Keep your head down
Follow instructions
Show up on time
Work hard
Suck it up
…you will be rewarded.

That dream is over.
“The new American Dream, the one that markets around the world are embracing as fast as they can, is this:”

Be remarkable
Be generous
Create art
Make judgement calls
Connect people and ideas
…and we have no choice but to reward you.

The American Dream

Seth has a point. Organizations seek and reward employees with passion and energy and are flexible in the face of change. Employers want their employees to be indispensable. The linchpin has power! “When your organization becomes more human, more remarkable, faster on its feet, and more likely to connect directly with customers, it becomes indispensable.” So what the boss really wants in an employee is an artist who changes everything and makes dreams come true, can see the reality of today and and describe a better tomorrow. What the boss really wants is a linchpin. If he can’t have a linchpin, he’ll have to settle for a regular cheap drone. Are you a linchpin or a drone?

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Clients say they won’t pay because if an agency wins, they more than make back their investment.  And that’s the chance you take and if you don’t like it just refuse to take part.  The reality is that will mean almost zero new busines pitches. So you rationalise that everyone does it so you have to too.  That’s how we all end up breaking red lights.  Or I should say some of us.  Some still do the right thing.

Actions like these (pitching for free) commoditizes agencies.  What irony?  The great brand builders are commodities themselves.

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The Art of Marketing Conference, Toronto 2010

I very recently attended the Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto. The event was billed as:

Canada’s Marketing & Innovation Conference

This one day conference features six internationally renowned bestselling authors and leaders who will share an exciting blend of cutting edge thinking and real world experience on today’s most critical marketing issues. Don’t miss out on your chance to be a part of history and network with over 1,200 of Canada’s most influential marketers.

Sally Hogshead on Persuasion & Influence

Lust. Mystique. Power. Alarm. Prestige. Trust. Vice. According to Sally Hogshead, these are the 7 triggers to persuasion and captivation. At the Art of Marketing conference in Toronto on March 2, 2010 she delivered a fascinating presentation complete with Jagermeister shots. To learn how to fascinate your audience, go buy her book and visit her website. She was one of six amazing speakers with a Ron Tite as a very entertaining host.

Mitch Joel on Digital Marketing & Social Media

First up was Mitch Joel who told us to burn the ship; there is no going back, only move forward. He also shared some interesting and alarming stats like there are more grandparents than high school students on Facebook, 40% of persons while watching TV are really sleeping and 20% of Google search subjects each day have never been searched for before.

Your brand is what the search engine says it is so create a brand experience from that first touch point. He also talked about the 3 conversations, internal (brand values), one to one (trial and sampling) and one to many (spread and connect). For more on Mitch, read his book Six Pixels of Separation and search for the “free hugs” story on You Tube.

Seth Godin on Leadership and Creativity

Next up was the highly anticipated Seth Godin. According to him, the market for something to believe in is infinite, marketing has become leadership and you must recognize your tribe. You have to stand for something and do something worth following. Seth says the problem is the ‘factory mindset’, we must learn to solve interesting problems. Give yourself an A or a D and live up to it. Treat work as a platform and not a job, be passionate about what you do and “be an artist”.

In his new book Linchpin, “the only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labour, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations are people care deeply about.” Linchpins are people who invent, lead, connect others, make things happen and create order out of chaos. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind or art. Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Are you a linchpin?

James Othmer on Advertising & Branding

James Othmer, author of Adland was up after Sally. He spoke about branding and storytelling. Basically, it’s all about people and stories and not gadgets and platforms. His advice on creating a show bible is to first create a world (e.g. TV show Lost), give it a methodology and ethos, map it physically and chronologically and then activate it.

Max Lenderman on Branding & Experiential Marketing

After a short break Max Lenderman did his presentation on experience, authenticity, big-think and goodness. His focus was on experiential marketing, claiming it to be number 2 to digital marketing and events boost sales by 52%. Examples cited include the Army Experience Centre where potential recruits simulate “shooting the bad guys”, Camp Jeep, Tide Clean Start programme for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti and Apple stores. You can knock-off or imitate a product but not an experience. He left us with a quote from Confucious – “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.”

