MarketingInsideOut.com

OK, everybody knows about Agency.com and their attempt to “push the envelope and change rfp “meet-and-greet” credentials videos forever” which turned out to be something more along the lines of “Sister Mary Margaret’s 5th grade class records their interpretation of “what it’s like to be a “big time, trendy” ad agency in New York”.  Pretty cool idea to make the video viral.  Pretty lame execution.

Everyone’s buzzing over whether or not it was the dumbest thing ever, or surprisingly brilliant in some out-of-the-box way.  Dumb or brilliant it did drive one clear point home.  Whether you’re a “big time, trendy ad agency in New York” or a small full service shop in Dubuque – you pretty much approach a client challenge in the same way.  While everyone is volleying about whether or not Agency.com made the right choice in sharing their innermost process they have failed to see the main point here.  The world now knows that “big time, trendy ad agencies in New York” don’t do it any better than the average small to medium sized shop in Anytown, USA.  Even the self-proclaimed risk takers are doing the same damn thing as everybody else.

The best thing about the video was that it was real.  I defy anyone in the ad business, in a shop with at least a handful of people, to deny that they’ve been in some of those exact conversations, with colleagues, while contemplating an impending pitch.  It felt real, but not exclusively for Agency.com – not by a long shot.

And when you get right down to it – there are some processes that just make good common sense.  Get to know everything you can about the prospect, through them and through their customer.  We all do that.  Discuss various approaches and ideas examining their pros and cons.  Nothing new here.  No, I think the big controversy is that the whole world was made privy to the fact that the Emperor really has no clothes!  And we’ve seen clear up his proverbial skirt!  So thanks Agency.com, for letting that cat out of the bag and leveling the playing field.

And if I were to give Agency.com one piece of advice it would be “don’t tell us that you’re cool and that you’re risk takers” because as my Mother always says “those that have it don’t have to talk about it”!  Sorry to hear that you “rolled out” of the Subway pitch – hope it wasn’t the heat in the kitchen!

All you have to do is spend ONE day with a teenager to understand why the music industry is in such a state of angst. Everything about the way music is promoted, distributed, listened to and purchased, has been in flux for a long time and it continues to be a rapidly moving target as technology advances up the ante. I was reading a story in the current Rolling Stone magazine about the lengths they are going to market new music — like using user-generated video and free downloads.

As part of the ritual back to school shopping this year, both my kids bought the new i-pod integrated backpacks — where they can plug their ear buds right in to the strap and control the volume and song selection. Between classes and everywhere they haul those backpacks (hopefully not during class) they can now tune in to their favorite music. When I pick up my youngest after school, she either stays plugged in or in milliseconds she’s pulled out her i-pod and wirelessly connects it to the radio. Heaven forbid she ever gets in the car without her music because she just curses the radio and no station gets over a 4 second listen.

At home, she either docks her i-pod in one of sound docks or she’s online and has her i-tunes or Rhapsody blasting or is surfing to find new music. She’s found all kinds of obscure music sites. Neither kid has been to a music store or bought an entire CD in a least 18 months. They hear a song they like somewhere (sometimes blasting on someone’s MySpace site) and then they track it down and buy it (the one thing I managed to beat into their thick skulls was that they actually had to obtain the music they put on their MP3 players by legal means [meaning buy it] or risk my taking all of it away.

My kids are constantly on the lookout for new ways to get music. Yesterday my 14 year old was excited about two things she discovered — one was the latest development with AOL and SpiralFrog and the other was that SpiralFrog plans for an online service that allows users free ad-supported downloads of music and videos. She sees no problems in dealing with ads to get what she wants because to her music and her ability to download what she wants when she wants it is an expectation - as basic to her as breathing.

SO…Is the CD dead? If not, it’s certainly gasping. What about pure play record stores? Are they experiencing death by a thousand cuts as a recent e-Marketer story says? Well Tower Records declared bankruptcy (again). So that isn’t a good sign for that model. Many believe music already is and will become even more so… a loss leader way to sell some other type of product. Maybe Starbucks could be the primary physical distribution channel. …they’re already in the biz. And there are something like 9,000 stores–one on every corner. We could just stop in…grab a Caramel Macchiato…download some tunes for the morning commute…and be on our happy way.

On the way to lunch the other day, an associate admitted her feelings of guilt for driving a gas guzzling SUV. Her confession came after seeing Al Gore’s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which had raised her sensitivity to the earth’s climate crisis. Had she unwittingly become a member of Al Gore’s Penguin Army ? And will her feelings of guilt drive her to “ethanolism”?

After all, ethanol is basically moonshine, aka., corn liquor, white lightning, skull cracker, ruckus juice, rotgut, catdaddy, mule kick and happy Sally. Back in the days of Prohibition, these products were outlawed, leading to a generation of “moonrunners” popularized by the ‘50s flick “Thunder Road.” Today, these moonrunners have been replaced by portfolio managers who “bootleg” ethanol plant stocks and IPOs, leaving investors lightheaded as they relive the stock market euphoria of the ‘90s.

