Nov/110
I Live In The Space Between
I highly recommend "Hegarty on Advertising". Nothing groundbreaking, but it inspired me to get back in touch with my creative side.
I’ve long written about the uselessness of strategy if proper execution isn’t there to actualize it, and vice versa. I’m thankful for the flexibility of my organization, in that professional mobility and exploration are supported. It has given me a chance to try something different.
I’ve lived my life as a strategist with a streak of creativity (or so I’d like to think), having initially been exposed to advertising through a wildly creative digital agency. Having stayed in touch with many of my old colleagues, I longingly listen to stories about applications and programs built for the sole purpose of inspiring people. Couple this with having just read “Hegarty on Advertising,” and I was eager to create something.
I was bit by the bug.
While I know my way around Photoshop and InDesign, and even fancied myself an amateur graphic designer at one point in time, my primary strength is with words. I went to school for Copywriting after all. And thus, my role was defined: I would shift from the Strategy team to the Creative “department” as a Creative Strategist, with a speciality in copywriting.
Ever since I was in school “studying” the art of copywriting, I felt like there was too strict of a demarcation between Strategy and Creative. The former informs the latter, but it’s the latter which brings the thinking to life. The issue I have is that I want to do both. I want to be the cartographer and the explorer.
I’m excited to live in the space between.
Sep/110
The Commoditization of Social Media
Remember when this counted for something?
It was bound to happen. Although social media isn’t getting the lion’s share of anyone’s media budget, it doesn’t stop the fact that most are scrambling to get something, anything, off the ground in social. This presents great opportunities (especially for my employer) to redefine the way brands engage people. But it also sows the seeds of massive issues down the line.
When television debuted, it was a game-changer for the advertising business. Soon, everyone was clamoring to produce their own television spots. If you weren’t on TV, you weren’t anybody. And thus, 60 and 30-second spots flooded the airwaves. By the new millennium, television commercials were a commodity, spilling over onto the Internet, disguised as “web videos.”
It happened again in the “digital age” with the microsite. Not to say there’s anything intrinsically wrong with microsites, as Calle Sjonell at BBH argues. But they did become a commodity.
It seems that social is headed for the same fate. And it’s no surprise. As humans, we have a long and terrible history of settling fruitful lands, only to sap the life from them. We milked the television spot to death. We milked the microsite to death. And now we’ve set our sights on social media.
Any brand can get on Facebook and create a page; which they have. And that is problem No. 1. The issue isn’t with providing accessibility. That’s something I celebrate, as it flattens the world and at least gives smaller brands a chance to shine. It’s an issue of standards.
Conglomerates create pages for every brand they own, but fail to adequately invest in most of them. It costs nothing to get in on the game. Which in turn attracts a whole lot of people to the table who don’t have the chips to play, or aren’t willing to bet big. That is the commoditization of social media; and it’s only going to get worse as time marches on.
But it’s a dangerous game we’re playing. Because now, more than ever, the work we do has to touch people. It has to inspire them and incite their imagination.
The television spot was about absorption. The microsite was about interaction. But social media is about sharing. And in order to complete that conversion, you have to ignite your audience’s spirit. That’s what makes social media marketing the most difficult form of advertising to master.
It’s a culmination of everything that has preceded it. Good social marketing combines the storytelling of television, the interaction and involvement of a microsite, and the inspiration necessary to encourage someone to share what they experienced with all of their friends.
That’s not at all an easy task. In an era where social sharing makes or breaks a campaign, what you do has to truly capture people’s imagination and arouse their curiosity. And the brands who believe the answer is doing a massive media buy on Facebook, will be in for a rude awakening. That will get you the audience numbers (which, don’t get me wrong, is a necessity), but that’s in no way an indication of your ability to inspire them. Ultimately, that spark is needed to drive meaningful behavior.
