Bright Ideas Group Blog | Student Marketing Consulting at the Schulich School of Business

Marketing in a Minute + 200th Posting

2010-10-24T01:46:00.008-04:00

It's been a long time coming but the Bright Ideas Blog has now reached 200 postings; a small feat for a consultancy with over 10 years of experience. A digital cake is in order.

Rather than a long-winded insight, I wanted to share a few real-life initiatives that I've come across over the last few days.

As I discussed in a separate posting, one of the best ways to grow a business in a recession is through product extensions. The above is another way; to increase the frequency of purchase, especially for consumables. This may be excessive for a burger advertisement, although Burger King does actually serve breakfast. Does an ad like that work? It all depends whether consumers find that Burger King is in their decision matrix for breakfast. Marketing research and product development to the rescue.

Spotted at the GO Bus Station at Union Station

The next is a take from Japan's preference and saturation of vending machines to sell everything and everything. Need that last minute scarf or tie? Mark's Work Warehouse has got you covered. Apart from clever positioning for the downtown business unit and seasonal product placements, it acts as an active advertisement for their brand as a whole. The company was founded on clothing friendly to trade workers; overalls and spill-resistant clothing. Only within the last few years have they taken a functional as opposed to fashion approach to designing professional clothing. Their benefits include shirts that repel stains and never need to be ironing. I believe that the vending machine serves more of a purpose to expand this helpfulness of the brand than counting on the volume of scarves it can sell at a high mark-up.

Spotted at the Union TTC Station

The last one for now is our good 'ol friend Uncle Ben. A new set of ads has blanketed the downtown core, hoping that everyone gets back in touch with him. Another ad read: "Why yes, I'd be honored to join you for dinner. I can be ready in 2 minutes.". A third? "The faster our lives get, the more sense BISTRO EXPRESS rice makes." It was really strange that I personally felt a draw to the ads. Growing up with the iconic orange boxes was a throwback to Uncle Ben himself. It might be tempting to imagine it targeting the baby boomer generation, but it is likely slightly younger; 25-35 not unlike me that grew up with the brand but have long neglected it for fast food or other prepared food options. Authentic and nostalgic is challenging to achieve without being cheesy or patronizing. Uncle Ben making a comeback is very much the former.

Mobile Wars: PublicWiMob vs. Robellus

2010-10-13T04:20:00.010-04:00

It seems that everywhere you go that there's a new mobile carrier popping up, and its turning Canada into a veritable battleground. The prize for winning the war on attention? The Canadian mobile market, consisting of millions of people and businesses. Personally I love the mobile industry. What could be better than having low variable costs, high customer switching costs and guaranteed revenue for the life of a two or three year agreement (assuming you have already invested millions in cell sites)? Up to about a year ago, all the mobile carriers provided the ssame basic service (cell phone service), very similar phone options at almost identical price points. The only real differentiator amongst the industry was brand, and even then it was controlled by three major carriers with numerous sub-brands. It unfolded similarly to how a large CPG company works; introducing "flanker" brands to their "anchors" in order to squeeze out other potential competitors based on positioning.

This is actually a fantastic deal.

New entrants in the mobile industry are nothing new. However, previous to the Canadian government selling off new cell phone bands new entrants were forced to enter in shared use agreements with previous mobile networks to piggy-back off of their network. This really crippled their ability to be a major player in the Canadian mobile landscape. The large operators could simply raise their fees or terminate agreements altogether should they become too popular. Virgin Mobile (who operates off of Bell's network) has been highly successful in replicating their mobile brand model to Canada, although it remains a minor player within the industry. Until mobile operators could invest in their own cell cites and completely control their value chain, it would be impossible to drastically shift the industry.

Now let's welcome Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile to the stage. Tens of millions in investments later, they have a (relatively) strong network within some major metropolis areas (quasi-Nationally in the case of Wind) and they opened retail locations amidst a struggling industry. Its now become a revenue game for them; how many current mobile subscribers could they entice to a new and unproven mobile network? And almost more importantly; how?

Cute.

There are a few sore touch-points when it comes to mobile providers. These include: price, contracts and customer service. And it's not surprising then that all the marketing communications of the mobile entrants touched on at least one of these three points. Not surprisingly, I would suggest that 90% of the ads had something to with respect to price. Either it's a $150 porting credit, 20$ off a plan for a year or student rates. There always seems to be some sort of significant concession to get people to pay attention to the new entrants. Generally this wouldn't be a cause for concern, however unlike the current large operators, the new entrants don't have a contractual agreement. This means that once the price promotions over; there's nothing to stop consumers from switching carriers, especially if a competing network is also willing to make price concessions.

Someone's working in the humour department. Spotted @ Yorkdale.

This can be a huge concern if the only differentiator between competitors is price. But it isn't. Behind these new entrants is more than just trendy logos and low prices but brands that are designed to be the most drastic change to the mobile industry. Their contract is an implicit one. By listening to the customer they're hoping to create a new generation of brand-loyal consumers. I recently had the opportunity to attend a fantastic American Marketing Association (Toronto Chapter) event on gen Y; 17-29 year olds in today's environment. Two of the most important touch points for the group as it pertains to marketing communications is to be authentic and genuine. It's something that is whole-heartily adopted by the new entrants, yet evidently overlooked by the previous players. The latter group is therefore left scrambling to re-position and introduce new sub-brands in order to give an appearance of new. It would've been much simpler to start a movement as opposed to initiating a shift.

Wind Mobile has arguably been the most successful of these new entrants, with official subscribers of at least 100,000 although current numbers are almost certainly higher. They're also relatively national in their presence when it comes to major Canadian metropolises. Their communication platform is based on having a "conversation" with consumers: activelty listening to their needs and being transparent in their operations. It's the service that the largest players outsource, which is hugely detrimental in a mobile marketplace no longer represented by an oligopoly. When it comes to selling the same service with new competition (and no contracts to enforce high switching costs), brands are all that's left to sway customers. Communication therefore becomes hugely important; and outsourcing your UVP is a certain way to infuriate customers.

My main concern however is with respect to the long-term strategy of the new entrants. Once the price concessions die off (they can't last forever), and the network is more robust, will consumers still stand by them or simply be enticed by the phone subsidies and stability of the large operators? It's been predicted that all the new entrants will eventually consolidate and become a single new entrant. But doesn't that mean we're right back to where we're started? It also implies a huge risk for Wind (likely the largest operator in the future and therefore most likely to pursue M&A fueled growth). Assuming they acquire all the customers how will they keep them without forcing them into contracts? Either customers will choose that Wind's way of operating is what they want and they force the rest of the industry to stabilize competition, or as previously mentioned, Wind gets forced into a situation where contracts become the norm (much the same way Virgin Mobile started and then subsequently ended up).

Personally I'm a huge fan of the new entrants. There's a veritable David & Goliath struggle right now, and as a victim of Robellus, I'll fight tooth and limb for no other reason than they're the little guy. Anytime people start discussing their frustrations with their mobile providers I become their salesman. Another outcome of their paradigm-shattering culture is that I find myself always paying my bills on time, preferrably in cash. Sure it takes longer to line up in person, but I feel better that they don't have to pay the 1-2% merchant fee. The old idiom of voting with your wallet definitely holds true here. I just hope that others choose to do the same.

The secret to growth in a recession

2010-09-03T16:30:00.008-04:00

It seems that amongst foreclosures, unemployment and inflation, retail therapy hasn't lost its prominence. Sales figures are slightly up, and as far as the apparel industry is concerned, women are the pot of gold to keep numbers strong in a weak economy.

There are many different theories that claim to explain this phenomenon. Some attribute it to psychological consumer behaviour; that amongst the negative economic forecast they spend to feel better. Others claim it's simply due to the intense job market; the old idiom of "dress for success" may apply. It could also be attributable to the heavy discounting prevailing in retail. Irregardless of why women are spending; marketers are definitely starting to take notice.

The oldest misconception in marketing is that women can be marketed to the same way as men. Modern day media is smart enough to avoid this mistake.

Holt Renfrew; arguably Canada's largest high fashion retailer recently posted double digit increases in sales mostly attributable to womens' lines and footwear. Part of this trend is due to some or all of the factors above, but there's a new and emerging trend adding to the rise in women's sales; segmentation in old markets.

This is an important consideration for highly competitive industries. For example, Victoria Secret truly broke the mold of the distribution channels for lingerie and/or "sexy" undergarments. Before Victoria Secret's radical shift there weren't specific lingerie stores of its kind or scale, and lingerie as a line extension was a pipe dream for retailers such as Abercrombie or American Eagle. Victoria Secret's gone even a step further with their "pink" label; tailoring it to pre-teens and younger.

Another example of this trend is seen in a recent extension by Under Armour to attain a piece of the women's active-wear market. A historically testosterone-filled company, they got burned early on in the women's segment by utilizing the comically dubbed strategy of: "pink it and shrink it". Now ready for round 2, Mr. Plank their founder claims that eventually women will outpace men in sales for the company. Although the new set of ads to coincide with the launch only features women, Mr. Battista (VP of Brands) argues that women they target are not looking to be treated differently than men. This is an interesting division and a new segment perhaps otherwise overlooked by apparel companies that seem to favor the opposite at the moment.

Building on this trend is how a new segment can be reached not just from designing a new line of products, but by strategic licensing. Febreze recently became the "Official Air Freshener of the NFL" to many astounded parties. This poses a lot of questions, until it is explained that it isn't targeting men, but rather a growing group of women that are tuning in to the N.F.L. This has also led to changes in opening acts (think Taylor Swift and Olivia Manning) to promote the concept of "Being Game Day Ready". It's an incredible balancing act for Procter & Gamble; too feminine or too masculine in the message and the narrow segment will be missed. The sales numbers will be the true judge of success, although this ad seems to be akin to the last bowl of porridge; just right:

As marketers it is easy to throw our hands up in the air and flail them around while whining on how the recession has cut spending. While some decreases are expected, it's not as disastrous as some media may want to make us believe. I can guarantee you that many year-end marketing presentations will include a bullet point such as:

> Recession hindered otherwise positive levels of growth

> Current economic environment led to decreased consumer spending on goods

This isn't good enough. Top brands and CPG companies are proving that there's still success to be had (potentially that is; numbers are a different story) by keeping a close eye on consumers to re-segment the marketplace. Hundreds of books will (and have) been written on the topic of the "post recessionary" consumer. It may however be too late for marketers by the time their ink dries.

Is Vintage the New Vintage?

2010-08-27T09:35:00.014-04:00

Some of my favorite quotes of all time have originated from Carl Carlson, the under-rated social narcissist on the simpsons:

"I am so sick of Oldies Stations-- hey geniuses, how 'bout some NEW oldies?!" --Carl Carlson, The Simpsons

Carl: I don't get it. What's so "great" about this depression?
Lenny: I like how everything is sepia tone. Makes me all nostalgic.

I guess Americans these days are seeing a fair amount of sepia.

It isn't surprising that a vast amount of advertising last year focused around value. Major brands were forced into price wars; most prominent in low-switching cost industries such as CPG or restaurants. With the media continually bombarding us with messages of high unemployment, high national debt and foreclosures, it was almost a no-brainer that people tightened their purse-strings to save a dollar or two. An induced effect of this bombardment is a consumer behaviour phenomenon called cocooning/anchoring. It suggests that as the prospect of a prosperous future is uncertain to bleak, consumers inherently fall back on brands they know and trust. This makes for a powerful basis for marketing communications. So welcome to the hallmark trend of advertising in 2010; Vintage/Nostalgia.

A perfect example of this nostalgia (albeit for new brands) from Moma Sao Paulo (I love how some of the most unique work come from South America)

Everywhere we go today there's bound to be some use of nostalgia marketing, whether it be billboards, clothing designs or store buildouts. When tastefully done, it can actually be quite effective. Coca Cola for example has always been excellent at this balancing act of new versus old. In comparison, Pepsi has taken the opportunity to fully re-invent themselves recently; a risky proposition when consumers are secretly seeking stability and familiarity. It seems to be effective though; I bought this box of Raisin Bran two months ago just because I liked the design of it. I don't even like the cereal.

The only thing riskier than completely re-inventing yourself is pretending to be old and authentic. Heritage is one of the most powerful tools for nostalgia marketing; and many companies and brands are quickly writing or grossly over-rating their ability to be vintage. Consumer backlash is bound to ensue.

I remember growing up with Super Soakers, but this ad means nothing to me. Do marketers really expect me to relate to an oil on canvas recreation loosely related to the American Civil War? Personally I think it's offensive to classical art of that time and earlier to represent it in such a way. And since my generation is likely the last to even know where a museum is located, I can't imagine that this is relating to current consumers of Super Soakers either.

Here's another example of misguiding consumers to a "vintage feel". Timothy's was founded in 1975; although the typography is more reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s. The colours used in the typeface are also strikingly close to Dunkin' Donuts. Dunkin' Donuts has however been around since the 1950s.

