Category Archives: Opinions

Simple, short, and sweet. Period. The end.

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Brevity is de rigueur for PR professionals, especially when it comes to pitching—both traditional journalists and bloggers. And while we’re now using social media to assist with these efforts, these tools have created an entirely new dimension of brevity.

A leader in the PR and social media world, Peter Shankman suggests that brevity is among his four “rules” for communications practitioners in effective social media engagement. If today’s average attention span is 2.7 seconds, then long gone are the days where journalists are reading much beyond your headline!

Surely strong writing helps to crack this nut. The trick is to balance brevity with clarity, as shorter may not always be better. Another challenge is to be brief without compromising captivation. It’s tough when you want to paint a full picture while filtering words that may give your pitch that “oomph” to sell in your idea.

It really boils down to basics for all communicators, not just PR practitioners. Strong writing is clear, concise, and balanced with compelling punches. Condense your idea(s) into a short but sweet message.

Well it was a valiant attempt to practice what I’m “preaching” here. My post was not quite as brief as I had intended, but hey—I’m not on Twitter now, am I?

Anyone have Twitter-esque thoughts on the importance of being brief in communications?

Craft in a digital world

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Digital has all the evangelists it needs, often seen walking down sidewalks staring at Iphones – i think they call it connecting. We could use the occasional skeptic.

So I was happy to come across Christopher Kimball’s piece in Thursday’s NY Times. Mr. Kimball is the publisher of Cooks Illustrated. The article reflects on Gourmet’s demise, but goes on to offer a smart and contrarian reaction to the dominant theology of our day: digital democratization.

The whole article is here. Think it over the next time you price your services or read about a national brand soliciting ideas through crowd sourcing.

Here’s a quote:

To survive (digital democratization), those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise — the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks.

Advertising, the business of commercial communication in all its forms, is a craft. Experience matters. I wonder if the ad business itself believes this.

Cheers!
mj

Saturn and the trap of “brand experience”

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On a warm Spring day in 1991, my brother Tim visited Rochester with his first new car – a Saturn S series coupe. We took it out on Kings Highway through Durand Park for a road test. Drove ok. But it looked different and Tim was really proud of it. He had a story to tell, something about cookies and a song from the dealer. He was a Saturn brand evangelist.

Tim’s evangelism lasted another year perhaps. The Saturn brand meanwhile soldiered on, right up to this past Wednesday when GM announced that a planned takeover by auto mogul Roger Penske had fallen through. It appears the Saturn division will close next year.

Even before the current auto slump, Saturn had become a staple of MBA case studies on how to kill a promising business. Conventional wisdom has it that the meddling execs of GM killed the quirkiness in an effort to lower costs. The predictable cycle commenced, with loyal owners spun off each year.

I’d like to introduce an alternate theory: Saturn was dead on arrival. That it even got off the ground is a testament to brilliant advertising from Hal Riney and a decent dealer network. The problem was the cars – uniquely styled at times, but nothing special in performance, quality, or safety. Saturn created a compelling brand narrative, but not a good product.

Saturn has failed spectacularly, but not uniquely. Countless brands try to create a “brand experience” before doing the hard work of legitimate differentiation. My favorite category is airtravel – remember Song or Ted (we want to be like Jet Blue, can we do it without actually changing?).

Sadly, agencies and marketers are often asked to create the story and then canned when it doesn’t connect. Wish I had a more uplifting message. Cheers!

mj

P.S. while appreciating some of Hal Riney’s Saturn tv work, came across his work helping to elect Ronald Reagan. Politics aside, far more memorable than anything I’ve seen lately from candidates.

Why agency sites (mostly) stink, and an announcement…

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Ok. They don’t uniformally stink. If you want to quickly assess the type of work an agency considers “great”, they can be useful. But visit half a dozen. Right now, I’ll wait here.

Struck by the overwhelming sameness? Like a template was handed out at a 4 A’s conference. Right down to the “proprietary approach” and 3rd person bios (“Our clients describe Mike as quietly brilliant. So they’re surprised to learn he fronts a local punk band on the weekends”). I selected two for fodder, one bad and one good:

McCann NY (bad)
I defy you to discover anything relevant about this agency in 30 seconds. Eventually I found the “what we think” section, and have concluded that concealment was intentional (summary: they’re really really open to ideas). And moving links, still, in 2009?

