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Helge Tennø on Content Marketing

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Helge was kind enough to contact me a couple weeks back to get some thoughts on this presentation. I meant to share it then but was traveling and let it fall down the Gmail inbox rabbit hole a bit. Thankfully, Damiano reminded me today.

Some things I especially liked were:

Slide 3: The thought of not focusing on one idea, but creating a range of ideas that engage people and bring them closer to the brand - something that the research of Duncan Watts is leading people to and something that Faris and Noah have been on to for quite a while, as have a few others.

Slide 33: If you're producing applications for brands/clients, always remember that the application is a means to an end, not the end itself.

Slides 47-59 on Emotional Research - it's time to start looking at things differently, don't you think?

Anyway, give it a read and be sure to let Helge know what you think over on his post of it or on Slideshare.

Opportunity Is Everywhere

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"Don't look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity."
Paul Arden, It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be.

Where most people see a dirty wall (or more likely, don't even notice the wall at all), Paul "Moose" Curtis sees an opportunity to make something better. He sees an opportunity to create art that takes something dingy and turns it into something delightful.

Green Works, or somebody working with them, noticed the reverse graffiti movement and saw an opportunity to bring this great idea forward, along with highlighting some people behind it, by creating the Reverse Graffiti Project.

As a planner, it is part of our job to find opportunity where others see none. For our creatives. For our clients. For our account handlers. For ourselves. For the people we're hoping to connect to our clients' brands.

Always look for opportunity. Always inspire.

Required Reading: Adliterate

Adliterate: radical thinking for the brand advice business, by Richard Huntington

If you have been reading my blatherings here for long, you've probably seen a link or two go out to Adliterate. In addition to being another one of the planners on my short list of blogs to emulate, Richard is by far one of my favorites to read.

He's not afraid to push boundaries and buttons. He's willing to challenge the status quo and call people out when they deserve it. Because of all this, many of his posts create a great conversation in the comments.

If you're a planner, Adliterate is absolutely required reading. If you're not, it's still very worth a spot in your RSS. You won't regret it.

Back to Basics: Creative Problem Solving, Part 2

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Whitney Hess left a very thoughtful comment on the previous post bearing this title and it reminded me of another comment she left on a Logic + Emotion post a while back that I really liked. The first bit of it really stood out to me and reads:

I think we forget sometimes that "design" means "to develop a plan." Design really isn't about execution, but about accurately defining the problem in order to allow for the most successful, effective and valuable solution -- given the objectives and constraints of the system -- to emerge.

Very well said.

It's not about sitting down right away and sketching out the brief to create an ad, a Web site, or whatever the client requested. It's not about trying to figure out what the main idea is immediately or what the "one thing" is we need to communicate (and as the research by Duncan Watts shows, it's likely that we'll need more than one thing or one idea anyway).

No, none of those things are the right way to start off, if they ever really were. We have to start by digging deeper into the issues facing our clients' brand(s). It might not be that they need what they are asking for. We need to do as Whitney outlines.

Start by accurately define the problem(s), taking into account all of the objectives and challenges, and then begin looking for the most successful, effective and valuable solution(s).

I know it's easier said than done. Especially given some of the circumstances we're up against at times. But following the same map that has been used for the past several decades won't lead us to interesting new places. That map leads to a ghost town now.

I don't know about you, but none of my clients are marketing their products to ghosts.

Required Reading: Brand New

Brand New - Thoughts on brands and communications (and some occasional random stuff), by Gareth Kay

When I first started writing here, I made a very short list of planners I hope to emulate in this space. Gareth  is one of them. He shares insightful, concise thoughts on building brands, creating meaningful advertising, and doing smarter planning along with the occasional book or band review. Odds are, you probably already read it. If not, I highly recommend it.

The Future of Advertising is Design (Redux)

Through all of the rambling that was the post titled, The Future of Advertising is Design, Linda was kind enough to leave a link to a post she put together in the comments which contained the above quote from the venerable Mr. Lee Clow.

I have always intended to do a shorter follow-up post to clean that mess up and this quote gave me the perfect lead-in.

What I intended to get at, but derailed with tangents, is that based on what Mr. Clow is talking about above - that what we do now (at least those of us who are to survive in this industry) is far bigger than what in the past has been called advertising - we have to think bigger than advertising at the beginning of creating ideas.

