DWAYNE FLINCHUM

Capturing the True Spirit of the Games: Olympic Identities That Don’t

2010-02-06T10:18:00.032-05:00

Remember the incredible fuss over the logo for the 2012 London Olympics when it was first released in 2007?

The image consulting firm, Wolff Olins was identified as the culprit, as details came to surface about a process that required 400,000 British pounds and a year to create. Public petitions were signed to recreate the logo, Mayor Ken Livingstone refused to support the pink and orange colors, and some groups likened the jigsaw-puzzle shape to a swastika. One of the major newspapers in the U.K., The Daily Mail, even announced an open competition and invited anyone to participate in redesigning the logo. NBS Sports reported that an animated display of London’s 2012 Olympics logo was removed from an official website following concern it could trigger epileptic seizures.

Cut to 2010 and the week of the opening ceremonies in Vancouver. There’s a growing tide of opinion that the symbol for these games, based in British Columbia, is not an accurate reflection of their culture. Rather, they maintain, this logo is based on the native tribe of the Inuit who live in the Canadian arctic.

The logo and mascot of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics is inspired by the Canadian Inuit inukshuk. The inukshuk is a stone marker that was used by the Inuit to guide them through the northern Arctic terrain. The Inuit have inhabited northern Canada from Alaska to northern Russia for centuries.

But according to novelist Douglas Coupland in the February 7th New York Times Magazine, “If you want to use the First Nations motifs for your iconography, use the ones that actually are from here.”

The Vancouver logo, called Ilanaaq (el la nawk) was the result of a design competition, selected from 1,600 entries, and was considered by an international panel of nine judges. The selected logo was created by Vancouver-based graphic designers Elena Rivera MacGregor and Gonzalo Alatorre, who used an inukshuk in Vancouver's Stanley Park as their inspiration.

“There were only so many things that could represent the entire country,” said Rivera MacGregor. “We researched it and we concluded the inukshuk was in fact one character that could pretty much tell the whole story. Rivera MacGregor claims that her winning design represents the culture, environment and people of Canada.

A prominent Canadian designer and writer, Marian Bantjes, wrote in her blog about the use of the inukshuk as a foundation for the Vancouver Olympic Games logo. “My first reaction? Gee, I didn’t know the Games were taking place in Nunavut. Where’s Nunavut? It’s up north, where there’s lots of snow and not a whole lot of landmarks.”

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002312.html

The organizing committee, VANOC, has worked to rationalize the symbol as a perfect representation of the Vancouver games. “Ilanaaq above all is a team player,” said John Furlong, chief executive officer of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “As VANOC relies on partnerships and a shared vision to deliver the Games, so does our emblem. Each stone relies on the other to support the whole. Together, the result is a symbol of strength, vision and teamwork that points us all in the direction of excellence and it will welcome the world to Canada in 2010.”

I’ve been on teams charged with creating image-defining visuals and identity systems for high profile organizations and events. At this level of global awareness, it’s virtually impossible to meet everyone’s expectations. It’s also clear that the concern over making an icon or logo that is culturally appropriate tends to encourage a process-by-committee attitude. For the development of the brand identity of any Olympic games, we can only imagine the number of cooks working and adding their opinions in the kitchen. There seems a direct correlation between the level of exposure or prestige, and the number of contributing voices. It can quickly become a challenge just to sort and consider all ideas and opinions.

The other observation is a bit of an inside joke among designers who work in brand consulting firms. That is, there is a tendency among those companies to “back into” a design that resonates on an instinctive level. The creative brief — or the purpose statement that guides and informs the creative process — is often articulated after the design has been intuitively or instinctively developed by the creative team. More than once, I've watched a smart account exec write a beautifully-worded rationale that is custom-tailored to suit the logo that is to be presented and proposed to the client. Problem was, it was after the logo had already been created. I’ve even seen the back-end qualitative research repackaged in order to validate the design that everyone likes.

In this case, the designers saw a statue in a local park and drew inspiration from that. I have no doubt that they researched it enough to understand the significance of the symbolism (separate parts that are internally supportive of each other, therefore allowing the structure to exist), and latched onto that as a tenet of any Olympic games. They saw the opportunity to adapt a simple image and to assign symbolic colors to each of the five parts, which would validate the icon even further.

The fact that it didn’t exactly fit the local relevance requirement of the exercise was probably conveniently overlooked. After all, the Inuit are at least one important component of Canada’s identity. Like all creative endeavors it was designed as a matter of instinct, an inspiration, a process that is not empirical, logically created or perfect.

Think of it as an intuit of the Inuit. Below are logos from the 2006 and 2008 Winter Olympic games.

A Flash From the Past?

2010-02-02T11:47:00.009-05:00

It might have captured the imagination of the masses and throngs of technophiles, but the iPad lacks one very critical piece of software for most of the viewing audience: Flash.

According to Nick Bilton in The New York Times, it wasn’t lost on the world of web designers and programmers that Apple’s new “fab-Pad” lacked the one piece of software that allows animation in media and advertising on the majority of the world’s mobile devices, laptops and desktop computers. There’s apparently a bit of a standoff developing between Adobe — maker of Flash software which is used to encode videos and animation for advertising and websites — and Apple.

Apple is part owner of the patents for a new technology, HTML5. Unlike Flash, a downloaded software, HTML5 works directly in a web browser. Apple has argued that Flash is too slow, consumes battery life too quickly and is vulnerable to viruses. Similarly, the iPhone cannot view much of the animated web due to the lack of Flash viewing capability.

There would be no concerns, of course, if not for the fact that most of what we watch on the internet is a moving picture. And while we’re a long way from seeing the wild, wild west of the “world wide web” in a veritable showdown, the two companies are certainly poised for a future standoff that would make any fan of western movies proud.

It will be interesting to see what the early adopters think of HTML5, and to track the consumer willingness (and willingness of the professional web developers) to relinquish Flash as a means to see animation.

The New York Times:
IPad Can’t Play Flash Video, but It May Not Matter

The New A4 Chip
Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone report that there’s more to the changes in Apple’s new iPad than just touchscreen technology. Offering some hint of the company’s future strategy, Apple has passed on the traditional, outsourced model for primary chips in its new computer and used its own chip, the Apple “A4.”

The move was positioned as a way to improve the speed of the new device, as well as preserve battery power longer than other chips from specialized microprocessor companies. Steve Jobs called the A4 the most advanced chip that Apple had ever used, and touted its speed, reliability and 10 hour battery life.

Clearly, Apple is not content to simply pioneer new hardware or innovate to create new classes of electronic devices. It seems to want control over the silicon processing and even the content as well.

The New York Times:
A Little Chip Designed by Apple Itself

Not Your Father’s American Red Cross

2010-01-19T19:25:00.012-05:00

If you would like to help the victims in Haiti, text “HAITI” to 90999 on your mobile phone. 100 percent of your $10 donation will support the relief efforts by the American Red Cross in Haiti.

American Red Cross: Text “HAITI” to 90999 FAQ

Congratulations to one of this country’s oldest nonprofits, one of the most recognizable brands in the world and also, one of the most controversial disaster relief organizations. The American Red Cross, working in collaboration with the State Department, mGive Foundation, and Mobile Accord, made the decision to launch a mobile campaign and run commercials during the nationally televised divisional playoffs last weekend.

Sitting there watching the game, I took one look at the “Mobile Giving Campaign” and knew right away this would be a huge success. My daughter would later share with me that she had called to contribute.

According to The New York Times January 19th edition, the campaign spots that were aired by the National Football League during the weekend generated as much as $500,000 per hour. As of Sunday, about $103 million in relief donations had been raised, $22 million of which resulted from the mobile campaign, as reported in the article.

According to the Red Cross, it’s the most successful mobile fund-raising campaign in their history. All of this might be common sense to some degree, as we realize the power and convenience of mobile technology. Just over four years ago, only $250,000 was raised through mobile communications for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

It helps that the First Lady made a public endorsement of the American Red Cross on television (and later on YouTube) and along with the President, visited the headquarters of the organization in Washington, D.C. Other celebrities also campaigned and the timing appeared to be a significant factor. But it was apparently the work of the State Department that expedited the mobile giving campaign in the hours after the earthquake, leapfrogging ahead of the standard process for setting up a mobile text-based fundraiser. In some instances, carriers donated services and agreed not to wait until collecting to advance the donations to the American Red Cross.

If you would like to help, please text “HAITI” to 90999 on your mobile device. For more information, see the FAQ link on the website of the American Red Cross, posted above. Your $10 donation will provide tarps, blankets and hygiene kits to the homeless in Haiti, and also facilitates a number of other post-earthquake relief operations.

We should all appreciate the pain and grief that the people of Haiti have suffered, and it's clearly a time to lend support through the right channels that will apply the assistance in the most effective way. It is also a time to be proud of our country for its generosity and desire to help.

The New York Times:
A Deluge of Donations via Text Messages

Predictions for 2010

2010-01-04T10:17:00.012-05:00

“Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it.” — Martin Peers, December 30 Wall Street Journal

I considered that it might be of some service (or at least, somewhat entertaining) to aggregate a few projections for 2010 from industry experts on business, brands, marketing and media. While I certainly would not proclaim myself a futurist, I’ll lean on the expertise, experience and insights of my peers in this post, as I pitch in a few of my own.

Listed below, in no particular order, are a few of our best guesses at what we can expect in the coming 362 days.

* This Blogger assumes no responsibility for ill-fated investments made on behalf of these published prognostications.

Frank McGill
McGill+Partners Consulting
fmcgill@mcgillandpartners.com

1. Media business models will continue to shift to depending on more revenue from audiences, not advertisers, and providing them with content they want when they want it.

2. Newspapers will ask online readers to pay for some content (as the Journal and FT do) but will find few paying customers.

3. Overall advertising spending will not grow but decline slightly in 2010, with growth expected in 2011.

4. Traditional media advertising will decline as digital, mobile, non-traditional, and direct channels grow and more advertising inventory flows through digital media.

5. Demand for eReader content will grow significantly.

6. Apple’s tablet (iTablet) will transcend all other eReader technology – after the sticker shock subsides – perhaps changing magazine and newspaper “publishing” forever.

7. Social media will thrive but not grow at ’09 rates as marketers get smarter and more sophisticated about deploying social media and developing social networking strategies.

8. More and more apps – they’re coming as media organizations develop more niche content.

9. Print is not dead; the print-only business model is dead. Thus, traditional media jobs lost over the Great Recession will not – ever – come back.

10. Eventually, we will all work for Google.

Leon Samuel
Partner,
IridiumGroup Mobile Strategies Division
lsamuel@iridiumgroup.com

Mobile Commerce
Many of the largest consumer brands in the U.S. still have no mobile presence. One of the biggest areas for growth in the mobile industry as a category is Mobile Commerce. The opportunity is virtually untapped in terms of potential and there are not many companies in a position to capitalize on it. Mobile purchasing and e-commerce will begin to be seen in many new market segments but will continue to be driven through direct marketing channels such as print, outdoor advertising and television.

QR Codes
We should start to actually see some growth in the U.S. with this technology. It has its benefits — they are cheap, easy to create, easy to use and can be very effective at driving content, transactions and real time data.

SMS Messaging
Companies will continue to use SMS to connect with their audience but will expect their SMS platforms to do more. Provide accurate and well-constructed metrics. Opportunities still abound with SMS messaging and the market is still in its relative infancy, but it has a level of maturity that requires more than “a cool image” in order to be successful. Companies are looking to monetize mobile, and reporting and metrics will be a requirement of any mobile solutions. The same thing has taken place with email marketing platforms. A certain level of sophistication and measurements are required for any solution.

Augmented Reality
There will be a big push for location-based services using GPS technology to provide virtual signposts, local reviews, and niche showcasing of technology. Part of the compelling 'Brand" story is the use by the brand itself of what is perceived to be hot new mobile technologies.

Mobile Web
In 2010 the mobile web will be available to almost half of the traditional computer based web consumers. Thanks to the growth rates of broadband networks, Wifi availability and huge growth in web, we will see mobile phones and smartphones increasingly web-enabled.

Data and CRM
There will be enterprise wide directives to link the traditional data driven marketing effort to the uniquely personal relationships that consumers have with their mobile phones. The winners will have truly integrated end-to-end solutions that encompass data not only from mobile interactions but also from social networks.

Dwayne Flinchum
IridiumGroup Inc.
dflinchum@iridiumgroup.com

Prediction #1: The Bullish Dow.
The Dow Jones will reach 11,000 quickly — perhaps before the end of January, before it retreats and levels off into a confusing swirl of fits and starts. In the 2nd quarter, we’ll be graced with yet another bullish run as the market hits 12,000 by June. As it reaches a tipping point with institutional investors finally finding the confidence they need, the Dow will hit 13,000 by October. Propelled in part by successful earning reports (a lag effect of layoffs — focus on financial performance and consequential profits), and a U.S. retail market that is driven by a weak dollar and foreign trade, Wall Street will celebrate a a topped out DJI average of 13,500 by January 1, 2011.

Prediction #2: Google Takes On Apple.
Google’s new Nexus One phone will finish beta-testing, launch in the fall and compete aggressively and successfully, in taking partial market share from the ubiquitous Apple iPhone.

Prediction #3: Smaller and Smarter.
Smartbooks — smaller versions of the laptop that perform more like smart phones — will debut in early 2010 at the CES show and proceed to entrench modestly among consumers who will find the retail costs attractive. All of this will be subsidized and promoted in part by various telecom carriers.

Prediction #4: Virtual Computing Gains Ground.
In organizational IT, why do we all need separate hard drives? Something called desktop virtualization will take root and grow in popularity quickly, first among corporate CIOs at an organizational level, and later among consumers. Less expensive, and empowering in its ability to better manage the hardware and information, employees will work with only a keyboard and a monitor, with a massive, central processor unit located thousands of miles away. On-site technical support will never be the same.

Prediction #5. Techno-Social Head-Spinning.
A new, seemingly pandemic disorder will emerge among consumers who become disoriented at the myriad of product options and new communications channels being developed. As this boundless array of integrated devices, PDAs, netbooks, Kindles, smartbooks, smartphones, websites and pod-like devices invade our increasingly isolated 21st Century lives, we’ll see a sort of communications overload. Consumers — time-impoverished and numb from the IT revolution — will begin to disengage. In a dramatic backlash to its rapid growth in 2008 and 2009, active use by members on Facebook will diminish by 35% or more.

Holiday Advertising That Worked

2009-12-27T11:05:00.025-05:00

Watching holiday season commercials can sometimes feel like sport — akin to tuning in for the Super Bowl for the creative execution of the advertising as opposed to the game itself. My research for this post turned up a plethora of opinions on the web. (As much as I loved the Gap commercials, there were plenty of viewers who found them annoying.)

That said, there were a few commercials that I found particularly inspiring this holiday season. Amazon features musician/actress Annie Little (http://www.annielittle.com/) singing “Fly Me Away” in their spot for the Kindle. She not only sings the song, but also is the woman who appears in the stop-action animation. Amazon also features her music for sale on their site: http://www.amazon.com/Fly-Me-Away/dp/B002VXMLO2

The remarkable thing is that the ad was actually not professionally produced, but was the winner of a competition called the "Your Amazon Ad Contest." Filmed in just 7 hours during a single session in July, this was a memorable commercial — and one that will reap immeasurable benefits for Amazon. The song is simple, curious and folk-like, with lyrics written by Ms. Little that strike a certain chord. It seemed to resonate with the popular culture, or at least among the Blogs I read. Through the number of impressions and global reach, like so many successful commercials, the music "Fly Me Away" will be indelibly connected to the Kindle forever. Please see the website if you would like to view the runner-up award winners. It's an amazing testament to the creative ability of those without the empowerment of agencies resources, who entered the contest.

Amazon
Your Amazon Video Ad Contest

Amazon Kindle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2idh99bpw

Advertising for Gap, Inc. is generally excellent, but this year’s campaign, designed around an upbeat cheerleader theme was especially powerful. The company even created a microsite (http://www.cheerfactory.com/).

Crispin Porter & Bogusky created the campaign, which features a multi-pronged, integrated strategy of social media, traditional print and broadcast advertising, and even a four-city tour by a troupe of cheerleaders and drummers who will “appear in unexpected places when you least expect it,” according to Ivy Ross, executive vice president of marketing for the Gap brand.

New York Times article:
Something to Rah-Rah-Rah About for Christmas

Gap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVMPWlWDvsI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j1yupiHgek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUd6sFGMN8

J.C. Penny Company supplemented their ads in traditional media this year with a presence in social media. According to Mike Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at J. C. Penney, “We’ll be leaking out our best deals on Facebook and Twitter.” The company also purchased time on YouTube on Thanksgiving Day to air its first holiday season commercial.

J.C. Penny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CmQjU2f2rk

And, of course, what would the holidays be without an "i-Everything product" and an equally impressive commercial? Apple jumped impressively into the fray this Fall with its spots for the iPod Nano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6nTgfS6EiY
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/gallery/ads/

As for my 2 cents, the freshness and raw, simple expression of the Amazon Kindle campaign wins the vote for best commercial of 2009. Congratulations to Angela Kohler and her boyfriend, Ithyle Griffiths, who simply purchased the product and were inspired to make the short film.

Content Really Is King

2009-11-28T14:42:00.007-05:00

After watching traditional publishers fumble and stumble their way into a new business model, The New York Times reported last week that a new venture is in the works. The online community portal — for lack of a more appropriate term — will involve a consortium of top media companies like Hearst, Condé Nast, Meredith, and Time Inc., as they engage outsourced consulting firms and agency partners to create a new online newsstand.

Only this online newsstand is very unlike the affinity marketing initiatives that were exploited by agencies like Publishers Clearing House, or the now defunct American Family Publishers. No one is looking exclusively for subscriptions at $19 annually. This online site will be modeled after ad-hoc, or tiered “content purveyance.” In brief, think of it like an iTunes for media content.

Suppose, or imagine a community website where you can surf your favorite subjects of interest, peruse the most recent content, make a selection and download the article — say, for example, on how to develop your lower abs, improve your cooking of French cuisine, or find and appraise antique artifacts — and pay a nominal fee of only $1 or $2 per article selection.

Or, alternatively, you may become a fan of that “content-supplier/owner” and actually order a subscription to the print product, or just be directed to the proprietary, unique website and have full access for only $12 per year.

I’m not exactly sure that this is the way the new model will work, but it should. Brian Steltzer reports that the named companies will take equity shares in the new proposition, although deals have yet to be signed. A few newspaper owners have also expressed interest.

The model is not new. Ventures like Hulu, owned by a consortium of television networks, have offered new channels to broadcast content for consumers. Vevo, which will make its debut in January 2010, is attempting to tackle the challenge of monetizing music content that is presently being downloaded for free.

Of course, one of the big challenges is figuring out how to aim for a moving target. Integrated devices and smart phones are rapidly transitioning their applications and models, and no one is quit sure where to aim, or how to build a web model and channels to mobile that also is relevant in 2012, much less 2010.

Still, in my opinion, this is the most dramatic, forward-thinking move that traditional media has taken in decades. It represents a sea-shift or paradigm change that is relevant to modern content-consumerism, and it’s absolutely necessary. No amount of venture capital or commitment of publishers’ collective time could be applied in a more valuable way.

Winning the battle of “paid online content” has been the conundrum and nemesis of publishers for ten difficult years. But publishers are content owners. Content is their core value proposition. It’s what consumers crave and need, and sadly, what they have discovered for free online, whether the result is accurate and satisfying or not.

And it’s clearly about more than advertising, as the finite universe for advertising revenue continues to be compromised by recession and is diminished through ever-increasing, seemingly infinite, digital channels. According to Charles Townsend of Condé Nast, “We know that the world of digital is far grander than display advertising.”

But content proprietors — owners of the best content in the world — like Time Inc. Condé Nast and Hearst are experts in their respective categories. It’s time that those C-level leaders made smart business decisions, understood the worth of their core assets, chose the channel and value model of the future, and kept their companies competitive.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-to-build-an-online-newsstand/?scp=1&sq=online%20newsstand&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/media/16adco.html?_r=1&ref=business

Bloomberg Purchase of BusinessWeek Flies in the Face of Media Trend

2009-11-19T10:33:00.006-05:00

Rupert Murdoch achieved his long-coveted prize, by buying Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal for $5 billion.

Warren Buffett leveraged everything, split the B shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock and paid $26 billion for Burlington-Northern Santa Fe — a railroad, of all things — to achieve a childhood dream.

Now, we hear that Bloomberg L.P. has paid $5 million in cash and reportedly assumed another $10 million in liabilities for BusinessWeek — at a time when print journalism is confronted with its greatest challenge in history, with news in printed form taking the biggest hit. If daily newspapers are strained to remain relevant at all, news weeklies are not far behind as they seek ways to remain viable, usually under the brand image and market position of analysis or commentary. It's no longer a matter of reporting what happened, but rather a matter of explaining what it all means.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/business/media/18mag.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Business%20Week&st=cse

Is there something more at work here? The November 18 New York Times reports that Bloomberg has assembled an A-team of former Time Inc. executives like Norman Pearlstine, Jim Kelly, and most recently, Josh Tyrangiel to oversee the transition and head up the revamped, relaunched magazine and website. Reportedly, the new property will be called Bloomberg BusinessWeek, but will continue to serve consumers (and we would guess also be distributed to subscribers of Bloomberg financial terminals). How much of a focus the website will have is still to be determined, as there is an audit of staff presently being conducted. Announcements about who, among the editorial team, will remain are set for December 1, 2009.

As the organizational structure is rethought and the title is integrated into Bloomberg News operationally, the great irony is that none of these investments appear to be betting on Web 2.0. News journalism has almost completely made the transition to the internet, as we watch traditional outlets like the evening news broadcast on network television struggle.

As much as I personally prefer reading a printed journal or publication, I don’t view any consumer print news vehicle as a wise bet for future investment. My daughter and son seem like fairly typical teenagers and they hardly pick up anything besides their iPod and laptops. I can’t recall the last time they asked to visit a newsstand. If they turn to the television or print at all, they certainly are not looking for breaking news, or even for analysis and commentary.

How Mr. Bloomberg can leverage and reinvent a preeminent business magazine in 2010 that was launched in 1929 is beyond me. It may become a smart channel for advancing his own business communications and brand goals, and it wouldn’t be unthinkable to imagine that he intends to use it as a platform for his own future political aspirations. Steve Forbes certainly did it once with Forbes magazine when he ran for President in 1996 and 2000.

Apparently, the plans are to immediately reduce the workforce by about 100 positions, or 25 percent of the magazine's staff. Some of those layoffs have already reportedly started, with more to come this week.

Maybe there's something developing in the market that I'm not seeing, or maybe Mr. Bloomberg will simply apply the same sage insights and special talents to make this new venture as vibrant and successful as he’s made his financial services company. Either way, it's undeniable that these media purchases are going against the grain of conventional Web 2.0 thinking.

In Flocks and Herds, We Travel

2009-11-10T12:12:00.010-05:00

According to my financial adviser, today, over $3.43 trillion is held in cash and money markets, waiting to enter the market “when the time is right.” And yet, in the third quarter of 2009, both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones had gains of over 15%. In fact, since the low this year on March 9th, the Dow has gained back nearly 4,000 points, which would understandably cause financial advisers to wonder what magical benchmark in record gains has to be fulfilled in order to restore investor confidence.

Historically, according to Robert Votruba (www.robertvotruba.com), people have done exactly the opposite of what they should do, which is sell high once the market has rebounded, and buy or reinvest low. Instead, they tend to wait to buy until investor confidence has returned, which means the stocks have already appreciated, of course.

Marketing has functioned exactly the same way, in my opinion. In the last year, agencies have discounted professional fees, media properties have slashed rates for advertising, and everyone is doing far more with less. So, at a time when advertising and marketing professionals are able to pre-approve, procure and lock-up valuable services — now and for the future, at rates that are 20-30% less than standard market value — why are marketing managers so reluctant to jump in?

For one, they clearly have restricted budgets. In an enviable buyer’s market, advertisers have very little empowerment to capitalize on the opportunities that exist in the market. In this case, it’s a “trickle up” effect. Injections of taxpayer bailout money might have trickled down (an arguable and dubious assumption, by the looks of debacles like the bonuses at AIG and the recent CIT bankruptcy maneuver), but in a contracted economy, the reverberations and cost reductions seem to trickle upward.

It’s a shame, as a business value proposition. I always enjoy watching smart, effective business being conducted, which makes the marketing world pretty frustrating these days. Marketing or advertising expenditures are generally some of the first budget line items to be eliminated or reduced. In fact, having weathered this type of storm twice in 15 years, I consider IridiumGroup a leading economic indicator. We were hit early in June 2008, well before the financial markets plunged in late September on news about Lehman, Bear Stearns and other brokerage houses. That trend continued, with only a few modest aberrations, through 2009. In fact, if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ever wants a clear indication of what is just around the corner, his office might consider creating a new index: Marketing dollars allocated.

During this time, we have continued to market at a consistent pace, and focused our efforts more carefully than ever before. I don’t think we’ve ever been sharper, more capable, or projected more relevant messages. And yet, there was a clear downturn in leads generated during the last 18 months. We would gladly work within constricted budgets and try to deliver as much value as possible for highly competitive rates — at times, at cost — if it meant the opportunity to prove our worth and build an important new relationship.

And yet, those few prospective clients have often declined to engage. Like the Dow Jones, it’s a buyer’s market, but no one is spending. It’s like being in a bargain basement discount store with desirable merchandise and watching all the hungry shoppers stand around, declaring that they need to wait until the prices go higher.

As Stuart Elliott reported on November 6 in The New York Times, the Association of National Advertisers are meeting and looking back on the unusual circumstances of the past year as well as trying to determine what shape their companies — and the economy — will be in for their 100th anniversary. According to Rebecca Saeger, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Charles Schwab Corporation, the downturn was “by far the worst of any I have lived through. It took everything we know how to do to get through this.” She added, “The answer has been for marketers not to disappear,” but rather “to seize the moment and take advantage of the opportunities.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/media/06adco.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=marketers%20regroup&st=cse

Bad economies are no time to retreat like tortoises under our shells. No company ever achieved a breakout performance with their brand, without thinking independently and taking a few smart, calculated chances.

Hunkering down, slashing budgets and waiting for the storm to pass is one approach. Being proactive, seeing the opportunities in the market and securing valuable talent that is well-aligned to support marketing and brand managers’ goals — at smart rates — is another. For high performing companies and the businesses that will emerge as capable players, ready to embrace the new opportunities, that's the current modus operandi.

Remaining Relevant in Print Media

2009-10-23T09:55:00.017-04:00

A dualistic question that pits ‘print against electronic’ is the wrong approach. The question — and the answers — are far more complex for traditional publishing. Achieving the right multichannel mix for all member communities will be a daunting, but rewarding sea to navigate for established companies.

