advergirl

Getting over The Yips

During the writer's strike, I suppose I could have picked up a healthy habit like spa cooking, whatever-came-after-knitting, or old-school Tae Bo. But, instead, I rented entire seasons of series I had missed the first time around. The most addictive of which was the profoundly screwed up Nip Tuck.

In one episode, the more responsible, less hot doc finds his hand shaking and jerking during surgery. Eventually he has to stop operating for the safety of the patients. And, alas, his own doc cannot find a physical cause. They determine it's The Yips.

The Yips: A golfing term that basically means you twitch when putting. Could be medical. Could be all in your head.

Zipping back over to the real world. About 8 months ago, I got a whopper of a case of them. Not in my hands, but in my voice. The woman who has been running rooms and talking off the cuff for 15+ years suddenly couldn't get through a little case study without her voice cracking like Peter Brady (remember THAT episode?) In one memorable new business pitch, my throat shut so tight that my usual casual speech quickly became a caterwaul, spiraling so fast that I basically completely lost the ability to speak for a moment.

The worst part is, The Yips feed on themselves. So, once it happened, I would be even more nervous about it the next time and it would be ever more likely to happen.

Happily the symptoms were limited. Only standing presentations. Only in rooms of people I didn't know.

More happily, it's over.

Not because I have a great story of dealing with it, confronting the office bully, getting my groove back, etc. No, I took the easy way out and just completely changed my environment. But, I have walked away with some advice. Sort of an adrenaline shot to the heart you can give to a speaker losing her cool.

Yips Rx: Interrupt her

All it takes is a friendly question, a smart (or, hey, no judgment, any kind of) comment to give her a minute to get her composure back. In that instant, the panic cycle is broken and The Yips have to start all over again.

Go ahead, do it for a good speaker with a case of the nerves in your life.

Would people really do that?

I have a number of stories I tell about myself. Anecdotes meant to simplify the typical personal evolution into some easily digestible 'whys.' A great example is why I didn't become a journalist after investing four (or however-many) years in J-school. Reason: I never know the answer to the first question people ask. I could tell a 15 minute story in glorious detail and no matter the first question asked, I don't know the answer. I didn't ask it.

But, I do know the answers to 100 other questions that I think are more telling. So, this is my idea of the moment: not all questions are created equal. And, we can answer the question by changing it.

For example: Perhaps the single most common objection I hear in new media presentations is would people really do that? That being, of course, blog, read blogs, go to social network sites, pass ideas to friends, review products, etc. 

It's easy to just answer: Yes! They would. They are. They do.

But maybe instead of answering the question, we should change it: How do we get them to interact with your brand instead of another brand?

Or, a much tougher question: Are the people who would do that already so overwhelmed with information and feeds and friends and early-adopter noise that they aren't even capable of truly adopting a new brand / idea / relationship? Would the kind of people who do that devote enough time to my brand / idea to make it worthwhile?

So, that's my challenge to you and me this month. Answer the first questions, but ask and answer the much harder ones, too. Out loud.

Eight most awkward ways to get the good news -

Hey, you got a new account. Well done. You generated 150 pages of RFP response. You sweated through the big pitch and then the three consecutive re-pitches. You even gave in and did a little spec work. Now, you're face-to-face with the bearer of good news. And, trying to contort your facial muscles to look genuinely happy in the face of these tough setups:

1. The spare change: We all loved the presentation. The motion media, the interactivity, the deep content, but, here's the thing - we just can't pay close to that much. Can you create the same basic thing for 25% of your proposed budget?


2. Too much truth: Look, I'll be honest with you, I'm the only one who liked you guys. My boss wanted the NY firm with more experience; my team wanted the agency that seemed to understand us more, but this is my call and I like you.


3. The Ghost of Christmas future: Hey, hey, sorry for calling so late in the day but congratulations! Look, good news is that you got the business - we all loved you. Bad news is that I have a brochure that needs to be written and designed tonight and ready for the printer by lunch tomorrow. Can you do it?


4. Strange bed-fellows: Great news, we've made a decision. We loved your brand experience and we'd like to have you go ahead and do that part of our account. We've retained Arch Enemy, Inc. as our AOR - you'll be working through them to us. It should be a great partnership.


5. Doer of doom:  We're so looking forward to working with you guys. Your capabilities, attitudes, work - all just incredible. Here's the only thing ... things are so uncomfortable with our old agency that we really don't want to extend the relationship any more than is absolutely necessary. Can you get with them directly to handle the transition and handoff?


