Book Review: Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
By Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
St. Martin's Press, 304 pages

"You, too, can build a business behemoth - just like Jeff Bezos - by following the proven method of Working Backwards!"

Colin Bryar and Bill Carr don't come right out and make that promise, but their book Working Backwards 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.

Working Backwards: Book Summary

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.

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.

This review focuses on two elements of their corporate culture, communication in prose, and the consumer focus.

Communicating: Narratives and the Six-Pager

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.

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!

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.

Working Backwards: Start with the Desired Customer Experience

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 how 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.

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.

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.

Yes, I recommend this book

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.

My advertising strategy killed Dr. Seuss

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, Green Eggs and Ham.  

The killer visual

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.

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.

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.

We sold the strategy.

Then the next day, Dr. Seuss died.

Later that week, the client jokingly asked me not to feature him in future presentations.

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 Green Eggs and Ham - still have incredible value.

Two rules of effective advertising

What makes effective advertising?

There are classic volumes and numerous listicles that purport to answer this question.  There are numerous research methods to pre-test advertising or measure it in-market.

Data only help us make well-informed decisions; data can't write copy for us.  Despite the advent of language-generating programs like GPT-3, data won't drive creativity, although it can (and perhaps should) help us formulate strategies.

How do I know if advertising is effective?

These are not 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.

Rule 1:  Impossible to tell someone about it without mentioning the product.

You know advertising is memorable 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.

Two ads that make the product part of the story are Amazon's tale of two friends, a priest and an imam, who order the same gift for one another, both using Amazon's mobile app, and Metamucil's "The Regulars," 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.)

Rule 2:  Impossible to forget what brand created it.

You know advertising is persuasive 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).

Rule #2.

The two ads cited above follow this rule, too, mainly because the brand and product are so closely linked.

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.

DO try this at home

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.

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.

What is Ad Majorem?

Thank you for visiting my blog, Ad Majorem.  When it started in the late 2000s, it was a view on modern marketing from within a large advertising agency.  Now it’s a view on modern marketing from the perspective of a CMO.

The title, Ad Majorem, is part of a familiar Latin phrase and loosely translates to English as “to the greater.”  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.

 

There’s also always an opportunity for better marketing people.  It’s important to me that team members keep learning as they go, staying curious and maintaining a perspective of continuous improvement.  We’re happier when we’re learning and growing, so that will continue to be a theme here.

The “ad” in Ad Majorem means all marketing communications, from social media to direct mail to Internet gaming to television commercials. To most consumer audiences all of these are advertising. My professional experience

in these channels provides a perspective that is part specialist, part generalist.

A lot has changed since 2009, not all of it “to the greater.”  We’re at a very inauspicious moment, with uncertainty, threats, deepfakes and divisions.  This blog has always avoided politics, and will continue to avoid politics, because there are too many wannabe pundits in marketing and advertising already.

That said, there’s always hope for the future, so the tone here will be hopeful as well as honest.  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.

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.

One thing hasn’t changed since I started this blog.  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 it.

Chances Are You're Watching TV While Reading This Post

"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."  -- Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey, fielded November 2014.

Source:  Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey
(Click to enlarge)

Automatic Advertising: We Take Spotomate for a Test Drive

Software can make your 30-second TV commercial.

You knew this would happen.  Not just because technology makes the software possible, but because newly-available media makes it necessary.

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.

Technology has been busy democratizing the science of advertising.  Small business is able to do SEO, SEM and Social Media without an agency, as did my friend the garage door expert.  So why not video advertising creative?

Along comes Spotomate, which via its partner Shakr, 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 here and here), but I decided to experiment with it myself during a free trial open until Thursday.

Voilà… Ad Majorem's First Ads

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.

Here's What I Thought About Spotomate

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.

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.

In other words, one still needs a smart brief, and I'm not sure that will ever be automatic.

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.

Mobile Devices Are a Way for Consumers to Reach Brands -- Not for Brands to Reach Consumers

Here's something advertisers and agencies seem slow to understand:  Mobile devices are not a way for brands to reach consumers; they're a way for consumers to reach brands.

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.

But the smartphone is wonderful tool for consumers to invade your space as a marketer.  Via Internet searches, shopping apps, social media and conversations with friends, they do it whether you invite them or not.

So why not invite them?

Use Mobile to Invite Customers and Prospects

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 this photo from WTF QR Codes which also sums up why I avoid them.

