PIXEL MAVERICK

As you know from my previous post, I had the privilege to attend a workshop at Boulder Digital Works last week.  The topic was “Making Digital Work” and it was setup in a workshop session style with a series of fantastic speakers & leaders of the advertising industry setting the tone with their presentations.  All of the presentations will be made available online and when they are I will post them.  In addition, the entire workshop was taped and can be viewed on UStream.

I went to the workshop with fellow Martinite, Kevin Rothermel, and between the two of us we tried our best to create a Twitter Fail Whale from the massive amount of tweets coming from @edubble_u and @KevinRothermel with a #digiwork hashtag.  We tweeted the notable quotes and pics from the workshop throughout the two days as they were occuring and based on the ReTweets and comments it looks like several people were following.

I have a newfound respect for professional bloggers and journalists who manage to Live Blog and Tweet from these types of workshops and conferences all day, and then still find the energy later that evening to pound out a blog post recap on the key takeaways of the day.  Seeing as it is 1 week since the workshop and I am just now getting my blog post recap published …my hat is off to the pros.

Yes, I can confirm that it actually is this gorgeous in Boulder…

This blog post is a recap of all of the speaker action from Day 1 of the workshop.  The reason for not combining Day 1 and Day 2 recap into one blog post should be evident by the coma inducing length of this blog post.  Enjoy!

Day 1 Kickoff/ Intro – Matt Howell, CIO @ Modernista

“What can we as individuals do to move our agencies forward?”

Matt Howell, CIO at Modernista, kicked off the workshop and served as one of the primary leaders throughout the 2-day event.  He focused his intro presentation on giving everyone a good base of knowledge about the current state of advertising to use as a foundation to work/ think from.  The gist of the presentation can be summed up as …How did we get here (A Brief History of Interwebs & Advertising)?; What things have changed (Mass Media 1-way Yelling is Dead, Consumer has Controls)?; and What challenges do agencies face due to the changes (Agencies Must Change Model and Process or Die)?

Now that you get the basic idea of Matt’s workshop kickoff speech, here are the notable quotes that I thought were great:

• “The structures and processes that guided our industry for the past 25+ years has begun to fail.  It is not working now, and something needs to change.  The old structures are actually becoming liabilities to the business.”
• “83% of the Mad Men viewers fast-forward through TV commercials (..we don’t even watch our own commercials!)”
• “TV and Print are not going away, nothing is DEAD but…growth will NOT come from traditional channels anymore.”
• Tobbaccowalla quote “it is much better to have a smaller share of an exploding industry verses a growing share in a dying one”
• “Be uncomfortably unsentimental about the old days.  Rip off the bandaid already!”
• “We have a lot of money invested in people who are no longer capable (or willing) of contributing.”

The New Digital Landscape – Alastair Green, Digital ECD @ Team One

“Ideas are now more important and powerful than ever.  The big idea is not dead, but it definitely has changed.”

Alastair Green gave a presentation that provided a quick overview of the “new digital landscape”.  Since Matt Howell had just kicked off the workshop with a solid foundation on a similar topic, the bulk of his presentation was really more of a roll call of various new things (new companies, new apps, campaigns, etc) that are happening with digital advertising and communications today.  Alastair is clearly very knowledgeable about the space, and to me he actually seemed more like a developer than what I am used to for a creative director (…he had a StickyBits t-shirt on, that seems pretty KPow-ish to me).  The main points to take from his presentation is very similar to Matt Howell’s, with the notable addition that he places a TON of importance on the role that User Experience (UX) will play in digital advertising and communications going forward.

The sound-bite quotes that I took from Alastair’s presentation are the following (read them with an English accent to get the full effect):

• “User Experience (UX) is one of the most important disciplines to emerge in the new digital landscape.”
• He recommended checking out WeePlaces.com for a cool FourSquare visualizer.
• Brands who “Get It” today — Nike, Gap, Levi’s, Bravo, BestBuy, Starbucks, Old Spice (well Weiden really but OS gets some credit)
• Where are we headed — More mobile, More socialized layers and Location-Based Contextual Awareness (messaging relevant to where you are at the time)
• Some important new roles in advertising – Creative Technologist, Technical Strategist, UX Designer, UX Planner
• “If you are going to play in this space, its about commitments not about campaigns.  The conversation does not stop when the campaign does.”
• “It is ok to not know the answer.  There are a lot of geeky helpful people + the interwebs.  Just ask.”
• “Try and fail.  Fail and learn.  Failure is part of the DNA, get comfortable with it.”