6. The Handpicker: Super pitch, team. We're ready to get started. All I need to do is make sure I have the ideal day-to-day contact to really best communicate our input at the agency. This will only work if I communicate exclusively with the president of the agency.


7. The Favor factory: Before we start work on the first project, could I just ask a quick favor? I know your team is super ensconced with all the big media in town. Any chance you could get me, my daughter and her 6 friends tickets to Monday's sold-out Bowl game and maybe a quick ride on a private jet and some hotel vouchers?


8. The premature pairing: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yours is the team I absolutely want to work with. And, this spec work you provided gives me great ammunition to go to my Board and convince them that we need to hire an agency.

Your brand personality

Ok, yonder readers, time to prove out just who are the marketing geekiest among us.

Have you ever thought about what your personal brand personality might be? That one thing that unites all your disparate - work, family, friends - selves by a common thread? A subtle elevation of the common to a unifying spirit. That thing that sets you apart.

Last month, I met this amazing woman who said her's was 'scrappy.'

Do you love that? At once competitive and practical. Bootstraps and game-changing ideas all in one.

Sadly, I believe mine is 'resourceful.' Not much romance in that. All practical, little passion. But, I'd like it to be 'curious.'

And, that my friends, is why I win this geek off. Not only do I have a personal brand, I also have personal brand envy.

Leave yours in the comments...

Mourning the loss of the inbox

Back when a busty blond was a sure-win on any ad. When pitch meetings were choked with Marlboro smoke. When packaging led with recipes instead of calorie counts. When personalization meant reading Dear Mrs. Ben Harben on your junk mail.

Well, then, there was a special place for incoming communications. Sometimes shimmery silver wire. Sometimes cracked black plastic. Sometimes a simple stained beige. But always emblazoned with the optimistic, type-written label: INBOX.

There, all your communications gathered. To be sorted. Responded to. FOUND.

That was a time when no one would ever:

• Come back from lunch balancing a Starbucks and a full meal only to sit down on a stack of vacation requests and creative briefs stacked on her chair since her brief exit 20 minutes prior
• Check her office voicemail, cell phone voicemail, email, mailbox, shared comment email, floor around her desk, and text messages before getting started for the day
• Get a frantic call asking if the change order dropped somewhere in the detritus of her desk had been executed by the deadline buried on page 3
• Receive a surprise notification from IT that her email inbox is full and will no longer be sending or receiving mail (frankly, you could see when an inbox was approaching its teetering capacity)
• Belatedly discover that the two-minute heads up communicated in the kitchen while waiting for the coffee to brew was in fact the workstart meeting. And, the work is now sadly past due
• Or, spend the several minutes prior to any conference call rustling around stacks of paper, sorting by subject in email, cursing the darn server that won't come up all in search of the agenda ... ahhhhh.

Where is my blessed inbox?

Coffee Cup Coordinator: My occasional job description

On non-optimistic days, the job of your loyal account girl is little more glamorous than the short order waitress gig I abandoned some 15 years ago … sure, most days, I smell a little less like French fries when I get home, but I’m still smiling when I don’t mean it, slinging coffee and supporting the occasional bad decisions of my coworkers and customers…

Here’s the side of the job description we don’t usually mention in the interview:

(Coffee) Order Taker: The meeting could be with the assistant, under-assistant to the coordinator of the intern of the director of PR. Two agency creatives not 30 days out of a two-year, strip-mall art school are also attending. Plus, a handful of interns and an uppity Gen Y production coordinator. And STILL I would be the one taking lengthy customized orders and schlepping boiling hot coffee across town to hand deliver to the privileged ones who need two pumps of vanilla with their half soy / half nonfat iced, extra foam lattes.

(Ignored) Client / Consumer Advocate: And, they’re OFF! A couple of ego-drunk creatives who believe, BELIEVE, that their concept will revolutionize the way we sell toilet paper. It’s clever, funny, brilliant. It’s the best thing the agency has ever done.

And, no amount of carefully measured feedback on how it cheapens the brand, will infuriate the client and has absolutely no traction with an audience twice the age of the creatives themselves will even make a dent in their single-minded CREATION.

(Mindless) Budget (Task Master):
The errant print production manager: Look ,it’s only a $7500 mistake. Can’t you just write that off?
The artistic master slumming as an art director: What do you mean we only had 30 hours. It took 900; so, that’s what I invested. You’re so unreasonable.
The client who muddies the difference between a freelancer and an agency: Look, I don’t know why it would cost that much. It’s just a brochure. I could do it in a day.

10% control. 100% responsibility. And, grief every step of the way. Who wants the damn checkbook?

