Buddhist Marketer

Coming To Times Square

She heard I was moving to Midtown, so my big sister decided to put herself on a big ad that’ll be playing in Times Square in November.

Awww, just to be closer to her li’l sis! How sweet :)

Click here to learn more the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Hat Optional

“And here on this slide we see some women in sexy panty-things…”

Five questions; five answers: Marc Lefton

Lest there be any question regarding my anti-social skills, I’m now an official columnist at Adholes.com, the ad industry’s largest and oldest social network.  In celebration of this, the founder of Adholes.com, Marc Lefton, was kind enough to let me interview him.

1.  From your perspective, what is it that gets in the way of truly great marketing?

The consumer’s lack of education or ability to take a joke, and/or a client’s perception of said consumer to be even 200% more totally stupid, humorless and easily offended than they already are. Since I’ve entered the industry, ads have gotten worse and worse. It used to be a marketer was willing to take a risk and offend a few people to please many. Now you have the most loved brands admired more because of their products and customer service than anything advertising agencies are doing for them. All the great talent got sucked out of the industry in the last recession and now even more will leave or get booted in this one. And, add to that further cuts to the education and arts and we’re on a downward spiral to the dumb marketing to the dumber in the next 10 years.

2.  How do you define “truly great marketing”?

Truly great marketing fires on all cylinders. It starts with a great product. Without a great product, great marketing just makes people hate you faster. From there, God is in the details. It’s easy enough to write a great print spot or a TV commercial, but finding an idea with enough legs to make it through every channel there is - from your Twitter account to a matchbook cover to that “Sorry, we were unable to hold your reservation” letter has to have the same consistent tone, attitude, spark and zing. They all have to emanate from the same thought process. And finally, having the ability to listen and respond to consumers instead of just talking at people which is SO 1900’s.

I don’t think ZipCar makes great ads - I’ve honestly never seen one. But from the copy on the website to their emails to the fact that they responded to me on Twitter within an hour of complaining about them shows they are firing on all cylinders so well that traditional marketing may not even be necessary.

3. Let’s say America becomes communist. What career do you want the government to shove down your throat?

I’ve always been a fan of Russian propaganda posters. I don’t fear communism, I will gladly join our Dear Leaders in manipulating your dead-insect-filled brains to do our bidding.

4.  What do you think sets you apart from other folks in your line of work?

I’m not a clone. I never went to college. Which means as a creative person in the industry no one can say “Oh, your portfolio makes me think you went to SVA” which is what I can say about most others graduating today. Schools are churning out clones who all think creative in the same way. I’m a unique combination of being passionate, having high expectations and goals, and yet not really caring how far I go or if I fail. I was told by family and teachers growing up I was going to pump gas for a living. When you have that type of expectation it removes the fear from trying new things. If I always wanted to be a creative director, I might have stopped half way and said good enough. Or, I might have just joined an ad industry social network instead of asking myself “How can I make my own?” before anyone else did. I don’t know where I’m going so I guess I just keep going up. If I screw up and wind up pumping gas then so be it. It was my destiny! I’m going to keep trying to be different and do what I believe in, not what others insist I do.

5.  What do you think sets you apart from other humans?

True brilliance is not in being smart but in knowing how you are not smart. I know how to not only play my strengths but embrace and cover up my weaknesses. You need to be kind of zen about your ego to do this - because on one hand you want to be confident about yourself, yet at the same time be humble enough to know when you’re not good enough at something. I’ve found very few people who have this balance - most have a false ego and only concentrate on how good they are. I worry about how bad I am at things and how not to let those things undermine what I’m good at.

By now, you probably understand why Marc and I get along.

Click here to check out Marc’s blog.

Brilliant marketing idea?

While taking my shoes off at Nashville airport Monday morning, my eyeballs couldn’t help but notice the holographic Zappos ad affixed to each and every white plastic bucket used in the security line.

Now, I love Zappos, and if I were a shoe brand in the $25 - $75 price point I’d be very afraid of them.  They have tons of search data and know exactly what people are looking for when it comes to shoes.  (As my friend Rachel loudly exclaimed on our way to lunch today, I am looking for really big ones.)  Zappos owns the distribution pipes and knows what the consumers want and, just as WalMart out-P&Gs P&G with their private label laundry detergent and other assorted CPGs, Zappos can sell their own brand of shoes and predict pretty well what the demand for BLUE FLAT WOMEN’S CASUAL SHOE in SIZE 7 might be.

