Bloghound

Here’s a hilarious viral video, “Axe Naughty to Nice Program,” that is likely to get viewed by more people than a traditional ad with a big TV media budget. I especially like the spoof on the PR guy. A great example of the power of video done right. (Although I’m sure some —not Axe’s target — will have issues with parts of it.)

The advertising industry’s obsession with tag lines is really silly — and a waste of time and money. People don’t pay that much attention to them. Another recent example is Wal-Mart’s “Save Money, Live Better.” In this week’s Ad Age article, “Who Wrote Wal-Mart’s New Tag line? Er, Everyone,” Matt Creamer sums up the silliness over taking credit for the “new” tag line.

“Just to recap Wal-Mart ends up going through two agency reviews, an embarrassing scandal and legal skirmish, only to result in an ad campaign that, while nicely executed, amounted to the excavation of a 15-year-old quote that touts savings and low prices, pretty much the marketing approach used before the review.”

The best ad on last night’s Emmy Awards was this Macy’s spot showing the personalities behind the brands in its stores. Donald Trump in all his vainness blow drying his hair. Martha Stewart being her perfectionist self, making sure every little home ware product was perfectly folded. Sean Combs rehearsing the sales people, “Sean John is hot.” Kenneth Cole telling an airhead Jessica Simpson that to open the door she needs to pull, not push.Knowing the personalities behind brands — and being willing to spoof them — helps us get to know the brands. (And who knew Macy’s had all those name brands?)

One reason that Facebook is becoming so much more popular than Linked In is that we get to know the people behind the names — their photo albums, music and movies they like, etc. — not just contact and work history information.

People want to connect with people — on big scales and small.

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Don’t miss this great video, produced for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions by Geert Desager at Bring Back the Love. It captures the change in selling and telling marketing to conversational marketing, reminding all of us that the consumer has had enough with old style techniques.

Hat tip to Tony Bloomberg over at Diva Marketing for sharing.

Good on Nike for turning Don Imus’ outrageous comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team into a more positive conversation about public speech, women athletes and the game itself. Nike ran this full page print ad in last Sunday’s (April 15) New York Times, and plans to roll out banner ads this week that make it easy to pass the ad along to a friend.

A great piece of conversational marketing — tying into a relevant news item with a fresh point of view that provokes new conversations.

“Thank you, ignorance.

Thank you for starting the conversation.

Thank you for making an entire nation listen to the Rutgers’ team story. And for making us wonder what other great stories we’ve missed.

Thank you for reminding us to think before we speak.

Thank you for showing us how strong and poised 18 and 20-year-old women can be.

Thank you for reminding us that another basketball tournament goes on in March.

Thank you for showing us that sport includes more than the time spent on the court.

Thank you for unintentionally moving women’s sport forward.

And thank you for making all of us realize that we still have a long way to go.

Next season starts 11.16.07.”

Imus/a> Nike

While there’s been a lot of talk about consumer-generated ads, Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace writes in Advertising Age that consumers want to do much more than make ads.

“Let’s not kid ourselves about the value of consumer-generated ads. The consumer-in-control movement isn’t just about developing new ways to create ads, as fun as that may be. The real deal is that consumers want to have a say about everything from a company’s overall direction to its products and services —how they should fit into their lives; how they’re designed and packaged; where they can buy them, and, yes, even how they should be advertised. In other words, what consumers are screaming for is the desire to help companies make decisions, not just ads.”

Diane’s article includes examples of companies that are doing just this, including Frito-Lay, Starwoods’ new Aloft hotel brand, Hewlett Packard and GlaxoSmithKline.

(Full disclosure: Communispace is a Foghound client.)

PS: Thanks to Talib Morgan over at Marketechnology for his review of my recent speech to the American Marketing Association/New York City about conversational, word of mouth marketing and other highlights from my new book Beyond Buzz.

What makes good advertising today? Two things. It helps sell more products and provokes conversation — getting people involved in the ad and giving them something to talk to people about. Kleenex’s “Let It Out” campaign is succeeding on both counts. The person-on-the-street interviews also show just how much people want to tell their stories and be heard.

Maybe traditional Madison Ave. businesses need to retire or get out of the office and spend the rest of the summer  on listening tours, learning first hand how deeply people have changed and what that means to marketing and advertising.

 In today's Advertising Age Matt Creamer reports on the "new and improved" Advertising Week focus , to be held Sept. 25 - 29 in New York.  "The schedule, released today,  is a response to criticism from industry observers, Advertising Age chief among them, that the week's first two incarnations featured agency folks speaking to themselves," writes Creamer.

 A look at the schedule makes you wonder whether the adverising industry is in touch with shifts in marketing. It also begs the question whether the industry sees itself  as the people who make ads or as  strategic marketers.  Just as the public relations industry has hurt itself by focusing too much on publicity rather than communications, it appears that the ad industry identifies with ads.

Here are a  few of the agenda highlights that struck me as out of touch.   If you have others, please share them with us.

•  "About 100 are expected to pile into Jeep Wranglers in the procession from DDB's Madison Avenue headquarters to Times Square," reports Advertising Age.   That's right, a gas-guzzling, smog-hogging testosterone-laden kick off.   A great spectacle and a three-hour buzz for the Wrangler brand. 

• "In Search of the Big Idea: Top CMOs share insights on getting the job done."  Pssst. It's not about the big idea any more; it's about listening to the customer, providing lots of useful and sometimes entertaining information through channels customers prefer,  and delivering product/service  experiences that consistently knock their socks off.  They don't really care about the big creative idea. 