Control Freak (Out):
Just show me something. The presentation is a day away.
Just freaking call me back. You paid a $100k for this; don’t you want it to be successful.
Could you just stop talking – this is our client not a punching bag.
Care about this, dammit. Show me some blessed urgency.

Push Back (and Miss): The art of the push back is in rephrasing the client's intended direction in a way that conveys input (vs. orders) and cleverly pairing that with a little strategy, a smidge of redirection, and a carefully-worded shared conclusion. Best intentions aside, half the time it still ends with - I'm the client; just do what I said.

Presentation (Pussy): I hug sacred cows. Even if they're dumb, misguided, overweight, prissy, time-sucking, obnoxious cows, I still hug them. I hug them and I suggest solutions that work around them. Despite them. Against them.

What can I say? I love new leather shoes.

Strategic (Shout into Space): Long after the Annual Plan has been left gathering dust on the cutting-edge three-hole punch no one could figure out how to use, there's the meeting. The meeting where you're talking about behavioral Web trends and compliance to key use paths and conversion to store experience, and ... yeah, their eyes are as glazed as yours are about now, dear reader. All they want is a Flash ad banner. Just make the banner. Why are you still talking? What's the goal of the banner? Well, the CEO wants one - so, that would be the goal. Now hush.

(Jester of) Client Relations: When I was a real waitress, I wore big gaudy watches and scandalously short skirts and silly hair accessories (yes, including the occasional banana clip) - anything to start conversation with my 'flair' vs. more dangerous topics like families and politics and religion and just what might be in that chicken fried steak. Now it's new hair cuts and glasses and shoes and outfits and ... blah, blah, all the better to start small talk with. AdverGirl Barbie's got a new headband.

And, then there's the mantra: You've fought the good fight. Now, just smile and be nice. Smile and be nice. Are you grimacing? Is that a snarl? Come on, there's go to be a smile in there somewhere...

Two completely relevant and totally shameless tricks for AEs

Sure, our jobs are more than schmoozing clients. But, hey, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your own at a boozy happy hour or impress at an absurdly over-priced dinner. For just those occasions, here are a couple of tips from old school sales guys I’ve met along the way:

How to pick up the tab without the “who’s getting this one” dance

• Easy: Excuse yourself to the restroom and hand off your AmEx to the maitre’d. The waiter will bring you the receipt to sign.
• Super slick: Get there early, hand off your card and instructions that you’ll pick it back up later that night or tomorrow.
• Out of town: Drive the route from the hotel to the restaurant BEFORE your clients get in the car. Oh, don’t you look smart.

How to NOT get completely wasted trying to keep up – the key bar orders:

• Martini. It’s easily replaced with water on the second, third, fourth … tenth…
• Jack and coke in a tall glass. Skip the Jack as the night rolls on.
• Vodka and cranberry. Same deal as above, but with vitamins since you're probably skipping the gym

I wish I had known those bar tips a few years back. I actually had to pass on an account because I was too much of a light weight to keep up with the way the client preferred to socialize… I kept falling asleep!

Just exactly what would you do for a client?

Front row. That's me covered in band aids.

That's my client in the johnnie.

Yeah.

We're at his kickball team's War of the Wounded theme night.

No, the other teams do not have theme nights.

Yes, I did say kickball.

---

Come on, this would make a great book - Just exactly what would you do - have you done - for a client?

The Worst Focus Group is You

OR: No, you are not normal

OR: Why not conduct a focus group of one

You know what focus group I’m talking about. The one that inside a strategy meeting starts out with one of these familiar phrases:

Well, I’m in the demo and my experience is…

I’m a consumer / customer of that [brand] and I think…

From my perspective as a parent…

Separating ourselves from the great, big populace of product buyers out there can be a challenge. After all, we are parents, kids, shavers, eaters, joggers, hair-doers, hair removers, etc. When it comes to understanding the drivers of the purchasing decision, why avoid your own opinion?

• If you use the words consumer, demo or brand, you are likely not experiencing the greater marketplace as an average Jane. You may rate store signage, rant about advertising strategy in your living during commercial breaks (nah, pods) or event critique direct mail addressed to you and your family.
  
  Asking you to discuss the buying experience is like asking a rocket scientist to help build a 2nd-graders diorama of the solar system. There is a level of expertise, cum mania, that eclipses the normal interest level of the wider population. You are overkill.


• One person – even if it’s not your expert / jaded / all-knowing self – is never extendable. Remember this equation: 1 / SQRT(n). That’s the formula for accuracy and extendibility of a population’s survey results. When n = 1 … well, it has a plus or minus accuracy rating of 100%. Not exactly confidence inspiring.