If an ad agency* is to prosper at whatever it is we'll call it in the future, they have to think bigger than the standard TV, Radio, Print and OOH model that then tosses a bone over to "interactive" by asking "the web guys" to put the TV spot on the web site. O.K., they also want a micro-site based on the TV spot. And make it a "viral" micro-site while you're at it. Oh, and get the PR agency to do a press release on the new campaign. There. It's all integrated now. Right? (Pssst. No. That's wrong.)

Where most ad agencies are getting into trouble, at least in my best guess, is that they are starting with looking at reaching the client's objective/goal by asking, "What's the ad campaign we need to create to solve this?" Or, "What's the message we need to tell people that will solve this?" If your approach is to start by assuming it's an ad, or starting by assuming the answer is to tell people something, then you're going to miss significant opportunities and as the quote above says, your client's brand will not be able to survive against others taking a bigger picture approach.

This is where the link to design came in. I didn't mean design will become advertising or advertising will become design. I simply meant that as an industry, we need to bring design thinking into the process to help us think bigger than advertising.

That's all. For now at least... Ha!

*For the record, we can plug "digital agency" into this equation too. If a digital shop is only thinking about how to best solve their clients' problems with web/digital solutions, they're going to quickly end up in the same situation. The only thing keeping them safe right now is that what's going on in the digital arena has everyone excited and so they're not taking the same heat as the traditional ad shops. Once the shine wears off the penny, they'll be hearing the same song.

Required Reading: The Kaiser Edition

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way, I lost track of what Marcus was writing when he switched over from his old blog to writing The Kaiser Edition.

Thankfully, someone pointed me in the direction of his Content Will Kill Your Agency series either in an email or comment from the Future of Marketing + Advertising post a while back and reminded me of his great blog/site.

In trying to catch up on it all, I feel like he and I are much on the same track of thought in many areas. Even down to the look of our sites/blogs. Although his is much better. If I were to create my own design rather than stay within TypePad's design tools, there's not much I would do different than how he has his set up. Anyway...

Rather than tell you about all the great stuff he's posting, just pop over there and start reading for yourself. Maybe the best/easiest way to start is to go with the "Top Stories" column on the right.

Note to Marcus, a.k.a. The Kaiser: Sorry I lost track for a bit. Definitely back on now and have corrected the oversight of not having a link to you over there in the blogrolls. Thanks for sharing all the great thinking and for always calling bullshit when it's needed.

Required Reading: Leland Maschmeyer - Volume 2

For some time now I've been meaning to do a "Required Reading" post every-so-often on blogs, books, sites, etc. that I think others should take note of and spend time with for one reason or another. I've even had the category created for a while and tagged some old posts with it. Well, today is the start of that series. Enough putting it off.

My first post in this series points to Leland Maschmeyer. He formerly wrote Whistle Through Your Comb (which BTW, is full of good bits and bytes to explore if you didn't read it before) and has now moved on from that to start anew.

His focus here is on using design thinking to solve marketing problems (correct me if that's not quite right, Leland), particularly in the area of transformation design. I quite like it because as Neil would say, I'm in violent agreement with a lot of it.

When you have a minute, go see what he's up to. I think you might like it. I know I do.

The Future of Your Brand Is...

...what appears to be a very interesting series of posts on just that from Gavin Heaton.

I'll admit I've fallen a bit behind on the RSS and am trying to catch up, so I've not read these in great detail yet, but in skimming over them, I think Gavin's got a really good thing going here.

Be sure to pop over there and give them some time. I'll be sure to share thoughts after I've had time to properly read them as well.

Fallon Brainfood: The Social 10

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Didn't get around to sharing this one last week, but meant to do it. Sorry about that.

Fallon planner, Aki Spicer, shared his thoughts on 10 Trends Marketers Should Know About Social Networking at the agency's Brainfood lunch both with the agency and beyond by broadcasting live across several social media platforms so that anyone could watch if they were so inclined. Sounds like it went pretty well. Wish I could have caught it live.

Aki starts off with a good quote from William Gibson: "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

Much of this is inline with some of what I've shared here throughout various posts and comments elsewhere. If you're following the social media conversations around the blogs, then I would say this is a really good round-up/recap of many of those ideas with some great case studies, quotes and implications to support exactly what he said this is, "a kind of social media 101."

Anyway, give it a go if you're looking for a good perspective on this topic. If you've got comments or thoughts, be sure to leave them for Aki over on the SlideShare or on the Fallon Planning blog post.