Power Fix

Not that I should care about these things, but I was kind of surprised the other day when I noticed that my Ad Age Power 150 ranking had fallen from its usual spot in the 150-165 range to about 210. Figuring it was a temporary glitch I ignored it, but as my ranking continued to sink-- down to about 230-- without any noticeable change in traffic on this end, I figured the problem must be mechanical.

So I shot off an email to Todd and Charlie at Power 150 headquarters today at around 11:30 AM. By 1:30, Charlie had identified and fixed the problem and I was back to my more usual rank in the pecking order.

A two-hour turnaround like that is exemplary customer service. Even if it is just for a blog ranking list. Way to go Todd and Charlie. I am impressed.

Banner Boys

The other day a traditional ad guy I know was talking to me about a mutual acquaintance, whom he called a “really good digital ad guy.”

Now I’ve been around both types to know that the subtext of “a really good digital ad guy” is “he turns our print ads and TV spots into banners without messing with the headlines too much or changing the color palette and layout.”

It most decidedly did not mean “he really understands the medium and what’s possible online and comes up with technologically innovative solutions that extend the brand, not the TV spot.”

And that brief exchange really crystallized a dilemma facing our industry now. It’s something David Armano alluded to in this Ad Age piece (where he tried to ruin the word “tradigital” for me—thanks Dave!): Big TV-centric agencies (and the clients that employ them) have gotten used to the fact that there’s now a “digital” component to whatever campaign they’re doing. Only their rigid interpretation of “digital component” is a bunch of flash banners that expertly mimic the print and TV campaigns and a microsite that may or may not have an actual reason for being (e.g. a contest) but “looks really cool.”

Now partly, that stems from a core lack of familiarity of what digital is. Too many senior agency and client marketing types have only a cursory understanding of the interwebs, gleaned from their occasional visits to cnn.com, YouTube and a half-day seminar about Facebook. But mostly, it stems from a willful act of self-preservation. By clinging to a world where TV is still king and digital is just another way—like direct mail—to repurpose the elements of the TV campaign, they ensure both their longevity and their power. For if history has taught us anything, it’s that ruling elites do not relinquish power easily.

In fact, it generally has to be pried from their cold, dead hands.

Since mass murder is not a real option (for me, anyway) I’d like to suggest a less bloody solution: reframing these responsibilities within the creative department. So that rather than keep an entire department of low-paid, low-value “banner boys” on staff, we turn responsibility for banner creation over to the same teams that create the print and the TV. I know a few agencies (mostly smaller ones) currently do it that way, but most don’t, especially the shops that have invested heavily in so-called “interactive departments.” I mean a good headline writer is also a good banner writer. And figuring out simple flash animation isn’t brain surgery. (Or so you would think—I’ve been adamantly refused the services of guys I knew who were killer headline writers by recruiters and CDs who gasped “but they’ve never done digital!!” as if banner writing were some sort of art form that could be mastered only after years of intense study.)

Microsites are a little more complicated, but can also be done by the general team after a few hours with a good IA or UX person. Who hopefully will help them find a raison d’etre for the site that doesn’t rely on the words “so we can win awards.”

And let's not forget the TV-spot-masquerading-as-a-viral-video-because-the-client-has-no-money-for-TV. Easy enough to figure out who gets that one.

That frees up the digital team tremendously. It allows them to hire people whose idea of “good creative” isn’t based on TV-centric advertising award show criteria, but on what actually makes sense in the medium in 2008. People who realize that the new gold standard is to create something entertaining, useful and media/site appropriate and who know that The Real Digital Revolution has changed the rules of the game and put the consumer in control.

Those people would make “really good digital creatives.”

Starbucks “Nourishing Blends” Are Nourishing My Anger

“Nourishing” is one of those words that always makes me cringe. It’s a perfectly fine word, mind you, but it’s so overused in the world of marketing, as to lose any real meaning. I mean few words so succinctly call up the notion of mom, love, food and warmth in such a glib and facile manner.