• You may simply be too close to the brand. After years of being a marketer / customer / advertiser, you hold certain core beliefs about the brand(s) you represent. If there is a change in the marketplace - or, even in your core customer - you may be too close to see it without an outside perspective.


• You may be masking your real objection. If your “gut check” is leaving you feeling that something is wrong, ask critical questions, dig into the research … heck, commission research. Don’t replace someone else’s flawed rationale with your own when you have the tools available to make it right.


• You’re wearing down your own credibility. To varying degrees your clients and colleagues have spent years honing their bullshit meters. In other words: they know a soapbox when they see one. Bring strategy, ideas, plans, resources to the table … leave the market pulse to someone who knows how to take it.

The Art of Creative Management

This quote is taped up in my office to remind me of the challenges and rewards of entrepreneurial cultures:

Imagine, for a moment, that you’ve been put on an island and handed a sack of rice, some vegetable plants, and a chicken. “Good luck,” says the person who brought you there. “You’ll be responsible for growing your own food now; I know you’ve never done that before, but I have every faith in your ability.”

Then he gets in the boat and leaves, merrily waving goodbye.

Crazy, right?

It's from a ChangeThis manifesto called "Growing Great Employees" by Erika Andersen. She's written a book by the same name. Both are very helpful, um, help.

There's a new edition of ChangeThis out this week. If you're not already subscribed, please consider it - it's like Fast Company and David Letterman pleasantly smooshed together.

Creative critics

Just one for the collection - 

From  Tom Fishburne's Brand Camp cartoons: The 8 Types of Bad Creative Critics.

Found at: Cup of Java

Willie Nelson sings the Ad Guy Blues

Here's a conference call exercise. See how few words you have to change in a Willie Nelson song to take out the cowboy and put in the beleagured ad guy. Here's my take on "Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys"

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be ad guys
Don’t let ‘em write snappy headlines and client suck up
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be ad guys
They'll never come home when they’re in the zone
Even when they’re really drunk

Ad guys ain't easy to love and they're harder to scold
And they'd rather give you a free sample then diamonds or gold
Logo-ed tshirts and old faded khaki’s each night begins a new day
And if you don't understand him and he don't get fired young
He'll probably just fade away 

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be ad guys
Don’t let ‘em write snappy headlines and client suck up
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be ad guys
They'll never come home when they’re in the zone
Even when they’re really drunk

Ad guys like smokey bars and pizza delivered
White paper, Addys and little criticism
And them that don't know him won't like him
And them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong he's the creative guy
But his pride won't let him do things the client says are right

10 habits of highly annoying agency humans

The Promenade

Walking at the speed of smell, she promenades slowly by, mocking the very idea of urgency with every sashay and meandering step. As the pushed-three-times, last-possible-second, drop-dead deadline approaches with mere seconds to spare, she wanders by with that final proof the ACD has been screaming for since noon, dangling from her manicured fingers.

Clock Watching

As if by some magical spell, he is gone at exactly 5:30 every day. The “end of work day” time listed as a guideline in the employee manual is the end of his commitment to the team, no matter how much work is piled up on the desk of the chump with an old-fashioned work ethic who will find herself still staring at the screen when the 10PM pizza delivery arrives.

His credo is “I’m not paid enough to work overtime.” And, while he will take advantage of the casual dress code, the occasional beer on a Friday afternoon and every ounce of personal time afforded him, the one thing he will not do is grace his desk a second after the horn blows and he goes soaring down the dinosaur’s tail to get home to Wilma and Dino.

Eh, Why NOT Start at 2AM?

Who knows what he does during the actual work day. What with the towering workload that could keep three creatives busy 10 hours a day and all the meetings, the managing of people and expectations, the requisite long lunches, who has time to work at the OFFICE? Not he, not he.

Instead, he flips on the TV around 11, brushes the Doritos crumbs off a stack of coffee-stained briefs and digs in. Never mind the misspellings, the unanswered questions, the missing images that production can “drop in” at another time. He needs to send these PDFs out by 2AM to avoid missing the morning deadline.

Meeting Napping

The AE stares dumbly at him as he actually starts snoring in a meeting. Snoring. His chin has long-since dropped to his chest and it was easy enough to ignore when he just stopped receiving the copy input at the workstart meeting, but now, as his drool splats on the brief, the entire group has turned to stare in awe of just how difficult it is to get fired from our under-staffed little family.

