Every large institution in Dayton, our home town, decided it would be a good idea to raise income taxes on the poor people who live in Dayton. And put a ton of money behind the campaign to pass the tax levy.
There was “no organized opposition” to the levy, which diverted $4.5 million a year to a private school board for pre-schools. We thought that the money would be better spent by the local public school board- that we could at least un-elect. And, our school district actually runs really great free pre-schools.
How to get the message out, with no budget, no time, and overwhelming odds? Facebook. Our campaign spread like wildfire, and while the levy still passed, it was much lower than the passage rate of any other levy they’ve put on the ballot. We still don’t know how much they spent- since the secret PAC that ran the big dollar campaign never filed their after election campaign finance report. We know their average donation was $1873. That’s more than three months rent for most Dayton residents.
We spent $300 running the ad on Facebook, 15,000 views in less than 4 days. 150 shares. Just imagine if we’d had a tenth of their $218,478.19 pre-campaign spend. And, they spent a lot of it outside the city, despite plenty of local talent.
This post will be the latest in the category, which had 44 posts already. But, since an applicant who didn’t bother to read any of the posts chastised us for sending it to them as helpful advice, after they sent a “To whom is may concern” email, saying we hadn’t updated it since 2012- here’s the update: it’s still all relevant.
You are the product. Sell us you. Not how great you are, but what you can do for us. How you can help us make money- for our firm, for our clients. What skills do you bring to the table that we don’t have already? What’s the brief that you are the solution to?
And while you may have gone to “a top ranked communications school” so did at least 100 others. Differentiate yourself from them as well as everyone else looking for a job.
And, we still expect you to know our name, and tell us what you can do for us. Don’t expect us to guess that you are a social media goddess, or a talented video editor. Give us that up front. Then prove it.
We’re also going to start looking you up. We’ll look at your facebook posts, we’ll look at your twitter feed, your instagram, your Linkedin. We want to know how you think, what you find fascinating, what you’ve read, watched, involved yourself in. So by all means, include those links.
Hopefully, you’ve done the same with us. You know what kind of work we do, why we do it, who we do it for. That you idolize our idols goes a long way (that we’re you’re idols makes us think you’ve set your sights too low).
And while we have lots of great advice on our site on getting a job- you can find more good insight here:
And note, these are tops in our Google search- and they are from 2012 as well.
We concur that you should have read “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This” by Luke Sullivan, because, well, he’s a friend, a client, and we host his site. Our CCO is in the index of the fifth edition with two mentions. We also have our “booklist” with our top reading suggestions, in addition to the trade mags and sites.
One last hint, while you may have caught a typo in our not so carefully written response to your lame attempt to work here, criticizing us for mentioning people like Alex Bogusky or Dan Weiden on our site might have a little more effect if it wasn’t for the fact that we actually know these people.
September 23, 1977. Steve Jobs walks into a conference room to introduce “Think Different” internally. Khaki shorts, long sleeve black turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up- looking tired.
It’s an 18 minute presentation that anyone looking to turn a brand around should watch.
It’s not about speeds and feeds. It’s not about a better product. It’s about the core values of the company- and where does Apple fit in this world.
Yes, he begins with the product line being too complex, the distribution channel being too long and heavy, and that they spend a ton of money on advertising- although “you’d never know it.” He doesn’t blame his predecessors. He looks to the future and thinks about what kind of people he wants to build products for: “we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.”
They get to use people that had never appeared in an ad- or ever world- for any other company. Partially because they aren’t talking about themselves, and partially because their leadership understood that doing great work comes first.
He cites examples- the milk processor board spent 20 years advertising “Milk is good for you- even though it really isn’t” and sales didn’t move- and then, Goodby Silverstein comes up with “Got milk” - which actually advertises the lack of the product and sales climb.
Jobs says that Nike, who makes a commodity- shoes, doesn’t sell shoes, and does advertising the “best of anybody” by honoring great athletes and athletics. Side note- Nike, for the most part has used Wieden and Kennedy for the brand since the start. Believing and trusting your ad agency is another good lesson. Jobs went right back to Chiat/Day for this campaign for a reason.
The result- is the “Think Different” campaign. Which literally changed everything. People listened to an ad. they watched it over and over- before YouTube. The words from this ad, turned into posters, were remembered as a eulogy for Jobs because it was so different.
Watch the video about the introduction. Learn. (sorry the actual commercial has the music cut out- you can watch the full final spot below).
