/5-factors-of-viewability_infographics.pdf"><span class="s3">Google says 56% of online impressions actually aren't seen</span></a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's Like We Never Noticed This Before</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How did we get to this point?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Internet didn't used to allow advertising at all, banning it until 1991. The first form of advertising was actually email — yes, direct mail — which as we all know spawned spam. The first clickable display ad came in 1993, and <a href="http://digiday.com/agencies/how-the-banner-ad-was-born/"><span class="s1">in 1994 Wired started selling banner ads to clients like AT&T</span></a>, with a click-through rate of 44% (no, that's not a typo, and we should point out that the click bait was an online tour of seven of the world's most acclaimed art museums).</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These initial approaches revealed a direct-response mindset, and unrealistic expectations as to how perfectly measurable advertising would be on the Internet. Not quite! As click-through rates have dropped to infinitesimal numbers, online display has gone from marketing's Holy Grail to just billboards posted on the Information Superhighway. Today's tools don't consistently measure page takeovers, road blocks and other customized placements. As IAB president Randall Rothenberg said, "Different ad units, browsers, ad placements, vendors and measurement methodologies yield wildly different viewability numbers." If you were expecting an accounting exercise that neatly reconciled everything, we don't have one.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The goal is "100% viewability" and at some point we'll get there. In the meantime there will be some tough discussions among advertisers, agencies, media and researchers. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Meanwhile, the irony is that an urban legend from 1957 is reality in 2015.</span></div>
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-36636239365093636402015-03-24T17:49:00.002-05:002015-03-24T17:49:48.457-05:00Ad Spending: Pixels are Up, Ink & Paper are Down<br />
U.S. ad spending went up slightly in 2014 because pixels increased more than ink & paper declined.<br />
<br />
That's my analysis of <a href="http://kantarmedia.us/press/key-sporting-events-and-political-ads-increase-us-full-year-advertising-expenditures" target="_blank">fresh data from Kantar Media</a> summarized in this chart:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tsfrJFuOKRgBGZv8POp4ca8aCHhVtQJ9WpQ4-4r8QUfUxezrLTzdr5WHDyd1pyggvdDE_AJS9A2ueaPSWjO0X6vfkEeCnDMtBKuAmWUFRzxksjwwlSUqePXFpf9682TMrFtQcnbmu26E/s1600/Kantar-Ad-Spend-Trends-by-Medium-in-2014-Mar2015.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tsfrJFuOKRgBGZv8POp4ca8aCHhVtQJ9WpQ4-4r8QUfUxezrLTzdr5WHDyd1pyggvdDE_AJS9A2ueaPSWjO0X6vfkEeCnDMtBKuAmWUFRzxksjwwlSUqePXFpf9682TMrFtQcnbmu26E/s1600/Kantar-Ad-Spend-Trends-by-Medium-in-2014-Mar2015.png" height="212" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The pixels were TV (+5.5%) and Internet Display (+0.9%). Representing ink & paper were Magazines (-5.1%), Newspapers (-10%), Outdoor (-0.2%) and FSIs (-2.8%). Radio was also down -3.9%.<br />
<br />
Like everything in modern media, though, <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/spider-charts-are-just-wrong.html" target="_blank">it's never this simple</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Two Questions to Think About</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqjdioeiVDF33ShP4mBJ2LTDVadXRox4myYmkH8l45q4PhGZ9i2yDCBetiMhiQhW0ebdiVmeMQlzQFeZ2J3tdt67qsTK7JAaFOfhWHPIgZeUO311RCVinhof6vfYpTlJrSxqEyLYCOo6v/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqjdioeiVDF33ShP4mBJ2LTDVadXRox4myYmkH8l45q4PhGZ9i2yDCBetiMhiQhW0ebdiVmeMQlzQFeZ2J3tdt67qsTK7JAaFOfhWHPIgZeUO311RCVinhof6vfYpTlJrSxqEyLYCOo6v/s1600/images.jpg" height="121" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Please consider the environment<br />before printing this billboard</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The "pixels" category above only seems to represent the "First Screen" (TV) and the "Second Screen" (personal computers). We don't see the Third Screen (mobile devices) and Fourth Screen (digital out of home). That leaves us with a couple of questions.<br />
<br />
<b>What is TV?</b> As posted recently, <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-state-of-tv-advertising-now-that.html" target="_blank">TV isn't dead, it's just morphing into a more personalized experience</a>. If anything is dying, it's Cable TV. Now, Cable ad spend actually grew +6.8% last year, a big reason for TV growing +5.5% overall, thanks to sports and political campaigns. But viewers are cutting the cord, or at least shaving it, in favor of new OTT options. The thing is, it's harder to track the ad revenue, which is there if you're watching <i>The Flash</i> online at CWtv.com, but not if you're watching <i>House of Cards</i> on Netflix. Kantar says their data doesn't track online and mobile video ad spend.<br />
<br />
<b>What is Outdoor?</b> The vast majority of OOH (Out of Home) inventory is still ink & paper, although many media companies continue investing in DOOH (Digital Out of Home) and <a href="http://www.rvue.com/portfolio-item/why-digital-place-based-media/" target="_blank">Digital Place-based Media</a>. Kantar pointed out "digital outdoor ad spending has grown six times faster than the overall medium". So it's reasonable to say that Outdoor's -0.2% decline is probably a mix of pixels being up and ink & paper being down.Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-64618286191725841102015-02-04T17:56:00.001-06:002015-02-04T18:00:41.475-06:00The State of TV Advertising Now That the Super Bowl Is Over<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On Sunday, millions of people watched 4-1/2 hours of Live TV.</span><br />
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9B1gCovPz-bVRJQt0FtmtCntaC-K2sp9urJKtW-hLbQLQ-GBQvdmIv_0G8KQ26WD257EiqQcURyfH2PzancKI7YVzPMazhsXxKIuzRsub4Hyhtrbr4E5glbs7hcRtLqOJiaZEXddmAOA/s1600/20+years+of+TV+innovation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9B1gCovPz-bVRJQt0FtmtCntaC-K2sp9urJKtW-hLbQLQ-GBQvdmIv_0G8KQ26WD257EiqQcURyfH2PzancKI7YVzPMazhsXxKIuzRsub4Hyhtrbr4E5glbs7hcRtLqOJiaZEXddmAOA/s1600/20+years+of+TV+innovation.jpg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="98" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today, millions of people will do the same.</span></div>