The last risk of vintage marketing is the associations to cultural stigmas such as the sexist attitudes towards women that was prevalent during the mid 20th century. The above advertisement by BIC (founded around 1945) recently sent much of the social media world aflame. However, even more offensive than long legs with a revealing short dress are the odd new commercials by Mr. Sub; essentially dubbing over old B/W instructional videos:

When I first saw this commercial broad casted live my draw dropped in utter disbelief, climaxing when the secretary is awarded the role of: Vice President of Lunch Selection. To elaborate, the video's title is dubbed "subcretary". I presume it was meant in a humorous tone, but I feel it failed in a galactic fashion. If you disagree let me know in the comments.

This entire trend has been wrongly associated with the wild popularity of HBO's Mad Men; a drama revolving around a (fictional) 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency. This only aids in re-enforcing the interesting moral fibers of the time, including drinking/sleeping at work, disrespecting women and the "safety" of cigarettes. It stands as a relatively accurate representation of the era, although as is usually the case, consumers take it too literally. This is especially true when marcom is utilizing nostalgia as portrayed in the television show.

As it always does, general trust in advertising is based on two components; responsible and ethical companies and educated consumers. On the latter, consumers must make their own judgement as to what is appropriate and inappropriate. Ads reflecting on cultures and standards of decades past does not make them instantly acceptable and forgivable. For example, imagine if the Mr. Sub commercial was shot in a 21st century style with real actors' dialog. It's not so funny anymore, although it shouldn't have been the first time.

Companies also need to be responsible in line with cultural beliefs of the time, and be honest to their true heritage. In other words; be socially conscious and don't elude to a long history which does not exist. The Journal of Brand Management described it best:

"The key value that has moved to the front and centre of brand image in this time of uncertainty is authenticity, consumers seek the comfort of the real, something they can trust and count on. Authenticity has two meanings: the original and the substantive, things that are honest and are what they say they are." - Ronnie Ballantyne, Anne Warren, Karinna Nobbs. Journal of Brand Management. London: Apr-Jun 2006. Vol. 13, Iss. 4/5; pg. 339

Vintage can however be applied as a style. There's nothing wrong with producing items that reflect that style, as seen in the Fossil store:

Personally I'm not crazy about the whole vintage style. Isn't it about time we get some new vintage?

Apple's Biggest Branding Mistake

2010-08-27T01:10:00.010-04:00

By the looks of the malls these days, it is hard to believe that we're still in the midst of recovering from a global recession.

This was the view of Yorkdale Mall today, which as I mentioned in my last posting has become the environment for some of the most interesting consumer behaviour I have ever witnessed. Here's some evidence of this strange phenomenon:

So why is this line-up of willing iPhone 4 buyers an immense branding mistake? The first problem is the control of their brand. I would suggest that Apple has lost control of what it truly means.

Apple is one of the few technology companies that has transitioned from a supplier of cool gadgets to status items. Not to stir up any controversy, but the new iPhone 4 isn't the most technologically advanced phone on the market (although Apple may want you to think differently). It's this status allure that has fueled international demand for the product, which has led to the sub-culture of grey-market distributors.

And where are all these iPhones going? From what I know personally; South America, East Europe and Southeast Asia. These are all markets which currently do not sell iPhone 4s (with the exception of Hong Kong). The grey market phones are trodden around by the wealthy and privileged; making a nice profit for importers and exporters alike.

So where does that leave Apple? In a position very similar to a luxury apparel brand. Their new product releases are scheduled like clockwork; slightly offset from Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter releases. Everything about the device is "beautiful", but not necessarily advanced. It would also appear that design is favored over functionality in Cupertino; haute couture anyone?

But why is this a problem? The profits in the electronics business is no longer in hardware; but media. iTunes's return on investment is miles ahead of the 100% direct cost margin on most hardware. Apple would be lucky to break even on their hardware when it comes to all the indirect retailing costs associated with a direct retailer. Selling music, magazines, books, applications and anything else software-based has been the sustainable source of revenue and profit for Apple since it launched iTunes.

Apple used to be the cool "Mac" guy. They used to be the counter-electronics culture; focusing on being different and unique, and definitely niche. And as they fail to reach this consumer and are by-passed by distributors who they allow to line up hours before the store even opens; they're alienating their most profitable customers.

It would appear that as time goes on, people aren't thinking as differently when it comes to Apple.

The second brand failure is leveraging the line-up. For those companies who are fortunate (and smart) enough to justify people lining up, it's baffling why they don't make better use of those whom are brand disciples or could potentially be one.

Line-goers typically left to their own device will entertain themselves only for as long as their iPad's battery will last. Apart from books, sleeping and arguing over what's the best feature of the new iPhone, there really isn't much to do for 10 hours while in line (from my experience). And yet marketers tremble at the notion of soaring TV commercial prices with ever decreasing audiences. Does anyone else see a gap here?

Why don't companies like Apple entertain these bored yet fanatic consumers while in line? Why does it even have to be considered a line? Why can't it be an experience? I can imagine there being free concerts (broadcasted to TV monitors around the world outside of stores), food, giveaways, webcams between cities and live discussion? If well-executed you could probably sell tickets. This is how Apple can start to shift its brand perception back to being cool and niche to sell profitable media in the long-run as opposed to fashion in the short-run.

But then again, the way people were lining up today for the launch of Victoria Secret today, you'd think everyone was walking around in the nude. They even needed bouncers at the front doors.

Apple's Biggest Branding Mistake - Preface

2010-08-10T09:41:00.006-04:00

I feel that it's appropriate that this blog posting is actually being written from the Apple Store line-up at 4am in the morning. The last three weeks have proven to be one of the most interesting consumer behavior experiences I have ever witnessed.

On July 30th Apple released their highly anticipated iPhone 4. The first person in line that day arrived at 9pm the night before. I arrived around midnight; a full 10 hours before anything would be sold; the line was already about 60 people strong. The crowd is a real mix characters, but all fit within three very distinct categories:

1. Die-hard fans: these are the people who actually use the stickers that come with iPods. They will have numerous Apple devices, defend his Majesty Jobs to the bitter end, and who's emergency contact is their local store manager. They're easily spotted listening to iPhone 3Gs and reading Winnie the Pooh and 1984 on their iPads.

A little background: this is where things get interesting. For those unfamiliar with the iPhone 4, they are currently available in numerous countries, however very few are fully unlocked, making Canadian iPhones very valuable to countries where they are not yet sold or are sold unlocked. To avoid dealers, the Apple Store limits purchases to 2 per customer. This has necessitated a breed of placeholders.

2. Placeholders: people paid to stand in line to fill quotas of iPhones for international grey markets.

3. Cash Men: these are the ringleaders of the operation when it comes to placeholders. Typically there are 2-3 of these per store. They each manage a varying number of placeholders; 4 up to 10. They're easily spotted nervously pacing around on their cell phones carrying messenger bags full of at least $10,000-$20,000 in cash in neatly folded piles.

Alongside these groups there is always one leader, usually a cash man who controls The List. It adds order to the line, recording who arrives and in what order. When you aggregate the market situations such as super-low supply, high international demand and a lots of globally-sourced cash, Apple has inadvertently created a new society.

This new "line society" has its own currency (ticket reservation stubs), its own market (the line itself), a leader (the line master), a god (Apple itself), a purpose (to attain iPhones) and inherent laws. The creation of this society was a completely unexpected and is uncontrolled. It will also prove to be Apple's greatest branding mistake of all.

Old Spice: Are men self-conscious?

2010-07-16T20:51:00.010-04:00

Chances are that if you watch TV, have a Facebook account or browse YouTube, you've seen the new slew of Old Spice commercials. Not to be cliché, but Isaiah Mustafa has literally turned into an overnight phenomenon.

The man. The legend.

Or so it would appear. Old Spice has made some dramatic changes in its spokes people; as of late forgoing celebrities such as ex-NFL player Terry Crews and LL Cool J. The legend refers to his character more than Isaiah himself; a low-level movie star and ex-Euro NFL player (did anyone else even know there was a European division of the NFL?). Isaiah appears first in a washroom, then a boat, then a horse; a senseless scenario of the "perfect man".

Seems oddly similar to the new face of Dos Equis beer; "The Most Interesting Man in the World"

In a day and age where women are typically associated with being the targets of self-improvement ads for makeup, clothing and weight loss, are men now feeling the pressure? Apparently so, but are being targeted in a completely different way. Men aren't typically as self-aware as women are, which is why the type of delivery for personal improvement ads for men are drastically different in their approach.

I want to first demonstrate how self-improvement ads have targeted women. Whether it be skin care or hair care, before and after images are always a staple. Clogged pores, frizzy hair and that extra ten pounds. Where? Alone in their powder room, sitting at their desk or locked away in their room. All of a sudden brand xyz releases product abc and miraculously their day is saved, and typically has an ending shot of the previously distressed female laughing in the mall with girlfriends or out at the club. They have a very damsel in distress tone, and I presume that since it's been the status quo since the invention of the 3am infomercial that it's working. Their endorsers are also typically very popular female celebrities and idols.

Men are admittedly much harder to target; as showing a guy with frizzy hair all sad in black and white doesn't seem quite as effective. Men are however quite concerned about what others think of them in social situations and secretly seeks self-improvement. Men want to be the most interesting, the best smelling, and definitely don't want to be caught at a sporting event or DJing with yellow stains:

So is the secret to selling personal care products to men to attack their ego? Not exactly. As a marketer, you cannot attack their ego directly, but rather suggest what would happen in a social situation if you don't use a certain body wash, soap or drink a certain brand of beer. Typically if an ad demonstrates the "after" situation and its negative outcome without the product, men figure out the before themselves.

Measuring success with this strategy is however elusive. Commercials for Dos Equis' "The Most Interesting Man in the World" on YouTube struggle to surpass a million views, while the original video for Old Spice is nearing fourteen million in a shorter time span nonetheless. Does that mean that the former has been ineffective? No. Old Spice's ad targets what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as the shopping "mavens"; female significant others. The video spread virally between women rather than men. Men however may have been enticed by Dos Equis' offering, but would be embarrassed to discuss it or share it, suggesting that perhaps they're not extremely interesting or sociable themselves.

The most important take-away here as marketers is that with CPG/consumables which have low switching costs and are low-involvement purchases, to perform very strong market research to identify and target a single facet of men that they're secretly self-conscious of socially. We also have to be responsible that we're honest not to take advantage of it. It's not scrupulous because it can actually be very helpful for men seeking help, yet are embarrassed to discuss it (a trait not necessarily shared by females). Then again, men have been known to be susceptible to such minute things as bacon:

access="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385">

New MarCom Trends: 你身体好吗, how Apple is changing agencies and Lady Gaga

2010-06-10T00:04:00.009-04:00

There's been a lot of recent news coverage in the last few weeks of labour standards in Asia. It started in Taiwan with Foxconn employees having a history of suicides, and continued to recent strikes at Honda car plants in mainland China. China's censorship of labour disputes and complications is typically very strong in an attempt to deter the spread of worker movements à la Walmart. However, with the recent string of successes in attaining higher pay and reduced working hours, someone's going to have to start paying the price. And that someone's going to be U.S.

I recently returned from Hong Kong and China, and if anything is immediately prevalent in the latter is that second and third tier cities are going to begin creating a real middle class. China has the environmental factors for growth and wealth that are reminiscent of a late 1940s United States of America. High levels of control over foreign debt, a large amount of foreign and domestic manufacturing and a population ready to prosper after long periods of arduous work. In the next decade China will become the new battleground for global brands to woo the middle class citizens. Those daring enough to engage this new market must now start learning mandarin (or hiring people who can speak it), find suitable local partners and begin learning the unique nature of impacting a communist-led society with a 21st century consumerist mentality. Wo hen mang.

Brand New China offers invaluable lessons in how ad agencies were baptized in doing business in China; a great read.

Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) 2010 started this week, and in true Steve Jobs fashion, the newest member of the "i" family; the iPhone 4 was just "officially" leaked. Jobs poked fun at the early prototype of the iPhone 4 that was leaked in Vietnam a month earlier, a true test of PR resilience on their part. Keeping in mind that it's a developer's conference first and a technology announcement second, the keynote was all business. The key is to keep developers adding to the current library of 225,000 or so apps to the tens of millions of Apple users with registered credit cards. The real star of the show was the new "iAd Network" interface.

If Apple's creativity wasn't innovative enough, they've essentially introduced a new advertising platform to the mix (expected to do $250 million in 2010). It introduces a new revenue source for free or cheap aps, and most importantly offers a new medium that consumers are excited to interact with due to its novelty. Interactivity has been a hallmark of portable technology for the last few years, however it's new ground for incorporating marcom into mobile phones. As smartphones rapidly become the de facto choice for people to get on the internet, it's not a surprise that intrusive banner ads (that disrupt the mobile experience with a pop-up web browser) were quickly replaced.

The iPhone 4: it really does look fantastic.