Newspapers and magazines are challenged in every sense of the word. Web 2.0 has reinvented and will continue to reinvent, the world of entertainment, communities and information sharing. New media portals like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among hundreds of other community sites have re-engineered how we, as media consumers, access and digest our information. But despite expert analysts' opinions, print journalism is not dead. To the contrary, actually. Enormous opportunities abound.

One critical idea about how media should work in practice seems dismissed with each and every over-reactive swing of the ‘print-to-electronic pendulum.’ The fundamental concept of successful branding, forged on Madison Avenue over fifty years ago, was based on a simple, clear message expressed consistently in different media forums to the consumer. Billboards, radio, print ads, and the new medium of the day, television, worked in coordination to drive the point of the sponsoring company. That historical model reinforces the common idea of integrated marketing — the buzzwords which never leave any corporate marketing meeting or brand discussion. Multi-channel marketing is an idea that has clearly earned its merit. But too often, print is forgotten as a crucial component of this multi-pronged attack.

As one prominent consultant in emerging media recently told a group of our clients, even in Web 2.0, “it still comes down to ink on paper.” Whether it’s mobile messaging, social media, or another interactive tool, no one will visit or engage the medium if that medium is not promoted appropriately via print communications. Knowing that the printed word is still an important and relevant component of any marketing program, what about print journalism?

We’ve seen the paradigm shift in effect already. By now we understand that specifically, news-organizations — or any printed business operation that relied on speed-to-market delivery — has suffered because of the lack of ability to compete within the “anywhere, anytime” immediacy of digital media. But can other print media companies offer value and capitalize on the idea of the multi-platform, integrated information model? Of course, they can.

Prior to founding IridiumGroup, I worked in consumer magazine publishing. I continued to consult for several years as Iridium began working in brand identity development and implementation. There are three main lessons I have learned from my experience working in, and consulting to dozens of media companies over the last 25 years.

Lesson One
Every model is unique. No one solution can cure an industry because every model, every community — every magazine — is different.

I’ve seen a business model that gave away 1.7 million copies of a magazine, with revenues generated through membership to an online community.

I’ve also seen an organization with a magazine that was strictly subscription-driven with only 8,000 readers, that in certain instances actually turned away lucrative advertising, and was highly profitable. Incredibly, annual subscription dues were over $1,600.

I’ve worked on a publication that had an ABC audited rate-base of 1.5 million readers, with most of that generated through highly desirable, single-copy sale transactions, earning most of their profit on newsstands. The unit manufacturing cost was about $1.25; the retail sale price was about $5.

By contrast, I’ve been inside a successful media company that had subscription-based publications and excellent subscriber renewals, who cared very little about single-copy sales with their publications achieving less than 25% “sell-through” in highly successful retail bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders, where even obscure magazines earned 50% or more in yield. And I’ve worked on magazine titles that earned most of their sales from fractional advertising — the bulk of which was very small, 1/12 page, black and white display ads.

So one size certainly does not fit all, when it comes to publishing.

Lesson Two
All successful media companies are based on a community of like-mindedness. No publication ever achieved success or lasted long without a sense of community and affinity of ideas or passions among its readers. Whether it’s a topic of special interest, perhaps a niche genre for enthusiasts readers, or a business trade journal serving one industry or profession, or even a geographical publication that services the local demographic, media has always been a formula that identifies and serves a select group of like-minded customers.

The Challenge Ahead:
Member Communities & Tiered Offerings
Print magazines need to stop thinking in traditional terms and embrace the integrated model, serving the member-community concept. They do not have readership, target audiences, or rate bases; they have member communities. They need to create tiered offerings for those member communities, charging more for subscription driven properties in order to remain viable, if the audience shows enough loyalty for the product. Successful retainers have always applied a tiered pricing model, one that presents many options to a broader range of customers. Surprisingly, traditional publishing has not done this, choosing instead to offer only discounts for multi-year subscriptions. But what about offering the content across multiple channels, with deepening tiers of value to the customer, all offered with varying degrees of price?

The recent failure of a shelter media title, Domino, had many industry professionals questioning how it could happen. From a fast launch and reader-acquisition standpoint, the publication had a highly successful following. And yet, in the great recession, advertising pages and revenues dropped substantially, prompting the parent company to close the title altogether. In fact, I believe they should have attempted a unique proposition that was applied at Ms. Magazine many years ago: Abandon the focus on advertising sales, or change the model so that the business value proposition is not primarily dependent on ad sales; and increase reader subscription and single-copy rates in order to make the title sustainable as a print media tool.

For example, in the case of Domino, the company could have asked readers to pay $29, or even $39 per year, with a VIP access to a select portion of the website for $49 or $59 in total, per year. Within the trade, professional decorators might have jumped at the chance to access proprietary content online.

Any successful retail business has always been about offering many options to the customer and this is where I think that established media companies have missed an incredible opportunity. Even with the unquestionable drop in renewals due to increased annual subscription rates, could the increased revenues have sustained Domino long enough to give its publisher time to explore other channels and revenue streams? We’ll never know.

Paying outright for any online access has been a conundrum for these companies. But understanding the nature of communities and member-based organizations could create a new outlook, and new models for offering the proprietary content that these publishers so value as their core offering. All communities of consumers want options in how they access their desired media or content. They are willing to pay for online access, as long as there is a clear benefit and as long as it is supported intelligently by a print product that does a good job of facilitating reader interests appropriately and working in tandem with other channels.

Rethinking the print and electronic mix will also require a look at customer usability and in certain cases, at frequency of publication. Some print magazines will need to reduce frequency and change the tone of content for the print product. In the same way that news magazines began combating the internet in the 1990's — by turning their coverage of news into analysis to reflect a longer shelf life and remain relevant — other types of magazines can adapt the presentation of their core content to serve the reader over a 60- or even 90-day span of time.

Lesson Three: Adapting to Meet the Future
One of the great challenges is the third lesson I came to realize about traditional media. That is, as creative as these companies may be in developing the product, in the end, they are still manufacturing operations. Publishing is a business based on formulas, on a direct mail offering that was tested and achieved the proper rate of response among targeted list rentals.

The great, tragic drawback of these organizations are their roots in proven formulas. They are highly conservative, with cultures that are not conducive to innovation. Innovation simply does not mix well with formula-driven environments. When a successful formula is challenged, as traditional print media has been, the cultures are confused and reluctant to change the model. Doing so would risk discarding the very proven, editorial model and consumer community on which the operation was successfully founded.

Every magazine is unique, every audience it serves and the correlating financial model is a custom example of success. But generally, magazine publishers should see themselves not as print manufacturers trying to break into online, reader-paid business models. They also need to relinquish the notion that magazine publishing is a proven model of rate base benchmarks and subsequent advertising revenue.

Instead, they must understand that their readers — their member communities — are golden. As they map out their futures, begin first with the usability of the customer, how the customer interacts with each product and channel and apply the content appropriately. Further, they should note that as print publishing organizations, their member communities have a need that they have filled in large part. But their communities are accustomed to new channels and new tools such as smart phones, websites, email alerts, touch-screen kiosks, event and conference venues. And at times, these communities still want the printed, tactile experience — for the right reason, the proper application.

Learning how to create new architectures that structure the editorial content and integrate the reader usability is the creative challenge. Understanding and applying new models, new channels, and tiered options for reader-driven sales that propel company revenues is just another business goal.

Financial performance modeling computer programs can be designed and built to enable publishers to make clear decisions about how to proceed. After all, each magazine property is unique, and publishers know this.

Which publisher can charge exclusively for membership to their magazine, and which can apply a strategic blend of tiered charges for access to multiple venues? Which should consider a frequency change of the print product to bi-monthly, or even quarterly delivery?

Which can monetize email alerts and mobile messaging successfully? Which can support an exclusive paid-subscription circulation, and which can sustain a tiered-service, paid, member-protected website?

From existing research, data based on customer usability habits for every magazine and audience does exist. Feeding that data into an analytical engine could deliver answers in the form of a customized recipe or mix for content, audience, channel, and frequency — and allows us to understand how best to tweak, and apply the content most successfully to each emerging channel.

This is a desirable, badly-needed analysis for every media property. Therein also lies the potential, proprietary consulting opportunity that will reap handsome financial rewards for the industry.

I’d stake a great deal of money and investment on any computer program that could inform publishers on how to remix their content and create new markets, new channels, and new offerings that are successful at transitioning traditional print models into viable multichannel business operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/business/media/23newsday.html?_r=1&sq=Newsday&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=2&adxnnlx=1256306422-L88/xmToUYJQ1LAb7ZVgEw

Teen Facebook?

2009-10-06T10:05:00.002-04:00

If there's one thing I’ve come to understand about media communities, it's that there is always a steady, progressive evolution toward fragmentation to compete as a more targeted vehicle, serving segments of any larger demographic.

From the early days when a handful of mass market, general interest magazines reigned, to the metamorphosis of print media into highly specialized niche magazines — or splinter pubs, as the industry called them — the trend is clear.

Considering that, what seems fascinating is the entrenchment of large, mass scale online communities like Facebook. Why have these new media models managed to exist as mass-market entities? Why have they not seen the benefits of segmentation, embracing the time-tested practice of hooking future customers early by creating and offering segmented tiers of their brand to serve specific age groups?

Many successful publishers applied this model. National Wildlife has Ranger Rick, Vogue has Teen Vogue, and Sports Illustrated has Sports Illustrated for Kids. It was always considered smart business to engage a young reader/member and introduce them to the brand early, migrating them slowly through a pipeline — several tiers of magazines and related services with similar content, adapted accordingly to meet their changing interests and needs.

Facebook was originally launched and positioned for students, and yet most of its growth in the last year or so has come both internationally, and from a demographic that is 40+. So one would have to wonder what the Gen Y and Gen Z users feel about having their parents on the same service. (I can serve as a research subject and declare that neither of my 2 children approve of my account on the community site, both having blocked me, or having denied my “friend” requests.)

As successful as Facebook and other community sites have been, it strikes me as wise to begin creating offshoot sites and services that speak more intimately to younger groups. The presentation of the website, messages, design and related offerings could be custom tailored more specifically, and more effectively to each specific group, be it Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen X, or mature audiences. Where a mature demographic may not care for email alerts and other forms of community interaction, a younger audience would find this feature appealing, most likely. The look and feel of each segmented site could also be designed to fit each audience.

In fact, I believe there is an incredible opportunity for a start up to rally the youth market and carve out a clearly positioned, well-defined social site that resonates better with young teen and 20-something audiences. From the language on the website to the colors, images, and all the things that make up the brand — the name, signature, and even the service offerings — there is a whole market of young customers waiting for a community service that will speak to them. A little attention in the way of “ground-up” buzz marketing, a mention by the right celebrity, some favorable word of mouth among friends . . . trust me, opportunity awaits.

Just ask my son, 13, or my daughter, 17.

Twitter Raises Another $100 Million, Yet Never Earned $1

2009-09-25T08:10:00.008-04:00

[bub-ble, (buhb-uhl), noun, ... a globule of air or gas contained in a solid; anything that lacks firmness, substance, or permanence; an illusion or delusion]

How in the name of all that is logical and sensible on God's semi-green earth, can a start-up company fail to earn even one U.S. dollar and be valued at over $1 Billion? According to the September 25 New York Times, Twitter is about to raise $100 million, based on a market cap valuation of $1 Billion.

Domino's Pizza, by comparison, had sales of $1.4 Billion and has over 10,000 employees, and is valued at only half that amount.

Twitter, to my knowledge, has not posted any sales from advertising revenue, and is yet to be proven as a financial business model. Besides documenting over 60 million unique visitors globally to its site in August 2009, the company has yet to demonstrate that it can achieve a sustainable level of operations. With about 60 employees, the company had raised about $50 million to date and had generated a tremendous amount of PR and word of mouth brand building. The celebrity appeal was rumored to be a sponsored arrangement between Twitter and the personalities they contracted, like Ashton Kutcher or Shaquille O'Neil, who sold the right to use their name in association with Twitter, using ghostwriters to post fictitious daily muses.

And Wall Street questions the value or equity of traditional, established media companies like Hearst, Time Inc., and Condé Nast? This is crazy.

A few well known venture capital firms and T. Rowe Price, a mutual fund company, are placing a bet that companies like Twitter represent a new model, a shift in the business paradigm that is the internet. Sound familiar? Didn't we go through this all once before with the colossal failure of well capitalized companies like Webvan in the late 1990's? Those companies did not prove their value, and yet an incredible, illogical amount of investment dollars poured into the venture. But now, along with a snappy new name (Web 2.0), we're supposed to take the bait again and jump at the chance to buy stock in the bright, novel, new web companies. And newspapers like The New York Times will only add to the furor with constant reportage.

Considering this investment model, maybe I should do a public offering with Iridium. I mean, we've been in business successfully — more or less — for over 15 years. We also have a website. And in my humble opinion, the recovery has finally found some traction, meaning that we have survived our second global recession during that time. When I do the math, the shareholder (that's me) return on investment turns out to be something like 1,000,000 times the original market value (the cost of the first Apple computer I bought).

With a little pizazz, some young looking garb, and "smoke and mirrors" language added to my presentation, maybe I could even create the same kind of wide-eyed, buzz perception that we're working in a brand new business world. You know. . . a different market, or model for generating value — a new, different, better way to perform, to create those inevitable, impending bundles of cash.

New and different. Better. That has, after all, been the reasoning used by every huckster peddling their wares, or common swindler selling snake oil cures since the beginning of time.

Marketing and Brand Image Application in 2010 and Beyond

2009-07-14T10:57:00.007-04:00

The long lauded, awaited era of digital convergence is here. In 2009, we find ourselves awash in mobile APPs, text and instant messaging capabilities, and interactive community portals that enable virtual affiliations of like-mindedness. Ideas like voice activation — a concept that was an awe-inspiring representation of “the future” just a few years ago — are already fixed in the consumer mind and lifestyle stream through products like the iPhone 3G S.

The technologically revolution has left marketers, researchers, agency and traditional media executives scrambling to better understand the relevance of these new tools, how their industries will be affected, and what the future will hold (considering the blistering pace of new developments, let’s call this 2010 for the sake of easy definition).

In that spirit, I’ve attempted to aggregate some of the observations, ideas and expectations of peers in both the professional consulting and agency side, as well as client side, and I humbly offer those insights:

Further Fracturing
Based on my experiences with several dozen client organizations, I think we can continue to see what I’d call a further fragmentation of the web - into more segmentation of audiences and specific “campaign microsites” that offer custom-tailored content. There will be more URLs and flagship corporate websites, of course, but an even greater proliferation of microsites embedded within the established organizational websites — along with print campaigns and broadcasts designed to promote those interactive venues.

We’ll see more touchpoints, a growing explosion in channels and media outlets for consumers, including mobile. I think the App market will continue to grow, but that growth will depend on how well companies like Palm, RIM, Nokia and Motorola and introduce those APPs and APP developers to their devices and customers, and how user-friendly they can make the integration of that technology. All manufacturers will continue to refine their products and replicate the success of the iPhone, which is, of course, the smartphone category leader.

The End of Print?
Print should never be omitted as part of any integrated marketing program because it’s a critical component of any marketing plan, but we have measured this and seen that print products are diminishing fairly significantly in page count and quantity since 2000. That trend was adopted early by media companies that we served in the 1990’s, and it continues with the late adopters as well.

Many of our private foundation clients have incrementally trimmed 8-12 pages each year from their cornerstone marketing or fundraising tools, like mission brochures or educational brochures and annual reports, choosing to place the additional, non-critical content online.

The fact is that non-printed marketing achieves three highly desirable objectives: a) it’s far less expensive; b) it’s measurable; and c) it’s faster to market, and quickly updated. Having stated that, I continue to see the erroneous perception that print can be eliminated when in fact, it is required as a key component of any integrated marketing program in order to build recognition and usage of the interactive tool.

The other interesting observation about print marketing and communications is that generally, our clients are doing far fewer “big print initiatives.” Print is being used to promote a URL or microsite campaign, so we’re seeing a tremendous increase in “large run, small scale print products.” This trend seems to be driven by the age-old mantra of Madison Avenue: Get more eyeballs on the message. That means getting more eyeballs on the website or desired, integrated flagship marketing tool, so it still requires ink on paper. It’s just that clients are choosing more impressions of the print medium and distributing them in a way that is more fleeting, and they pay less attention to the actual quality of the printed piece, since it’s simply a driver to send the end user to another source. The print marketing tool is no longer image driven, so much as it is “message driven.” And more often than not the key message is “Text ‘X’ to ‘shortcode’ or ‘Visit www.x.com.’ ” This is not true of all communications like core image-building tools (annual reports, etc.) but it is true of a vast majority of marketing initiatives.

More Work, Less Time
Unfortunately, the increase in channels, social media, and ways to reach the consumer have not been met by an increase in staff for our clients, nor has an increase in budget been realized — so the quality of the tools will suffer. As we watch more touchpoints created, and subsequently more time and work required to fill those touchpoints with relevant content, I think we’ll see a lack of quality marketing and communications by media companies and non-traditional media companies, who are working with an outdated, strained staff model while trying to manage a confusing mix of multi-channel marketing.

Challenges With the Coordination of Messages and Audiences
Similarly, we’re seeing a general trend among many clients to cross pollinate their messages. In the case of one large, nonprofit, health care client, an existing staff of 8-10 marketers were mixing messages and beginning to lose sight of their audiences and constituent needs. A marketing management team that was considered adequate — or even astute and on-target with their work and goals 3 years ago — had become overwhelmed with the myriad of new social media channels and increase in print and interactive tools. Internal tools began to carry external messages; external tools began to carry advocacy messages or otherwise, irrelevant content; and the style and tone was not distinguishable between print and interactive copy — which is, of course, an important distinction.

In short, they were able to allocate less time in order to accomplish more. They lost focus on the driver for all communications, which is the audience and key message or desired result/takeaway. This is one of the most significant trends that I see in marketing operations with our clients. I’ve heard this complaint or witnessed the undesirable results to some degree of severity in almost every client situation.

We recommend message-mapping — and exercise which allows the client team and our team to define and analyze the list of a) potential audiences, b) potential messages or key “take-away,” and c) the potential channels and tools designed to reach those audiences. A simple exercise can then create an effective master road map that guides all the ways to best reach specific member/audience segments.

Future of Online Research
Research ultimately may be the area most dramatically affected by the new technologies and social media outlets. The research industry will need to change significantly as advertising and traditional media business models are reinvented. Research executives are now focused not only on ways to data-mine information for their clients, but they are equally in need of ways to interpret and analyze the enormous amounts of data.

The new research companies that focus on measuring the benefits of social media and interactive marketing will continue to grow and flourish. There will be a massive amount of information generated and sold to organizations — who subsequently may have a difficult time putting any of it into real, tangible, beneficial action, simply because of the overload of information and lack of time to execute existing strategies. Media companies will measure social media to better understand things like the “personal passions” of their audiences, which will in best-practice cases, better inform their future decisions on content and programming.

The rapid rise of social media has left the research community with an abundance of channels and ways to understand purchasing decisions and customer needs or interests. This aggregation of collective consumer mindset is a bountiful gift to any corporate marketer, but it will take time to develop and refine the tools to manage and deliver clear, actionable information to marketers.

Websites like surveymonkey.com are changing the landscape for all research companies. This emphasis on quantitative research, and the immediacy and cost-effectiveness of self-generated, real-time customer feedback is a new concept. Similarly, user-generated content and microsites where customers can openly comment on a product or service is giving marketers an enviable window into the needs and desires of their audiences like never before. It has empowered corporate marketers and it will be interesting to see what it does to the research industry as a whole, not to mention qualitative research practices like focus groups and mall intercept.

Sustainability of Social Media
Social media will continue to see further fracturing or fragmentation of audience passions and needs, and no doubt there will be a growing trend in M&A’s among smart, effective companies that are earning market share. Niche communities are already forming around professional associations and other, like-minded affinities.

An inevitable “shakeout” would seem obvious in the coming year or so, as some of these new media portals do not realize the growth they aspired or anticipated. The big concern and challenge is in finding ways to monetize the business model; Twitter has raised over $50 million in private equity, but has never yielded one penny of revenue. That said, corporations love the opportunity to create a presence on these sites with little or no costs. But as an enduring business model, it’s a precarious proposition.

The executive management leading those organizations as well as their Boards will continue to explore ways to monetize this new medium. This may be achieved through subscription based revenues, advertising sales, or through the sale of proprietary research data that may not necessarily violate personal or member-privacy terms. In fact, for many social media properties like Twitter, this latter option may be the most viable. Sophisticated segmentation and analysis of customer data can lead to critical information about trends and consumer preferences that are far more effective than any futurist or trendwatcher’s predictions. It’s a valuable business proposition and if it can be accomplished without the violation of privacy terms, it will be successful.

The New Consumer Expectation: Anytime, Anywhere
Finally, the anytime, anywhere trend will continue. Media companies like The New York Times, Time Inc., and Hearst have, and are, unfortunately seeing the challenges earlier than traditional marketers. Consumers are becoming accustomed to having the information they want, whenever they want it, however they choose to receive it. This new development in consumer behavior will only drive technology to find further developments that meet the market demand.

Smart phones are here to stay, and with new features introduced to the market every few weeks, an inevitable evolution of the new integrated device will lead us all into a new age of usability. Traditional CPU’s will not become extinct, certainly, but their role will be far less important. I predict that the smart phone WAP site or APP will soon become for every communicator and every marketer, the flagship corporate touchpoint, with perhaps hundreds of other extensions of the brand image stemming from that primary consumer experience.

2009-04-19T12:06:00.000-04:00

Message Art

2009-02-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

I've been fascinated for some time by the symbols that exists in the text messages and email transactions that we, as a society, have so completely embraced. Each month, in the U.S. alone, 75 billion text messages are sent over 265+ million mobile phones. In those messages — and in the computer inboxes holding professional and social communications each day — are the details of our lives. These messages may be typed to start romance, deliver humor, create friendships, share resentment, express sorrow, plan appointments, end relationships, or of course, transact business. We have created a whole system of iconography, a symbolic language to translate feelings and emotions where none can be expressed, otherwise. Using these emoticons as inspiration, I’ve been creating digital art. Below, I’ve included a random sampling for your enjoyment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and if you have any interest in purchasing one, please email me at dflinchum@ir77.com. While these are not yet available for sale, I would be happy to consider custom orders and to facilitate a transaction.

The Enduring Brand of the Olympic Games

2008-08-16T09:44:00.013-04:00

For each individual, sport is a possible source for inner improvement. — Pierre de Coubertin

May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.
— Pierre de Coubertin

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well. — Pierre de Coubertin

After all the media fallout and threats of boycott because of civil rights violations and pollution in China, Beijing '08 is the most watched Olympic Games since Atlanta '96. Why do we watch? Why has this particular Olympic Games captured our attention?

Of course, it is standout stars like Michael Phelps, but it is more. We are a country, a continent, a world that is caught in a quagmire of disappointing news. There are wars raging in Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other countries where strife is the rule, not the exception. The threat of domestic terrorism has most Americans still in its vice grip, as we watch violence in other parts of the world. Issues such as energy conservation, and finding new ways to generate energy are on our minds, even as the environment and sustainable living grow to be a more serious, undeniable concern.

The economy appears distressed in most countries or at least everywhere except Dubai and portions of the middle east, where abundant wealth springs forth like a miraculous fountain of lavish life. There is political uncertainty here in the U.S., along with a deep recession that may have already bottomed out. The state of affairs in many countries appears to be contingent on the welfare of the U.S., designed fortuitously or not to follow our markets.

In 1896, when Pierre de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, he applied a vision of a world that was based on commonwealth, a common goal and good for all people, one that was above politics, war, and socio-economics. This is a higher ideal or purpose than any of the concerns we have; this is a spiritual roadmap for a possible future.

While I never broke a world record or excelled beyond an average level at any sport, I know a little about the Olympics. I can tell you why the 1956 Games of the XVI Olympiad were to be held in Melbourne, but in part moved to Stockholm at the last minute because of a quarantine. I can recite most of the cities that hosted over the last 112 years. I can tell you that I attended the Centennial Games in Atlanta in 1996, stopped and took pictures of a friend in front of that tower, just before Centennial Park exploded in a night of tragedy and death. Earlier that night, I had seen Michael Johnson run in a 400 meter trial and actually place second, much to everyone's dismay.

I had worked on the Official IOC Souvenir Guide to the Olympic Games, a project that the good people at Sports Illustrated extended as an opportunity nearly 2 years prior to the event itself. We poured our hearts into a publication that was syndicated and ultimately reprinted in about 16 languages and sold worldwide. I fell in love with the Olympics as I worked on that Program Guide, which was a Centennial celebration of the Games. Later, I led the design for the Official Olympic Program for Sydney in 2000, and again for Salt Lake City in 2002. The Olympics have since captivated me, especially the summer games.

Why do we watch? Because in my opinion, in a world of grey, a world where manipulation, deception, uncertainty and loss of hope is flourishing, there is that part in each of us that feels fundamentally true and honest, full of will, decency and strength. We are hopeful to be inspired by the triumph of the human spirit — that naked, raw expression that declares: I have nothing here to help me and I am alone in my quest, but I want to be excellent, I want to feel honored, I want to do perform as well as I possibly can. And in that, I may lift other people to do the same.

The competition may not always bear good news, but at least the competition is just that: It is real, and cannot be faked. The standards for determining who wins and loses in the Olympics are incredibly high. The IOC has had it scandals in the past, but no other single sport can boast such an earnest commitment to transparency and integrity among its operations and athletes. In Beijing as with other Olympics, they seem not to compete for the love of money, but rather for the love, desire and passion they have for winning and for their sport. The brands of the NBA, and increasingly MLB and NFL have substantial work to do in this regard.

There is also a part of everyone that dreams of excellence in their own lives, and of commitment at the ultimate level, a space or a place that requires total sacrifice and conviction, and, a belief in our collective future.

In the Olympic Games, we witness the pursuit of excellence in unadorned, unforgiving real-time. It's a highly compelling view of our own lives. Besides the fact that we watch professional athletes perform feats that we could not imagine, we also see the best of the human heart, manifested. We see all that we can be, a positive message projecting what tomorrow may hold for each one of us and our children. At a time that predicts a disappointing immediate future, this grand spectacle is not a spectacle at all, but a validation of our best efforts. It is a showcase of human free will. It smacks our predisposed destiny in the face and instead, reminds us that tomorrow's news is not yet written; it can be whatever we make of it. It is a respite and a fresh breath of air.

It is an idea, a promise — indeed it is a brand that has sustained since the Greeks introduced it in 776 BC, a brand that is now modernized and yet embraces the same principles that Pierre de Coubertin set forth in 1896. As long as these tenets of honest competition, sportsmanship, discipline and self-challenge are considered the standard to uphold, it will be a brand that will endure forever.

Living the Promise at Home

2008-08-06T11:40:00.007-04:00

We hear a lot about internal communications and HR initiatives designed to foster teamwork and create a connection between the company and its employees. The thinking goes that if there is an increased focus on living the brand promise internally, employees will be inspired, success will be ensured, and the positive benefits will radiate outward. So why have so many companies failed to inspire a sense of purpose and mission? How is it that so many people live their lives today with such little sense of commitment, conviction and trust in one another, or in our organizations?

