Everything You Want to Know About Advertising - The Next Wave

America has changed a lot since “Honest Abe” ran for president. There were no Madison Avenue types involved in politics in his day, no spin doctors, no data mining, psychograpics, demographics, Facebook graphs or Google Zeitgeist- a politician had to be convincing, charismatic, trustworthy and most of all honest.

There was a lot of door knocking, face-to-face time, speeches on town squares and debates- true debates. The candidate didn’t know his numbers- he knew people. His word (and yes his- there weren’t female politicians in Abe’s day) was his bond.

As advertising as we know it today was in its infancy, one agency, which grew to be the largest in the US- McCann, introduced its tagline in 1912- “Truth well told” which is still in use today. When it comes to great advertising, the most powerful tool at a copywriters disposal is still the same- find the one unique, universal truth about your client- and hoist it as high as you can. If there is one thing that consumers are on to these days its when they are being lied to in advertising (unfortunately- they haven’t figured out how to do it in politics yet).

Yet, a few days ago, I was a speaker at a social media conference- and looked around the room as I watched the back channel twitter stream fill with those buzzword bingo winners that spew out at an amazing rate of about 1 every 3 minutes. These “Big Ideas” get condensed down to 140 characters or less and copiously get sent into the twitterverse to have a half-life of about half a day (yes, Twitter is very temporary- as the service has grown, the length of time your tweet remains in their system has shortened exponentially- see this post of ours “Note taking at tech conferences is passé”) and include such nuggets as “EC=MC” which translates to Every Company is a Media Company- which all sounds great and wonderful, except that “EC≠MC” in my experience- which is Every Consumer is not a Media Consumer.

How do I arrive at that? I’ve run for office, something few people in advertising do- but lots of politicians are becoming more media savvy than us advertising folks- and here’s why:

We have reams of research and data telling us exactly what consumers are like, but it’s easy to get caught up in myths of popular culture — the focus-group-of-one trap — and assume just about everyone owns an iPad, tweets from their phone and times shifts TV.

Because everybody needs a reality check sometimes, we decided to take a decidedly non-scientific look at some Madison Avenue myths.

via Mad Ave’s Myopia When It Comes to Main Street – Advertising Age – News.

And yes- I tweeted a link out on this story as yet another social media experts (the biggest lie of all- as this has become so big, so fast that no one can truly wrap their head around the whole thing) tell us more about how our strategy should include at least Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Foursquare, Linkedin, Slideshare, blogging, and whatever else is trending that week. No less than 5 speakers used both the new Gap logo gaffe (it was in the last 3 weeks) and the Old Spice “Hello Ladies, I am the man your man could smell like” which ended with the hopelessly odd- “I’m on a horse” line.

Yes, you can now be a cowboy that smells good- the flipside of the classic Marlboro campaign I guess, yet- if you read about this amazingly “successful viral campaign” you find one set of stats saying sales are up 107% and others saying that the sales bump was caused by deep discounting via coupons.

Yet, despite all it’s success at viral exposure- as I walked through WalMart (where real Americans do shop- as we “on Madison Avenue” hate to admit) there was a video screen mounted vertically with the man on the horse running an endless stream of “Hello Ladies, I’m on a horse”- driving home the message at the last inch of the sale.

And all those people in marketing and advertising, who have an iPad, smart phone, eat organic, sip latte from Starbucks, has friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter- haven’t actually met mainstream America- up close and personal- like a politician knocking on doors, shaking hands and kissing babies. As an ad man who has, let me share this insight (and remember, I was only knocking on doors of those most likely to vote, because I’d be stupid to knock on every door)- there is a digital divide in this country- where people don’t have computers, don’t use them at work, don’t even have an e-mail address. Our country still is embarrassingly strong in illiteracy (even though we have “no child left behind” we’ve forgotten about all the functionally illiterate people we’ve produced over the last 60 years- the US is 27th out of 205).