The new challenge for marketers and especially innovative ad agencies with bold targets to engage consumers in new ways is to properly use the medium. As the iAd Network becomes more popular the novelty will quickly decrease, requiring more advanced usage of the platform. to keep garnering attention. This problem has been encountered and conquered before in other mediums, but never before has this challenged required the heavy use of software development. Photographers, videographers and graphic designers are all standard tools of the trade. It wouldn't surprise me at all if software developers and UI designers quickly become demanded of the top agencies with entire departments emerging overnight.

And lastly, Fast Company in their most recent June 2010 edition named their 100 most creative people in business for this year. Few people may make it number 100 Andrey Ternovskiy, the 17 year old student from Moscow who invented the wildly popular (and controversial) Chatroulette. Most will simply glance to who got the top seat. This year's winner is Lady Gaga, who may only be considered slightly less controversial than Chatroulette.

Her business acumens are incredible, and are widely praised by top execs from DDB, HP and Polaroid, proving the music superstars can be more than just stereotypical celebrities. Lady Gaga falls into a small class of musicians turned business people that include Jay-Z and Kanye West whose close interaction and success in attracting the young generation's attention has proven useful in selling clothing, electronics and cosmetics. They are some of today's best brand builders not because of what their name represents, but rather because they live, breathe and interact with their target consumers every single day. Celebrities are now cashing in on more than just endorsing deals, but taking to the marketplace themselves and reaping the rewards.

The beats by dr. dre have become a huge hit in the personal audio segment; one that is typically devoid of strong celebrity branding.

Hiatus, New Beginnings and AMEX Dissapoints?

2010-06-03T23:46:00.006-04:00

I apologize for the delay in posts. It's been an exciting time to be a part of B!G, after a great year there's some exciting new changes coming within the next few months. Stay tuned!

A little off-topic, but American Express, commonly seen as the purple elephant in the credit card world to consumers seems to have fallen into a little bit of a marketing snafu. If there are two areas that companies are truly falling short with respect to direct marketing methods, they're social media and live event/direct response. Consequently, both areas fall short in the same areas: they fail to deliver a positive response and high interaction with potential consumers.

American Express had the idea of giving away 30 pairs of complimentary tickets to anyone who showed up at the corner of King St. W and Simcoe St. at either 12:30pm or 4:30pm (15 pairs for each time slot).

The scene at 12:29pm kind of looked like the above. Four corners; one to rule them all. Regrettably I was on the wrong corner and by the time I saw the commotion it was all over. 15 pairs of tickets gone in an instant. 200 others were regrettably left out, looking stupid on a street corner. Why? I have no idea. The only hurdle to getting tickets was you'd have to tell the street team:

"American Express lets me realize my concert potential."

Sure there's a little branding thrown in there and some free publicity with the event, but does that benefit alongside 30 happy ticket holders justify the 500 people or so left feeling disappointed? That's not to say that 500 people are all going to go home and cut up their AMEX credit cards, but shouldn't there be a little bit more thought or effort put into trying to gain favorable brand associations? I'm not quite sure how many people left that intersection with the thought of how great AMEX's customer services are.

So what could have been improved upon? There are some critical factors for live events that must be well thought out and implemented:

1. Find a meaningful "catch" for your brand. Sold-out concert tickets the day before a great show fits great with both the concierge services AMEX offers, as well as their Front of the Line program. Brand association win.

2. Find a meaningful venue. The random location was fairly downtown without causing too much chaos. There was some chaos which is good when you're trying to engage with consumers. Familiarity breeds boredom.

3. Milk your attention. DMB fans had been waiting for almost half an hour for 3 seconds of action. At least give them a chance for some interaction, even if the chance of getting tickets is quite small. Maybe a karaoke contest is in order?

4. Ensure the continuity and strength of your message from steps 1-3. Consumers should have a very simple thought process; from catch (1), to engagement (2) to brand message deliverance (3). AMEX really delivered 1 and 2, but fell short on 3. Failure in any of the steps can mean failure for the entire project.

I really expected more from an otherwise innovative company like American Express. Although maybe I'm just bitter about not getting tickets.

Divining the marketing future: PART TWO

2009-02-28T15:47:00.003-05:00

Agencies will increasingly act as marketing communication strategy consultants as a premium complementary offering to their production and campaign development services.

Some contemporary agencies have even stripped out the tangible production aspects of their operations (such as the art studio) to concentrate on the development of a ‘big idea’ for creative execution. These agency forms utilize traditional resources including consumer research departments, account management teams, and creative developers, in addition to unconventional resources like artists, futurists, and cultural anthropologists.

These agencies recognize that in a new world where marketing communications must be far more relevant to consumers and impressions must not be squandered, the classical rules of planning, designing, and executing an advertising campaign must be challenged.

As these new capabilities are being internalized to qualitatively improve the effectiveness of marketing communications campaigns, agencies are also seeking to integrate customer relationship management practices to quantitatively improve the creative product. Customer learnings from CRM data, drawn from multiple online and offline communication channels, serve to develop active relationships between brands and their customers. Small, boutique marketing strategy firms, mid-sized agencies, and large networked global agencies have all significantly invested in developing these capabilities.

Historically, the advertising agencies industry was characterized by a few large global agencies (some affiliated through one of the five large holding companies) and by many small boutique agencies that operated locally.

Beginning in the 1990s, mid-size agencies have risen to challenge large global players for major accounts and the ability to define client marketing communication strategy. These mid-sized agencies, such as Wieden + Kennedy, 180, M&C Saatchi, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, and StrawberryFrog, position themselves as being better able to develop a strategic creative ‘big idea’ because their operations are more nimble and culturally oriented than large agencies like Young & Rubicam, BBDO, or JWT.

This industrial niche grew in importance because large agencies could not rapidly adapt to a changing consumer marketplace beginning in the 1990s and continued to exist as large-format multinational campaign production houses, giving their big ideas away for free.

Networks of agencies will continue to develop in the future, however the size and scope of these networks will likely not be based on the number of markets in which an agency can self-replicate and continue to amass global client billings, but rather based on the appropriateness of new markets which have a strong global influence.

Today, when mid-sized agencies go abroad, they locate to worldwide cultural centres where there is a wealth of diverse creative talent. Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, and Mumbai are all rapidly growing locations for this new breed of marketing agency. Locating in cultural centres gives these mid-sized agencies and developing networks a strategic advantage at developing strong consumer insights which can have a global application.

Divining the marketing future: PART ONE

2009-02-27T16:31:00.003-05:00

Marketing agencies function in a rapidly evolving industry where the relative stability in technological innovation and consumer predictability afforded in the period from the 1950s to 1990s no longer exists. Let's look at some facts:

Consumers are now extremely fragmented and define themselves as individuals with a unique set of marketable signifiers based on their preferences, consumption habits, and social affiliations. For example, marketers cannot expect a single television commercial to be relevant and meaningful to a large group of people anymore.

Media fragmentation – both in terms of the variety of niche content that is consumed and in the many personal ‘screens’ where consumers receive media content – has meant that it is also challenging for marketers to achieve any significant reach with a single message, commercial, or campaign. Instead, there is greater value in marketing to consumers at an individual level where relevance and an experience can be developed.

Based on these trends, the industry will be driven forward by agencies which are able to produce ‘strategic’ creative products – marketing communications with a very strong inclusion of consumer insight, data measurability, and campaign integration across multiple advertising channels.

We'll look at the implications of these needs tomorrow in PART TWO.

Exam brain drain

2009-02-26T22:17:00.009-05:00

I'm sure all the undergraduates are feeling the crunch, and halfway through my exams, I get tired of memorizing decade-old facts of measuring the probability of factories being successful. So here's my retaliation to the brain drain.

A quick visit back to everyone's favorite fruit. Apples? Blackberries? Ever thought that actual fruit wars would get literal AND aggressive? This ad was prepared by the New York Ad Agency Guava, and was apparently too much for rim to handle. The video here:

[Side note: Doesn't YouTube HD rock?]

Personally, I love it. Freeze a blackberry, shoot it through an Apple. This is all beside the fact that the Blackberry Storm hasn't been selling as its prospective fruit. The two aren't even direct competitors on a corporate marketplace, but the personal marketplace has already been too saturated with Apple for something like this to take off at comparable levels.

Branding beat to death

Branding has been given a lot of attention recently, especially now that the recession is giving companies the perfect opportunity to re-launch their whole product and marketing perspective once the money starts flowing again. However, there's an inherent concern that everything, right down to our staples like toilet paper and canned corn is being branded to death. The question that brand pessimists pose is: do these companies have the goods to back up their newly introduced image? Books such as OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder are sitting on the lonely side of the fence with this perspective...for the time being.

Combating brain drain

Accounting getting your morale down?

Watch this video:

Not taking a marketing course is kind of frustrating. It's nice learning business staples such as accounting, but it'll be a welcomed change next year when I can stop being trained to be a CA in a cubicle. Marketing in my opinion boils down to the following:

Consumers with Dollars -> Marketing -> Companies with Dollars

So, what better way to beat the brain drain then with some nice reading on this fundamental consumer-company chain?

There are two trends breaking into the marketplace right now:

1. Brand Experiences and how such builds into creating brand value (think walking into an Abercrombie store)

2. Brand Sense --> billboards and print ads are slowly becoming the dinosaurs of touchpoint marketing

On the reading block:

So a little message of hope to all the BBAs and IBBAs out there: consolidating income statements and the difference between a group and a team aren't the most important things in the world. Learn something you're interested in for once.

TED is a motivational speaker company that has just recently launched almost all their full-length videos on-line for free. It's worth watching as many as you can, as truly some of the best and brightest divulge insights worth every penny for paying audiences. Of particular importance is how schools are killing our creativity:

One of my favorite clips ever that really addresses a huge issue swept under the rug.

Also, the magic behind Benjamin Button. A real jaw-dropper at how a movie that may have seemed to have little to no digital animations beat out every glitzy action film at the Oscars:

Enjoy.

Point: Counterpoint

2009-02-24T16:09:00.004-05:00

POINT:

The monolithic notion of a 'brand' - an infinitely dependable symbol of prosperity, happiness, comfort, and security - is over. For nearly a century, brands acted as the definitive medium through which we experienced capitalism. A brand's strength came from its ability to transmit a consistently identical static message. Brands gave our reality a strong foundation: symbols doffing our mental and physical landscapes that we could use to navigate our way through life. But then brands began to show their age. They started to rust, chip, degrade, fall apart. All of a sudden brands cease to be the impenetrable fortresses of consumer relations we thought they were, and anyone could start a brand and do whatever he wanted with it. Gen X created flexible brands that catered to subterranean audiences, prompting Gen Y to embrace the idea of the "personal brand" - individuality expressed through a marketable system of identifiable signifiers. And so these slick little icons - towering planets that represented entire universes of product experience - were slowly deconstructed to a point of irrelevance. Our daily lives are now inundated by a torrent of dead images and meaningless symbols from a bygone era, leaving us with one very important question to answer: 'What's next?'

Douglas Haddow, AdBusters #82

COUNTERPOINT:

Icons and symbols are only one facet of contemporary brands, today more of a collection of affiliated consumer experiences than a collection of advertising impressions. Brands are consumed as experiences with greater frequency and intensity than ever before. The perceived diminished role of brands in the lives of consumers obviates the strength with which consumers now engage with brands for a relatively short period of time. Gen Y's comfort with customization has meant that any brand that makes a concerted effort to allow consumers to participate in its creation will have a sustained advantage against those that do not. It's misleading to suggest that brands today have any less relevance to young consumers than they did for previous generations. Perhaps the entropic decay of laggard brands unable to relate to a modern audience obscures the collaborative role which flexible brands have adopted for a new age. Today, a brand's strength comes not from its ability to project a singular, flawless identity to the world, but for the identity to be multifaceted and encourage engagement - rather than purchase - from consumers. Furthermore, when the images and symbols that represent brands are created by us, will they really be that irrelevant?

The weekend links

2009-02-22T19:19:00.002-05:00

How's Reading/Study week going? Back tomorrow to school and exams. Honestly the BBAs are making a big deal out of exams, huh? Are exams really that anxiety-causing? I know I don't sound that empathetic, but consider the optics of the situation: three months off, and now five short days of exams. A maximum five exams. THREE MONTHS OFF, FIVE EXAM DAYS. I'm just saying that things could be worse. The B!G kids on exchange seem to be having fun though. The FB pics are quite nice. Hi Amanda, Arsenia, Rebecca, Doug, Olga, Andreea (and anyone I've missed)!

In other news, the job hunt is going well. I'm pleased with how things are progressing and hope that things will continue moving forward.

Not having done weekend links in a while, I wanted to make this one special and chock it full of shout-outs to loyal readers of the blog. So I've categorized these links by your names:

ANA

Pajiba has a page where users are posting their picks for the top five movies of 2000-2009, 'the Aughts'. it's really great actually and gave me many ideas about my own favourite movies and some I should download. My short list (in no order)?

- Sideways
- The Descent
- The Departed
- Milk
- Lost in Translation
- The Dark Knight

Check out the comments that are being made. There are hundreds.

Also, food marketers are taking the conservative route during tough times. I'll be interested to know if this also means more promotion on comfort food and classic products.

