How We Judge

With apologies to Dave Armano and Mike Arauz, the masters of the chart, it struck me the other day that there's a world of difference in how we judge most websites vs most ads and that the inability to wrap their heads around this sea change is the one thing that holds so many brands, people and agencies back.

The Decade Without A Name

So what do we call the decade that's about to be behind us in around three weeks?

No one's been able to come up with a universally acceptable name.

I've heard everything from "the two thousands" to "the zeros" here in the US, while my friend Ben Kay tells me that the Brits are referring to it as the "oughties" (this is the same pattern that has them referring to garbage cans as "rubbish bins.")

None of those names really seems to have stuck though and we'll soon be looking back upon a nameless decade.

This is no doubt causing a great deal of angst in the rapidly depleting hallways of People, Time, Newsweek, the E! network and other places prone to running cover stories featuring "the decade that was" type retrospectives.

But what about the advertising and marketing communities. Certainly someone here can come up with something clever.

Can't they?

A Bigger Big Idea

There’s an ongoing debate in the ad world about the death of the “Big Idea” - an overarching notion like “Just Do It” or “Got Milk?” that defines a brand in its advertising messages.

The gist of the argument is that the current media landscape makes the Big Idea obsolete and that the best notion is to create lots of little ideas which will coalesce into a Big Idea depending upon consumer’s reaction.

And while there’s much truth to that argument (which has its basis in what’s now commonly lumped under the umbrella of “Design Thinking” ) I’d like to present another possibility, which is that brands need Big Ideas and Bigger Ideas.

A Big Idea is a marketing message, designed to get consumers to try a product or service. These messages are often very granular and brands and ad agencies often spend weeks tweaking the brief or the tag line to create what they feel is the exact perfect combination of words. And while much of this fine-tuning is no doubt pointless, having a unique message is quite valuable when you’re faced with parity products in a mature market and brand image is the sole differentiator.

But orienting your web messaging around the sales-oriented “Big Idea” is a mistake. Consumers encountering your brand online didn’t just stumble upon it: they took a decisive and purposeful action in order to land there. So you need an idea for this gray area that defines your brand without being overly “sell” oriented.

Hence the Bigger Idea.

Consumers, as many of us tend to forget, don’t think like marketers. Which is to say they aren’t that keen on the fine distinctions and you’re lucky if they can keep one large idea about your product in their heads.

That’s why, you’ll want to cut back on your sales pitch: your message is different and all you need to keep in mind is what your core proposition is, the Bigger Idea that sums up where you sit in consumer’s mental map.

So while the marketing line on my Pert Shampoo may read “Crazy Good Hair Without The Craziness,” your Bigger Idea is “Pert = Convenience” Not particularly sexy, but the Bigger Idea is never going to be couched in pretty marketing language. It’s flat and consumery, but if you can own "convenience" in the shampoo category the way Volvo once owned “safe” you’re golden.

Once you’ve gotten that Bigger Idea down, you can start experimenting, adjusting all your smaller ideas, provided they map back to the Bigger Idea in some way or another.

It's an easy plan to put in motion and eliminating the need to force fit things like mobile apps into the constricted logic of some marketing speak tag line will only serve to make everyone's life easier.

The Best Marketing Video Ever Made

The "Microsoft Designs the iPod" video is still the best marketing video ever made.

Why?

Because it reflects, in a clear and visceral way, the impetus behind what I'd estimate to be around 90% of the unnecessary input into any marketing project.

It's the inability to push back on that input, what my friend Don Miller calls "being pecked to death by chickens" that ultimately dooms so many projects.

The impetus of the fictional Microsoft team-- and that of so many clients I've encountered-- is to create something bulletproof, something that answers each and every critic they've encountered along the way. That includes internal critics (e.g. the ones in their own heads) as well as external ones, critics with valid opinions and those who are just looking for something to say.

While the impulse may be valid, the result is not: each attempt to further explain and clarify just winds up muddying things even further so that the perspective consumer gives up rather than digs in.

