Profiles Get an Upgrade

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Andrea Zuegel

Every so often, I go on a tear about something that’s being overused in our industry, and I get fixated on it. My latest gripe: the profile piece. You know, nice big picture of someone followed by an up-close-and-personal about how the product/organization/company changed their lives. Higher ed is plagued with them. It’s not the concept itself that is bad, it’s that most of them end up following a prescribed outline that ends up sounding inauthentic and canned. They’re no longer differentiating.

But just as my grumbling was starting to bug even me, I came across a remedy that I think offers real value. The Simon School of Business recently (I think) redid their site, and their homepage caught my attention big time. What looked like another series of feature profiles is instead a series of hard facts that clearly define the Simon advantage. You still get the nice engaging people shot, but what’s behind it has a lot more tooth and relevance.

Today’s audience is more discerning than ever. Tell me what I need to know, and tell me why I should care. Once I’m engaged, the story telling can take me further, but I think we need to do a better job of making our case up front.

Saturn and the trap of “brand experience”

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Matt Jones

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!

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.

Highlights on spending from Mintel

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Sarah Hanson

I had the pleasure of attending Mirren’s new business workshop in NY last week. One highlight was the presentation on latest shopping trends from Mintel’s Krista Faron. The prognosis: Encouraging, especially for any products that can be enjoyed at home, and for high-quality, small indulgences.

Glimpses of improvement
Krista shared that the Consumer Confidence Index, which is a barometer of the “collective cultural psyche,” is continuing to trend upwards after bottoming out in February. However, unemployment is still high; a full economic rebound won’t happen until unemployment goes down, which is not expected until next year.

Mintel has identified an interesting and under-served segment: The “Under-Employed.” Of those 90% of Americans still employed, a third of full-time workers have taken a cut in hours or income, and over 40% of part-timers have lost work hours.

There’s no place like home
Despite these conditions, 70% of Americans are spending the same or more on home food than last year, because they’re eating at home more than ever. This means spreading the food budget farther – leading to a more engaged and experimental consumer. With this comes jumps in sales, and loyalty to private label brands as well as basics like Spam and Macaroni and Cheese.

This spend-“at-home” phenomenon is also associated with downward trends in eating at restaurants, traveling for vacations, and entertainment outside of the home. It also explains the staggering data that shows 34% of Americans are thinking about buying a flat-screen TV by the end of the year, as well as the positive trends in “simple” home improvement like painting and gardening.

Great brand value prevails
Mintel shared some great trend-busting brands that have thrived despite the marketplace, thanks to a focus on a quality product and experience at a great value. Terrific examples are Panera Bread, JetBlue and Old Navy. Good to see the principles of great product at a fair price can still prevail.

Comments, please

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Whit Thompson

Hi, I’m Whit, and I’m a comment junkie. I live for comments. Comments are evidence that people are listening. Comments are testimony that you’ve made someone, somewhere think about something enough that they feel compelled to agree or disagree with you. Comments beget more comments. I only post status updates on Facebook when I think they’re funny, thought-provoking, or controversial enough to generate comments. I plan to approach this blog the same way, so for my inaugural submission, I’m taking a shotgun approach to hedge my bets. Here’s a quick snapshot of all the things I thought about using as a subject, condensed to soundbyte-length. My “stream of consciousness” blog, if you will. Let’s see what gets some chatter going out there.

Rochester is an ad community in dire need of a softball tournament, a battle of the bands, something – anything – to remind us that a community is exactly what we are. Seeing each other at the ADDY show and the occasional RAF social event isn’t enough. We need more. Friendly competition is good. Bragging rights are even better. This really needs to happen. I can put a softball, bowling, badminton, or water polo team together if you can. Okay, water polo might be tough, but you get the idea.
Too many clients are mistaking social marketing websites for free places to park their logos instead of opportunities to give their brands meaning and bring them to life. From what I can tell, too many agencies nationwide are failing to educate and inspire them to think otherwise. Prove me wrong. Please.
Any creative who says he or she hasn’t looked through creative annuals for inspiration is either a liar or a fool. Any account, production, PR, or media person who says they’ve never looked through a creative annual is probably telling the truth and is definitely not giving themselves an important tool for success.
Rochester is without a doubt the most jingle happy community I have ever lived in. Professionally produced jingles don’t bother me; they’re effective as hell. Half-assed TV or radio station-produced jingles do. Got a favorite (or least favorite) jingle?
Admit it, Fucillo Hyundai ads have made you laugh out loud at least once, even if you hate yourself for doing so. Say what you want – the spots may be stupid, but the guy selling more Hyundais than anyone else in the country is not.
Local students who are aspiring art directors – get a copywriter to write the ads in your book. Aspiring copywriters – get an art director to art direct your book. All the kids coming out of programs like VCU and Miami Ad School do, and the difference shows.
TV and the art of doing broadcast are not dead. You just have to go online to see what’s being done.
iPhones are sweet. iPhone apps are sweet. iPhone apps that do something which is already programmed into my iPhone are stupid. Skype for iPhone? Why wouldn’t I just text you?
I actually think I like GM’s new tagline, “May the best car win.” Big and bold, just like they want to be. Hope they can live up to it.
Just noticed that America’s Funniest Videos is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Why is this show still on TV? Haven’t we already seen the funniest videos from America (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) on YouTube?
There’s a new iPhone knockoff called the “myPhone”. Really? myPhone? That’s the best they could do? Reminds me of Cleo McDowell in “Coming to America”: “They got the Big Mac … I got the Big Mick.”
There’s some fantastic work getting done in Rochester. Let’s do more.