Those “consumers” that we know so much about- don’t have health care coverage- so all those direct to consumer drug ads may fall on deaf (and illiterate) ears, they can’t jump online to get a custom video from Mustafa-they don’t time shift shows on their DVR, or order Blu-ray quality video from your streaming server.

What they do have is an increasingly smaller wallet (the economic gap in the United States has grown at an alarming rate thanks to our slick media spinning political types) and a tighter grip on their cash. They may be fooled once, but they won’t be back to buy your body wash twice if they don’t end up with the same magnetic personality of “The man your man could smell like.”

Unfortunately for marketers they don’t enjoy the same return purchase habits that politicians do- once selected, an incumbent product doesn’t almost automatically get re-selected again and again. There has to be something more in the equation to buy- like “truth told well.” That’s why this ad agency, with its worn shoe leather leader, has the insight to get buyers to buy more than once with your marketing budget. We know our mission statement has one extra word- “Create Lust • Evoke Trust” than McCann’s and that our promise to “Make you more money than you pay us” seem to come from the less is more school when compared to the mega-global agencies, but we still believe that “the consumer isn’t stupid, she’s your mother” (attributed to David Ogilvy) and that in all this social media mess of buzzwords and “new media” things haven’t changed much since Honest Abe.

Art & Copy DVD cover

The number of “students” who come through this small agencies door, drawn by the work on this site is truly amazing. Many are about to graduate from 2 or 4 year programs that specialize in Advertising, Graphic Design, Marketing, Business or even the new buzz-degree “new-media.”

With the economy being what it’s been- we’ve also seen a lot of “seasoned professionals” in the market. People who’ve been going through the motions for 5, 10 and even 20 years- turning out what they believe to be “advertising” and “marketing” materials.

The sad thing is, most may know the tools- page layout, illustration, webdev- but, few- understand the why of what they do. I make everyone here at The Next Wave read, at a minimum, “Ogilvy on Advertising” or “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This” so that they understand the reason behind thinking before putting ideas on paper (or in “new media”). I’m seriously thinking of making them watch this too:

ART & COPY introduces the cultural visionaries who revolutionized advertising during the industry s golden age in the 1960s by creating slogans to live by and ads we all remember. You may have never heard of them, but pop pioneers Lee Clow, Hal Riney, George Lois, Mary Wells, Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein, Phyllis K. Robinson, Dan Wieden, and David Kennedy have changed the way we eat, work, shop, and communicate often in ways we don t even realize. From the introduction of the Volkswagen to America to the triumph of Apple Computers, ART & COPY explores the most successful and influential advertising campaigns of the 20th century, and the creative minds that launched them.

via Amazon link Art & Copy: Inside Advertising’s Creative Revolution: Doug Pray: Movies & TV.

An hour and a half of listening to the greats of this business- discussing what makes real advertising work. It’s the real thing, baby- from the genteel West Coast cool of Lee Clow- to the NY Bronx attitudes of George Lois, you get the feel for the business the way it’s supposed to be practiced- with guts and gusto.

Lois steals the show, with his straight forward comments about most contemporary advertising- which is missing as he calls it “The Big Idea”- but, while he’s put on a pedestal for growing Tommy Hilfiger from a no-one to some-one with one gutsy ad- the clear hints in the film about how he basically stole his own “I want my Maypo” to “I want my MTV” show how in advertising originality isn’t always the golden egg- effectiveness is.

If you are a student of advertising and you haven’t seen “Art & Copy” it’s time. If you are an advertising professional, and haven’t seen it- maybe someone should question what profession you are really in.

Because, as is alluded to in the film- we’re all students of public perception, desire, trends- and this film helps us understand how that process evolved from the beginning of the “creative revolution” started by Bill Bernbach, to today.

And if you want more good stuff to further your education, try our booklist.

Google and Dish Networks are reportedly teaming up to create a set-top box. The tech blogs are all abuzz about the chips, specs and tech. The partnership with Sony, Motorola, Logitech and all the mips and ghz crap.

Only Marketplace seemed to have a grip on what it really means- Google will have yet another way to learn your behaviors and deliver relevant ads to you.

