Apr/105
The Soul of Social Media, And Why “Agency” Shouldn’t Be A Bad Word
There’s something I’ve thought about for some time, and was perpetuated by Zach Lieberman, a speaker at the PSFK Conference last week. Lieberman, who is a creative technologist, had a talk about Engaging the Human Element, and “making deeply engaging, entertaining and meaningful interactions” through art and technology. He talked about the power of individuals, and touched on a trend of the shift from DIY to DIWO (Do It With Others); an interesting notion that speaks to to the heart of social.
Joseph (Jaffe) would say that social’s purpose for brands is to Acknowledge, Incentivize, Dialogue, and Activate (AIDA as opposed to ADIA) its customers who would then act as advocates for the brand, bringing new customers into the fold. That’s one way of looking at it, and a legitimate way to use it.
Many others in the industry see social is an opportunity for brands to go to where their customers are (online), in order to listen and engage in dialogue. And if there’s a real opportunity for it, act as a unifier, bringing like-minded people together around a common idea, belief, or hobby through a branded community.
But when I had a conversation with a peer of mine, a third angle came up; one that speaks to the point Lieberman made at the conference. Is social capable of being more than just a response/support/inducement tool? What is the purpose of launching a branded community? Are we facilitating conversations for the sake of having conversations? What is the end goal? Lieberman’s work, such as the Eyewriter and Drawn, is about leaving the screen behind. He talked about the “Open Mouth Moment”, when a person drops their jaw in amazement at something they just experienced. He described this as “the pathway to someone’s heart.” How do we create these social experiences? How do we move beyond the Facebooks, Twitters, and YouTubes of the world and get people talking again?
The advent of social media did not mark the beginning of people talking to each other, or about brands. It merely facilitates conversations, but it isn’t the reason why people talk. People talked about Lieberman’s Drawn because it was an “Open Mouth Moment”. It’s about a strong message or idea that’s worth sharing. Most self-proclaimed “social media experts” are internetologists (a point I won’t contend) who rely on incentives over emotions. Dare I say it, this is something social marketers stand to learn from the Big Dumb Agencies (BDA), as George Parker would call them. Whether it sits well with you or not, before Facebook’s founders were even born, these agencies rose to prominence on the backs of people’s emotions. And even then, people talked about and recommended brands.
An "Open Mouth Moment" at the Draw art installation by Zach Lieberman
Griffin Farley, a Strategy Director at BBH and author of Propagation Planning, recently discussed something missing from social media that has long guided traditional advertising: Brand Mantras.
“Good creative briefs can do a great job of inspiring advertising but recently I have discovered that they don’t do a great job of grounding social media actions. I think Brand Mantras do a much better job of this because they describe an emotion, a theme, a writing style that can be used as the guide for the voice of the brand in social media.”
He went on to cite a Brand Mantra in the form of a poem written for CNN. Guess who wrote it. Mother New York; Creativity Magazine’s pick for 2009 Agency of the Year.
“Agency” shouldn’t be a bad word. It’s only begun to take on negative connotations, but we shouldn’t equate the term to immorality. We should instead take hold of it, reshape it, and bring it back to a point of distinction. There are many things BDAs do well, and there are many things that they do poorly, like thinking small. But that same point can be turned around and said about smaller boutiques; most especially social shops. Logistics aside, like the inability to scale, social marketers have forgotten the pathway to people’s hearts. They’ve embroiled themselves so deeply in “Activation” strategies that they’ve forgotten human strategies.
Social media is missing its soul, if it ever had one. Strong ideas and “Open Mouth Moments” are all the reason people need to propagate an idea; not free shipping offers and discount coupons. The tools are merely there to help spread the word, but they shouldn’t be the idea itself. The Obama campaign had one strong, succinct idea that used the tools simply as a way to circulate it: “Change”. It was simple; but it’s that simplicity which made it stir the collective emotions of a nation.
Lieberman said “The process of creating art is in many ways an R & D department for humanity”. I implore this industry to remember back to what made us smile and cry as humans. To capture that raw emotion, and recreate that pathway to people’s hearts.
Apr/101
Thinking Small Is All The Rage
The idea of agencies and companies thinking small is no new notion. People have been saying it for years, including Greg, who’s gong to push the point further in his upcoming book, microMarketing. The problem is, very few have actually been practicing it. At the PSFK Conference in New York last week, Andy Spade and Anthony Sperduti of Partners & Spade gave a “Think Small” presentation highlighting the work they did for J.Crew.
Prefacing their lecture, they shared their passion for film, publishing, and product development, which helped guide the work they did for J.Crew. The brand’s menswear had little equity. Partners & Spade felt that regardless of how they tackled the problem, going in waving the J.Crew banner would make their plan fall flat. It was a big brand that everyone already knew, and expressly didn’t care about. They had to develop a strategy that shrunk J.Crew. Something that made the brand more intimate and approachable. Because, like the partners said on stage, “no one likes big.”
