positive disruption by: Tom Martin

What Advertising Agencies, Virgins & Hookers Have In Common

A few weeks ago, this tweet crossed my path:

agency advising on digital branding that isn't active in the digital space is like a virgin showing a hooker the ropes

Advertising has always been a tough business, but making it today takes true stamina.

What we have historically done for a living -- producing ads, logos and campaigns -- is quickly becoming a crowd-sourced commodity. So who can blame us for selling vaporware to clients? For telling them, "Sure we can do that" when asked if our firm does this or that. "This or that" often means lots of new fees for your firm and with far less price sensitivity than we see with more common outputs like collateral, TV spots, and media buys. "This and that" can be the difference between laying people off and having a pretty good year. So yes, lots of firms say they can do "this or that." Then they fake it or outsource it without ever telling the client the truth.

Read the rest at over at Ad Age's Small Agency Diary

photo credit: Elliott les yeux grand fermés

Positively Disrupting Thoughts for Ad Agencies

If you're like most companies today, you're scared. The economy sucks, the financial world is chaotic and your 401(k) is getting smaller, not bigger. So what is a boy to do? Well, for starters, stop doing what you're doing now. Why? Because I'm guessing it is what you've been doing all along and, frankly, that isn't going to cut it these days.

So here are a few thoughts of my own. You can decide if they are helpful or not. And do me the favor of adding a few more of your own in the comments section below. If we all practice a little Intellectual Darwinism, we'll be better for it -- don't you agree?

Click Here to read the rest via Ad Age.com Don't worry, it will open in a new window so you can still add your comments here for the rest of us to see. I hope they're as lively as the ones over at Ad Age.

Using Twitter to Change Brand Perception

As promised, I've finally completed the long-form version of my Mardi Gras Twitter Experiment results.

The week before Mardi Gras, I invited you to “Come to Mardi Gras. My Tweet.” It was as much a Twitter experiment as an Embedded Journalism experiment. Just as reporters in the Vietnam War colored our perception of the war via their nightly reports, I was eager to see if such an embedded journalism approach could shape the perception of Mardi Gras. Specifically, I started the test with three goals:

1. would the promise of content to grow my followership?
   
2. could positively change the brand perception of Mardi Gras?
3. can product placement can be done via twitter?

For those that have never been to Mardi Gras, there is a whole side of Mardi Gras that is very family oriented and looks more like the world’s largest tailgate party than a scene from Girls Gone Wild. And that was my primary goal. To see if I could reduce my followers’ negative brand linkage (Mardi Gras = crazy & flashing) and/or increase their positive brand linkage (family & tailgating). Everything else (goals and learning) was secondary in my mind.

So I spent the final five days of Mardi Gras sending out Tweets that included links to photographs (via TwitPic) I took at Mardi Gras. In my Tweets I’d give a bit of context, humor or just descriptive copy to let my followers know what the picture contained. Over the course of the five days I sent up a 185 Tweets and responded to a number of followers that made comments, Re-Tweeted or asked me questions.

Primarily my tweets were of family/crowd, parade (float/riders) and food/drink. And in the totality of the photostream you see a distinct “family” editorial angle with lots of pictures of kids, kids in ladders and families.

Over the nine-day experiment (4 days of advertising the tweetfest and the five days I tweeted) I learned a lot about Twitter and how to use a Live Tweet strategy to market a brand. And while I can’t share everything here, after all a girls gotta have a few secrets, I have included about 85% of the what we learned in hopes of instigating discussions around Twitter and more importantly, embedded journalism as a marketing concept.

So here we go... this is what I learned.

Relationships matter. To help me spread the word, I recruited my “Select Six” consisting of @ChrisBrogan, @MackCollier, @LisaHoffmann, @Armano, @BethHarte and @AmberCadabra. The strength of my “relationship” with these folks spans the spectrum from none (asked one of the others to recruit him/her) to very good (he/she once Tweeted with my six year old son as a favor). I assigned each of these helpers a unique tracking URL so that I could see how often they Tweeted, as well as the results (click-thrus) of those Tweets. After reviewing their activity, there is an almost perfect linear relationship that follows the strength of my relationships with them. My closest “friend” was the most active and the recruited Tweeter that wasn’t following me prior to the experiment was the least active.