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<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As covered in <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-state-of-tv-advertising-on-eve-of.html"><span class="s1">my previous post</span></a>, despite the popular reporting that TV is Dead, the medium is actually alive, well — and changing. Live TV viewing is holding steady at 4-1/2 hours per day. <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2014/shifts-in-viewing-the-cross-platform-report-q2-2014.html"><span class="s1">Much of that viewing happens on an actual TV</span></a>. At the same time, audiences are adopting new ways to watch TV, like DVRs, OTT, Online and Mobile. It seems like we have <a href="http://www.videoeverywhere.com/"><span class="s1">video everywhere</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's all TV</span></b></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the same way this blog says <b>"it's all advertising"</b> I'd say <b>"it's all TV"</b> when it comes to these new ways of delivering video. Maybe we should say "it's all Video". Either way, it's part of a trend as illustrated below in Twenty Years of TV Innovation.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>What Social Media Taught Me on Super Bowl Sunday</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My last post led to some enlightening discussions on Twitter and LinkedIn about the so-called Death of TV. </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One insight was that when many people <i>say</i> "Death of TV" they actually <i>mean</i> "Death of Cable".</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Much of the press on this subject talks about the cord cutters, and who can blame them? Cable TV's delivery model forces you to buy up to 200 channels when </span><a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/changing-channels-americans-view-just-17-channels-despite-record-number-to-choose-from.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="s1">most people watch no more than 17</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Future of TV is Personalization</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Which is a good reason to cheer for SlingTV, HBO Go, Google Chromecast and the other services starting to become available along with Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix. All of these allow audiences to choose exactly what they want, which is why we said the other day that the future of TV is Personalization. There's one day a year when 114.5 million people all watch one event, but during the rest of the year they all watch various programs that interest or entertain them.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's all TV. As the chart below illustrates, technology is meeting the demand for new ways to see what we want, when we want it. TV's not dead. It's innovating, growing and continuing to be a part of our lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9B1gCovPz-bVRJQt0FtmtCntaC-K2sp9urJKtW-hLbQLQ-GBQvdmIv_0G8KQ26WD257EiqQcURyfH2PzancKI7YVzPMazhsXxKIuzRsub4Hyhtrbr4E5glbs7hcRtLqOJiaZEXddmAOA/s1600/20+years+of+TV+innovation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9B1gCovPz-bVRJQt0FtmtCntaC-K2sp9urJKtW-hLbQLQ-GBQvdmIv_0G8KQ26WD257EiqQcURyfH2PzancKI7YVzPMazhsXxKIuzRsub4Hyhtrbr4E5glbs7hcRtLqOJiaZEXddmAOA/s1600/20+years+of+TV+innovation.jpg" height="640" width="314" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-55383143245599052682015-01-31T19:03:00.001-06:002015-01-31T19:03:28.764-06:00The State of TV Advertising on the Eve of the Super Bowl<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Super Bowl has always symbolized the power of TV advertising. Is that power waning?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many business journalists seem to think the Super Bowl is the last bastion of TV advertising. Just this morning as I was writing this post, <i>The Economist</i> daily news digest arrived, calling the Super Bowl "something increasingly rare in television: a programme that people watch live and in large numbers."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Surprise! Most TV Viewing is Still Done on a TV</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzg1s82N7VDOszusy8hozLIQhkuzYQVrO6YxkSUZetsSNhNpJsNH5D3M6XRCUOS5Xt24dt6TWAGlJYp5xzwimNRmG9HDvWPhCmWOe0brPhwJuhAusRTnBE-kQv9GpCIxOrszILMtsxx4y/s1600/Sheldon-Cooper-research.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzg1s82N7VDOszusy8hozLIQhkuzYQVrO6YxkSUZetsSNhNpJsNH5D3M6XRCUOS5Xt24dt6TWAGlJYp5xzwimNRmG9HDvWPhCmWOe0brPhwJuhAusRTnBE-kQv9GpCIxOrszILMtsxx4y/s1600/Sheldon-Cooper-research.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now let me explain <br />"Programmatic" to you</span></i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Actually, <b>Live TV viewing is holding steady at about 4-1/2 hours per day</b>. Yes, 66.8% of Broadband Users Under 35 watch TV on a <a href="http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/only-1-in-3-under-35-broadband-users-say-they-get-all-their-tv-the-traditional-way-35656/" target="_blank">combination of these devices</a>, but for all age groups <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2014/shifts-in-viewing-the-cross-platform-report-q2-2014.html" target="_blank">most TV viewing is still done on a TV</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This will shock Upper West Siders who binge-watch <i>Orange Is The New Black</i> on Netflix. But regular people are watching live sports, <i>NCIS</i>, <i>Dancing With The Stars</i>, <i>American Idol</i>, <i>Judge Judy</i> and <i>Big Bang Theory</i>. <b>Bazinga!</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Fragmentation Will Continue</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">TV was never dying; it was just following audiences to new platforms. Cable supplanted Broadcast and new devices emerged like DVRs, OTT, Online and Mobile. There will always be big audiences, but they will continue fragmenting. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ye Olde Marketing</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> buying and selling TV was relatively straightforward and audience delivery was measured by Nielsen. But now audiences are fragmented and sometimes not even measured. Only Netflix knows how big the audience for </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Orange</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">House of Cards</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">really is. (A Los Angeles</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Times</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">reporter tried</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-netflix-orange-is-the-new-black-we-know-its-ratings-maybe-20130722-story.