In practical terms, it seems difficult for large companies to be expected to live the brand promise with any level of conviction and sincere commitment — or is it? Would a true commitment at the highest ranks of management, to the livelihood and welfare of all employees actually help to grow the organization? Could an approach that sounds more like religious doctrine affect business culture so drastically that profitability and earnings are improved? Could one C-level executive apply that way of thinking and inspire hundreds or thousands of employees and thereby change the core of the organization?

In a word, yes. But it is less about communications initiatives or talking and more about walking the walk and delivering on our promises each and every day.

It’s a difficult idea to embrace, this concept of letting go of all self interests and working almost exclusively to set the stage for success — to focus relentlessly on a single target of achievement and lift others toward that goal. It’s a culture, a commitment and a foundational philosophy, a promise not to be compromised. That promise, when lived properly, can indeed change an entire organization. But this requires an honest and selfless commitment to always do the right, fair, responsible thing for the company. One place to start for many CEO and C-level executives is in their compensation. There’s no better way to transmit a message of self-sacrifice and teamwork than giving up the opportunity for personal gain.

The book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose summed it up when describing the philosophy “officers go first” espoused by Lt. Richard Winters, platoon commander of Easy Company. “Dick Winters was an officer who got the men to perform because he expected nothing but the best, and you liked him so much you just hated to let him down,” explained Robert Rader when interviewed for the book. According to Ambrose, “Winters’ code was ‘Follow me.’ He provided not only brains but also personal leadership. He personally took more risks than anyone.”

The same thinking applies in business and demonstrates how leadership can affect the culture of an organization. Leaders have a brand too, just like the companies they are committed to building. Their personal brand message trickles down with greater speed and effectiveness than many leaders are aware. In some cases, it’s a message with no significant, specific point of view that actually dampens personal commitment over the entire base of employees. In other cases, a humble and reaffirming message can lift and inspire each person in every part of the business.

More than anything else, the culture of any organization is a direct reflection of those who manage it. Break the promise, and you break the trust. And trust, once broken is nearly impossible to restore or earn back. It should be considered the social responsibility of all companies to work and live the brand promise internally. It’s also just smart business to do so.

Our future ultimately depends on it.

A Dark Day for American Football

2008-08-03T16:25:00.015-04:00

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” — Vince Lombardi (1913-1970)

The controversy and drama that is being played out in recent days regarding Brett Favre is a monumental disappointment, and American football will never be the same. The Packers have now reportedly offered Brett Favre $20 million not to play football ever again. Favre wants to play again, and has petitioned the NFL office for reinstatement to the game after retiring recently. He seems to be happy playing for Green Bay, if he is able to start again, or to play for another team in the same conference.

It may not appear at first blush to be directly connected to marketing or brand identity concerns that I enjoy researching and writing about on this Blog, but it actually is a perfect representation of how to earn a poor public image.

When it comes right down to it, the cat and mouse game between Brett Farve, the NFL, and the Green Bay Packers organization is an intricately developed, compelling series of events that has left a storied football franchise viewed in unsavory light. The league itself, led by Commissioner Roger Goodell, has seemingly taken a laissez-faire approach to the whole debate, which is a position that could leave some fans praising the hands-off decision, and others still wishing that the Commissioner took a stronger stand on one side or the other. In any crisis, it can be disconcerting to witness the only governing body (NFL office) of a group of companies standing idly on the sideline, waiting to take a point of view once the dust has settled. That’s not leadership, nor it is strength or wisdom.

As for Favre, his brand seems “untarnishable.” He is one of the greatest players to ever grace the field and play the game. He owns every major passing record in the NFL and is adored by fans all over the world. His fans’ level of commitment seem to transcend conference and team affiliation. Why is this? How has he earned such success? Because the brand called Brett Favre is based on a competitive spirit and a passion — deep love of the game, actually. He has built and cultivated an image across a broad base of fans’ minds of someone who is a tenacious winner and competitor, a player who has tremendous spirit and heart, but who is also vulnerable and humble. He is genuine and true and his own internal values are well aligned with his core beliefs. He has a simple message. There could be no stronger or enduring perception for any brand.

On the other side of the fence, the Green Bay Packers have unwisely made an offer of a large financial payoff (never the image that any brand should aim to affiliate) to have Favre ride gracefully off into the twilight of his playing career. In one move, the organization has transmitted: We have money. We are powerful. We don’t want to see you play competitively in a fair, free market economy, so we will bribe you to stay home, or perhaps show up and earn that $20 million by serving the Packers as a sort of celebrity spokesperson.

It’s as anti-American as anything I have seen in professional sports in my lifetime. Every sport should work to build a true spirit of competitiveness and fairness, as well as good sportsmanship, all as a part of the internal brand of the sport. Now, for the first time in and American public forum, our leaders are paying us not to compete. Competition, with some natural and instinctive boundaries, is a good thing. The conventional thinking goes: The more that one can successfully build the "internal brand" on a solid foundation — good, decent values, the better off the whole brand will be as those principles of common sense, common decency, and common good tend to radiate outwardly through the daily actions of constituents associated with the brand.

What message does the Packers actions send about the Green Bay Football brand? Well, it’s counter to the culture that made the Packers one of the most historic, beloved teams in the NFL. The saga will play itself out in the coming days and ultimately be reconciled. If it felt devastating that Green Bay made the offer initially, it would be equally disheartening for Brett Favre to accept it. That action would begin to erode his own brand among deeply committed fans, and would be terrible for the NFL. It would project a message that “Yes, I can be bought. Yes, money truly is more important to me than my love of football.” And the fans, and the sport, would lose.

This is all ironic for a franchise team that became known for its discipline, toughness, and consequently for its inherent success. Green Bay had talented players when it dominated professional football in the 1960’s, but the team was not known for its stars, per se. The Green Bay Packers brand was associated with work ethic, with heart and toughness, which is why Brett Favre was always a perfect fit for that team. It was also known as an NFL team that was the ultimate American tenet of democracy: It is the only team in the NFL owned collectively by the fans.

Now, the sport of American football will never be the same, nor will the Green Bay Packers image. Vince Lombardi must be turning over in his grave.

I Just Want to Say Two Words to You, Ben: “Mobile Content.”

2008-08-01T11:00:00.007-04:00

OK, so it’s not as poetic as Mr. McGuire telling a young, 21 year-old graduate by the name of Ben Braddock that the future is in “plastics.” But it is just as age- and era- defining.

I see a tremendous transitional shift in technology again, and as usual we are going smaller and lighter, which when we really study it, seems to be an evolutionary trend for the human race over at least the last 80-90 years or so.

Consider the big screen and public response to the first “moving picture.” In 1895, Louis Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic images to a paying audience of more than one person. Around the same time, several others were experimenting with similar technology, including The Edison Company. The world would never be the same.

Think about the invention of the television and how it brought a technological revolution and the media to the masses. Imagine life in the 80’s before the invention of the first IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC. It was introduced on August 12, 1981 and created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida.

Can you remember life before the invention of the laptop? The clam-shell design that today's modern laptop is based on was developed in 1979 by William Moggridge for GRiD Systems Corporation, which was acquired by Tandy Corporation in 1988.

Looking back even earlier, the small device that you hold in your hand, whether it is the new iPhone, some form of the Blackberry or similar device, was at first much larger and intended not to carry all forms of information, but rather sound, primarily.

According to the Wiki, an early version of the telephone was invented around 1860 by Italian inventor Antonio Meucci, who called it teletrofono (telectrophone). The first American demonstration of Meucci's invention took place in NYC, USA in 1854. In 1860, a description of it was published in New York’s Italian language newspaper. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the telephone, an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.” The first successful bi-directional transmission of clear speech by Bell and Watson was made on March 10, 1876 when Bell spoke into his device, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” The first long distance telephone call was made on August 10, 1876 by Bell from the family homestead in Brantford, Ontario, to his assistant located in Paris, Ontario, some 10 miles away.

To the day, exactly 100 years and 40 days later, after Bell and Watson first communicated those historic words, Steve Wozniak, the technician, and Steve Jobs, the visionary, sold the first Apple computers on April 1, 1976.

Of course, along with the technological innovations, there was also the convergence of media. The driver of all media business does apply like an unrelenting Darwinian principle. The mantra today is not “Go west, young man,” but rather: Give the people the communication they want, when they want it, however they want it. Considering the increase in population, availability to work and live with great mobility, demand for constant communication, the accessibility of wireless data, and the means to purchase — on a mass scale — items of technology that would have been considered a luxury in 1876, is there any doubt where this is headed?

All technology is interesting and worth considering as an investment of either time ot money, but based on ROI, I would not put my money into computers placed into cabs, or even into GPS or satellite technology. The future of exciting technology and graphic or content development is in that small, 2-3 ounce device in your purse or pocket.

I can only assume that on a broad scale, we’ll be purchasing clothing, groceries, making travel plans, speaking, listening, viewing our friends in real time video chats, accessing entertainment such as movies and television, and living our complete lives around one tiny instrument that fits into our pocket. Our desktop computers, our laptops, our televisions? All antiquated relics of the past that collect dust, and increasingly are disposed or stored in our garages and attics.

Herbert Marshall McLuhen (1911-1980) would have been proud. The medium truly is the message.

The Fight for Mindshare and What It’s Doing to Customer Attention

2008-07-12T10:21:00.002-04:00

Media has always been a terrific barometer of customer behavior. In fact, at its core, the purpose of any commercial media property is to connect consumers to companies, to act as a conduit or channel to introduce products and services to people who need or want them. The entertainment value, the clever copywriting and pictures are simply the distraction that serves to lure and hold the interest of the buyer. Anyone who cares to debate this would need to prove that subscription based magazines — free of any advertising revenue — have worked on a large scale as a business operating model of publishing.

All one has to do is track the direction of media, and this includes the visual presentation as well as the actual channel, format or form that the medium is, in order to learn more about our society. With this understanding, and knowing that content is more plentiful and channels for media more abundant, and seeing clearly that we, as a society are under incredible pressure to keep up, what are the consequences? What is our future?

When the conversion to online media (and attrition of the print-centric model) began 14-15 years ago, we in the business were like children stricken by a great natural disaster or storm. We knew that deeper change was inevitable, and rumors about the “demise of print journalism” ran among the editorial offices of consumer titles in NYC like California wildfires in July.

I spent the first 10-15 years of my career in magazine design and among the many rules of successful presentation, one stood out over the last 15 years: Give several options to your readers by tiering the levels of engagement. It was clear by 1985 that our society was speeding up at an unprecendented pace, that there were many more magazines, and a certain “fracturing” of the media industry. In the late 80's, about 400 new magazines entered the market each year. By the early 90's that number changed to about 1,000. Consumers were carnivorously digesting content at a pace that was unimaginable at the time.

It was Darwinian, I thought. I postulated that our species was encountering a dramatic shift or increase in normal evolutionary development in a compressed span of time. In 1995, I told my clients that we should create a 10 minute, 20 minute, and 30 minute “read” for all of their subscribers or single-copy customers. By 2000, that sound bite changed to 5 minute, 10 and 15 minute tiers of readership. All of our publishing clients wanted a quicker, lighter, easier read. Entry points were all the rage and the more, the better. “Engage the customer with energetic design and create a faster, easier, more accessible design,” our clients said. The mantra of all publishing clients was clear: “Our readers are pressed for time, so we must make the stories shorter, add more quick-hit sections and entry points such as callouts and captions, and infographics. We must continue to win the race to engage the customer.”

Two columns became three, and three columns became four, and four columns became five — or six. The design presentation of magazines took a monumental shift with the introduction of publications like Wired, Maxim, and later, another Felix Dennis publication, The Week, which condensed complex global stories into a topline summary of 50-100 words. In order to stave off attrition to online content, the feature well disappeared altogether in some magazines. The cost of paper was higher and the print model, as a source of revenue was clearly in trouble. The notion of integrated media/marketing and custom publishing was a life preserver for awhile for entrenched, large print publishers, but the change to the model and future of editorial work was becoming obvious. Editors and writers sniped at the loss of consumer attention, referring to the new “McNugget journalism.”

On any traditional media or consumer collateral and literature, these days I say we’re aiming for reader levels of 15 seconds, 2 minutes and 5 minutes. It depends on the audience and purpose of the publication — whether it is offline or online and a half dozen other variables, but generally, the menu of tiered times for readers is shrinking rapidly.

The internet surpassed print media as a primary flagship marketing and editorial channel around 2005-2006. (With no statistical data and nothing more than the anecdotes of a professional service provider/agency owner, this is my best calculation.) At IridiumGroup, our revenues in 2006 from developing interactive products might have been 15-20% of our sales. Today, just 18 months later, that number would be closer to 40-50%.

Along with the advancement of online communications, we saw the continuing erosion of consumer focus and attention. Today, Blog readers and rabid internet consumers are digesting data with the attention span of gnats — an unattractive image, but one that seems oddly appropriate.

There’s less loyalty, unfortunately. There is greater transience, and across a potential universe of channels that has increased by 10,000 percent in 10 years, it seems that we cannot get enough stimulation, content and ideas into our heads fast enough. It's as if there's one massive, global epidemic of ADD.

I have asked a number of clients and friends exactly how many emails they receive each day and the answer ranges from 60-80 to 130-150. In the concentration of actual work time — an assumption of 8 hours that in itself, appears to be morphing into real time 24/7 access — that means about 14 or 15 emails per hour received. Multiply that number by the time required to read and comprehend the email correspondence, to act and consider the number of emails that require a response — and we’re not left with much time to actually conduct any other type of work.

The Third Screen
The surge in mobile content is not exactly a sign that messages will grow to be more thoughtful. There’s little space to project any substantial amount of content, first of all. It seems highly unlikely that this area will not explode further in coming months as Mr. Jobs and Apple debut a more economically viable iPhone for the masses. A million units were sold in the first week, an accomplishment that allowed Jobs to declare, "IPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend." The new Apple Apps store that went live last week is designed to ensure the success of the core product through an exclusive opportunity for Apple to offer all applications. Vendors are guarantee a 70% cut of sales by Apple, which is another smart move that will introduce many developers and entrench B2B relationships and also for Apple, a chance to build relationships with their consumers, who have never been shy to download content to their iPods and iPhones.

And where is it all headed? Well, as much as consumers complain about being bombarded with advertising and content, not many seem to be shunning the new technologies and gadgets as they are brought to market. Without a doubt, one would have to assume that we’re reading and digesting, or comprehending ominous amounts of content and ideas faster than any species over the course of history.

Our company is presently creating a campaign of materials for a large, preeminent foundation that has allocated $50 million to study how digital media and learning are affecting children, especially teenagers, so there is indeed an effort to benchmark and understand the ramifications, both socially and intellectually. The study includes all electronic devices such as gaming devices, cellphone and products like the iPod, as well as computers and other PDAs.

And for me. . . what will I be reading this Summer? Well, I’ve always wanted to dive into a Tolstoy novel or learn more about the writings of Hemingway. But for now, I think I’ll manage however I can to keep my head above water with any one of the other 6,000 sources of daily news online.

How to Choose a Creative Partner

2008-07-09T12:53:00.000-04:00

Purchasing brand identity and creative services is not like buying a car. Rather, in some ways it’s like choosing a spouse. It’s a professional service and therefore a business consisting purely of creative ideas generated by human beings, neither constituting an exact, flawless or well-defined commodity. For your partnership to succeed, you need to have a meeting of the minds, common goals and great chemistry. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind for the two major phases of the process: review and selection, and project engagement.

Review and Selection

1. Define your mission. Before asking creative shops to pitch your project, it’s important to establish a good foundation for the relationship. This includes defining the project scope, objectives, timeframe, budget, expectations and goals, and method for measurable results. For complex projects, ones in which multiple vendors are needed, a steering committee may be required to advise and guide each phase of the project or to review qualified agencies.

Responsible marketers must do their homework prior to asking creative shops to pitch the business. It’s important to have constituent or upper-management buy-in regarding how you want to position yourselves. And this must be as specific as possible, meaning tone, attitude and “elevator pitch.” Make sure you, as the marketing person, understand the playing field of management sensitivities, work culture and politics.

2. Create a Strategic Creative Brief, or a clearly defined RFP. This concise outline puts the marketing or communications mission in writing. This critical document will be the roadmap for any creative supplier when composing their proposal. It should establish short, medium, and long-term objectives for the creative partner, set boundaries for deliverables, and reflect any budget constraints.

3. Select a modest range of partners or suppliers (three candidates for most reviews), based on the type of need and constraints of the project. A certain amount of research may be required before issuing a creative brief or RFP. “Mass marketed” RFPs that are issued indiscriminately to the creative community will likely erode credibility in the project, and also create an abundance of responses and unmanageable paperwork. Try to target potential bidders with care, understanding their capabilities and qualifications before any contact is made. Look for a true intellectual partner and treat them like one.

4. Understand what you need and compare apples to apples. Creative service is perhaps the most difficult professional service to standardize or qualify capabilities. Still, to the degree that it can be done, the same objective review process should be used for each bidder. Make a distinction between established agencies and independent contractors, since it’s nearly impossible to compare qualified partners with such disparate business models.

Also, distinguish between “buying creative” and “buying creativity.” If you are buying creative, you are focused on the end result, the assets you need to put in front of the customer. This implies that you have a clear strategy, you know the output that you need and you want a certain type of execution. In this scenario, you put a high premium on things like copywriting, design, production value and production efficiency.

If you are buying creativity, you are buying problem-solving ability. You have either strategic or tactical challenges that require out-of-the box thinking, and you are looking for ideas and thought leadership — a very different set of requirements.

5. Evaluate for cultural fit and chemistry. While it’s important to identify experience and knowledge of a particular market, it’s equally urgent to understand and consider the culture of each firm or agency, and match that to your organizational culture. The relationship dynamic should be taken into account just as much as proven experience.

In my experience, the chemistry between the creative team and client management is the most important factor. Without that, successful results are likely going to be challenge.

Use a chemistry checklist:

• Do you like or believe their creative work?
• Do you feel that you can counter their ideas without insulting or disengaging their creative team?
• Do you sense that this creative team has an empathy for your business model, brand, audiences, messages and the task at hand?
• Do you get a sense of warm, personal attention in your review meetings or a “generic pitch” feeling?
• Do you instinctively trust them?

6. Keep the process simple and manageable. Limit the number of candidates through effective front-end research. Less diligence on the front-end means a more complex review phase later.

7. Don’t let budget dominate the selection process. If the front-runner scores well in capabilities, experience and customer service but has estimated beyond the budget, consider a discussion to plan an alternative deliverable or adapted creative process. In many cases, agencies create estimates based on perceived budgets for creative time and are able to scale their services either higher or lower to meet client expectations. It may be possible to greatly reduce the projections for hours, or scale back the deliverable in ways that do not compromise the potential success of the project.

8. Communicate effectively. Request and give examples of successful past creative partnerships, and inquire about other successful client relationships and projects completed. Try to determine how much research the agency did for your industry/company pitch. Are they just showing past successes regardless of relevance? Even if some of their ideas are off-target, did they demonstrate a desire to work with you and present ideas that are workable?

9. Ask for several recent references and check them. Ask how easy it is to work with their team. Ask about billing issues. Ask if there are any particular clients or accounts they wouldn’t work with again. What was their most successful work, and why? What did not work well in the past? Some of my best capability presentation meetings started with questions from the prospect that engaged me on past results, both good and bad. I’ve earned trust and professional credibility — even among accounts that were not ultimately won — by sharing our past experiences honestly and candidly.

10. Provide clear, consistent information to each bidder as the review proceeds. Any review process is also an opportunity to extend your company brand and earn a reputation as an “A-List” client. The best companies attract the best suppliers, so it’s an important consideration and a great goal for everyone’s benefit.

And before making the final choice, be sure to have approval from senior management. There’s nothing so frustrating as to work diligently through a detailed, thoughtful process, only to realize that there was never any real opportunity, or consideration to begin with.

Kickoff and Engagement

11. Prepare for the creative kickoff meeting. It’s important to get the relationship off to the right start, and that means documenting and communicating the important steps of the process. This may include any research conducted to date, corporate or communications strategy, any relevant creative briefs prepared, brand standards, scheduling, organizational approvals required, landmark meetings or conferences to plan for, and implementation concerns.

12. Strike the right balance between creative direction and creative leadership. Many agencies or independents respond extremely well to creative latitude and the simple question, “What do you think?” Others look for clear direction and feedback from their client. Understand the needs of your team and serve them. Build a winning stage for the agency to succeed.

13. Motivate and challenge your agency. Point to benchmarks that are both aspirational and obtainable. These may be described as past successes within the organization or within the industry.

14. Ask “What if. . .?” Open the creative process for exploration. There will be plenty of time to refine and funnel the initial ideas into a viable solution. In order to get the most out of your new partner, don’t shackle the creative process in the early stages. Keep an open mind, and work to keep an open-minded environment in the organization.

15. Give clear, decisive feedback. Vague comments benefit no one. Be clear about the direction you’ve chosen and why. Offer objective, rational, business-minded feedback, not subjective comments. This may mean digesting a presentation over time, rather than responding instantly with unclear or uncertain direction.

16. Manage the process within the organization. Communications projects need internal management, and no outsourced creative partner can do this.

17. Manage the presentation. Creative meetings and the feedback generated can become passionate and incite a constructive debate, which is natural and healthy. It’s important to have someone on the client side that functions as a gatekeeper, ensuring that all opinions are heard and that the basic tone of the meeting is positive. Likewise, some meetings require an injection of energy. Facilitating and managing group dynamics in presentation meetings is critical to the success of a creative process.

18. Set expectations and adhere to the plan. Especially on large projects, it’s necessary to establish incremental checkpoints. A joint plan can be agreed on which may or may not be part of the original proposal.

Big Brother Ain’t So Bad

2008-07-01T09:24:00.000-04:00

The New York Times, June 26 edition reports that a new memory chip has just reached the market that has built-in Wi-Fi access. So when you’ve returned from vacation and filled up your 2-gigabyte memory card, as you cross the threshold of your home or reach internet access, your camera will automatically, wirelessly upload all of the images to your computer. It can also upload them to Flickr, Picasa, and SmugMug, or another online photo-sharing site with no manual direction or need to even touch your keyboard. According to the article (“When Your Camera Knows Where You Are” by David Pogue), the Eye-Fi Share card, available for about $100 and able to fit most cameras, is a remarkable breakthrough not only for all photography-enthusiasts, but also for its application to a broader range of products.

With another version debuting this week, the Eye-Fi Explore card ($130), we can also have all of our images automatically stamped with the location and time the picture was taken. All this from a memory card the size of a postage stamp.

How’s it done? It’s amazingly simple, but it’s not G.P.S. As sophisticated as it is when we are driving, G.P.S. technology is still too large and cumbersome to embed into a memory card for a camera.

A company called Skyhook (www.skyhookwireless.com) has developed a rival technology to G.P.S. called W.P.S. (Wi-Fi Positioning System). Using a network of about 50 million hotspots to date, Skyhook (also the company that was contracted to provide the “locate me” feature to Apple for the iPhone) has spent the last five years mapping out the geographical location of the Wi-Fi signals being transmitted from all those networks that come up on your computer whenever you sit inside a Starbuck’s Coffee or relax in a park with your laptop. To date, the company has established coverage for about 70% of the U.S. and Canada and about 50% of Europe. Presently, Skyhook works in about 8,000 cities.

And the technology is self-correcting. If you are in an urban area with more than one base station signal, and one of the base stations has been relocated, the software can analyze the number of signals being transmitted and automatically make course corrections. Consider that you are in your car sitting in a mall, and your camera’s Eye-Fi card picks up 8 signals, but see that 2 networks have been relocated. Skyhook’s software can interpret the results, see that the base station has been relocated and update your records to reflect the change based on logic.

Subsequently, any device that uses Skyhook’s software, like the iPhone or Eye-Fi card, will be able to pinpoint the geographic location (within about 100 feet) and exact time. The one drawback is that the technology doesn’t work well in locations where most of us would want date and time stamped on our pictures — hiking or skiiing, or in a remote location — where network access is not yet available.

If all this isn’t confusing enough, there’s a third location system being offered that has been developed by Google. This system tracks location by mapping proximity to cell phone towers. The new iPhone, coming out July 11, will use all three types of technology: G.P.S, W.P.S., and the new Google-based technology. So if you have the new iPhone, you’ll have unparalleled access to documentation of time and place. You could basically be on the planet “Zulu” in a remote region of the universe, and you’ll still know exactly where you are and what time it is — well, relatively speaking, of course.

And me? For now, I'm still back on planet Earth, picking and plucking at Blackberries.

Maps, Menus and Ironic Conclusions

2008-06-28T17:29:00.000-04:00

I’m on the road again this past week, to New England this time. My wife, mother-in-law and I drove to Maine to drop my son and daughter off at camp for a ritual that is seven years running. As we do every year, we took advantage of the abundance of great seafood and chance to breath in ocean air, take in the harbors and docks and bountiful sailboats that dot the landscape from Mystic, Ct. to Bar Harbor.

Along with the bittersweet farewells as my daughter begins her final year at camp and my son enters his fifth, we had plenty of stops and starts and reasons to enjoy the season or just remember the trip. This drive was a landmark in many ways, not the least being the recognition of my 17-year wedding anniversary with my wife, Gina Pampena, on June 29.

A few observations:

Marblehead, MA – I think the colors of old colonials homes in New England are interesting. Traditional, yet also exotic, the exterior color of the home was apparently a symbol that communicated the affluence and prestige of the family residing therein. The New England look is noted for its use of farmhouse red tones, slate blues and greens, yellows and classic tans. In Marblehead, one of the oldest working ports in the U.S., you can discover a kaleidoscope of these colors as you drive down narrow, winding, cobblestone streets. In a blur of beautiful, impressive gardens and cramped spaces, you may also catch glimpses of the small plaques that are placed by the door of each dwelling, noting its historic significance through name of original owner, trade or profession and date of founding. “Quaint” was coined for port towns like Marblehead.

On October 29, 1789, President George Washington spent the evening at the Jeremiah Lee mansion toasting and thanking the citizens of Marblehead and specifically, Col. John Glover. It was Glover and his Marblehead Mariners that ferried Washington and his downtrodden troops across the Delaware on that fateful 1776 Christmas to defeat the Hessians at Trenton, which marked the turning point in the Revolution. However, in our case, we just had the mussels and Littlenecks at The Barnacle.

Portsmouth, NH – One of the larger old port towns with beautiful, sweeping views of the ocean, golf courses and shipyards. The Wentworth By the Sea, based in Newcastle, is an historic, massive old hotel built in 1874. It was transferred in ownership many times before closing for several decades. Abandoned and near demolition in the late 1990’s it was purchased and restored for a miniscule amount of it's true value, and is now run by the Marriott Corporation. (www.wentworth.com) For affordable dollars, I could not recommend another hotel in New England more than this one.