Google is big brother. They read your e-mail through gmail. They know what you are interested in by what you watch on YouTube, what you search for on Google, they know who you called and what you talked about via Google Voice and they can even read your Google docs and check your Google calendar. It’s a Google life.

As the kings of sponsored search- they provide ads relevant to what your interest is RIGHT now. Tie all that info together and you can see the advantage of you watching TV through their Google Settop box. Forget the networks selling ad time in their show- the Google set top box will have a stockpile of ads that they think will be just what you are interested in already sitting in your box waiting for just the next commercial break in your programming. Sure, they’ll kick some of the ad revenue back to the content producer (they know making content is expensive (sometimes) and that people should get paid for making programming YOU like to watch). They just don’t think you should watch anything that isn’t specifically relevant to you.

They’ll be so good at analyzing all that data that they’ll even offer to run the ads for next to nothing- as long as you use Google checkout via your Google SetTop box so they can skim off the credit card processing fee plus a few points for delivering the sale.

No other company has as much access to data as Google does right now. The few other players in the field- Amazon, Apple, Netflix and a few dating sites including the really interesting dating/market research site OKCupid- can only put a few pieces of the puzzle together. Even Apple with it’s Mac/iPhone/iTunes environment can’t also provide search results (although they could gather data via their Safari browser and their elegant operating system).

Is this move by Google good- or to be feared? Their mantra is “don’t be evil” but, at some point, life can get pretty boring with everything coming to you picked by someone else. What happens with political ads? Public service messages? At what point do we want to step away from the giant database of human intentions?

It will most certainly change the world of advertising and media buying. Clients will be freed of all media buying planning- just serious demographic/psychographic profiling in order to identify target markets. Then again- maybe that will be part of the next Google algorithm.

The only problem left will be how to figure out what content to watch- but, then again- Netflix and Amazon have already figured out the whole “you like this- then you’ll like this” deal- so maybe, it won’t be an issue. Google’s only remaining hurdle is how to deliver all this data- but, that’s why they are starting the Google Fiber project, so it won’t be long.

Posts about the Google SetTop Box:

How a Google-Powered Set-top Box Could Make a Splash

All Giz Wants: A Google Set Top Box That Doesn’t Suck

Google and Partners Seek TV Foothold

A local newspaper does it. Puts a non-inclusive list of pizza shops online and runs a poll for “best of the city” pizza. This will grant “bragging rights” for the next year as “This cities best pizza.”

Now, pizza is a very subjective subject- some like it with thin crust, some thick, some believe in wood fired and others like deep dish. The “contest” is really not about the pizza- but about the paper driving traffic to their site and selling ads.

But, it can have real effect to the winners and the losers. The winner get’s bragging rights- and possibly a business bump. The losers all get ticked off. Next thing you know, you’ve lost a subscriber, a reader, or respect from the pizza aficionados who really know pizza- all because the contest wasn’t really a contest, but a popularity contest- and with internet voting, for the most part- a very imperfect system that can and will be gamed. Bragging rights for pizza is one thing, but a contest for a hybrid school bus takes this to another level. This is a real prize and required the students to invest time in creating a video/work of art to compete. Now, you’ve asked for free labor (crowd sourced creative) and then left the “judging” up to whomever can rig the system best.

We will choose the top 10 finalists, then all of America will be invited to vote online for the ultimate champion. Students of any age can enter (although a parent or teacher will need to sponsor students under 13 years of age). Group or class entries are also encouraged.

via America’s Greenest Schools – Contest Overview.

There is no requirement to watch all 10 videos before voting, no way of verifying without a doubt that voters are actual voters. It’s not like the Superbowl ad meter- which is a more scientific system, although not perfect by any means.

While all the voters may actually be made aware of your new hybrid bus, the 9 losers won’t be happy. And, does the stunt of the contest really advance your brand? Or does it alienate the losers it creates?