The power is in the long tail. While I thought power Twitter’s like Chris Brogan would easily generate the most new followers or click-throughs to the blog post announcing the experiment given his 50,000+ followers, that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong. Guys like Chris can send surges of followers. In fact, on the Monday prior when I sent out the “overview” with a link to my blog so each of my Select Six could get a better view of what I intended to do, Chris loved it so much that he did was Chris does – he Tweeted it. And within in 60 seconds, 43 new followers showed up. Later in the week when he “officially” tweeted it well over another 100 followers showed up. The same kinds of bursts of sign-ups occurred when each of the remaining Tweeters tweeted or encouraged their followers to follow @TomMartin.

The interesting learning though was the power of the “long tail.” Over the course of the experiment, many new followers would tweet me to say how excited they were to follow or looking forward to the tweets. In each case, I’d respond to them and included a trackable BUDurl and remind them to tell their followers. The BUDurl I created and used produced 3x’s the clicks of the most active Select 6 Tweeter. Now in fairness, Chris Brogan didn’t use his URL, instead he just told folks to go see what @TomMartin was doing, so this may not be a truly apples to apples analytical study but the point is clear – don’t ignore the long tail. There are decreasing returns due to smaller follower bases, but given the ease of engaging people on Twitter, it is well worth the effort. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a Select 100 – I truly think my follower growth would have been significantly higher. 

Consumers will follow you for content. Prior to the experiment, I had 759 followers. By my first Tweet (4 days later), I had 1,610 and by the end of Mardi Gras I had crossed over 1,700 followers. I was simply promising two things. First, you’ll see Mardi Gras though the eyes of a local and second, you’ll see the results of my “experiment.” There was no register to win a free gift, or the person who helps sign up the most friends gets a trip, no there was none of that. I just promised I’d entertain and enlighten. That is a powerful piece of learning, in my estimation. Whether you’re trying to grow a Twitter following or Facebook fans/friends or website/blog traffic, content is king. At the writing of this post, some two weeks after Mardi Gras, I’m at 2,092 followers and honestly, I’ve done very little Tweeting since Mardi Gras other than point out my Ad Age results summary post had gone live last week.

Content humanizes.

I don’t have hard stat s on this one so maybe some of my followers will chime in via the comments below, but I’m convinced that my Mardi Gras Tweets helped me to develop a stronger relationship with my followers. Since the experiment I’ve noted a significant rise in folks @’ing me, retweeting my Tweets and helping me when I  toss out a question that I need an answer for on the fly. I even had folks express sorrow that “Mardi Gras Tom” was gone. And one reporter requested information that she could use in an upcoming article… yes, she requested everything via Twitter. Since then we’ve talked of a few other articles she’s writing and I’m sure that I’m now “in her Rolodex” or Twitterdex as it may be.

Things will go wrong. For a brand trying to live Tweet an event like Mardi Gras, expect the unexpected. For instance, on Saturday right before the first major super krewe’s parade, AT&T’s 3G network totally crapped out on me. I ended up taking pics of the parade and the next morning, I Tweeted them one right after another, the Tivo version of the parade if you will. I also had Twitter hiccups and battery challenges. So just know that technical difficulties will occur and back-up technology/plans are a must.

It takes a village to Tweet an event. There was so much I missed, from Zulu landing to Saturday’s Uptown parades to the perfect shot I couldn’t get because I was uploading my last Tweet. I had a great one of Joann Rivers on a float but couldn’t take it because the last Tweet was still uploading. If you’re going to live Tweet an event even close to the size of Mardi Gras, you need a village. Heck, I’d say any event or festival will require a village. Had I had a few more folks on the team, I could have shown a greater level of detail or could have created a Mardi Gras Tweetfest landing page where we let you follow areas of Mardi Gras or stuff like that. I could have even added video coverage to the Tweet/Pic coverage. You get the picture.

