Ideas worth talking about.

subliminal advertising

I came across this Derren Brown video clip on You Tube called Subliminal Advertising.

His voiceover says:

…Those who work in advertising are masters of persuasion. They subtly weave their images and slogans into our daily lives knowing that we will register so much unconsciously. Then we walk into a supermarket and feel a sense of familiarity with a product we think we never heard of. Millions of pounds a year are spent on it. It’s brilliantly calculated and we all fall for it.

If only it were that easy to influence people. One problem is that there is just way too much advertising competing for people’s attention. It’s hard for a brand to stand out in the mind of a potential customer when she sees an estimated one million marketing messages a year.

However, I suspect people who saw this video clip view ad agencies much like this: guys who wear black tee shirts; have shaved heads who sit in a secret room where they devise a master plan to plant subliminal messages in unsuspecting minds, in much the same way Derren Brown did to them.

But it’s hard enough to get it right for the conscious mind, why target the unconscious mind?

Unless I missed something in my advertising schooling, I don’t recall subliminal marketing 101 or how to write for the unconscious mind. (maybe this could be a new class ;)

Is there really time to create well-orchestrated subliminal advertising campaigns?

Here’s the reality of advertising: politics, egos, budgets and the fickle client. This blog called “Why Advertising Sucks” illustrates this point perfectly. Here are two snippets from recent rants:

You will not be told of a new business presentation until at most 48 hours until the date of presentation. Chances are this notification will be on a Friday, so that you may spend the weekend “brainstorming.”

It’s as if we creative monkeys can only execute brilliance within the target specific parameters offered by the client. What this really seems to mean though is that quite often we’ve seen what the competition is doing and the people the competition is speaking to and think they’re on the right path so why not make a spin-off of what they’re doing…
Seriously, is it that hard to come up with a rationale that isn’t irrational and isn’t a carbon copy of the instructions given to the other companies’ creative team?

The reality is not as sexy or as sinister as Derren made it out be. What do you think?

Benjamin Palmer talks at Cannes

I found this interview with Benjamin Palmer, Co-founder and president of The Barbarian Group hidden away in episode 3 of Arnold’s behind-the-scenes Cannes video, something they call Cannes’t. Here’s the essence of what Benjamin had to say or you can watch the video here.

Do you like advertising or hate or despise it?

I don’t like bad advertising. I don’t think anyone likes bad advertising. You use to be able to sell a lot of products and be a successful agency and be a successful brand without actually doing anything interesting.

You could buy your way in?

Yeah. The media was fixed and controlled. You could do something terrible with a logo and inundate people and you would succeed.

I love brands. It’s what gives our capitalistic world some personality. I don’t particularly care for advertising when it’s not any good.

Now, the competition is not another ad, it’s everything. You’re five minute experience has to be better than anything else someone could be doing with their life.

I’m interested in taking what you would normally use for a marketing budget and turning it into something that functionally improves the product. The worst part about advertising is when there is a shitty product and you have to sell it. When probably they should just change it so that it’s good. The product or experience should draw people in on its own merits.

back to the future

I saw this on the Fallon Planning Blog today. It goes rather well with my previous post about the future.

what's an idea worth

We are good at coming up with ideas and solving problems. That's what makes us different from any other species on the planet. Sure, our solution to a problem often creates new and more complex problems. But that's how jobs are created. Most of the interesting jobs today are about finding solutions to other people's problems. So, the question becomes: What's the processing power of your brain worth? What's an idea worth?

• Amazon's Mechanical Turk aims to harness the problem solving power of the human brain. Their offer: "Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. Choose from thousands of tasks, control when you work, and decide how much you earn."
• At openad.net you can buy and sell advertising ideas. With a distributed network of talented, creative problem solvers will there still be a need for brick-and-mortar traditional ad agencies that are owned by holding companies?
• Here are some interesting ideas and solutions to problems (some of which, I didn't know I have) in the form of Web2.0 at "The complete Web2.0 directory."

talking with goodby

 
Zach Slow Canfield (left) and Derek Robson of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners met for a Q&A session last Friday after Derek talked about the agency's vision. On the previous day, Zach talked to students about what he looks for in a creative intern. Zach said 64 out of the 97 creatives at the agency are working on interactive. So, an intern's book should show their interactive skills. Of course, he's also looking for an understanding of typography, use of photography and raw talent.