Contests for contests sake are fine, but once you tie in user generated content and ask people to do your work for you- make sure that the user gets more benefit that you do. Considering YouTube is the second most important search engine- consider requiring key words or links to a page that you want to have at the top of search- instead of allowing it to be a popularity contest open to all- have a real panel of judges to filter the final entries- and allow all the other entrants to judge the finalists- with a random prize for those who take the time to review the top finalists.

Just like you wouldn’t bet the farm on a spot that tested well with bad methodology- why run a contest that way?

Unless you like being tagged #FAIL by those who believed in your contest in the first place.

Poor United Airlines.

Spend millions of dollars to tell us that they’re the Friendly skies- but break one guitar, try to deny a claim- for several years, and it all goes bye-bye faster than a rocketship.

One week after Dave Carroll, a relatively unknown singer in a band called Sons of Maxwell, released a music video called “United breaks guitars” he’s had over 3.3 million views. It was all over twitter the very first day of release, and United was finally making apologies two days later.

Companies can’t afford to tick off customers anymore- because customers can fight back.

Taylor guitars took the cue from the video- and posted an info video to talk to guitar players about how to travel safely with their guitar, and offered to repair their competitors guitars, should this happen to you:

Of course, while United has spent literally millions to associate themselves with Gershwin, I’m pretty sure that for the next few years- Rhapsody in Blue won’t be the first thing many people think of when they think United.

In fact, the total absence of information on the United site- about this, or on a response from United on YouTube, instead- having Dave Carroll telling folks that United decided to pay up after the release of the video, show United just doesn’t get it.

When you search on their customer service site- it says it all:

Screenshot from United Site for United Breaks Guitars

This is not how to respond to 3 million plus views on YouTube.

So, remember- next time a customer calls with a complaint- think of it as an opportunity to create a good news story, ’cause the bad news one will hurt.

Peter Arnell has managed to create a reality distortion field that must have an epicenter at Pepsi HQ.

Ad Age reports that his latest work for Tropicana is being tossed:

Pepsico’s Tropicana brand is junking the new orange juice package design it only just launched weeks ago. The beverage marketer is switching back to its old design whose centerpiece is an orange skewered by a drinking straw. In this video recorded at a press conference five weeks ago, Arnell Group CEO Peter Arnell vigorously defends his agency’s carton design that has now been withdrawn from the market.

Peter Arnell Explains Failed Tropicana Package Design – Advertising Age – Video.

The video that goes with it is well worth the watch:

I’ve always preferred the Minute Maid graphics done by by the Duffy & Partners years back.

Minute Maid Packaging by Duffy and Partners

However, I’ve always bought Tropicana because I prefer the taste. More on taste as a competitive factor shortly.

Arnell, of course, also redid the Pepsi logo, in a move that has been questioned and discussed by many.

There is a PDF document floating around (Pepsi Gravitational Field or “Breathtaking Design Strategy) that purports to be the “design rationale” for the move to the new logo (that has been likened to the Obama logo over and over). Ad Age questions the validity of the document, and both Pepsi and Arnell aren’t talking.

Ad Age graphic of the Pepsi logo evolution

The cost to implement a new logo for a company like Pepsi is huge. Every truck, machine, cooler, point-of-purchase will need to be retooled and updated. Great for sign companies and printers and design firms like Arnell’s.

However, I found this even more interesting: Pepsi is about to launch “Pepsi Throwback” for a limited time. The “throwback” is replacement of the low-cost high fructose corn syrup and returning to pure cane sugar as the sweetener in the product, a real, tangible product improvement and point of differentiation.

As a conniseur of root beers, I can tell you that there is no comparison between those that use pure cane sugar to those using high fructose corn syrup. Virgil‘s is one of my absolute favorites.

Had Pepsi really wanted to improve their marketing, maybe, they should take the lesson from their orange juice business- making your product taste better can make up for a bad package design any day of the week. And, if they went back to the Pepsi taste test campaign, once they’ve returned to pure cane sugar, they might find the magic mojo they need to finally beat Coke. Of course, they’d have to stop believing in “breathtaking design strategies” and focus on product quality, which should always be your first step in marketing anything (ask the big 3 auto companies).