Attention Deficit. I sent up about 185 Tweets over the five days. On the post Mardi Gras survey, we asked folks to estimate how many tweets they read/viewed. 73% reported reading/viewing 50 Tweets or less. Only 8% estimated they viewed/read 75 or more Tweets (which is roughly equal to 50% of the total MG Tweet count). Twitter is like a river and folks pop in and pop out throughout the day. So if you live tweet an event, keep that in mind. Repetition is probably ok.

Lifespan of a link on Twitter. One of the great things about using trackable BUDurls was that I could pull a link report to see not just click-throughs but time stamps of those click-throughs. I’ve been playing with “lifespan of a link” for a while and the results from my Mardi Gras experiment continue to support what I’ve seen in previous tests. On average, if you Tweet a link, you’re going to see 75% of the click-throughs within the first 30 minutes. You’ll see another 10-15% within the first hour and then for the most part, crickets. The link is dead. It would be even more interesting to see this same analysis done by follower counts, ie., see how long a link lives in the Tweetstream of a power user (following 500+) versus a lite user (following <125).

If you watch some Twitter users, they’ll Tweet the same link and often the same Tweet 4-6 times throughout a day. Usually when they are promoting their own blog. Yes I too am guilty of this practice. But if you consider the lifespan of a link and the fact that folks tend to pop in and out of Twitter throughout the day, the practice makes sense and likely won’t annoy anyone, especially power users because most likely they didn’t see your previous Tweets, which are now buried in their 1,000+ Tweets a day Tweetstream. 

Embedded Journalism can drive next year’s traffic. Again, while not statistically proven, I had a number of folks make a comment along the lines of the Tweet I received from @LisaHoffmann:

“Thank you! And, on behalf of all MG fans, thanks for working to change its image. I never had an urge to go before now. You definitely changed my perception of the event!”

Not only had I successfully changed their perception, but in showing them a side of Mardi Gras they had never seen before I enticed them add Mardi Gras to their travel consideration set. Think about that. I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on an ad or fancy brochure. I just needed Twitter, an iPhone and my own time.

If you’re a festival, destination or hell even a movie or concert tour, there is absolutely (IMHO) a chance to use this same type of embedded journalism approach to drive traffic to next year’s festival or the next tour stop or for a movie, maybe even opening day. In fact, feel free to contact me for more detailed thoughts on this subject. I’m on the lookout for my next event to Live Tweet so I need a good guinea pig.

Product placement.
  I think there are product placement opportunities in using content as advertising. I purposely showed a lot of food shots and as you will see in the results below, linkage between food/Mardi Gras improved dramatically. Further, I included daily “sponsored by” Tweets, which were jokes – no one sponsored this or paid me any money – half expecting to get a snarky comment here or there but not only did none arrive but we actually saw a spike in number of views of the TwitPic if we mentioned a brand name like Dominos or Michelob Ultra. Go figure. But based on what I saw in the data, I truly think there is a way to do product placement in a manner that won’t offend followers.

Twitter is an activation agent. In the post survey I asked folks if they’d like it better if I used Flickr and just uploaded pics there instead of Twitter/TwitPic combo. Interestingly, 39% thought that would be a worse solution and 28% were neutral. When asked why they felt the way they did, the most common comment was that Twitter acted as an activation agent. My Tweets reminded them to check out the TwitPics. The second most popular response was that folks like the dialog the Tweets created. My prose gave the pics context and “flavor” that you couldn’t get from the picture alone.

And last but not least… You can change perception using Twitter and embedded journalism. Much like reporters during the Vietnam War colored American’s views via embedded reports from the battlefront, you can use embedded Twittalism (I’ve coined a phrase) to change brand perception. Here are the metrics for the key brand linkages I was trying to effect.

Linkage            Before          After
Flashing               57%            36%
Crazy                   70%            58%
Family                 19%            30%
Tailgating               9%            20%   
Food                    56%            70%*

                 Pre-Survey: sample size was 181
                Post-Survey: sample size was 115
* while not a goal of the experiment, for fun I included a lot of food shots.

Notes on samples: Demographically speaking, the samples are almost identical.