Not much of
an invitation

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 Ad Majorem's teenage children).

There's also social media, of course, but only invite people to "Follow Us On Twitter!" if there's a darn good reason.

If you are extending an invitation to consumers at retail, it may be time to look again at NFC.  Could it be coming back 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.

Ask for an R.S.V.P.

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:

• Response is the goal.  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.

• Start with your consumer.  When and where might they be looking for something useful, informative or entertaining?  That's your chance to engage.  This Forrester video describes how American Airlines designed their mobile app around their customers' travel experience.

• Voice must be …inviting.  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?

• Perpetuate the relationship.  The old way of thinking is to stage a marketing or advertising event, but the kind of dialogue marketing both permits and requires today is a process, not an event.  The beauty of Mobile is that consumers can reach brands — and brands can keep that conversation going.  

Related: Who "Owns" Mobile?

Tablets Are Not "Mobile". They're "Portable"

This has been bugging me for a while.

Tablets — be it the iPad, the Kindle, the Galaxy or anything with a capacitive touchscreen larger than a Pop Tart — should not be considered mobile devices, like smartphones.

Consumer behavior proves it

All Mobile is Portable but
Not All Portable is Mobile

Sure, tablets and smartphones both run on the same "mobile" operating systems like iOS or Android, but people use them differently.  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; see a nice summary here.)

Why does this matter?  Follow the Money

Likewise, not all mobile ad spending is created equal.  When you hear things like "Mobile advertising spend will be about $18 Billion globally in 2014" 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.

Google Agrees:  Tablets Are Not "Mobile"  

In an SEC filing last January, Google admitted that as tablets became more ubiquitous, "their usage had much more in common with desktops than with handsets".  Going further, they said "the meaning of 'mobile' at Google has shifted dramatically to 'handset' from 'tablet + handset'."  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 "Google Will Advertise on Thermostats".  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.

God bless them.  As long as they start referring to tablets as "portable" devices.

"Value" Messages Will Return, So Get Ready

Think back four years.

Your boss, your client or your agency was on the “Value” bandwagon, or asking you to climb aboard.  Typical trade press headline:  “How Your Value Message Can Be Heard Above the Din”.

Well, get ready, because inflation is coming back, and value messages won’t be far behind.

U.S. Inflation:  Delayed, Not Denied

This occurred to me while reading an insightful economic analysis explaining how easy money policies at central banks will eventually lead to 2% inflation in 2014 and 3% in 2015.  True, those are single-digit numbers but they will make a difference to consumers struggling with reduced take-home pay and rising transportation and housing costs.

Put differently:  Your $5 air freshener is going to be a much tougher sell.

What is Value?

Too many marketers think Value = Price.  In QSR, for example, most “value” campaigns are about 59-, 69- and 99-cent items.  In reality, Value = Price + Benefit.  What do I get for what I paid?  That equation is in consumers’ minds no matter what the economy.  (Here are a couple of smart posts on this topic from Bob Gilbreath.)  Our job as marketers is to figure out how we make that $5 air freshener worth it to the consumer.

Your task gets even tougher when prices in general are rising, even if you offer a discount, which is why we should worry about 3% inflation.

Dust off those recommendations from 2009

Rather than just cut prices, which admittedly may be a part of your strategy, think longer term.  The trick is not just to survive tough times, but position your business for better times.  If your competition isn’t ready when consumers start pulling back, you can aggressively steal market share, making you stronger when the economy improves.

Now THAT'S added value!

For example, if you have been looking for a way to claim ownership in the consumer’s mind of a particular category benefit, this is the time to seek it, when your competitor is more worried about short-term survival.  Perhaps it’s time to introduce a new benefit – that is, improve value by offering something new or something more at the same price.

Back in 2009, Hyundai made a brilliant offer:  Buy a Hyundai, and simply return it if you lose your job.  That wasn’t just “value”; they were telling consumers that they understood how uncertain things were, and made a bet that built longer-term brand equity.  (Unfortunately, they blew a lot of brand equity this year via a U.K. ad depicting a failed suicide attempt.)

Think ahead to 2015

The point is, think about the long-term opportunities in a short-term crisis.  And start thinking about them now, before the crisis hits.

Book Review: Work Like A Spy

Work Like A Spy: Business Tips from a Former CIA Officer

By J.C. Carleson

Portfolio/Penguin, 192 pages

There’s an industry blog called Agency Spy that purports to be “deep inside” your agency.  