Ogunquit, ME – As little as I know this town, the fact is that I highly recommend the drive along the coast on Route 1A. It’s breathtaking. The immense rocks and boulders that jut from the banks might create havoc for the wake boarders, but they certainly do provide dramatic backdrops for our photos. It’s an unspoiled coastline for the most part, and even though the driving and congestion in town brings back personal, emotional scars of Rt. 27 and the Hamptons, the food and ambiance was again, well worth the patience and pain.

Kennebunk, ME – This is yet another town where I am perhaps not qualified to comment, but I will nonetheless. I stayed there several years ago in an old, intimate hotel called The White Barn Inn. It’s an elegant place and relatively well kept, as crooked rooms and antiquated facilities go, but then again it is essentially a high-end B&B. This is an old home that has been retrofitted with amenities to suit about two dozen impatient, demanding guests and an impeccable, articulate staff trained to meet those challenges. Not sensing the need for a jacket while on vacation, I did not pack one. Jackets are indeed required and the restaurant insisted that I wear a rather poor-fitting loaner for the special event of dinner one evening. To this day, I’ve been irked by their staunch, elitist attitudes. (www.whitebarninn.com) You’ll note that they do not show their property on the homepage.

Other than that, it was a treat to stand 500 yards away on the side of a dusty highway in Kennebunkport with other tourists in order to watch helicopters land on the grand, immaculately manicured lawns of the Bush family compound. We snapped at least 2-dozen pictures and basked adoringly at the 105-year old mansion from afar as we privately assessed the value of this enormous, vast property sitting perched atop a large bluff. As all the little people climbed back into our gas-guzzling SUV’s it was difficult not to take a solemn moment to absorb the inspiration of that sight. And people say this democratized country is not the land of opportunity!

Portland, ME – I’ve been to Portland about 9 times and I could swear that I’ve never seen it when it hasn’t been raining. This town is very much like Seattle in that regard, for reasons unexplained. It’s just another in a series of old port towns, but this one appears more raw, industrial and perhaps in the midst of rejuvenation.

While I wouldn’t call it charming by any means, it has its merits. There are 2-3 side streets made of cobblestone, with interesting shops and restaurants and of course, the ubiquitous Starbuck’s. There’s a good restaurant by the water that has a New York, in-the-scene feel by the name of Old Port Sea Grill. There’s also Fore Street, a related restaurant nearby (www.forestreet.biz). If anyone is looking for a particularly obnoxious experience with a bruising level of imported aggression and unequaled egos, parents visiting weekend for all camps is coming up, July 25-27. If any displaced city-dwellers find themselves feeling out of sorts in the distant beaches and quiet towns of smaller resort communities, a dip into the urban waters in Portland around this time will feed your soul. Dinner reservations are impossible and scathing leers and put-downs are automatically assured.

Newport, RI – By this time, I’d eaten about 6 plates of lobster rolls or crab cakes, 12 plates of mussels or Halibut, and munched on calamari or shrimp in between. Feeling determined that I could no longer consume any fish or shellfish product, I resolved that my immediate future diet would consist solely of red meat. My wife’s good friend at her office, Tom, suggested The Black Pearl, however, and so I reluctantly acquiesced. The Mooring was also noted for quality service, ambiance and its food.

Newport is a fine town, once you get past about 12 miles of strip malls leading into it from the Main Road. The trip to and from Newport is much better heading back across the bridges to I-95. It’s a large, robust port and an immense harbor, full of mansions like the Vanderbilt's Breakers and the Doris Duke estate from the turn of the century, but also has the capacity to entertain far more tourists that a town like Marblehead. If you like the hustle and bustle of a larger seaside resort, Newport is your place.

And so we concluded a whirlwind, 5-day campaign to get our children off to camp with smiles on their faces, to reconnect with family, and to take the opportunity to do a bit of reading. By now I must have clipped a half dozen articles for reference. When I return home, I’ll pin them up with others and my wife will make a not-so-affectionate reference to “A Beautiful Mind.” But this time is isn’t the Russians that are poised to attack. It’s the ever-changing world of communications and brand image, both online and off. A different foe, perhaps, still this too is a numbers game. These pursuits are often an education for me as well, so I hope that in some ways this proves beneficial, or at least entertaining.

Apologies to those reading if I’ve bypassed my duties to remain on the subject of brands and business this week, but I did have a chance to connect several relevant articles and ideas and will commence again in the next day or so with my own personal research and posts in the coming days. The current issue on my mind is a relevant market concern. The topic?

The future of news.

‘Best Practice’ Communication When the Messages and Audiences Are Jumbled

2008-06-22T09:33:00.000-04:00

In today’s business culture of multiple channels, fractured constituent audiences and demanding customers, it is critically important to understand and align your company’s audiences, key messages, channels and communication tools, as well as the desired takeaway.

Mass, global communication and important new channels offered across the Internet have forced companies to confront the need to share their messages about various product or service offerings to separate, disparate audiences. How does an organization that has varied messages for many distinct audiences across business lines, still transmit those key messages specifically to each target, all while continuing to successfully broadcast a wider, overarching message?

For large, global organizations working to earn trust, how can you skillfully project that specific, vertical expertise in each of your service lines of business or geographies, and still pull back to 30,000 feet in order to express the same general commitment to all audiences over one flagship medium?

In my office, over the past 2 years these issues are being raised with increasing frequency by our clients as integrated media — which may have only included 3-4 traditional channels of print media as recently as 10-15 years ago — now offer a brave new world of viral videos, social networking and interactive tools. The vast accessibility of the Internet has also presented new complications for global corporations, ones that may have entrenched with one market position or reputation in Europe and quite another altogether in the U.S.

Communicators and marketers alike are sometimes understandably confused about how to project their position statement or brand identifier, while also segmenting and sending those compartmentalized messages to target audiences in the array of interactive and print communication options.

Message mapping is the solution in these instances. I was introduced to the practice by consultants at McGill and Partners (mcgillandpartners.com). Frank McGill and I have worked together since 1994 for media clients and associations. His team is excellent at facilitating this type of service for large institutions that have an umbrella brand that is transmitted across many channels of integrated marketing. It’s a relatively simply concept and yet in today’s world of integrated marketing, it is surprisingly relevant and necessary for organizations that have internal and external audiences, and who carve those broad constituencies into smaller, clearly defined groups.

Coordinated messages are the goal. As communications teams and marketing managers are pared down, I have witnessed publications, brochures and interactive initiatives distributed erroneously across mixed channels. Many clients find themselves in an arena of cross-pollinated messages. Internal and external audiences begin to naturally overlap in some areas of the communications strategy, and it’s easy for any marketer who is charged with managing the process to overlook the original goal during the course of daily planning and execution.

Frank McGill and Gary Dolzall are focused on assisting many types of clients, but specifically help associations and all kinds of membership-based nonprofits. These business models have everything from print literature, websites, publications, and large, scalable email programs to conferences and community-based interactive tools. In some cases, cable television programming may be involved as well, as corporate and nonprofit organizations work to build their brands across all available opportunities. Beyond this, McGill and Partners also helps create practical strategies for organizations to monetize and build the network of communications, if one is not already in place.

How does a good message mapping exercise work? Well, in a nutshell, it’s the ability understand, define and properly use that overarching, organizational promise. After that, it starts with the most important of all components: Your audiences. Compose a list of audiences, from members, volunteers, corporate partners, and media outlets to donors and internal staff, among many others, if you are a nonprofit.

Among corporations, this will vary depending on your customer base and stakeholders. It may include everything from staff, Board members, shareholders, and strategic partners to customers segmented by geographic regions and services lines. The list can be extensive and should also include supply chain or vendors and prospective employees. A recruiting brochure will likely project all the important information like active community involvement and social responsibility programs, messages that are not as relevant to other audiences.

From this, brainstorm to create a list of possible targeted key messages. In this exercise, no solution or proposed idea is a wrong answer. Now, create the dream list of possible channels and tools through which you will transmit these messages. Finally, create a list of desired results that map back to each audience.

Once the lists are complete, begin to align this all strategically:

Audience A. >>> Key Message A. >>> Channel A. >>> Desired Takeaway A.

The process can be more of an art than science, as it requires someone to moderate the discussion and serve as a gatekeeper to all participants. For that matter, it’s important to carefully consider those attending the meeting, roles, size of the group, etc. If conducted properly, a marketing team and outsourced partnering consultant or agency can help categorize and clearly define your audiences, their priority in the overall 3-5 year strategic plan, key messages that are most relevant to those audiences, and the best tools and channels to deliver those messages.

In a world that is progressively labyrinth-like in its complexity of audience, message and channel, it can be a process well worth the time and diligence.

Death by Online Networking

2008-06-17T11:29:00.000-04:00

It started with MySpace, I think. Or was it Friendster.com? eHarmony is for dating, and SixDegrees.com began in 1997. Then there was Facebook and LinkedIn.com, a business networking site that launched 4 years ago.

Sites like Flickr.com are great for sharing photos. Classmates.com has been around forever, but is a poorly engineered site in my opinion, and for some reason never enjoyed that catch-fire kind of appeal and geometric user growth that other sites found. Reunion.com seems poised to overtake this tired pioneer and forerunner of all social networking.

Now, there’s Plaxo.com, ZoomInfo.com, TopLinked.com, Yahoo! 360, and I can only imagine about three dozen others that I have not listed.

A quick search online turned up TripConnect.com (travel), Flixster.com (movies), Soundpedia.com (music) and Shelfari.com (books). For general sites that help you just “stay in touch,” there’s also FriendsReunited.

Online business and social networking are all the rage, so much so that it would appear new ones are starting all the time. I recently sent invitations to Linkedin.com to client managers in Europe, who all rebuffed my offer and chose to invite me to Facebook.com instead, which appears to have enjoyed greater success there. Even among adult friends in the U.S., Facebook appears to be pulling ahead in the networking wars, at least among the friends I have. It’s a very fluid, easy to use site with intuitive navigation, which likely explains its success. Still, at 115 million users worldwide, it's dead even with MySpace. As online social networking grows, this looks to be an issue of market position and demographics among customer base as these companies continue to entrench.

Plaxo is nice because it sends messages out to alert you to birthdays for other members in your network. Twitter.com just might be the most unusual — a global cacophony of bubbles popping up in real time, dissonant quips from a dizzying array of international users.

For the teen user, I see that several sites such as Bebo.com, Hi5.com and Xanga.com have cropped up and are positioned to compete with MySpace and Facebook for the online advertiser’s dream, the ever-desirable youth market.

To me, MySpace seems to have lost control of its users and site and appears to teeter on the edge of social anarchy — or at least it’s just completely incoherent to these 46 year old eyes. According to an article in The New York Times on Monday, MySpace just redesigned its site to address a problem common to many social networking sites, which is the juvenile appearance of many of its pages. Author Brian Stelter writes that MySpace ‘has the aesthetic appeal of a 14-year-old’s high school locker.’ At 118 million worldwide users worldwide, the site is apparently still not meeting expectations for advertising revenue at its parent, News Corporation.

Another good article in Wednesday's Times looks at LinkedIn, which has just announced a round of new, private capital through Bain of $53 million, which places the value of the company at $1 Billion. Founder Reid Hoffman and Chief Executive Dan Nye offer their views on the future of the business networking site, one that embraces an austere, strict, disciplined look. Unlike MySpace and Facebook, LinkedIn receives a small portion of its income from advertising. Instead, the site relies on premium subscriptions and recruitment tools. At 23 million users, LinkedIn is far smaller than Facebook or MySpace, but growing considerably faster. As far as market position goes, this one is clearly headed for individual, business professional value for its members. There's no entertainment value to the site by design.

To make sense of this new online trend, the Wiki (yet another user-generated content portal) has compiled a list of sites along with brief descriptions or market positioning statements. View the chart at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites. It's interesting to note that some of the sites are positioned to serve only one country. Mixi.jp is for Japan, iWiW.hu is for Hungary, Grono.net is Polish, and MiGente.com is for the Latino community.

I don’t know about you, but this whole networking thing has me so busy connecting with old friends and business associates that I find I’m having less time to actually meet with anyone. The great irony is that a medium intended to encourage community may isolate us more than ever. It’s enough to make a guy want to shut the computer down, step outside, take a walk in the park and maybe actually speak to someone in person. A real, live human being — imagine!

* * *

What do you think? What networking sites are emerging that are exciting and beneficial? What do you recommend? What doesn’t work? What changes are ahead for this industry? What sources of information and insight are out there? Feel free to share a comment on this post.

Or, if anyone cares to connect, here’s an idea: Find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reunion, ZoomInfo, MySpace, Classmates, Spock, Jigsaw, Hotfrog, StumbleUpon, Spoke, or Plaxo. Send an invitation and find an interactive friend in Cyberspace, the community of the future.

Economic Moving Targets, Slippery Slopes

2008-06-14T08:32:00.000-04:00

As we head into the Summer of 2008, it appears that the recession is bottoming out. I say this with some hesitancy because ‘recession’ is not a word yet used to describe our economy. The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research reserves the right to measure and declare that distinct and dubious proclamation, and as yet, they have not deemed the country in the throes of ‘significant economy decline.’ (www.nber.org/cycles )

I’m not sure what they’re waiting for. No one who has filled their gas tank or paid for fuel oil to heat their home last winter, or watched their 401(k) value diminish would argue that the economy is robust or seeing extended periods of growth. There are a few hundred thousand homes in foreclosure across the U.S., and even more have watched the value of their home dip below the principal amount owed on the loan. Retail banks are no different. They've swung like a wild, undisciplined pendulum from 'easy-credit-for-all' to over zealousness. Someone once told me that banks want to sell us an umbrella — only to take it back when the rain comes. It's an unflattering, if not appropriate description of the business model.

For the Federal Reserve and Washington D.C. policy makers, inflation is a growing concern in the wake of oil prices and the sub-prime debacle. So what possible sign from God could the NBER be waiting for? The recession-defining chart of economic contraction and expansion is fun to look back on, a bit like surveying the ruins of the past, well after the damage has dissipated. The last recession this country experienced had its trough in November 2001, according to the NBER, but the records go all the way back to December 1854. And who, among us, can ever forget that one? Ouch.

Every small business I know is feeling the crunch, especially in Q2/08. The wise, established and the proven — large, global corporations — are constricting their budgets and in my office, we’re doing all we can to accommodate those needs. Helping our clients by delivering the same or greater value for the same, fixed-fee propositions, or working with reduced budgets is just smart business. These are our clients, after all. Their vitality is also our vitality.

I’m directing our staff to do all the things that I’ve learned over the course of 14 years as owner of my company. We’re working to remain lean and wise in all areas of operations, to streamline our work and deliver more, or at the very least to avoid cutting corners in ways that will compromise the product. This is not only for our own company’s health but also for the benefit of our clients. Smart, hardened players sharpen their game when they are challenged and I want to be the same. We’re putting in a special effort into ensuring that all client relationships are secure, that our clients are indeed pleased with the results, that our deliverables are effective, that our operations are crisp, our professional fees as competitive and market-relevant as possible.

I’m seeing a hint of optimism in the most recent wave of RFP’s and direct requests in our office. Our clients and prospects want to prepare for the invariable recovery and in due time, for economic prosperity. I’ve always considered Iridium to be a leading economic indicator and this time, it’s no different.

Clients positioned in some foreign markets are already enjoying the benefits of those economies that are performing well in other countries. A large image consulting firm says it can’t keep up with demand coming out of Dubai. It’s mixed, to be sure. The dollar is weak, the Euro and the Pound Sterling are strong. The global business world is shrinking and B2B and B2C companies of all sizes are seeing mixed results. The new accessibility to offshore outsourcing for labor, as well as emerging customers in new markets, and even opportunities available to investors, are changing the rules of business. The forecasts are mixed because the economies are more intertwined than ever before.

In the U.S., I wonder sometimes whether moments of significant indecision aren’t the main thing that affect the markets. We all watch the DJIA as a kind of barometer for where the rest of the economy is headed. In recent days it has been uncertain and in recent months, progressively unsteady. The markets don’t like an unclear future and we’re on the brink of an important election. I have heard this before and now we all watch this dramatic, almost artful theatre of global financial markets in real time daily — actually, hourly. The fact that it has trickled down to me, someone primarily charged with ensuring that our client’s visual brands are executed with excellence, says a lot.

What is on the horizon? In my opinion, the summer is predictably going to be difficult for many companies, but thankfully our company is already engaged in several projects, some for new clients and a few with old friends — and for that I could not be more thankful. My prediction is that we’ll see a steady, slow recovery after August. Through the Fall months and after the election, pending the final result, we should see a full and complete restoration of growth on many economic fronts, including media — always a leading edge metric in my book. Clarity of our future equals optimism, generally.

Apple and Google stock aside, it’s been a long, hard run for many companies. The truth is that this always feels like aiming for a moving target. By the time we realize that we’re in a recession, the trend has already deepened and in some cases, has leveraged companies bound in a deadly vice grip. Likewise, when we feel that times are healthy, the cautious and the prudent look down the road a bit, batten the hatches and prepare to hunker down.

These days, as proud as I am for the way we have managed our business, I'm also looking for the silver lining because I think the worst of the storm is already over. Inevitably, the clouds always break. No storm lasts forever. One simply has to prepare well, weather it and move on.

Part III. Tracking the Behavior of the Customer

2008-06-09T08:11:00.000-04:00

The ability to measure customer behavior, empowered by advances in technology, is perhaps the most significant change in marketing in the past 50 years, and arguably important enough to be called one of the most monumental shifts in the industry since the invention of the television. In the span of just a few short years, we have seen a radical revolution in the way customer information is gathered. Just when all corporations entered the complex global economy, just as the confusion of technology and the mass accessibility of the Internet mixed all demographics and cross-pollinated audiences, the same technology has also yielded a way to manage the madness through measuring customer patterns and behavior. The same rapid advances that have allowed for instant communication among a few billion people are also enabling a new wave of companies that can track our purchases or interests. In turn, they can sell that information to marketers, who are required to rethink old rules of customer definition through traditional demographic marketing.

Measuring Indoor Advertising
The June 7, 2008 edition of The Economist reports that we’re actually being watched as we surf the web for the benefit of corporate marketers who are interested in consumer behavior as they work to direct their online efforts. B2B companies like Phorm, NebuAd and FrontPorch are refining software that can be installed in the networks of ISP’s, or Internet service providers, to intercept web page requests by their subscribers as they surf the Internet. The pages accessed are then scanned for keywords to build a snapshot or profile of each user and their passions or interests.

In an example cited in the article, a consumer could land on a page with keywords such as “flight,” “hotel,” or “vacation.” Subsequently, the behavioral-tracking software is activated inside the network of the user’s ISP, and immediately begins cataloging the keywords on each page. Hours later, when this particular user logs into Facebook or another social networking site, advertisements for an airline, cruise line, resort, or travel-related company appear in a pop up window besides postings and pictures of friends.

Many ISP’s believe they are well positioned and are working to take a bigger piece of the action in the potentially lucrative gold rush of Internet marketing. The behavioral-targeting firms, who proclaim to have the leading edge software to track users, are a key part of the process in the pursuit of the e-Holy Grail: Knowing what customers online really think. Marketers covet the information about purchasing. Content providers will be able to charge more to their customers for display advertisements.

Measuring Outdoor Advertising
An article in The New York Times (Billboards That Look Back, May 31, 2008, by Stephanie Clifford), explored the new technology available to equip electronic billboards with a small camera that can peer back at people passing by. The device uses software to analyze facial features of any person viewing the display and the length of time they have stopped to view the ad. The result is data that is able to deliver the relative age, gender, and in the near future, race of the viewer. The goal of the Quividi, one of the companies competing for market share and responsible for the new equipment, is to arm marketers with specific information about the consumers that are viewing their ads and how effective the billboard displays are working. Given this information, marketers could create custom billboards targeted to very narrow demographic groups, tailoring the electronic displays to suit the audience.

Tracking Products and Sales
From the traditional product sales tracking of the past thirty years, to the new “smart tag” tracking of the future, corporations and consumers alike are making more and more effective decisions based on data collected from little rectangular codes and microchips. Whether it’s empowering the buyer with information and the history of a product, or feeding marketers statistics about customer behaviors, RFID’s, MEM’s, UPC’s and all types of sensory tracking devices are here among us to stay.

According to a World Bank policy report, U.C. Berkeley professor Dara O’Rourke states, “Shoppers choosing, say, turkeys could one day scan bar codes with their cell phone cameras to find out where the birds were from, and even see pictures of the farms.” O’Rourke hopes the government will construct a large database of information for consumers, one that allows any shopper to track the history of what they are buying through their cell phone cameras or internet devices.

Some companies have already started to disclose information to their customers. Heritage Foods provides a traceable label with every meat product it sells. When the number is keyed into the company web site (heritagefoodsusa.com), the consumer is able to learn about the farm that produced the food, the conditions under which it was raised, age of the product, feeding history and processing name and date.

There is some discussion among business schools and retail consultants about the merits of the traditional bar code and how it will compare to new “smart tags.” Smart tags are remote sensing devices such as the RFID (radio frequency identification device) and the MEM (microelectronic mechanical systems). The technology represents emerging capabilities that provide a steady, real-time stream of product information to manufacturers and retailers through the implantation of a small chip in each product. The technology has existed since World War II but the microprocessors and micro-sensors are much smaller, more sophisticated and less expensive than ever before, making a commercial application feasible. Everything from individual products to airport luggage can now be tracked and can also relay information interactively with awesome efficiency.

Mark Roberti, editor of RFID Journal says, “As RFID becomes ubiquitous, it will totally transform the way consumers shop and the way companies market to them. RFID will enable brand owners to market to their customers who opt into special programs at the moment of purchase. Put a steak in your shopping cart, a reader in the cart will recognize the product and could offer you steak sauce, or red wine, or a host of other products.”

Unlike the bar code, smart tags have the ability to transmit unique information for each individual product. The tags do not need scanners reading them in order to store data or communicate, and there is an interactive component that does not exist as easily with the printed bar code. These tiny transmitters also have the growing ability to read, react and transmit signals constantly, never needing to shut down.

Wal-Mart is pushing its suppliers to use RFID tags. The data-driven company has realized the bountiful opportunities that are presented through additional, well-managed information. Wal-Mart has approximately 4,000 stores nationally and 180 million customers shopping globally each week. Considering such a high volume, their ability to track customer contact information, habits, behavior and product usage through bar codes, or tiny RFID’s, makes it clear that Wal-Mart can manage its supply chain and make more effective decisions about staffing and inventory.

Certain suppliers to Wal-Mart, like Kraft, can even go onto an extranet site called “Retail Link” to monitor sales of their products. The company has already used the data gathered in its vast database to make critical decisions about what merchandise to stock based on events and geography. Other “big-box” retailer headaches are managed more easily with similar product tracking devices. For example, how many cashiers does a store in Orlando, Florida need at a particular hour?

Looking at the Customer in Transit
Taxicabs are outfitted with GPS devices that allow for commercially sponsored entertainment clips. Through a PIM (Passenger Information Monitor), riders are able to interact with the system by pushing a few buttons on the touch screen to see a live interactive passenger map, enjoy recent clips of network television and pay by credit card. Trip logs are documented and through the GPS technology, the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission can see the location of the driver, and the rider, at all times. Customer payment systems like EZ Pass are able to document all tolls paid for bridges and tunnels, or just exiting the turnpike, time of day the transaction took place and location. Determining future traffic patterns and customer needs is made easier with the technology.

The Debate?
Huge databases are compiled that can collect customers' shopping preferences as well as court dates, mortgage amounts, credit and debt history, driving records, etc. While there are privacy issues around the use of technology to build databases of customer information, it seems certain that smart tags and digital customer tracking devices are the way of the future.

Used responsibly, companies will ultimately enjoy a smarter, better informed and more effective operation (Read: profitability and loyal customer base), and consumers will have the technology to make more discerning decisions about what they buy. And perhaps, not be bombarded with telemarketing, Spam and advertisements that are unsolicited, and also unwanted.

Data Boxes: The Nielsen Global Online Survey (www.nielsen.com)

Streams of Consciousness and the Presentation of the Lure

2008-06-07T10:38:00.000-04:00

All accomplished anglers use the term “presentation.” Fish, like consumers, like to be lured with equal attraction, appeal and efficiency.

Of course, they’re talking about how you land the cast, the action or movement of the lure in the water, the way a fisherman may read and work the river or throw upstream, let his fly float down to oxygenated pools of water, where the fish are waiting.

Presentation is an important part of the customer equation, more than anyone knew or anyone — designers like myself, included — cared to think about. It’s getting its due with companies like Apple and Ideo. It’s not just how the thing looks, but rather how the product, the packaging, the brand, make us feel.

In the June 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review, there’s an article titled “Design Thinking.” Author Tim Brown states, “Historically, design has been treated as a downstream step in the development process — the point where designers, who have played no earlier role in the substantive work of innovation, come along to put a beautiful wrapper around the idea.” That’s all changing, however. Now, Brown argues, “Rather than asking designers to make an already developed idea more attractive to customers, companies are asking them to create ideas that better meet customers desires and needs.”

Companies are placing a new level of importance in product design and also considering that the brand design, as well as print advertising might be more about art than science. We’re all beginning to wake up and realize that customers really do appreciate the same thing we do: Curious, interesting design, relaxing vacations that evoke feelings of childhood, funny clouds, the ocean, dark storms, attics with cool stuff, and all things that move or inspire us somehow.

What makes our company perform well on creative projects? In my experience, least of all it’s related to knowledge of the industry, services lines of business or offerings of the client — although that is a usual focus when we are interviewing and pitching new business. It’s most common to hear questions from new prospective clients about our depth of experience in any one industry or our ability to make a particular type of product.

Yet, I knew very little about commercial real estate when I began a project for Cushman & Wakefield. I was bewildered by wildlife preservation when we began to assist the National Wildlife Federation and I did not understand the complexities of land preservation when we started to help The Nature Conservancy. I was not at all experienced in financial products when we were introduced to lead top initiatives for financial services clients like TIAA-CREF. The extent of experience, knowledge and insights I held about medical science or healthcare would not have impressed anyone, but we performed well for a top, global pharmaceutical company, just as we did for all of these clients.

My point is that deep experience in one particular area can be a positive thing when choosing a partnering agency, but it can also be a pitfall, too. Agencies, studios and design firms, whatever we term them, all come with a quintessential benefit and that is a fresh perspective, the ability to breathe new life into your communications.

I’ve seen creative firms that are vertically positioned in one industry that essentially refine a cookie-cutter approach or signature look. These companies sell that process uniformly to every client in the industry. They just manufacture proven systems and commoditize those canned solutions to every competing client they serve — companies that are all working to be distinctive and to differentiate among their competitors.

What appears critically important to a good relationship between our firm and client team amounts to three things: A feeling of trust, a passion or interest in the mission, and a common set of work values. Experience in the industry or knowledge about the subject is far less important; Pricing should come last in the decision making process, at least at the level of impact I am broaching.