Chit Chat: Oh no, you don’t stop

Other employees try to sneak by her cube silently – slinking across the last few yards, some dropping to the floor in a military field crawl. Once she spies you, hours of your life can disappear to that sound of an “oh, girl!” The long, drawn-out details of her weekend; a story from a client at an former agency; a memory from childhood … they all crash down on your in waves of desperation. There is no wandering away, no hints – no matter how overt – she will follow you to a meeting, into the bathroom, out to your car. There is no escape.

Laughing-Out-Loud by Herself

Oh, I love that IM. *Cackle* Gosh, I’m funny. *Giggle*. Weeeeeeee, work is so darn fun when you’re not doing it! *Guffaw*

(Fine, I admit it. This one is me.)

Slouching, AKA: Puppy Dog Eyes

She slinks up to your office door looking like a kicked dog. Before a word even comes out of her mouth, she communicates failure, misery and vulnerability. By the time she speaks, you’ve already begun to feel hostility. If the agency were really a high school (instead of the grown-up, gossipy equivalent), this girl would get a swirly.

The Sigh

“Hey, when can we get together about a new project for The Client?”

“**SIGH**”

“Busy week?”

“Yes, I have more things to do than your little mind could possibly imagine. There’s this and that and this and seven of these.”

“How about Monday then?”

“**SIGH** I am wildly inconvenienced by your request that I actually work on the clients I am assigned to. Can’t you see that I’m a curmudgeon who finds all human interaction to be aggravating? And, you’re just an AE. Why would you even presume to talk to me, Sr Creative Guy? Go back to your little desk. I need coffee.”

Can You Hear Me Now?

I AM SO SMART. MY IDEAS ARE FANTASTIC. I’M TALKING AT THIS VOLUME SO THAT EVERYONE CAN BASK IN MY BRILLIANCE.

The very best moments for The Bullhorn are when he stops listening to himself in meetings and strange strings of words start to babble forth. The question, my friends, is yes.

The Sycophant Approach to New Business

“I have an idea. What if the entire new business team parachuted in to the pitch to show how we’re like the green berets of advertising – we go in and do the tough jobs. And, then, we can personally cook them a huge steak dinner and give them all gift certificates to the Mercedes dealership”

Agency: *sigh*

Microsoft hates consumers ... oh, you know it's true.

Look, can we maybe just admit a few things that we may be mildly obsessed with?

Maybe, say, an obviously highly commercial reality TV program where clearly nothing is even remotely real, but somehow I end up getting teary every time because some little lost rocker is achieving his / her dream of stardom?

Ok, here it is: I watch Rockstar Supernova. On DVR so that I can rewind and watch my favorite "rockers" again. And, I liked two of the songs soooooo much that I actually went online to download them.

Wait, let's be clear.

Not the original versions of the songs. Nay, young marketer, nay.

Rather I bought the whole boatload of branded TV and downloaded the versions by the reality TV stars themselves: Rebel Yell by Billy Idol Lukas Ross and Lithium by Nirvana Dilana Robichaux.

And, ok, since we're admitting things. I downloaded two others, too, since I was there.

Total: $3.96

And, of course, I immediately tried to import them into iTunes so that I could dance around with them blaring in my iPod (a la your average 30-something).

<error> <error> <error>

However, these files were created by Microsoft. AND are in WMA format. WHICH is not compatible with iTunes. AND is actually only compatible with computers and about three portable music players. WHICH is super handy for music one MIGHT WANT TO TAKE WITH HER.

How did I find this out? Was it clearly stated that these files - priced exactly like all MPG downloads are priced - would not work with the type of music players the vast, vast majority of the market owns? Um, no. It was in the fine print in the FAQ. Brilliantly placed so that only aggravated post-purchasers could locate it.

A miserable consumer experience. And, a monopoly (with exclusive rights to these particular songs). Oh, Microsoft, how you hate consumers so.

Actual fake memo from lead product manager to marketing team regarding new proprietary format:

Dear Marketing Department,

We’re ready to launch our new M*N Music Store. Instead of using the global standard for security and portability – MPG – we’ve elected to build our own proprietary format that will prevent customers from listening to these songs on any portable music player anyone, anywhere presently owns.

No worries, we’re selling music players, too – so, they’ll just have to buy a new $300 player for the songs they buy at the Music Store. Perhaps someday – possibly in a parallel universe – this will destroy our evil foe, iP*d.

Here’s where you come in – we have financial projections to reach to justify the product development budget. So, we’re hoping you could delay any consumer education on this product. We’re thinking, develop a price point, look/feel and experience that’s just like iTunes.