Full disclosure, I used to work at McCann NY prior to emigrating to Rochester. Met my wife there. Loved the place. They are better and smarter than the site suggests.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky beta (good)
In certain circles, it’s very 2005 to openly admire CPB. But when faced with conventional challenges, they continue to think and behave unconventionally. The beta site is the latest example. Video, feeds and news about CPB and clients. Not just the sanitized PR stuff either. So it captures the impact the work is having rather than assessing work in a gallery. Time on your hands? Watch “Brokaw meets Bogusky” video.

Let me know examples you admire, local or otherwise. Love to see more of the good stuff. Or tell me how wildly off-base I am.

And the announcement:
When introducing the new blog team a few weeks ago, I neglected to mention P&N CMO Sarah Hanson. Not a minor oversight. Sarah arrived in Rochester from Boston’s Digitas with a ton of digital experience. More on Sarah here. Look for her to light up the blogoshere later this month.

mj

Should advertisers invest in an iPhone application?

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iPhone 3GsEveryone is clamoring about the new iPhone 3Gs and, more importantly, the iPhone 3.0 software update. And with good reason. It’s a powerful new upgrade to one of the best smartphones on the market. Video capabilities, built-in turn-by-turn GPS, internal compass, FM transmitter, MMS capabilities (which Apple is actually late on as most other phones have—even the cheap-o’s), video editing, voice control, and even internet tethering. Plus, it’s all connected to the App Store; wherein lies the real potential.

So many more robust and useful iPhone applications that take advantage of the new hardware features are likely on the horizon. Which begs the inevitable question: should advertisers (or brands) start seriously paying attention to the iPhone and investing in application development? I’m sure there are plenty of people who would say “Yes. Oh, God yes!” and plenty who would say “Nope. Not for us.” Everyone’s situation will differ. What I hope to do here is offer up some solid reasoning as to why a company might pour some money into an iPhone app, and reasoning for why it might be a good idea to hold off. So here we go…

Why it might be a good idea
First off, the iPhone is becoming (if it isn’t already) one of the best platforms for mobile advertising out there. It’s capabilities are nearly unrivaled, and has the potential to serve as an outlet for customers to interact with your brand in entirely new and exciting ways. Second, if you create an application that really solves a problem or proves incredibly useful to your audience, it could be great exposure. Think of all the tech-savvy early-adopters who could fan the flames of a rock-solid app that serves a purpose and works well.

Third, it’s advertising people would pay for. Create an app people actually find appealing or useful, and it’s likely they’d be willing to pay a dollar or two for it. Take for example Kraft Foods and their iFood app. They provide users with daily recipes, a store locator feature, the ability to add a recipe’s ingredients to a shopping list, and more. And just like similar recipe apps from McCormick and Betty Crocker / General Mills, the Kraft recipes conveniently call for Kraft products. And finally, if nothing else, mobile advertising like this literally gets you into people’s pockets and purses. They take your ad with you wherever they go, and may engage with it several times a day if you do it right.

Why it might NOT be a good idea
IMO, the number one reason one might decide to not invest in producing an iPhone app is cost. I’ve never attempted it, and don’t even know many people that have, but I gather it can get pretty time-consuming, and as a result, pretty costly. Probably even more so if your plan is to incorporate many features using several different pieces of the phone. And with development cost goes testing and debugging cost. The first version of the app won’t (and shouldn’t) be the last. Even if you have a great idea for an app, one could wind up spending as much money ironing out bugs and improving upon the user experience based on customer feedback. Nothing would be worse than to spend $100,000 on an app that users find difficult to use, and that garners only negative reviews. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to find most new apps that don’t have some kind of pre-launch buzz behind them. The iTunes store seems to be overrun with thousands of cheezy, weak, and otherwise useless apps, that will probably get in the way of people finding yours.