Trust is a word that is bandied about so frequently that it seems to have lost some of its meaning. Trust can also be mistaken as fleeting instincts or intuitive views that are have not been earned through any proper diligence. The look of someone may tell you a lot, but it doesn’t tell you their heart, what they have inside. Still, in this day and age it’s a regrettable tendency. We’re processing more information than ever. There is a need to ascertain, weigh and determine, or make a judgment in a matter of seconds. Requiring referrals, client testimonies, case studies, and searching online for more information are all important. Word-of-mouth recommendation is a necessary validation that helps sort the confusing options.

Equally critical, the creative team chosen must also have a genuine curiosity and passion, or some level of interest in the subject matter.

I’ve made this mistake, I know. In my younger days, I competed for jobs with prospective clients with a mission I did not believe in, or just had little empathy for, and we were less successful as a result. The thing every client should look deeply at is the level of personal interest that any partnering agency or individual has for their mission. I also think this is disarmingly apparent, especially in creative people. We simply don’t betray our own emotions or hide our true feelings very well. But like all artists, we’re scrapping bunch. We work to remain viable to all opportunities.

It’s also crucial that the client and creative team have a similar like-mindedness and values, a chemistry together and desire to support each other, actually like each other. The need for shared vision, a good fit, an agreement in approach to work culture may be obvious, but it can often be overlooked.

The Secret in the Sauce
Our creative team has had great success over the years but much of what we did, like so many maturing, small design firms, was intuitive. In recent years we have come to analyze more carefully what we do, how and why we approach things as we have, as opposed to instinctively just making beautiful designs that engage and inspire readers.

Iridium does have a signature look, but I’ve struggled to understand how we are able to design for such a vast range of clients and their audiences, and also serve as what has been termed a “multidisciplinary” creative group, which is another way of saying that we’re a generalist firm, viable to all parties.

That’s becoming also an increasingly difficult thing to be in the ever-burgeoning, multichannel world we live in, where we might be asked to create a website one day, an electronic newsletter the next, a print brochure on the next day, or environmental graphics, and still possibly something we have never done — a Podcast or original video presentation after that. We’ve always been a boutique firm that could successfully create and deliver any type of communications tool and we’re still largely proven in doing that. Still, I could never profess to know the intricacies of video-Blogging (or Vlogging?) or talk at length about what has become known as the “Third Screen,” for example. (Or is it the Fourth Screen?)

As for our core skill and style, I’ve even seen clients and prospective employees search for the words. I suppose I’m no further along in formalizing it or using the right language at times. It’s as if the design and creative philosophy is consistent in everything we do, but the directives and goals given by each client, the nuances of the job and their specific audiences or needs are so different, generally. We are focused on one approach, but available to all takers in any industry, our doors open to accept any challenge, create any product, consider or imagine any idea.

One thing we are known to do which has worked well is to apply unpredictable imagery. Whether it’s B2B literature, consumer, nonprofit — every audience seems to respond to a unique photograph in an age where images become content, and where we are saturated with so many every day.

I’ve spoken in this series about consumers, but what about B2B brands? In my opinion, they should be infused with the same life and compelling hooks that we know to be proven in the consumer world. Business prospects don’t stop being human when they report to work and perform their jobs. In fact, in so much B2B literature I see, it appears to me that the creative approach is intentionally dry and staid. It’s as if the designers felt that they needed to tone down the presentation and make it predictable for the sake of serious business.

For business imagery, we’ve relied on an unusual way of illustrating fairly difficult, ethereal, academic concepts. We’ve been guided or led by our client team in many of these instances, to be sure. We’ve gone out of our way to avoid the obvious cliché, to use an image that evokes a more thoughtful experience. We want the reader or end-user not to just look at the image as decoration or even a light, appropriate symbol. It’s most effective when the response is one that requires a moment of thought to connect the not-so-obvious intention of the photograph. We’re looking for that “Aha-moment” where readers see and understand the connection only after curiously studying what has engaged them instinctively.

For some nonprofit organizations and other types of consumer clients, the images tend to be less intellectually stimulating or conceptual and more driven to inspire an emotion or a feeling, a mood. Regardless of the focus, however, the images have always been fresh and non-stock like. We’re looking for authenticity, the anti-stock image that feels so genuine and real and approachable that you feel an inherent connection to the subject. The best photos reach deeply inside of people and strike a personal chord.

With typography, that’s easy. We are classic, clean and simple. It’s always been traditional design with a twist of modern edge.

And messages? Well, we provide copywriting but this has been more of sticky wicket that we work to negotiate. How can a boutique firm offer content to so many clients for so many needs, who themselves, are actually navigating so many various channels and tools? But still we rise to the occasion.

We rise. We see the challenge, we take the bait and drive toward success. And we deliver. Take a look at our latest accomplishment. This is for a company that has become an excellent partner, a client team that works to build a winning stage for Iridium designers to excel. Another website with copywriting, image research and procurement, design and all programming delivered to the client.

In 15 days, start to finish.

www.freedom2ink.com

Or for a product site, something we are still developing:

www.infinitink.com

Enjoy!

Part II. Penetrating the Clutter, Meeting the Market

2008-06-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

No civilization or society has ever experienced the level of marketing and media noise that now exists for us as consumers. As the number of customer touch points available to marketers has grown, and as the number of brands and products transmitting messages across those exponential channels has increased, one has to ask: What is on the horizon for both end-user and corporate marketer? How are consumers choosing to spend their time? How will companies shape their advertising and brand-building work to remain relevant?

Responding to the unrelenting drone of modern advertising, consumers are less trusting of corporate messages and far more media- and marketing-savvy than ever before. On the other hand, corporate marketers have never worked harder to earn brand loyalty and trust, to create enduring messages that resonate with audiences, to connect successfully with their customers on an intimate level.

It is estimated that $300 billion is spent each year on consumer marketing in the United States. There’s a greater emphasis in the boardrooms of corporations everywhere to view marketing as a measurement to success and a potential competitive advantage as opposed to an expense item on the balance sheet. Best practice companies and C-level executives are seeing the marketing budget as an investment not only to sales, but to build the brand as a major asset. They are generating expectations for ROI that is tracked methodically. Even in non-profits and industries that historically have not considered it important, marketing is taking on a much higher profile. The consensus is that things have changed in the last five years because of the technology and ability to measure results. Advertising professionals are being held to a new level of accountability to generate new sales and raise the profile or image of the brand.

Consumers are also changing, and the channels to reach them are continually shifting. For a marketer, it’s akin to aiming at a moving target. A recent survey conducted by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society reflected that the average Internet user spends three hours per day online, with 57% of that time dedicated to communications, instant messaging and chat rooms. The research found that 75% of the population of the U.S. has Internet availability and that time spent online is increasing and taking away from time spent with family and friends, or even viewing television.

According to author and brand consultant Seth Godin, “There’s a feeling that there’s too much data and not enough knowledge, too many choices and not enough good ones. The desire to completely control the environment has started to unravel in the last few years. The shock from the September 11, 2001 attacks, in part explains that development, but so do the billion Websites and millions of blogs, tens of thousands of books in the stores and hundreds of television channels. This cacophony has led the culture to the belief that, ‘You couldn’t control all the choices; you couldn’t control all the noise.”

With all this cynicism circulating among consumers and the squeeze on corporate marketers to perform, what does the future hold in store?

It’s likely we’ll see innovative techniques for reaching more specific target groups with highly specialized key messages. Technology will be used to organize and penetrate the clutter of media as emerging channels like Blogs and social networking communities are leveraged. Traditional demographics as a way of defining audiences will be reconsidered and the media network will continue to fracture and fragment.

Aiming for 18-35 year-olds as a market is too broad to remain relevant when such targeted channels are available. Buyers of a brand or product may be viewed in terms of highly-categorized “pockets” where dozens of disparate audiences are qualified as loyal, viable buyers and are targeted or tracked more efficiently, as will their behaviors and satisfaction. This system may be viewed as a blended portfolio of audiences, one that is modular, and more flexible and effective to manage, and technology has enabled this type of tracking in customer behavior and habits.

Experiential marketing should continue to grow also. Companies will continue to apply any tool that engages the customer on an emotional level and connects with their potential buyers. The brick-and-mortar retail venue can be thought of along the same lines as print media and advertising. Direct mail catalogs and magazines are more important to marketers and more effective to consumers as an informational tool, or a vehicle to share the quintessential brand “experience.” In the same way, stores will increasingly be used as brand and product showcases; the real transaction and point of sale will become increasingly one that is executed electronically.

With the rapid advances in technology, there’s every reason to assume that the growth in the number of channels and opportunities for marketers will not slow down. Social networking, Blogs, and the mesmerizing chorus of a few billion customers expressing themselves digitally has only been the tip of the iceberg. Media and marketing are continuing to blur the lines of advertisement and entertainment, and even reinvent the whole establishment of spot advertising supporting 30-60 minute cable or network shows.

One can only imagine what we may see in five years: Branded entertainment portals online where product-placement and clever filmmaking meet in 5-10 minute video clips of brand- and product-intensive "advertainment." These types of viral videos have been extremely successful to date and it appears to be creating a whole new area of more polished, professional consumer info-tainment. The Geico "cavemen" spots became popular enough to warrant consideration of a series by a major network. Consider watching a mini-sitcom episode where the Aflac duck is shown in an animated short film, his character developed further in a more elaborate storyline. Or how about a new model of the Acura being glamourously featured, Matrix-style, with bullet-time visual effects in a short, Bond-like online video?

Already, print magazines and book publishers are experimenting with the next logical step to keep their media relevant to the market: Digital products that closely resemble paper publications that also will accept an embedded chip and perhaps even project moving images across the pages as we turn them. And all this is closer than any of us can fathom.

New techniques and metrics for measuring marketing decisions and initiatives will be put into place at every level, as a higher degree of accountability is demanded by shareholders and in corporate governance. The products themselves may carry microscopic devices, like RFID chips, which monitor customer habits. Because of a new era of global competition and the subsequent demands in professional services, partnering agencies and creative firms will continue evolving to be more responsive to the cost-benefit needs of their clients.

And consumers? They’ll look for the thing that we all, as individuals, understand and need. They’ll search through the convoluted arena of brands to find a buying experience that is easy, honest, refreshing and unique. They'll gravitate to companies and products that allow them to feel a sense of connection and empathy. They’ll look for products that invigorate them, inspire them and help them to engage and live their lives with energy and happiness. In the end, consumers will respond best to those marketers who listen to their audience and understand that passion and emotion always win over a common, uninspired message.

Data Boxes: The Nielsen Global Online Survey (www.nielsen.com)

Part I. Thinking Like a Customer

2008-06-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

I’m always surprised when I check into some hotels and see the poor choices in design and amenities, the ones that are clearly not user friendly. This may include chairs that are drastically too short to allow anyone to work with reasonable comfort at the desk, hair driers that are placed in hidden drawers inside the closet, alarm clocks that are pre-set to 4:00 a.m., or any one of a dozen other oversights. It makes me wonder if the people who made the decisions on the design of the rooms ever actually stayed in one of them as a means to see the process itself, learn from the functions (or malfunctions) or experience firsthand the needs and challenges of any customer checking in after a hard day of travel.

Listening to the customer is an American business-sport, but one that sometimes needs translation before achieving the desired result. It’s interesting how rarely we seem to actually apply what we learn from the research.

I often think about my own interactions as a consumer and equate those experiences — both good and bad — to the greater question of companies earning trust, delivering on their brand promise to a larger market, or failing miserably at building any brand equity in their organization.

Case in point: About a year ago, a gallery in NYC sent me an invitation to an upcoming show. Now, I'm not exactly in the market for elite works by the masters. We're talking about local, unproven talent. Still, I saw an artist I liked and coveted one painting in particular. I called the gallery and began a discussion and when the time was right I went so far as to inquire about a possible 10% discount for early purchase, prior to the opening. The gentleman assured me that they never discount (however, discounting is commonly accepted among all the galleries and collectors). He went on to inform me that this specific artist always sells out before opening night and that they would not consider a discount.

I took the bait and purchased an original painting at full price. At the reception, it was clear that the artist had sold perhaps 2-3 of the 30-40 paintings that hung in the gallery, not nearly the robust sales projection I had been given. I have since been advised by those who are far better educated, those accomplished connoisseurs of art, that my acquisition was an unwise, ill-advised purchase considering the inflated price that the gallery presented. It's unfortunate, but it's also regrettable for this gallery since I will never purchase there again, attend another exhibit, nor will I steer anyone to their website or stable of artists. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it was the kind that stick with you. They’ve tarnished their own brand incrementally through one potential customer. Beyond that, to the degree that I share my story and can influence the purchasing decisions of others, they've hurt themselves possibly far more. Unhappy customers don't complain; they just don't come back.

* * *

Heading fearlessly into ground zero of the consumer-zone, I suppose that I’m begging to acquire some type of new age nervous disorder. Macy’s or any department store in a major city on the weekend would have to be considered a death wish for someone seeking a Zen moment. Still, I'm ready for the worst: I enter Bloomingdale’s on Saturday. In this case, I needed socks. I had the time and was in the neighborhood, so in I went.

Within 3 seconds of entering the store doors I had been greeted by what I presumed to be two members of security staff. “Good morning, sir.” Pleasant enough, I thought. Another 20-25 paces placed me squarely in front of the dress shirts, and I wondered if it might not be a wise idea to consider buying. After all, I hadn’t purchased new ones in quite some time — and that’s when it happened. I was approached for the first time in what became a series of disruptions by a cosmetics promotion team giving free demonstrations nearby. “Can I interest you in a free cosmetics-skin application, sir? It’ll just take a moment.” “No, thank you,” I replied, courteously. I understood that it was free and considered it nice of them to ask.

I had taken at most another 45 seconds to peruse the shirts a bit more and meandered closer to the brand I personally liked before being accosted once again.

“Sir, would you be interested in trying out our new cosmetic skin treatment?” Now, this young woman was particularly attractive and smiling nicely, and that alone has successfully sold a few billion products to the right target audience for several centuries. It can be like flickering, hypnotic lights to most weary, middle-aged men like myself — those batting eyelashes, the allure of a bright, happy spirit and a beautiful, beaming smile, all directed right at me. Ah, yes, that generic, ubiquitous, pretty face, that flip of the hair — all used in perhaps more modern advertising than any other image over the ages since Gutenberg — it transmits that things are good, no worries here. I had no interest in the product, however, so I smiled and politely declined.

But this sales assistant wasn’t going to be deterred so easily. This living, human, walking advertisement implored me to reconsider. “Oh, but won’t you please try our product, sir. It will be so easy and you’ll be very happy that you did. It’s really something that. . . ”

“Ahem, excuse me, but I’m very busy now. Thank you,” I said.

Although I had every intention of purchasing 2-3 of those shirts, this one individual, this cosmetics sales representative simply stood there in an uncomfortable silence and watched me flip through a few more, poised to approach me for a third time, determined to meet her quota and from what I began to surmise, intending to meet it in record time. And that’s when I decided to leave the display of shirts I’d found, the ones that I liked and wanted to purchase. I gave up.

“Well, at least I can purchase the socks,” I reassured myself, so I smiled, left the shirts and fled to another corner of the store. Less than a minute had passed when I stumbled onto the brand that I wanted: The right fit, the right fabric and the style I like. My head was down when it happened for the fourth time from a different, unwitting salesman. “Sir, may I interest you in a free cosmetics treatment for your. . . ” I couldn't help but blurt out, “No! Absolutely not!”

I had been in the store less than 3 minutes and had been approached 4 times. I was so annoyed at the constant interruptions that I decided to purchase the socks later, also online. I continued to survey a few brands, mostly peering over the rack with indignation and a certain apprehension as this staff of modern cosmetics mercenaries trolled the store isles. I was no longer a customer being introduced to a product, just a raw opportunity for these incentive-crazed, guerrilla marketers.

How do I like to shop personally? Like most people, I want an experience that is all about efficiency and comfort. I want a successful engagement that facilitates my personal needs as a customer and yet, I realize this is difficult because every customer is unique. On the weekends, if I’m buying socks, or shirts, or shoes or underwear — whatever, I don’t necessarily care to become friends with the sales representative and I don’t want to be up-sold on a dozen other services and products. I want anonymity. My attitude is this: When I have a question, I’ll ask. Otherwise, stay behind the counter and let me sort through the plethora of options. When I need something, when I want help, I will want you to serve me with information. That’s my humble idea of what a sales assistant should deliver.

And I considered the great irony in that small moment, that unremarkable exchange and experience on 60th and 3rd Avenue. I’m the customer. I enter the store because, after “X-amount” of dollars in their marketing budget, Bloomingdale’s had convinced me that they were a viable resource for me personally, that I could purchase things that suit me, that fit my needs as a shopper, and that they would deliver on a brand promise of a comfortable shopping experience. And yet, after having accomplished the goal and after having that one, enviable, valued customer cross the threshold to their store with a clear intention to buy products — after all that — they manage to find a way to actually drive me away from those products, away from their store and back to my home, where I’ll likely try to purchase the shirts online, and likely not through their company.

That is when it occurred to me. The best salesman is not a salesman at all, but rather, the best sales person is actually concerned with the needs of the customer. The best sales person wants, well, to serve, to assist. First and foremost, a good sales person and by logical conclusion, we marketers too, should want to create solutions. Focus first on making a good life for your client, your customer. If you can do that every day? You win the big prize.

Although it makes for great theatre and validates my post, I will not go on about the futility of this specific promotion at Bloomingdale’s. The fact is that I despise the store for exactly the same reason that I left with so little once again on Saturday. The sales representatives are aggressive. It’s not uncommon to have 4-5 different floor reps approach me in the first 5 minutes after entering the store. It’s tremendously annoying, to be perfectly blunt. Bloomingdale’s could stand to use some serious consultative analysis and a complete reengineering of its CRM as regards in-store, retail sales, and employee incentive compensation model. I’m a customer, I know.

On my way out, I was detained once again, a final and fifth time by yet another cosmetics representative. Smiling, extending his hand with flyer projected right at my face, he began his scripted pitch. “Sir, would I be able to interest you in a free treatment of cosmetics that can help your skin?”

Hmmm. And to think, I never had any idea that my skin looked that bad.

* * *

The more you know about your target audience, the better you can serve them. What are their habits? When and where are they likely to be the most receptive to your marketing message? Is there another consumer segment that would also welcome your product? Do you have the right product accompanied by the wrong sales pitch? Are you missing a great opportunity?

As our client engagements wrap up and are preparing for launch, many companies conduct focus groups and other studies to measure and learn about consumer response, which is smart business. But prior to starting a project, it is often helpful to review trends gathered by trade associations, special interest publications and consumer research groups. Here are 25 factoids turned up on the Web:

1. About 90% of the products that children buy or request from parents are chosen by brand or by packaging.
2. At supermarkets, 66% of all buying decisions are made after the consumer enters the store.
3. When shopping online, more people will abort their transaction because of shipping costs than for any other reason.
4. 16% of callers who hear on-hold messages make a purchase based on what they hear.
5. 88% of callers prefer messages on-hold to silence or the radio.
6. A 26% increase in single person households in America is projected between 1995 and 2010, compared to overall household growth of 18%.
7. 58% of Americans who live alone are women; half of those are 65 years old and over; 29% are 75 years and older.
8. In a brand loyalty study of 50 products, soft drinks garnered the highest brand loyalty at 59% and bubble gum commanded the least brand loyalty at 18%.
9. 72% of food shoppers ranked ‘fresh’ as the most desirable claim on a product.
10. When put on-hold, 60% of business callers will hang up if they hear only silence; one-third don't call back.
11. At 10 popular online retail sites, repeat customers spent 57% more than one-time customers.
12. On any given day in the United States about one quarter of the adult population visits a fast-food restaurant.
13. One-third of all 6 and 7 year-old children in the U.S. have a TV in their bedroom.
14. On average 45% of products sold in Europe are private label, compared to 25% in the U.S.
15. Two-thirds of women shoppers feel distracted when men accompany them to the grocery store.
16. About 40% (or $3 trillion) of consumer purchases in the U.S. are spent on discretionary products and services.
17. Teens, aged 12 to 17, influence on average $58 per week in grocery purchases - totaling over $50 billion per year.
18. 93% of Americans snack; 50% do so two or three times a day; 40% at least four times a day; and 10% five or more times a day.
19. 84% of consumers worldwide buy food-to-go somewhere.
20. The number of elderly (65 and older) has jumped 1100% since 1900.
21. Mother’s Day ranks second only to Christmas for gift giving.
22. 72% of teenagers help prepare at least one meal a week. Of that number, 17% fix the complete meal; 20% do just the main dish; and 31% fix side dishes.
23. 7 in 10 shoppers say that purchasing bottled water is the biggest current food trend.
24. More than 70% of U.S. shoppers say that they read the nutritional content label all or most of the time.
25. 6 in 10 U.S. shoppers find it very difficult to change to a less expensive store brand once they find a national brand they like.

Sources: McNeal and Kids [1], Point of Purchase Advertising Institute [2], Consumer Trends in Online Shopping [3], Maximarketing [4, 5], U.S. Census Bureau [6, 7] America's Research Group [8], Health Focus [9], Tech Data Study [10], Bain Survey [11], "Fast Food Nation" Eric Schlosser [12], Consumer Trends Institute [13, 14, 15, 16, 17], IDDBA [18, 19, 20], International Mass Retailer Association [21], National Pork Producers Council [22], Grocery Manufacturers of America [23, 24, 25].

‘You Talking to Me?’ Reprinted with permission from @issue: The Journal of Business & Design, Vol. 8, No. 2. Published by Corporate Design Foundation and sponsored by Sappi. For more information on @issue or to receive a subscription, visit www.cdf.org.

Browns and Rainbows Rising and Figuring the Lure to Win

2008-05-31T17:42:00.001-04:00

I used to walk with my friend for a mile or so down old N&W railroad tracks in Southwest Virginia, and this was after we finished our day of work just so we could slip into some old sneakers and step out into the New River, sometimes waist high. We were fishing for anything that would bite, and we always took along all kinds of artificial lures. Floating lures, deep-divers, jigs, spinner-bait — we were willing to try anything to see what worked, but we also used strategy by figuring the time of day, the temperature, the season. We looked at what types of bugs were hatching and whether they were landing on the surface. Were the fish rising and feeding on the top? On hot days they all ran deeper to get to the cooler water.

The New River is an oxymoron as it turns out. The New River, one that winds through Carolina and up through that corner of Virginia where I grew up, and into West Virginia, then Ohio and out to the Mighty Mississippi, is actually one of the oldest rivers in the world, second only to the Nile. Estimated to be about 350 million years old, this ancient river — the only river to flow North to South — once flowed north to meet the St. Lawrence in Canada before glaciers changed its course during the Ice Age. Like all things in the South or all things old in spirit, this river is a bit quirky. History changes us all.

When I was 12 or even 21, or at any age in between, we'd start out about 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. in the summertime or early in the morning. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that we fished, in the Little River (which fed into the New River) or in the New River itself. On our little spinning rods we caught so many kinds of fish from crappie, redeyes, perch, smallmouth, and in those small farm ponds, all breeds of catfish. . . channelcat, bluecat, mudcat, and sunfish — bluegill, carp and largemouth bass. The largemouth were my favorite. I loved how they jumped out of the water when you hooked one.

There were plenty of times when the fishing wasn't good and at times, we'd hit a nice streak. We'd fish the streams and rivers into the pitch-dark of night, one cast after another, just slaying them. I recall standing chest-deep in that river at 10:00 at night, nice moon out, just hitting something on every cast, and I simply could not leave.

Now, I fish with my son. I'm about 400 miles further north and the times have changed, but the fish haven't so much. We go out and have our good days and our bad days. Last weekend, I saw him fight for 15 minutes with ultra-light gear to haul in a monster rainbow trout in Cornwall. He was exhausted, if not the happiest young man around when we finally had it in the net.

I absolutely love to fish. It's fundamental and pure and occurs to me to be the perfect, most appropriate metaphor for life and more specifically, business. In fact, I recall the first direct mailing I ever did to start my company. I imagined it with the same enthusiasm I have for fishing. In those many years of casting for new clients, I saw some efforts that performed well — and a few, not so much. You study, plan, and execute, but ultimately don't know what is going to rise to take the bait or lure that you strategically calculated.

But the suspense! What lure will work and where do I cast? You have every intention of doing the right thing and setting this amazing, beautiful creature free, but the game is about competition and strategy and so the goal is to land the nice catch, the fish you will fondly remember, the customer you hope will want your offering.

On Monday at 9:00 a.m., I begin a 3 part series on my Blog that will focus on customers. Where have we won? What can we learn? I've been working to gain insights myself, aiming deeply to understand something new, create a benefit, uncover a new trend. I'm trying to provide some level of insight or knowledge that I hope to share, and that I humbly hope will challenge your own personal assumptions or just make us all wonder, with proper responsibility:

What lure? Where do I cast? What fish are rising? And how are they feeding today?

Design Tips for ‘Budget Challenged’ Communications

2008-05-29T09:05:00.000-04:00

Generally, I find myself working with clients to propose budgets that are generous enough to allow us the time to develop an exceptional marketing or communications product. In pricing, unlike so many other industries, most creative agencies and design firms are led first not by the profit line, but by a desire to perform well. We are driven to win approval of our ideas and overall presentation, our skills measured by a successful result. We want to please the client manager and we want to build relationships.

That requires bigger dollar allocations frequently, if not for elaborate resources like original photography and animation, copy writing, paper, programming, etc., then simply for the time a creative staff will invest in brainstorming, researching, thinking, planning and executing the product. The craftsmanship and achievement of excellence often takes more time than any client — and sometimes even the designer — can imagine.

Clearly, of course, not all marketing or brand tools can receive the same glamorous development budget. Important initiatives such as sales presentations and many internal communications are often hampered by this fact and subsequently developed by internal creative staff, assistant or non-graphics professional.

In the spirit of collaboration, I've distilled my basic tenets for design into a few bullet points, arranged in no particular order. I actually wrote this several years ago, but with modest updating for this post, I believe these ideas still have practical value. I hope that this list may be of assistance to any brand, marketing, communications, or sales manager who needs effectively designed and packaged content.

So for the do-it-yourself design project or one on a shoestring budget that cannot be outsourced to receive the studio/agency solution, I suggest beginning and ending each creative engagement with a checkpoint of these guiding principles, prior to final execution:

1. Keep it simple.
Nothing will derail a clean execution like an overly ambitious plan. Remember that the actual implementation will be fraught with complexities. A simple plan will minimize the challenges and set a better stage for success.

2. Restrain the number of fonts.
Less is more, for good reason. Rarely does a variety of fonts work more effectively to communicate, so consider one sans serif and one serif font, or just one font, period. Try to minimize the number of variations within any font family. Too many fonts only dilute the distinctive visual identity of the brand and send a confusing message.

3. Substance first, then style.
Allow the visual presentation to emerge from the content, or core values and message. The most successful designers recognize the value of communication. Graphic design is about turning information into understanding. In its most successful professional settings, design supports the content and offers clarity. Focus on the message, consider the audience and choose an appropriate direction. The design should develop quite organically, as a natural manifestation of the diligence and discovery that informs the process.