Comments?

Make better ads in less than 90 minutes

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Scott Wolf

Art & Copy movie poster If you haven’t already, you should definitely make plans to see Art & Copy, playing this week at The Little Theatre. The film, directed by Doug Pray, details the creative genius of several relatively well-known and highly influential advertising creatives, such as George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney, and Rich Silverstein, among others, and explores the processes behind the creation of some of the most significant and moving ad campaigns of the last half-century.

It’s not a how-to guide to creating good ads, and it’s not necessarily guaranteed you’ll create better ads by watching the film, but you probably will walk out of the theater with your creative batteries recharged, and inspired to be a part of something equally impressive. Which in turn leads to great work. Something the RAF is all for.

Art & Copy
Playing at The Little Theatre, 240 East Ave., Downtown Rochester
Tuesday, 9/22 at 6:40pm and 9:10pm
Wednesday, 9/23 at 6:40pm and 9:10pm
Thursday, 9/24 at 6:40pm and 9:10pm (FINAL SHOWING)
More details on thelittle.org
Official movie website

— Scott Wolf

This Tuesday – Inaugural “20 Minutes and a Beer”

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Matt Jones

Join us tomorrow eve for the inaugural “20 Minutes and a Beer”. The subject is “Social Media” and the expert is Jon Brown from Partners & Napier. Info below, hope to see you there!

Where?
Tap & Mallet
381 Gregory Street
Rochester, NY 14620

What Time?
05:30 to 06:00 PM

How Much?
Free for members,
$4 non-members

Description
Join Jon Brown, Director of Interactive Services at Partners + Napier, and your fellow RAF members for a conversation on Social Media, as in What, When, Where, Why and How. Information on us, beer on you.

Webster, where life is worth printing.

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Joseph Mayernik

This Friday one of the Rochester area’s newest cultural gem’s is having a Grand Opening. Dock 2 Letterpress is a printing company like no other. Specializing in handset typography and printing on antique hand fed printing presses. They celebrate an art form that since the age of computers has gone the way of the 8-track. It’s combing through drawers of wooden typefaces. It’s large iron printing machines powered by feet not electricity. It’s the feel of the deboss, and the smell of the ink that cannot be replaced by Photoshop.

This is not an official RAF event. It’s an event sponsored by the AIGA, and I encourage you to go out and see what the Dock 2 Letterpress is all about. Why? Because our new RAF mission is to strengthen our creative community, to educate, and inspire great work. And this shop is freaking sweet.

The Grand Opening is from 5pm to 9pm, this Friday the 18th.

Dock 2 Letterpress is located across from Webster Thomas High School on 855 Publishers Parkway, DOCK #2 in Webster, NY, 14580

Hope to see you there. I’ll be the one drooling over the Bookman woodblock typefaces in the back of the shop.

JOE

What does your project smell like?

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Chris Lyons

Lately, when I’m looking for a bit of evocative inspiration, I’ve been turning to my sense of smell. I’ve read that odors and emotions and memories all meet up in an area called the limbic system to electrify your brain stem and trigger strong memories – so here’s what I did today: I’m working on a labor-intensive illustration for an agency in LA and it’s been a struggle. They want me to capture a summertime feel in an interpretation of an architect’s CAD drawing and I wasn’t feeling it. So I slathered on some Coppertone and after a few whiffs, I was feeling the beach again. The drawing got more positive and I felt energized. Like a switch got flipped. I did the same thing this past winter when I was working on a gift card drawing of a snowman. I built the snowman then brought the wet wooly mittens into my studio. The winter smells triggered something that got me energized. It doesn’t work all the time – I just drew a garbage truck for the WSJ – but sometimes it really helps me focus. Bizzaro?

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

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Matt Jones

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.

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