Useful Lunacy

MinnPost - Here's how to tap into your inner 'Mad Man'

2010-01-04T01:40:47-05:00

"As for the future direction of advertising, Brunelle says it lies in customization and microtargeting. Mass media are imploding, and outside of a few extravaganzas like the Super Bowl, audiences increasingly can be reached only in narrower niches."

via minnpost.com

Many thanks to John Reinan at MinnPost for picking up the story on the third (not fourth) season of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising.

http://catfoa.blogspot.com/2009/12/announcing-catfoa-2010.html

It's going to be a great series and we're very fortunate to have MCAD and MIMA co-sponsoring everything once again.

Since space was limited in John's piece, here's a bit more insight on what I meant about "customization" being a future of advertising...

First, I'm not sure I'm as keen on the idea of "microtargeting" as John's article suggests, because "targeting" seems to focus on the marketer more than the audience. And I've argued a lot about the necessity of marketers subsuming themselves to their audiences. Which is why I suggest customization is a more appropriate future.

In my mind, helping customers, helping audiences--as Zeus Jones calls it, "marketing as a service"--is entirely about customizing, on some level. It's about meeting the needs of the individual, on an individual and personal level.

Customization, to my mind, is entirely about marketers doing their best to serve customers. Customization is both custom(er) service and investment in tools, content and functionality which makes interacting with a brand easier, more engaging and more personal.

This could take the form of TV services via IP; ala on demand services, slingbox, Hulu, etc.

This could take the form of mobile apps which enable location finding, discount and coupon triggering, alerts, content redistribution.

This could take the form of printed publications highly tuned to my neighborhood or interests, e.g. a printed magazine with content I curate via a digital admin.

This could take the form of content "gifts" via brand subscriptions. e.g. a popular new album, TV series or movie available via an interaction.

Customization is perhaps the antithesis of "reach and frequency." And I think it can provide effective solutions to disenfranchised and difficult to reach audiences. Will it be cost-effective? Well, we'll just have to find out, won't we? And I suspect someone will.

Hopefully it'll be someone smart in the Twin Cities area, too.

Posted via web from Tim's posterous

Life changes like that

2009-12-20T23:21:03-05:00

We had talked about having a dog.

We had done our dog homework.

And there was some mild comfort in misreading the terms at the Minneapolis Humane Society website--something about waiting a few weeks to be approved or something.

There's a dog in our future we kept thinking. Emphasis on future.

Well, truth be told, the Humane Society will let you walk out the door with a dog today if you're willing to interact positively with the volunteers and fill out the paperwork.

So that's what we did around 11:00am, after meeting two amazing dogs/sisters.

Meet Ellie (L) and Jessie (R), mixed labs and new members of our family.

They're around 4 years old. Apparently from upstate New York. And very well trained.

It's funny how two creatures can settle in so quickly and become a part of the normal routine.

And now life continues, but on a very different path.

Posted via email from Tim's posterous

The UVM shoot

2009-12-11T19:49:34-05:00

I had forgotten how much time gets burned making TV commercials.

The week before Thanksgiving we travelled to the University of Vermont to shoot a three spot package promoting the school. Like so many commercial productions, there's a fair degree of hope, luck and ingenuity involved.

We had an awesome experience overall. The weather held out, mostly. And everyone we worked with was passionate and pleasant—a huge benefit to making shots happen, and happen on time.

It starts with casting.

The University helped put out a call, and we had 122 people show up.

122.

And I've got the Polaroids to prove it.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni. So many really intriguing people.

Ultimately, this was our production math:

34 actors.

22 locations.

Three scripts.

Two days.

Go!

We were also shooting with a new camera, the Canon 7D. In many ways, we could not have produced the volume of shots we did without this camera. It has incredible low light sensitivity, it's extremely portable and quick to adjust.

It's not a perfect video production camera, yet. The Canon 7D doesn't really do audio. So we hired Dan to record sound, and he did an awesome job.

The Canon 7D also lacks time code generation. And the ability to output a live HD signal while recording. But considering what it's capable of capturing, at its size and price point—you can't really argue. There are balances and consequences to every production decision.

We shot in chem labs, libraries, regular classrooms, on top of the Ira Allan bell tower, and all over campus.

We filmed students, faculty, alumni and staff reading one of three scripts straight into the camera. Most were only lit with an LED ring light and sometimes a little Kino Flow back or side fill.

Our DP, Martin Albert, was a saint—working with a new camera, and over 22 set ups in two days. Many thanks to the very patient and diligent crew as well. Our local PAs and grips hunkered down and got work done right the first time.