4. Achieve "Best Practice" brand discipline. Support the existing organizational brand identity.
The overarching guidelines of the visual identity system and any constraints must be considered carefully. Honor the work that went into the brand system and apply any branded, template tools if they exist. Don’t view this creative process as self-expression — this is not the appropriate platform for that desire. Successful communications design, as it relates to a brand application is about consistency, not experimentation or personal expression.

5. Concentrate on clarity of the message.
Avoid capricious graphic elements. Try to reduce the design to the fewest number of components necessary in order to achieve the objective. Arrange them logically, with a focus on clarity and power of design to drive the message.

6. Let the design suit the needs of the audience.
Every final design should be compared to the original roadmap of goals. Did we deliver on all key messages, designed for the right audiences, and developed through the right tool or channel? The overall tone and graphic direction must be appropriate to the end-user. While this is subject to interpretation, the general rule is to let the content and information needs of the audience drive the design. Avoid additional devices that may clutter the presentation or appear graphically indulgent.

7. Use fewer images that communicate or project the message.
A common practice is the failure to edit art as tightly as possible. Experienced editors are discerning and make the tough choices with content in an effort to be as economical with language as necessary. Designers must be equally frugal with imagery. Plan for fewer images with better cropping and more visual and intellectual power packed into each one. Avoid weak art at all costs. Placing art as decoration or to “break up the text” is the wrong reason to add an image. Images are content too. If any available art is considered unworthy, be creative. Conduct additional photo research, or focus strictly on the content. A headline alone can be a great hook and typography in itself can be compelling visually.

8. Work on a grid.
Use a grid of 3, 4 — even 12 columns, if necessary — to create a sense of discipline and organization to the components of the page. Free-form composition of the elements lacks a sense of logic and order, and good communications design is all about packaging information efficiently for the human mind to digest. Think in terms of creating or composing proper tiers or hierarchies for the information.

9. Try to achieve changes in scale.
A contrast of scale is always more visually interesting than similar scale designs. If possible, try to juxtapose a large photo next to a small one, for example. Or aim for scale changes in the typography. “Sameness” and visual monotony or repetitiveness do not engage the reader.

10. Deliver consistency with an occasional visual surprise.
Discipline and restraint are important design principles. Try to think in terms of front-end, "system design" and consider future communications needs. An "ad hoc" application or approach to marketing — the failure to consider the holistic needs of related tools — is a common pitfall. Be sparing and prudent with bold, unique design ideas. Just when the reader does not expect it, deliver the visual treat of the unexpected surprise, working within established brand guidelines.

11. Avoid dense areas of text.
Using small entry points, such as an oversized lead-in's, pull quotes, executive summaries, well written captions, and sidebars are all effective ways to engage the end-user. Think of the content in terms of 3 tiers. Create a design for every type of reader in every type of situation: One level that is a 5-10 minute level of bite-sized information; one that is slightly deeper, perhaps 15-20 minutes, and still another tier that offers more substance, once the reader is engaged and has more time.

12. Use color judiciously.
Like all other design elements that you will have at your disposal, when considering use of colors, frugality, restraint and minimalism work best.

13. Go for the classic.
Don’t attempt to innovate on a challenged budget. It's always acceptable and relevant to any market to communicate through a timeless, classical approach. Wherever appropriate, lean on existing design ideas and compositions or fonts for inspiration. After all, the greatest form of flattery is imitation.

14. “Back into” the schedule.
Be realistic. Most printers require a minimum of 10 business days or 2 weeks in order to prepare and print even a small, simple project. Prior to that you will need a few days for proofing and color correction. Even interactive initiatives such as microsites and websites require "back-end testing." Good planning is required. Start at the end of the process and “back into it,” being sure to give yourself and other vendors more time than you expect it will require. Include ample time for internal sign-off or approvals. Don’t handicap yourself with a challenging, unrealistic schedule.

15. Ask for advice.
Call a design firm or agency that you know and ask for their support as an outsourced, partnering steward of your brand for nominal, advisory or counseling fees. Most mature, respectful business owners will be happy to serve as a second set of eyes to suggest tweaks or adaptations to the existing design, even if it doesn't mean grand, broad-scale plans and impressive professional fees.

The idea is to deliver value to a possible future client or partner. In IridiumGroup, I've created a culture that is less about personal creative ego and more about progress for the client. Blindly putting the clients' business first may appear at first blush to be an ill-advised value statement, but it strikes me that this is the most enduring, sustainable model I could ever propose to live by, and one I'm proud we successfully follow.

Recession — What Recession? Customer Non-Service and Voice Response Hell

2008-05-26T08:42:00.000-04:00

{ If you would like to read this article, please press the number seven, followed by the pound key. }

I’ve called a surprising number of services to make a purchase and was met with voicemail, auto-attendant systems or an actual person who noted the information, only to realize later that no one was going to return my call to facilitate my needs, listen to my complaint or in some cases, even complete the original sales transaction. If I ran my business this way, I’d be bankrupt in a matter of months.

An article in The New York Times on Saturday, written by Alina Tugend summed up perfectly some of my recent frustrations with auto-response systems when calling to resolve problems or just ask a simple question.

I’ve had fits of outrage followed ultimately, grudgingly by resignation recently as I tried to contact PayPal to query a charge or order flowers for my mother through 1-800-flowers. Another transaction with RCN, my NYC cable service, nearly drove me to change careers and become a consumer advocate. To complicate matters even more, some of these systems require that you enter words into their prompts via the keypad of the telephone, but using a Blackberry, my cellular keypad does not align with traditional keypads.

PayPal required that I sit through a mind-numbing listing of options and each one I attempted offered no respite in the way of satisfactory information or more importantly, none presented a human customer sales representative to speak with about a unique concern. In my case, it was a question that did not happen to fit into their automated compartmentalization of customer needs.

In the case of 1-800-flowers, my mother did not receive her flowers on Mother’s Day and I’m not sure that she actually ever would have received them had it not been for the several dozen calls that I made along with my sister and mother from remote locations over a period of days, only to be lured into the labyrinth of auto-service options. In one case, I finally reached a customer service representative who proceeded to give me another, separate 800 number to call for 1-800-flowers. Once I called that number, I was sent into another aggravating maze of caller options, only to navigate my way to yet another representative who informed me that I had been given the wrong number by the previous representative. My card was charged on the original call, and the flowers were delivered 6 days after they were ordered, 4 days late for the occasion. All this transpired after a guarantee on the original call that the flowers would be there by 11:00 a.m. on Mother’s Day. Maybe I could suggest a new name for this company? 1-800-failedguarantee.

The idea of customer service is gone from the American enterprise. As a maturing recession plods along and small business is rife with complaints about dismal sales, I’ve made calls to at least half a dozen vendors or suppliers of my company in recent weeks to order new services and products. Some of the vendors are small companies or independents, granted, but in a shocking number of cases they either did not return the call or failed to make the appointment they scheduled.

Remember the Maytag repairman? He was always bored because no one would call for service or repair. How about other iconic symbols of great customer service, like all the gas station attendants of the 1950's or the "service with a smile" anthem that so many ad campaigns used? What a contrast to compare those images to the frenetic realities of today's market. Big-box retailers face huge obstacles with poor customer service ratings and no sales person to assist the buyer. Call centers are bottlenecked. Are we watching — dare I say it — a country in demise? A nation of people so accustomed, even addicted to luxury that no one is willing to serve any longer?

Managing to get any technology service representative or consultant to our company is akin to solving the riddle of peace in the Middle East. For tech-support, we’re fortunate if we can schedule an appointment 5-7 days after the problem. The telecom expert that we’ve worked with for over 12 years is an expert at his profession, but in such high demand that I’d have better luck securing an in-office concert performed by a major rock star. Any sort of construction work is met with the same disappointment, the same lack of service.

On a personal note, I called a landscaping company to inquire about shrubs and landscaping for my home and was informed that I should leave a message, which I did — three weeks ago. I patiently called to leave the information again on voicemail after giving it to an assistant once already. No one has responded.

This same story strikes a chord with everyone I meet. It seems that we are all having the same problems getting service or attention to meet our needs as a customer.

My wife ordered steaks from an Upper East-side retailer. We were headed to our country house for a holiday weekend and wanted to barbecue. The store called back three times the same day to confirm the order and ensure proper instructions, but when we arrived in Connecticut, we realized that the steaks were never included, nor were we charged. With very little to eat, we ordered take-out from a local pub. It’s the second time that the same thing happened with this particular retailer and we don’t intend to try again.

And we hear so much about customer relationship management and customer retention. I have always heard that keeping a good customer is just as important, if not more so, than all the marketing dollars and time one can invest in earning new customers. With all the emerging titles for corporate officer, shouldn’t there be also be a CCSO (Chief Customer Service Officer) or a CCRM (Chief Customer Retention Manager)? Or how about a CCO (Chief Customer Officer)?

The good news is that companies are starting to hear the chorus of malcontent because some people are finding ways to fight back. New consumer advocate websites have sprung up negotiate some of the impediments of the larger cost-saving system technology.

Gethuman.com, a refreshingly unpolished resource, offers a customer-community portal and a listing of companies that are performing well in addition to ones that have poor customer service via telephone. Users can rate the companies listed and also access new 800-numbers, as well as learn tips and techniques for bypassing what is termed the I.V.R. (Interactive Voice Response System). It’s easy to use and a great resource for the customer.

Dialahuman.com is a similar service and site, but not organized quite as well as gethuman.com, in my opinion. For an insider view at the trends of the voice response industry, see www.jlodge.com, a call-monitoring business, or look at www.wrolandi.com for experience and insights from an industry consultant, Walter Rolandi. According to Rolandi, President of Voice User Interface Company, “I’ve listened to thousands of people interacting with machines. You hear sighs of resignation. You hear people swearing. If businesses knew what I knew, they would not design them this way.”

John I. Tudor, a psychologist who wrote “Addicted Customers” (Silverado Press, 2007), says that we are all being pushed out of our personal, psychological comfort zone because of the frenetic, frantic pace of our lives. “A lot of people out there already have a hair trigger,” says Tudor. “And poor customer service makes us more frustrated and anxious, which increases our distrust of the company.”

A few important facts from the article:

• I.V.R. systems began in the 1980’s as a cost-cutting measure.
• There are about 100,000 call centers in the U.S., not including telemarketing operations.
• Despite assumptions, less than 10 percent of call centers are based outside the U.S.
• Businesses are worried about moving away from I.V.R. because of the expenses, but also because they fear that customers do not like being transferred from a live operator.
• Automated systems can handled 4-5 customers at a time; a human operator can only handle 1.
• Netflix moved last year from an email service to a 24-hour phone number with a live agent. The call is received using a voice response, but within 2-3 minutes, an agent is available.

Article from 24 May 2008, The New York Times:
www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/business/yourmoney/24shortcuts.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=customer+service&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Old Friends, Kindred Spirits

2008-05-18T15:25:00.000-04:00

I stood outside my house in Connecticut on Saturday smiling as I watched two old friends who have charmed and mesmerized me in recent years. They have dallied with my emotions, teased and tricked me, skillfully dodging any reciprocation of my own wit and ability.

These friends are a particularly interesting pair. They are such erratic, unpredictable companions, but true partners to each other. At times they have playfully raised my spirits before retreating to their own pursuits for days or weeks. I have imagined being as adept and wise, so seemingly invincible and in the same instance, so careful, so vigilant. I’ve been captivated and entranced as these two wily acquaintances have, with such careless sense of abandon and ease, such dominant strength and calculation, toyed with my curiosity. They've left me baffled, befuddled and full of awe, filled with wonder.

So coy and clever and keen, my friends were there flying high once again on Saturday afternoon. I don’t even know what to call them sometimes. To be honest I have not given them a name, but they don’t need naming I suppose. They are hawks.

In Kent, Connecticut, where my wife and I have a country house, I’ve witnessed all kinds of common wildlife that move in pairs and herds through the countryside. I once stood face-to-face with a coyote, actually heard them howling at night on several occasions. In Macedonia State Park, we have also watched at least four-dozen wild turkeys in flight as they landed and scurried off to a safer distance. We routinely see turkeys crossing through our lawn. On walks or on my bike, I’ve inadvertently startled grouse, raccoons. I’ve seen snakes slither through the rocks of an old stonewall on our property. My son and I love to fish the Housatonic for largemouth, smallmouth, carp and crappie. A friend tells me that a black bear was recently spotted just near our home.

But these hawks, they render me utterly useless, a bewildered buffoon with neck craned, eyes turned skyward. Sometimes I stand there and watch my old friends. I think about their inexplicable level of efficiency, sharp precision and unswerving aim. These creatures drift several hundred feet above my head and actually glide like vultures as they turn into every updraft, identify and maximize every thermal current, always the disciplined opportunists. Unlike vultures, however, these birds of prey do not feed on the weak or defeated, the dead. They are predators; they take it upon themselves to do the killing.

They are so strong and capable of ascending, but they choose to weigh the risk-reward and multi-task on so many levels as they survey the acres and possibly miles below them, mentally tracking, measuring and documenting every opportunity for viable food source. But in this case, they demonstrate superiority without the need to express it or ever abuse the power. By their very actions, they acknowledge the responsibilities, and the liabilities inherent in success. They've reconciled the great temptations and pitfalls such as hubris that destroyed some of the world's most accomplished leaders.

They appear to me, at least, to have everything: They’re beautiful, lean and built for performance. They could not possibly weigh much more than 2-3 pounds and I weigh 185 — a ratio in size and scale of about 1 to 74 — so I’m 74 times larger. Yet, not even in the most battle-hardened, trained, fit days of my youth could I come close to capturing or endangering these birds, assuming I ever had that desire. If one of them extended me the kind grace of standing 6 feet away I could still never touch it, but of course it would never come so close. And intellectually, strategically and tactically, I’m purely defeated and outmatched. I could never fly, obviously, even as I watch this amazing bird circle and taunt me with his acumen and experience.

Is this a metaphor for competitive business, I wondered? Could some companies take a lesson from watching my two friends circling, drifting so effortlessly, so deceptively above me? Or can I extract some cue on how to successfully conduct my own personal and business affairs?

Their brand, if they had one, is a defining statement of excellence and undeclared leadership, quiet strength and skill. They do not announce their arrival; rather, they prefer to gain insight and information from their perches or their daily journeys of flight. And yet they earn respect so naturally as they majestically glide and fly above us. They do not hunt for sport, nor do they do require more than the standard fare or meal to sustain their own lives. Independence, self-sustainability, foresight and preparation are key themes that seem to guide the instincts of a hawk.

They appear to contemplate both the long and short term at once. They expend as little energy as possible to achieve the benefit they absolutely need. One has the sense they could accomplish far more, that they have the means and intelligence easily at their disposal, but these two hawks I watch somehow are content to acquire whatever climate, food, and natural gifts will deliver the sustenance they essentially require.

* * *

Driving earlier in the day, I had picked up the raw, whole milk that they sell at Stone Wall farm in Cornwall for a friend back in the city (www.ctfarmland.org). Just as he described it, there in the cold refrigerator I discovered cold, plastic jugs of rich, butter-colored, organic milk. I purchased five gallons, all done on an honor system which inspires me to no end. In this day and age, there’s still one farmer in Cornwall, Ct. that allows strangers to park, walk unattended into his beautiful, big barn, have open access to the milk through self-serve, tender the payment and even take their change from a box of cash through honor? Beautiful.

On the way back, I stop on impulse by a small, white roadside dwelling with a sign that says “Rock Shop.” There I meet Liane, a gentle, mature woman who is sitting in her chair enjoying the late afternoon sun. I inquire about her store and she invites me in but she’s in no hurry to follow. I was curious about the fossils they have and wanted to buy several for my son and his friends. I sorted through buckets and piles of beautiful fossils and stones, all alone in her store while she remained outside. I chose a few and approached her to pay. “$2,” Liane says. From there, I make a quick stop at the Bachelier Cardonsky art gallery in Kent which is showing an incredible exhibit through Memorial Day themed around birds, and then home to check for my friends again.

A few hours later I was on my way to Washington, Ct. for dinner. I’m usually with my family but this weekend I am alone, reflective and curious about a million things. I took the long, back way over some gravel roads down to Lake Waramaug and on to the George Washington Tavern. The drive was slow and it was nurturing for my spirit, exactly what I needed. Leaving the house, it was immediately apparent that the full moon was either just one night shy or past its crown, almost perfect and round as the sunlight waned and I stopped the car to admire two deer grazing. There are no cars to worry about where I park. I could lie down in the road for hours and not see one person or automobile, only field after field of tall grass and stonewalls.

And now it’s Sunday and the weather has turned, and I’m forced to confront that dreaded, unacceptable disappointment as I begin to pack a few things, contemplate that inevitable drive back to New York. I don’t see my predator friends today, but in the coming days and weeks I consider that it may not be a bad model to instill into my company or even to apply personally. I like the concept of ‘disciplined, stately strength.’

I want those values of winning just enough business to sustain our one office, even as I understand that attrition will invariably yield trying times. In those periods of tribulation, though, I want to be lean, acute and sharp enough to weather the storm. I want to survive and prepare for another day. I want to endure, not out of fear or weakness or insecurity but for the shear need to do so — and to do so with ethics, dignity, restraint, strength and skill.

Just like my two friends.

Knocking Down Hurdles, Pushing Through Change

2008-05-14T17:13:00.000-04:00

Exactly 15 months ago, our firm underwent the greatest test of its 14-year history. It’s a matter that is still being played out in New York State and Federal courts, so the less said, the better. But the main point, the incredible challenge we have faced, is undeniable. Our business model was confronted by attrition of creative staff and in many ways we had been led into what could only be assessed as the ultimate failure: A company’s demise.

At a time when I stood looking over that precipice at a significant financial, business disaster, I discovered the people I have around me now. They are the most skilled, noble and dedicated group I have ever had the honor of managing. It’s reaffirming to watch them at work, to see their closeness, their fresh, constructive energy and curious minds, the good will and spirit to perform.

It’s one of the great prides that I could have as a business owner, watching a young staff, most of whom met each other for the first time about a year ago, grow and thrive together. I have always aspired to hire the best of the best, the most talented, brightest minds I could find in the industry. In fact, from the beginning that was my aspiration: To create one of the best, boutique design firms in the world.

Our company is successful again and while we still have to face the remnants of that dark period in company history, I have no doubt that we are on a determined, smart track. We are headed for good things, positioned with a sound strategy and point-of-view that is fundamentally solid. We’ve shored up our capabilities in interactive design and development, which compliments our core skills and ability in brand identity design. Most importantly, the personalities in our firm are endearing, and the values are once again positive, kind, and genuine. And me, well, I’m focused on delivering the best results that I can possibly achieve. I'm developing professionally and expanding my knowledge into new areas of interactive design and execution. I'm forming some very clear, distinctive opinions about how we can best serve our clients, a point of view about communications design that I think will yield more effective results.

From the ashes rose strength and a desire to prevail, to grow; from the brink of failure rose a new spirit. I personally want to thank all those clients who stood in the fire, who expressed patience, trust and confidence. Today, we are launching a new website that is a testimony to the fortitude and creative ability of this team, one that represents new outlooks and fresh relationships, business and opportunity. It is also a perfect description of how we work, what we believe, what we hope to deliver in each and every engagement. It is a proud example of our pursuit of excellence and a defining moment in the history of this company.

Visit the new site at www.iridiumgroup.com. Clear your mind and turn up your speakers. For those of you meeting us for the first time, or for old friends. . .

Welcome to the new IridiumGroup.

Understanding Niche Reader Communities

2008-05-05T11:41:00.000-04:00

Magazines targeted to vertical markets, geographical areas, or “reader communities” are not much different than hosting a successful party. An astute friend once observed that the most successful parties are the ones where the guests are perhaps a bit more constrained or crowded together than they would normally prefer. The last thing that anyone wants is a social event where the guests are spread across a broad swath of space, with little feeling of connection to one another. Something about the proximity of the hosts and their guests force interactivity, creates a positive energy, and contributes to a feeling of community among those attending.

Vertical market publications, such as niche consumer, regional, or special interest magazines depend on the same feeling of community and cohesion, and they are exactly the same as a physical party. The tighter the space (focus), the greater the subsequent feeling of comradeship (community), the more successful the media property will ultimately become. A community of readers who feel very little connection to place or to the subject will not lend itself to a successful market or media property. There is little affinity, or feeling of connection, among its members. Likewise, prospective readers who are loosely knit together across a broad geographical area that has no cohesion or overt, personal recognition of their association will not yield very successful results. Great music and food also support any social event of course, and we can view those components as the content and design in this analogy.

This may all appear obvious, but it’s often the first area where any magazine tends to lose focus. There is a natural inclination by the creative team to take ownership of the publication and to allow the process to become an act of creative self-expression, or even to allow personal tastes to drive the publication, a practice that can sometimes border dangerously on individual indulgence. The idea of catering to your customer (reader) is an ethereal, often immeasurable idea. So in place of any immediate feedback from the audience, it’s instinctive to substitute the unilateral ideas of the editorial or design team. As many businesses have learned time and again, no company ever went wrong by listening to the customer and applying the feedback in an intelligent, practical manner.

Another common oversight of the core community or market is generally driven by business strategy. Communicators and publishers have often over-reached for a universe of readers in the market place in an attempt to build readership beyond what the natural market will yield. Start-up publications, in their business plan, have often erroneously assumed a sense of identity or connection where none exists. A simple feasibility study can often avoid these erroneous perceptions.

The most important thought to remember is the concept that readers are connecting — associating, identifying, even empathizing — with the core identity of the publications they read. It may be the editorial content, the voice or tone of its prose, or the graphic ambiance of the publication. It may be the idea or the basic premise itself, or the particular presentation of content and pacing of its editorial. But one way or another, all successful vertical market publications enjoy this sense of community, the benefits of like-mindedness among member/readers.

And the sense of community is what binds the business model and ultimately achieves and sustains a successful publication. It’s a simple idea, but one of the most important concepts for the development team creating or supporting any media product.

Friendships, Commitment and Continuing Education

2008-04-27T16:34:00.000-04:00

Blacksburg, Va. — I’m on the road this week to participate in an annual event that, with a few rare exceptions, I’ve been involved with for the last 9-10 years. It’s the Annual Portfolio Review for graduating seniors at Virginia Tech, a forum where a Review Board of Alumni who have achieved success in a creative profession are given the opportunity to judge the portfolios of the graduating seniors in SoVA, the School of Visual Arts. Over the years, annually we have spent one day in an intense work session to grade the work and one day to share our professional experiences, and often to interview and recruit any prospects we believe can work successfully in our own companies.

Since my graduation in 1984, the University and The Department of Art & Art History have changed a great deal. I’ve stayed in touch with my former Professor, Robert Fields, as well as many of the rest of the Visual Communications educators and Department Head, Truman Capone.

I first met Bob Fields in 1980 after transferring from East Tennessee State University. He almost immediately began encouraging me to enter into a CO-OP internship at a small, corporate design boutique in Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C. I did so, and was the first art student at Virginia Tech to ever participate in the CO-OP. At the time, I was a 19 year-old student focused on graphic communications in a program that was predominantly planned around studio arts like painting, drawing and sculpture. The internship proved to be invaluable as I learned basic design techniques and professional practice standards, providing many insights and tactical advantages to me personally that I would apply in later years. Bob’s advice was on target, the first of many times I would see his imprint on my life.

Over the years, those early mentors like Ray Kass and Bob Fields continued to encourage and advise me on many decisions, including the commitment to leave my hometown and travel to New York in 1984. Bob urged me to make the move and has faithfully stayed in touch with me, just as he was in contact with other students that demonstrated a passion to design excellence. It continues to impress me that he and his former students that comprise over 30 years of his educational commitment at Virginia Tech have continued to remain so close.

There were many occasions when my former professors and I were in touch, but it was always Bob that made contact 2-4 times each year to check in with my progress, counsel me on any professional matters and offer a word of support. He watched misguided ventures and witnessed my struggles to integrate into New York City socially and professionally. Later, he kept in touch as I married and had children. In 1995 when I began my company, it was Bob who traveled to New York with his own family on vacation to meet with me in my first office, a 500 square foot box with one window that looked out onto a dark airshaft.

It’s been the ideal of mutual support and friendship. We have remained loyal and worked to help each other in good times and in bad, and as a result we have collectively created, and simultaneously also enjoyed the sense of comradeship and community.

Each year as I travel back to Virginia Tech, I think about how many of those Professors molded my early experiences and helped to define who I am now. Many of the professors who taught me are still at the University — untiring, untarnished and committed to teaching and empowering a new, young crop of students each year. In 20 years, I’ve seen the Visual Communications Department evolve from a sub-rated program to a national force among all academic art institutions.

Bob asked me to participate for the first time on the Board for the Senior Portfolio Review around 1999-2000. I’ve grudgingly complied over the years as I gave up valuable work time and spent grueling hours trapped inside a small art department facility grading work into the unthinkable hours of the night. I gained insights, saw contemporary design and upon completing each session, I was always wiser and happier for having done it. Since then, I’ve hired several former Virginia Tech graduates, who were always a proud asset at our firm. Two of the former graduates who worked in our company are employed presently at American Express and Credit Suisse, and at least four others are spread across firms from Washington, D.C. to Virginia to New York.

Without a doubt, the Graphic Communications program at Virginia Tech has flourished mostly because of the dedication of two men, Bob Fields and Truman Capone, and the woman who leads VDS4, Meg Nugent. Yet, I am very proud of my association with the University and I’d like to think that I have at least played a small role through my annual contribution to their vision and mission, as well through the opportunities I have provided to those graduating seniors.

Over 28 years, Bob and I have developed a friendship that is rare even for the most dedicated mentor and student. This week, as we all perused the students' raw creative thinking and student-level inspirations, we pointed out interesting or amusing pitches and once again assessed portfolios into the evening hours. As I listened to him recount stories and share updates on dozens of former alumni, I couldn’t help but admire his commitment to his former students, even beyond the graduation and that dreaded, initial recruiting process. He was as proud of their achievements as a parent who continued to watch the benefits of his investment from afar.

* * *

Last year, after the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech, Bob called me and we spoke about the new crop of students emerging in the 2007 class. He wisely suggested that I consider hiring a young woman that he believed would be an excellent fit for Iridium, both in terms of design skill and work culture. For the fifth or sixth time, I took his advice and again, I don’t regret one thing about the decision. Anne Foley, like so many before her, has delivered excellence, professionalism and commitment and worked diligently to learn in her position in the first year. It’s been hugely successful. By all accounts, she’s genuinely happy and growing in her job.

At times in fact, the entry-level designers have also taught me something about interactive development or fresh, emerging communications design. And Bob, well, 28 years later I just keep learning from him. I keep benefiting from his continuing, personal commitment to yet another alumnus who had similar, ambitious aspirations and dreams, Class of ’84.