Question:                                                        Pre        Post   
Have you been to Mardi Gras - NO:                70%        60%
Have you been to New Orleans – NO:            39%        33%
Male:                                                               36%        37%
Married:                                                           56%        54%
Single:                                                             34%        33%
18-24:                                                              14%        12%
25-34:                                                              35%        39%
35-44:                                                              29%        30%
45-54:                                                              16%        16%
55+:                                                                   5%          3%
Children in household-YES:                            46%        44%

And there you have it folks. Would love to hear your thoughts or comments. While I don't think this is a perfect study, it does in my mind strongly suggest that Twitter and Embedded Journalist (Twittilism as I'm calling it) can shape brand perception. If you're a company or brand interested in learning more, give me a ring or drop my an email to tom.martin at z-comm dot com.

I'll have one more post in this series. The fine folks over at Radian6 are helping me with some tracking data and once I wade through that, I'll post the last in this series of posts. Stay tuned.

10 Must-Have iPhone apps

Image via CrunchBase

Do you work in Advertising or Marketing? Do you have an iPhone? Then you probably should click over to my latest missive over at Ad Age where I take a semi-humorous walk through my ten favorite iPhone apps. Some for fun, but most for business. Good stuff.

Come to Mardi Gras. My Tweet!

 
(image note: Yes that is me. The tube is a camelback filled with margs. It was a good night.)

If you’re thinking of skipping the largest free show on earth because the economy sucks and you want to save the money – shame on you – but at least now, you can not only be at Mardi Gras, but get an insider, locals look at what is arguably one of the most interesting events in the world.

I’m conducting what I believe to be the first large scale Twitter experiment and you can play along. If you choose to do so, you’ll get a live (visual and verbal) stream of Mardi Gras beginning Friday, February 20, and finishing on Fat Tuesday (February 24), via my Tweetstream.

Armed with only an iPhone and a mobile Twitter client, yours truly is going to live tweet the entire 5-day mêlée that is Mardi Gras. One important note, if you’re hoping to see lots of pics of a certain female body part, move on because this is a PG show and frankly, that has been done to death.

No, my Mardi Gras stream will be an in-depth look at the Mardi Gras you never see on TV or websites. A Mardi Gras filled with fun, food and yes, plenty of beverages. We’ll answer questions like “what’s up with all the ladders?” and others that I’m sure folks will Tweet in.

We’ll be sending pics of floats, frivolity and anything else that just looks damn interesting. And lets face it, come Monday and Tuesday of next week when all of you are sitting in your office working, you’re going to wish for a little distraction and I’ll be providing it to everyone that follows @TomMartin.

Let me be clear. I’m doing this for two reasons. First and foremost, because it just seems like an interesting thing to do. But second, because at the end of my little test, I’m going to do a bit of analysis and report that information back here and in a future Ad Age post so we can all get a bit smarter on Twitter. Heck, that alone ought to be reason enough to play along, don’t you think?

And there you have it. The world’s largest free show on earth just got larger via Twitter.

If you want to see what it is all going to be about, and you are on Twitter, just find @TomMartin and start following me.

If you’re not on Twitter, you’ll need to get an account. But don’t fret, that takes all of 30 seconds.

1. Just pop over to Twitter.com
2. Once there click on the “Get Started Now” button. 
3. Then just enter your name, your email address and pick the username you want (hint: best to use your own name if you can get it) and then click “Create my account.”  This will then drop you into your home page. 
4. Then select “Find People” from upper right hand navigation system. 
5. Then, using the “Find on Twitter” tab, search for TomMartin. Click my beautiful mug shot to go to my Tweetstream.  
6. Once there, click the “follow” button and that is it. You are officially coming to Mardi Gras – my Tweet.
7. Click the “Home” button in the upper right hand navigation area and you’ll be back to your home page where you can watch Mardi Gras live without ever leaving your desk.

I hope all of you will choose to play along. I think you’ll enjoy it, learn a few interesting things about Mardi Gras (that you probably don’t know) and you’ll become better marketers because you’ll finally learn about one of the newest, hottest social media platforms around-Twitter.

So sign up now and be sure to tell a few friends by emailing this post to your network, posting it on your Facebook page, and Tweet it out to all of your Twitter friends.