In an effort to keep our list of agencies that aren’t The Next Wave up to date, we’re letting you know that Tricom is rebranding:

Marketing firm changes name – Dayton Business Journal:
After 24 years as TriCom Marketing and Communications Agency, the company is changing its name.

Renamed as TriComB2B, the new brand is designed to stress the agency’s business-to-business expertise in marketing products and services, especially to industrial manufacturers and technology-based companies.

“The re-branding of our agency is a unique opportunity to emphasize our strengths to the industrial and technical markets we serve,” said Chris Eifert, Vandalia-based TriCom principal, in a news release. “With our new brand, we are building a distinctive identity that will allow us to more easily attract clients.”

Other company changes include a new tagline, “Smart. Strategic. Technical,” a redesigned logo and a newly updated Web site. All changes went into effect Tuesday morning. The Web site will provide clients with access to digital asset management for projects among other features.

TriComB2B has 24 employees and provides services such as branding, developing and implementing plans for marketing and communication, public relations, electronic media and trade-show services. Clients include Dimco-Gray Co., Accutemp and Rittal Corp.

After 18 years in business, The Next Wave doesn’t need to rebrand. And we’re still the agency in Dayton that promises to make you more money than you pay us. If you landed here while looking for TriCom, it’s because we’re the ones who fully understand Web 2.0.

Steve Greenblatt, formerly VP and Executive creative director at BRC Marketing has opened www.greenblattcreative.com. The Dayton Daily News (which unlike the Dayton Business Journal) provides  a website and phone number, where you can see a long list of clients and some representative work. The paper reports that he will be offering freelance creative resources to business.

This is the second ad agency announcement in as many days- with U! Creative announcing their spin off from Wilson Advertising yesterday.

It seems the new trendy word to name your agency is “Creative.”

Here is to Creative! Let’s hope clients start buying it, instead of the same old hum-drum “advertising” most locals seem to actually pay to produce.

Today I was at the farmers market and their were clowns/mimes there from Cirque Du Soleil doing advance work for the Saltimbanco show next week. Call it “street teams” or guerrilla marketing, it was refreshing to see a business go out and actively seek customers in their environment. Doesn’t happen much anymore. We’ve gotten lazy- trying to invite our message in by interrupting their entertainment with commercials, their landscape with billboards and their websites with ads.

But while I was shopping, I was listening to American Public Radio’s Marketplace on my iPhone, and heard a story of how Procter & Gamble invented the market for Crisco- and it reminded me why they are the marketing powerhouse- not just by dollars spent, but by long history of working hard to connect with consumers. Our current industry fixation with “Branded Content” is nothing more than a new name for the soap opera- a P&G invention.

Here is an excerpt of the podcast- and a link to the whole she-bang. Highly recommended short podcast:

Marketplace: Crisco: A marketing revolution
…Crisco maker Procter & Gamble was a pioneer in the emerging science of creating demand. Historian Susan Strasser says the Crisco experiment started in 1911, when the company was selling Ivory soap. Cottonseed oil was a key ingredient.

Susan Strasser: And they decided to develop a product that would use a lot more cottonseed oil, so that they could control that market, really.

P&G’s scientists came up with this white, fluffy substance. It sort of resembled lard, and yet had no taste and no smell. It wasn’t food, exactly, but the company would ask consumers to bake and fry with it. Thus began an American mass-marketing milestone.

Strasser: Originally, they tried to call it Crispo, but then they discovered that a cracker factory already had the trademark.

P&G hawked its new product as a “scientific discovery.” The company sent free samples to every grocer in America. They held Crisco teas — an early version of the focus group. P&G even niche-marketed the product as kosher to the Jewish community….

In the podcast they talked about how P&G educated the consumer in how to use their products- something that the web is incredibly useful for. Yet, how many company websites feature big how-to communities built around their product?