Even the politicians are preaching “ethanomics” to counter air pollution in major cities and record prices at the gas pump. Naturally, all of this positive buzz is sweet music in The Cornhusker State “where cows outnumber people by a 4- 1 ratio.” Who could have guessed that ethanol would pass corn exports to become the second leading end market for corn, behind only feedstocks? Or that Ford F-150 pickups would one day run on a gasoline blend that is 85 percent ethanol? Or that corn growers would someday become the “oil barons” of the prairie? While it’s unlikely the nation will every replace its addiction to oil with “ethanolism,” the cornucopia of positive press surrounding the ethanol phenomenon should keep today’s modern moonshiners cooking for many years to come.

And for Midwest corn producers, that’s a convenient truth.

Every year Beloit College releases its Mindset List to give a snapshot of the world view of the incoming freshmen class. From this year’s list for the Class of 2010:

18. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.

19. “Google” has always been a verb.

20. Text messaging is their email.

36. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.

38. Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age.
The whole list is interesting reading. Check out the full article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060823/ap_on_re_us/mindset_list_glance

After having just spent $500+ on 5 college text books for my daughter, this article (via MediaBuyerPlanner), on publishing textbooks online and letting advertisers subsidize the cost, really caught my attention. First…as a parent faced with every increasing college costs. And secondly as a marketer looking for ways to reach those hard to reach 18-24 yr olds.

Campus Media Group has partnered with Freeload Press to offer the PDF e-books that are ad supported and FREE to download– about 100 titles are slated for download this fall on an estimated 150 campuses, potentially reaching 250,000 students.

College is expensive, there’s no doubt about that. And given that the costs of college textbooks has increased substantially, this is a welcome development. At least it is in my book. And I can’t imagine it would bother my daughter in the least to see a Culver’s ad at the end of a chapter in her trig book.

We’ve had an interesting run of grassroots campaigns and marketing blunders, some of which even managed to shock the media savvy. It all started with the 400 pound Steve Vaught, better known as the “Fat Man Walking,” who set off on a walk across America to shed his excess weight and gain a sense of health and happiness.
About 1/3 into Vaught’s trek, another walker stepped on to the open road - chronic pain sufferer and spokesperson for The National Pain Foundation Dennis Kinch, began a 2,400-mile trek along Route 66 to raise awareness of chronic pain issues, treatment and support. Kinch took his time, meeting with patients, doctors and clinics along the way to educate them on their pain treatment options.

Much like Steve Vaught suffers from being overweight, Dennis Kinch suffers from two degenerative bone diseases that will probably one day inhibit him from walking – AND - although both walkers were stepping out onto the open road for important causes, there was something very different about both campaigns. Vaught was walking for himself, and Kinch was walking for others.

My heart belongs to “Where’s Dennis?” because my PR peers and I headed the media coverage efforts of the campaign. As I began pitching the story of Dennis Kinch to the press, I realized that both of these campaigns were going to be perceived very differently by the media. It seemed that everyone was comparing the chronic pain sufferer to the fat man, and that became slightly damaging. Throughout Vaught’s campaign, there were accusations that he wasn’t walking the entire length of his route, but instead hitching rides to get from one place to another. He was also accused of eating at Waffle Houses and Dunkin’ Donuts. I had a few reporters towards the end of the “Where’s Dennis?” campaign tell me that Kinch was just another walker and since the Fat Man ended up being a scam, it left a bad image of “walkers with a cause” in the eyes of much of the media.

Bottom line - Fat Man Walking wasn’t really trying to educate Americans on obesity, health and a change of lifestyle. He was on a walk for himself, and he was successful – he dropped 100 pounds and gained a ton of media coverage. He became a sensationalistic star because, unlike chronic pain, obesity sells in America. Dennis Kinch, however, gained a very modest amount of national media, inspired hundreds of people he met along the way, and no matter how far he walked, he would never shed or lose his pain. It’s chronic. It will be a part of him forever.

Dennis Kinch had over 125 million media impressions since the start of his campaign, and most of them came from small markets that he walked through along his route. If The National Pain Foundation and Dennis Kinch had as much national press as Steve Vaught, American’s would be more educated on chronic pain, a health issue that affects 75 million people in the United States. Instead, the story of Dennis Kinch was lost in the fame and glory of the Fat Man Walking, and I’m not sure what knowledge Americans gained from that movement.

Out of the pages of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets and coming to a restroom near you – the talking urinal. Like the briefs-clad superhero, harried employees may soon find themselves confronted by motion-activated restroom fixtures with 15-second pre-recorded advertising messages and public service announcements. Described as “advertising you can’t help look at,” the waterproof drain cover designed for urinals comes complete with a LCD screen and speaker capable of broadcasting a jingle while you tingle.

So what do we make of this new deodorizing, mesmerizing patented device? Is it the “perfect attention-grabbing medium” for everything from condoms, to beer to cigarettes? Or is it an intrusive invasion of privacy that gives new meaning to the expression “crappy advertising.” And what about its use for public service announcements like the one that currently urges: “Think you had one too many then it’s time to call a cab or call a sober friend for a ride home. It sure is safer and a hell of a lot cheaper than a DWI.” (Just the idea of a lecturing lavatory should be enough incentive to make most unsuspecting imbibers go on the wagon.)

Whatever your view, the day may be fast approaching when a trip to the “john” is so distracting that we forget what it was we came in for, leaving everyone to long for a superhero who can rescue us from the invasion of the terrible talking “Turbo Toilet.”