ROBYN

Top ten freaky ways to terrorize your roommate. I know she's your friend, but some of these are really quite funny. I like number 6: Collect hundreds of pens and pile them on one side of the room. Keep one pencil on the other side of the room. Laugh at the pencil.

NICK

A blogger collected some of the grosssest print ads ever. I especially like these ones, but I'm kinda thinking that they detract from the message and intimidate the target audience. Thoughts?

JEFF

Lyle Lanley and Hank Scorpio are my favourites of the best one-off Simpsons characters.

LUCY

Delicious monstrosity cakes. They're weird shapes cause basically you can make anything by cutting cake and covering it in fondant. I like Yankee Stadi-cake.

GEORGE

Please graduate to better electronica. Underworld is legend, as per Born Slippy (below)

CHERIE

Refer to these during interviews! Six hot media trends of 2009. Although a lot of these are really consumer/marketing/communication rather than 'media', they're spot on. I like the one about the 'Zen Tech Warrior'

OLGA I

I just thought that picture was funny and you'd get a laugh!

Also, knowing the the truth of what Europeans really think of each other might help you navigate those tricky cultural waters and get through unscathed while on exchange. Who knew that the Dutch were so esteemed?

DAVE M

The most popular songs Led Zeppelin ripped off. They're an awesome band and probably the best cover band of all time. It hurts me too, learning that my world is crumbling down around me. See this video too for further evidence.

DAVE P

The latest gadget, it bypasses iTunes and allows you to share files from one iPod to another. I really want this for when my iPod inevitably dies or I want a new one. You currently aren't able to swap files between iPods through iTunes unless you have everything saved on the computer already.

LISA

Barf. Hello Kitty Rice Seasoning Mix with cat faced seaweed particles looks disgusting, but strangely cute. It's make from real cats apparently.

DANA and TONY CHAPMAN

Strategies for small agencies to survive during tough economic times. I think we're pretty clear on big ideas, creativity, and good client relations though, right? Aren't those your core comps? (BTW, phew!)

CHRIS

Can you do this through your iPhone yet? Booking hotel rooms with a mobile device seems really smart to me. It's a great platform for fast and remote content delivery, but unless you're booking a fairly standard hotel (like Marriott) when you can expect reasonable assurances of quality and location, do people really not need the interactivity and graphic functionality of a computer?

SYLVIE

Are any of these photographs of consumer goods en masse an example of Dadaism? BTW, Seurat is pointillism!

KEVIN

I believe in Jamie Lee Curtis's need for a "radical transmutation of character" - and no, I'm not judging!

KEANU REEVES

I get so angry reading about the life-changing inventions they never said would work. They thought computers would never work? Or how about what Time Magazine said about online shopping back in 1966: "Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds." Whoa...

Alright folks, enjoy the week!

Orbital symmetry and marketing truths

2009-02-19T19:58:00.008-05:00

Our solar system has one star, four rock-based inner planets, an asteroid belt, and four gas giant outer planets. Sorry Pluto.

The solar system is a beautiful apparatus. It's movements are predictable and constant and its unique characteristics can be compared against other solar systems we see in our galaxy.

However the structure of our solar system is not unique. It's a pattern that is found in other parts of the galaxy too:

- Rocky planets close to the star
- Gas planets far away from the star

It's believed that as celestial bodies formed from pressure and gas, their gravitational fields expanded and pulled particulae in. Heavier particulae (metals such as iron) eventually gathered to form rocky planets. Since these elements had a heavier atomic weight, they were drawn in closer to the star. Lighter elements stayed further away from the star and formed gas giants, like Saturn, pictured below.

(BTW, another theory is that planets formed based on the distance from the sun and the temperature of where the properties of basic elements could remain stable).

Obviously I don't know my physics too well. It's one of the high school science subjects I really wished I had taken.

But consider how mechanical this all seems. The solar system is beautiful. It's a complex architectural masterpiece crafted at the atomic level. Our understanding of this masterpiece is based on what we can observe. We know that iron is heavier than helium. We know that plutonium is more unstable than gold.

Our foundation of modern physics is based on indusputable atomic properties. Truths.

So what is our foundation of modern marketing based on? What are the unshakable marketing truths which we formulate our campaign hypotheses and customer segmentations on?

1. Consumers look for enhanced well-being through the tangible or intangible value derived from consumption of a product or service. RIGHT.

2. Complete information is impossible. Consumers will never know all the product specifications, possible prices, and availabilities. It is also impossible to perfectly rationalize the information from other consumers of the product or service. RIGHT.

Are those the only ones?

I really think so. Consider the classical marketing assumptions are being broken down and invalidated:

1. Consumers trust the messages they read in marketing communications. WRONG.

2. Consumers can easily be convinced to purchase on price and emotional benefits alone. WRONG.

3. Marketing is meant to be one way: consumers receive information, consumers receive the product. WRONG.

You know the assumption being challenged that really makes life scary for marketers?

That consumers need to consume.

Our economy is based on production and consumption. For a while, it was a lot like the solar system. It was an architectural masterpiece in perfect orbital symmetry and cosmic balance.

Consumers behaved.

But consumers aren't behaving anymore.

The death of our solar system is predicted to occur in 6 billion years. The sun will burn out and become a white dwarf, losing mass and energy. Planets, including Earth, will no longer feel the gravitational pull to the sun and might be ripped out of orbit by the pull of stronger, larger astronomical bodies.

Sound familiar, marketers? It's hardly a Nostradamian prediction, we can already see our consumers walking away. Forget about consumers not listening, consider the impacts of consumers not buying.

(All pictures were taken from the Hubble space telescope. Check out the full album here)

Chillin with Billings: a retrospective perspective

2009-02-18T01:05:00.006-05:00

I hate that clown. Mostly because clowns are freaky, and secondly because I should be face down in a pillow rather than my accounting textbook right now (I'm sure all the second years out there can sympathize with me).

As an associate, Chillin with Billings is one part taking, one part giving. While Billings' insight into appropriate images for the blog and topics for SEO can be classified as questionable at best, there's much to be said about picking the brains of a second year MBA with relevant experience and two feet firmly planted on the ground (in comparison to a BBA's perspective of the average MBA ego vs. knowledge levels). Universities were originally created as a forum for great minds to challenge and create ideas. Regrettably, today's institution is less thinking and more a measure of one's ability to memorize and recite dated and useless factoids. It's nice to occasionally get a taste of the true benefit of University; a Billings session being just one of those things.

Yes, really.

What to expect from a Chillin with Billings session:

1. Lots of Max playing with his own hair. Lots. Case in point:

2. If you're lucky, a ride in his shiny silver car that goes vroooooooom

3. His opinion on everything

Every year B!G gets a new brand manager (aka el Presidenté, aka Da Boss). And while it's easy to classify Max as the face and underlying source of the group's values and beliefs; that certainly isn't the case. His dedication to personifying the club's integrity and values as a consolidated (damn you accounting!) function of each of it's members is truly admirable. While the topics of the discussion are varied, the objective in each meeting is the same; to get a better understanding of the group's members is to better understand the group itself.

P.S.: I just hope it's not Timothy's coffee.

P.S.S.: I resent the term "amateur photographer", I prefer "aspiring", it just seems more...optimistic :)

Chillin with Billings

2009-02-17T18:50:00.003-05:00

A significant part of my role as President is smoothing out organizational wrinkles concerning B!G's members and learning from the trenches about what needs to be improved, strengthened, stopped, or maintained in the agency. Chillin' with Billings are informal get togethers I have with each person in B!G meant to reinforce our focus on individualism and self-expression - we're Gen Y, after all!

I want to know what our members take issue with and how I can personally make a difference in to the experience people have with B!G. Whether that's giving them exposure to a different functional area of the business, helping them with interview prep, or allaying their fears over scary bedtime clowns.

Frightened? That's good, that's why we're meeting tomorrow!

I love these sessions because it's a legitimate chance for me to stop talking about myself and learn more about others. The conversation is never about me. We talk about sports, music, movies, art, school, Toronto, and marketing.

And what have I learned? That the individuals in B!G have an unbelievable breadth of interests including classical music, Dadaism, judo, and How I Met Your Mother. They're interested in accounting as a career path, going to Singapore and becoming an account manager, visiting Spain, and developing their skills as an amateur photographer.

I'm grateful to be around such a talented group. It's humbling to learn more about individuals and deepens my commitment to give them a fulfilling experience with B!G.

So here's what you can expect during our Chillin' with Billings meetings.

Would you like a coffee?
I'll eventually find out something embarrassing about your interests!
I'm like a sponge, I hear everything. Expect to go into great detail about something you think is mundane.

Looking forward to it! Naila, Jeff, Mitesh, Nick, and Sharmeen, you're up tomorrow. And we can talk about the scary clowns too.

Photoblogging random Toronto neighbourhoods

2009-02-14T20:38:00.008-05:00

Steph is feeling kinda down. Air Canada gave her the royal screw with her vacation plans. I hope it's been resolved, but last night Steph was seriously down.

To cheer her up, I told Steph to open Google Maps and randomly pick three places on a map of Toronto. I'd visit those places on my errands today and photoblog them.

Why? Cause it's collaborative content development. Also because I love exploring this city and driving my car (which, thanks to a much better service department at a new dealership, has a clean bill of health!)

So here's where Steph sent me:

DESTINATION #1: BAMBURGH CIRCLE (WARDEN AND STEELES)
DESTINATION #2: QUEEN ST. EAST AND BROADVIEW
DESTINATION #3: GALLERIA SHOPPING CENTRE AT DUFFERIN AND DUPONT

Ok, DESTINATION #1: BAMBURGH

Driving to Bamburgh form my place at Yonge and Eg, I took Lawrence and made a stop at Arz Food, this amazing Middle Eastern grocery store with fantastic prepared foods, baklawa, and fresh pitas. Among Toronto neighbouroods, the section of Lawrence between Vic Park and Warden is refered to as the 'Gaza Strip' because of the concentration of Middle Eastern food stores and businesses there.

Driving up Warden from Lawrence I'm in a low density, semi-industrial row of vacant commercial buildings below the train tracks. There's this superboard for Advertising Week (held in late January in Toronto). It seems that the locations for Advertising Week superboards are in the most bizarre locations. Purposeful? Meant to be thought-provoking for marketers, the target audience?

Arrival at Bamburgh. It's a nice residential street with two story suburb homes on one side and tall condo towers in an enclave on the other side.

I know this isn't the first picture someone took of a suburb with a 'no exit' sign...

Onto DESTINATION #2!, QUEEN ST. EAST AND BROADVIEW

Speeding down the DVP. It really is a beautiful roadway when it moves. I like it when it winds and twists south of Eglinton. It feels great to hug the car along the turns of the road as you see the city materialize before you through trees and cuts between buildings.

Queen East at Broadview is Leslieville, a rapidly developing neighbourhood in transition. It's a commercial strip with old world delis, new world espresso bars, chocolate shops, and art galleries.

It's also got a lot of homeless and street kids walking up and down the sidewalk competing for space with the tandem strollers, joggers, and seniors. Truly a mixed neighbourhood.

Really nice neighbourhood for a Saturday afternoon stroll (thanks Steph, this was really one of my favourites!). Thinking of moving here.

Unfortunately I got a parking ticket as I was getting a corned beef sandwich from a Polish deli. Steph, you owe me $30.

Onto DESTINATION #3: DUFFERIN AND DUPONT

I drove along Queen past City Hall

...up through Koreatown

...and along Dupont to get here, and I parked in this messy parking lot for a low-rent shopping mall, the Galleria centre. It's a multi-ethnic, mixed-use, low-income neighbourhood.

It's showing its age too. The whole places looks like a transplant from the 1960s/70s.

This isn't a tough neighbourhood, it's just ugly. Ugly for the grey and brown buildings and enormous expanses of cracked concrete roads.

By this point I was exhausted and going crazy from the other drivers, but I look up, and there, on top of a car wash, was another sign for Advertising Week. Part of me smirked knowing that I was potentially in on an in-joke.

Thinning the agency ranks

2009-02-13T11:54:00.003-05:00

Coke announced that it's reviewing its portfolio of advertising agencies and considering where they can trim the fat.

It's a sign of the times. Agencies in the States have lost 65,000 employees in 2008 and client marketing budgets are under greater scrutiny for the impact advertising has on actual sales.

Coke's actions suggest a strategic opportunity for agencies based on the following:

Campaigns executed using channels with high awareness and low cost. Experitential, events promotion, and SMPR are some of these. Television isn't.
Global orientation, either based on a flexible network of interlinked agency offices, or the capabilities of a single office with a seriously multicultural talent pool.
Integrated marketing strategy services which allow an agency to take a stepped-back approach and look at the most effective way to speak to a customer, then you customize a channel based on that.
Close interaction between the ad shop and the media shop (small agencies are often merging these together) to fully optimize how advertising is being used in the right channels at the right time to the right audience. Because of a deliberate separation of media departments in the 1980s, agencies really slit a vein in terms of how much value could be added to clients.