We also worked with real math geniuses! No fake equations used in the making of these spots.

Now we're finishing up the editing with Ring of Fire post production in Los Angeles. Jerry Spivak, John Myers and their team are hard at work synching audio and helping figure out the cut. Our concept is to layer these individual performances on top of each other, with split screen cuts, to create an individual—yet collective and unified—voice for UVM.

I spent a few days reviewing a couple hundred selects from the shoot. Lots of great performances. Lots of challenging background noises. But the Canon 7D (and its operator, and the talent in front of the camera) really delivered the goods.

Next up, a good 40 hours in post production.

Posted via email from Tim's posterous

Anyone else?

2009-12-03T15:32:14-05:00

I started blogging just over three years ago.

At first, I could have posted three times a day, several hundred words at a minimum each time.

Today, not so much.

In fact, today, not at all.

I can point to all kinds of practical and pragmatic reasons why I don't have time to write.

But I wonder if there's simply a point where writers just stop writing.

Anyone else have observations on this?

Posted via email from Tim's posterous

Shooting a commercial

2009-11-22T16:38:23-05:00

Three scripts.
34 talent.
20 locations.
Two days.
One brand new camera (Canon 7D).
A totally awesome crew.
A fantastic location (UVM).
Even more fantastic clients.
Thank you all for collaborating towards an amazing production!

Posted via email from Tim's posterous

MCAD Fall 2009 Copywriting - Recap 10, October 29

2009-10-30T00:43:56-04:00

The primary purpose of being a Copywriter is to create ideas (in any medium) which cause the reaction: "I hadn't thought of it that way before." Your role, then, is to create transformation of some kind. That change, that effect, might be emotional or logical, it might be factual or empathetic. Regardless of style or process, your work creates a shift in perception.

I hope we made that clear tonight.

10 sessions into this course, I'm grateful for the opportunity to work and rework this discussion around what it means to be a Copywriter circa 2009. I really do appreciate your opinions and insights into the process and result of creating advertising ideas, or being a copywriter.

I sense you're enjoying it, too. (And there's a comments field below where you might register some thoughts on this issue.)

Now we've entered the "reality" phase of the course. Now we're going to focus on doing, and quickly—assuming everyone is possessing the growing skills, aptitude and desire to create influential advertising.

Your first assignment is to create print ads for the iPhone 3GS. I'm stipulating "non-interactive" and "non-broadcast" because it forces us to focus on what's in front of us—in other words, if it's not visible on the page, it's not happening—e.g. make your ideas legible.

The presentation below has a few links to click on, and outlines tonight's presentation and the Apple assignment. Definitely check out all the technical specifications around the iPhone 3GS. But don't hesitate to ask Mr. Google what he thinks. Review the competition. Review the punditry. In other words, dig.

As I said in class (not sure if I had the wig and helmet on at that point), our goal is a fruitful discussion of vibrant ideas. We're looking for ideas, as I said above, which cause us to think, "I hadn't thought of it that way before."

Each of you is charged with bringing at least six pungent ideas. Six pieces of paper with one idea on each. If you're smart, you'll bring more than six. Hopefully they fall into one or two distinct campaigns. And from a presentation standpoint, all I care about is legibility—e.g. whatever you've got on the page is clear to anyone who looks at it. Black and White is fine. Drawings and stock photography are fine—but please recognize the trap you can fall into with someone else's images. So use all the tricks at your disposal, you clever art school students. I know you're individually capable and have the resources to deliver coherent ideas.

Next week will be treated as an internal review. Then we'll work together to refine our work.

Happy Halloween.

Compare and Contrast

2009-10-25T23:32:12-04:00

Interesting juxtaposition here, with a shared premise of empathy. Microsoft (via Crispin) asks us to see ourselves in their new operating system—even gives billions of us credit. While Apple (via TBWA Chiat Day) suggests Microsoft is just shilling more of the same.

Art vs. Commerce

2009-10-23T12:19:51-04:00

We've entered a Vonnegut reality. One where creativity and human invention of one kind consumes creativity and humanity of another kind. Maybe this cycle has always been there, but it seems to be blossoming now.

Take Daniel Roth's recent Wired article, "The Answer Factory: Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell," as a case in point.

Roth describes Demand Media, a company which creates all kinds of text articles and videos—4,000 individual pieces of content produced and distributed every single day. Demand's focus is in providing content which "answers" needs and questions found across the Internet. A noble task, it seems. Who wouldn't welcome content which supplies the answers you were searching for?