Zach showed an example of a project he worked on. It took him about three days and $100 to create. He made a site where he attempted to ask out UK emcee Lady Sovereign. He wanted to raise $10,000 for his date. One month and 1,300,000 hits later, he met his goal (with only a couple of hours to spare before her show). Zach would love to see something like this in a creative's book. See his site here.

Two things came up during my conversation with Derek that I've been meaning to share here too. First, is dutchtub (a brand I like). It's a portable wood fired hot tub. The tub is made from a light weight polyester and uses a coiled stainless steel heating system. Here's a brand promise: you can have a nice warm soak anywhere there's wood and water.

Second, is The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier. It's everything I've been thinking and learning about for the past year—all condensed into a small book. "Not since McLuhan's The Medium is the Message has a book compressed so many ideas into so few pages."  Download the pdf presentation of the book here. I'm sure you'll love it too.

Thanks, Zach, Jill and Derek. Great to meet you all!

72 & sunny in eugene

John Boiler and Glenn Cole, co-founders and co-creative directors of 72andSunny, presented their work at Ad Night last week at the UO campus. They did a great job of telling the story about how they solved their clients’ business problem by developing sound communication strategy. Two examples are Zune and DC shoes (These link to YouTube, go to the 72andSunny site to see all of their work).

The next day, John (left, white shirt, hand on chin) and Glenn (right, green shirt, hand on chin) met with students and reviewed their work.

John said, “Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Then, get really good at it.”

(Glenn was talking about non-profits and causes here)

Glenn said, “You’re job is to help people make more money. You’re job is to be great at interviewing the client.” You need to make sure you're solving the right problem for them.

Some good questions: What keeps you up at night? How do you make money? What do you do with that money? Are people feeling loyal to your cause? What is it about your cause that is different?

Shocking people or using sensational language is one mistake people make when trying to generate awareness for a cause, they said. The message needs to be optimistic. It needs to connect with people in a positive way and it needs to make them feel good about supporting the cause.

“We want to see how you think. If you can make us think about it (a product or a cause) or care about it, then you’re job is done.”

John and Glenn, thanks again for taking the time to visit. Great job guys!

Moore on WOM

John Moore of Brand Autopsy poses the question: Which came first, creationist WOM or evolutionist WOM? It's worth watching if you haven't seen it yet.

planner survey

Heather LeFevre of The Martin Agency is conducting her annual planner survey. If you are a planner you can take it here. If you would like to see the results you can leave your email here. The survey is confidential. Heather says:

The survey is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing. Each year it has grown and changed. If you are not a planner, we're hopeful that you can forward this email to the planners you know. Please only take the survey if you are working as a planner (freelance and those who work outside the US are welcome).

eleven reasons

Take a look at the top eleven reasons why people stop reading your blog’s RSS feed (according to Darren Rowse’s research). I think it’s important to notice the underlying themes here. I know a few brands and politicians who could really learn from this.

1. Too many posts (the post levels are too overwhelming)
2. Infrequent posting (or the blog is effectively dead)
3. Partial excerpts feeds
4. Blog changes focus (too much off topic posting)
5. Too many posts that I see elsewhere (redundant, repeated or recycled news)
6. Uninteresting content
7. Irrelevant content
8. The blogger’s ego - too much self-promotion
9. Low quality content
10. Too many posts that are too long
11. Negative blogging

media influences

I’ve heard that the typical American is exposed to 5,000 ad messages per day. It’s becoming much harder to buy your way into someone’s life. It’s way too easy for someone to ignore your message.

Now, you have to do something different: something worthy of being talked about. Then, let people talk. It’s not new. It’s what people did before TV, radio and even movable type. It’s just human nature. We call it word of mouth (wom) marketing. Look at this chart on the influence of wom from Church of the Customer.

One final note, Greg Verdino asks the question, does your ad agency advertise? He says most don’t. (Do they know something they’re not telling their clients?)