They’ve got nothing on the CIA.

Work Like A Spy explains how CIA practices might work in the business world.  It’s been reviewed on that general premise (here and here) so this post concentrates on how practices at “The Agency” might work at your agency.  In what ways are secret agents and advertising agents similar?

What’s It Like to Work Like A Spy?

J.C. Carleson (a pseudonym, of course) was both a CIA case officer and a corporate executive.  If you’re squeamish about taking advice from the CIA, start by reading the last two pages of the book, which summarize her advice – and her ethical standards.  Her advice in one sentence is that getting information important to your business “is a matter of asking the right people the right questions in the right way.”  Is that “right way” ethical?  According to Carleson, “It is possible to use clandestine techniques to get ahead in the corporate world while still maintaining your integrity.”  If you don’t believe her, then put down the book. 

Those who press on will get Carleson’s advice in three parts:  an introduction to the clandestine world; how to apply clandestine techniques internally; how to apply them externally.  Sprinkled throughout are CIA stories generally less exciting than James Bond – but one of her main themes is that typical CIA work resembles typical corporate work more than it resembles the typical Hollywood treatment.

It’s important to point out that, like any book by former CIA employees, Work Like A Spy had to be vetted by “The Agency”.  This may account for generally bland tonality, occasionally ham-handed editing, and overly-obvious appeals to ethics.  On the other hand, this book is virtually free of business jargon.

It’s also a relatively short book, worth one airplane ride to the client.

Secret Agents and Advertising Agents

Here are the passages most applicable to the advertising world.

Hiring People (pages 89-98).  Advertising depends on the right people on the right teams, so we might derive some lessons from the government agency with the disproportionately largest budget for recruiting and hiring.  One amusing line is that the ideal CIA candidate is “a Boy Scout with a latent dark side” – admit it, you work with some of those.  Some of the strategies ring true for agencies:  encourage frequent rotation, make room for lone wolves, etc.  Others sound obvious, but do we really practice them?  For example, mixing groups that don’t normally interact could be done more regularly in large agencies.

Keeping Clients (pages 185-189).  As clients continue to stray from the AOR model, bringing in multiple agencies on the same brand, agencies will feel freer to poach each other’s business.  Carleson’s advice is to study the competition’s M.O., exploit their major changes (we all have them these days), and fight back against their attempts to spy on you.  Not everyone in this business is ethical (ha!) and you can be sure some skullduggery is afoot.  Earlier, in Chapter 3, Carleson gives good advice on protecting your agency’s secrets – doubly important because these are often also your client’s secrets.

Winning Business (pages 144-156).  The author knows something about “Making a Sale” (the name of this chapter) given that her job was to convince someone to betray their own country – with really bad consequences if they got caught.  There is a ton of great advice; each one of the eight techniques listed merits some consideration.  Taking a step back, though, the real value of this section is that it reminds you we are in a relationship business.

Relationships

A key theme of this book is “elicitation”:  You gain information and insight not by dirty tricks, not by interrogation, and not even by direct questions.  Think about consumer research.  Don’t you love focus group questions like “Just why do you like this layout better than that one?”  The idea is that you can get the answers you need from listening and patience. 

Indeed, these are also the foundations of good relationships.  “A good CIA officer,” Carleson writes, “is charismatic without being flashy, inquisitive without being nosy, friendly without being boisterous, smart without being pedantic, and confident without seeming arrogant.  Above all, a good spy is a great listener.”  

That sounds like the kind of person I’d like to work with in an ad agency.  As long as they’re on my side, of course.

Consumers, Shoppers and/or People

Consumer or Shopper?

Words mean things.  When you have a choice among two or three words to describe something, the word you choose directs your meaning.  We have a lot of choices in the advertising industry.  Media or Channels.  Media agnostic or Media neutral.  Creative or Content.  Then there’s Consumers and Shoppers.

Consumers and Shoppers

For decades, most advertising people referred to their client’s customers as “consumers”.  There were exceptions, like the mobile phone maker who sold handsets to retailers so they could sell to “end users”.  Of course, every company defines their own target, like the QSR chain who wanted more SHUs (Super Heavy Users) or the brewer who really understood KBDs (Key Beer Drinkers).  The industry generic term, however, was “consumers”.