Customers will get excited about the exclusive deals we’ve worked out with key artists who long ago traded their integrity to win a few billions of Bill’s big ad budget. And, they’ll download without even guessing that someone could have created a new format that won’t work with any device they currently own.

Once they’re hooked, we’ll provide the compatibity info in super fine print that users will find when they try to troubleshoot errors. And, then we can cross sell our new portable devices, too.

Remember our motto: Screw the customer. Most of them can’t get around using us anyway.

Cheers!

Satan C. Frogface
M*N Product Manager

Guerilla in the Board Room

Great post (sent to me by Jeff Blankenburg) called "Coke and the Ego Fog" over on Church of the Customer today. It's a collection of riffs on Coke for their ridiculous foray into the consumer-generated media world, hit-and-miss functionality, and old-school Flash interface.  W + K takes a few jabs for its complicity in the whole mess... but, I wonder how much control they really have? When your client makes a couple billion a year and is to all appearances unstoppable, no matter how inane the advertising and marketing gets, just how much strategic advice are they really looking to the agency for?

This is how I picture a meeting between Big Agency and Big Client on New Media:

Client who was promoted to his level of incompetency some time ago and has a love-blame relationship with the agency: We need to do something new, something fresh – why aren’t we on myspace or dogster? Why aren’t people visiting our site every day for the fun and entertainment?

[Frazzled account person, thinking to herself, and worrying that she might accidentally say something true out loud: Gee, could that be because you have wildly unrealistic expectations and no consumer anywhere goes to ANY corporate Web site every day to do anything???]

Agency account planner who has a “new media definitions cheat sheet” that she clipped out of Ad Week folded in her wallet: Well, I was thinking that we could try some “user generated media” – that means we would ask consumers to send in their own videos or art projects or commercials. They could really talk about how they experience the brand. Like a community.

Scathing new hire who believes she represents the entirety of consumer America, presently twirling her stick-straight blond hair around her French-manicured index finger: That would never work. People have better things to do than make videos about Cola. Duh.

The condescending senior VP who believes he’s seen it all and that every idea you have, he had a decade ago: Oh, that’s not new, we’ve been doing that since housewives mailed in jingles.

The token anonymous manager who invests the entire meeting thinking of frivolous objections to prove he’s smarter than everyone else: Well, most people don’t even HAVE video cameras and I don’t see how that would work at all for people who have dial-up Internet accounts.

Worthless-in-a-meeting programmer who has three job offers in his pocket and probably wouldn’t have cared even if he didn’t: Uh, lady, when you built this behemoth of a site in clunky 5.0 Flash and action scripted every pixel of it, the ship pretty well sailed on any dial-up user so much as loading the homepage. 1010101010101001. Y’know?

[Frazzled account person, thinking to herself, and worrying that she might accidentally say something true out loud: Fuck. Is this really happening? What the hell am I doing in this industry? I wonder if our health plan covers Valium. Do they still make Valium?]

The new CMO who works on gut instinct and a short attention span, who makes seat-of-the-pants decisions with little or no information and holds the agency accountable for not giving him all the details when the ill-conceived projects bomb: Ok, ok, I’ve heard enough. Here’s what we’ll do – customers will send in videos of how their dogs experience Cola. We’ll advertise on Friendster and Myspace. And, we’ll give away two Labrador pups to the winner – maybe a guest appearance at that big dog show my wife is always talking about – Westchester, or whatever.

Frazzled account person, regretting even trying to control the situation even as she speaks: Maybe we should dig into the latest trends in consumer media – maybe even pilot a quick test or focus group to determine if this type of challenge is really a good fit with our customer.

CMO: Nah, it’s done. Make it happen.

Frazzled account person, thinking about her first drink and her next job: Ok, I’ll send a brief and an estimate and we can get started.

Guerilla in the Board Room

Great post (sent to me by Jeff Blankenburg) called "Coke and the Ego Fog" over on Church of the Customer today. It's a collection of riffs on Coke for their ridiculous foray into the consumer-generated media world, hit-and-miss functionality, and old-school Flash interface.  W + K takes a few jabs for its complicity in the whole mess... but, I wonder how much control they really have? When your client makes a couple billion a year and is to all appearances unstoppable, no matter how inane the advertising and marketing gets, just how much strategic advice are they really looking to the agency for?

This is how I picture a meeting between Big Agency and Big Client on New Media:

Client who was promoted to his level of incompetency some time ago and has a love-blame relationship with the agency: We need to do something new, something fresh – why aren’t we on myspace or dogster? Why aren’t people visiting our site every day for the fun and entertainment?