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">thinking it through</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Super Bowl doesn't have this problem. The marquee advertising will air during NBC's broadcast, and people will see it on TVs, tablets and other places. The audiences will be big enough that few advertisers will worry about under-delivery against their $4.5 million (unless they're spending that money in the 4th quarter of a one-sided blowout).</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Revolution May Not Be Televised, but TV Will Be Personalized</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But even in a big event that almost everyone watches or knows about, we see the future of TV: <b>Personalization</b>. For the Super Bowl it takes the form of second- and third-screen programming, i.e. game analysis, ad analysis and social media traffic. Little of this is driven from broadcaster to audience; it's more of a conversation where both participate. The famous Oreo dunk-in-the-dark tweet generated very small response: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferrooney/2013/02/04/behind-the-scenes-of-oreos-real-time-super-bowl-slam-dunk/" target="_blank">15,000 Retweets and 20,000 Likes</a>. (In fact they probably generated more blog posts than that, but I digress.) But it's OK because they learned how be part of people's conversations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the same way, Oreo's latest stunt -- yes, it's a stunt -- <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/oreo-and-ritz-mark-first-super-bowl-ads-be-purchased-programmatically-162633" target="_blank">using programmatic methods to buy a :15 in the Erie (Pennsylvania) DMA</a> is a harbinger of things to come. "Programmatic" is one of those words that's taken on too many meanings, but it's generally associated with media buying, just like the online ad world from which it came. Its real value will be as a pathway to addressable TV, a way for audiences to customize the programs they see -- and advertisers to customize the messages that make them possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enjoy the game -- and the ads -- and know that you'll always have plenty of company watching that first screen. Keep one eye on those other screens, too, because they're a window to the future.</span>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-30353700199506124732014-11-01T15:42:00.000-05:002014-11-02T06:33:08.391-06:00Automatic Advertising: We Take Spotomate for a Test Drive<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Software can make your 30-second TV commercial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You knew this would happen. Not just because technology makes the software <i>possible</i>, but because newly-available media makes it <i>necessary</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There's the first screen (TV), second screen (computer), third screen (mobile), fourth screen (digital signage) and all of them are hungry for content -- and advertising.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Technology has been busy <b>democratizing the science of advertising</b>. Small business is able to do SEO, SEM and Social Media without an agency, <b><a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/social-media-is-authentic-not-automatic.html" target="_blank">as did my friend the garage door expert</a></b>. So why not video advertising creative?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Along comes <a href="http://spotomate.com/about-spotomate/" target="_blank"><b>Spotomate</b></a>, which via its partner <a href="https://www.shakr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Shakr</b></a>, offers a service allowing small- and medium-sized businesses to make "your own agency-quality video advertising spots". They're targeting operators of digital signage networks (see industry coverage <a href="http://www.digitalsignageconnection.com/spotomate-brings-low-cost-creative-digital-signage-649" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a> and <a href="http://www.sixteen-nine.net/2014/10/31/free-spotomate-video-for-small-businesses/" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>), but I decided to experiment with it myself during a free trial open until Thursday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Voilà… <i>Ad Majorem's</i> First Ads</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How it works: You pick one of their pre-set templates, it runs you through the places where you must write copy or provide a visual asset, and automatically sequences these with graphics and a music bed. So here were two attempts using our masthead copy and experimenting with different visuals.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwMEX3rWecqekMb8IIQ9cEOKmF2jbQIR00eY8j0Is3MAJfnwKmV4qpECwTE2Tcp5SmtfgM1Q3bQKuXsWGfC4Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwVqMA_QVc9LiJkSObJFPxwIEviOqiZYKo4zzEx2CGmz5vaZqre-JVfW2DXOuryPfOCpnVCkpezVISnROy6SA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here's What I Thought About Spotomate</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Agencies, for the most part, shouldn't worry. True, I did once have a colleague who believed in "campaign construction", i.e., every 30-second TV commercial for a brand had to have the same sequence of scenes, but most big advertisers want customized treatment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Small- and Medium-sized businesses will love Spotomate, though. In fact the templates may help inexperienced advertisers to organize their thoughts and force decisions as to what should or shouldn't go in the ad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In other words, <b>one still needs a smart brief</b>, and I'm not sure that will <i>ever</i> be automatic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What do you think of Spotomate? What did you think of my, uh, "ads"? Go ahead, hit me with your best shot in the comments section below.