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Recession fallout: Good and Time leverage digital to stay alive

You've heard, I'm sure, that Domino and WonderTime have shuttered their doors. A real loss of a bold aesthetic and brave approach, respectively.

They fell to the same shocks hitting the rest of the publishing industry: fractured media habits among core readers; reduced ad spending; increased distribution costs; etc.

This month, two other publishing innovators handled the industry-wide challenges in really different ways:

Good: Powerful content for the digital space

If you don't know Good - I'm happy you're reading this. It's a chance for me to introduce you to your next favorite thing. The visual appeal of Real Simple; the smart voice of Fast Company; the heady ideas of Seed. All in one even-better tome.

Unfortunately, Good is trimming its paper for the times. This mini issue was delivered this month. "The Recession Issue" features 80% less printed content and an announcement that the publishing schedule will be migrating from monthly to quarterly.

Ouch.

The "Good" news: The content isn't slowing down. It's just moving. To Good's digital space. Normally, this would be a scary proposition. But, Good is so provocative, so visual - it's better than ever. Check it out. You'll get addicted.

Time: Aggregating a house of brands

So how do you leverage a big operational elephant in lean times? Time is doing it with personalization. The publisher is pulling together its news, sports and lifestyle publications into one aggregator that lets readers completely customize their ideal multi-interest magazine.

Visitors pick up to five Time titles they'd like to read content from. Time builds that content into one personal book that can be delivered online or in mailbox. Pretty cool.

Laughing at ourselves: Tourism humor that works

Since writing a few posts on the “Not in Columbus” convention and tourism campaign, I’ve found myself in an ongoing offline debate about what works and what doesn’t in tourism advertising. Since I have little or no experience in the category, I’ve been educating myself the blogger way: search, click and play.

No question, it’s a tough business. Glamming up the decapitated mountains of West Virginia, differentiating one artsy desert community from another, making even a big-ass mall seem like a destination.

It’s no wonder we want to laugh at ourselves.

But doing humor well…. That’s tough. The campaigns that do it well deliver three key things consistently:

1. Communicate a vibe, a personality of the place
2. Quickly transition from a self-effacing laugh to the good stuff
3. Make it easy for you to see yourself in them (either in the story or in the place)

My two favorite examples of campaigns doing it well couldn’t be more different:

Minneapolis' Unconvention Campaign.
Sponsored by the city's groundswell - a group of independent organizations, businesses and people - and centered on the playing host to the Republican convention, this integrated print and Web campaign is laugh-out-loud funny and still delivers on all the criteria above.

 

See the full campaign

Maine's "It's Got to Be Maine" Campaign

Sure, it's one thing to do independent well. But, what about official advertising? The kind that has to go through channels and committees and compromises?

I like Maine's campaign because it survived the gauntlet relatively intact. It pokes a little fun at the state, but in a personal, inside-joke kind of way. And, once its campy humor stops you, the fast-paced montage communicates a wholly unexpected vibe. WKB Spier produced this campaign. You can see more examples in "the work" section of their Web site.

Breaking through: The power of direct mail

If you were out and about last night, you probably noticed one sure way to break through: burrito giveaways. Chipotle's free burrito event netted crowds stretched around multiple city blocks at the downtown locations here.

But, if you don't have a burrito bar built into your core business strategy, here's another suggestion:

Direct mail.

Sure, it sounds old school, but I'd argue that some of the most engaging DR work going on right now can be found among the newsprint and val-packs right in our mailboxes. It represents opportunity seized from the jaws of faux highlighters and foil starbursts. So attention will be paid!

My favorite is the new catalog work coming out of Neiman Marcus. This seen@nm series targets a younger audience with a more editorial style and breaks out of the usual catalog form factor with a tabloid shape and a great matte stock that just makes the sexy color pop. The quality and content feels exclusive. It not only breaks through -- I'm guessing it's a temporary keeper in a stack of recent issues of Vogue and The New Yorker in bedrooms around America.

My second favorite is totally local, although the concepts are paralleled nationally.

Local example. Take a look at this item:

Couple of buy local stickers and a business card from the Director of Dangerous Ideas at AreYouBrilliant.com. It came in a plain envelope, handwritten with my address and stamped with the brilliant logo.