[Frazzled account person, thinking to herself, and worrying that she might accidentally say something true out loud: Gee, could that be because you have wildly unrealistic expectations and no consumer anywhere goes to ANY corporate Web site every day to do anything???]

Agency account planner who has a “new media definitions cheat sheet” that she clipped out of Ad Week folded in her wallet: Well, I was thinking that we could try some “user generated media” – that means we would ask consumers to send in their own videos or art projects or commercials. They could really talk about how they experience the brand. Like a community.

Scathing new hire who believes she represents the entirety of consumer America, presently twirling her stick-straight blond hair around her French-manicured index finger: That would never work. People have better things to do than make videos about Cola. Duh.

The condescending senior VP who believes he’s seen it all and that every idea you have, he had a decade ago: Oh, that’s not new, we’ve been doing that since housewives mailed in jingles.

The token anonymous manager who invests the entire meeting thinking of frivolous objections to prove he’s smarter than everyone else: Well, most people don’t even HAVE video cameras and I don’t see how that would work at all for people who have dial-up Internet accounts.

Worthless-in-a-meeting programmer who has three job offers in his pocket and probably wouldn’t have cared even if he didn’t: Uh, lady, when you built this behemoth of a site in clunky 5.0 Flash and action scripted every pixel of it, the ship pretty well sailed on any dial-up user so much as loading the homepage. 1010101010101001. Y’know?

[Frazzled account person, thinking to herself, and worrying that she might accidentally say something true out loud: Fuck. Is this really happening? What the hell am I doing in this industry? I wonder if our health plan covers Valium. Do they still make Valium?]

The new CMO who works on gut instinct and a short attention span, who makes seat-of-the-pants decisions with little or no information and holds the agency accountable for not giving him all the details when the ill-conceived projects bomb: Ok, ok, I’ve heard enough. Here’s what we’ll do – customers will send in videos of how their dogs experience Cola. We’ll advertise on Friendster and Myspace. And, we’ll give away two Labrador pups to the winner – maybe a guest appearance at that big dog show my wife is always talking about – Westchester, or whatever.

Frazzled account person, regretting even trying to control the situation even as she speaks: Maybe we should dig into the latest trends in consumer media – maybe even pilot a quick test or focus group to determine if this type of challenge is really a good fit with our customer.

CMO: Nah, it’s done. Make it happen.

Frazzled account person, thinking about her first drink and her next job: Ok, I’ll send a brief and an estimate and we can get started.

Overheard: People with attitude never improve

Interesting chat with creative Lance Dooley today - talking about a few ad folks who seem to have tremendous potential but have taken no steps to reach it because they approach everything with either blame or disdain. Rather than leveraging the resources of the agency to improve their skills, they're just increasingly put off by every project, interaction, client, etc.

Lance's take: People with that kind of attitude will never improve their skills because it gives them a Teflon coating that says, "it wasn't my fault."

He went on to say:  I once saw an interview with Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and John Elway and they said the reason they became the best ever in their respective fields is because they always blamed themselves. That people that exercise "blame-shifting" were people that would never improve their game.

Something to think about ... there's a little bit of "that guy" in most of us.

The Dreaded New Business Conference Call

Incredibly funny audio clip straight from ad hell: a creative presentation via conference call and PDF. Oh, and with a budget on the back page. Ouch.

If the creative credits were not on the page, I would swear this was written by Blogger Wrightoff. But, nonetheless, I'm sure this and many similar calls are followed up with a scenario like his brilliantly written, Death by a Thousand Cuts. 

Enjoy.

Submitted by: Mike Swainey, SBC Advertising
 

Whoops

A little embarrassed here at Advergirl. The week this little blog hits BMA's top 25 ad blogs is the same week I bailed on posting for various work commitments. I shall return. Starting tomorrow. Guaranteed,

My American Express commercial

Here’s my big idea for the next American Express “my life. my card.” spot:

I work for an advertising agency.

I get to wear jeans, have fun and drink beer at work.

What I don’t do a lot of is make money.

My clients are all senior VPs of big companies. They have second homes, fancy clothes and fabulous cars.

To take them out to dinner and pay their bar tabs that are more than my rent, I use American Express.

It’s the purchasing power I need to make it to my next expense check. 

My life. My card. American Express.

The Hallway Test

I know it's in infinitely bad blog taste to cut-and-paste someone else's content, but I love this so much that I must have it available to laugh and cry at in my home space. Please, though, if you enjoy this, click over to The Bullshit Observer and give him the click thru he deserves.