Dan Heath on Strategy & Communications

Rounding up the speakers was Dan Heath, co-author of Switch. Change is hard. People resist change. People hate change. Except when that change relates to food, fashion, technology, communication (lingo), recycling, having kids, and well just about anything. He spoke of a 3 part framework for change.

1. Direct the rider (rational side) find the bright spots, forget the problems and focus on the signs of hope. Emulate yourself at your best moments
2. Motivate the elephant (emotional side). See, feel, change.
3. Shape the path (make easier by changing the situation or environment). Change takes time, be persistent. Dan asked us, “It took you years to learn to smoke, what makes you think you can quit the first time?”

Summary

So in summary, I’m inspired and energized and would like to ask you:

• In this world of interconnectedness, how are you going to spread your story, connect, and add value to your life and the people whose lives you touch? (Mitch Joel)
• Are you indispensable? (Seth Godin)
• In a distracted, overcrowded world, how do certain leaders, friends and family members convince you to change your behaviour? Fascination: the most powerful way to influence decision making. (Sally Hogshead)
• Why are some brands winning and some losing the critical battle for authenticity? (James Othmer)
• Is the experience the message or is the people the experience? (Max Lenderman)
• Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities and in our own lives? (Dan Heath)

I urge you to read the books of the above authors, subscribe to their blog or visit their website. Don’t let your lizard brain take over. Be a genius, an artist or a linchpin. Be remarkable or fascinating. Replace fear of the unknown with curiousity. Give free hugs. (not sure what I mean? Google it!)

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This year, despite the downturn, the UWI fete performed particularly well. In fact, it sold out, why?  As chair of the Fete here’s what I think.

UWI fete is a strong brand

The UWI Fete is one of the first All Inclusives in T&T, and was started by the then Principal of UWI and our current President, His Excellency Maxwell Richards.  It has always set high standards and most importantly, positioned itself as the Fete that attracts the Who’s Who of the private and public sectors.  It’s the place to go if you want to see and meet the movers and shakers of our country.  So  the essence of the the UWI Fete brand, I believe, is about rewarding yourself with the best Fete experience because you are a high achiever and you deserve it.  The UWI fete gives people an opportunity to Fete and at the same time do good.

The 2010 Fete was the 20th Anniversary of the Fete and that gave us an opportunity to remind people what a great time they have had in the past 20 years.  It was celebrating a special occasion of a strong brand.

Get out the boxes early

The UWI Fete Committee starts planning several months prior and our first communications to Companies and influencers went out in October 2009.  Our team decided on a “China” theme because it is traditional to give a piece of china on the occasion of a 20th Anniversary.  So using this as inspiration all our communications, decor, food and special touches bore the chinese influence.

Make sure the product is good

The best music (and plenty of it, with UWI being the only All Inclusive in 2010 with 4 bands), plenty of good food and premium drinks; all set out in the right ambience that the UWI Principal’s Grounds offer.  This affects the reputation of the brand so it needs to be of a consistently high standard every year.

A Multimedia approach that included New Media

The UWI Fete Facebook Fanpage

The UWI fete has a very strong ticket sales network.  Our sales team sell directly to their friends and business associates.  In addition, we drove interest for the Fete through press and radio advertising and a strong digital media plan (e-strategy) including e-mail campaigns, web advertising, mobile marketing and social media.

The UWI Fete Facebook Fanpage was launched featuring a custom tab using Facebook’s FBML app. This custom tab greeted new fans asking them to invite other friends to join the Fanpage. As a Facebook Fan, the new fan member was privy to photos, video and links of past events. To spark enthusiasm, we counted down the days to the event with teasers, involving the fans in banter and discussion with interesting links and content. A Facebook event was also created allowing fans to invite friends at the click of a button.

For those who preferred Twitter, we created a Twitter account which automatically tweeted items from the Facebook fanpage news stream.

In terms of email marketing, we sent custom HTML emails with when, where and who details. This was complimented by text messages sent to the UWI-provided database and a series of online ads.

We had some luck too

We were the only major fete on the 17th January, so no competition on the day sure does help.  Our planning team does not rely on luck though and work very hard to keep improving the UWI Fete.