An interior shot of the J.Crew Liquor Store in TriBeCa.
To answer the call, the partners decided to open a liquor store. But not your average slipshod speakeasy. It was an abandoned TriBeCa tavern restored and restocked with J.Crew’s menswear instead of booze. The boutique is affectionately named “Liquor Store“. The shop is adorned in a way that gives it a lot of classic male character and makes is very distinctive from a typical J.Crew outlet; to the point that you wouldn’t know it’s a J.Crew store. The partners went so far as to staff the store with their own people, including Tremaine Romeo, the “Storetender”; sell some exclusive clothing and accessories; create specialized products, such as throwing darts and shot glasses; and even published a book, “What A Man Should Know”.
The Liquor Store was deemed a great success by the partners, and was written up in dozens of blogs and magazines who they said wouldn’t have written about the store otherwise if it had been branded as a typical J.Crew location. It was the small, cozy and personalized nature of the boutique that made people especially interested in it. In other words, a big brand acting small made it that much more compelling. The partners believe that the bigger a brand gets, the smaller it needs to act. An idea defended by a quote Spade likes to use: “For every accountant you hire, hire an artist” to maintain the delicate balance of big and small.
Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of software development company, 37Signals, spoke at the AdAge Digital Conference this week and blasted “full-service” ad agencies, using the same grounds as those used by Partners & Spade: think small. He made the point that agencies are trying to do everything for everyone, instead of focusing on a small number of things that they do very well, championing specialization over full-service end-to-end.
“Companies end up hiring people to do these things they don’t know how to do, they get really big and then they slow down. That’s how you get big and slow and expensive. What’s wrong with doing just a few things really well?,” Fried said. He recently co-authored Rework which reiterated this point.
It’s easy for agencies to think too big. Oftentimes they assume they have to in order to stay competitive, or successfully launch a project. But the Liquor Store, and the story of 37Signals for that matter, act as as testaments that bigger isn’t always better. “Think small” is often looked upon as an idealistic buzz phrase, hardly ever applicable in real world situations. But there are numerous examples where thinking and acting small paid off. It’s about sticking to your guns when you have a good idea, big or small. Big Bang Theory sized strategies are not the best solution most of the time, and tend to be filled with elements that underperform.
Years ago, before giving up “the noble profession of journalism,” as my father puts it, I remember going to the CSPA convention and listening to a New York Times writer who said something that stuck with me to this day, and something I think applies here: It’s not about using big words. It’s about using the right words.
Apr/100
We Aren’t What We Do. We Should Do What We Are.
At the PSFK Conference 2010, Erik Proulx, creator, executive producer, and writer of the short film Lemonade, as well as the founder of Please Feed the Animals, spoke in front of the large crowd at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. It goes without saying that all of the speakers were inspiring, forcing ideas to spark off in my mind. But after hearing Proulx speak, and watching Lemonade during the lunch break (also available on DVD and through Hulu), a swirl of emotions stirred inside me.
He didn’t speak about a new technological advancement; or acknowledge some growing trend that marketers should heed. He spoke about something so basic in nature, that I think its simplicity has been lost: doing what you love. The film Lemonade is a nice accompaniment to Proulx’s Please Feed the Animals website; a blog for members of the advertising community who have lost their job to vent and look for a new one at the on-site job board.
The film highlights a number of former advertising executives who lost their jobs over the last year or so, and the moment of clarity they had afterwards that convinced them to uncover and take up the things they forgot they loved.
The title of this post is a quote that Proulx shared during his presentation and was something that really stuck with me. I look at my friends and family members’ lives and I wonder if they’re really doing what it is they love. My father wanted to be a marine biologist when he was younger. He affirms to me that he enjoys his job enough, but is “enough” adequate? I think of one of my best friends, who went from dreams about being a music producer to pulling all-nighters at a local Trader Joe’s. I’ve been fortunate enough to land a job, doing more or less exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I couldn’t be happier to be honest.
I wanted to promote Lemonade because it reminded me of something that I think people tend to forget, or think of lightly: do what you love. It wasn’t long ago that Greg (Verdino) told me that he actually wanted to work in the music business. There’s nothing wrong with doing what you’re good at (he happens to be good at marketing), but I challenge him to pick music back up again. Even if it’s something he only does on the weekend. In fact, I challenge you all to do the same.
Dig deep down inside yourself. Write down all the things that make you happy. All the things you’re passionate about. And find a way to fit it into your life. One of the women in the film, Michelle Pfennighaus, made the apt point that you don’t have to quit your job to make a profound change in your life. Whether it’s home-brewing coffee, practicing yoga, or painting, take a step back and do something for yourself. Find out whatever it is that makes you smile, and hold on to it; because it’s easy to lose yourself.