See you on Friday.

Once you've followed me, you can also see the photo/tweet stream via a webpage - which is actually easier and cooler... but you can only talk to me via Twitter if you have a question or comment on a photo, or want to ask me to take a pic of something in particular.

To watch the fun in your web browser go to http://twitpic.com/photos/TomMartin

but do me a favor - for tracking purposes, after all this is an experiment, do me the favor of a follow on Twitter. Thanks.

Facebook Phantoms

Last week, while home sick, I caught one of my favorite authors, John Grisham, on The Today Show. During the course of the interview, Matt Lauer asked the noted author about his Facebook page. John went on to say how he didn’t even know he had one. The folks at Doubleday must have created it, he didn’t even really know what “the Facebook was” and so on. Which made me curious, so I popped over to his page and found I wasn’t the only one surprised and disappointed that John was just another Phantom Facebooker.

Not that I’m surprised. From my sick bed I watched as Ellen, Hoda and Kathie Lee, the entire cast of The Today Show, and a few others talked about their Facebook pages. It seems having a Facebook page and talking about it on your daytime talk show is all the rage today. But none of them actually manage their pages. In fact, Ellen and Hoda/Kathie Lee go so far as to give the intern or assistant that actually manages the page camera time. Reminds me of the secretary that reads and prints out the CEO’s emails.

I visited several of their pages to see what, if any, communication was going on and as I suspected, none to speak of. Oh sure, their fans were communicating, leaving message after message to the stars and to each other. But other than some lame Hoda/Kathie Lee posts like this one

We know our Facebook fans have expressed concern over the job market- listen to Kathie Lee and Hoda talk to author Mark Jeffries about 'Your Handshake' and how to stand out and above the rest.   
       Posted by Kathie Lee and Hoda

there is no real dialogue, which is uplifting to me. Uplifting because it shows that even huge companies like Doubleday and NBC haven’t figured out Social Media.

Just imagine if John Grisham a) knew he had a Facebook page and b) actually got on the darn thing once and awhile to chat.

I’d guess he probably had about 15-20 minutes of Green Room time before he went out on the show, there was probably a bit of time in the makeup chair, etc. With a laptop or a smart phone, John could have been posting to his Facebook page, Twittering his morning, sending pics, or streaming behind the scenes video using QIK. The point is, he could have communicated with the 25,632 fans he has on Facebook or the countless others he could have on Twitter. Imagine the viral effect that would have had. Imagine the coffee pot and water cooler conversations that morning. Imagine how many more books he might have sold.

As the say in Twitterland – “Doublday Grisham marketing: FAIL.”

What do you think? If you were the social media consultant to these companies/stars, what would you tell them to do?

Connect More. Advertise Less.

Here in New Orleans, the Christmas decorations have given way to the Mardi Gras decorations, which got me to thinking about an old blog post I wrote a few years ago about connections.

As I sat on the neutral ground one year during Mardi Gras helping my kids yell for and catch beads, toys, etc., I had an epiphany. Here we were, in the middle of what can only be characterized as organized chaos, and amidst the yelling, screaming, music, etc., an interesting thing happened - we made a connection.

As my 3 year old (at the time) - Hayes - sat slumped in his ladder, fast asleep (poor thing was sick), I was doing my best to both keep him from being hit by a flying bead but also catch him a few trinkets so when he awoke he wouldn’t feel left out of the fun. And then a float stopped in front of us and on the top deck, some 20 feet away - a young woman (I think - not sure as riders are masked) made eye contact, gave a quick little frown and then reached down and launched a huge stuffed animal, but only after assuring she had my attention and that I realized she was throwing to Hayes. I caught it and waved a thank you to her and then she was off. Mission accomplished. I was a good dad.

Now if you’ve never ridden on a Mardi Gras float, you can’t fully understand how unique this situation is. As a rider you can’t hear anything but a constant swell of screaming and yelling. Hundreds, thousands of people screaming for your attention in hopes you’ll “throw them something mister.” Add to this the fact that you’re on a moving platform, it’s dark and maybe you’ve had a cocktail or to, an it is hard enough to pick people out of the crowd that you are looking for much less make a random connection. But it happens.