This post is for naught. Our history has shown that it’s in our nature to ruin good things that come to us. Social media will be exploited and twisted until it’s as perverse as the microsite and television spot before it. But like its predecessors, a few will get it right. There will be a few gems. There already are. And I hope to help craft some of the ones we have yet to see, before the death knell rings.
Apr/110
Just Do It! For Yourself.
I hate to admit that this year’s PSFK Conference was not as explosive and impacting for me as it was last year. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to come away from one and not feel even the slight bit inspired. This year was no different. Among the speakers and panels, my two favorites came down to Joe Gebbia (co-founder of Airbnb) and Justin Gignac (NYC artist). Although they talked about two different things, it was the same story to me.
Airbnb started in the pages of a Moleskine. Where's your next project going to spawn from?
Gebbia re-told the humble beginnings of Airbnb (From Moleskine to Marketplace); how it started with the need to pay their rent, and evolved into a viable alternative to hotel lodging. Gignac, on the other hand, discussed his NYC Garbage and Wants For Sale projects, with a particular emphasis on simply going out and doing things; hence the title of his piece: Doin’ It and Doin’ It and Doin’ It Good.
Years ago, an old mentor, who is probably the most qualified to say so, taught me the importance of personal projects. Sometimes they turn into lucrative businesses, sometimes they remain ventures of self-fulfillment. Either way, you should be doing something. Anything. By remaining static, only doing the assignments you’re given, you never really grow. At least not at the pace you could by taking matters into your own hands. In Gebbia’s case, the need to pay rent pushed him to discover how to run a profitable business in three short years.
Oftentimes, on the creative side of the advertising/marketing business, we talk about things like rapid prototyping and iterative agile development for our work. As Gareth Kay aptly put it: “Stop communicating products, and start making communication products.” But we only ever seem to apply that thinking to our work, never to ourselves. I think it’s about time we turn the gun around and hold ourselves to a higher standard as well. What are the things you love? Perhaps it’s photography, biking, or digital art.
Find out what you’re passionate about, figure out a way to express that creatively, and just do it. Don’t do it for a buck. Don’t do it to get seen. Do it for yourself. Do it because it fills a creative void in your life and makes you feel complete. I’m no shining example of what I’m preaching, as this blog is the only up-and-running side project I have, but I do have another in the oven that I’ve been working on for a few months.
Which brings me to my final point: Stop making excuses.
In all honesty, there’s no reason (well, I suppose money is a good reason) that I haven’t gotten further with my project. Like many others, I find excuse after excuse to avoid just getting it done. You’re either too tired, too broke, or you want to go to the gym. Whatever it is, stuff it. Like a relationship, if you really wanted to, you would find time to make it work. Even if it’s only small bits at a time. Gignac closed his presentation with a point I want to share with you: “Making excuses takes the same time as making progress.”
So stop bitching, and start doing.
Jan/113
How “Social Business Design” Has Changed My Outlook on Social Media
The 4 archetypes that guide Dachis Group's social business design are Ecosystem, Hivemind, Dynamic Signal, and Metafilter.
Powered, the social media agency I worked for, was recently acquired by Dachis Group. Through this new venture of his, Razorfish co-founder, Jeffrey Dachis, is trying to validate a concept that has grown a pair of legs over the last few years: Social Business. It’s a relatively new concept to me, having spent all my time working on the consumer engagement side of social media. In a nutshell, however, it’s the process of internalizing social media ideals and applying many of those same consumer-facing archetypes to internal communications, policies, processes, and corporate culture, ultimately leading to a better company that makes better products.
My views and beliefs about social media have been called contrarian and I’ve frequently been labeled a devil’s advocate. But the truth is, I never saw myself falling into social in the first place. I didn’t touch social media, professionally, until my last internship in college, when I was doing blogger outreach for the launch of Dirt Candy. The reason for my skepticism stems from my belief that most social media programs are inherently digital campaigns cleverly dressed in Facebook fan pages and YouTube profiles. I think it’s naive to believe that the majority of the industry doesn’t lump social into digital, and for good reason. We, as marketers, fail to draw significant lines between the two.