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-4706040573823962012014-10-07T17:19:00.000-05:002014-10-07T21:52:12.737-05:00Mobile Devices Are a Way for Consumers to Reach Brands -- Not for Brands to Reach Consumers<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Here's something advertisers and agencies seem slow to understand: </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Mobile devices are not a way for brands to reach consumers; they're a way for consumers to reach brands.</b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: black;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Consider that the mobile device — the smartphone especially — is a very private zone in a person's life. They don't necessarily want ads of any kind invading that personal space.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: black;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: black;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">But the smartphone is wonderful tool for consumers to invade <i>your</i> space as a marketer. Via Internet searches, shopping apps, social media and conversations with friends, they do it whether you invite them or not.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<b>Use Mobile to Invite Customers and Prospects</b></div>
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Customers and prospects can contact you via certain smartphone apps. The most-maligned is QR codes. In the picture below is a QR code I saw this past weekend on the back of a service vehicle in Chicago. I can't think of any better example of consumer-UNfriendly QR codes than <a href="http://wtfqrcodes.com/post/53857443479/or-via-cennyd">this photo from WTF QR Codes</a> which also sums up why I avoid them.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Not much of <br />an invitation</i></b></td></tr>
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At the other end of the customer convenience spectrum is Messaging — SMS, MMS, P2P and other emerging tools. Most of these are built in to a smartphone and very familiar, but there are also newer apps like Kik that would be handy reaching a younger audience (like <i>Ad Majorem's</i> teenage children).</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There's also social media, of course, but only invite people to "Follow Us On Twitter!" if <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/dont-follow-us-on-twitter.html">there's a darn good reason</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you are extending an invitation to consumers at retail, it may be time to look again at NFC. Could it be </span><a href="http://www.qrcodepress.com/nfc-technology-enabled-devices-rise-popularity/8528318/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">coming back</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> thanks to the iPhone 6? I've been bullish on NFC ever since my first project back in 2012 but it's been traveling a stubbornly slow adoption curve.</span><br />
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<b>Ask for an R.S.V.P.</b></div>
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Sorry to torture the "invitation" metaphor a bit, but using "R.S.V.P." as an abbreviation, here are some principles to keep in mind:</div>
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<li style="color: black; font-size: 14px;"><b>Response is the goal.</b> You're not going to rack up millions of "impressions" via Mobile (you might) but you may invite millions of customer interactions. In other words, the quality of your audience, not the quantity, is what matters. Think app dowloads, not ads served.</li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Start with your consumer.</b> When and where might they be looking for something useful, informative or entertaining? <b>That's your chance to engage.</b> This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B3sgPATIWo">Forrester video</a> describes how American Airlines designed their mobile app around their customers' travel experience.</span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Voice must be …inviting.</b> This past year during a radio interview, a local political candidate invited people to text him for more information — which I did, only to get an auto-reply asking for donations. Since when do you invite people over and then ask them to pay?</span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Perpetuate the relationship.</b> The old way of thinking is to stage a marketing or advertising event, but <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/online-media-is-process-not-event.html">the kind of dialogue marketing both permits and requires today is a process, not an event</a>. The beauty of Mobile is that consumers can reach brands — and brands can keep that conversation going. </span></li>
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<span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><i><b><a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-owns-mobile.html" target="_blank">Related: Who "Owns" Mobile?</a></b></i></span></span></div>
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</span>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-90171649773094443532014-10-01T10:02:00.000-05:002014-10-04T16:45:36.114-05:00Tablets Are Not "Mobile". They're "Portable"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">This has been bugging me for a while.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Tablets — be it the iPad, the Kindle, the Galaxy or anything with a capacitive touchscreen larger than a Pop Tart — should <u>not</u> be considered mobile devices, like smartphones.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><b>Consumer behavior proves it</b></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>All Mobile is Portable but <br />Not All Portable is Mobile</b></i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Sure, tablets and smartphones both run on the same "mobile" operating systems like iOS or Android, but <b>people use them differently</b>. For example, people report accessing the Internet in their living rooms on both tablets (72%) and smartphones (67%), but in out of home situations, the numbers are quite different. On the daily commute, for example, 49% use their smartphones and only 9% use their tablets. In Stores, 75% use their smartphones and very few use their tablets. (All of this research comes from a 2013 Forrester study; <a href="http://www.monetate.com/2013/05/smartphones-vs-tablets-forrester-reveals-the-differences/">see a nice summary here</a>.)