• "Blurring: A Truly Intgegrated Approach to Multichannel Marketing. A stellar panel discussing a revolutionary marketing model. This executive panel will decipher the challenges of today's marketers in collaborating efforts bewteen advertising and direct marketing."  Yikes.  Aside from the decidely old hypey language style, the fact is that Web 1.0 blured the lines of advertising and direct back in the 90's.  (And some say we're in the Web 1.0 or 3.0 phase.) Marketers get that digital marketing does double duty and have been doing consistenly innovative "blurring" work for over a decade. 

• And my favorite.  "The 3rd Annual Stars of Madison Avenue:  The Business of Celebrities will honor popular celebrity and athlete endorsers and the big name marketers they represent."  Honor them for what? Being really smart about cutting $10 million endorsement deals and never having to be held accountable for whether the endorsement moves the sales needle?  How relevant is this to marketers?

I hope advertising is evolving, but this conference signals that the industry is stuck. The good news is that there are huge opporutnities for the new breed of marketing services agencies — and they've already eating the ad industry's party appetizers. Lunch is next.

Yesterday the U.S. Army hired a new ad agency, McCann Erickson, according to Ad Age. The budget: $1.35 billion to be spent on ads to recruit for active duty and the Reserve. That’s right, more than a BILLION dollars.

This
decision comes at a time when the marketing industry recognizes that
conventional advertising is not effective, particularly if the value
prop is weak. (Or if you’re being recruited to go to Iraq, maybe a
non-existent value prop.)

Is there a better way to spend $1.35 billion of our money?

Use
a slice of the money to figure out how to get out of Iraq sooner; then
we wouldn’t have to recruit so many people. Despite its advertising and
aggressive recruiting, the Army missed its recruitment target this year by 7,000, according to a report in today’s N.Y. Times. Maybe no amount of advertising is going to work. Like Vietnam, people
don’t believe much in the military’s cause. And if they don’t believe,
they’re not going to join.

Create an online community where active duty Army professionals
can talk to those with a possible interest? Let the people who know the
value of being in the Army – and have the most credibility – tell the
story vs. ads?

The goal of the Army is to recruit 80,000 new soldiers a year. Divide 80,000 into $1.35 billion and you get $1,687.50. If the army upped the signing incentives by another $1,687.50 would that be as effective as advertising?

Reinstate
the draft. Give full college scholarships to everyone who serves. Make
the military reflective of a democratic society. The added benefit: the
middle and upper class would be mad as hell and would get more involved
in government’s decisions. (As the mother of a young son, I hate to
think of a draft…)

Maybe some of these things
are already happening. I’d sure feel better knowing that the Army has
looked at alternatives before committing $1.35 BILLION on trying to
market something no one wants to buy.

Computer Associates, now to be
called CA, today featured multi-page spreads in newspapers like “The
New York Times” announcing the company’s new growth strategy.

But darned if I can figure out what they’re talking about, which is too bad because CEO John Swainson seems
so passionate about cleaning up CA and making the company matter again
to its corporate customers. I’m rooting for him to succeed, but there
are a few things in marketing that he’s going to have to change to win
me over – and his customers. (Newsday
interviewed some of CA’s customers following John’s speech in Las
Vegas, and they too are a little befuddled.)Here’s what CA needs to do
differently:

Readjust your assumptions and tap into what’s really going on with your customers

The ad headlines are “Remember when technology had the power to inspire
you? Believe again.” Technology has been extremely inspiring in so many
ways to so many of us. We never lost the belief. CA may have lost its
inspiration along the way, which accounts for so little company
innovation and growth. We don’t need to be told in ads to “believe
again” in technology. What we do need, however, is to be told why we
should believe again in CA and its technology and services.

Explain what you mean:

Which brings me to point two. What the heck is your big new vision,
Enterprise IT Management (EITM)? Your communications talk about how it
“unifies and simplifies complex IT environments across the enterprise.”
The press release headline says, “Unified Management of End-to-End
Infrastructure Enables IT Organizationsto Overcome Complexity and
Ensure Performance Of Business Services.” But hello, what exactly is
it? I really know technology, yet I can’t figure out what the big aha
is here. More context, examples, maybe some helpful metaphors, and just
plain speak would really help.

Rid yourself of the trite lines and tired talk

I’ve heard John talk and he’s engaging and direct. So why is your
letter, advertising and Web site so full of empty corporate speak,
which, by the by, uses phrases that date back to what other tech
companies used in the 90s? Phrases like “transforming business,”
“unifying and simplifying complex IT environments,” “reach a higher
order of IT,” “simplify the complex,” “deliver fully against your
business goals,” “align IT to reach business goals,” are empty, boring,
and tired.

Talk about something fresh, in your own words – not a copywriter’s:

CA must have some points-of-view on enterprise technology that are
contrarian, counter-intuitive, unusual, insightful, or surprising. How
else can you innovate, as you say you have, if you weren’t turned on by
some big insights? What customer insight triggered the passion of your
developers? What do you know that you can do better than any of your
competitors? Talk about those ideas. In the real words of real people.
In today’s business world, a new logo and name change don’t matter all
that much. People want a reason to believe in you. They want fresh
ideas. And they want to connect with the company and its people — not
with a new acronym.

I love the technology industry and hope that
there is great thinking and innovation going on at CA. Maybe the
marketing approach just needs to revamped.

When many of us see
this old style marketing, with to much hoo-ha around logos and category
acronyms and not enough clear explanations of what is new and valuable,
we often think that there is no new strategy. Just a great shade of new
lipstick that is likely to quickly fade.