So as a general fan of Starbucks, I was very disappointed to see that they’re currently pushing something called “Vivanno Nourishing Blends.” Which are nothing more than sugar-laden milkshakes with some protein powder added. They’re certainly not “nourishing” or even particularly “nutritious.” And at 270 calories for a 16 oz. grande Banana Chocolate Blend Vivanno, they’re only adding to the obesity epidemic. (By comparison, a similarly sized regulation Mocha Frappuccino is only 260 calories, sans whipped cream-- and the "light" version of the same Mocha Frap is just 140 calories.)

Now I’ve got nothing against milkshakes and ice cream and candy and other foods of little-or-no nutritional value. In moderation, anything is fine. It’s just that by calling them “nourishing blends” Starbucks is giving the overweight tacit permission to indulge in something that’s not all that healthy for them. I mean it’s pretty easy to see people sucking down two or three of these a day because they’re “nourishing” versus the Frappuccino, which is clearly a coffee-infused milkshake.

It’s also too bad because I’m sure I’m not the only vaguely health conscious Starbucks customer who looked at something called a “Chocolate Banana Blend” and thought “'nourishing,' my ass. These people are lying to me.”

Which is more of a problem for Starbucks than most other marketers. You see Starbucks built their reputation on being a kind-to-employees, community-minded, social activist company. The kind of place where, when they told you the coffee came from small farms and the profits from the water were going into some sort of fund, you believed them.

The sort of place that wouldn't call a sugar-laden milkshake "nourishing."

It also smacks of the kind of marketing tricks that downscale companies use to try and get one over on their (presumably less sophisticated) consumers. And as Starbucks becomes more mainstream and less urban sophisticated, the trickery of Vivanno Nourishing Blends is going to turn off their more upscale customers, the ones who were already on the fence about how middle-of-the-road Starbucks was becoming. (Witness the recent brouhaha over the introduction of Pike’s Place and subsequent lack of bold flavored coffees.)

This is just a bad move for them, albeit one that could have been avoided by a slight change in marketing tactics.

Penny Pranks

From my friends Vinny Warren and Greg Nations-Powell at The Escape Pod in Chicago, comes this very funny campaign for OfficeMax. It's shot by the very same Henry-Alex Rubin who shot last year's Office Max back-to-school prank, "Schooled" and then went on to do something called "Whopper Freakout" for some agency in Colorado called Crispin something-or-other ;)

This latest campaign, which highlights the fact that OfficeMax has a number of back-to-school items on sale for a penny, follows improv actor Matt McCarthy around New York as he attempts to purchase everything from a Central Park carriage ride to an engagement ring to a couple of deli items with pennies. The reactions are priceless, especially in the featured video that takes place in a high-end restaurant. The only one that slightly misses (for me, anyway) is this one with a used car dealer in Queens, and only because the dealer himself is so over-the-top, that he seems like an actor as well. (But others may not notice that.)

They're funny spots, nicely edited and you remember the top-line message "OfficeMax has things for a penny" without a whole lot of product manager gobbledy-gook getting in the way.

NB: Even Gawker and it's crew of commenters seem to like the spots. And they hate everything.

What If An Agency Had To Design A Stop Sign?

Creating A Stop Sign - Watch more free videos

Brilliant YouTube video, very funny. Blond actress is especially talented at capturing nuances of nefarious passive/aggressive clients. About 4.5 minutes long. Big thanks to Cam Beck for bringing this to my attention via Twitter.

PS: If anyone knows who made this and if the creator is open to public kudos, let me know.

PPS: Thanks to Dave Edwards for alerting me to the fact that the YouTube link was no longer working and providing the link to break.com featured above.

The Tyranny of Search

Few things cause creatives to cringe at the thought of a digital future like the words "search engine optimization."

It's not that they don't want their clients work to show up first in the Googleverse. It's just that the rules of search optimization seem to run counter to the rules of creativity. As someone recently pointed out to me "it's like food. Anything that tastes good is bad for you."

He did have a point: many of the things that can make a site look and feel cool and creative (Flash and Ajax, for example) are the mortal enemies of SEO. And while the terms "search optimized" and "deadly dull" are far from synonymous, it does seem rather cruel that many of the most advanced web design tools wind up being a net negative to the overall goal of the site. And crueler yet that many creatives hear the phrase "we need to prioritize search" as "we need to remove anything remotely cool or creative from the site immediately."