Not many years ago, the rise of shopper marketing created an industry trend seeking to distinguish “consumers” from “shoppers”.  The thought was that “consumers” see your advertising, but by the time they reach the store, they are “shoppers”, prone to forget what you told them once they see a special offer, display or demonstration.  The store was a medium and its audience was shoppers. 

Mobile Changes All That

We used to distinguish between Consumers and Shoppers but that’s no longer helpful because it’s no longer a distinction.  The shopping process starts at home, when the Consumer sees your advertising and starts researching or even shopping online.  If a trip to the store is involved, the research may even continue at shelf.  The advent of Near Field Communication is going to propel that behavior.

In other words, a Consumer becomes a Shopper much earlier in the purchase process.  (We could go a step further and say that a Shopper was always a Consumer in the end.)

Why It Matters

• Marketing has to be integrated just like the purchase cycle.  In the early days of IMC, marketers and agencies made matching luggage, and in more recent years discovered channel planning.  Often, though, we were artificially connecting the channels.  The mobile device makes that connection more genuine than ever.

• Mobile’s influence will always exceed its budget.  There’s a lot of industry discussion about how Mobile’s enormous usage “deserves” a much greater percentage of the marketing budget.  I would argue for Mobile’s cost-efficiency:  You spend less because it’s targeted to people who ask for the messages.

• Consumers, Shoppers and/or People.  Consumer insights and Shopper insights all come from people.  It does little good to segregate consumer insights from shopper insights because it's all part of the same, continuous purchase cycle.  You have to understand the whole consumer.

Or the whole person.  As a creative director once asked me:  Why can’t we just call them “people”?

Olive Garden Review a Rorschach Test for Marketers, Journalists

A small-town restaurant review went viral and promptly became a national Rorschach Test for marketers and journalists.

If you’re a card-carrying member of the MSM, Digerati, Technorati or just a Flack or a Huckster, you’ve read or heard about the quaint review of a local Olive Garden and how Gawker’s Emma Carmichael featured it in a snarky post. Clearly, Carmichael found it amusing that an octogenarian prairie journalist reviewed a chain restaurant.

The comments section under the Gawker piece is the Rorschach Test for marketers and journalists. Some say Gawker gave us a “rude, spiteful” example of Big City superiority complex. Others claim the review was laughable even if you hail from Grand Forks, North Dakota. It’s a lively discussion.

3 Reasons Marketers Should Really Care

We all stopped to look, just like passing an accident on the highway. But what’s the significance? Why should we care?

1. We’re living in our own little world. OK, I’m not really going out on a limb with that statement. We can smirk all we want about what the Grand Forks Herald publishes, but much of it would be alien to many of us. That’s troubling because we’re selling to an audience we don’t understand. It doesn’t have to be that way, however. We need to get out more. It’s worth noting that Gawker gleefully “reported” on a provincial Olive Garden review in 2008. (Is the idea file really that empty?)

2. Journalism has gone Pro-Am. It may seem naïve to review a chain restaurant, but Olive Garden in Grand Forks lies at the intersection of It Matters To People There and Newspapers Have To Fill Editorial Space. Media owners aren’t in the media business, they’re in the advertising business – content aids and abets the process of selling ad space.

3. What Viral Is. Marilyn Hegarty has been writing restaurant reviews for 30 years and this month the Internet finally caught up with her. Gawker essentially re-ran an article from four years ago and it took off….in our own little world. This was a popular story among marketers and journalists but Grand Forks and Sioux City may not have noticed.

Putting snark on top of snark, the Atlantic concluded “The Secret to Food-Writing Success: Review the Olive Garden.” My conclusion is different. Someone who doesn’t get out much decided to run a story that her publication had done before, featuring a sincere personal account that went viral on that someone’s ability to imbue it with irony. The audience in which it went viral was really just people like Emma Carmichael. Marilyn Hegarty by all accounts took it in stride.

This confounds those of us who work in modern communications, but it shouldn’t. For every Subservient Chicken there’s a Grand Forks Olive Garden that nobody in a black turtleneck could have created. Come on, colleagues. We’re smelling our own exhaust. Let’s get out a little.

Spider Charts Are Just Wrong

If you work in marketing or advertising, chances are you’ve seen a spider chart. These are supposed to impress upon us the vast number of consumer touchpoints reached by your IMC plan.

Although actual arachnids have eight legs, most marketing spider charts have many more. The more the merrier! Surround the consumer! I call this spidermania. You can see some examples, here, here and here.