I'm always tempted to show that video to the combined team at the start of any marketing-based project. It's a strong reminder of the dangers of ignoring the old dictum: when you try to please everybody, you wind up pleasing nobody.

I Guess This Means We're For Real

Announcing the Hive Awards

The Hive Awards are now live!

The Hive Awards started as a pipe dream, about a year ago, when I was looking at web award shows and realized that none of them rewarded things like user experience, content strategy or even coding. At least not on any significant level. What’s more, the awards that were being given out seemed to go to big, high profile sites in glamor industries. Which is not to say that those sites weren’t deserving, just that they didn’t seem to reward all the people working in the trenches, what I called the unsung heroes of the internet.

And so an idea was born.

When I pitched the idea to International Awards Group, they immediately understood the value of such a show and agreed to work with me to develop it. Together, we came up with the name Hive Awards as a paean to the “hive mentality” inherent in building a web site or application. There are many people with many different roles, all of whom must work together and build off what the others have created. It is only by cooperating and working together that they’re able to create the final product. Our show recognizes that dynamic and seeks to reward each function within the hive.

We’ve also divided up the different job functions by industry category. Because we realized that the content strategy for an entertainment site is always going to be a whole lot sexier than the content strategy for an insurance industry site. By allowing each industry category to be judged separately, we’re leveling the playing field and giving everyone who's done something unique and special a chance to be recognized.

Finally, we see the Hive Awards as a chance to help set standards in the industry and to give newcomers something to strive for. The interwebs are still so new and evolve so quickly that having something to point to and say “this is what good work looks like” should prove very useful.

Since this is our first year (and in keeping in line with the notion of “hive mentality”) we’re looking to our audience to give us feedback and suggestions. (If I was the type of guy who liked using buzzwords, I'd call it "crowdsourcing.") So if there’s something that doesn’t make sense or you feel could be made better, please let me know, either here or on the Hive Awards site.

Discount Deadline ends December 31st, which is sooner than you realize, so start working on those entries.

Welcome aboard.

Life In The Bubble

Over the past year, I'd say well over 150 of my friends and relatives joined Facebook, none of whom work in any sort of media or technology related function.

• Maybe 5% of them post regular status updates
• Maybe 5% of them post pictures beyond the half dozen or so they put up when they joined
• Maybe 2 or 3 of them regularly share outside articles on any topic.
• Maybe 5 of them have actually shared an outside article, period.
• Maybe a dozen of them have used Facebook at some point to promote their own business or a charitable endeavor they've been a part of.
• Maybe 2 or 3 of them do that sort of promotion with any regularity
• Maybe 15% of them have even bothered to "like" someone else's update or article or even their Bejeweled Blitz score.
• Maybe 50% have ever commented on someone else's picture.
• Of that 50%, maybe a dozen of them comment on pictures with any sort of regularity.

I've also had about two dozen of these same friends and relatives join Twitter over the same time period.

None of them stuck with it.

Literally, none of them.

While I'd never be so egotistical as to claim my own personal experience is universal, I do suspect it's not particularly unique: there will always be more audience members than actors.

Just something to think about as we're chasing after all the bright shiny objects.

PS: If you have a minute or two to leave a comment, I'd be very curious to hear what other people's experiences have been with their non-media/tech family and friends.

Enough With The Guilt, Facebook

"Your mother is just sitting there. Alone. In the dark. But that's okay, you're busy. You go right ahead and play Bejeweled Blitz. I'm sure she won't mind."

Facebook has introduced a lot of boneheaded features over the years, but one that seems particularly insidious is the new configuration of the "Suggestions" feature, which "suggests," you get back in touch with people whose wall you haven't written on in a while or whose profiles are only half filled out.

You see, if my "social graph" is any indication, one of the most common Facebook Suggestions is the account holder's mother, followed closely by great-aunts, long-lost cousins and other non tech savvy relatives.

It's a move that would make a room full of old school Jewish mothers proud, but one that's making logging onto Facebook an unwelcome guilt trip for many of my friends.

Only good news is that Facebook's been pretty good (not great, but pretty good) about adjusting features the audience finds unappealing.

And this is certainly one of them.