For those of you who attended, thank you for making the event a success. To everyone, see you in 2011.

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To the media, many of these events are painful.  Because they are so frequent, they are seen as much of the same with the logo changed.  So how do you stand out?  Here are some tips:

• Make sure you have a news worthy reason to invite the media.  A new product isn’t necessarily news worthy if it does not have some material new feature that’s desired by the market place.
• Make your event interesting, engaging and differentiated from all others
• Ensure your event is as accessible to media as possible (easy to reach location)
• Develop a strong rapport with the media or hire someone who has
• Be accessible to the media all year through and make sure your management team is too
• Give them no more than 2 weeks notice and no less than 1 week; inviting the right people in the media and respective department (Business, Sport, Culture etc.)
• Follow up with e-mails and telephone calls, and don’t harass
• Get cell #’s where possible so you can remind them 2 hours before the event (those who said they were coming)
• Have a plan “B”- Have your own photographer/videographer so you can send press kits with pix, audio and video to print and electronic media not present
• Thank media for coming- a short thank you e-mail

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And b-mobile does not have permission to organise concerts.  They do not own that space in the mind. They own connect.  They own cool.  They own big.  They own patriotic.  They probably still own bad service.  They don’t own the position of concert organiser.  So in a sense, this will work in their favor when the brain starts storing any bad stuff from the Beyonce Concert experience.  Because the computer in our head stores stuff by category.   When the cell phone goes dead for one hour, that’s bad stuff.  When calls are dropped, that’s bad stuff.  When we get the wrong charges on our bill, that’s bad stuff.  All of that is a stab on b-mobile’s brand equity.  Dust and doubles and poor sound gets stored in a different file.  It gets stored in the concert/all inclusive/fete folder.  That doesn’t mean that b-mobile will be left without scars.

Brands should stick to their knitting.

There is absolutely no way I would go near a Beyonce Concert without Johnny Soong or Anthony Chow Lin On or both at my side.  And TSTT is close enough to the ground to know that.  I think the Fatima College Old Boys, a bunch of amateur, part-time fete organisers could have done a better job.  If you’ve been to the Fatima Fete you’ll know what I mean.  But I digress.  Beyonce is no fete for 3000 people who went to the school and therefore will forgive almost anything.  Beyonce is the premier league.

TSTT should have engaged a proven event organiser even before they engaged the acts.  Because that’s not their business.  It’s not their core competency.  A Beyonce Concert is neither sub-sea fibre optic engineering or customer service delivery for known subscribers.  It’s a whole different, complex, multi-layered bag of challenges that you only have one chance to get right.  Seth Godin, the new marketing guru goes so far as to not recommend doing big events. “The reasons? Well, they don’t work. They don’t work because big events leave little room for iteration, for trial and error, for earning rapport.”  says Seth.  No room for trial and error, Seth sure got that right.

TSTT’s role should have been conductor rather than fiddler, board rather than salesman.  And the team assembled for Ms. Knowles should have picked themselves based on achievement in the category.  People who would have already done their trial and error with flopped events and disasters of all kinds and who also would know how to do it right by now.  Instead b-mobile took a good thing and spoilt it.  Much like the handling of the sponsorship of the West Indies Team when Digicel took over from C&W.  And Digicel could be excused as they were relatively new to the region and were not even operating in some territories including T&T.  B-mobile has no excuse, they were born here.  Next time I hope they pick up the phone and call Tony.

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Sometimes our brands get into a traffic jam.  Sales are not what they should be or a new entrant has come in and are buying share through discounting or trade deals.  And we are tempted to turn back.  We drop price or drop ad spend or anything that seems expedient at the time.  We sometimes forget where we said we wanted to go with the brand.  What we wanted it to mean and to whom.

With branding, we need to stay the course.  Make some adjustments in the tactics as needed and stick to the strategy we worked hard to develop.  Otherwise like some folks this morning, we might end up going west when we want to go east.  Brands need patience, discipline and sometimes a sense of humour to overcome traffic jams in the market place.   Brands must stick to their plan.