Defining an Audience – Kim Laama, CD @ AKQA

“A demographic profile does not cut it.  Who are your users?  What is their story?”

Kim Laama is a Creative Director at AKQA San Francisco, and is leading the charge there for using persona development as a means to identify and segment the audience over the typical demographic profile.  Kim comes from a software design background before joining AKQA which I thought it was really interesting.  I think some type of mashup of the software design process & the advertising creative process is a good place to start when thinking about how agencies need to change.  That being said, Kim’s presentation was not about fixing the agency process — it was about a better way to identify the audience specifically for designing & developing online experiences (digital advertising, websites, etc).

Although she seemed a little nervous in the presentation delivery, Kim definitely has a mastery of using persona’s to inform how something should be designed/ developed.  She presented her topic by looking at three case studies.  I thought that the connection from case-study to UX/ Persona power was weak in parts (nerves), but in the end she made a very good case for using persona’s to really dig into the emotions, behaviors and actions of each of the user group and how to use that to inform the information architecture/ messaging/ and design of whatever it is you are creating.  I had an opportunity to chat with Kim after her presentation, and she is delightful and super-smart and someone you would want to partner with on a project to learn from.

I captured the following takeaways from her presentation:

• “Consumers today have more control over the experiences they choose to have.  The best way to reach them is to understand them & understand where they are thinking/ coming from.”
• “Personas should be driven by quantitative and qualitative research.”
• “Personas should never be anonymous.  Give him/her a name.”
• “You need to be able to map the online personas back to the demographic profiles/ segments that media is probably using as their guide.”
• “Figure out ways to make your research output be visually descriptive.  If you have the time partner a creative with your planner to reach some visually explanatory outcomes of the persona work.”
• “To me the Team Trifecta = Art Designer, Interaction Designer, Engagement Planner.”
• Two book recommendations 1) Designing for the Digital Age, Kim Goodwin; 2) Storytelling for User Experience, Whitney Quesenbery

Creative Briefs in the Post Digital World – Gareth Kay, Director of Brand Strategy @ Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

“The piece of paper is far less important than the journey.  This is NOT a baton race.”

I think Gareth was probably my favorite speaker of the group.  This is partially because I had been following him before the workshop ever since hearing of the first surfacing of his “New Brief” proposal, but also because he is a skilled presenter and has a humorous way of delivering his message with nuggets of wonderful wisdom folded right into the laughs.  As the title of his presentation indicates, the focus of Gareth’s presentation was on the fact that advertising has changed so much over the years (…well the world has changed & advertising changed with it) but for some reason the creative brief has not changed with it.  Bottom line, he thinks this is WRONG and his presentation tells you why it is wrong and what he would propose as the new brief for today.

My list of bulleted quotes is not going to do this thinking the justice it deserves.  I would recommend you click on the link and go read the presentation & his POV on the matter to get the full understanding.  Gareth was full of quotable material throughout his presentation, but the ones that resonated with me included the following:

• “This is NOT about digital.  This is about digital as a type of idea, not a channel.  This is about the long, slow channel …culture.  Advertising is in the culture business.”
• Gareth got into advertising after his band broke up in 1992.  No strategic importance in this bullet, just thought it was funny.
• “Culture has moved on — but planning has not kept up.”
• “We live in the age of ideas that DO.”
• “Customers don’t own brands …but they do want to participate.”
• “The bigger a brand gets, the smaller it should act. (PSFK reference)”
• “5% of ideas will thrive over time, but since you cannot tell which ones those are you need to try a ton of them.”
• “Doing and then learning is a much better strategy these days VS Learning and then doing.”
• “The modern ad agency should live on Madison Valley (Madison Avenue + Silicon Valley)”
• “If all else fails, go to www.whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com”

How it All Comes Together – Dave Schiff + Alex Burnard, VP/ GCDs @ Crispin, Porter + Bogusky

“…Um sort of by accident, but with a hellovalotta passion and commitment dude!”