Ultimately a leaner demand for marketing services improves campaign quality and consumer experiences. Agencies are being put to the screws to deliver a better product and more value.

Are you a burger virgin?

2009-02-12T19:39:00.007-05:00

I hope you're not.

Doesn't that just look delicious? Ignore those diets and give in to trans-fat freedom!

Burgers have transgressed through American culture faster than credit card debt. From corner greasy spoons to your local McChain, how can the super-saturated burger companies get their product into your belly?

McDonalds? Boring. Celebrity appearances, cutesy kids commercials and all the rest don't work much better. Here's a creepy one that's definately not PG-13:

There's also some creepy McDonalds Japan ads:

Clearly culturally targeted advertising is at work here. A quick wikipedia search also discusses the variations in McDonald's offerings from country to country.

Wendy's? They've done a good job at least pushing the quality and freshness of their product. That is until they literally blow up their customers:

The cold war also introduced some very interesting commercials into North American pop culture:

What I've been enjoying most of all has been Burger King's take. Their 2007-2008 campaign has won numerous awards, thanks to strong brand positioning (including an Xbox game!) and innovative disruptive campaigns. None were more disruptive than the "Whopper Freakout". What happens when you take away "America's Favorite Burger"? Watch and see.

Whom better to sell your company's products than their loyal customers? Whopper sales apparently grew double digits after that one. More recently, however none the less controversial is the "Whopper Virgins" campaign. Burger King went around to remote villages where people had never even seen a burger before and did a taste test against the Big Mac. Again, there's a clear push to determine the best burger. However, what I found most interesting was the natives' interaction with the burger. Most have no idea to take the burger in your two hands and eat it; something that comes without thinking to us. The tactile, subliminal relationship we have to the items we are marketed is one of the strongest principles of consumer adhesion. We're used to opening a Big Mac box. We're accustomed to opening a bottle of coke. We know how to open a bag of chips. These people aren't accustomed to such. It's incredible the influence and teachings in our media to show us how we interact with our everyday purchases.

And of course, what's a great piece of viral marketing without controversy?

As consumers, we've been molded and taught to not only buy certain products over others, but how to interact and attain them. The focus of marketing cannot be limited solely to the products themselves. More and more marketing is branching out to "lifestyle" products, meaning that convincing and showing how a product works into a certain class of living is just important as the product itself (case in point; running shoes, power drinks, etc.).

Are burgers a lifestyle product? To a certain extent perhaps. Most of us aren't burger virgins.

Basics of branding: Arnell's Pepsi concepts

2009-02-12T15:00:00.004-05:00

Too often, positioning strategy is seen as some lofty, abstract, and intangible activity. It's mistaken as a marketing black art because the process that goes into its execution is so subjective.

Frankly, some people are better at understanding consumer strategy than others. They have unique insights into how consumers think, are familiar with multiple points of appropriate cultural references, and can argue for a positioning stance based on a foresight to know that it will effectively ready a brand or product for future success.

They know what consumers engage with and why.

The Pepsi rebrand that launched in January 2009 - including the redesign of a 30 year old logo - is one of those projects that required the expertise of this kind of strategic creative person.

The Peter Arnell Group was the agency responsible for concept development of Pepsi's new logo. A document released (perhaps seeded into the social media community so bloggers like me will pick it up and buzz about it...) describes the rationale behind the new Pepsi logo:

Apparently, "emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity" - a phrase I love! - which means that "things that stir emotions in people influence the whole personality of Pepsi".

Take a look at the document. It's full of bizarre diagrams that deconstruct and code the DNA of the Pepsi brand. It's like looking at the Human Genome Project for a soft-drink.

The value in doing this? The agency is showing it's skills for strategic creativity. It's demonstrating through applied concepts why the new design makes sense, rather than some arbitrary selection criteria that chooses one design over another based on what someone likes the best. It's an attempt to be really scientific - in a creative way.

This matters because the more strategically creative value an agency is able to deliver (in the form of design conceptualization or consumer insight), the greater differentiation they will have against competitors. The greater differentiation, the higher the premium they can charge for their services.

Read the report, see what you think.

How advertising agencies grew up

2009-02-10T16:00:00.003-05:00

In another fantastic example of my two birds, one stone philosophy, I'm blog-posting and collecting supporting evidence for a presentation my group is making on Thursday about ad agencies.

I'm reading this interesting book, Adland, all about the growth of the advertising industry. It's a summary account of major global agencies and their influential founders. The book gives equal credit to the importance of consumer insight (research), outstanding creativity (artistry), and compelling messaging (copywriting) as elements of successful agencies. Often the most noteworthy agencies were started as a partnership between a planner, an art director, and a copywriter (or a combination of).

Here are a few examples of successful advertising agencies and how they grew up:

Lord & Thomas, an old print ad agency at the turn of the 20th century into the thirties, led by Albert Lasker, known as the true father or modern advertising. Lasker created the form of the modern agency with a department of copywriters and a focus on sales, planning, and business development. He recruited famous copywriter Claude Hopkins, known for a rational sales-focused style honed through research and empirical results. As simple an obvious as it now sounds, the 'Hopkins Approach' to good ad development implies finding the unique factor for any product that sets it apart from its rivals. Groundbreaking stuff in 1907. The importance here is that even as early as 1907, there was a strong scientific basis to advertising and agencies that could deliver a more effective advertisement were more successful. Lord & Thomas is now DraftFCB, part of Interpublic.

JWT, founded in 1878 by J. Walter Thompson (who actually bought out the agency owned by Willian Carlton), one of the largest and most successful advertising agencies ever (now part of the WPP holding company). Grew significantly from 1920s to 1950s under Stanley Resor and his wife Helen Landsdowne who emphasized the need for credible research to back up claims of product superiority (think doctors, psychologists). JWT is now the largest US agency, fourth largest in the world.

Young & Rubicam, founded in 1923 by John Young and Raymond Rubicam, is now one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. It grew like other modern agencies but had a strong focus on backing up ideas with solid research. It may therefore be considered among the less risk-taking agencies because of its more dogmatic approach to campaign development. Y&R was known for its creativity in the 1950s, but Rubicam also wanted to instill a practical, reason-based foundation in the work. In 1932, Rubicam hired George Gallup (yes, that Gallup), a sociologist and researcher to head a consumer research departmnt of 400 people within the agency. The primary research collected by field researchers working for Y&R would lead to the development of better, more relevant campaigns. In 2000 Young and Rubicam Brands (including Wunderman and Young & Rubicam) was acquired by WPP.

DDB, founded by Ned Doyle, Maxwell Dane, and Bill Bernbach in 1949 as the antithesis to what was seen at the time as stodgy and conservative creative work by the major agencies (Greay, Y&M, O&M, JWT). This was the creative shop in the 1950s, the team responsible for the famous VW Lemon ads. DDB established itself and grew based on creative risk-taking and simply great ideas rather than a focus on consumer research (the Levy's Rye Bread ad, shown above, is a classic example from DDB). A defining quality at DDB was the deliberate collaboration between art directors and copywriters to spark great ideas, known as the creative revolution in advertising. DDB merged with BBDO and Needham in 1986 to create Omnicom, then the largest advertising company in the world. DDB is seriously successful, with many creative awards (to this day) the highest revenue ($12.69B in 2007) of any agency.

Chiat/Day, creative hotspot founded in Los Angeles in 1962, best known for the '1984' Apple Superbowl ad (shown below). Although Stanley Pollitt at BMP developed the practice of 'account planning' - placing researcher and account managers directly together on client teams to better facilitate consumer insights, it was the application of account planning at Chiat/Day that catalyzed the agency's meteoric rise. From the introduction of account planning organization in 1982 to 1992, the agency's client billings grew from $50MM to $700MM. Chiat/Day merged with the European collective TBWA in 1993 and was acquired by Omnicom.

Wieden + Kennedy, founded in 1982 by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy out of Portland Oregon. W+K is a big favourite of mine for producing amazing creative work, notably Coke's 'Coke Side of Life' and the Nike 'Just Do It' campaign. The shop was the first to challenge the advertising hegemony of Madison Avenue. It's now one of the largest independently owned agencies and still producing great work, like this fantastic spot for Nike (shown below) which premiered during the 2008 Olympics. I still get chills and cry. Seems to have grown as a result of strong TV capabilities.

M&C Saatchi, founded in 1996 by the same Saatchi brothers who were forced out of their original agency, their namesake Saatchi & Saatchi. M&C Saatchi is relatively small but global, highly creative, and highly strategic in their thinking. It uses the concept of 'Brutal Simplicity' to deconstruct brands and consumer strategies to their simplest elemental forms. One word thinking. It's meant to get to the heart of insight. (Note, I really want to work here when they finally open a Toronto office!)

180, an innovative shop founded in 1998, spun off by account managers from Wieden + Kennedy's Amsterdam office who committed the most grievous of sins, pitching for Adidas, the hated rival of Nike, W+K's primary client. 180 is a multicultural agency, strongly reflecting the diversity of its Amsterdam HQ. In 2007 they opened an Los Angeles office and are now 50% owned by Omnicom. 180 describes that they first "think of the big idea and then apply it to media channels. If it doesn't work in all channels, then it's not a big idea." Interesting example of an agency that relies on incredible talent as a driver of creativity.

StrawberryFrog, started in 1999 (also in Amsterdam) as a digital media agency, now is a specialist in creating cultural movements. An example of a shop that really gets the optimism and creative risk-taking (remember DDB in the 1950s?) that makes advertising exciting. The agency specializes in popular movements using a wide array of contact points with consumers, from outdoor advertising to web-based initiatives. They design brand environments, says cheif CD, Mark Chalmers. Cool, cool stuff. Check out their story of advertising.

What I think is cool - and a key linchpin of my 601 group's strategic recommendation for our site - is that successful agencies have grown by a deliberate recognition of the importance of strategic planning and consumer research. In the case of BMP, this function is highly integrated into campaign development in the form of the 'account planning' model. In the case of Young & Rubicam, it's the purposeful distancing of a research department to develop pure, unadulterated and meaningful consumer truths.

Agencies need strategy. It's a higher value adding service and something that can improve the quality and relevance of campaigns for consumers.

But in other examples, agencies became successful simply because of the way they did work. They were more cultural. Riskier and with fresher ideas. M&C Saatchi, DDB, StrawberryFrog, and 180 are examples.

So we're now left with an interesting industry - it's highly divided, with six massive players and their collection of agencies at one end (WPP, Omnicom, Havas, Publicis, Interpublic, and Dentsu) and small boutique standalone agencies at the other. In the middle are micro-networks of agencies with networks of regional offices or partnerships.

It's these mid-tier agencies which are the most interesting to look at because they defy convention. Sure, they're creative, but they're also executional experts at new media channels which they grew up using. StrawberryFrog is an example. Same for Razorfish/Avenue A. They're strategic creatives, talking big ideas as much as consumer marketing strategies. And they're winning business. Adidas is handled by Sid Lee out of Montreal and 180 from Amsterdam. Nike is handled by Wieden + Kennedy. Burger King is handled by Crispin Porter & Bogusky from Miami. The German boutique Heyer & Partners developed the McDonald's 'I'm Lovin' It' campaign.

So what happens when strategy is increasingly being determined by nimble shops that can produce a global impact but don't need global operations?

All accounts are up for grabs.

The weekend links

2009-02-08T20:34:00.003-05:00

It's news time. We're back into the daily grind and in the thick of ridiculous projects. A lot of these ridiculous projects involve looking for recent news events concerning business developments, technology trends, or marketing strategies. So here are interesting stories from this week, with some bizarre stuff through in for good measure.

Also, I've had a month's worth of Jewish deli food this weekend. Delicious stuff. So with a belly full of coleslaw, corned beef, pickles, rice pudding, potato salad, cream cheese, lox, pastrami, and rye bread, I bring you links!

Once again, teenagers and their relentless consumerism have saved the retail landscape. Teenage apparel shops actually performed in January.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky, one of the brighter shops in the industry lately for their creative risks (and Ad Age's agency of the year in 2008) cuts 60 jobs. Not good news for new graduates!

I've refrained from talking about the Superbowl ads, mainly because they're so subjective and honestly, what does it matter if I liked one ad or the other - it only matters what prospective consumers and key influencers though of the ads. Wait...I'm blogging, maybe that means I'm a key influencer...in that case, my favourite ads from last week's Superbowl were:

The Doritos ad made by two guys for $1000

The Priceline ad

The Pepsi Dylan and Will.i.am ad

They were interesting, fun to watch, and memorable.

Ad Age ran a story about how consumers brand perceptions changed before and after these were shown during the game. And what did I think were the worst ads?

The Cheetos Ad (i'm still confused...)

The Sobe ad (it's just so stupid and drawn out)

Have you dwlded StumbleUpon yet? You really should, it's the best way to pass time between Facebook, Gmail, Surfthechannel, and Facebook again. StumbleUpon is now bigger than Twitter has quietly crept up to become one of the larger user-generated platforms online. And the best thing is that it doesn't even need a website!

