Part !!!: Importance of Culture

EXPERTS ON CULTURE, NOT ADS
Agencies now need to be more than just Ad men. The days of Madison Avenue and Mad Men are done. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be ads or that a hard sell still won’t work. It’s just that, because of how quickly technology is moving our culture forward, we need to see the big picture. As agencies, we can’t just think of the linear path to purchase. We need to understand the world around our group/person of interest.

Today’s advertising should be like echolocation. People need help navigating information in our physical and online environments. Instead of yelling at them with one-way advertising (once again, I know, not a novel idea), we need to help them when they need us. Like echolocation, we need to find avenues for the consumer to reach us (to call out to us) and once they do, we need to genuinely help them navigate their want/need state to find the best solution. Even if the final solution isn’t a sale, there is still value in how we have helped them.

Not only do we need to understand the culture of consumers and our daily life, but also understand how to engage, build, and gauge organizational culture, both internally and with our clients.

The biggest differentiators for business nowadays and in the future will be through corporate culture and customer service experience. The two go hand-in-hand. The better your culture, the better the employees are treated, the more passion and belief they have in the inanimate capitalistic entity called a corporation, the better the customer service will be, the higher the sales will rise. It’s not just for one kind of industry, it’s any company.

Look at Southwest Airlines, Toms Shoes, Google, QuikTrip (QT), Wal-Mart, P&G, IBM, Whole Foods. All of these places are successful because they have a corporate culture they can get behind.

Furthermore, agencies need to proactive in culture, internally and externally. Why can’t agencies make products and produce work that creates value for people? Why can’t agencies build proprietary analytic systems and sell them? When are agencies going to stop charging by the hour and start charging for unique services as a whole. They need a research project, that’s $15K. You need a rebranding and a new position. That’ll be $200K thank you very much. The next post will go into a lot of examples, but I want to keep it top level right now.

Agencies need to show that they understand culture by creating cultural content. Why not create a direct mail piece for clients at Christmas? Why not do something fun and funny (like a video) and put it on YouTube or sell it for charity. Two great examples I will give is Wieden + Kennedy’s Portland office documents local music venues and artists and posts it on their site. BBH (Bartle, Bogle, and Hegarty) has created BBH Labs in order to hypothesize, theorize, build, and dream up social and technological experiments and research. Both of these agencies are better because of the actions they’ve taken. It proves that they live in the world and care about more than just advertising; that they don’t just stay in their advertising bubble without really getting out and experiencing the world or understanding society.

Part Deux: Wear More Hats

Start building more capabilities into your agency or find a strong partner to share and collaborate with on a daily basis. The new advertising industry won’t be built around copywriters and art directors, but around designers and programmers. Agencies are going to have to find ways to get these people in one room together to work on clients. Agencies are already spread thin, but how do we get people to do more. The answer is hire people who can do more, who have more talent and capabilities beyond one role. These hybrid minds are going to be the ones who can understand how to build marketing in this new order. John Porter and Alex Bogusky talk about “baking in” the marketing right into the product. It’s going to require understanding beyond client budgets or media buys.

Wearing more hats also means having more capabilities in-house. Duh. If you have the diversity of intelligence and talents, invest in these capabilities. The less your agency has to split up the pie, the better. If you don’t do a lot of things, you are going to see your share of the pie getting smaller anyways. If you are known for great TV spots, but don’t have any strengths in package design, clients will go to someone who can do both. Digital media and non-traditional marketing are much less costly and have proven to be much more effective at reaching specific audiences. More importantly, every separate element of a product, from advertising to packaging to product design to customer service are all one in the same now.

One major issue that I have with agencies is their use of the same secondary research tools like Iconoculture or Mintel. Everyone is getting the exact same research. It would be like giving an artist the same three colors as every other artist. No, they are not going to end up with the exact same painting, but it will have the same shades and tones. It won’t stand out against those other artists.

What I’m saying is build your own research departments and make it part of your capabilities. Instead of giving money to someone else to find the insights make clients pay you to get the answers. Not only will they trust the answer more, but they will buy into the entire process more.

Push and grow with your clients to push and grow your own capabilities. Not unnecessarily of course. When it makes sense to repackage, repackage. When it makes sense to build a YouTube channel, build a YouTube channel. When you can do feel confident doing both (or a TV spot and mobile application), what client will turn away?

 Imagine if your agency was made up of just as many designers, developers, SEO specialists, anthropologists, behavioral psychologists, and statisticians as art directors, media planners, planners, or account people?  

Most importantly, build on mistakes. Don't be afraid to push the limit, to make mistakes. What you should be afraid of is playing it safe or not taking the time to recoup/rebuild/refocus your team after a mistake is made. If you clearly understand what went wrong, at which point in the process things went awry and why, it will be recognized the next time. The creative process (esp. with client interaction) is a tepid venture and there are plenty of moments where an idea can gain or lose steam, whether it's the best idea or just decent. 