Let me start by saying that Dave Schiff and Alex Burnard are the reason “don’t judge a book by its’ cover” is accurate.  They don’t look like your average creative director, and I am pretty sure that they could kick your average creative director’s ass or at least scare the bejezzus out of him/her. While the ass kicking and scaring might be one of their skills, what Dave and Alex do for a living and do very well is to serve as Creative Directors at CP+B.  Their presentation was to tell the group how to take an innovative, progressive and no-precedent type of idea for a client and figure out how to get it done.  Oh yeah, and how to get it done on a budget that is next to nothing.

The vehicle that Dave and Alex used for covering this topic was to tell us about a groundbreaking project/ campaign that was their brainchild – Shocking Barack.  The concept was for one of their clients, Brammo Motercycles, and essentially the idea was to go on a roadtrip along the same route that the Auto-Execs took in their excessive travel to get to Washington, D.C. to get their government bailouts.  They documented the entire trip, came up with a lightning-fast process for editing/ legal/ community-management, and learned that what they had initially planned for the project turned out to be absolutely NOTHING like what the end product ended up being.  The key is that they started out with something small, and then got that out to the audience to begin building a following — and then took the community feedback to inform what their next moves were (literally if you want to look at the map).

I think the best way to gain knowledge from this presentation is truly to watch the video on UStream + to go check out the Shocking Barack site to see how things ended up.  The key takeaway for me was that the ability to build and shift and optimize on-the-fly was the key to their success, as opposed to the traditional approach of a HUGE campaign creation & single massive launch.  Here are the key takeaways that I got from their presentation:

• Previous to this campaign neither of them had any “real-time advertising” experience.  They figured it out as they went along guided by the community.
• “People began following us and our journey, but it was clear that they were holding their cards (participation, advocacy) close to the vest until they knew we were not just a silly ad campaign – until they knew we were for real.”
• They developed relationships with the PR/ Media/ Journalists who picked this up early on in the trip.  They collaborated and shared inside info with them constantly along the way which led to better stories written >> which led to more following >> which led to more stories >> and so on.
• They had a 24 hour cycle that they developed for all video, blog-posts, etc.  That cycle included several typical touchpoints along the way including …client approval and legal.  In addition they included the media team in the loop on this cycle so they could optimize based on what was coming up.

If you are still reading this, I am shocked.  This is by far the longest freaking blog post I have ever written.

If you are still reading this, then check back tomorrow for the Day 2 recap.

Hopefully the recap provided some additional value or context to the slides that will ultimately be made available for all the presentations or from just watching UStream.

Recently a friend of mine asked me to provide some answers & advice to her niece who is an undergrad considering a career in advertising.

I said “Sure!” of course, and shortly thereafter I received a nice email from “The Niece”.  Apparently, The Niece is a sophomore in college currently and she is studying journalism as a fast track pathway to a career in advertising.  She seems to have it all quite a bit more figured out than I did when I was a sophomore in college.  In fact, The Niece already has some career related options lined up for this summer that she is debating …either intern for an agency in London OR go on a class field trip to Cannes Festival.

At this point my “summer options” jealousy has kicked in and I am pretty sure that I hate The Niece …also I developed a working theory that she is mixed up in some sort of hush-hush co-ed scandal.

After getting over the internship envy and dismissing her alleged co-ed scandal, I looked over The Niece’s list of questions and prepared an email response and hoped that it will be helpful to her.

As I looked over my response before I hit SEND I realized that some of this information would be helpful to anyone who is thinking about pursuing a career in Advertising.

Here is what I wrote:

Hello ["The Niece"],

First, congratulations on your difficult summer options.  Between Cannes or London …those are both excellent work experience options.  I would need to know more about the London option in order to truly compare it against Cannes and make a recommendation.  Assuming your London option is to work as an intern at a quality agency/ shop >> my gut tells me that this would be the most helpful experience to your future.  The Cannes thing will be an excellent opportunity to network and make contacts, but you will work your butt off and learn as an intern dropped into the mix of the normal agency operations.