I'm not sure about this one - I am a huge aviation enthusiast and the F-22 is a beautiful plane. But it's completely unnecessary and in many ways totally anachronistic for modern, urban warfare which isn't based on which superpower has air superiority.

I'm proud to say that I was a fan of Shepard Fairey before he became the official artist of the Obama administration. He's been arrested for graffiti.

At least one client is increasing their marketing budget - Workopolis is playing it smart, using common-sense copywriting to emphasize a never back down attitude for job-seekers.

HAHA! NBC VPs used the company account to pay for prostitutes...wow, media world
gossip.

'Nana, please don't be made at me, I just downloaded the latest Franz Ferdinand album' - the National Center for State Courts has created a propaganda piece warning teens about how file sharing will ruin your life and your grandmother's life. Stunning.

And finally, my favourite Doors song, Five to One. It's a great song about restlessness and futility, IMO. It's the version from the Oliver Stone movie, but really the best video for the song.

Horrible group members

2009-02-07T20:09:00.002-05:00

Painful (but necessary) working sessions this week with various groups have shown me how I behave in group settings where power is shared and there's no single leader.

My group is strong. We're all strong students. But one thing I've noticed is that we all occupy different roles that change from meeting to meeting. Some days I'm facilitating a discussion. Other days I'm introspective and could even be perceived as apathetic. Some times I'm angry and enforce the rules, other times I have a relaxed attitude to deadlines or protocol.

It's like a sociological petri dish. Everyone has shifting patterns of behavior. A really funny dynamic I've noticed is that we can side with another group member's ideas one day, then disagree with them the next. Overall, I feel we have to listen more, but this whole experience has provided me with an insight into the different archetypes that I become from one day to the next depending on the tone of the meeting.

So this is not a reflection on my group, it's a reflection on me.

Here are the horrible group members who I have been:

THE DEFENDER

None of my ideas ever seem wrong when I'm the Defender. Nothing I say can be refuted and if you try, well then you're just being a dick. Speak to me only when you have to say you're sorry for disagreeing with me or when you finally understand the superior point I'm trying to prove. I come into the meeting with guns blazing, eyes closed, and ears shut. I make my point as aggressively and loudly as possible, interrupting anyone who wants to contradict me.

I hate being this role. When I'm the Defender, I should chill out and appreciate the fact that other people have perspectives and insights that may be stronger than my own because of their own unique knowledge.

THE WEEKENDER

When I choose to meet with the group, I do so grudgingly. It's a pain in the ass for me to be dividing my time between school, work, homelife, and 601. My attitude to working is that it's best accomplished on one's own time rather than wasted for hours trying to press through a group document together. I cooperate, smile, and cheer people's ideas - but I'm dying inside! I can't wait until I get to leave the meeting room and go to do my own things.

I strongly identify with this archetype because I take a very rational approach to group work and don't see the benefit in wasted time. I work efficiently on my own. The problem I face in this role is that no one takes my ideas seriously and I never end up contributing as much as I'd like to in meetings. The group is worse of as a result of my not 'bringing the thunder'.

THE CHEERLEADER

Things are great when I'm the cheerleader! Nothing is ever a problem that can't be expediently buried and forgotten about! I help the team out my succinctly rephrasing something that someone else has said and I passing it off as my own! At the beginning of our meetings, I am animated, upbeat and motivated to do work, but by the end I quickly lose interest and go off to doing my own things! Nevertheless, the team loves me and I can never do anything wrong!

I'm rarely a cheerleader, but when I am, I find that the things I have to share with the group are unsubstantiated and lacking in any deep insight. I use happiness and stoking the group's energy as a cover for my own lack of knowledge about the subject matter. Recognizing this, I think I could do a much better job sometimes of coming prepared to meetings.

THE DEPUTY

We agreed on rules and dammit, we're going to stick to them. Conveniently, we've forgotten rules that no longer make sense, but have yet to establish new rules that can prevent subversive group behavior. I rally the troops, set plans, and oversee action. My foresight is perfect but ability to guide the team through difficult times needs some improving. When I lose control over the group, it's like a lone soldier taking a stand against an army of zombies. I just wish they all thought as clearly as me.

My needs for stimulation and chaos in life often mean that I dislike rules - or at least I dislike the rules that I have to play by. As the Deputy, I have limited authority to enforce the rules, so it might make sense for me to develop more constructive ways of facilitating a chaotic group dynamic which obviously doesn't work well with structure. When I become this archetype, I need to find ways of innovatively applying my natural goal-setting abilities to create an appropriate framework for the meeting.

THE DEFEATIST
Life is pain, and pain is life. We're put here on this Earth to suffer, especially during group meetings. I work hard because I see it as penance for my sins and misguided belief that someone will notice me. I act out and make scenes to draw attention to myself but spend a lot of time reflecting on how things got so messed up. The problem is that I've gotten so down that it's hard to see the way out again.

Recently I've noticed that I take on this role too easily. At one meeting I snapped and sarcastically commented that "my opinion obviously doesn't mean anything" - something I really shouldn't have said in retrospect because it only deepened the animosity among the group at the moment. I need to do more to lift my spirits so that the group can benefit from my insights without feeling like they have to begrudgingly accept them.

THE ASSHOLE

I stir shit up.

My comments are jagged and rapid-fire, without a lot of sympathy for the audience. My brain works really fast and I can see your next move ten moves before you. I speak to hear my own voice and demand that I be heard, even if I say something that was discussed earlier and neatly resolved. I am 100% focused on the group and my mental energies are absolutely committed to the task at hand. It's not like I'm a bad group member, I just have a lot of power which is sometimes negatively used.

This is an easy archetype for me to slip into. It's full of qualities which I despise in myself and a mindset that prohibits me from actively learning from others in my group. I also am limited in how much I can synthesize from previous group meetings when I'm wearing this role because I'm so caught up in the moment. Stepping back, taking a breath, and closing my mouth are techniques I should try when I find myself becoming the Asshole.

Max's mantras

2009-02-05T08:50:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Nick for blogging in my absence - my 601 has been more work in the last week than I expected.

I wanted to put up a code of conduct for myself for my future in marketing, something which I can refer to throughout my career. It's a list of things I believe now and strive to follow. Periodically I look back on the blog and try to find nuggets of insights (amid a lot of the dreck!) which I still think are valuable. I'm also now reading a great book, Adland, and its quotes from Bernbach, Ogilvy, Wells, and Rubicam have got me really inspired. Years from now, I'd like to look back on this list and proudly say that these things mattered to be at a time when consumer marketing was experiencing an identity crisis.

ONE:
Marketing’s future will be defined by the ability for consumers to own an experience and the ability for marketers to correctly identify those consumers.

The consumer experience implies that owning a product is not as satisfying as using a product or experiencing the transformative benefits. Marketers must capture the experience, in situ, of the consumer and the brand.

TWO:
CRM must be at the centre of an integrated marketing solution.

Customer relationship management (or experience, conversation, or value management) imply a rational identitification of a marketer's customers and channels to create consistent marketing communications. Makes sense, right? What's different now is that CRM isn't tossed aside to act as a Skunkworks for future strategy. It's smack in the middle receiving input and guiding all channel strategies so that customers are spoken to in a unified way with measureable goals.

THREE:
Reject as false anything except that which can be learned from your customers.

Remember that there's a reason customers buy from you. It's not because they owe you or they are short of options. It's because of some unique value proposition they relate to. Customer insights matter and the insights from your customers should be the only immediate truths.

FOUR:
As a consumer, demand only the best from marketers.

Passive response from consumers is a marketer's nightmare. It means that nothing was relevant or interesting. Complacent marketers who don't deliver the best solutions should no longer be allowed access to the customer conversation.

FIVE:
As an agency, be perceived as risk-taking.

The key word here is 'perceived'. Don't take risks. Rather, take perceived risks. The ready, fire, aim strategy is amateurish and unsustainable. Agencies which take calculated risks manage their opportunities and image better than those that take risky risks.

SIX:
Love the fact that not everything can be measured in life.

Your customers are many things. But they are not simply an equation for value based on complex activity and demographic variables. They're people. Chaotic people. Much of marketing is scientific but there's a human element to creating a spark of action where previously there was none. This is more the product of art than analysis.

So these are just a few of my mantras. I'll add my others in the future. I hope this becomes like Oprah's Book List and I start seeing these phrases show up in assignments at school.

There's no such thing as guerrilla marketing

2009-02-04T06:03:00.013-05:00

That's one disruptive book cover if I've ever seen it. So what's the beef with guerrilla marketing you ask? (a free Big Mac to each person who half-heatedly laughed at the pun)

My question is: What is guerrilla marketing?

Not to be mistaken with gorilla marketing, a topic that has plagued marketers since the dawn of time:

Or actual guerrillas:

I guess you could try to market guns to guerrillas; perhaps using guerrilla marketing? Whatever that means. Maybe this video can help get to the core essence of "guerrilla marketing":

Ok, so a whole bunch of ads that are sometimes funny, sometimes provocative? Sometimes just downright ludicrous to try to get some attention. Wikipedia, the Master of all Knowledge, provides that it's a term keyed by Jay Conrad Levinson who wrote a book about the topic in 1984. His book suggests the following as the principles behind guerrilla marketing:

It should be based on human psychology instead of experience, judgment, and guesswork.
Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.
The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.
Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
Guerrilla Marketers should always use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
Use current technology as a tool to empower your business.

That list seems a little bit odd to me. Shouldn't that list be true of ALL current marketing and advertising campaigns? We've come a long way from bland ads that feature nothing but the product, a brand, a slogan and naked women.

Throw in a little bit of sexism and you've got beers flying out faster than brand values can be squeezed.

So, what is "guerrilla marketing"? It's not just an aggregate of many other useless names for marketing strategies, such as:

Viral marketing -- through social networks
Ambient marketing
Presence marketing
Grassroots marketing
Wild Posting Campaigns
Alternative marketing
Buzz marketing -- word of mouth marketing
Undercover marketing -- subtle product placement
Astroturfing -- releasing company news to imitate grassroots popularity
Experiential marketing -- interaction with product
Tissue-pack marketing

It's what the current marketing environment should be. That Bavaria beer ad was from 2006. It's now 2009, and we're only seeing a big industry push for something innovative, interactive and entertaining for consumers. The cola wars, who are notorious for flinging marketing dollars like dung at a wall hoping some will stick are finally catching on. The days of boring beer ads and big ad spend are over. The entire industry is now looking to maximize ROI, and not JUST in sales, but in measruable consumer data. This data is alot easier to measure from the interactive level of "guerilla marketing", which is in fact the future of how all ROI-maximized advertising will soon be.

So what is guerilla marketing? It's just an umbrella term for any type of advertising that isn't bland or boring, likely fueled by old-fashioned marketing firms who want to make it seem illicit to create anything fresh. Much of what is guerilla is fresh, innovative and effective. Some of it is just disruptive-type marketing.

Disruptive; no?

I've been struggling for the longest time to try to describe this new marketing direction without using 25-year old monikers. The best way to describe it is interactive marketing. Consumers are no longer interested in whom has the largest billboard; the current school-yard method of settling who has the biggest ad budget. It's about who can engage consumers best with their products to try to turn around a sale. A picture roll is in order:

Interactivity and consumer participation are the way to try to salvage some kind of brand loyalty. Consumers don't remember that Coke had the largest billboard in Times Square, but rather that Pepsi erected a soda-pop drinking fountain in the middle of Central Park. Because which form of advertising are they more likely to remember? Not just visually, but emotionally, and even sensory. Old-timers can try to isolate and almost joke about guerrilla marketing, but those innovative enough to leverage these low-budget (usually compared to general ad spend), high ROI-return marketing efforts are sure to see better value from their brands and feedback from their customers.

Right now "guerilla marketing" is that trendy, 20-year old nephew who won't cut his hair, as a few piercings, and listens to obscure bands to a 50 year old marketing dinosaur (isn't it interesting how 50 is "old" for a marketer?). Soon the tables will change and there'll be "dinosaur marketing" outed as old fashioned, and an umbrella term for all the bad marketing habits firms have finally let go of.

Now where's that meteor?...

How much is your loyalty worth?

2009-01-31T16:02:00.015-05:00

Customer loyalty is quickly becoming one of those recession business buzz-words, as big companies realize that consumers are spending less and less, and that to remain profitable, they need to attract more and more of this dwindling pie. It's not surprising that we're seeing more and more companies pushing their brand rather than their product in their current commercial and ad offerings. There's also been a re-kindled interest (likely from streamlined marketing budgets) in customer loyalty programs. Here's a (albeit old) Air Miles commercial:

And another (this one a cheap laugh), albeit more recent, just before the credit crunch

and recession:

This next one isn't a real commercial, but accurately demonstrates the U.S. recession, as:

> The Aliens are creditors

> The Space Man is the average American

> And as usual, the U.S. will need to settle with the alien and tax the space man later, even

though he escaped in his pod.

