The Emerging Times

Moving the bar

Moving the bar: Interview with Jeff Benjamin

Here's a great interview with someone who has forever impacted both my career and perspective on interactivity—Jeff Benjamin from CPB. I think you'll find his thoughts on 'what it makes to make the best interactive work' to be simple, clear yet very insightful. Not everyone gets the opportunity to work with brilliant people like Jeff—i'm sure lucky I did. There's a lot of other insightful videos out there, some of them can be found here on One Show TV—check it out.

Click here to see Jeff's interview with the One Show.

 

 

Meet Smutley. Get in touch with great work.

Meet Smutley.
Then get in touch with more great work.

Originaly posted by Amy Corr, a managing editor @ MediaPost:

'Meet Smutley, an alley cat that sleeps with any animal he encounters. Smutley is part of an online campaign for AIDES, a French non-profit that encourages safe sex.' Read more from Amy...

What I think:
The 'best' creative work (in the ad and media business) isn't trying to appeal to everyone. What matters most is having powerful and unexpected creative ideas that resonate with the specific group of people you've set out to connect with. This campaign does that extremely well—so that's why I think it's brilliant.

Watch the Smutley video here. See more of the work here.

Creating Brands vs. Products (v1)

Creating Brands vs. Products (v1)

What does it really mean to build a brand? A recent Amazon Kindle commercial hit me with five key selling features. The features were clearly articulated and calibrated specifically towards convincing me that their new product is in fact better than Apple's iPad. They were trying to sell me on a logical purchase.

After I saw the ad I was left thinking, "Does this brand or device even have a soul?". The product in the ad is (very expensively) projected to be for almost everyone and as a result it doesn't transfer any value to me (personally).

Have most tech products lost their soul? As competition increases and quarterly profits drive decisions, follow-the-leader brands will be at risk. At risk of losing at the long game by slipping into a position where they forget the importance of building a brand entirely. Motorola, Samsung, Gateway, Comcast, and Time Warner immediately pop up as my familiar examples. Over time, these standard-value mass consumer technology and electronics companies become more and more vulnerable to being crushed by new and emerging breeds of cheaper machine and part-makers like: Vizio, HTC, even Google.

FACT: A cheaper, faster version of your technology will inevitably show up one day.

Can your product always be the logical purchase? Can you really expect to compete long-term on this level? What if the competition came out tomorrow with the same features? Then what? You quickly become replaceable. (Or even worse, you'll waste a lot of marketing dollars reacting to the competition.)

Believe in the power of a well-defined brand. Brand value is about the transfer of an experience that's filled with emotions of non-monetary value. This 'emotional value' increases consumer consideration and builds a positive brand feeling—creating the perception of value.

Intel is doing a brilliant job buying-back the perception of technological awesomeness. So is GE and IBM. Instead of succumbing to the 'Me Too' game, each of them are acting and positioning themselves as 'thought leaders.' And that's a big difference.

The only actual product difference in this category (and almost every other) is in fact that very overused word or intangable value i've been talking about. You guessed it—the brand. In the long game, the brand will enable your entire organization to stay on track and react less to what the competition is doing.

Perhaps you can 'pull-from' some of the differences i've mentioned in this article the next time you speak to your boss, your client, or that hot start-up entrepreneur. And if they ever question why it's important to have a 'well-defined' brand, tell them this, "without a brand you'll just be chasing after the tail of the industry instead of creating your own opportunities."

{To be continued...}

 

It changed New York's skyline

Emerging Fashion: SpiritHoods

A different tribes of people
Have you ever heard of SpiritHoods? This new crazy-bold fashion style (which I've loved seeing pop up this past winter season) is starting to get really popular. Feel free to comment and say you love it or hate it.

Visit their website

Enjoy your Friday.

Why agency relationships don't last very long

Why agency relationships don't last very long.
(or as long as they used to)

Ogilvy & Mather is one of the oldest and most successful agencies in the history of advertising. And David Ogilvy was considered a pioneer in the ad business for many years. But perhaps Ogilvy's biggest success has been in their ability to keep long-term relationships running. IBM and American Express (to my knowledge) each have been with Ogilvy for over twenty years. Their success is due to the relationships they have created with these companies.

In today's business world the modern CEO lasts an average of under three years at a given company. Today, the stakes are high and the demand for progress and profit is even higher. And to a lot of us the reality of having a short relationship with a national brand seems frankly inevitable. It's what the industry, analysts and trend reporters are saying will happen. And to most new business people and the rest of us this seems like a true reality.