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Likewise, <b>not all mobile ad spending is created equal</b>. When you hear things like <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2653121">"Mobile advertising spend will be about $18 Billion globally in 2014"</a> you need to think beyond tiny, unreadable banner ads on a smartphone. Those big numbers also include banner ads and video pre-roll that are better seen on a tablet. That $18 Billion also includes a lot of Paid Search, which is a natural ad medium on the tablet, and a lot of Messaging, which is a natural ad medium on the smartphone.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><b>Google Agrees: Tablets Are Not "Mobile"</b> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">In an <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877613000074/filename1.htm">SEC filing last January</a>, Google admitted that as tablets became more ubiquitous, "their usage had much more in common with desktops than with handsets". Going further, they said <b>"the meaning of 'mobile' at Google has shifted dramatically to 'handset' from 'tablet + handset'."</b> Why tell the SEC? Because it affects how they report their very considerable ad revenue. It also affects how they might collect revenue in the future: This was the same SEC filing that grabbed headlines like <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/21/google-predicts-ads-in-odd-spots-like-thermostats/">"Google Will Advertise on Thermostats"</a>. So the definition of "Mobile" also matters to Google, but it goes way beyond tablets to the so-called Internet of Things, or in Google's case, the Internet of Things That Collect Ad Revenue.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">God bless them. As long as they start referring to tablets as "portable" devices.</span></span></span></div>
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</span></span>Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-82979484728541787382014-09-16T17:12:00.003-05:002014-09-16T17:12:53.031-05:00Why Signage Is a Modern Medium<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Advertising may or may not be the second-oldest profession, but signage is surely its first-oldest form. It all started with signage.</span></div>
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<b>The History of Signage</b></div>
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It all <i>continued</i> with signage, too — literally for centuries. Sure, the production of signs evolved from stone cutting to wood cutting to paint to ink and paper and eventually electric signs, but it was all the same thing: a one-way message from advertiser to consumer. Even if you check <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signage" target="_blank">Wikipedia's definition of signs</a>, that's about as far as it goes.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPbgryaDX8A9WyMi3BFOONmR4xzr65A_bhEIXUn_KEOhKE1TO63oPTsJ-wD4BjPk_kOvBZBAsPDvuxWE5tsC9PZmg9GAejddihLLV0JziKfxMMnn-0QrFIjxi2rw38yxd-sXvwpOXhVti4/s1600/History+of+Signage.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPbgryaDX8A9WyMi3BFOONmR4xzr65A_bhEIXUn_KEOhKE1TO63oPTsJ-wD4BjPk_kOvBZBAsPDvuxWE5tsC9PZmg9GAejddihLLV0JziKfxMMnn-0QrFIjxi2rw38yxd-sXvwpOXhVti4/s1600/History+of+Signage.jpg" height="171" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Signage Suddenly Evolved</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><div>
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Suddenly, in the past decade or so, signage evolved. Screen technology made signage digitized, scalable and interactive. After centuries of signs that featured only one-way messages, <b>suddenly signs were really screens that offer two-way communications</b>: advertiser to consumer and vice versa. As these technologies developed, signage became a way for consumers to reach advertisers.</div>
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<b>Back to the Future</b></div>
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<i>Blade Runner</i> and <i>Minority Report</i> both had futuristic signage technology, but <i>Blade Runner</i> was made in 1982 when advertising still had a (mostly) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ17UsZ0DEQ" target="_blank">one-way mentality</a> (advertiser-to-audience), while <i>Minority Report</i>, made in 2004, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ" target="_blank">featured interactive ads</a>, probably because the advertising business had already started becoming interactive. Similarly, this past year at Cannes there was <a href="http://www.sixteen-nine.net/2014/06/24/worlds-oldest-advertising-medium-has-chance-to-act-like-newest/" target="_blank">a Grand Lion for Innovation awarded to an interactive billboard at Sochi</a>. Passers-by could take photos with their smartphones and project them as a 3-D image on the billboard.</div>
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<b>Why Signage is a Modern Medium</b></div>
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Signage is not only ubiquitous, it's been modernized. Here are some tips to make the most of it:</div>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Elicit an immediate response.</b> In many cases it's sufficient to remind people to <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/typography-from-sublime-to-ridiculous.html" target="_blank">drink Diet Coke</a> or tune in to tonight's reality TV show. But why stop at awareness? If your message is compelling enough, the audience will respond to you via SMS, toll-free call, mobile Web, social media or an app download. But you have to offer something useful, informative or entertaining.</span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Make it relevant.</b> Screens give signage the ability to increase relevance to the consumer. The most basic example would be to rotate messages according to the time of day (a QSR client advertises breakfast until 9 a.m., switching to lunch messages after that), which isn't possible with ink and paper. You can also place messages according to where the screen is located, e.g., in an elevator or a doctor's office waiting room.</span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Plan ahead.</b> Screens make signage flexible, but paradoxically that requires advance planning, not the least of which might be convincing a client to try something new and taking the time to develop creative that's relevant and elicits an immediate response. Once you have a game plan, you're much more prepared to make adjustments.</span></li>
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Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-41587061187391811352014-05-02T15:25:00.000-05:002014-05-02T15:25:09.005-05:00Book Review: Creativity, Inc.