Closer to home is the new Shoppers Drug Mart commercial that absolutely rocked:

They have their own in-house rewards program called "Shoppers Optimum". It's a program much better suited to the frequent shoppers customer; someone who can afford to go to there for all their daily staples. I guess it's working quite well, despite the economic slowdown, as it's posting higher than predicted sales numbers in the looming recession.

I just stumbled across a new brand loyalty program that is incredibly strong in the United States that I'd never heard of before. It's called Upromise; "where your everyday spending can pay you back with money for college".They have hundreds of online stores, thousands of restaurants and tens of thousands of grocery and food stores along for the ride. Participating companies include Apple, Expedia, Walmart, Dell, etc.These companies are leveraging Americans' emotional and economic mindset in order to get more brand loyalty (isn't marketing great?). 10 million users over an 8 year period can't be wrong.

The rewards program works so that whenever the American participant buys from one of the participating retailers using your special card (not unlike airmiles, but integrated into your credit card), a certain percentage (varies by participating entity) of your purchase is put into a savings account. It's like cash back, but reserved for higher education. This format is ingenious for two reasons (apart from playing on Americans' economic disparity):

1. Most Americans will never pursue higher education (about 48.8% of 18-24 Americans pursue college or some form of associates degree in 2005-2007 according to U.S. American Community census data)

2. The program gets payouts from retailers immediately, to be distributed at another time

THe first point is almost like defaulting on a mortgage. If a family has been using the program anad amasses a wealthy sum only for the student NOT to go to college or university; that money is pure profit (and there's a 50/50 chance they won't).

The fine print: "...It's too bad she'll grow up to work in that same supermarket."

The second point regards the time value of money. The Upromise company gets to earn interest on that money while it's waiting to perhaps be collected. That's potentially huge sums over a potential 19 years (birth -> usual college admission age) that a family could be saving money.

So, why is the program so popular (and bound to only get more attention)?

Now that there's so much turmoil in the economy, people's MPS (marginal propensity to save) is rising. Programs that play off this consumer attidue, while offering a no effort approach for consumers to act on their predispositions is an ideal choice for a rewards program. This isn't unlike the Canadian banking version. I think it was Scotiabank that had a similar program, where they would round up to an even dollar on debit purchases, and deposit that amount (<1$)>

So, how much is your brand loyalty worth? Maybe your tuition covered for shopping at WalMart rather than your mom-and-pop shop down the street?

Crackberries Unite!

2009-01-30T02:24:00.019-05:00

It would seem that everyone knows what a blackberry is. For those of you who have never seen another homosapien before, I don't mean this:

I mean the epitome of the cell phone:

I can already hear the bellows of the cell phone geeks out there: "thas not da newest bberry n00bzor!". Yes, there is a "new" Blackberry 8900 "Curve" phone that has just released. They all then clutch on to their vintage blackberry (or if you're an apple fan; your Newton) and text all their friends on how un-educated I am. Just to prove how crazy the fandom over the device truly is, a search of "blackberry" in google images leads to 6,190,000 of images; most not fruit related.

Anyways...

What has created such a social revolution of the device? When the blackberry was still a business-focused device, the rest of us were still aw-ing at colour screens and camera phones. Does anyone else remember when camera phones with 0.3 megapixel or even worse VGA cameras were released? Now camera phones are hitting 8 mega-pixels and look more like cameras with a phone built in:

Is anyone else tired of the constant integration of these devices? I purposely went with a regular LG phone and an iPod Touch rather than converging the two. Why? I like to keep my eggs in different baskets. Plus, data plans are a pain in the arse.

There are three main contributors to the Blackberry's previous and continuing success:

1. A rock-solid platform

Providing technology for large businesses is challenging. They have strict security, quality and software requirements that make them easy to roll out to employees, easy to fix, and easy to manage. Building up the software behind these blackberries has provided the integrated system that was so easy to roll out to a mass populous. Many phones, such as the newly toted Google Android phone operating system and the Windows Mobile iteration had their fair share of headaches when it came to development; allowing the experienced blackberry platform to take over. Blackberry kept this same formula constant, while slowly rolling out the latest in technology into the previous rock-solid interface and ergonomic control. This was actually the first RIM (Research in Motion; the company behind the Blackberry product) device:

It looks similar to the current Blackberry models; no? Qwerty keyboard. Scrolling dial. Icon display, etc. All we have different know are bandwidths like 3G, Wi-Fi, Colour Screens, etc.

See what I mean?

RIM got a harsh lesson of its own medicine when it tried to leave its successful phone model. Its Blackberry Storm, or "Touch Screen" phone was deemed one of the provider's worst products ever released. The touch screen blackberry was supposed to be a competitor to the huge success of the iPhone from Apple; another giant who knows how to focus on what they do well and leverage it to produce competitive products. In comparison, it failed miserably. It tried to be too much of what the iPhone was, and was almost destined to fail against the integration expertise of Apple, with hundreds of touch screen patents, a successful music interface, and an understanding on the operating experience needed for a successful multimedia phone.

Even with big PR "suspense" dollars behind it; it still failed:

But if the iPhone is so great; what makes the Blackberry so desirable?

2. Endorsements

Apple has never really needed to bring on endorsements. Their fan community and Apple die-hards have been all they needed to get a product from launch to multi-million dollar success.

Blackberry has also taken a hands-off approach; but being the producer of business' most trusted device is bound to come attached with a few "crackberries" (people who are addicted, like the drug, to Blackberries) willing to swear by the device for promotional purposes.

This (albeit older) "research" "done in collaboration" for RIM; seems like a 7 minute long commercial for the device:

More recently in print ads, the likes of Premal Shah (President of Kiva.org, NFP organization), Rob Vandermark, and Nina Garcia (Fashion Magazine Editor, Elle, Marie Claire) divulge of how they can't live without their Blackberry:

And another:

And every good commercial/product needs a good spoof thanks to Rick Mercer. This clip is dedicated to Max for its NSFW (not-safe-for-work) content and periods of brief male nudity. (Anyone who attended the SEO session knows what I mean.) If you don't watch or read anything else; check this out:

Does anyone else get the impression that Blackberry is (rightly) pompous enough to claim that your business cannot flourish without their services? Awesome. More brand integrity than free swag at a showing of Oprah.

There are also un-paid endorsements from just the media in general, who go gadget crazy whenever someone uncovers their iPod or phone:

From Obama who would not dare give it up:

To Oprah who gives them away on her favorite lists:

To the Editor of Forbes Magazine who was brought to tears when removed from technology for 7 days (he lasted 40 hours before the water works<-- another must watch):

Off topic: all this on the syndrome called "Blackberry Addiction":

And lastly:

3. Savy Horizontal Customer Expansion

This is arguably the strongest, and smartest move RIM has made to gain market attention. Watch this commercial to get the jist of the concept. It is by far one of my favorite commercials ever made:

"Connect to everything you love in life, with Blackberry"

If that's not a powerful slogan; I don't know what is.

The device since its "pearl" iteration started to be marketed to a younger, more media and internet-centric crowd. The blackberry quickly transformed from your grandfather's antique:

To the modern-day social tool idolized by pre-teens all around the world:

All it needed was a slimmer size, Facebook integration, a camera, and the best texting interface ever seen and boom - pop culture sensation. What's truly incredible is that the device isn't very glamorous, an important factor in most pop culture icons (such as an iPod). The preference of function over fashion has truly cut out other suppliers of "cutesy" phones from the market. This is just another iteration of taking the bullet-proof blackberry model and tweaking it slightly to gain instant and continuous success; a model that would be coveted by ANY electronics manufacturer.

The key here is that the same mantra that applies for brands applies for devices. "Fresh" not "New". The most successful and well-known companies attain this status for exactly that: spending the time to create a rock-solid foundation; then tweaking offerings slightly to meet new customer needs. This applies for Google, RIM, Apple, HP, etc. If you don't believe me, here's a very similar commercial concept for HP that has added incredible brand equity:

As long as RIM learns from the Storm it just unleashed (haha, pun, get it?), I don't see it falling out of place anytime soon.

/Rant Mode On: Walking down the halls of Schulich, it's astonishing to see how many people are touting blackberries; some usefully, others just to check facebook and feel important. My favorite are those (primarily first and second year, but upper years too) students that whip out their blackberry every two seconds to see if their Japanese merger deal went through without a hitch at above market value. Or to see if they got tagged in the pictures of themselves at the "So You Think You Can Dance?" marathon session everyone was gathered around last night. But if it makes you feel so important; then go for it. At least it'll help the RIM stock go up. /Rant Mode Off.

Until then; be a crackberry, or don't. But then you risk facing the hordes of fans who will rub their device in your face with great pride and wide smiles drawn across their faces. Jerks.

Starbucks is ill

2009-01-29T17:41:00.004-05:00

In looking for images, I searched "sad Starbucks" - this woman's picture came up, and she does look pretty sad.

Starbucks is posting a 69% loss in their last quarter, closing 300 stores, and cutting 6,700 jobs. Pretty bad times. I've even started drinking McDonald's coffee (which is pretty good) because as much as I love Starbucks, I can't justify the $2.50ish for a venti coffee.

Starbucks is reacting by swinging again toward value. Value based breakfasts and discount snacks (coffee and muffins), and a greater focus on drip coffee as opposed to espresso coffee beverages.

Wise choice, considering that consumers associate Starbucks with cappuccinnos, lattes, and other premium beverages, not with plain coffee. The decision to buy from Starbucks is based on the consumer weighing a decadent, premium latte drink to basic drip coffee. When wallets are fat, consumers treat themselves.

So when times are rough, it's no surprise that the appeal of a $4.50 latte begins to wane.

I think maybe it's time to leverage some the data from those Starbucks Cards now and begin to incentivize repeat visits and customer loyalty. With thin margins and a business based on premium quality products sold quickly with friendly service in a nice ambiance, Starbucks cannot risk not capitalizing valuable consumer insights. Growth into the CPG business and franchising the Seattle's Best brand to more locations are steps in the right direction to diversify the business and sustain Starbucks through economic ups and downs.

Cosmetics? What the hell are koz-meht-iks?

2009-01-28T02:17:00.026-05:00

As a guy, it can be hard to understand why women torment themselves with what seems like hundreds of products each and every morning; only to wash it off that night.

It makes permanent make-up appear to be an almost obvious choice:

An unwilling trip down what seems like an endless aisle is maliciously meant to confuse, daze, and otherwise deter any male from entering (even the bravest of us).

I mean, who can even make out the ads in these crammed displays?

It's all just a dizzying array of products; each more confusing and with less marginal utility than the next. But it makes girls prettier; no?

Even as Canada plans to post an 85 Billion dollar deficit this year; I can't imagine that the cosmetic industry will feel much of the blow. If there's two things that sell extremely well; it's a cheap laugh and vanity. And it's not just about the products being sold, but the intangible experience and feeling that women feel when they're looking their best.

It reminds me of Starbucks; a company with one of the best understandings of what it means to sell more than just a household staple. They don't just sell 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine (caffeine for those non-chemistry geeks); but a friendly smile, a homely environment and a portable brand to be shown off by consumers.

But what's the difference between a make-up artist and a barista?

Not much. Danielle Sacks, a writer with Fast Company magazine claims it's the difference between a consumer claiming that they "...love the way my friend's lipstick looks," and "I love how I feel when I wear that color." But that feeling doesn't come without a steep price tag that consumers are undoubtedly willing to pay. It's unsurprising that the multi-billion dollar industry keeps growing larger and larger with widespread marketing fluffing and 90$ jars of coloured powder that refused to stay shelved. MAC has recently become a mainstay giant of the industry; its success a combination of a high-quality project that's well marketed, and well represented by their employees.

And the numbers don't lie:

[Of MAC Cosmetics' company report]

Numbers Game

2.6 | Average number of products customers actually buy when they come to buy one item
$45 | Average amount each customer spends per visit >
83% | Percentage of new customers who are referrals
250,000 | Number of brides-to-be each year who come to MAC for their wedding makeup

Serge Rogasik, the Global Marketing Director of Beauty-Care Solutions describes the industry's fluff best (although indescriminently):

"...for an extreme example of what's possible, you start with algae that costs 5 cents a kilo and from that create algae extract that costs $50 a kilo. Then you can create an encapsulated algae-extract complex that you sell for $100 to $1,000 a kilo so that a customer can retail a beauty product at up to $50,000 a kilo. This is what we do: supply a very trendy market with high-tech solutions."

The article's main focus is on the emerging ingestible beatuy industry that will really jive with your inner vain.

All of this translated onto the shelf in a really intersting way:

Hmm...the products look well-packaged, but something seems to be missing...

Oh yeah...the prices. It would seem that consumers don't quite like thinking about how expensive coloured powder truly is.

I suppose that packaging and a quick first impression really is sufficient in order to sell perfumes. It's gone so far, that even the new iPod packaging is being leveraged:

The iPod iteration:

And on the shelf:

The cosmetics industry truly is a confusing three aisles.

Fun-dergrads!