Besides which, the rules just seem so random. I mean I know the basics and from a programming standpoint they make sense. But from a creative standpoint, it's as if you said "TV spots that rely on dissolves to move from one scene to the next have zero recall." None of the rules seem to take aesthetics into consideration.

So why can't someone make a web design tool that does both? That lifts us out of HTML flatness, is easy to develop for and that appeases the gods of search.

The dividends would be enormous from both a financial and design perspective. Not to mention user experience.

Any takers?

UPDATE: Noah Brier sent me this link to a great article on SEO that addresses much of what we've been discussing here. Great enough for me to stick it in the body of the post, rather than the comment section.

UPDATE 2: "Link to a great article on SEO"(above) now working. Sorry about that.

Happy Days Are Here Again

I was reading something by a conservative strategist about how the Republicans need to re-examine their current positioning and it hit me that their biggest problem—regardless of what you think of their policies—is that they’ve become the party of “no.”

I mean they’re pretty much against everything: terrorism, ending the war in Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, universal health care. Whether you agree with them or not, it's just one big “no” after another.

And while they’ve been smart enough to try and spin their positions to something positive (e.g. anti-universal health care becomes pro-free market health care) the spin phrases have not caught on with the general public. Even those who strongly support their positions tend to frame them in terms of “they’re against X.” So the Republicans of the ‘00s have found themselves in the same boat as the Democrats of the ’70s: they’re the Debbie Downers of their day, constantly finding something that can’t be done or isn’t right or doesn't work.

And while Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama may seem to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, one key trait they share is the ability to focus on an upbeat, big picture message. Hope. Change. Possibility. Leave all the messy wonky issues on the back burner. Think about it: the main charge hurled against both men by their opponents is that they lack substance. That they’re all charisma and charm with little to back it up.

And without getting into the subjective truth or falseness of that charge, we should look at the objective truth, which is that the Reagan/Obama big picture messages really seem to resonate. That people want to hear about amorphous things like hope and possibility first and the granular nuts-and-bolts ways we plan to achieve them second.

Now the lesson in there for marketers (you knew I was getting to that) is about the need to focus on the big picture. To pick one broad, positive point of differentiation and own it and to stop worrying that “anyone in the category can own ‘fun.’”

Anyone can, but if you get there first, you do. And if it's not "fun" it's "delicious" "smart" "healthy" "fast" or a whole host of easily grasped adjectives.

It’s especially important now, during The Real Digital Revolution, when customers have their own ways of finding out the wonky details about your product and rely on your advertising and marketing messages (including design) to give them a broad macro sense of what your product is all about. How it feels, not how it works.

Are you about boring granular details? Or are you about big broad-stroke messaging? If it’s the former, then people aren’t going to see your product or service in the right light. This is especially true in areas like packaged goods where the granular details (20% creamier!) are likely only of interest to the product team itself. It’s a little less true in sectors like B-to-B, where details matter, but again, the more you can create a clear, easy-to-pass-on, single-minded brand message that’s consistent across all media, the easier it will be for your customers to relate to you.

And once they’re relating to you, the details are a lot easier to swallow.

Making American Public Transportation Sexy

With gas prices rising higher and higher, more and more Americans are looking to public transportation as a viable alternative. The problem is that public transportation is decidedly unsexy in all but a handful of cities.

Which is something of a paradox: In New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia, commuter rail lines are the province of the upper middle class, transporting bankers, brokers, lawyers and advertising execs in and out of the city on a daily basis, and a suburban town’s location on an express rail line into the city greatly enhances the value of the local real estate.

But in other US cities, public transportation is viewed as decidedly downscale, a last option best left for people too poor to own a car. People are loathe to take it, regardless of gas prices, because it somehow seems tantamount to failure, a step away from homelessness.

So I’m throwing it out to you all: how can we make public transportation just as sexy in places like Atlanta and Los Angeles as it is in New York and Chicago? Is it something advertising, marketing and PR can affect? Or is it too big a psychological hurdle for most people to get over?

You’ve got a whole weekend to think about it.