There is a corollary effect to spidermania: Matching Luggage. This is the persistent belief that all marketing communications for a brand or product must look exactly alike.

Where did Spider Charts come from?

In the days of Ye Olde Marketing the media landscape was known territory and easy to navigate for clients, agencies and consumers. Even if your map went beyond broadcast and print media to include public relations or sports marketing or – remember this one? – guerrilla marketing, the task of budget allocation was straightforward.

When cable TV exploded, direct marketing matured, the Internet emerged and shopper marketing was invented, the landscape looked like those parts of Medieval maps warning Here Be Dragons. We tried in vain to organize everything in a way that made sense. Spider charts became a widely used tool.

Spider Charts illustrate how Clients and Agencies Use Media

The problem is that spider charts represent how marketing and advertising people use media. This perspective distorts your view in three ways:

1. You can’t guarantee a consumer will see all these things. They may look nice on the conference room wall, but what if the consumer only sees one or two executions? Will you still achieve your goal?
2. Assumes a “push” approach to marketing communications. Reach. Frequency. Penetration. These are important but we can no longer succeed with them alone. Some legs of the spider don’t work that way.
3. Misses the role of dialogue among consumers. Word-of-mouth has always outperformed any advertising, it was just hard to know how – until now. Social Media is not “push” nor “pull” but friends recommending things to friends. Spider charts miss that.

So what’s a better way?

Gigantic Venn Diagram Illustrates How Consumers Use Media

Marketing communications today is like a Gigantic Venn Diagram, its design constantly shifting from client to client, and from project to project. It would be nice if all the various media would just stay still for a moment and let us plan a client’s marketing communications. But it won’t. There will always be some new medium, platform or tactic bubbling up in the minds of programmers, entrepreneurs or venture capitalists.

By the way, this is wonderful. The Gigantic Venn Diagram may be confounding, but it should also be exciting. This is the best time in history to work in marketing communications.

It’s also reality. Consumers use these different media interchangeably and simultaneously. TV and Social Media. Mobile and Retail. QR codes and Direct Mail.

So what looks good on the conference room wall?

You may like spider charts for presentation purposes, and if it works for you, at least proceed with caution. Here are three other ways.

· Divide according to the purchase cycle. Many of you use the path to purchase or a funnel diagram to describe how the different media work together. We have been working with McKinsey for the past three years utilizing their Consumer Decision Journey.
· Organize according to media usage. Imagine a chart that divides advertising (communication that interrupts and/or persuades) from information or entertainment (communication that invites participation). Consumers use these very differently and so should we.
· Draw a Gigantic Venn Diagram. Honestly I am not sure yet if the GVD is a good presentation tool or maybe just a way to think about things during the planning process. It has definitely helped immerse me in a particular project, but only after I’ve done my homework.

That homework is critical. The same consumer insight that drives a creative brief should drive a channel plan. If you haven’t done that work, then you won’t get anywhere.

In any case, my hope is that phony spidermania has bitten the dust.

Social Media is Authentic, Not Automatic

A garage door service man understands Social Media better than most marketing people I know.

He happens to be technically inclined, but that's not what makes him an expert.

Who is this guy?

"Brad" is the owner and chief mechanic of Garage Door Corporation in Skokie, Illinois. We needed to replace a garage door remote control, and after looking in vain at DIY and Hardware stores, I found Brad's company via an Internet search. So far, a pretty routine 21st Century shopping procedure.

My phone call landed in voice mail, but the message was courteous and efficient, promising a return call within ten minutes. Sure enough, about ten minutes later Brad called and listened to what I wanted. He actually counseled me against buying anything right away, instead recommending a different, no-cost solution. During this conversation he directed me to his website, which surprised me in more ways than one.

Brad: Social Media maven

Your first impression of Brad's website will be that GDcorp.com is a pretty typical small business website. Lots of information and the graphics won't win any awards from D&AD. Then again, you go to a site like this to be informed and not entertained.

Then you'll notice icons for Facebook, Twitter and the company blog. Everybody has these, but since we were still on the phone I asked Brad how this Social Media thing was working out for him.

For Brad it's not about the technology, although from our conversation it's clear that he knows his 1s and 0s. He's an electrical engineer and has a Master's degree, but he doesn't think he needs those credentials to succeed with Social Media.

How a Small Business Succeeds at Social Media

Brad’s garage door business is surviving a recession that’s hit hard anything related to home construction. Others like him have closed down. It’s not Social Media by itself that saved him, but a way of working that happens to work well with Social Media.