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That
Stand in the Way of True Inspiration</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By Ed Catmull<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Random House, 340 pages</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hate business books
because they are usually very long memos that could have been written in 14
pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You suspect they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">started</i> as memos or even power point
slides.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I love books that tell
good stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0804127441" target="_blank">Creativity, Inc.</a></b>, by Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, tells a good
story and in the process teaches us a lot about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how</i> to tell a good story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not Just a Story about Toys<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ed Catmull was a kid with
a dream, to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">produce animated movies
using computer technology</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted
to work at Walt Disney.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They turned him down
at first, but he kept on following his passions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXohJrmjpUCODg5WUsaIcoBVhTi56X46N_a8IW8lWidgEo7Sew0u2FsMvYyuKpbPbbuXH-gwzgPm1XNWK2b82i93a3eMxbAXF4ltnE7RZucKnk2wKUaYMcFuBS5ZICiXxJNkgEwLDHfCL8/s1600/Unknown-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXohJrmjpUCODg5WUsaIcoBVhTi56X46N_a8IW8lWidgEo7Sew0u2FsMvYyuKpbPbbuXH-gwzgPm1XNWK2b82i93a3eMxbAXF4ltnE7RZucKnk2wKUaYMcFuBS5ZICiXxJNkgEwLDHfCL8/s1600/Unknown-3.jpeg" height="200" width="116" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Catmull’s path led through
some interesting places and people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
studied computer technology at University of Utah, one of the four original
institutions on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET" target="_blank">ARPANET, the precursor to what we now know as the Internet</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His early, groundbreaking computer
animation work led to a job offer from George Lucas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While at Lucasfilm, Catmull hired Pixar’s
other co-founder, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lasseter" target="_blank">the animator John Lasseter</a>, and what they built was spun off
to Steve Jobs in 1985.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new company’s
main business was selling the Pixar Image Computer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were in the hardware business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As we all know, they
eventually joined forces with Disney and became the animation studio that
produced <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy Story</i> and many hit films
since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like those films, the book tells
compelling stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inner-circle,
name-dropping – jaw dropping – stories of how these hit films made it through
the creative process and the business process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And as this story unfolds,
you see Catmull evolve from a technologist to the head of one of the most
creative organizations ever built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every
chapter illustrates a Pixar mantra, “Story Is King.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Trust the Process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pixar had another mantra, “Trust
the Process”, which meant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pixar’s</i>
process, very different from the corporate one at most Hollywood studios:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Pixar was a place that gave artists running
room, that gave directors control, that trusted its people to solve problems.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me, this sounded more like “Trust the
Culture”, not “Trust the Process”, but it seemed to work for Pixar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Indeed, it served them
well making <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy Story</i>, but not so
well when simultaneously working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Bug’s Life</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy Story 2</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had grown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly more people were involved and
Catmull and Lasseter were pulled in different directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mantra lost meaning; it “morphed into ‘Assume
that the Process Will Fix Things for Us’.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy Story 2</i>
lost meaning, too, and they realized they had to rewrite it just nine months
before theatrical release.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What did they learn from
that experience?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process only works
if the people are working well together, and while that was Pixar’s biggest
superpower, they weren’t using it at this critical, early stage of their
maturation as a company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They got back
on track by establishing a “Braintrust” that regularly reviewed how a story – a
film – was coming together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t
go back to Process so much as they went back to Culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They also learned that words
can be empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“People glom onto words
and stories that are often just stand-ins for real action and meaning,” he
writes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tellingly, he uses this occasion
to criticize our industry:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Advertisers look
for words that imply a product’s value and use that as a substitute for value
itself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ouch</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So is process good or
bad?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we think of “process” in Ad
Land, it’s often a linear, stage-driven timeline, which isn’t how creativity
really works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You need a process, of
course, because the alternative is chaos, but how to let it roll?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy
Story 2</i> experience taught them how to strike a balance by returning to
their natural strength in collaboration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It makes sense to “trust people to solve problems” when they’re doing it
in a group, not in separate silos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Three Lessons Advertising, Inc. Can Learn from
Creativity, Inc</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although this book can
teach a few things to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> creative
enterprise, here are three lessons for Ad Land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Story trumps Technology.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Catmull’s
childhood dream wasn’t to bring new technology to animation; it was to make
animated movies </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">using</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
technology.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Everything he invented was
in service of telling the story.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">His
biggest satisfaction in the success of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy
Story</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> was how audiences and critics loved the story so much they barely
mentioned the use of computers to tell it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Feedback diagnoses, not prescribes.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You’ll
appreciate the many vignettes of Pixar’s “Braintrust” meetings to discuss films
in development.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They built such a strong
culture of mutual respect and focus on the work that every session was about
what to address – not how to address it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(In the last chapter, “Notes Day”, we see how this culture improved the
company as a whole.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In contrast, they
discovered that Disney’s Michael Eisner didn’t even discuss; he just issued
lists of “mandatory notes”.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">People create Ideas.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This sounds