Then again, should we be drawing lines at all?
I’ve written about the pervasiveness of social, and how the lines between media are becoming blurred. What I don’t hope for, however, is everything to be powered by Facebook Connect. If the future of social is to be determined by sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, then my skepticism about its future is well-founded, and it will fail to escape digital’s sphere of influence to become a ubiquitous force that knows no departmental bounds.
But I have hope; and it comes from social business design.
My antithetical attitudes towards social are born out of a desperate belief that it’s so much more powerful than what we’re currently doing with it. We talk about how disruptive a force social media is, and how it’s changing the landscape forever, but what are we really doing to drive that grandiose change? Surely it isn’t Twitter races.
I’ve always been a firm believer in the notion that people don’t develop affinities for brands just because they have a fan page, or tweet 3-5 times a day. People ultimately grow closer to brands because of the benefits they render in our lives. I used to be a hardcore Microsoft and Windows user. That is, until the iPhone came out, which led me to a MacBook, which led me to an iMac, and soon enough an iPad (com’on 2nd generation). I got caught in Apple’s famous halo effect; but I’m not ashamed.
I was introduced to many of Apple's other great products following my original iPhone purchase.
That transition didn’t happen because Apple had a YouTube contest or an elaborate fan acquisition strategy. It’s because they create wonderful products. It’s as simple as that. You’ll be hard pressed to find a direct connection between a company’s social media marketing and long-lasting effects on their bottom line. What you will find is a direct connection between the creation of better, more innovative, products and increased sales and demand.
It’s believed that social business design has the power to transform a company into an environment where free-thinking and innovation can thrive, theoretically leading to better ideas and better products. Corporate process change may not sound as sexy, but I believe that what we’re currently doing with social media, as an industry, is only skin deep. We have merely scratched the surface of what I think is possible through the democratization of these tools; at least I hope so. Because if this is it, then I might as well go back to my digital roots.
I don’t think this is it, however. I believe there’s a long road ahead for social; and thankfully it doesn’t lead to marketing more effectively on Facebook. We should aspire to more. We should challenge ourselves to find greater purpose for an idea that can potentially change the way business is conducted forever. We simply have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and believe that we’re on the cusp of something much larger and much more powerful than what we initially set out to achieve.
Aug/104
Why You SHOULD Use the “Focus Group of One”
Oftentimes we’re told not to use the “focus group of one”, namely ourselves, when we’re brainstorming creative ideas. But to be blunt, I ask: Why not?
Social media marketing, unlike mass media, is based on the pillars of relationship building and a few-to-many model. That said, if you fall within the target audience, it shouldn’t be hard to understand that if you find something interesting, at least a good portion of the target audience will as well. I bring this up because not long ago, I contributed some thoughts to Griffin Farley’s Propagation Planning Brief (basically, the creative brief for the social age). One of the questions we listed was: “Why would someone want to pass something like this to others?”
I think in the case of social media, and propagation planning, using the “focus group of one” is vital, and recommended, in determining the viability of an activation program. It’s no secret that when you come up with an idea, it sounds great. It’s your idea; so, of course it’s great. But I think “Is this a good idea?” and “Would I pass this along to my friends?” are two very different questions, and are the necessary stress tests that an idea should go through. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. But not all good ideas are ones you would necessarily rush to tell your friends and family about; and ultimately that’s the goal.
If social marketing is about humanizing a brand and developing relationships on a micro-level, then we should be including ideas that individuals, marketers or otherwise, stress tested themselves. Ultimately, we’re all still just people. And we all equally find cool stuff to be…well, cool, regardless of what hats we wear from 9-5pm.
So, the next time you’re brainstorming, champion the idea that you think your group of friends would be interested in seeing; because odds are, you aren’t the only one who would rush to show them.
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/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.