So what does this so called 'reality' do to our agencies? It makes us start to focus solely on profit—instead of the breakthroughs. The resulting behavior produces safe (aka. average) work.

Recently, a very well-known agency founder and creative director said to me, "When we pitch to win the business—we do great work, but when we work to solely keep the business—we do average work. And that's a bad position to be in."

Ask yourself this: Am I pitching great ideas that will actually build or change your client's business or simply selling more work that will retain it? Smart brand managers can see the difference between the two. So my advice to you (the idea) is to pitch everyday like you mean it—like you own a part of your client's brand or business.

Taking this type of action could just be the difference between a 1-year deal versus a 20-year relationship.

 

 

The Downside of New Technology

 
The Downside of New Technology

{I was considering naming today's note something like "New Technology Bullshit".}

I am undoubtedly a promoter of using new technology or media as a way to build my client's business or advertising campaign. But when does using new technology become ineffective? Even bad?

When we use it just to use it we create bad habits that (typically) generate moderate results.

These bad habits all start from our external distractions. At some point we've all heard someone say something like,"It would be cool if we did something with that new technology...what's it called again?" FourSqaure? Augmented Reality? Something like that iPhone app? These whispers, these temptations to try something cool just to be cool isn't always the best way to wield your marketing or creative prowess.

New technology, wiz-bangs, apps, and do-dads make it easy for advertisers and marketers to lose their focus. New technology sometimes becomes the escape-goat for having a truly meaningful message that gets people to notice take action—to shift your brands perception.

Getting people to give a shit is what's hard at the end of the day. Having them tool around with a new technology that's mildly connected to your brand message or experience is easy.

Here's my advice—don't take the easy road. Because if you do, you might win the pitch, but you'll achieve the moderate results I mentioned. And your client (and perhaps yourself) will begin to doubt the possibilities these new technologies actually present for their brand.

 

Square Peg. Round Hole.

For the majority of my career I've always felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Perhaps you feel the same way. So how can we spin this problem (or our perceived problem) to work for us?

What if for a moment I could convince you that we are all squares, and the world around us is actually what's round? We each have our own personalities and demeanor that make us very different from the person next to us. I believe these this unique and individual differences naturally shapes our own specific point of view and perspective on things, on our lives.

So why do some of us seem to be able to fit or squeeze into that round hole better than others? I wish I knew the answer of that question, I really do.

My best guess is that some of us are able to adapt to the world and organizations better than others. And some of us never seem to understand or grasp the concept of conformity. We look at that round hole and we want to run away and work with the other square pegs in the world. Why? Perhaps it's because the other squares are just as afraid of the round holes as we are. Being with them makes us feel as if we can be ourselves, it's more comfortable there.

Regardless of what shape you are (or think you are), each of us figures it out simply by trying. By going for it. And in the end all of us usually succeed when we learn how to make our own way.

So why not do exactly that? Make your own way.

{This is the advice I got a long time ago when someone noticed that I was a square peg trying to fit into this round hole of a world.}

ERA OF TRANSFORMATION

We are in the era of great transformation. Practically 5 seconds ago...Myspace was replaced by Facebook, iTunes overtook the record industry, the sit-down internet was replaced by the on-the-go internet, a 'bagillion' apps were downloaded, and 15-million iPads were purchased. (We can go on for hours here.)

In a split second things can (and will) change. Each time faster than the one before. Innovation, ideas technology are requiring our companies and brands to adapt, or die. There's just one very big problem here: change doesn't come easy. It's not exactly easy to change your staff. And certainly it's even harder to move the entire 'Mothership'.

So. How might you be able to cause such a dynamic transformation for the better? That shift in your organization that allows you to compete? How are you going to develop a fresh approach to motivating your team? How will you actually be able to change your client and suceed the next era?

If we're going to 'boom' in the next era we have to change with it.

Maybe if we started by changing ourselves, our own individual thinking, might we be able to implement a new approach and surpass survival. And who knows, perhaps just after we succeed with changing ourselves, might we be able to start to cause a greater transformation in all those other areas on-board.

We are in the era of great transformation. Don't blink or forget about it even for a second. Whoops...you missed it. It just happened 5-seconds ago. Oh look, here it comes again...Ready? 1.2.3.