From The Bullshit Observer's "Advice to Clients" section, The Advertising Hallway Test:

Say you are presented with three concepts. You like different ones for different reasons. One is funny, but you wonder if the humor is too "inside". One is super smart, but you wonder if it's too boring. The third one is a little quirky and very campaignable, but you wonder if it's too off brand. How do you decide which one to go with?

Step one: Trust your agency.

Step two: Avoid the hallway test. You know which test I'm talking about. It's the one where you walk around your workplace with the boards and take the pulse of your co-workers. Here are just a few of the many reasons why:

1) Consensus isn’t compatible with quality creative work. Too many opinions dilute good ideas.

2) The context of the ad placement is half the experience. And the hallway test subject's ability to imagine themselves in the context is generally not as good as you might think.

3) Since they are fellow employees, subjects are too close to the product to view the work “objectively” (especially fellow marketers) Better to talk to “man on the street”.

4) The advertising’s number one job is to compete for and get attention. Not so in the hallway test.

5) Hallway people tend to gravitate toward things they are familiar with. Uncreative ideas do better in the hallway test. I don't know why.

6) They will try to impress the hallway presenter with their critical thinking skills. Critical = tearing down.

7) The hallway person is afraid of looking dumb. The surest way for that to happen is to say they "like it" when 9 other people might find fault with it. They start playing, "Find the flaw."

If you're not giggling, your clients are spoiling you.

A call to agency HR departments, managing supervisors, creative directors, et al.

Interesting factoid from Human Resources Executive magazine (I have a client in that industry) -

Seventy-seven percent of companies said they do not have enough successors to their current senior-level managers already working in their organizations, according to a survey of 168 HR managers at U.S. companies.

Dear agencies,

Although career newbies are certainly cheaper, more pliable and generally easier to deal with, it's worthwhile to balance the hiring with cantankerous vets who are capable of strategy, pitching and, what the heck, the occasional tantrum about remembering the fundamentals.

Yes, yes, I know you're going to mentor and train the newbies. When there's time. Very soon, really. Well, after this project or pitch or quarter. But, soon, really.

But until then, there's still that one thing we've learned from the now long-past dot-com era: a bunch of 20-somethings are rarely the ideal business owners. Or, perhaps more relevantly stated, if your direct reports don't include at least one person who can do your job, how the heck are you ever going to retire / move on / move up / get the heck out of there?

Much love,

Advergirl

(Primary research source: Right Management Consultants, Philadelphia)

The Ad Life

Am I in danger of becoming a cheeky ad humor blog if I post one more of these? Maybe, but this one is highly worth getting to the tipping point.

Found at Ad Arena, this "spot" was created by Meyocks Group from Des Moins, Iowa to intro their local Addy Awards. And, because the whole world loves self effacing humor, I should tell you that this one leaves no ad gig unmocked - from agency management to AEs to art directors to accountants. A very fun way to end the day (for those of you still reading ad blogs at 10 at night).

Why I should have pitched the Hershey account

NEW YORK (AdAge.com):

Hershey Corp. is relaunching its Take Five candy bar with a campaign that strays from its almost totally TV-driven initial launch

Chief Marketing Officer Michele Buck has been charged with upping marketing innovation at Hershey, a strategy evidenced by a full-scale blitz that begins March 13 to tout Take 5’s “Taste and Believe” positioning. Unlike the brand’s 2005 launch, which focused $17 million on traditional TV, the effort includes 69,000 buzz-marketing evangelists and a Web game that plays off Take 5’s TV ads.

I am a big fan of the Take 5 Bar. So big that I believe I've uttered the new "the best candy bar ever" slogan several times in the last year. Still, I'm not convinced that these are the winning tactics. Ad Age dubs this "innovative strategy." My strategy is much more innovative. Allow me to present this as the powerful retail argument that it is (not).

Whereas: Take 5 includes pretzels, chocolate, peanuts, peanut butter and caramel

Whereas: That may be the most perfect combination of salty and sweet, chewy and crunchy ever created

Whereas: Certain audiences are more likely than others to be woo-ed by immediate gratification of the salty and sweet, chewy and crunchy desire

Whereas: Space in the candy bar ailse is crowded with choices that have much higher name recognition

I resolve: Take 5 should move out of the candy bar ailse in exchange for prime placement in a bold fixture inside the tampon ailse. It's like selling dip in the chip aisle. Brilliant.

Oh, well, Arnold Worldwide beat me to the account. Maybe next time!

Ad Age story
Best Candy Bar Ever site

Happy munching!