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Kes the band performs on stage

Seth Godin says no to big events. “The reasons? Well, they don’t work. They don’t work because big events leave little room for iteration, for trial and error, for earning rapport. And the biggest reason: frequent cheap communication is easier than ever, and if you use it, you’ll discover that the process creates far more gains than events ever can.” says Seth.

With the dawn of the VIP section and the ubiquitous all exclusive; is that format providing the intimacy that Seth alludes to? Intimacy at $700 a pop is probably not what he had in mind. And where do the masses get their intimacy. Well they go to the all inclusives. The Fetes like Army Fete, Fire and Licensing where they know they are in charge in their territory and they feel powerful. The same kind of power felt by the managers and aspirants in the all exclusives.

So by definition, according to Seth, Tribe must split up or be split. Little tribes that play different themes who may or may not come together during the course of the Festival. Steelbands should have concerts on carnival day….not necessarily parading through the streets but set up in one spot and jamming. Then there can be conversations around the pan.

Carnival will not die. It will evolve. It’s now more than anything else, a street party. So do we need judges for a street party? I think not. What would happen if we didn’t have any competitions in carnival? Well the calypsonians are already whispering that possibility in their space; so it’s not as far fetched as it now sounds as they are as conservative and traditional of any of the special interest groups.

Who will be the first to play a small Mass?

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No marketing budget, plan, campaign or strategy is complete without a digital component.

That’s why Pepper has launched its digital marketing arm, Pepper-e.

Digital Marketing is…

the promoting of brands using the Internet, mobile and other interactive channels.

Whilst digital marketing includes Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this to include other new media channels which do not require the use of the Internet.

As a result of this non-reliance on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes elements such as mobile phones, mobile apps, interactive CDs, display ads and digital outdoor.

-Wikipedia

What’s available…

Web Design & Development
Website & Microsite Design • Content Management Systems (CMS) Development • Flash Design & Animation • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Online Display Advertising
Facebook Ads • Google Adwords • Online Animated Banners

Email Marketing
HTML Email Campaigns • Email Signatures • Email Gathering

Social Media Marketing
Setup of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Tagged Profiles • Facebook Apps • Facebook Connect

Mobile Marketing
Text Messaging (SMS/MMS) • Mobile Apps

Interactive & Presentation
Presentation Design • Desktop Apps (Screensavers & Wallpapers)

Learn more…

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**I made that comment about not being about your product because there isn’t a mention about coffee or really Starbucks.  It’s about RED and AIDS in Africa. Full stop. **

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Prediction: The small-to midsize ad agencies that make social media central to their business model will find success and thrive in spite of the recession.

Social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing (Forrester Research: US Interactive Marketing Spend 2009 to 2014 Report issued Summer 2009). The Fortune 500 companies not using social media has dropped dramatically – from 43% now to only 9% (eMarketer).

Virtue, a social media management company, has released its second annual ranking of the most social brands, The Vitrue 100, derived from their daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands on the social web.

“The Vitrue 100 helps provide the industry with overall trends. We issue the list to highlight the most social brands and help demonstrate the value of social media marketing.”

The Vitrue 100 of 2009
1. iPhone
2. Disney
3. CNN
4. MTV
5. NBA

6. iTunes
7. Wii
8. Apple
9. Xbox
10. Nike
11. Starbucks
12. NFL
13. PlayStation
14. Adidas
15. BlackBerry
16. Sony
17. Mercedes
18. Microsoft
19. Samsung
20. BMW
21. Nintendo
22. Best Buy
23. ESPN
24. Ford
25. Honda
26. Ferrari
27. Gucci
28. Nokia
29. Major League Baseball
30. Dell
31. Coca-Cola
32. CBS
33. ABC
34. iPod
35. Mac
36. Turner
37. Nissan
38. Toyota
39. eBay
40. Amazon
41. Victoria’s Secret
42. Nutella
43. NASCAR
44. Disneyland
45. Audi
46. NHL
47. Red Bull
48. Verizon
49. Intel
50. Subway
51. Hewlett-Packard
52. Puma
53. Kia
54. Fox News
55. Porsche
56. Jeep
57. Dodge
58. Pandora
59. Walmart
60. Zappos
61. Suzuki
62. McDonald’s
63. Krystal
64. T-Mobile
65. Skittles
66. KFC
67. Volkswagen
68. NBC
69. Sprint
70. Pixar
71. Motorola
72. IKEA
73. Pepsi
74. Cisco
75. REI
76. LG
77. AT&T
78. Converse
79. The Gap
80. Chevrolet
81. Luis Vuitton
82. Toys”R”Us
83. H&M
84. Philips
85. General Motors
86. Pringles
87. Visa
88. Prada
89. Panasonic
90. IBM
91. VH1
92. Hulu
93. Oracle
94. Burberry
95. SEGA
96. Sears
97. Avon
98. Jet Blue
99. Lacoste
100. Comcast
Many ad agencies are still behind the curve when it comes to social media marketing. Barbara Bacci Mirque, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, ANA, recently observed that,