In fact, this same thing happened a dozen or more times as the parade continued to roll on. I didn't know these people, they didn't know me but they felt something. A connection. For a fleeting moment, a personal connection was made and the nameless rider put down the 25 cent plastic beads and tossed an item that costs them (Mardi Gras float riders pay for the stuff they throw out of their own pockets) not an insignificant amount of money.

Why?

And that has gotten me thinking. About this idea - connection - the simple human need to connect to others. Powerful. Powerful because it causes people to do things, feel things and act on those feelings. Powerful because connection lives beyond the transaction and creates feelings and memories that last. Powerful because in a world of hyperconnectivity, consumers have never been less connected to brands.

At first I thought it might just be me but then one night I read a report of Anderson Coopers' coverage of Mardi Gras that year - he rode in Endymion - a Super Krewe - the big parades that you see on TV. He remarked "Rolling on the float late at night, I realized Mardi Gras is not about the beads or about Bourbon Street. It's about making a connection, one person to another..." and it hit me - Anderson was right. He had captured the essence of Mardi Gras but more importantly he had captured this powerful human insight... one that I'm sure can be used to create more powerful and effective work. People really do want to connect. But as advertisers, we need to give them something worthy of connecting too.

So the next time you sit down to write a brief or review concepts, ask yourself if what you’re doing is advertising or trying to connect. If it is the former, try again. Who knows, you might just get rewarded with a nice prize for your efforts.

ThinkAbouts & Why Every Marketer Should Do Them

Over the weekend I was Twittering about a few topics and happened to mention a Zenned employee benefit we started last year called the ThinkAbout. In a nutshell, any Zehnder employee can spend an entire day just thinking about a subject. It could be a client issue, agency issue or a world issue like litter, global warming or how to help local students get a better education. The topic matters not, what matters is that the employee spends an entire day practicing "Deep Thought." The idea of deep thought is to overcome the "Depth Deficit" (Zaltman-Marketing Metaphoria) which is defined as a lack of careful reflection and bold thinking about rich consumer information. At the end of the day, the employee simply has to report back to the management team the output of their day of thinking.

I started this practice because I have for a long time thought that the biggest hurdle facing marketers today isn't technological change, DVR's, communication and information clutter -- though all certainly make our job harder -- no, the biggest challenge is we don't have time to really think about what we're doing. Exasperating the situation is that college kids today (or at least the majority of the ones I've interviewed of late) lack the basic critical thinking skills to really deep dive an issue to understand its core. Everyone wants to talk about tactics before they've even defined the real issue and a strategy(s) for solving that issue.

Thankfully, after reading Zaltman's Marketing Metaphoria over the Christmas holiday, I find I'm not alone in my thought. Seems Zaltman's company was hired by McCann Erickson Worldwide to do a study of CEO's and CMO's to determine what their biggest challenges are to achieving top-line growth.

#1 on their list was "a depth deficit within their companies." They spoke not only about the absence of careful, imaginative thinking, but also of the significant cost of it's absence. Man I couldn't agree more.

But, big thinking requires a concentrated, focused effort. Which is exactly why last year we instituted the ThinkAbout practice. Like any new practice, it's been a bit slow to catch on but there have been a few really cool results. The coolest by far has to be TypeNo+, the result of our Interactive Creative Director's ThinkAbout. He wanted to figure out how we as an agency could help preserve and promote the positive cultural things going on in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Check out what he came up with -- especially if you're planning a trip here. Great stuff.

I wish more folks had taken advantage of the ThinkAbout last year, but like the cobbler's children that have no shoes, ours was a busy little firm and in that environment, things like ThinkAbouts tend to get pushed to the back-burner...but then, that was the reason we invented them in the first place. I can only hope that this year, we all think more about the results of Zaltman's study and pay more attention to the cost of not thinking deeply.

What do you think?

5 New Year’s Resolutions Every Marketer Should Make

With 2009 shaping up to be a banner year, marketers everywhere need to strap in for what is sure to be a rough ride. Below are five resolutions that if made and kept, should calm the seas of change.