On a Monday.

At three in the afternoon.

That’s crazy powerful.

But is a sparkly ad in an airport a good idea?  I can’t be sure, but I do wonder a few other things:

1. What were the terms of this deal?
2. From whom were they purchasing the real estate?
3. Is this a CPM buy?
4. If so, what’s the “M”?  Containers labeled?  Monthly passengers?
5. How long does this deal run?
6. How will Zappos measure efficacy?!
7. What else can we stick sparkly ads onto?
8. Does this make travelers more inclined or less inclined to check out Zappos?
9. Why didn’t I think of this?
10. How much for a big sticker in the middle of Red Square?

Ad industry decline

Hal Riney opines on the decline of the advertising industry in the January 8, 2007 issue of Adweek:

It is appalling what has happened to the industry in general. Ad people have no faith in the long-term effects of brand image, so the human element is lacking in the work… Advertising has been relegated to middle management…

This is a business built on ability and imagination. You need a magnificent group of creative people and remarkable clients who want to have fun and not just do the same thing.

I’ve given some thought to this over the past few years. And I know that what I’m about to say might be politically incorrect …

… but I can’t help it.

When I worked at Digitas as a menial grunt working sixty-plus hour weeks for ten grand less than the job before it (whimper), I admired the work of Steve Olderman, a fellow Yale grad who, despite not attending a traditional arts school (he received his Bachelor’s in Engineering in 1963), was then the Chief Creative Officer.

How was it, I thought, that he was able to fashion his career in such a way?

I guarantee you that a Stephen Olderman circa 2007 n’existe pas. The path to becoming a creative director these days is through the halls of SVA, RISD, Pratt, and the like. Or, perhaps you crossover from a different role within an agency — a role like media planning or copywriting.

Except. Well. It’s really hard to get into an agency these days. They require degrees in marketing or advertising. They expect that you know how to operate the metaphorical machinery of the advertising engine. Which is good and fine for executional grunt work. But what about the big picture?

Yale University does not offer a “marketing” or “advertising” degree. It’s a liberal arts institution. It, and places like it, teach you how to think. So that when you encounter a problem — e.g., “How can I shift the brand consciousness in the minds of consumers for this bar of whale fat?” — you understand how to tackle it. These are the kinds of minds that the advertising industry needs, to inject the “human element” of which Hal Riney speaks, to guide clients to consider greatness, to prevent this kind of creative exploration from being “relegated to middle management”.

The problem is that institutionally, it’s nearly impossible for these budding potential great minds, these Stephen Oldermans circa 2007, to get in to the industry. If someone with an engineering degree walked into HR at an agency and said they wanted to be a creative, they’d get laughed at.

But if they do get into one (I was an account person — not exactly the rockstars of an agency, of course), they find themselves surrounded by attendees of what have essentially become vocational schools. Look, I don’t look down my nose on those who learned how to use Comscore or Nielsen Netratings to build a media plan during their undergraduate days. I believe that an honest day’s work is an honest day’s work, and learning a trade to eke yourself to a higher tax bracket is an honorable thing.

But it’s just that. A trade. Learning to build a media plan in your pursuit of an advertising degree is akin to learning to make a widget. It has nothing to do with learning how to think, how to tackle and approach problems in an original and expansive way. Anyone can make a widget. Anyone can build a media plan. Anyone can puke out most of the advertising units rolling in front of our eyeballs these days.

And so the industry, I think, begins to look a bit like it does today. Rife with art school grads who can certainly make something look pretty but lack the ability to inject meaning and substance into the smoke and mirrors. Laden with voc school grads who can pull some placements for women 18-35, single, no children but can’t consider the implications for a psychographic shift or a product positioning tilt. But lacking just the kind of flexible, intellectually-curious, hungry minds that could tackle huge problems and deliver an elegant, unique solution with a depth of consideration and historical relevance that will also positively impact the bottom line.

So I think that Hal Riney’s right in his observations about the ad industry. And I don’t disagree that the obeisance to shareholder value or commodification of everything don’t play important roles. But I also feel that the places from which the industry sources its talent and the ways in which the industry’s recruiters and human resources professionals populate the entry level cubicles also play a very important role.

Just my opinion. And again, not trying to hate on state school grads who majored in advertising. A place for everyone and all. They all make more than me anyway, I’m sure.