Now, to answer your list of questions:

How did I get started in Advertising? By accident.  I got out of college (undergrad) with a lot of ambition, but no clue about what I really wanted to do for a career.  I graduated right in the middle of all the dot.Com craziness and worked at a startup.  At this startup I was in sort of a hybrid sales & marketing role, and I quickly discovered that I loved two things; The Internet and Marketing/ Advertising.  After that startup flopped along with most of the dot.coms of that time I worked and held leadership positions at a couple different smaller agencies (web design agencies) for several years before joining a large digital agency in Dallas.  During this time I also went to grad school and earned an MBA which has been helpful in my career advancement.  After a couple years at the large digital agency I left and joined my current agency, The Martin Agency (traditional agency), and am helping them build their digital capabilities & integrating digital better into their work for clients.

What do I enjoy about The Martin Agency? The people & the brands.  I have an opportunity to work with some of the biggest brands out there, and do so while standing side-by-side with some of the most talented and humble people in the advertising industry.  There are several really great ad agencies out there today (Goodby, Crispin, R/GA, W+K…to name just a few) but The Martin Agency is a little different than all of them.  Maybe it is because they are all based in the big cities of NYC, LA, SF and we are in Richmond, VA, but the culture here is quite a bit different than many of the agencies out there today.  People come here because we are one of the best agencies forsure, but unlike everywhere else where the tenure shelf life is like 2 years …most people here at Martin stay for 7 – 10 years or even (gasp) longer.

My advice for you as you enter this industry. I am not sure which part of advertising you are pursuing a career in …copywriter, art director/ creative, producer, or account person …so there are definitely tweaks on my advice to be appropriate for each.  That said, I would advise that you follow the guidelines that I have listed below (no particular order):

• Understand Digital & Social for Advertising: Do not, I repeat do not try and come into advertising with only print or TV skills.  You will be lucky to find a job and if you do you will be asked to do digital work anyway and will get fired if you cannot hang.  So, while I do think you need to understand print, TV, outdoor, etc as part of your base of marketing understanding ….if you would like to start off on in this industry on the right foot then you should position yourself closer to the digital side.  By position, I mean know it inside and out as a marketer & also as a consumer/ user of digital media and social media.  For today, and for how things will be in the future this is probably my most important point to you.
• Go to Grad School or Advanced Degree: Depending on which (creative, account, etc) applies to you I would advise that you get a graduate or advanced degree at some point in your career.  My personal opinion is that you are better off going to work at an agency straight out of undergrad, then going back before you are 30 to get a grad degree …but I know that some advertising-specific advanced programs piggyback right ontop of undergrad so if you have that option I would take it then.  Either way, a graduate degree will set you apart from 95% of the rest of your peers that stop after undergrad.
• Experience a Nice Mix of Big & Small Agencies: People who have only worked at big agencies grow up in their career cacooned in their own silo area (creative, account) and clueless about most everything else.  On the flipside, people who only work at small agencies never know what it is like to deal with the good and bad of large agency operations, nor do they ever gain adequate experience with major brands and multi-department clients.  My advice is to not be afraid to spend a nice mix of small and big agency in your career ultimately ending up in the setting that fits you best.  Either way, you will better off if you get experience from both vantage points.
• Try on Different Hats: This sort of goes with the Big Agency vs Small Agency thing.  Most people who only work in big shops get blinders on with their specific role.  Bad idea to have blinders.  Find out what other people on your teams do …understand their role & the knowledge they have to have.  Occasionally you should work on some projects where you take on a role that is a bit outside your skillet so you can learn it and be more rounded.
• Join Local Advertising Networks/ Groups: It will pay off to know people outside of your own company & personal connections.  Find a couple things related to advertising that you are REALLY passionate about (social media, word-of-mouth advertising, ad club, whatever) and look for local networks, clubs, and/ or groups that meet regularly.  Join a couple of these and be active in it.  Don’t just go, but be active and sit on the board and be on committees, etc.  You will find entirely new opportunities and paths that you would have missed this way.

None of this advice is earth shattering new information, but I think it is solid direction for anyone who is thinking about starting a career in Advertising today so I thought I would share it.

I would love to hear from anyone who follows this blog about what you think about my list of advice for Ad Newbies …make comments on my recommendations, disagree with me and tell me why, add some recommendations of your own.

As for The Niece, …I expect to hear from her in about 10 years when she is kicking ass and taking names in what will undoubtedly be a VERY different Advertising industry (proof that a nasty college scandal can be overcome).