2009-01-27T14:46:00.007-05:00

Welcome back, BBAs! I'm glad that you're back in school. It was nice for the MBAs to have the school to ourselves, but I missed the energy and fun that you all brought.

I've often thought that Schulich BBAs exemplify the best and worst of Gen Y culture:

Paradoxical individualism and self-expression but intense needs for social affiliation
Creative and critical thinking but irrationality when emotions become involved in the decision making process
Curiosity and a thirst for knowledge but a crass arrogance that their worldview is unflappable

As one of the younger MBAs (and a Gen Y myself), I unquestionably exhibit a lot of these qualities. Self-confidence (arrogance) and poor attention span spring to mind!

But the BBAs are complicated creatures. Let's begin to understand them with some archetypes. The lovely Robyn, B!G's VP, has graciously offered to let me use some of her Facebook pictures for illustrative purposes:

THE SOCIALISTA AND SOCIALISMO

Team building and group facilitation exercises are huge parts of the undergraduate experience at Schulich. They tried to do a lot of this kind of stuff for the MBAs in first year, but it didn't exactly catch on. Socialistas and Socialismos are identifiable by their energetic approach to life, the constant need to be surrounded by close and distant friends, and their voices, often approaching an amp'ed up level of heightened emotion and enthusiasm. Barf.

THE LECTURE-PHOBE

The fact that B!G is so popular among BBAs leads me to believe that there's a hunger among Schulich's lowerclassmen for learning outside the classroom. By their nature, Gen Ys do not learn well in a single platform environment - by textbooks or lectures alone. On-the-job skills training and real-world experiences are vital to give context to the theory being learned in class. That, or they just cannot stand to spend one minute in dull classrooms being lectured AT by an apathetic professor.

THE KIDULT

Robyn describes these students are doing kid things at night. Pillow fights, tobogganing, and games of capture the flag played at 3am suggest that growing up might never happen. I agree. Growing up won't happen - but that's ok. Kidults are recognized for their use of abbreviations and verbal slang, need for adventure and constant stimulation, love for challenges and physical/mental stimulation, and no sense of when bedtime occurs.

THE KNOWLEDGE SPONGE

Related to the Lecture-Phobe, the Knowledge Sponge participates in every possible school event, signs up to multiple clubs, and is super-engaged in class. They actually read every word of the textbook and take copious notes. I was this archetype in my undergrad until I found ways of getting high grades and doing limited reading! I really do feel bad for this undergrad because professors tacitly promote their destructive OCD behavior. Rote memorization of the textbook facts is a really dumb way of testing learning. Also, holding a textbook in a picture and smiling is really lame, sorry Robyn!

THE IBBA/EXCHANGE STUDENT

I'm really not sure what goes on when the BBAs go on exchange. Olga is in Norway right now and it fills me with great fear. Fear for the Norweigians. The exchange student is filled with amazing memories of their semester away and fantastic stories that you could believe actually happened. It's hilarious that none of the stories involve school.

So these are just a few of the students who you'll meet in the BBA program. Each is a pretty good facsimille for any previous generation's archetypes, but they are powered the Gen Y fuel of optimism.

Thanks Robyn for being a sport and letting me do this!

The weekend links, on a Monday

2009-01-26T14:05:00.002-05:00

Lots of work, eh?

This weekend was exhausting, full of obsessive group meetings and lots of circular discussion. B!G is going really well though and all our projects are now in full swing. Everything has started and we're in a good frame of mind after having outlined the scope for each project.

The Schulich BBAs come back today and it'll likely be hell crossing the picket lines with the extra number of cars. I'm really glad they're back and I don't underestimate the insane workload they're now facing.

From the rousing feedback I got from last week's links categorized into big themes, I'm trying it again. So, how're you feeling?

SENTIMENTAL:

Terrific pictures from Washington and the world last Tuesday for the Obama inauguration.

I'm a Bowie fan - he sang this version of 'Heroes' at the Concert for New York back in 2001 (2002?) as a celebration of NYPD and NYFD. You'll see a lot of them in the audience singing along. This gets me kinda emotional, listen to the lyrics.

Bobby Adams photographs couples, in a unique way

HAPPY

Krispy Kreme donuts enrages pro-lifers with 'freedom of choice' donuts

I really don't use enough crayons on my monitor...see BBDO's creative idea to marks Bring your Kids to Work Day.

I'm only guilty of one of these nine looks no guy whould ever try to pull off.

The freaky other side of online dating - it's not all that great! This woman has a collection of some really funny responses to her classified ads.

ANALYTICAL

REQUIRED READING FOR B!G: CPGs are desperately trying to understand the value of social media and online consumer engagement. And they're finding that social media is not so well understood. Perhaps a little more action and responsiveness rather than just passive listening...

Coke is debuting the following ad in this Sunday's Superbowl:

Ad Age thinks the Coke ad is almost great, but somehow is a little short of dazzling. I just don't really understand it. I never liked Coke's ads.

Street drugs are really stupid, especially ecstacy - in many cases you have no clue what active drugs are in the tablets. This site shows the chemical results for any pill they receive for testing. MDMA is ecstacy, but check out how many pills contain meth, ketamine, barbituates, or even aspirin. Scary, scary stuff.

Wow, Chrysler spend money - money they received from Congress - on the media space for a thank you ad. Colossally poor judgment.

Journey's Don't Stop Believing is an awesome song...unfortunately so are 36 copies of it.

The song got me thinking about another weird question I have - what happened at the end of the Sopranos???!!!

CURIOUS

Gorgeous cars, all together, in the sun! Great photos of a multimillion dollar car collection.

The 10 Best Cars of 2009 is a pretty interesting list and I think the Honda Accord actually looks quite nice.

Godwin's law states that as a thread in a newsgroup or forum discussion gets longer, the probability of references involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. I love these social observations.

Cool graffiti with lights and time-lapse.

Ok all, have a terrific week!

Hitting it home: Pepsi's Refresh campaign

2009-01-21T19:23:00.010-05:00

I'm in class right now, time to blog!

Someone just made a comment in class about how Obama's election isn't anything new, it's just the representation of American political sentiment at this moment. I'd seriously care to disagree, and Justin emphasized that 2M people in Washington is hardly evidence of the fact that Obama is no different than other presidents.

This all speaks to a larger cultural movement that's churning and frothing but still largely intangible.

Pepsi has relaunched its brand in an effort to ride this new cultural zeitgeist. It's now a fresher, edgier, more movement-focused brand. And it's coincided with the inauguration!

Here's their old look:

Here's their new look:

Familiar, but different. It's fun.

The centrepiece of the brand relaunch is the Refresh Campaign.

Check out the microsite: RefreshEverything.com. It's a social media site to aggregate the opinions and voices of normal citizens and Eva Longoria (among other celebrities).

It's been created to allow anyone to upload their own user-generated content that expresses their feelings of hope and optimism with the new President.

Even my current fascination, Lady GaGa, has gotten in on the action!

The Refresh campaign doesn't prominently feature any Pepsi products. I like this campaign because it's not about driving sales, it's about driving engagement (again, how does one actually value this?...is it even fair to value engagement by the classical measures of consumer value??)

The microsite is simply meant as an online interactive destination for their offline commercials. It's tied to a YouTube channel with Pepsi's new commercials and other related videos. The microsite doesn't have any search or folksonomy tagging capabilities so it's not too important for site visitors to find exact information on what people are saying, rather, it's meant to act as a speaker's corner for average voices to be heard.

So what's the point?

Two things:

Think of the optics: Pepsi is showing that they are a brand associated with change and youth (again). The TV commercial, courtesy of TBWA Chiat Day, was shown during key primetime spots (I saw it on AC 360 at 10:15pm, January 20) and captured the momentousness of the day. Check out the commercial. It's fresh and friendly.

Think of the non-quantifiable brand development: Tacitly, Pepsi's Refresh campaign is effectively sponsoring the Obama administration! It's piggybacking on a wave of interest in society in individualism, plurality, and self-expression. Pepsi is demonstrating that it understands the strong needs by consumers/voters for these things.

Pepsi is allowing consumers to be heard at a time when the urge to speak up has never been stronger.

To be fair, Coke is launching a big wave of new ads too. Analysts think the Colas Wars are going to begin again!

Great work by Pepsi and their agencies on this one, this is definitely a campaign i'd have loved to be involved in.

Excellent example of getting it done, creating a transparent and highly understanding brand personality, and emphasizing that Pepsi is a brand that unites and empowers people.

Way. To. Go.

Words can barely express...

2009-01-20T12:42:00.006-05:00

Obama just concluded his inaugural address and, as expected, it was nothing short of uplifting and strong. Watch here:

Commentators are now describing it as a "muscular" speech, full of sharp words and powerful metaphors meant to marshal Americans to take the charge of personal responsibility and global stewardship. I was stirred by his address and thought that its tone conveyed an urgency to rebuild and remake the things that are flawed and broken in America. He spoke with a gravity that was not necessarily optimistic, but rather respectful of the massive challenges (financial, domestic, international) that lie ahead for the nation.

I'm sure that I'm not alone in saying that when I watch Obama speak, I find that I'm transported to an idealistic frame of mind - a place where things seem a little more possible and not so scary. I then swing back to reality and think about whether change is really possible.

But the message in Obama's inaugural speech, now being referred to in the NY Times as the "Era of Responsibility" seems so naturally obvious. It's time for Americans to familiarize themselves with the responsibilties of citizenship: service and selflessness.

Americans are amazing to me. I like them a lot. They're productive, hospitable, proud, and hopeful. It's a unique personality that now - for the purposes of future global well-being - must also be informed by a humility to achieve a greater good.

Congratulations Mr. Obama, good luck!

The weekend links

2009-01-18T14:31:00.004-05:00

Crazy weather, eh? I'll be happy when January is over but for some reason I usually remember February giving a particularly bad snow wallop in most years.

Obama's inauguration is on Tuesday. I'm envious of the people who have the opportunity to go and attend. I'm not envious of the fact that they'll be standing in snow and out in the cold, but it's an event I really could have wanted to attend. I can't wait to hear his speech. If it's anything like his speech at the DNC, I'll be getting chills and goosebumps, I'll have renewed faith in the balance of the universe, and I'll end up a sobbing mess when it's all over.

I'm organizing this weekend's links by emotion. Just find the emotion that matters to you most at that moment and enjoy the links:

THOUGHTFUL

Newsweek examines why young evangelicals voted for Obama. It's an insightful commentary and clearly shows a generational schism among American white Christians but I can't seem to shake the sobriety of its tone.

Like the other graduating MBAs, I'm in job-search mode. From all accounts it's tough out there and job prospects are quite slim. I'm fortunate that tha MBA degree still has a meaningful valence to employers, but high Gen Y unemployment report still get me worried.

Pajiba is my favourite movie reviews site. Here's their list of the top ten films you didn't see in 2008. I basically watch whatever Pajiba tells me, and with the exception of 'Snow Angels', I haven't been disappointed with their recos. Check out 'Let the right one in', and 'In Bruges'.

Tense situation? CNN recommends things to say to keep the peace.

ECCENTRIC

The video for Dent May's 'Oh Paris' - Steve, welcome back, this is for you!

Philosophically, in what ways is a Snickers bar satisfying? I mean, it feeds the body, but does it feed the soul? Apparently, yes...

Jelly Belly has fifty delicious flavours. See them here.

This my picture of the Dancing Building (the Fred and Ginger building) in Prague. It's one of the 50 weirdest buildings in the world.

RUDE

Fugly, fugly, fugly. The top ten ugliest computers ever made.

Children's artwork really isn't that great, right? I mean, it lacks any precision, technical skill, or insightful social commentary! Bestpageintheuniverse.com's crappy kids art review is really funny to read though.

CURIOUS

Wild, relevant, interactive, in-car advertising.

McDonald's food is really quite delicious. I broke my seven year McDs diet this week with six pieces of McNuggets, a Big Mac, a quarter pounder with cheese, and a large fries. I felt nice and full afterwards, but my face is suddenly breaking out. Anyway, here's McDonald's menu variations worldwide. I really want to try the Indian McAloo Tikki Burger and the Belgian Croque McDo.

Flashback wayback for decades old Superbowl commercials.

Google really has some neat features. We all should know about the info: www.bigmarketing.ca function, and there are a few others that could come in handy. (BTW, try out 1-800-GOOG-411, it's very cool, and very free)

BOLD

Money-saving small business tips from real entrepreneurs. A lot of these have creative insights about self-marketing. Cool.

For a website that has "the finest advertising", they sure do display some jarring and irrelevant online ads for revenue. Anyway, InspiringAds.com is just that.

ProjectWonderful.com has a mission to reinvent online advertising. From what I can tell, it's using a unique PPC model and a model for keyword bidding that allows you to easily pick the sites on which your ads are displayed. Great philosophy too of open source and comm-collab.

The work of the flight crew on the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River in New York was nothing short of astounding. Next time I fly, I want Sully behind the controls. Check out this VR movie from BBC News about the flight. Must watch.

Have a great week, all!