I was curious and logged on to check it out. (Incidentally: logged on? Total adopter word. Who logs on anymore? Oh, wait, sorry Mack.)

Seems like community action, right? Nope. It's an insurance agent who specializes in local businesses. And, what's more - I wasn't even disappointed to find that out. The Web site features local businesses, tells their stories and positions Ryan Morgan (said director) as a really authentic partner to them.

Fantastic execution.

National example: HBO's True Blood.

This effort was definitely buzz marketing instead of social outreach, but it's still an interesting approach. A slew of other bloggers beat me to posing about it; so, I won't go too deep, but essentially I got a padded envelope in the mail that  contained a "free sample" of a new synthetic blood:

And a decidedly creepy overview of just what an innovation in SNACKING this new choice in blood would be.

The only URL in sight? This creepy destination.

Ok, you win, I'll Google. Turns out it's publicity for True Blood, a new show about vampires premiering the Fall. A name I'll definitely remember. And, an experience that created something between dumbfoundedness and curiosity.

Check out Yes but No but Yes for more.

Breaking through: "Crack the code" advertising

That was a term coined by fellow strategist Carey S in a last minute could-have-been-manic-were-we-not-so-intentionally-mellow brainstorm this winter. We were talking about what it is that makes sports ads like Jordan's Clock Tower break through? What takes them from being watched in prime time to being chatted about around the water cooler?

Our theory: It's the respect they pay their audience. They way they bring us in and make us feel clever. The way they reward us for the silly trivia we collect, the seasons of television we watch, the unique perspective we each have on the world

CTC advertising generally falls into two categories:

#1 You're like us.
These campaigns connect with us on a passionate level. They unpack the big things we believe in and serve them up in dramatic ways. They are the corollary to an inside joke - the secret handshake that only people like us would know.

• Example: The Become Legendary Campaign that W + K created for Nike/Jordan. The fourth in the series was this Clock Tower spot ("No Cinderallas") that played in the runup to the tournament and left big proud fans welling up on couches around the country:
  
  

• Example: The Economist. Although BBDO's long-standing well-written in red campaign is probably the clearest example, even the newer campaigns target the pride in target readers. The idea that their sense of savvy and their curiosity make them part of an elite group of global citizens. The sense that they are truly banded together by difference.
  
  

#2 You remember.
It's rewarding to be the first one to figure out the puzzle. To trump your sister by guessing the identity of the murderer halfway through the new episode of Law & Order. To run the board at the annual holiday Trivial Pursuit match.

These "you remember" ads engender similar competition. They tease and hide just enough to make us want to guess it first.

• Example: HP's delightful Personal campaign developed by Goodby, Silverstein and Partners that features a celebrity's hands revealing their online life. Only at the very end - after glimpses and clues - do we find out who's online life it really is.
  

• Example: Discovery Channel's I Love the World brand ad created by 72andSunny. Yeah, it's wildly addictive music, but behind that is the montage to rule all montages. Places, shows, animals. Any number of things to competitively guess at from across the living room. Hey, wasn't that the whale from season 4....?

How it's social: A fellow traveler at Bridge Worldwide has been writing a lot about "marketing with meaning" these past weeks. A concept that may sound philanthropic, but is really just social. It's about creating engagement and content & experiences that people actually want, rather than forcing our messages into aggravated ears.

If you should go looking around online for people's comments about the Jordan spot, you'll find mentions of shivers, of welling up, of wanting to get out and practice. For the Discovery Channel spot, texted sing-alongs. For HP, personal takeoffs. The list goes on. The engagement in these "crack the code" campaigns is truly emotional. Pride, joy, curiosity. Uniquely human. Perfectly translated.

Local marketers who get it

Let's get physical for a moment, ad friends, with a couple of great examples of local marketing done right. Starting with agency work and wandering the whole way down to a homemade, hand-stuffed message from a local restaurant:

First up: The Women's Fund of Central Ohio Keyholder Event

This annual fundraiser supports grants to programs that promise social change for women and girls. Every year, they feature a well-known speaker. This year, it's Miriam Peskowitz, author of The Daring Book for Girls.