obvious but Catmull points out that many leaders confuse the need for Great
Ideas with the need for Great People.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He
concludes:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Getting the team right is
the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(This reminded me of the only business book I
ever liked, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Good to Great</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, which
made exactly the same point in its first chapter.)</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Which brings us to Steve
Jobs, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deus ex machina</i> in this
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jobs was smart enough not to push
his way into scripts, storyboards and edits, though he certainly had that
right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He invested heavily in Pixar –
and he believed in it and he stayed loyal to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catmull mentions Steve when he’s relevant to
the story, and that was often enough that I planned to mention it in this
review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I got to the end of the
book, and saw Afterword: The Steve We Knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a beautiful tribute to Jobs and an appraisal of his impact on
Pixar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Read this book,
people. At minimum it’s a good story you
won’t want to put down. But it also
teaches us a lot about how advertising people can work together and tell a good
story.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-15263108739303906462014-04-30T08:20:00.002-05:002014-04-30T08:20:50.648-05:00Greetings from Startup Land<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbtBZh19FUQmie3tBwieZ1L1H_KPorm2JJw7olMo6ZiHbLkqZcf_qgFi3anL7JwNOqTqcERWAK-2-ug8f6GNlMvOPkO9SX72L01dEyYVVd0PVwoUDpddnFNjnmnZXnhbSNGL3jzTzDNOx/s1600/Corporate+hamster+vs+Startup+sisyphus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbtBZh19FUQmie3tBwieZ1L1H_KPorm2JJw7olMo6ZiHbLkqZcf_qgFi3anL7JwNOqTqcERWAK-2-ug8f6GNlMvOPkO9SX72L01dEyYVVd0PVwoUDpddnFNjnmnZXnhbSNGL3jzTzDNOx/s1600/Corporate+hamster+vs+Startup+sisyphus.png" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Which one delivers results?</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This past month on <i>Ad Majorem</i> I've described in a series of posts how I went from Ad Land to Startup Land. My hope is that you found it interesting or helpful or both.<br />
<br />
There are a lot of differences between the two worlds. I'd argue that one big thing Startup Land can teach Ad Land is how Technology and Marketing can work together.<br />
<br />
One big similarity? I've seen that whether you're in Ad Land or Startup Land, the only way to create real value is to focus on delivering results.<br />
<br />
Here's an index to the whole series. Thanks for reading.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-i-went-from-ad-land-to-startup-land.html" target="_blank">How I Went from Ad Land to Startup Land</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/startup-land-has-no-boundaries.html" target="_blank">Startup Land Has No Boundaries</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/startup-land-where-technology-and.html" target="_blank">Startup Land, Where Technology and Marketing Work Together</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/in-startup-land-management-really-is.html" target="_blank">In Startup Land, Management Really <i>Is</i> Nimble</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/results-also-matter-in-startup-land.html" target="_blank">Results Also Matter in Startup Land</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/book-review-quick-and-nimble.html" target="_blank">Book Review: Quick and Nimble</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-77470147868043632982014-04-28T12:18:00.000-05:002014-04-29T07:12:39.623-05:00Book Review: Quick and Nimble<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Quick and Nimble:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">By Adam Bryant<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Henry Holt & Co., 264 pages</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">While writing
the series <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014_04_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Greetings from Startup Land</a>, I noticed this new book by Adam Bryant,
the <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/corner-office" target="_blank">Corner Office</a> columnist at the New York <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times</i>,
titled <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Quick and Nimble</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, as a bonus extra to the Startup Land
series, here’s a nimble version of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad
Majorem</i> Book Review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Slightly less
nimble book reviews <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/shallows-what-internet-is-doing-to-our.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/book-review-signal-and-noise.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/book-review-work-like-spy.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqhqVxrUHqRw-9Fztfo8pF7yfyh3fBefe3vpaW0TAxUig6uwdbCQV_XzgDoKiIwT7__iqIVe_Us1arNBxCQwIeMOp5xKvsYJbuoZNVF2l_H6wDJQbx4X05Rj350NQB4oUK_DlhiDc2udt/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqhqVxrUHqRw-9Fztfo8pF7yfyh3fBefe3vpaW0TAxUig6uwdbCQV_XzgDoKiIwT7__iqIVe_Us1arNBxCQwIeMOp5xKvsYJbuoZNVF2l_H6wDJQbx4X05Rj350NQB4oUK_DlhiDc2udt/s1600/images-1.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Bryant starts on
the premise that big companies can learn from startups how to be quick and
nimble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A competing theme is that
companies in general can learn from so-called innovative companies how to be
more innovative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book doesn’t really
deliver on either of these promises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, it’s a collection of Things Big Company CEOs Have Learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which probably makes sense, because the
source material is Bryant’s weekly profiles of Big Company CEOs Who Have
Learned Things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In fairness, much
of what emerges from these interviews is a response to the generally
bureaucratic nature of big companies in an era when technology has made
interpersonal communication much more instantaneous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, communication has been
democratized and corporations are still catching up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So
if you are currently in a leadership position, or wish to be, this book requires
two hours for a speed-read, or four to six hours for more careful
consideration.</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Either way, you’ll probably take away a couple of techniques worth emulating.</span> But it won’t make your company more nimble.</span><!--EndFragment-->
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-13291640580403691352014-04-23T11:33:00.003-05:002014-04-23T11:33:44.991-05:00Results Also Matter in Startup Land
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Decades ago the
<a href="http://www.quotatio.com/r/reeves-rosser-quotes.html" target="_blank">Ad Land pioneer Rosser Reeves</a> asked, “What do you want from me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fine writing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or do you want to see the sales curve start moving up?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may argue, half a century later, as to how
widely Ad Land holds that sentiment. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Startup Land
depends on it – or at least depends on the sales curve rising fast enough to
beat the burn rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Or does it?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Years ago, <a href="http://hbr.org/2008/04/reverse-engineering-googles-innovation-machine/ar/1" target="_blank">Eric Schmidt described Google's business strategy</a> as “URL” -- Ubiquity first, Revenue Later. That worked for Google, but many venture capitalists who invest in technology seem to take it literally. There is a lot of money poured into companies that may still be in the red for years, like <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/25/amazon-stock-may-be-up-but-the-company-still-doesn-t-make-any-money.html" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/are-eager-investors-overvaluing-tech-start-ups/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> and <a href="http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/many-silicon-valley-companies-valued-billions-79893/" target="_blank">many others</a>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Dollars and Cents<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Sadly, most
people in Ad Land are insulated from business results until the moment when
agency layoffs are unavoidable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agencies
have been slow to embrace results and accountability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One pundit says <a href="http://adage.com/article/agency-viewpoint/agencies-a-free-pass/292357/" target="_blank">clients are complicit</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHNvpfevuiKyvETrs-NsxggccESB1H3L4Dy-glw-4WMmo8Mkdw1mok0QqE8Jn-pyFwGeCGAnLqarEfrER_KnjefxsYfGjoOZWUaRoNWQGwxrBK5qQexufmPNjcGpqabWs1oLP-s4FOg01/s1600/Greetings+from+Startup+Land.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHNvpfevuiKyvETrs-NsxggccESB1H3L4Dy-glw-4WMmo8Mkdw1mok0QqE8Jn-pyFwGeCGAnLqarEfrER_KnjefxsYfGjoOZWUaRoNWQGwxrBK5qQexufmPNjcGpqabWs1oLP-s4FOg01/s1600/Greetings+from+Startup+Land.png" height="105" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Last of a series</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Because <a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/in-startup-land-management-really-is.html" target="_blank">Startup Land is for the most part small and nimble</a>, it’s impossible to be insulated
from business results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything is
very out in the open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your company
hasn’t gone public, you’re still accountable to your investors, whose money
you’re spending to grow the business. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Our investors
hold us accountable, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Traveling in these circles, however, I am
struck by how few investors really do their homework on the day-to-day
operations of the companies they invest in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some are far more interested in financial instruments – credit facilities,
warrants and the like – than in what makes the sales curve go up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many investors love seeing stock prices rise on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">possibility</i> of future results. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/23/tech-stocks-are-falling-but-dont-buy-just-yet.aspx" target="_blank">(Today's news suggests that caution is order.)</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Kiss a Lot of Frogs<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">There’s an old
saying, repeated often in Startup Land, that you have to kiss a lot of frogs
before getting to the prince.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It applies
both to raising capital (which we recently did) and raising the sales curve
(which we are always doing).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I’ve
mentioned a couple of times in this series, it’s easy to get impatient.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Impatience may
be a virtue, but don’t lose focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether you’re in Ad Land or Startup Land, focus on delivering results,
not just the promise of them. It's the only way to create real value.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7288950850564395895.post-68644507010226112712014-04-15T06:53:00.000-05:002014-04-24T17:23:55.233-05:00In Startup Land, Management Really Is Nimble<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Maybe it’s just
because startup companies are small by definition, but management really <i>is</i>
nimble. In our company, “management” is
three people: the CEO, the CTO and the
CMO.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I’m still not
sure if we’re nimble because we can be (there are just three of us) or if we
have to be (market forces move so quickly these days).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe a little bit of both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do know that big companies want to be
nimble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Google founder Larry Page
took over as CEO, he said he wanted “the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nimbleness</b>
and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">soul</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">passion</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">speed</b> of a
startup.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interestingly,
that quote lists four characteristics that form a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sine qua non</i> daisy chain of Startup Land merit badges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t have any of these without the
others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, you’re not <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nimble</b> if you don’t have <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">soul</b> or you lack <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">passion</b> or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">speed</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dance, Startup Boy, Dance!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Happily, things
in Startup Land move much faster than things at a big holding company in Ad
Land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we took over our little
company, it was clear we had to put costs in line with revenue, modify the
business model and clean up the code.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JaP-bRfB_rL9S2J12jF5BK2ZCLsevGoY7cIO71dnS-9aAfwTrfCxXoLxXKPqExxc2amr5nhCS68-2mpydaxtKxouptL743n9mXlm39AVFhyphenhyphenJmdw7bw4yfo3lzQo7DsqEipcEPTPYvcrr/s1600/Greetings+from+Startup+Land.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JaP-bRfB_rL9S2J12jF5BK2ZCLsevGoY7cIO71dnS-9aAfwTrfCxXoLxXKPqExxc2amr5nhCS68-2mpydaxtKxouptL743n9mXlm39AVFhyphenhyphenJmdw7bw4yfo3lzQo7DsqEipcEPTPYvcrr/s1600/Greetings+from+Startup+Land.png" height="105" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Fourth of a series</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Coming from Ad
Land, “costs in line with revenue” is usually a synonym for “employee layoffs”
but that wasn’t the case here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in
many startups, the company was just burning through too much investor cash on
things that didn’t really drive the business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You see those things quickly when there’s no bureaucracy hiding them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We also very
decisively focused the company’s business model.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re winding down a legacy business in
managing proprietary hardware – call it “owned media” – for institutional
advertisers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We stopped licensing
software to clients, which yielded very little revenue and more than a few
operational issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We inherited an
excellent software platform, but like any such platform it needed regular
updating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CTO started a project,
working closely with Marketing, to release new versions every four to six
weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This allowed us to prioritize
what we needed and get it to market faster, rather than waiting for One Big
Release that might come months later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some things just
can’t get done right away. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You only have
so much time and talent available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
example, we are only just now revising the website.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we made that decision ourselves versus
being held hostage to a corporate process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Impatience Can Be a Virtue<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the first
post of this series we mentioned that Startup Land requires patience, and
that’s still true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Impatience, however,
drives nimbleness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to make
things happen quickly, so you do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To resolve this
apparent paradox:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be impatient with what
you can control, and patient with what you can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which leads to our next post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Next:
<a href="http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/results-also-matter-in-startup-land.html" target="_blank">Results Also Matter in Startup Land</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Steve Schildwachterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05267248485736601931noreply@blogger.com0