“More and more advertisers are leading their agencies into new media, not the other way around,” and that ”clients are the ones who are personally and professionally experimenting with new media forms and directing their agencies to look into them.”

“When I started out in this business in the mid 80’s as an assistant product manager at The Frito-Lay Company, we expected our advertising agencies to be innovative and inform us about what was hip and cool – now it appears to be the other way around,” she wrote in the ANA blog.

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So you’re the courier at the ad agency and you can sit and wait for someone to tell you what to do. Or you can make your own job. You can help media update the scrap book or track competitive advertising or any of 100 jobs available to be done. You can bring back the letter that someone addressed wrongly and say “that’s what they gave me” or you could make damn sure it reaches Mr Jones in Frederick Settlement not Frederick Street. Saying you didn’t deliver it because it had the wrong address or you could not find it may have been more excusable 100 years ago before mobile phones. (And even then you could find a way) The key is ownership. At pepper, we have a courier named Damian Primus who knows how to climb.

When someone says or implies they didn’t do something because somebody didn’t do something; I feel like doing something. And it does not have anything to do with giving them recognition or reward or a promotion.

So I encourage all the people around me to climb the accountability ladder. Climb away in 2010 and beyond. Only you can keep you down.

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Shh...

“The World needs a tape like this”. Ha!  Did you even need the extra copy on the bottom to highlight that it was a famous ‘Bushism’ that has Republicans shaking their heads in shame?

Ok, more about the actual ad.  Tesa tape is visible enough on the inside of the reel.  This ad is BOLD & BRAVE and memorable. But that’s just my opinion.

Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

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A Year In Review: 2009 Social Marketing Trends

by Jeremiah Owyang

Source: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/12/23/forbes-a-year-in-review-2009-social-marketing-trends/

The connected customer leaves brands in the dust.

As we close out the year, it’s important to look back at what happened in social marketing in order to plan for the future. There were four key trends in 2009 that CMOs should reflect on, starting at the macro level then shifting down to micro real-time updates. They are:

The Recession Spurred Consumers to Adopt Social Technologies. Humans are social creatures and, as a result, they tend to band together in hard times. During financial crises, this same behavior is evident: People connect to one other, share, learn, and communicate. What’s more, with unemployment at record highs, those with internet access have more time–and need–to connect with others. It’s evident through Facebook’s 350 million global users. For brands, it’s interesting to note a study by Razorfish, which indicates that 52% of consumers have blogged about a brand’s product or experience. Don’t expect this to change as the recession lifts, as it is the preferred method of communication for young people.

Some Brands Followed Suit With Social Marketing. Marketing budgets are pinched during tough times. Recent data from eMarketer indicates that companies are slashing print budgets by 37% and TV by 21% as a response to the recession. Yet marketers know that tough times also spur innovation, as they experiment with mediums such as social marketing. Social marketing promises lower costs and bigger returns. In fact, word-of-mouth campaigns encourage consumers to do the marketing on behalf of the brand themselves. Yet despite the opportunity, research conducted by the Altimeter Group (where I’m a partner) and Wetpaint found that while brands like Starbucks, Dell, eBay, and Google interact with their customers, most brands do not. Still, we’re seeing a noticeable increase in social marketing budgets, as brands find ways to innovative marketing.

