If there is one thing the Internet/web 2.0 thing does, it makes connections.
The idea of six degrees of separation is so, like Web 1.0, now if it’s more than 2 degrees, you’ve got a problem. In fact, that’s the new job of marketers and ad agencies- reduce the gap between the consumers and the brand- make them intimate.
So, an official announcement of sorts: The Next Wave is working with Hogshead Media, the biggest small ad agency in the country. We’re helping Sally Hogshead do web 2.0 magic- and to create that intimate connection between her and her markets. For those of you who don’t know Sally, I highly recommend you bop over to read her bio. Besides working at Wieden + Kennedy, Fallon, opening the West Coast office of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, having her own shop: Hogshead & Robaire, and winning every award known to advertising, she wrote the book Radical Careering which is a great primer on how to jump start your career.
Working with someone you idolize is one thing. But, to make it even sweeter, I got to write the headline for her post about her podcast with Seth Godin. (Note: If you don’t know who Seth is, and didn’t know who Sally is, you probably shouldn’t be reading this).
[update: Seth posted about Sally’s interview here]
Hog Blog » Bald head & Hogshead: An interview with Seth Godin
For those of you not familiar with Seth- I’ve included a picture at right. Yes, he’s bald.
For those of you not familiar with Sally: she’s sort of famous for writing a lot of headlines just to get one right. See her post about Luke Sullivan (another hero of mine) and the 800 headlines.
The post and podcast should be must reads for anyone in advertising. I particularly like this quote from the interview:
“Style and fashion spread through the ad agency business really fast. But they’re very bad at changing what they do for a living, they’re very bad at any form of new media, they’re bad at pushing clients to really dramatically, fundamentally reinvent themselves. What they’re very good at is adopting a new slogan or a new look or a new image. That’s deckchair re-arranging.”
The reason we’re called The Next Wave, Marketing • Innovation, is because we don’t believe that advertising is the solution to sales problems. While we can help with the slogan or image, what we try to do is reinvent the customer/brand experience. It’s one of the reasons we’ve been so enamored with the web, where you can establish meaningful relationships with your customers. That’s what we’re starting to do for Sally, and what we would like to do for you.
The best part of this collaboration: I only wrote 3 headlines to get to the winner.
Now jump over and listen to the podcast.