"Demand has learned, for instance, that [the keywords] 'best' and 'how to' bring in traffic or high clickthrough rates, while 'history of' is ad poison."

The insights Demand uncovers are scintillating. And profitable.

"At the end of the process, the company has a topic and a dollar amount — the term’s 'lifetime value,' or LTV — that Demand expects to generate from any resulting content."

It's a fantastic argument. Demand knows what the people want. It's algorithms actually save time, by ferreting those topics for which you and I want greater illumination. As Roth points out,

"It turned out that gut instinct and experience were less effective at predicting what readers and viewers wanted — and worse for the company — than a formula."

"...every algorithm-generated piece of content produced 4.9 times the revenue of the human-created ideas."

Bravo. Well done, algorithm! Figuring out what people want to know—in other words, figuring out "what should we talk about?" has always been a contentious, subjective issue for marketers and publishers. To leverage brute math and uncover those stories our audiences want (but haven't yet found) might just be a godsend.

"This, Reese says, is the ultimate promise of his algorithm: 'You can take something that is thought of as a creative process and turn it into a manufacturing process.'”

Uhh, hold on a second.

"You can take something that is thought of as a creative process and turn it into a manufacturing process."

Demand produces 4,000 articles and videos every single day, on-track to publish 1 million items every month by this time next year. Humans alone can't scale for that output. Fair enough, I get that. And as Roth describes the process, it's not 100% machine-driven.

"That’s not to say there isn’t any room for humans in Demand’s process. They just aren’t worth very much. The average writer earns $15 per article for pieces that top out at a few hundred words, and the average filmmaker about $20 per clip."

In Demand's model, humans have a role to play, but you've got to literally become a machine to play. You'd have to write approximately 2,667 articles a year at $15 a pop to earn $40,000 through Demand's process. That's seven "few hundred word" articles a day, every day.

As Daniel Pink asks in A Whole New Mind, "Can someone do it cheaper? Can a computer do it faster?" Demand's approach says "yes." The Wired article begins with an interesting observation from a filmmaker producing content for Demand:

"He points out that the focus is off: The rippling water is sharp while the kayaking instructor is slightly blurred. But the company he’s working for won’t care, he says, so why should he — especially for $20 a clip?"

Heck, I can hire Niche Writers of India, "starting at $4."

Silly humans.

Posted via email from Tim's posterous

MCAD Fall 2009 Copywriting - Recap 09, October 22

2009-10-23T00:37:16-04:00

What is the future of copywriting?

If anyone knows, it must be Elizabeth Sakola and Meghan Casey from Brain Traffic.

We were very fortunate to have these two smart people visit MCAD tonight to share their perspectives and expertise on the art of writing copy in the age of SEO, PPC, UX and a whole host of other acronyms.

Elizabeth shared her thoughts on "Web Writing for Dummies, Smarties, Oldies, and Newbies." Interesting to consider the dualities of copywriting online—is the task to excite, to compel to dramatize (e.g. messaging) or is the task to inform, direct and facilitate (e.g. functionality)?

Then Meghan discussed her background in writing, editing and content strategy. We walked through a diagram from Kristina Halvorson's presentation on content strategy to better understand the various roles and interplay required of writers in the digital age.

Then we had a brief discussion around the increasing rift generated by technology and offshore capability to automate and supplant the traditions of copywriting.

Daniel Roth's piece in Wired, "The Answer Factory: Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell" dissects the success of Demand Media's approach to content creation. As copywriters, how do we feel when our work can be valued at $15 per article? Heck, there's some fellas in India who will write your brand's site copy starting at $4.

Next week we're going to begin a sequence of five assignments, back to back; one per week.

MCAD Fall 2009 Copywriting - Recap 08, October 15

2009-10-15T23:41:35-04:00

Students!

I really appreciated your willingness to step up today and present your brand manifestos for Harley-Davidson. Reading them out loud is good practice for future client and agency presentations.

The work you did will continue to evolve. I encourage you to revisit what you've written and consider what the other students wrote and what we discussed in class—then evolve what you've put down. Work like this is evolutionary. Your first draft is likely one of a dozen, at least, that you'll pursue.

Our brief discussion around the transition from print to broadcast likely didn't do the subject justice. But I know you have access to Writing for Broadcast and Radio classes. The main point is this: Context matters. Who reads your words, what words are spoken versus text, what music you employ. So many components can seriously affect how your words are ultimately understood. It's wise to be aware of the tools, resources and situations at your disposal. After all, you all have Macs.

Next week we'll dig into "writing for interactive," with guest speaker Kristina Halvorson from Brain Traffic.