I’ve also heard that although the iPhone (and iPod Touch) is one of the most popular devices and the most widely used in terms of operating system data requests, the overall user base of the iPhone isn’t that hefty. Maybe 20% of the total smartphone market according to AdMob, and probably far less in terms of the overall cellphone market. One could argue that money might be better spent on a content-rich website that has a longer shelf-life, or some kind of broader campaign with an online component.

So in short, there are equally weighted reasons for and against. Success I guess comes down to identifying a real need, having a good idea behind it, and having the resources available to pull it off and maintain it. And this is all just one web guy’s take on the matter. There’s room for a whole lot more discussion here…

— Scott Wolf

The art of WOM

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It was tough getting back to the grind yesterday after a relaxing Memorial Day weekend, which began with a family visit in Connecticut (truly there’s no place like home, but only in small doses…). I grew up in a small town surrounded by state forest with three traffic lights and one recent fast food addition. So continuing on to the Berkshires for the latter part was seamless and enjoyable.

Unlike Rochester, these smaller, more self-sustaining Berkshire communities typically have one or two stores for each type of business—a general store, pharmacy, bookstore, ice cream parlor, and so forth. As I strolled through the quintessential small town of Lenox, Mass., my eyes caught an eclectic collection of sculptures made from scrap metal and recycled parts. The artist mentioned his outdoor gallery is primarily for viewing pleasure, but that he also sells pieces on occasion.

Further down the square, I saw that the local realtor had bought one of the artist’s chairs for the front doorstep…or had he? Had I stumbled upon effective cross-promotion and word-of-mouth at their finest? After all, business owners in small towns by nature have a greater advantage of fostering more personal, intimate relationships with their customers. A recent study found that our peers are considered as credible as industry experts, and when it comes to sources of information about a company, people trust what both employees and peers have to say.

The state of the economy certainly changes things up as well…are local businesses stepping outside of their traditional domain—seeking to attract “foreign” investment—and therefore relying on new word-of-mouth channels? To that extent, how are the increasing prevalence of online networks and e-commerce changing the marketing strategies of these small-town businesses? It will be interesting to see how “mom and pop” shops adapt to and leverage the evolving technologies, which can bring new customers from the global marketplace right to their doorstep.

Small agencies rescue the country

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Can small agencies help us out of the recession? Alex Bogusky thinks so, based on their capacity to behave entrepreneurially in a way big shops can’t. Here’s a quote from his AdAge article:

The reality is they (small shops) can do things for their clients the big monster shops can’t. With fewer people and less overhead, they offer the nimble and fast approach to problems a lot of nascent brands need.

I’m not sure small agencies can make a meaningful impact on economic recovery. But I do believe they are the key to strengthening the ad industry. The ability to develop great ideas and act quickly on them is the critical advantage in our business, and it’s only going to grow in importance.

As someone with a happy history in a couple big agencies, I can tell you that “nimble” is not in the employee handbook. In many ways, we’d have been at a disadvantage going up against a small agency in a pitch. Thanks god clients weren’t smart enough to invite any.

Anyone with a stake in the Rochester ad business ought to feel great about this. Because you put nimble to work every day.

Matt Jones

A picture is worth a thousand copywriters

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Over the last couple of days, some very nice things have been written about the copy that is part of the Dundee Ales & Lagers rebranding. It’s been very gratifying…and a little embarrassing.

But here’s some insight into what we, on the Dundee team, knew. Packaging sells beer. No one is buying beer because of a story on the back of the label. Sure, it gives them something to read while they drink…all by themselves. But the cool new look of the Dundee labels and Craft Pack is what stops people in their tracks in the beverage aisle.

And that is the genius work of Paul Hill and Tim Downs, two of the finest I will ever work with.

So I’ll never admit I said this, but save your reading for the cereal box, be shallow, and just choose a Dundee for its good looks.

Photoshop: Friend or Faux?

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it’s the beauty secret of the industry. and the subject of much debate. some say it adds an air of aspiration. others say it paints an unrealistic body image and false sense of face. and some are calling for full disclosure. see ny times op-ed video:

sex, lies and photoshop

personally, i wouldn’t mind a retoucher slimming me down and smoothing my skin every single day. but i’m vain like that.

care to weigh in?

— Robin Lohkamp