In 2009 you will:

1. Give more than you take. Value is the name of the game and he who consistently delivers the best value will likely win. Like the baker’s dozen, make sure you give your clients, your employees and your co-workers more value than they give you and you’ll surely keep all three very happy.  
2. Be all you can be. It’s not just a great advertising slogan; it’s a smart life lesson. If there was ever a year when big brand companies will consider ideas from virtually any source, 2009 likely will be that year. Put a few stretch targets on your prospect list and then have something really smart or insightful to say should you get them on the phone.  
3. Be an early bird because they truly do get the worm.  I’m writing this at 6:30am on New Year’s Eve because I can. It is quiet. The phone isn’t ringing, email isn’t coming in and other than east coast twitter traffic no one is trying to talk to me. So I can concentrate. I’ve studied a lot of very successful people and guess what, they are all early birds. Try it this year and see if it doesn’t make you at least more productive if not more successful. 
4. Treat You Right. A recent article on President-elect Obama noted that he’s actually increased his workouts since being elected. Why? Because he understands what you should understand. It’s hard to be brilliant when you’re out of shape. Advertising is a tough, stress filled business. To maintain maximum performance, maintain maximum health.  
5. Spend an hour a day learning. It’s really not that hard. Brew your own coffee instead of standing in line at Starbucks. Invest in a smart phone and read great marketing blogs via a mobile Google Reader while you’re waiting for a meeting to start. Or just get up an hour earlier and scan any of the resources I mentioned in my last Ad Age post.

And while a resolution per se, another great piece of learning I’ve acquired over the years…Write down and post your goals. It is funny how making a goal public commits you to actually doing it. Write yours down, post them above your computer monitor, and then email them to your inner circle with a note that says, “I am going to do this.” You still may fail to accomplish everything you set out to do, but I bet you’ll accomplish a lot more than if you just kept those goals secret.

Got a few good resolutions that we should add here? Let me know via the comments section.

Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a successful 2009.

How Long Does It Take To Think A Thought?

In the spirit of Christmas, I'm re-gifting this old post to you. Happy Holidays.

Clients most often reward us (as we do ourselves) for our execution of thought, at our core, marketers are thinkers and our greatest value to clients is our ability to think.

Which is all fine and dandy until the bill, estimate or proposal is submitted and you hear the cries of, "How could it possibly cost so much?"

Over the years I've tried many, many different arguments to help those that would challenge the validity of the cost for what I do,  but I've recently found what seems to be the most logical and effective of all arguments. A simple question that I pose each time this conversation arises. And while it doesn't stop the conversation, it at least alters it and moves it from a focus on execution to a focus on outcome and value.

I simply ask to the party challenging the cost, "How long does it take to think a thought?" They usually respond that they don't know and turn the question back to me.

To which I respond, "Depends."

I ask if they would prefer a perfect thought? A half-baked one? A big thought or small one? A legal thought or maybe a dirty one? I could go on. The point is we never really know how long it will take to think a thought, especially a really good one. Yet every day in our business we are asked to tell clients how long it will take and then ascribe a cost based on the amount of time we think it will take. Like we have a magical calculator that has a special connection with time and space and somehow can spit these things out in neat little estimates for signature.

Which leads us to the second half of this thought. How much should a solid good ole thought cost? And should that cost be based on the time it takes to think it or the value the thought itself creates?

I'd vote the latter. The blockbuster ad that drives a 20% increase in sales is just as valuable to the client if thought of in five minutes or five days. So why should a highly creative agency be penalized for being efficient? Likewise, big ideas can often be elusive. But a blank check isn't fair either. After all, clients have finite budgets.

So what is the right answer? There isn't one. Compensation is an imperfect science at best. The first step is for clients and agencies to learn to trust again. Clients need to invest in agencies and agencies in clients. We need to create compensation packages that underwrite effort and reward brilliance regardless of how long it takes. Clients and agencies need to recognize that four singles are just as valuable as a home run. We all need to rededicate ourselves to the core offering -- thought -- and ensure that the person or persons responsible for creating the really big, really valuable thoughts are justly compensated.

How do you approach compensation discussions?