A few links I enjoyed recently

I will post the other parts of the dialogue/rant/essay I have promised later today, but I wanted to share these links. Maybe I am doing this for myself partly too because my Delicious account has far too many saved links to ever find anything again.

http://unhappyhipsters.com/

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/09/technology/tablet_ebooks_media.fortune/index.htm#q_close

http://creativity-online.com/news/mothership-takes-off/142141

The first is just plain funny. The second talks about the evolution of the print format with the iPad and other e-readers. The third is a profile on an interesting upstart that may (will) be an example of what agencies need to strive to become similar to (in mindset and capabilities).

http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/industry/most-innovative-advertising-marketing-companies

Tortoise and the Hare - In reality, the Hare wins

The U.S. Advertising industry is full of a lot of tortoises right now with very few Hares leading us forward. In business and in our "New Marketing Economy" the Hare wins. 

The following is the first of FOUR parts collecting my thoughts on how those in advertising need to think and what agencies need to do in order to be successful for our future full of technological convergence and the death of traditional media usage. 

The first part is about the roadblocks facing today's typical agency. The second and third parts will consider a new strategic outlook on the internal and external changes we, as agencies, need to make in order to thrive. The fourth part will discuss a few agencies and organizations who are setting themselves up for success. 

PART I:

The Ad Industry – Are We Really Innovative?

Advertisers clamor and claim and make noise about innovation and change on a daily basis now. Everyone is posting links, writing blogs (like myself), and sharing their thoughts on what we need to be as an industry. Conference after conference we hear it. We read about it daily online from various sources. You’d think we get it by now, don’t you? Well, very few of us are there. It’s really unfortunate.

Take a look at our peers across both ponds, Atlantic and Pacific. European agencies have truly embraced non-traditional advertising, both online and off. The European market has some of the best examples of using physical mediums, whether it’s billboards, guerilla advertising, or some type of cause marketing. 

In Asia, technological convergence is years ahead of us. Just look at how these cultures live with mobile phones or build social networks with their friends. More importantly, look at how they share information (like music). Just study how gaming is integrated into their daily lives. The Asian agencies are years ahead of us in those realms. These countries, in the urban cities, are finding ways to mesh the digital and physical world.

Don’t even get me started when it comes to design. Europe and Asia have us beat there too (Don’t believe me? Compare their car design to ours over the last 15 years).

It’s frustrating at best.

At worst, it’s going to bring down mostly everyone from a huge industry.

That seems a little drastic, I know, but I really don’t think it’s impossible.

It’s not like I’m the first one to say any of this or this is that original of an idea, but that’s what worries me more. I’ve heard these things time and time again from various people from all sorts of agency backgrounds and not much has changed within the industry.

The industry does not embrace change at all. If anything, we are one of the more stagnant industries overall. Until nearly 20 years ago, we had the same mediums to work in. Now that changes moves much faster, we haven’t embraced them at all.

Embracing change is what agencies hang their hat on all the time. Go to any agency’s website and tell me where they don’t talk about “meeting the clients needs…yada yada yada….do whatever it takes….forefront of….one of a kind processes….” The real problem is that agencies just aren’t lean enough. Too many administrators, too few thinkers, tinkerers and passionate leaders. That’s just being blunt I guess. 

1992 NBA All-Star Game

So most of these posts are going to be about advertising, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that I found poetry in, that I found to be a riveting story.

When the 1992 All-Star game came about....back in 1992, I was only 4 years old. Needless to say that I really don't remember it from then. But with this year's All-Star game approaching, NBA TV has been playing back old all-star games.

First, you have to understand that I love NBA basketball. Most people love the college game, but how can you not appreciate the NBA? This is some of the world's best athletes and basketball players executing passes, shots, overall gameplay at the fastest pace and the highest level. I love seeing the differences in teams when it comes to style and team philosophy. On one hand, you have the San Antonio Spurs, led by Tim Duncan (the Big Fundamental), who play a defensive-minded, inside-outside halfcourt game. Then you have teams that are led by great point guards such as New Orleans (Chris Paul), Phoneix (Steve Nash), and the Jazz (Deron Williams).

But in 2010, the NBA is dominated by hybrids now. You've got players like LeBron James who can play either guard position and can post up and play either forward position. It's these hybrids that are now dominating the NBA offenses and style of play (see Amare Stoudemire, Gerald Wallace, Josh Smith, Dirk Nowitzki, Andrei Kirilenko, Antwawn Jamison, Kevin Durant)

So, needless to say, NBA TV is usually one of the first channels I turn to and is usually background noise when I'm doing other things. When I turned and saw the 1992 All-Star game I didn't really understand the context of the season, of culture, or could really guess who was on each team. I forgot that this was the beginning of the Dream Team years and the amazing talent that was playing at the time. This was, by far, the middle of the golden years of the NBA.

In the game, 13 out of the 50 greatest players of ALL TIME were on the floor. Here is the roster for each side to get an idea of the talent level at that game:

West:
Tim Hardaway
Clyde Drexler - Hall of Fame/Top 50
Hakeem Olajuwan - Hall of Fame/Top 50
David Robinson - Hall of Fame/Top 50
Magic Johnson - Hall of Fame/Top 50
Karl Malone - Hall of Fame/Top 50
John Stockton - Hall of Fame/Top 50
Chris Mullin
James Worthy - Hall of Fame/ Top 50
Dikembe Mutombo
Dan Majerle
Jeff Hornacek
Otis Thorpe

East
Isiah Thomas - Top 50/ Hall of Fame
Michael Jordan - Top 50/ Hall of Fame
Patrick Ewing - Top 50/Hall of Fame
Scottie Pippen - Top 50/ Hall of Fame
Dennis Rodman
Larry Bird - Top 50/ Hall of Fame
Charles Barkley - Top 50/Hall of Fame
Mark Price
Reggie Lewis
Brad Daugherty
Joe Dumars - Hall of Fame
Kevin Willis
Dominique Wilkins - Hall of Fame

So you get the idea. Some of the best players to ever play the game were all-stars that season. The story line was all about Magic Johnson, who had retired in November because of his contraction of HIV. The story shocked the world and brought people to tears. Magic was the most beloved player in the game. His personality, flair, style, and his ability to elevate his game made the Lakers the team that had the most fun and was the most fun to watch. You have to remember that this is the same guy who had done mythical things (won an NCAA title at Michigan State, won an NBA championship his rookie season by playing center-guard, winning NBA finals MVP, the only player to ever do that, and so on).

Magic could see passing lanes where others only saw bodies in the way. He started fast-breaks from a defensive rebound where the ball touched the ground maybe 3x. It's hard to describe the "magic" he had in words. To see him play was to make a sport into an art form. He was truly poetic with the basketball.

In steps David Stern, who creates a 13th All-Star position after the fans vote the now-retired Johnson into the game. Furthering the show of good faith, Tim Hardaway gives up his starting spot for Magic, adding to the allure that the game will bring.

Overall, watching the game was a lesson in the differences between today's NBA and the NBA of those years. These guys were all-stars and busting their ass on every play. Everyone was d-ing up and getting low in their stances. This was no game. This was competition and these guys took pride in going all-out against their best-in-class friends.

The game wasn't close. The West won 153-113. You see that score and think, "ya right, how were they playing defense?" The East was, but was no match up for the combination of Johnson and Company.

Often times, with the Western Conference team, Karl Malone or David Robinson would grab the rebound, pass to Magic, and haul ass down the floor. Magic meanwhile, always with his head looking for the right pass, was throwing passes overhand, underhand, lobs, behind-the-back, through-the-legs and all of the above at the same time. Everyone played their roles to perfection. Karl, David, Hakeem, and Dikembe played close to the basket, always ready to dunk away a finish. Havlicek, Mullin, Majerle, and Drexler took turns shooting threes, driving to the basket, and making split second decisions to touch pass the ball.

I counted over 20 times that the West scored without the ball touching the ground or anyone dribbling even once. The West worked as a team and the East was playing one-on-one basketball.

The game was so beautiful because you could see the pride in Magic's eyes. He knew that this would be his last time on that big of a stage and he wanted to seize the opportunity. The players around him were all his friends, guys like Isiah Thomas, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. They knew what this day meant to him. With the running game's coach as the West's coach, Don Nelson, Magic ran ran ran ran ran. The last two minutes was reserved for a few of the East's best to try and take on Magic. No one scored on him, not Jordan, not Isiah, no one. The highlight of his efforts was an inbounds pass that he took between the three-point line and half-court, with his back turned to his own basket, with a streaking Tim Hardaway running down the sideline. In less than a blink of an eye, he caught it and threw a perfect 25-foot behind the back laser pass (hitting Tim Hardaway in stride above the West's, or the opposite, three point line) that Tim Hardaway took the basket and finished. Oh, did I mention that he had to jump up to catch this pass, meaning he did all of this while he was still in the air.

Amazing.

In 29 minutes of play, he scored 25 points, threw 9 assists, and grabbed 7 rebounds, winning the All-Star MVP award. These are typical Magic numbers, if not less than what we expected of him. To see him play and lead these guys who were some of the best to ever play in his own style, one in which only James Worthy was used to, was amazing. You had guys like David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, and John Stockton running the floor full-speed when they played half-court ball with their respective teams. Showing the kind of respect to Magic that he deserved.

I wish I could describe the poetry of the game and of the moment better in words, but I can't, so I would definitely recommend checking out the highlights on YouTube and if you ever see the game being replayed then definitely taking the time watch it.