Paper, Endless Paper

2008-04-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

We’re such an interesting culture. We contribute to the cause of sustainability through our investment of time in recycling, through trying to be more frugal in our own personal consumption, or even financially, through donations to good causes that support social responsibility. If media time and attention is any indication of our interest in preserving the health of the planet, we’re all focused like a laser beam on managing this situation effectively.

At Iridium, we work to take this into account with each client who is considering a print initiative. We’ve sought to work with clients to package the content more efficiently and use fewer pages. We’ve always reached out to find the materials that were socially responsible and to guide clients toward web-based communications whenever that was more appropriate, more effective.

And yet, I watch such bold, sweeping, wasteful applications among our own profession, and an incomprehensible failure at a federal and organizational level to define the issues, coordinate efforts, regulate and legislate our practices.

We recently had a client point manager call to inquire about the definition of “green” and what standards or organizations are governing all of these concerns. The questions were reasonable and valid. There was an interest at a top level of the organization in being more responsible, and this client manager wanted to know what percentage of post-consumer waste in recycled content was necessary in order to publish the recycled icon on their literature. Ten percent? Twenty? Thirty percent or more? What Federal requirements or guidelines are necessary, if there are any, in order to be declared a “green company?” This particular client expressed frustration over the lack of any clear standards or rules that could govern their own corporate, global marketing practices.

I've spent some time researching it myself and I’m equally baffled and befuddled. Printers and paper mills have rapidly increased their insights and knowledge about sustainable manufacturing, but all printers also have an inherent conflict of interest in the discussion. The very livelihood and future viability of their industry rests on the future of the sustainability issue and as a result, the answer to any particular question often depends on who you ask. Paper is an incredibly large financial percentage of the printing business model. Along with labor and capital expenditure on new equipment, it’s one of the big investments — and financial opportunities — that any printer has in their war chest.

Being such a large commodity, deals between printers and the paper companies can be immense, formidable negotiations, agreements that rarely see full, public disclosure, at least in my own personal experience. To compound matters, my client also had the complex, confusing matter of trying to first determine what paper to use, and then procure that particular paper stock in various countries around the world where it was unavailable, available, or completely unknown. So much for building a global brand through clear corporate standards and usage guidelines.

That stated, I’m also watching tremendous progress by some printers that are truly committed to the cause of sustainability. Our representative at RR Donnelley Andrews has offered support in the way of thought leader insights and professional development for our team, as has large paper mills like Mohawk Paper. Mohawk is the first large mill in the U.S. to use wind power and now can boast that their process is carbon neutral and uses a process based 100% on wind power. Another printer, AstoriaGraphics (astoriagraphics.com) recently hosted an FSC seminar for our staff on the whole topic of sustainable printing.

There are a few designations that provide some insight into the world of sustainable printing. These are all third party organizations with their own certification standards which is a positive thing, but the only problem is that these organizations appear to be functioning more or less completely unilaterally and independent of each other.

The Forest Stewardship Council (fsc.org) appears to be the leader in the discussion, at least in the U.S. and many printers seek their endorsement. There’s a highly desired triple-certification that many printers achieve through the SFI - Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the PEFC - Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, and FSC. The PEFC is predominantly focused on the process for European countries and mills.

Having watched all this, I also see that my apartment is filled with annual reports these days. It’s the traditional season, or the time when all companies filing on a traditional year-end have published their annual reports and mailed them. At a time when we are so focused on energy-efficient consumption, when we read daily and think so much about the green movement and want so badly to do the right thing for the environment for the sake of our posterity, haven’t we also learned that printing less of a disposable product is a good thing?

For years now, we have been encouraging our clients to send post-cards to pre-qualify any customer or constituent to “opt-in” to receive their annual report. In my own home I’ve received 2 copies, sometimes 3 copies of the same report for about 2 dozen annuals. Does anyone even do a merge-purge with their lists anymore? New York Life actually sent two different annual reports, one being hundreds of pages, about 2 inches thick in fact. I’m also an advocate of making print products of exceptional quality, the type of brand expression that will be retained by each end-user for a long time.

The thing about these annual reports is that I don’t even read them. I’m not all that interested and I’m pretty sure that a large percentage of stockholders do not read the financials. I leave my investment decisions up to my financial manager. I really just don’t have the time, expertise or the energy to persuse those annual reports that are delivered to my home. The reports are mailed without discretion or discernment.

My point is, all companies will benefit financially if they just use more restraint and challenge each and every communication to be absolutely certain that a printed product is the best tool and channel for the audience and desired result. It also makes sense to question the print quantity for every initiative.

Obviously, companies must abide by S.E.C. guidelines for disclosure, but can't that also be accomplished by posting the necessary content online? In the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, that there is tremendous scrutiny of all corporate finance and governance. There should be this scrutiny, but isn’t there a more appropriate place to project that content? Can’t companies create separate, suitable, environmentally responsible tools and channels for recruiting or sharing information with the media outlets? In the era of broadcast media, animation and “original content” video may even be more successful in expressing the values, mission and vision of any organization.

In a sense, I suppose I’m nipping at the hand that feeds me, but I believe in being honest and delivering as much value as possible for the sake of my clients and managers, my own staff and in this case, my own children. I also believe in the power of shared, open discussion. Ironically, I don't think an emphasis on sustainability hurts our clients at all. To the contrary, I believe that embracing sustainability at a true level helps them. Just by analyzing their audiences, messages and the desired, end-result of every communications initiative, we can save them a great deal financially and make their communications far more effective.

I realize that there will always be a corporate message and need for communication and ultimately, the need for successful business through intelligent marketing. It clearly does not benefit our company to talk our clients out of print products, but it does make sense to advise all clients and marketers to print fewer reports, to make their annuals smaller and better, and to define and target the most effective audiences with caution, or even to pre-qualify all recipients before mailing.

The Growing Power in Word-of-Mouth

2008-04-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

Not many people I meet are aware of this, but there’s a relatively new organization called the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, or WOMMA (womma.org). For the past few years, we as marketers and communicators have been saturated with terms like buzz marketing, viral, guerrilla tactics, influencers, etc. From the articles I’ve read and from attending the AMA nonprofit marketing conference in Washington, D.C. the past few years, word-of-mouth is clearly a hot button. Ed Keller, CEO of The Keller Fay Group (www.kellerfay.com) is a frequent speaker and consultant on the topic, has written a book called "The Influentials" and President of WOMMA. The marketing association was formed 3 years ago and has grown substantially.

We have splintered our traditional media, marketing networks and channels so thoroughly, and through obvious advances in technology, we have opened the doors to mass self-expression, micro-publishing and personal branding. As a result, most of our society understands the basic concepts behind a brand image. In certain instances, viral entrepreneurs have become very sophisticated in using the Internet to build their image and business.

Subsequently, in the new climate of global, real-time messaging, no one seems to be able to sort through any of the clutter. The ability to place trust or confidence in any one branded message, in essence, has disintegrated. As a result, consumers began requiring word-of-mouth validations to ensure that a product, service, or nonprofit organization was honorable and met its own brand promise. It’s as if the only way to get above the relentless, untrustworthy din of broadcast messages and advertising is to seek out trusted, designated, expert sources for personal validation.

In fact, the Womma organization is committed to protecting consumers’ rights and to a profession based on ethical standards. And it’s a worldwide trend. The site shares metrics on online social networking in South Korea, the U.S. and worldwide Internet usage.

What can we expect in 2008 and beyond? If a direct correlation does exist between word-of-mouth marketing and an increase in the channels or methods for communication, it would appear to be safe to assume that word-of-mouth is poised for significant growth. There’s also a lesson to take for any nonprofit or corporation that is concerned with drowning amid the increased drone of messages and fractured media.

For these organizations that risk losing market share due to potential for a loss of trust, or even a sense of ambiguity among consumers, building equity organically with the community of Influentials would seem increasingly important.

Small Promises: Leadership and the REAL Corporate Social Responsibility

2008-04-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

We hear a lot these days about corporate social responsibility, but equal to the need to diversify, join the fight to improve sustainability and reduce global warming, contribute to assist the impoverished, war-torn, economically or political strife-burdened countries of the world, don’t corporate leaders also have the responsibility to keep people of the U.S. employed?

In recent days and weeks we have all read about the near collapse of the financial markets, requiring billions of dollars in Federal bailout. There’s the deepening credit crisis, subprime mortgage fallout and continued loss of value in real estate across the country, a continuing surge in oil prices, inflation and spike in unemployment to 5.1 percent in March, as reported in The New York Times. Nothing in the news is very uplifting.

As firms like Bear Stearns have faltered, stories have emerged of the Chairman of the Board and former CEO James Cayne off playing bridge while a preeminent, 85 year old investment bank fell to its demise. Mr. Cayne reportedly sold 5.33 million shares after it had fallen to $10.84, valuing his resulting equity at just more than $61 million. While it is to be noted that he lost an unthinkable amount of value in the course of just one year (his shares were valued at $1 billion U.S. in 2007), he certainly did not choose to sink with the ship. Nor did he or his peers appear to lead it very well.

To compound and confuse the matter further, the S.E.C. continues to state that it had watched the situation at Bear Stearns closely and still believes that the bank was adequately capitalized to cover its liabilities. I’m sorry, excuse me?

Today’s Times carried a section on pay increases for CEO's and other executives at the largest 200 companies, those with revenues of more than $6.5 billion. As markets have stumbled and everyone including the Federal Reserve begins to conclude the painfully obvious — that the country is in the midst of a deepening recession — CEO salaries have increased by 5 percent over the last two years to an average, total compensation of $11.7 million annually.

All this as shareholders continue to watch their investments perform poorly or adequately at best, and as U.S. taxpayers inherit the burden of massive Federal subsistence for companies that have lacked vision, or not remained relevant and vital. Being witness to this all, I can’t help but begin to question the motives and character of leading business executives in the U.S. I can't help but doubt the trust, authenticity and accountability of our collective, national values. And I can't help but worry about our future for the sake of my own children.

Still fresh in our minds are the debacles at Enron, Tyco, Worldcom and a few dozen other corporate scandals. As I watch how this has all trickled down to the U.S. labor force, it becomes clear that the great challenge we face is not the millions of shares with value lost, nor the price of oil, utilities, or even the recession or tax relief. The gravest concern is the faith we have lost in our leaders.

* * *

I’ve always considered myself a good risk manager, leading my company with a risk-adverse, conservative approach. Mind you all, it hasn’t always been perfect and I’ve struggled at times with my own personal issues. But I've tried to see the future. I’ve also made tremendous sacrifices that I did not disclose, even as I committed to retaining staff that were not critical or even necessary. I’ve worked to show patience and restraint in times of strife. As I have matured and learned from my own life lessons, I’ve aimed to embrace the positive at times when there appeared to be very little to celebrate. I carried all the debt, the risks and the wear of many sleepless nights with as much grace as I could manage.

Especially last year when we encountered a large transition at our firm, I tried to show exceptional leadership and remain a source of encouragement and inspiration, turning the conversation to “we can” when members of any client team or my staff appeared dismayed or skeptical.

It hasn’t been easy and I have more work to do. There are times when my own well of personal strength and capacity for kindness runs dry and being human, I need a strong word of support, a spark of inspiration or reaffirming hand on my shoulder. As leaders we are expected to deliver the light, but where do we turn to find the fire, the mentoring, optimism and infinite source of wisdom to keep sharing? Aren’t we to be allowed to drink from the fountain also? And if so, where might that happen? Where do WE turn to refuel? The head of the Department of Art at a large University once confided to me, “Being a leader is not easy. Year after year, we lead others to the water. They set sail for a better place and we remain on shore.” Being a leader means serving others and putting everyone else first, working to elevate their ability to perform.

The great irony is that running a small company sometimes requires the instincts of an animal hunted in the wild. Business can look at times as impossible and dark as the scariest storm ever seen. There was a mantra that a business coach and friend once instilled in me when things were at their bleakest: Stay principled. Life goes on. Business will continue on some level. People will remember how you comported yourself in those times of crisis. Were you level headed and did you take responsibility for the health of your company? Did you remain positive and principled? Did you take the high road and work to deliver for others? Did you stay true to all of those small promises that together, lead to success?

It’s in the principles, the willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of other members of the team, the desire to see others perform well, to set a winning stage for my employees, to teach and ultimately to be willing to lose a great deal more myself than anyone I recruit. It’s in the ability to remain focused and tenacious, to stand in the fire when it doesn’t work. It’s in the keen awareness required to look down the road, to know that the team will always be placed in a position to perform well, in keeping an eye on the future, on market viability, relevance and business systems over the long term.

It’s in the responsibility necessary to ensure all clients that we can and we will deliver, we will meet and even exceed expectations on all current projects. It’s also the accountability to every person on my staff for the ability to win new business every day. It’s in my personal resolve and guarantee to the bank and all vendors that my word is my word: I’m to be trusted and I value that deep conviction and confidence by others more than anything, even more than a remarkable year of growth or enviable profit line. All that, for the sake of sustainability.

As a result, 14 years later, we’re still around. Sometimes we survived, other times we prospered. Like people, all companies get wiser with age, Bear Stearns being a recent exception. If businesses make it through that first year, those lessons are wisely applied later. Large companies that have been around for decades generally share that same prudence in judgment. They can see recessions coming years in advance and have already diversified, developed the proper operating businesses and systems out of need for preparation, for the benefit of preservation. Old souls run in mature people, but as it turns out they run in mature companies as well.

For business leaders of any company, any industry, any size, I think there’s a code or a system of values that gets little attention these days, especially in this social and business climate that is driven to perform at all costs. It’s as if we’ve lost sight of the ingredients, the building blocks of a larger, more holistic success. Ironically, we’re so fixed on the abstract, end-result that we gave up our simple commitment to the details and process required to achieve it. The big score came to matter so much that the whole thing fell down in the course of the journey and the making. And our top officers at companies like Bear Stearns clearly aren't setting very good examples or inspiring anyone.

At a grass roots level, maybe we can build it all back. Maybe we can rediscover leadership and honor for the sake of building business, with that goal being kept in mind for the sake of a greater purpose: Building community. It’s all about the higher ideal of business and it seems completely illogical, but it works. It’s people serving one another. Extending kindness and expecting nothing in return, reciprocating when you've been treated well, committing to hard work to support your coworkers. . . all those old-fashioned ideals. Win on that level, and you get to own the game.

My father once told me that I shouldn’t get too caught up in the big picture. “If you take care of the little things every day,” he said, “the big things will take care of themselves.” If only corporate leaders in many of our Fortune 500 companies thought and felt the same way.

Online and Offline: Information vs. Experience

2008-04-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

I had a conversation years ago with a celebrated New York city editor. I recall suggesting that a good magazine is a very intimate experience for any reader, not generally consumed or read in a public setting, but rather savored alone. It was, I postulated, like “a favorite bar or restaurant,” that place where you always felt comfort, the one that made you feel like you'd just come home. To that, he agreed, then responded, "And the internet is more like an airport bar.”

It was an astute and important, if not fleeting, informal exchange. Commerical media is a terrific metric or gauge to understand consumer behavior, and those lessons can be used applied to corporate media and marketing.

Magazine editors have come to terms with the impending shakeout of readers and attrition of attention by their customers to online media properties. Their print publication is no longer the flagship product that has a related, online extension representing the core brand. Rather, in many cases the online property is the foundation or touchstone and the print product is the line extension, usually just one of many in a suite of integrated tools to build and sustain each media brand. There are more channels and opportunities to reach customers.

Obviously, interactive media is less costly, more immediate for the customer, more quickly updated, and infinitely more measurable. And, as each generation of consumers passes through the evolutionary pipeline of change, new users are more comfortable with a media diet that consists predominately of online content. Google is experimenting with video advertising even as I type. The frantic pace of this evolution is not even close to slowing down. It’s a brave new world.

The same dynamic has affected corporate communications to a lesser degree. Annual reports have continued to scale back the print product over the past 8-10 years as costs for printing and mailing have increased, a change that required a reassessment of plans over how to distribute the messages. Increasingly, corporate annual report content has migrated to the internet. In some cases, corporate officers charged with public image, be it recruiting or media relations, are struggling to find a landmark print tool to project their messages.

Your Brand as Idea, Picture, Paper and Ink
At my office, many clients ask us about our experiences in this dilemma. We’ve been encouraging all communicators to focus on making things in print that are designed to create an intimate, more enduring relationship with the customer. To that end, it seems to me that print products can be even more lavishly produced and at the same time, combat the eco-challenges we all face. Embracing sustainability is important from a marketing and societal viewpoint. Why not make something that will be retained longer, read and reviewed time and again by the end user as perhaps even a collectible print item?

Concentrate on delivering a unique, memorable experience and also, consider omitting all references to date to ensure a longer shelf life. Disposable, daily and weekly print media has become more dispensable and forgettable than ever. The idea of mass-market direct response, or mailers to drive traffic online has it’s place, but appears increasingly obsolete.

The commercial evolution seems increasingly clear and consistent with what one would suspect. The news organizations that have adapted and migrated most rapidly to the web have been successful because this type of content benefits most from the transient nature and immediacy of the internet platform. Brands like The Huffington Post are emerging as internet newspapers, along with planned city and regional editions, according to a March 31 New York Times article.

Conversely, enthusiast publications have endured the transition and fared better with their traditional print products of because of their unique, vertically-positioned content. Until the 1980s, the traditional rule of direct-response marketing was based on offering a unique or novel product to the customer. The channel remains viable, in other words, if the customer can find the product in few other places.

What seems clear is exactly what one would predict: The publications that cater to a reader experience are able to capitalize on the print channel and use that to their advantage. Shelter, fashion, art and high-end "anything" seem to be positioned the best among all print-publication categories.

News magazines, on the other hand, founded on cutting edge journalism and topical subjects, have struggled significant losses and have been forced to reconsider their editorial mission in print. The same is true of any content-driven magazine. Rightly so, those media properties have shifted editorial focus away from news over the past few years, and increasingly rely on ‘softer’ editorial subjects, social change, and analysis.

Engage and Inspire, Then Inform
Studies have demonstrated that consumer usage online is surprisingly focused. People are using the internet to locate information that they are specifically seeking. The idea of ‘surfing’ is actually an erroneous concept. Print publications are where they turn for a more intimate, emotional experience. The direct payoff is online.

We are advising our clients to think this way, to apply the natural benefits inherent in each forum when they are developing those tools, even in the corporate enviroment. When considering what content is channeled to print or posted electronically, the driver of the decision is, "What would my customer/reader/user want?" I see tremendous opportunities to build print products — be it an annual report, professional journal or magazine — around inspiration, emotion, the expression of the quintessential brand experience.

Simply stated, use print to engage your customer or constituent. Capture their imaginations and inspire them with the appropriate key message and call-to-action. Be economical with content. Work to be cost effective and use the the interactive forum to everyone's advantage to deliver information, create reader participation, or gain insights and information about your customer. Aim to create easy, interesting, fun ways to integrate both channels.

The reader process presents a surprisingly easy, simple opportunity. We as consumers need a reason to believe before we act on anything. In the printed communication, there's a more viable environment to express, entertain and inspire than anywhere else. Images online, even broadcast video, simply cannot match this user experience.

Experience comes first, and we all need to take advantage of the power of print with that narrow goal in mind. Once that is achieved, the reader will act in order to find more information, which should be presented with great ease of accessibility online.

Prima Donnas, Designer Divas and Impossible, Imperfect Human Relationships

2008-03-28T21:42:00.000-04:00

Running an agency takes vitality, and sufficient resilience to pick oneself up after defeats. — David Ogilvy, 1963

For several months, I’ve been reading and rereading David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man. I say this because the book is largely a compendium of his vast experiences with people in the business, both client and employee side. It’s not the kind of book that you curl up with so much as one you keep bedside and reference time and again as a reaffirmation of what you may already know, or think about the business. For clients or agency-side personnel, as people and creative business go, it’s the bible.

One thing that has always frustrated me about this profession is the imperfect, impossible nature of managing it. It's the confluence of art meeting commerce. We work in the business of communications design and by necessity it is based on subjective opinions and human relationships. As much as we all talk about measuring, researching, understanding and delivering to the customer, there’s also the other side of the business. We work in an industry that is led by the ethereal, artistic interpretations of designers and sometimes by the personal observations of client point managers, or a dozen other variables.

The process is challenged at its core by the nature of the personal expression required to deliver a product. All agency designers generate a safe, economically viable form of art. Most of us fell in love with art at an early age. Of course, clients are also involved, expressing their creative opinions for the sake of guiding the work. However, at times those comments appear based more on personal experience than any customer- or market-focused, strategic plan. How does one reconcile the conflict between quantifiable, qualify-able results that win in the marketplace and the intuition, the mysteries of creative inspiration? How do we sort and sift through the subjective, personal views so often rendered in feedback? It’s a flawed, distinctly human process, fraught with desires and emotions, all a sticky wicket that requires expert skills in navigation and so often, negotiation.

How many times have we all been in meetings and heard a comment on a design that appeared to have little relevance to the target audience and seemed strictly personal? “Can you change that font?” Or, “It just doesn’t work for me,” or “That color seems too bright.” These types of comments are helpful at times and in their own organic way, can inform designers’ choices and define the visual brand of the client. Still, I’ve always thought that any creative comment should be required to map back logically to the original goal or desired result. Something like, “I don’t like that image because I don’t think our customers will be engaged by it.” Any client comment about their work culture and values is also valid, such as, “This doesn’t feel right to me. It doesn’t feel like our organization.”

Sometimes, the design can be determined through the strangest of channels. If the CEO’s wife decides that the annual report cover should be green, it receives the obvious, necessary consideration. That’s the inherent conflict of interest in this profession. All clients want to hire the best agency they can find, and will pay within their budget to achieve the best results — until those opinions of the agency conflict with their own opinions or those of their supervisor. It's just unavoidable, human nature.

These days, I'm very proud to have the association we have with our clients at Iridium. Like any creative team, we've stumbled into client engagements that were a poor fit, learning that only after a great deal of time and hard work was invested. Today, we have distilled our relationships down to a select few clients that are smart, respectful, driven to perform and set a winning stage for our creative staff.

The reality is that most experienced design firm owners are entering the pitch meeting with the same trepidation of any client in the review process. What are the values of this organization? Are they educated and experienced with outside creative partners? Am I stepping into a politically charged atmosphere? Can I perform well here? We all want to win; we're just hoping that we've found the right environment, the right fit.

On the agency side, the inspiration for final product may have come from a source completely outside of the client kick-off and discovery. The design process is stereotyped as a mysterious, intuitive expression to all those who witness it. Every design or agency principal works to build around the idea of strategically solving a client’s communications needs but truthfully, many designers have trouble rationalizing or explaining the art they make or the designs they create.

All too often, the agency ‘backs into’ the rationale to align the formal presentation with their client’s needs after they agree as a team that they just instinctively appreciate the creative solution that was developed. The benchmarking process that is intended to prevent confusion and validate the agency recommendations, the back-end research, is sometimes a waste of the client’s money. Qualitative results are just too easy to interpret subjectively. I have even seen client and agency side teams conspire to ensure that the research more or less validated the creative work that had already been developed, thus ensuring that everyone’s decisions were well-founded in the event of a real life, commercial fiasco at roll-out.

To compound and confuse the issue even further, we are often all collectively aiming for a moving target. How many times has the market been in the midst of a sea change or shift, when our company was called in to assist the client’s image and marketing concerns? Whether it's a shift in senior management, transitioning service lines of business, or adapting the whole business model to remain relevant and avoid obsolescence, the brand image is affected.

In 1994, we were subcontracted to assist with a creative analysis of communications for a company in Columbus, Ohio by the name of CompuServe. A technology leader that was owned by H&R Block, the company had dominated the market of personal Internet access in the 1980’s, but was being overtaken by AOL. Even as we entered the situation and committed ourselves to the assignment, senior executives were being dismissed at an alarming rate. The end was in sight, and we had been hired as one component of a last ditch, desperation effort to turn things around. In that case, fear played a role in the agency hire, in the decision of key stakeholders, and in the final result.

As for internal staff, creative employees can be an asset as well as part of the management conundrum. Managing a creative team in any professional environment is riddled with tricky challenges and on the worst days, it can feel like herding cats. While Iridium has a conservative culture and has never tolerated maverick rebels, I’ve had my share of prima donnas and designer divas inadvertently hired to be on my staff. They enjoyed the image of rebellion, yet gravitated uniformly to be the contrarians on any subject. Those professionals needed constant reward and like spoiled children, if they were not reinforced consistently with adoring admiration for their work, they rejected all genuine, decent efforts to be managed.

Simply put, there are those creative professionals that do not understand the concept of organized business. They view the overall value of the company almost exclusively in terms of their own design talent. IridiumGroup presently has a complete staff for which I have immense pride. It’s an exclusive culture and only a select few can earn the trust, professionalism and skill level to work in our firm.

A healthy creative ego is important, but in some designers it can become a liability. The potential damage from such an extreme personality can be infectious and is not to be underestimated. I’ve been witness to the dark renegade, the brooding artist-designer in my 23 years as a manager. Our company values or cultural ‘antibodies’ has rejected those toxic, subversive personalities generally, usually organically over time.

Those rare, myopic, misguided designers represent only the most cynical, anti-administration, anti-business viewpoints. They live in an underground of arrogance and egocentricities that are difficult to integrate into the larger team. They dismiss the importance of successful business development, client relationship- and account-management, or the finance, operations, facilities and HR functions of the firm. All this contempt for the larger picture, even as they would react with outrage in the event that a personal pension contribution was not made, an insurance premium not covered, a payroll not met.

To their mind, the process and business model is chiefly about the quality of the design and art they create. New business that is won, documents composed and executed, systems built, payments made, and support to the creative team are required duties and structure; they just don’t attribute a great deal of credit to anyone who delivers those functions. The important thing is that they are afforded the time to indulge in their greatest love, art. And that they are able to bask in appreciation of their natural, inevitable creative ability. Gaining scale in organization is not allowed; business and balance come second.

* * *

Being the imperfect professional service that it is, it’s always about a good fit among an assembly of incredibly disparate people. It’s the fit between the client and agency and a certain, ‘like-mindedness’ and similar values between the agency owner and creative staff. All this is accomplished with the single focus of meeting what pleases the customer.

At times I have tried to boil this whole process down to a few fundamental principles. I have seen myself as the facilitator or conduit, a kind of translator between creative minds and client organization. I'm an idealist, and living at the fulcrum is not easy. I know that designers are far more effective when I am able to align them with a client that captures their passion and taps into some private empathy they may possess. When they have little interest or faith in the client or their product, they do not perform as well.

On the other hand, my chief responsibilities are to the client, to serve as a steward of their brand, to gain consensus among all point managers and ensure satisfaction across all constituent audiences, and hopefully, to deliver some new insights and value in the process.

It’s an impossible challenge, this business of subjective opinions and creative, imperfect process. It can be an aggravating collision of ideas but when we manage to get it right, it’s also a rewarding job and one I perform, usually thanklessly, with great pride.

The Pursuit of Happiness

2008-03-25T11:21:00.000-04:00

If people make the brand— that is, if all organizational brands are indeed the result or representation of the parts that comprise it, then perhaps countries are the same. Perhaps our national identity is defined by the zeitgeist, or spirit of our times, and of our people.