The invitation and Web site were created by Ologie (long before I arrived!) and - I think - powerfully bring to life the book, the theme and the cause. The pieces feel very high end for local greater good and have been received with something akin to delight.

AND- The Web site (again for a local market event) has been nominated for a Webby. Vote for it under Living / Events on the People's Voice.

Onto: The Makeup Counter at Nordstom

Talk about making a big brand personal! Nordstrom has always been known for service, but sometimes they outdo even themselves.

Recently, I went to the Laura Mercier counter to get a fab new lip gloss (seriously, baby doll gloss, you've got to have it) and was helped by a perfectly gracious associate.

Then, the following week, I got this hand-written note from her - thanking me for the purchase. That's a business card I was careful to save.

 

 

Finally: Figlio Restaurant in Grandview / Columbus

We've talked a lot lately about brands leveraging Twitter to listen to users - to find small problems before they get big; to uncover ideas that might make better products.

Peter and Laurie Danis, owners of Figlio, have perfected the old-school version of that.

They have a great personal story about tossing their law practices for the love of food. For caring about work with passion. So, they scan the local newspaper's career section every week. And, target people who've recently been promoted with a great little congratulations package:

A letter about your accomplishment. Their story. And a gift certificate for dinner. All asking that you share your celebration with them.

And, all bizarrely genuine.

 

 

Ripped from Women's Magazines: Smart niche advertising

Forgive the crinkling. These ads literally came from my bedside table where one of them may have served briefly as a coaster.

AIG's 'How to pick a puppy that's right for you'
Challenge: Couples are waiting longer to have children and a still-small but economically-influential niche is choosing not to have them at all. For this audience, the typical guilt and responsibility ploys that have delivered in retirement and financial planning for the last several decades may be a little less potent.

Strategy: Find a niche and talk to it. Pet parents, maybe? Yeah, why not. Hugely passionate group of humans who are as happy to invest time and attention to advice as a nervous new real mom.

Result: Bare minimum?  Pet parents spent some time with this brand. AIG stopped the page flip and may have given them something to talk about at work the next day.

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Citi 'Dividends are a girl's best friend'

Challenge: Being impactful in their own media buy. Finding eyes for a message about the serious work of being a successful grown-up in the most escapist medium of them all -> women's magazines. Great recipes, cool clothes, fun room makeovers,  workouts I'll never do ... that makes me think about a bubble bath, not my theoretical portfolio.

Strategy: First, borrow equity from the medium - take the ad you'd expect (diamonds) and make it about the product we want to talk about. Second, play into the ambivalence a lot of women feel about even spending time reading this fuzzy stuff by delivering a message of empowerment in an unlikely source.

Result: Increasingly, women in their 20s and 30s are making more money than their partners. They're the responsibility and income hub of the household. Often, they are the household. I can't imagine this ad doesn't connect with them...

Great ads -

The elevation of creativity

Since I'm not a speedy aggregator, you've probably already seen these ads for Michaels by The Richards Group. Nonetheless, there are two advertising trends here that I'm really excited about:

• The personalization of demographics: Increasingly, I get the sense that agencies are investing in creating identities for niche audiences - building out the story of one person - her wants and dreams and fears - to best create advertising that really speaks to emotional drivers.
• The elevation of creativity: Whether it started in advertising or advertising is merely following, I appreciate the increased value placed on personal creativity - on the validation of that fundamental emotional desire to create and share...

Snickers: Grownup candy bar targeting kids

Great find by Adverbox this morning ...

Love this Snickers ad both for its really fun, environmental visual and because (YAY!) this campaign is the first in a long time by Snickers that hasn't targeted me (!):  toiling office worker likely to be run-down by mid-day and easily romanced into an ill-advised purchase at the vending machine...

Agency: Impact BBDO

Ad we would all most love to run...

...or, at least make into an agency holiday card everyone really believed in -

Saatchi's congratulations to (client) Toyota on being named Advertising Age's 2006 Marketer of the Year:

See the full ad on page 10 of the Top 50 overview...
 

Renault and Coke: Fresh takes on usual messages...

Renault Clio print from Lowe.

(No, this is not a picture of me from last weekend)

And, a great Coke spot that must be buried in all the summer reruns ...
From W + K and Nexus Productions: