Figure It Out

Frugality as fashion: Another post-money meltdown reality.

2009-01-02T11:42:00.002-05:00

Recently we hosted an all-agency webcast, attended by over 50 of our employees, with some of the best minds at the media company Barron’s.

This conversation came about when our innovation group was looking for ways to get VIA to think smarter about how to best help our clients in the current climate, and one of our strategists, Dan O’Donnell, pitched the idea over a beer to an old friend at Barron’s.

We are always looking for creative ways to stimulate new ideas, and with all the financial turmoil we’re in, there are no better people to do this with than the folks at Barron’s.

And it made sense in this economic turmoil to meet via WebEx, saving our friends the airfare and travel time to Portland (unlike the auto execs who flew private jets into Washington to plead for money). Barron’s shared insights on the consumer mindset and issues facing our clients in particular business sectors.

I must admit I believe that much of the current doom and gloom is a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by media and news organizations, whose business is always bolstered by chaos and uncertainty.

That’s not to say the issues we’re dealing with aren’t real, but it’s like we’ve sprinkled MSG all over them to exaggerate their importance. I believe many healthy companies with decent prospects are being prudent, perhaps to the extreme, in making cuts to be ready for any downturn. A smart move individually maybe, but collectively it’s worsening our situation.

So what’s a smart marketer to do?

The reality is that the consumer’s mindset is overwhelmed by anxiety and the unknown. People are angry because trusted institutions–from financial giants to the government–have let them down.

They’ve lost trust in those who promised to be trustworthy. People are confused, even dazed, by the relentless, unfathomable news coming from people who just four months ago assured them that everything was fine. Beyond this dazed state, they’re experiencing feelings of letdown and sadness. But this is America, and our stock and trade can be found on the brighter side.

We believe in hope (as illustrated by the most recent elections), and we are resilient and resourceful to the extreme. So as the dust settles, some, I believe, will see new ideas, new opportunities that will fuel our enthusiasm.

And once again we will regain momentum. But timing is everything. As we communicate with our customers, we must keep in mind where we are, and I think for a while we will continue to find ourselves communicating with people who are skeptical and tired of false promises and hype.

In this climate my counsel would be to favor activities and communications that speak directly and honestly to the “what’s in it for me” mentality. Be transparent about the good and bad things happening (the twitter feed from the CEO at Zappos is a good example), and don’t be afraid to be clear about value-for-money offers.

Frugality may become the next megatrend, and with it as always, there will be opportunities for those who listen carefully and for those who are bold in the ways they embrace change.

Believe

2008-11-06T16:28:00.003-05:00

Now that the election is over, the real work begins. Much change is needed. For some, that is a daunting thought. For me, nothing could be more exciting. Our economy, our communities, our role in the world must be reexamined. But there are amazing opportunities for those who believe that the best ideas have yet to be discovered.

And those ideas will be born from a healthy dialogue. So I asked our chief creative officer, Greg Smith, our newest creative director, Teddy Stoecklein (formerly of BBDO, NYC), and one of our youngest art directors, Liza Kelley (a Maine College of Art graduate), to create a campaign that would inspire people to reflect on this moment in time.

Their creation expresses a powerful portrayal of our society—a dramatic and overwhelming wordscape intended to start an important conversation among its observers.

In addition to the art installation that appears on three 40-foot buildings in New York City’s SoHo district, we created a video to extend the conversation we started, which simply asks the viewer to believe.

To continue the dialogue, we are also launching a new Web-community platform called The Open Water Cooler—a new site where all visitors can speak their thoughts and opinions openly and anonymously in a completely uncensored, unbiased forum. True, it may be just a conversation. Then again, it may be a start.

And to that end we wish you, our new president, the best of luck.

Who knew I could be a DJ?

2008-10-14T12:06:00.003-04:00

I am amazed at the advances being made in the world of music matching services. I recently came across a soon-to-be-launched custom internet radio site that really got my attention.

Play.it is a new Web-based media player from CBS RADIO that will offer one of the largest audio libraries to anyone with an internet connection. The player marks the first time a visual tool has ever been used to allow listeners to create a customized radio station, effectively acting as their own DJ.

Play.it listeners get instant access to all of CBS RADIO's 140+ terrestrial and 20 internet-only radio stations, all of AOL's 200+ radio stations and as many custom stations as they can create. Not only is there great music, news, sports and talk radio, but building your own station is a total blast. Listeners can weigh the rotation of a song, artist or album and even block artists from play.

For marketers it is also a great way to reach the listener. It's great for listeners, too. If an artist is being played and they have a tour or show in the future, an ecommerce link might appear so you can immediately purchase tickets. And of course, play.it offers a widget that can be used to add the player to your own website or Facebook page.

Play.it is a great service that offers music, entertainment and marketing options that I couldn't have even imagined a few years ago. It will make its official debut in the coming months.

Check it out.

Taking product marketing to new heights

2008-08-20T09:14:00.002-04:00

If you'd been in Central Park on June 12th, you might've looked up and seen something unusual—a guy on a BMX bike soaring 54 feet above the ground, roughly the height of a six-story building.

No, it wasn't a promotion for the latest Spiderman movie. It was wild-mannered Kevin Robinson, BMX biking legend, setting a new world record and capturing the attention of thousands of wide-eyed New Yorkers at the same time for event sponsor Red Bull.

The Red Bull Experiment, which showcases the world's best athletes as they push the boundaries of what's humanly possible, was produced by the sports marketing agency Aura360, which is a partially owned sister company of VIA.

Founded to animate client brands through the creation and development of emerging sports properties, Aura360 is all about taking marketing messages to the streets in a way that guarantees they'll reverberate around the world.

Robinson's Red Bull Experiment not only stopped New Yorkers in their tracks, it received live coverage on CNN, ESPN News, MSG network and a host of other media outlets. David Letterman even stopped by, and later interviewed Robinson on his Late Show. The weekend concluded with a Red Bull-sponsored river flume ride that thousands more city residents enjoyed as part of Central Park's Adventures NYC program.

For Aura360, which also owns and manages the Jeep World of Adventure Sports television series on NBC, the Baja 1000 and other world-class properties, generating this kind of publicity is almost old hat. But for advertisers looking to venture beyond the confines of traditional media and marketing, their work is proof that successful mass marketing can start on a very local level.

To cut or spend in a recession: Brand-defining moment for marketers

2008-07-02T09:27:00.022-04:00

Last week's front page headline in The Wall Street Journal—"Battered Consumers Turn Glummer"—was just the latest in a massive pileup of "year low" declarations telling us consumers are feeling worse than they’ve felt in a long time.

“Consumer confidence levels are at a 16-year low” – CBS MarketWatch
“Steepest annual decline in home prices since 1988” – New York Times
“Job losses worst in five years” – CNN Money
“Small Business Optimism Index Hits 28-year Low” – Bloomberg
“S&P 500 index fell to an almost 5-year low” – Forbes

While The Journal’s above-the-fold A1 placement added some gravitas to the news, it really wasn’t news. As consumers, we know we’re glum. We have friends with the glums. Everyone’s glumming about this recent “lifestyle downscaling opportunity” brought on the by “the ugly, stupid cousin of robust growth” (using Letterman’s Top 10 Government Euphemisms for a Recession’). What is news—and much more revealing in recent headlines—is how marketers are responding to this heightened level of glumness. Unlike consumers, whose belt-tightening, brand-swapping and indulgence-spurning behavioral changes are being deployed with swiftness and precision (researchers say they’ve “never seen such a profound or sudden shift in shopping behavior”—Business Week), marketers are scrambling and often reaching for very different playbooks.

Consider two headlines from last week:

"Consumer Loyalty Lifts General Mills to Strong Quarter"

6/18/2008

"The results signaled that ad spending is helping keep General Mills from losing shoppers to lower-cost brands. Spending increased 13% in the fiscal third quarter from a year earlier."

"Pier 1 Shares Plunge After Retailer Misses Forecast"

6/19/2008

"... missed its first-quarter earnings expectations as customer traffic fell off. President and CEO Alex W. Smith said marketing spending was 40 percent less than in the first quarter of last year ..."

What's a marketer to do during a downturn? Cut spending? Maintain spending? Increase spending? General Mills and Pier 1 are just the latest examples of companies who have responded differently to these brand-defining questions. Yet their results are consistent with what other cutters and spenders have experienced during prior slowdowns.

Many studies. Same conclusion.
If there’s one thing marketers can be thankful for these days, it's having at least 80 years of well-documented research on this critical question of marketing during a recession. Cycle after cycle since 1923, many big brains have examined the periodic evidence and reached the same conclusion: In both b-to-b and b-to-c categories, companies that invest in marketing during a down economy come out ahead. Whether it's sales, profits, market share, return on capital or market value, the spenders end up better off than the cutters.

	Author	Findings
2008	Professor John A. Quelch, Harvard Business School	"It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve return on investment and market share at lower cost than during good economic times."
2002	McKinsey & Company	"… one of the most significant differences between winners and losers was with respect to their spending on marketing and advertising during the recession period. Far from battening down the hatches when the economy turned down, the best performers [measured by market to book value ratios] actually increased spending in these areas, not just relative to their competitors but also compared to their own spending in better times."
1998	Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS)	"... companies that increased marketing spend during the last recession achieved an average return on capital employed of 4.3%, compared to 0.6% for those that maintained marketing spend and -0.8% for those that cut." "This study proves conclusively that increasing communication during recession will yield long-term dividend in terms of profitability and market shares—the two key indicators of brand building."
1990	Center for Research & Development	"... aggressive recessionary advertisers nabbed fully 4.5 times the market share gain of their more timid competitors."
1987	McGraw-Hill Research	Its study of 600 industrial companies "found that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the recession grew their sales 275% from 1980-1985. Sales of those that cut their ad spending averaged only 19% growthduring the same period."
1982	Strategic Planning Institute	"... businesses that are aggressive media spenders can increase their shares of market more than the average business during market downturns."
1979	ABP/Meldrum & Fewsmith	"Companies which did not cut advertising expenditures during the 1974-75 recession, experienced higher sales and net income (during those two years and the two years following) than those companies which cut in either or both recession years."
1947	Buchen Advertising	"... correlating spending to sales trends before, during or after the recessions of 1949 and 1954 … it found that sales and profits dropped off almost without exception at companies that cut back on advertising, and these lags continued even after the recession ended."
1927	Professor Roland S. Vaile in Harvard Business Review	"Vaile tracked some 200 companies through the recession of 1923. In his article in HBR, he concluded that companies with the biggest sales increases during this period were those that advertised the most."

Risk rewarded
Looking back at such compelling and time-tested proof points makes it all seem pretty simple. It’s not. It’s hard. Academic studies of how others have spent and performed in the past mask the in-the-moment pressures and realities when it’s your business, your career and your call. For management teams trying to navigate their way through the economic turbulence, it’s anything but academic. As the quarterly demands of anxious boards and bankers intensify with every revised forecast, the stakes get higher, risk tolerances go lower and visions become shorter. The interconnected intricacies of managing a business become even more complex, as do the agonizing cutbacks and trade-offs that need to be made across many dimensions.

Marketing and research expenditures—often questioned and second-guessed in the best of times—are an organizational sitting duck in the face of quarterly bottom-line pressures. It’s an easy but ill-fated knee-jerk reaction for many companies. At a time of heightened consumer disruption, the cutters spend less, they end up knowing less, and they become less visible and increasingly less relevant to anxious consumers seeking reassurance from familiar brands they trust and value. As Millward Brown’s Chief Global Analyst Nigel Hollis recently wrote on his blog:

“Without doubt, the biggest barrier to action during tough economic times (apart from the size of your budget) is the mindset of a company’s senior management. The need to prepare quarterly financial reports for investors will keep them focused on the bottom line. When innovation and marketing budgets are scaled back, little appears to be lost in the short term even though the evidence suggests that many brands will suffer as a result.”

Make no mistake, compared with cutting back, figuring out how to adapt versus abandon your marketing commitment is hard. Strategies need to be recalibrated to align with the shift in consumer behavior. Media plans should be refocused to target current customers and high-yield prospects. Your messaging may need to emphasize rational proof points for risk-averse buyers. Promotional plans should be adjusted in light of shifting price-sensitivity curves. And then there’s the internal battle over scarce resources. Yes, it’s hard. But that’s why the payoffs are so high.

Savvy marketers take advantage
These opportunities to create a competitive advantage out of economic adversity are not available to everyone. Researchers at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business found that proactive marketing during a recession favors well-positioned companies “with a strategic emphasis on marketing [that] have already put in place the programs that help them derive value from their marketing activities (e.g., well-recognized brands, differentiated products, targeted communications, good support and service).” Conversely, “firms without … strategic marketing traits are unlikely to derive economic benefits from a proactive marketing response during a recession. Such companies are better served by not increasing marketing spending until conditions improve.” Judging from recent headlines, well-positioned companies with strong brands are sensing an opportunity and acting accordingly.

"Kohl’s Displaces Penney as Investors’ Next Target" – Bloomberg, 5/28/2008
“Even after earnings declined 27 percent in the first quarter—about half as much as JCPenney’s—Kohl’s is boosting its spending on marketing to win a disproportionate share of the money 130 million U.S. households will receive in tax rebate checks between April and July.”
"Heinz Sales Rise After 15% Marketing Boost" – BrandWeek, 5/29/2008
"Heinz increased its marketing spend by 15% and watched its sales jump 12% in its latest fiscal year, the company reported today."
"How Nortel Networks is getting its groove back" – IT Business, 6/4/2008
"Nortel's strategy now is to maintain its customer focus and increase its marketing investments to maintain customers' confidence levels and its momentum in the marketplace...."
"Hershey to meet Mars challenge with marketing" – BusinessWeek, 6/17/2008
"Faced with competing against a combined Mars-Wrigley, Hershey Co. said Tuesday it will pour money into marketing its biggest brands to invigorate stagnant sales in the slow-growing U.S. market."
"Red Hat revenue jumps 32 percent in Q1" – c|net, 6/26/2008
"Red Hat continues to impress with strong financial performance, delivering an impressive Q1 2009. ... sales and marketing expenses jumped to $59.3 million, an increase of 28 percent."
"No cut in marketing budgets, say Unilever and P&G" – Food Business Review, 6/23/2008
Simon Rothon, senior vice president of global marketing services at Unilever: "Overall we are sustaining levels of total support. It’s marketing wisdom that the advertisers that sustain advertising at the optimum level in a downturn are the ones who emerge with a much more sprightly step when they come out of that recession."

Yes, these are hard times. Headline-making and brand-defining times. And for General Mills, Kohl’s, Heinz and other opportunistic students of history, these may prove to be very rewarding times.

VIA helps LoJack steal back market share with new national campaign

2008-06-11T11:32:00.001-04:00

As you know, VIA prides itself on solving the world's toughest marketing challenges. Case in point: Last October we won the LoJack review and the opportunity to work with its new leadership team to revitalize this great brand. Because, despite huge brand equity, LoJack sales have suffered with the proliferation of competing technologies. Well, today I'm extremely happy to share with you VIA's new campaign to help LoJack regain its place as the recognized world leader in stolen asset recovery. Read on and enjoy.

A New Media Approach
LoJack was built with radio. Yet a new approach was critical. We used different media tactics this year to capitalize on the reach of national television advertising. Our new campaign features five, 15-second commercials, each recounting a LoJack recovery experience. The first commercial you'll see here earned "Ad of the Day" on Adweek.com.

View online banner

View online contest

Online Showroom
The majority of time spent car shopping now takes place online. So instead of traditional banner ads, we heavied up on rich media to better sell LoJack to an information-hungry audience. And we've just launched "LoJack's Custom Bike Contest" on Motorcycle.com--the Web's most popular motorcycle site--to get riders revved up about the LoJack brand.

Reality TV
Some of the best new advertising opportunities I've seen lately are entertainment partnerships. We're taking advantage of one this fall with TLC and a new reality show about car theft and recovery. The show will feature both LoJack advertising and product integration. I hope I'll be able to go on set and watch an episode come to life.

Closing the Deal
As you know, communicating at the point of purchase is always effective. Our innovative in-dealership media will definitely remind customers why they need LoJack.

See what Stuart Elliott of The
New York Times saw in the
LoJack campaign.

There's More Where This Came From
Thank you for taking a few moments to look at some of our latest LoJack work. And soon I'll be able to tell you about more, from a new microsite that's already in development to an online contest that will feature user-generated content. Until then, I'd love to know how things are with you. So when you have a few minutes, give me a call. It will be great to talk.

VIA rediscovers the soul of an iconic brand to connect with a new generation of women

2008-04-23T12:41:00.011-04:00

Last summer VIA won a piece of business in a tough review against New York’s best and/or biggest ad shops. And while it’s always nice to beat the so-called big guys, it’s even sweeter when the brand on the other end is a real-life, living and breathing icon. For us, that brand, that win and this story is Maidenform—the legendary women’s intimates brand.

After a year of immersion with the Maidenform team, this month our shared vision for the re-energized brand came to life across the country in what I consider some of the most creative and impactful units VIA has ever produced. It’s work that I’m proud to share with you. It truly demonstrated the way advertising can touch us, and move us, when we least expect it. I hope you enjoy.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

This ad launched the national print run and became an internal rallying cry, galvanizing the C-team’s vision for a re-imagined Maidenform brand—one that would use fresh, new product concepts to infuse marketing messages that would set out to inspire an entirely new generation of women.

SOME GENERATE TRAFFIC, WE STOP IT ALTOGETHER

This five-piece outdoor unit on the Long Island Expressway celebrates the launch of the Breakthrough™ Backless Bra featured in ABC’s hit TV show American Inventor™. It’s the first product from the show to actually come to market and a great proof point for Maidenform’s commitment to 360-degree innovation—aptly captured in the line “Out With The Old, In With The New.” (Note the women in the windows throwing out their old bras.)

WORKING OUT A NEW WAY TO REACH HER

VIA leveraged a network of gyms in major urban hubs to offer women encouragement and support in the form of life-size locker wraps, concert-style posters and state-of-the-art lenticulars promoting three new Maidenform collections at precisely the moment when women are most actively thinking about their bodies.

WHAT’S MORE ROMANTIC THAN IMAGINATION?

This online short blends film and animation to tell a quirky and slightly surreal love story that celebrates romance and imagination in an execution unlike any I’ve ever seen in the intimates category. Winner of several “Spot of the Week” nods.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL ONLINE SHOPPING

Online units including compound buys, editorial contests, roadblocks and enhanced PointRoll units like this one lead users through truly multidimensional online experiences: from emotional brand messages and videos; to consumer self-expression assets like IM icons, ringtones and wallpapers; to fully interactive shopping experiences. Whenever and wherever she’s online, she’s always a few clicks away from buying a Maidenform garment. Now That Feels Right™.

MAKING YOUR LIFE PART OF OUR BRAND

In one of the richest MySpace.com promotions ever launched, Maidenform is right now celebrating the creativity inside all women by inviting amateur photographers to interpret the tagline “This Feels Right” photographically. Beside the prize money, the winner will also shoot part of the 2009 brand campaign. There’s artistry inside every woman, this promo gives her a chance to share hers with us.

Of course, there are more traditional elements of this highly integrated national campaign, but I wanted to focus on work that demonstrates how combining innovative media units with emotive creative concepts can make one dollar work like two. If you’d like to see more of the print or outdoor work we did for Maidenform, I’d be glad to share it with you.

Self-inflicted economic wound?

2008-04-18T14:52:00.002-04:00

I was at a round-table discussion yesterday with CEOs of mid-sized companies. The span of their companies varied dramatically: light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, medical device, advertising services, financial services, legal services, packaged goods, etc.

We all had to give a quick summary of our current business situation. We all had the same report (specific products and services aside): a great first quarter but uncertain about the year BECAUSE OF ALL THE NEGATIVE PRESS ABOUT THE ECONOMY.

It was stunning to me. I can remember in 2001 when we did a similar exercise and the CEOs across a similar spectrum of businesses had real financial hardship to report—it was bad.

But not now. Everyone had good facts to report, yet they were hyper nervous. Perhaps with good reason. Raw material costs are soaring and oil is solidly over $100 per barrel; both could drive up inflation.

But the low dollar is helping exports (one manufacturer even said he was seeing work move from China back to the U.S.) and liquidity is creeping back into the market, as reported by a very knowledgeable banker.

Too much optimism can lead to bubbles. But too much doom and gloom leaves us weak and cowering. I vote for confident reflection of reality.

VIA helps Colonial Life find its key "Benefits Guys"

2008-03-18T14:52:00.001-04:00

How do you reposition an insurance client to better compete in a category dominated by a duck?

By putting a human face on the brand and shifting the focus from low cost to high touch.

Beginning in February, The VIA Group repositioned Colonial Life as “The Benefits Guys” — caring people who meet with employees one-to-one to help them make the most of their employee benefits.

In national television, in trade print and online, Colonial Life’s “Benefits Guys” do things no duck can do — like listen, answer questions, and champion the cause of working Americans.

So if you ever find that your employee benefits aren’t everything they should be, you’ll know the guys to call.

Communities Rule

2008-02-12T13:34:00.001-05:00

I had a chance to take part in our town's caucus last weekend. It is an inspiring experience, for it is so human.

Forrester Research just published a study saying all marketing was moving to community building versus message building. This presidential election is proving that assessment right. I was e-mailed, voice mailed, youtubed, facebooked and door-to-doored by candidates begging me to join their clan.

Did it work? The turnout at our local AMVETS hall was three times greater than the last presidential election. And that was with people braving a Maine winter snowstorm.

A caucus is a wonderful, gritty, messy process made real by passionate communities. Long live the people.

Inferior life form, you may now spread cheer

2008-02-07T16:06:00.000-05:00

This holiday season VIA partnered with PUMA to bring the "Gift-BOT" campaign to retail stores around the world. From defective gift giving intentions to peeping Bots in dressing rooms, VIA's work made customers smile and cash registers ring.

Free People. Free Markets. Free Thinking.

2007-12-14T16:46:00.000-05:00

VIA had the honor of helping News Corporation announce its acquisition of one of the great newspapers in the world, The Wall Street Journal.

Our recommendation was to let the record speak for itself, but speak in a way that is true to News Corporation: provocatively, as an agent of change.

News Corp did so today, in a way only it could, in 25 newspapers around the world. And people paid attention.

Congratulations, Mr. Murdoch.

Hey baby, what's your sign?

2007-06-26T15:40:00.000-04:00

In today's whirlwind of a workplace, the five-minute coffee break has been replaced by the five-minute Web break. People want a little entertainment to brighten up the daily grind. So short, engaging, viral Web entertainment is filling the void. These media forms can be powerful "advertainment" for marketers looking to spice up their brands.

We created "Job Signs" (http://myjobsign.com ) for the online career pioneer Monster.com. It's a cool way to figure out the best work vibe for you.

Check it out. And if you find out that your current job is harshing on your cosmic career mellow, post your resume on Monster.com.

Doing Good Work

2007-03-14T14:28:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I lost a friend in a tragic car accident. But this was no ordinary woman—she was the most inspiring person I have ever met. Her name was Hanley Denning. Seven years ago she took a trip to Guatemala to learn Spanish. While there she happened to visit Guatemala City’s public dump at a friend’s urging. She couldn’t believe her eyes; there were hundreds of children rummaging in the garbage, living off the food and waste they found in the dump. The next day she called back to the States, had her parents sell all her earthly belongings and started Safe Passage. Today, Safe Passage serves over 600 children a day, giving them food, education, love and hope.

This past weekend VIA helped a group of Safe Passage volunteers put together a showing of an Oscar nominated documentary film, Recycled Life, that tells the story of the Guatemala dump, followed by a short tribute film that celebrated Hanley’s amazing accomplishments. They called her the angel of the dump, and for good reason. May we carry on her good work. Please visit www.safepassage.org to learn more.

What’s That Up Ahead? Looks Tasty.

2007-03-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

VIA was hired by a Fidelity Investments-backed venture looking to grow tomatoes in state-of-the-art greenhouses. We did our research in the winter of 2006. And the underlying consumer trend we started to smell was that people were hungry for more simplicity—things that were comfortable and reassuring. And things made locally felt good.

We named the new brand Backyard Beauties. With a tagline Grown Not Too Far From HereTM. So our client launched these incredible vine-ripened tasty fruits of the gods, and they FLEW of the shelves. Now, the product is great, but so is the positioning. A couple of weeks after we launched, the cover of TIME magazine featured a story about how local is the new organic. Moral of the story, snoop around to figure out where your customers plan to take their next trip, and get your fruit stand out on the road ahead of them. Yum.

Are Eighth-Grade Boys Brain Dead?

2007-03-02T14:23:00.000-05:00

Against much empirical data, no. They sometimes just need a gentle kick in the butt. We did focus groups at Boys and Girls Clubs with 13-year-old kids who have no real support system to help them prepare for college. They were pretty clear: To get an ad message through to them, be funny and direct. They said, ‘Don't lecture us, don't scare us, don’t be clever—like you get us. You don't.” Funny and direct. They will take it from there.

So we created Kick Start, a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on getting eighth graders to start preparing for college. It is a highly integrated and innovative campaign. Using TV and heavy online, we drive kids to a fun microsite (http://www.kickstartmaine.com/) where a sardonic donkey named Norm helps them take a take a quiz about finding a college that is right for them, gives them free ringtones, and tells them about a TV game show called Kick Start (that we are developing with the TV network The CW) in which some eighth grader will win a $10,000 scholarship. The real incentive to get these kids to act? Any student who goes to a guidance counselor to ask how to get ready for college will get a FREE Norm T-shirt. An eighth grader will walk across broken glass for a free T-shirt.

See the Television Ad

An Agency's Life Blood

2007-01-06T12:55:00.000-05:00

To keep an agency thriving you need new challenges and new talent. In 2006 we were fortunate to add over a dozen new client's to our roster and 20 incredibly creative people.

Our client wins were:

HP Hood - Agency of Record
DuPont Professional Products - AOR
Twisted Tea, a Division of Boston Beer - AOR
Uno Chicago Grill - AOR
PTC - AOR
New York Academy of Science - AOR
Guardian - AOR
Elmet Technologies - AOR
Backyard Farms (helping a Fidelity-backed venture to build a consumer
produce brand) - AOR
Kick Start (a Bill and Melinda Gates-backed initiative to get kids ready for
college, community, and citizenship) - AOR
Cleveland Clinic - Web strategy
Monster - Viral marketing

It was a great year - but look for even more excitement in 2007!

Keeping good company

2006-12-01T16:45:00.000-05:00

Running an agency is a mysterious and crazy ride─good thing I don’t get motion sickness easily.

Recently I was invited to write a chapter on what I have learned about leading an ad agency for a book titled Strategies of Successful Advertisers. I was asked to join the likes of CEOs from JWT, Deustch, and Hal Riney.

The title I chose, “The Difficult We Do Immediately, the Impossible Will Be Ready Next Thursday,” summarizes VIA’s ethos. I hope you find it a good read. It was fun to write. You can buy the entire book at Amazon.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down.

2006-10-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

Our client Hood had a little mishap when its blimp had to make an unexpected landing. Everyone was OK and the community jumped in to help.

It is always nice to say thanks – in a brand appropriate way.

What You Don’t Know Could Kill You

2006-09-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

We are helping the Cleveland Clinic (the number three hospital and number one heart center in the country) create a new model for how hospitals exist online.

In doing our customer research, it was dramatically clear that people use the Web to find information about their current condition. Hospitals should embrace this desire because players like WebMD can only deliver the information, while hospitals can deliver the doctors who can help (which is the objective of their marketing efforts—getting patients in the door).

Yet most hospital sites fail to put patients’ information needs first, and their Web sites are organized around their internal departments or the most politically powerful players in the organization, often hiding the educational information patients seek.

Leaders, like Cleveland Clinic, aren’t afraid to share all the information patients really need to know. And we are creating innovative ways to make it easier for inquiring patients to get what they need and connect with the Clinic’s amazing community of experts.

In a daring prediction, when leading hospitals start sharing their success rates in dealing with medical conditions, and the Web delivers that information to consumers, the quality in healthcare will rise and people will start moving around the country to get the best treatment available.

Which just might save their lives.