For instance, BMW motorcycles has an xplor area that’s focused on tips and tricks for sport touring – the segment of the market that they have a preferred position. How to pack your bike best, tips on GPS usage, and segments on where to go. However, it’s a members only site for BMW owners- you have to provide a vin number- and not open to the general public. Why not open the doors- so that potential customers can get a feel for what “joining the family” by buying BMW means?

Back to the Crisco story:

Marketing scholar David Stewart says P&G’s genius was not only giving people a convincing reason to try the product but training them to use it as well, with free cookbooks and recipes.

David Stewart: First of all, they focused on the health benefits — recognizing that this was a time we didn’t know about transfat and so forth. And then they taught people how to use it, they taught people how to cook. They gave them ideas. And between giving them a real benefit and information about how to use the product, they were able to get people to adopt it.

Crisco’s crowning achievement was creating demand for something nobody knew they wanted.

In today’s open information economy- putting your “recipes” behind a log-in is as silly as trying to charge for it. Would Google have been as successful if they had asked users to pay per search? Sounds absolutely stupid, doesn’t it? How about having to log in to use Google? Again, very silly.

To make friends with consumers today you have to be informative, useful, practical- and be able to demonstrate value. So, before you do an ad that is either hard sell- or entertaining- think first about what it does to enhance the customers life. The same way P&G introduced Crisco as the consumers friend: “Honestly, with a little Crisco in your frying pan, you can have supper on the table in a jiffy.”

That was marketing.

I guess they are stuck on companies that start with V in their rolodex at Volkswagen- bringing in former the Volvo ad director to direct marketing and VW agency Crispin Porter Bogusky to try to sell some Vee dubs in the USA. It won’t help until VW addresses shoddy workmanship, poor resale value, low JD Power ratings and now, they will be fighting a rock bottom dollar when compared to all major world currencies. VW may as well put a revolving door on the office- and keep it spinning.

Volkswagen Taps Volvos Ellis as VP-Marketing – Advertising Age – News
Volvos global advertising director, Tim Ellis, is moving to Volkswagen to run its North American marketing operations, according to a Volkswagen spokesman…

New title
Though his title is new, Mr. Ellis will succeed Kerri Martin, director of brand innovation, departed the automaker in January. Volkswagen works with MDC Partners Crispin Porter & Bogusky in the U.S. and Omnicom Groups DDB Worldwide elsewhere. Volkswagen spent about $419 million in measured media last year the U.S., according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Mr. Ellis ran the recent account review that ended up with Volvo shifting its global ad business from Havas Euro RSCG to sibling Arnold and independent Nitro.

In a recent interview, Volkswagen of America President-CEO Stefan Jacoby told Ad Age that the marketer didnt plan to change agencies, though he did say some of the work done under Ms. Martin was too narrow. “We have to address our communications with a wider net,” he said.

Creative reputation
Since joining Volvo in 2003 from independent Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors, Stockholm, where he was a managing partner, Mr. Ellis, an American, has been known for doing more creatively with fewer ad dollars than his competitors.

Mr. Ellis is best known for 2004s “Mystery of Dalaro,” a hoax that started with a fake news story about 32 families in a tiny Swedish town all buying the new Volvo 540 model on the same day from the same small dealership. That led to a documentary about the eerie coincidence, which was soon revealed as a fake, by a director who didnt exist. The “Mystery of Dalaro,” created by Euro RSCGs Fuel Europe, ran across Europe in TV spots, and at great length on Volvos website.

Mr. Ellis, and Fuel, followed up with another low-budget, web-oriented effort called “Life on Board.” To make Volvo seem warmer and friendlier, they staged a series of conversations pairing interesting people who had never met getting to know each other by chatting in a Volvo.

Interesting revelation that VW spent $419 million on media- a bump from what was previously reported as a $300 million dollar account. Also, Mr. Ellis moved Volvo to Arnold- VW’s previous agency. Could a change be in the works? Stay tuned to the continuing drama of VW’s search for the old Bernbach mojo.