It seems to me that the U.S. is poised at a particularly distressful time in its evolutionary continuum. Granted, I live and work in a cold, cantankerous city. New York has never been known for the charm and gentle, pleasant panache of its inhabitants. Still, I have lived in New York for 23 years and I’ve noted that we are a society of exceedingly unpleasant, unhappy people.

The abundance of discord has always been a U.S.-centric trait, to be sure. We're never happy. But the small things— a smile, an expression of gratitude or a holding of the door, the gentle qualities and manners that breed happiness in others is simply missing.

In fact, we’re all full of so much hostility as a culture, so much aggression and “finger-pointing,” it’s bordering on a state of a spiritual or behavioral national crisis. Many people in America today seem to have the sense that they’ve been wronged, that they deserve more, that in some way they were cheated. Simply put, we’re a demanding, practical sort. If any of the people I’ve encountered lately are to be considered ambassadors of our nation, it’s no wonder the national brand of the U.S. has fared so poorly in so many other countries.

It’s Spring Break, and I’ve driven my family to Montreal first, and onto Mont Tremblant, a quaint, Alpine-like village just 2 hours north of Montreal. The Canadians are by contrast, a country full of warm, pleasant, soulful people. They extend the graces that ladies and gentlemen traditionally offer. They are refreshingly, genuinely happy. They wish us a good morning, a pleasant afternoon, and thank us in their same French colloquialisms that translate to our own superficial, albeit important everyday manner of speech. Even more, they engage us and are personally interested in what we think of their country.

If one thinks it’s simply the luxuries afforded to us in a resort, I can share the tales of our trip last summer. We drove through New England and into Quebec City, stayed for days and traveled down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal, and later to Mont Tremblant, where we met and engaged the loveliest of Canadian citizens from every walk of life. Every small town, every large city was impeccably clean. The sense of community, the concern for others, the values of the people— all just seemed, well, better than anything I’ve seen in the U.S., frankly.

The important things to Canadians appear to be good friends, family, health — good wine and equally good food. Like the native Italians I met when I have traveled abroad, it’s as simple as that. The appreciation for food alone suggests the maturity of one’s soul, the wisdom of a well-lived, well-traveled life.

It may not be enough in American society, which is unrelentingly fixed on political viewpoints, the economy, personal earning potential and all things that miss the point. But maybe there really is nothing more to truly seek and discover in life. Maybe the pursuit of happiness is no further away than a clear day of sunshine, a decent glass of Chianti, and properly cooked pasta and sauce, along with friends and family that we love. Maybe the secret to being happy is no more fleeting than actually starting out that way each day and extending good will to everyone we meet. Maybe one smile breeds another smile, and so on.

If not always tropical in climate, true beauty is to be found just a few hours north of New York. It’s a country comprised of people who are authentic, hospitable, kind, considerate and thoughtful. And no one seems overtly obsessed with scandals or rehabs, or celebrity gossip, or power, or personal wealth, or polls or Wall Street. The women are courteous and warm and the men, always gentlemen, hold the doors and they all greet each other affectionately. And most importantly, those gestures appear sincere.

Yet like all things, it’s still a brand, this country. And it’s a breath of fresh air. It’s beautiful and old and wise and accepting and tolerant. It’s Canada.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

2008-03-17T19:45:00.000-04:00

John Constable (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home — now known as “Constable Country” —which he invested with an intensity of affection. “I should paint my own places best,” he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, “. . .painting is but another word for feeling.”

What is the foundation of trust? Deep down, what is it we are all searching for as we watch the candidates for the U.S. Presidency? What intimate insights do we seek as we sort and sift through an endless stream of commercials and messages from our political and business leaders, or from our stores, from our coworkers, our friends and family?

It is feeling. It is our feeling or intuition, or a sense that those in leadership roles are charged with moving, with inspiring. We hope simply to be convinced in some small way that there is a person or thing we can trust or believe in, that our lives matter, that there is indeed some higher purpose and meaning associated with our finite, valuable time on this earth. We'd just like a reason to believe.

And in a world that is riddled with confusion and complexity, at a time that is uncertain economically and politically, we have very little respite. Our media has fractured into a thousand channels of moving images, scripted dialog and canned laughter, an abundance of niche print magazines and Internet indulgences. User-generated content is an understatement. So many people are Blogging and Vlogging, there simply isn’t time for any one to actually read or comprehend it.

We would like it to believe, to rediscover trust and inspiration. We would like to wonder or imagine and feel safe, or feel it is acceptable to dare, if we can just muster for that moment. Whether it’s the loss of faith in our leaders or loss of faith in our future, we are a society that requires a new promise, and one that will be kept.

Americans watch sporting events with a new sense of desperation, rabid for something genuine, something authentic to witness. We want the moment of real “anything.” In real time, so there’s no chance of deception; we want to see heart and commitment and the subsequent reward so that we can be reminded that there is some semblance of truth and logic. Like child-voyeurs, we want to watch passion. If we cannot discover it in sports, we’ll look at reality television, or political pundits plying their wares. Or find it in the illusion of film, or the distractions of the Internet.

I had lunch recently with an agency owner, who posed an interesting observation. She suggested that the frenetic pace, the fractured state of communication, the loss of intimate, interpersonal relationships and personal contact is the driver for the mass surge in expression online. Maybe, in other words, we’re all expressing ourselves and publishing what we think as a new-age way to reconnect in this brave, progressive world.

The other night, I arrived at my home to sort through the plethora of direct mail. Thanks to the obsessive, consumer-driven purchasing habits of my family, we receive enough magazines and catalogs each week to barricade a small unit of the U.S. Army. One in particular stood out. Over the years, Patagonia has found a way to dovetail experience and emotion into its retail catalog. I always save this and I retrieve it whenever I want that experience of adventure or exploration and sometimes, I actually buy things. No matter what, I attribute the Patagonia brand with a company that lives its mission.

A recent article in the New York Times aimed to demonstrate the challenges that retail banks and airlines inherently have, when it comes to marketing their services. The point was, no one bank or airline can truly differentiate in terms of the offerings. The only way they can position differently in the market place is through the customer experience.

And the assault on trust has consumed us for years. From the meltdown of Enron, Arthur Andersen and Tyco, to the travails of President Clinton and the recent demise of Governor Elliot Spitzer, there have been few reasons to believe in business or a political leader.

Which got me to thinking, what if we could redefine the idea of the television commercial? What if we could take companies, brands, even political leaders, and create brand “expressions” that we could show on community portals? The result would, if executed successfully, not be propaganda, but just the opposite. The result would be an animation online most likely, that expressed the true merits and value at the core of each benefactor. No flash or spin, just the simple, honest, good truth.

We may not arrive at that day anytime soon. In the meantime, as much as I work to be open, transparent and decent in my dealings, I can also professionally work to inject as much emotion into my clients’ brands as possible. If I can move their customers to feel that their message is worth hearing, their proclamations authentic and even for a moment, if I can make their customers feel anything at all, maybe I can also feel that I’ve done my job.

Tickets, Anyone? Tickets, Please?

2008-02-23T17:46:00.000-05:00

In the age of digital entertainment, I cannot fathom that movie theatres still exist and operate successfully. Reading so much about the Oscars this weekend, the challenges of the industry seem more acute than ever. And yet, the New York Times reported that films in 2007 grossed about $9.7 billion at theatres in the U.S. According to the report, ninety-five percent of that total came from films that peaked in the first two weeks of opening.

But talk about a market relevance problem. Theatres are the proverbial 8-track tape of the entertainment industry. The business model was strained 4-5 years ago as the window between in-theatre release and DVD was dramatically reduced to combat the concerns over revenues and attendance. By every account or metric used to predict the future of sustainable business, theatres are bucking the trend. The one area that is difficult, if not impossible to measure — the customer experience — is the place where theatres likely excel. Where else can one find a dark, quiet venue to spend 2 hours uninterrupted, a respite from the world, to view a dramatic, cinematic display of image and sound?

Still, charming as they may be, it seems almost impossible to imagine that these brick-and-mortar relics are able to continue at all, given the societal shifts we’ve encountered through the enablement of in-home, entertainment technology. Downloadable, digital content now allows for a far less expensive, more immediate, convenient, customizable, customer-centric experience.

All media companies, including news organizations and purveyors of entertainment are adapting to deliver to the customer what they want, when they want it, and the way that they want it. In contrast, theatres, in their inflexible, nostalgic panache can no longer deliver to the customer competitively. It’s an “anti-best practice,” paradox of modern business. And it’s one just ripe, perhaps overdue to fall, from another small, incremental push through the pipeline of change.

Even movie posters are suspended in 1975. That formulaic, predictable Hollywood image, the strong profile, the conflicted, contrived characters fixed wistfully, the determined gaze or leer of lovers, and overly simplified copywriting — it’s all a recipe that has remained unchanged and unchallenged with only subtle updating for the past 35-40 years. An argument could easily be made for longer.

Don’t get me wrong. I crave the more traditional experiences as much as the next person. I miss what we appear to have lost forever, which is a culture that to some degree actually valued the lack of convenience and formality of the entertainment experience. As an old college friend used to remind me, “It’s not the result, but the journey to the destination that we all truly seek.” Or, the beauty is to be found in the walk or drive, and interpersonal experience we had on our way to the theatre.

Take the Bantam Cinema, for example (bantamcinema.com). Located in Bantam, Ct., this little gem began business in 1927 and claims to be the oldest, continuously operated cinema in Connecticut. Today, you can still see the barn-style architecture and innocence of the interior design on the retro-designed website.

Another theatre that clings to history is in Sag Harbor, New York (sagharborcinema.com). Catering to a movie crowd that wants to relive the grander, more opulent theatre experience, this cinema was also founded in the 1920’s and works today to preserve that heritage and brand image.

But these theatres are novelties, unlike the modern, suburban, multi-cinema venues. Obviously some of the classic theatres will have a place and will endure as Americans seek refuge from technology and at times, look for the chance to reminisce, or just rediscover that “20th Century” experience. What will become of the rest of them?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will host the 80th Annual Academy Awards tomorrow night. The New York Times reported today that the organization is in the midst of an unusual, institutional transition. With land purchased recently in Hollywood, there are plans underway for the development of a museum of international film. All this, from a conservative, professional organization with 6,000 members.

Transitioning the preeminent organization for motion picture professionals is one thing. That is the core product and as far as I can determine, it’s a viable one over the long term. The obsolete “channel” or physical means in which the product is sold, is yet another, entirely separate concern.

It strikes me that a select few theatres would be put to good use as venues for research, a place where the studios could test the market with pilot programs for new entertainment and film.

Could others be refurbished to function as community activity centers where people could, lo and behold, actually visit to meet in person? Is this even feasible? In the age of convergence, convenience and the generation of “me,” “i” and “my,” it seems unfortunately, unlikely.

But we can always be hopeful.

The Art of Emotion

2008-02-18T20:23:00.000-05:00

I love driving in storms. I always have.

Driving is the preferred traveling experience for me since it offers such a variety of scenery and ultimately, beautiful, sometimes curious, wondrous experiences. There are visual surprises, spontaneity, the occasional, unplanned encounter. No one can say the same of airports and train stations. Those venues provide the same drudgery and routine we despise: Scrutiny, mechanical need, necessity, loss of personal freedom and dignity.

Today, I was driving back from the Berkshires with my wife, Gina, my daughter who is 15 and my son, 12. We shared a pleasant, if not holiday-family-challenged experience in the Berkshire Mountains for Presidents Day weekend. (Mass MOCA is an exceptional museum, a Mecca for contemporary art, if anyone is interested.)

On the return trip I watched the weather turn, become threatening, violent, within minutes change to sunshine again, and once again change to torrential rain. This happened about a half dozen times. The roads were sporadically flooded, the hills and small mountains of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York rolled by unscathed. We saw all matter of livestock from cows to horses to llamas to goats and even buffalo. The country road ebbed and flowed, twisting almost elegantly through the rugged terrain. The towns were fixed in time, unchanged for what seemed to be decades.

But the light, something we rarely think much about, gave us a transcendental show. It was sublime and expertly choreographed, a combination of deep blue, ominous clouds on the horizon, passing patches of dense mist, brief periods of sunlight penetrating through the fog and subsequent, golden light that bathed the hillsides. The experience was absolutely breathtaking. It fed my soul.

Later, I thought about the need to take our clients’ brands to the next level and wondered what this might offer as an experience for me to share, or learn from. I’m a professional, a business owner and I represent, I think, the average consumer. As a consumer, what I want is to be moved, to feel a unique experience.

For me, the days often begin to feel the same in our society. I wake, have coffee, read the newspaper, say goodbye to my wife and daughter and manage to get my son to his school. By 8:20, I’m in the office, logged on and checking email, checking the news online, managing meetings, scheduling even more.

The point is, it’s all a routine. As individuals, we desire more. We want curiosity, we want to express what we think, to imagine, be refreshed and sometimes we want to feel the way we felt when we were young. We want something new emotionally, to wonder, be inspired, to feel the sense of awe. We want an experience.

In this age of mass mediation, it seems to me that “unique” takes on a whole new importance. To feel a sense of experience is going to require more thought and hard work than ever from the people responsible for creating that experience for consumers.

I wondered about the power of broadcast media, about what I can do as the owner of a brand image firm that has worked predominantly in print marketing. How can I, or we, perform better? How can I generate communications that connect with my clients’ consumers on this level? How can our marketing ideas and design become more memorable, more experiential? Because all consumers want this surprise — this, a strange blend of comfort combined with unpredictability, this reassurance on the delivery of a promise, all while feeling a sense of journey and exploration.

Is there a lesson for all marketers in my trip home from the Berkskire Mountains? I’d like to think so, but this much I know: As a CEO, designer and marketer charged with building and promoting the brand image for each client of Iridium, I want to make every brand and supporting communication a unique, memorable experience, not just business as usual.

I’ll not forget that drive for some time. I can only hope, and work, to deliver the same for our clients’ customers.

A Tipping Point, Possibly a Turning Point

2008-02-13T15:56:00.000-05:00

I was helping my daughter with an essay on ancient Rome last night, one that sought to explain how significant changes are able to trigger a turning point in the history of the world. In her essay, she wanted to illustrate how the path of Rome was influenced by historical events politically, militarily, and socially.

Ironically, I’d just finished a discussion with a client about the tipping point that the Obama campaign seems to be enjoying. I couldn’t help but see a parallel.

With wins in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., his campaign does indeed seem poised on the brink of a tipping point. I wondered if this was all the early indication of a society at the edge of significant social and economic change — a turning point, so to speak. His message of “Change” is as much an entrenched market position or platform as it is a message, and it doesn’t appear to be marketing fluff. The position and message are resonating with American people.

Has he increased his lead for delegates over Hillary Clinton by employing more progressive, online strategies and appealing to younger voters and minorities? Our society is obviously more diverse and those younger voters that we wondered about no longer appear so frivolous and disinterested. Turns out, they actually go to the polls.

When compared to the more traditional campaigns of John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney or any other candidates, his is clearly the one most tailored around an emerging wave of young voters who respond to Internet communications, those who desire more radical change. In witnessing the benefits to his campaign through fund-raising, seeing the impassioned Gen Y voters actively engage to support him — from a marketing standpoint, are we seeing a tipping point in American culture?

It seems as though we're watching a whole generation of American citizens, indeed a whole cultural mindset, pushed through the pipeline of evolution even as new, younger citizens enter the pipeline with new ideas. Of course, this is not a new concept, but the change seems particularly dramatic now. It's as if 300 million people are perched at the fulcrum of significant change.

Consider the campaigns of former U.S. Presidents. It simply doesn’t feel like the same political arena. The goals are the same and to some degree so are the messages, but the channels and tactics have changed dramatically. Those campaigns of Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Bush, and to a lesser extent, the campaigns of Obama’s contemporaries appear static and tired, whereas his campaign seems infused with energy, purpose, passion and the possibility of something new. He is without question, the more progressive, the more inclusive. . . the “technology” candidate.

Further, from that standpoint, assuming he wins the nomination and eventually wins the Presidency, are we watching a possible turning point in world history? Will we look back on 2008 and see that new leadership brought changes that radically shifted the path of the U.S. in the course of future, world events?

Looking at my daughter and considering her future, I couldn’t help but wonder. At 15, it’s clear that she represents the age of online marketing and consumerism. Whether U.S. politics are responsible for shifting our place in the world, I do not presume to know. But one thing is certain: With the mass acceptance and usage of digital media and marketing, the world of communication and campaigning will never be the same.

Custom Candies for V-Day

2008-02-11T13:56:00.001-05:00

The marketers at Mars have recently brought the trend of customization to their own products, offering M&M candies with personalized messages imprinted on their surface. Remember the little heart-shaped candies that have been around since the civil war, the ones with provocative, sometimes cryptic messages on them that change every year? Well, it's the same idea, but customized around any socially-tasteful message that we, the consumer, can script for M&M's — assuming it takes no more than 8 characters per line. There are also a variety of colors available from which to choose. The transaction is easy, delivery is prompt, the candies are reasonably priced and the company has offered a broad range of options for final packaging, all tiered by price. Business innovation and marketing at it's best!

In the age of "my" and "you". . . global, mass, personal, self-expression, this seems like a smart, appropriate way for candy and snack manufacturers to ensure relevance among consumers.

The idea of giving consumers what they want, when they want it, the way they want it, which is reflected in this promotion (www.mymms.com), is clearly the way of the future for viable businesses. In fact, the folks at Hersey have followed suit and offered custom-printed wrappers for the ever-popular Hershey bar (www.wrappedhersheys.com).

Sort of gives the old cliché new meaning: Food for thought.

The 10 Golden Rules of Marketing

2008-02-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

Your brand is your elevator pitch, your promise to those that matter. It’s who you are, what you deliver, how you do it, and why it makes a difference. With all the proprietary terms and consulting language in the industry, it can seem confusing, but it’s really a very simple process at its core. Your organizational brand is guided by the same rules that are applied to any interpersonal relationship. In that spirit, here are 10 guidelines that may serve as principles to follow.

1. Listen to Your Customer.

It’s amazing how often this is forgotten and how many companies, even large ones, can lose sight of this crucial tenet. Marketers are often guilty of executing research, not so that they can learn about the customer, but in order to validate the perceptions they had already formed, or worse, as insurance for the sake of self-preservation in the event that the product is not successful. It helps, of course, if the fundamental consumer need or desire overlaps with the organizational capabilities, experience, and also its passions. If it doesn’t, there are clearly larger challenges of realignment at stake.

The one way to lose a company or become irrelevant in any market is to lose connection with your customers, their desires and needs. An entrepreneur I once knew claimed he could summarize all successful business in 6 simple words: Find a void and fill it. Your customers, your donors, your employees and all constituents to some degree are able to make or break your business. They are your future. Listen, learn, and use the information to your benefit.

2. Keep It Honest, Simple and Consistent.

Boil it all down to something distinct and conversational. There’s no need to confuse things. Rather, just apply yourself to the diligence, hard work and attention of who you are, what you do, how you do this (in the case of innovative brands) and why it matters. The goal is to distill the ideas down to a purpose that is succinct and clear, a story so simple and obvious, yet differentiated, that anyone can understand and remember it.

Tell your story and make it compelling. Give a reason to believe. If it sounds like common, borrowed language, or if it feels idealized, like it belongs on a mounted, metal plaque that no one will ever read, abandon it and start again. Strive for authentic language and force yourself to be economical with words.

3. Understand the Market. What's the True Viability of Your Business Proposition?

I’ve witnessed companies with a product designed around a declining customer base or failing business model. The value of their company was based on an obsolete product and the marketplace — indeed all of their customers — were in the midst of a much larger sea change. Their business proposition was in jeopardy, but they could not resist calling consultants to try to improve the product they had made for nearly a century. They turned a blind eye on the obvious, and seemed to feel that the bad news would go away if they could just make their product better, or if they could project the benefits more effectively.

Branding is not just advertising, nor is it simply a consideration of your holistic marketing efforts and plans. Your brand strikes to the heart of your company — its core proposition and viability in the world. Look at your business value proposition. Research it carefully, earnestly, and if the news is not appealing, don’t look away.

4. Cool is Never Declared.

In 1927, when Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, he was an instant celebrity, hero, and global icon. Upon landing in Paris, a crowd of 150,000 people stormed his plane and passed him around above their heads for several minutes before two French pilots distracted the mob. The President of France bestowed on him the French Legion of Honor and, on his arrival back in the United States, a fleet of warships and aircraft escorted him to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross. (1-Wikipedia)

Days later, a ticker-tape parade was held in New York City. When he was asked to speak in the following months, he chose not to boast of his achievement, but rather to orate about the need for improvements to the aviation industry. He was transparent, disarmingly humble, modest and focused on reaching out to help others.

Like Lindbergh, Sir Edmund Hillary was a gangling, unpretentious and improbable hero, uncomfortable at first with the abrupt passage from obscurity to dazzling fame.

“I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities,” Edmund Hillary said on the 50th anniversary of his pioneering climb of Mount Everest, “an average bloke.” Even at the moment of his greatest triumph, he claimed no more. (2-The New York Times, January 15, 2008)

The point of the matter is, “Greatness” is never declared. Across all industries, all service or products lines, the need to build brand image or customer loyalty must never be mistaken or confused with self-congratulation.

5. Look Outwardly: It’s Always About the Customer.

The best marketing practices take into account the benefits of the sponsor organization, but the core message should always be focused on the customer need. In essence, there are no first person-singular or first person-plural pronouns in a successful advertising or communications campaign. The emphasis should always be on serving others, on the audience. The focus in any marketing initiative is about “You” — the customer or constituent.

One sure way to stop anyone from listening is to talk about one’s self all night at the dinner party. The same holds true at the much larger dinner party of global marketing. Indulge yourself at the dinner, make the evening all about your own interests and dalliances and enjoy your place in the wasteland of global brands.

Ultimately, the best brands give the consumer the bragging rights.

6. Know Yourself. How Is Your Organization Unique?

In the film, “Walk the Line,” the character of Sam Phillips admonished Johnny Cash to be distinctive, to stand out.

“If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had one time to sing one song. One song that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it’s real, and how you’re gonna shout it? Or... would you sing somethin’ different. Somethin’ real. Somethin’ you felt. Cause I'm telling you right now, that’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with believin’ in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin’ in yourself. (3-Wikipedia)

Nothing can instruct on the process of brand identity better than this remonstration. Distill to the core who you are, why you exist, what you provide to your customers. In short, tell us your story, what you’re all about. Tell us something real, something different.

7. Make a Plan: Map Out Your Audiences, Messages, Channels and Tools.

One of the classic mistakes that many marketers or C-level executives have traditionally made is actually a function of human nature. Our minds do not coordinate or organize information and plans on multi-dimensional levels. Thus too many companies and nonprofit organizations are guilty of working organically, intuitively, in an ad hoc manner, with little or no information about the customer, and with no formal planning.

Market needs and consumer tastes are shifting more swiftly now than ever before, thanks to a global economy and also to the advancement of technology and communication. More than ever, it is imperative that companies seek consumer insights and gauge the direction of the market place, even through nimble, smaller research initiatives that can be executed practically. Take the time to understand the market, your customers— both existing and prospective, new customers entering the pipeline— and take the time to formalize your work for each year.

Who are your primary customers? Who are your secondary and tertiary customers or audiences? What other constituents can you target? Do you have an audience of “Influential Customers” who can share your message with many other prospects? Who will be your customers in 5 years, In 10 or 15? What key messages will best resonate with these audiences, once you have identified them?

How can you reach these audiences most effectively? What channels and what tools will be effective? What is the key takeaway message of each marketing initiative? What is the frequency of communication that efficiently maximizes your relationship for each tool you develop? What is the desired result or call to action?

The secret is to make plans holistically based on intelligence and information gained that will focus your goals. Map out plans for 5 years, 3 years, and more cogent plans with a practical execution strategy for the coming year.

8. Live With Purpose, Passion and Commitment. (The Message Isn’t Fake.)

Great leaders have always had something in common: Charisma. And charisma comes from a sense of mission toward a clear goal. In order to rally your employees, customers, or any constituents, there needs to be a sense of passion and purpose to a clear cause.

There was once a consensus that all advertising was a façade, with only consumer-styled messages that had little relevance to the actual benefits of the product. That approach could not be farther from the reality of today’s best marketing practitioners.

If you’re with a nonprofit organization, the goal is to get your house in order, your ducks in a row. This means operationally, financially, and in every regard. Trust is your most important asset in this age of fractured media and proliferation of messages. Serve with passion and purpose daily, and work relentlessly to ensure that your human resources are infused with talent, insight, knowledge, and responsibility. That work will pay off. As the internal brand is established firmly and refined continuously to remain relevant through much diligence and commitment, those messages will radiate outward to your many constituent audiences.

If you’re a for-profit organization, the best way to sell the product is to believe in it. Your marketing messages should strike to the heart of customer need, and the pay off is the product or service you provide. Your competitive positioning and your core benefits need to be understood clearly and your brand needs to be championed and supported by every member of the organization.

In short, get it right operationally, as a business model. Then, broadcast the story. Open the blinds and turn the lights on to project the truth about your value. Make it simple to understand.

9. Use the Customer Experience in Your Marketing.

In today’s global economy, consumers’ minds are flooded with products, service offers, media and messages. The way to differentiate, and indeed, the way to connect with your constituents through all this clutter, is through experiential branding.

Industries such as airlines, banking, and some categories of retail, are all challenged with the same homogenized, service problem. These industries offer essentially the same service, product and core offering. Some companies such as Charles Schwab have broken new ground and earned market share with innovative offerings. But generally, the only differentiator for these industries is related to the experience for each customer. It’s their brand values — what they hold dear as operating principles — that can distinguish any one of these competing companies from their peer organizations. It’s “how” you do what you do, as opposed to the “what” that you do.

10. It’s About Performance. Measure the Results.

Remember the goal? The idea was to move product, sell more of “something” and remain viable as a purveyor. Well, measuring and learning can be valuable as a way of remaining relevant in the market place.

As Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” What’s the use of planning and executing a strategy if the results will be only poorly known and understood at best? In many cases, the research has been available, but the interpretation, as well as how to act on the research, was the challenge.

Historically, with traditional marketing applications, how well the message worked or resonated with consumers, or how well the individual communication product performed was also difficult to measure. Qualitative research such as focus groups, mall intercept surveys, or broad, quantitative studies were as close to measurable results as the industry could provide. Publishers audited their readership, but never with the accuracy available to online content providers.

As more applications and channels open up through the Internet, ROI will be measurable. Marketers will see the level of success that they have achieved with details about customer behavior tracked almost in real time. This information will guide companies with insights into consumer desires in ways never imagined. Business leaders understand this and without a doubt, the CMO and any marketer or communicator will be increasingly held accountable for organizational success.

It’s a brave new world, but an exciting one with many new opportunities for those who are charged with the responsibility of understanding the market and selling products and services.