Social Networks Share Data, Spreading Social Influence. A key trend across the technology vendor space in 2009 is that social networks are connecting with other systems. Much like how Apple’s iPhone developer program enables third parties to build and create new applications, many social networks are doing the same. Take for example, LinkedIn, a business network that recently began allowing third party sites to connect with the LinkedIn platform to share data. Similarly, Facebook Connect allows users to log into third party sites using their Facebook ID. There have been over 80,000 connections since this time last year. So what does this data availability mean? It means that consumers’ social experience will spread from site to site, and that wherever they go online or off, they can access their friends’ opinions, experiences, and recommendations in real time.

Consumers Move Faster By Sharing Real-Time Data. In August, 2009, blogger Heather Armstrong, who boasts over a million followers on Twitter was miffed about a shabby customer experience and tweeted about it. Although the company, Whirlpool, responded within hours, the damage had been done–Armstrong’s real-time feedback about her company experience spread quickly through her network and beyond. This spread of customer experiences in real time is a trend, in fact, status updates are a feature found not just in Twitter but in many social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Recently, Twitter signed a deal to allow Microsoft’s Bing and Google access its real-time data, displaying real-time tweets which appear along side traditional search results. So what is the impact of this increase in real-time data? It means that consumers can instantly give feedback about their product experiences and tell their friends. For brands, it means they have to move faster to keep up with consumers who are sharing.

Takeaway: This year, consumers are more connected, and moving faster than brands. It’s essential for senior marketers to use the past to plan for the future, and these four trends indicate that people are connecting and sharing with each other–at an increased pace. Brands need to develop a strategy and a plan to respond–not simply react–to the latest technology. In our next piece, we will discuss the key trends to watch in 2010 to help with strategy planning.

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No web for me!

About 9 months ago, I decided to take my small agency down the dark unknown digital road.  At around the same time, quite by accident, I hired someone who had studied web design and communications.  Aisha had been hired predominantly for her old media, graphic design skills.  Her arrival meant that for the first time we had someone who could not only build a website but also answer our silly web questions.  If she did not know the answer, she didn’t give us bs.  She researched it and came back with an answer.

She has been aided and abetted by another Pepper staffer, let’s call her Q (because that’s her name), who blogged in a previous life.  For a small agency with limited resources this was a bold move.  2/13’s of our agency manpower spending most of their time on a market that does not yet exist.

Consider the context of how bold it was:

• Traditional Media is 99.9% of our revenue
• Most clients treat a website as a billboard/call card at best
• We have not really figured out how to charge for digital works/conversely clients are not comfortable about what they are willing to pay
• While you can measure ROI on digital, getting people to the web takes time to drive them to your site or Facebook fan page.  There’s no light switch here.
• The Digital Space needs a dedicated nanny on the client side (so more head count or re-training)
• And the ever popular resistance to change (internally and on the client side)

So why am I so convinced that we’re on the right track?

• Because I have always known that you have to go where your customers go.
• Because a good website is no longer optional
• Because traditional media is so diluted that it’s losing its efficacy
• Because people are living on the net and on their mobile phone (and I’m not just talking about 15 years olds here)

What do we have to show for our investment in digital?

• One major client is now re-launching their website.  Most importantly, it has cemented our relationship with them because we are servicing their traditional and new media needs (so client comfort has increased)
• Another major client is now calling us for urgent web based action after nine months of us telling them they needed to jump on board yesterday
• We’re working on or completed 5 website projects; including our own Pepper Website makeover
• We have 4 more website proposals pending a decision
• And our biggie: We have started blogging, recently celebrating our 100th blog post.  Now when we talk to clients about blogging we talk with some experience under our belt
• E-mail signatures are a regular feature in Pepper’s communications and that of our clients
• We’ve started to use mobile marketing and mass e-mailing for clients with a database

So we believe we’re on the right track.  There is ample research (not done in Trinidad admittedly) that proves the power of word of mouth.  The web is word of mouth on steroids.  Tiger would not have been in the trouble he’s in if he was the Tiger of the 60’s.  The web is instant and its reach is limitless and its incremental cost is not even one golf ball.  Big agencies will buy a digital agency and buy the knowledge.  We’re learning the slow painful way.

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