Believe and Great Things Will Happen

2006-07-20T16:54:00.000-04:00

When we won the World Trade Center account in NYC last fall, a good friend of mine, who is a very accomplished CMO, said, “Good luck, because you will never get anyone to move to the site of the nation’s worst terrorist attack.”

But we believed. We believed that visionary people would see that the future would be better. That New York would rebuild to be even greater than it was before.

And today I learned that the building just landed its next anchor tenant, putting its occupancy well over half full in just seven months.

Here’s to people who believe.

What’s Old Is New Again

2006-07-10T16:39:00.000-04:00

Due to great creative inspiration, outdoor media is enjoying a resurgence. As consumers get more fatigued in every aspect of their daily life—man, it is tiring to get through the day—outdoor provides that effortless, in-your-face-like-it-or-not experience.

Old school maybe, but it works. And that can be refreshingly simple if you don’t over think it.

We just dragged this huge helicopter banner over the Jersey shore for TD Banknorth’s No ATM Fees card. Everybody got it (and now they are getting it in big numbers).

The Internet Sets You Free

2006-05-04T15:26:00.000-04:00

Ad people are saying the Internet’s killing the “good ole days” of advertising. I don’t get it. What part of “free distribution to everyone all the time” sounds like such a drag?

Ultimately, the new reality of content distribution ushered in by the Internet is one of the most exciting changes I could imagine for anyone in communications. I don’t know how you run your agency, but it doesn’t sound so bad to me.

The fact is, most advertising empires were built 30 seconds at a time. Over time, all those little TV spots piled up into big margins that eventually became publicly held behemoths—all of which are economically anchored, if not outright addicted, to the :30 TV spots and the budgets that once made them great.

Be that as it may, surely even the biggest shops will take some solace in the simple knowledge that the work is all that matters. And that the same basic creativity and artistry that ignited these once-fledgling holding companies, and that has always underpinned their work, is still very much alive. More than ever, I say.

On the other hand, truly creative agencies the world over ought to be dancing in the streets. The playing field is officially leveled. Today, your $5,000 spot for the local CD shop might just wind up on YouTube and reach 75 million kids in 24 hours or less. Eureka! Now that’s the Internet we were promised. It created an enormous demand for content—demand that has already far outstripped what network and cable TV can sustain. And beyond that, the boom inspired hundreds of thousands of amateur entertainers, auteurs and, I suggest publicly here, budding ad people.

Today, smaller companies will be forced to do more innovative work simply to keep up. (Yahtzee!) And since production budgets for online work will be more manageable (Ask yourself now, Can you live without craft services?), even conservative clients will be more willing to take chances. Good (and small) agencies shouldn’t be afraid. You should jump in. The pool’s huge, the water’s great and the sooner you start swimming like hell, the better off you’ll be.

As for advertisers, batten down the boardroom. We won’t be in Kansas much longer. There are more great advertising ideas coming toward you right now than you ever thought possible. Some will be wild, some will be wrong, some will work. All will be new and well worth your time.

Epitomizing viral: Subservient Chicken

Building for the Big Idea

2006-04-25T15:16:00.000-04:00

If big ideas just “came to us” in the shower, our office equipment would be waterproof. Trust me.
The unfortunate reality is that birthing big ideas is hard work. And even though everybody wants them (or says they do), not everyone takes the time to build for one.

If you’re not everyone, click here to see what it takes. Good luck.

One of the best pieces of creative we’ve ever done happened to be a promotional piece for ourselves. It’s an interactive video reviewing life inside our agency last year and covering some of our more notable work.

Cool music and an innovative online format help, but what makes this piece so effective is that it’s real.

Honest comments, funny truths and journalistic photography showed the world how we—and probably, most agencies—really work.

For better or worse, this is who we are.

It reminded me what we should be doing for our clients every day—making it real. People the world over are pretty damn sick of marketing crap. Give it to them straight (but with a great soundtrack). Enjoy.

Industrial Fashion

2006-04-20T15:20:00.000-04:00

Here are a few ideas we created for a fashion footwear brand a few months ago. The work felt very distinctive, thus worth sharing. It said fashion, but in an industrial way. It married local and international perspectives, chic style and slapstick humor—all in the same work.