· What business am I in? “I don’t manufacture garage doors or parts,” Brad says. “I can’t control that. In this day and age it’s all about service.” He lives this to such an extent that instead of selling me a remote control, he sold me his expertise. “We’re running a lot leaner than we were during the home-building boom,” he observes. “The key (now) is to be helpful.”

· Customer focus. One of the most over-used and under-applied terms in business, I know. Few people have true empathy for their customers. Brad doesn’t really have a mission statement other than what he told me on the phone: “Let us know what you want and I’ll get you the right thing.” He’s not a one-man show and takes hiring very seriously. “Who wants to see a guy drive up in van full of propane torches with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth?”

· Social Media can’t be set-and-forget. Based on some of his remarks, it seems he’s been pitched by some so-called experts. (He may have thought I was leading up to a pitch myself.) Who should manage the Social Media? “Nobody but the guy who knows the business and which markets he wants and what his customers are looking for.” On the subject of offshore call centers, he says “Once you get past Level 1 (a basic question), the offshore call centers can’t help you.”

Fanfare for the Common Man

Brad is a serious businessman who doesn’t take himself too seriously. His Twitter feed isn’t what you would call “a great follow” unless you want occasional insight into the garage door opener industry. That’s not the point, though. The point is that Brad uses Social Media not as en end unto itself, not as something to bring measurable ROI, and certainly not as a substitute for customer service. Rather, Social Media enables all those things by allowing Brad to express himself authentically to a growing customer base that hires him because he knows what they really need. Lots of industry pundits talk about Social Media as a tool of customer relations, but Brad actually does it.

Creative + Media = Comms Planning

Have Creative and Media been apart so long that they've forgotten each other?

Some will say, "No, how could that be? We hear every day about the changing media landscape, so how could anyone in advertising ever forget media?”

There's a difference, though, between what we hear every day and what we do every day. While it is absolutely false that legions of agency people robotically write only TV storyboards every day, it's equally true that few creatives get guidance on where and when their work will engage a consumer. Why? It could be lack of vision, adherence to a routine, or the artificial separation of Creative and Media from the spinoff of media agencies in the 1990s.

The Creative Brief is not enough

This week we had a group briefing for a new project. There were many great questions about the consumer, how she shops the category, and her decision making process. Suddenly the creative director asked an important question.

"Have we thought about Comms Planning?"

The very same question was on my mind, but it meant so much more coming from the creative director. She was clearly thinking about all the different ways to engage the consumer, and high on her list was how consumers could engage with their friends. (As I've written before, Social Media is just word-of-mouth + technology, allowing us to drive it better than we ever have.)

I'd like to think she asked this question because we're one of the few agencies that still has a media department, but that's not it. There wasn't a Media person in the room at the time. Besides, "Media" may not even be the right word. (I almost put it in scare quotes in the title of this post.)

Call it what you will, but there’s no point in calling it anything unless you’re going to do something about it in day-to-day business. “Media agnostic” is a bad term, partly because it describes a philosophy instead of something practical. “Comms planning” is better because it says we’re going to do something. (Notably, this was the first time I had ever heard an American ad person use the term "comms planning" in a regular, day-to-day meeting. It comes up in punditry all the time but as a business term it's rare.)

5 Steps to Comms Planning

If your normal practice is to just write the brief and hope that a media agency doesn’t prescribe 100% :15 TV ads when you thought shopper marketing was important, try taking these steps.

1. Leverage your work on consumer insights for the creative brief. It’s the same consumer and if you’ve done your homework, you know this person. That insight can help you understand how he or she uses media.

2. Apply that insight to how the consumer shops the category. At some point “the consumer” becomes “the shopper” and along that journey she uses different media. Think about how to engage her along the way.

3. Learn about channels outside your comfort zone. Technology is driving all the changes in the media landscape, but not all of those changes are digital. Retail disciplines like shopper marketing are important, too.

4. Prepare yourself to adjust the creative message according to channel. This is just common sense; a great TV spot drives awareness, talk value may be expressed via social media, and retail promotion may close the sale.

5. Think in terms of a business solution, not just a media solution. "Media" and "Channel" are both words describing a conduit, a means to an end, or the delivery of something. They don’t, however, just deliver messages or conduct word of mouth, they help you achieve a business objective.

You achieve your business objective on the strength of both Creative and Media. Don’t let them forget about each other.