At the very end of 2008 an opportunity knocked on my door & I took it.  I made a very tough decision to leave IMC2 to pick up my family and move them halfway across the country (literally) to join The Martin Agency.  Although my family is ravenously homesick for quality Mexican food and we still have our subscription to D Magazine, …I think I made a wise decision.

The Martin Agency — Agency of The Year 2009

Now, can someone tell me why the hell East Coast people have not learned about real queso?

For the people that do follow my blog (…the few, the proud, ha) you are aware that before I joined The Martin Agency, I worked on the Pizza Hut account at IMC2 in Dallas, TX.

So, when I found out a few months ago that Pizza Hut had invited The Martin Agency to participate in their agency review my first thought was …

“This is too good to be true.  There is no way I could get lucky enough to take all of the talented colleagues and clients from my IMC2 past and combine them with all the talented colleagues of my Martin Agency present.  That would be like having my cake and eating it too.”

Well apparently luck is on my side, because today Pizza Hut selected The Martin Agency to replace BBDO as Lead Creative Agency.  I can’t think of a better way to kick off my weekend and the holidays!

So why do I think the combination of The Martin Agency + IMC2 + Pizza Hut is going to equal success, awards, and a whole lotta pizza sales?  Here is a little list of some of the reasons to justify that prediction:

• Mike Hughes
• The Pizza Hut iPhone App
• “Save Money. Live Better”
• Brian Niccol
• PizzaHut.com
• “15 Minutes Can Save You 15% …”
• Andy Azula
• “What Can Brown Do For You?”
• John Adams
• Scott Lindsey
• “So Easy a Caveman Can Do It”
• Bernard Acoca & Tressie Lieberman
• Nation of Go
• Restaurant Quality Pasta
• Microsoft Store
• Pizza Hut Facebook

The list of great things now combined could go on and on.

I am not sure which thing I am most excited about — The big big win for The Martin Agency, The opportunity to combine my past with my present, or the chance to work on a multi-agency team that is starting off with an automatic bond together and will produce some truly innovative and integrated work for a great client.  I think I will just be excited about them all.

Stay tuned for the work because it will come quickly, and I expect big collaboration in 2010.  Papa Johns and Dominos should be a little worried, because they are in trouble now.

If you have chosen a career in advertising, there are several career paths you can take to try and meet your personal and professional goals.  Some like working for small shops, others prefer to work for a large agency that is most likely part of WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, or IPG or some other conglomerate.  I don’t claim to have the perfect advertising career plan, but I do have a strong opinion that a healthy mix of Small + Big agency experience seems to produce the most talented people.

Far too many people that work in advertising have never worked for a small agency and I think that this is a HUGE mistake.  Based on what I have encountered thus far in my advertising career, the majority of the people who have spent their entire career working for a big agency have a big case of tunnel vision with respect to their specific role….account management, project management, producer, etc.  They were dropped into their respective silo their first day of work after college and never peered over their silo to truly understand what the other people on their team had to do in order to perform their duties.  It makes for Account Managers that are professional email forwarders…..Project Managers & Producers that can’t see past the structure of their timeline….and Creatives that don’t understand that their creative baby is part of the comprehensive flow of business operations for the agency.

In short, people who have worked for a small agency at some point in their career are more talented because they are more well rounded.

I definitely did not start out after college with a well thought out career plan for making it in the interactive advertising industry.  I think my plan was more like the mental version of a bar napkin sketch than a true career plan…a great idea that I was really passionate about but really had no clue how to go about achieving at the time.

Looking back, I am extremely lucky that I was a little clueless going in and started out working in small interactive shops over a big traditional agency setting.  I had the opportunity to learn the ropes in a small startup-style environment where you had no choice but to wear many hats and even as a rookie you could witness the impact that your effort had on the bottom line (i.e. in a small shop that means making payroll every two weeks…no pressure).  The experience taught me not only how to be an effective account manager, but I truly understood the role of a project manager, a producer, and even a copywriter when things were tight (…the hat list could include controller, human resources, and janitor among others).  Having this level of understanding of the other roles has been extremely valuable in collaborating with and managing people in these roles.

To make it clear that I am not a crazy person, I know that there are scores of examples of people who never set foot in an agency with billings less than $10 Million per year and are total rock stars that do not fit the stereotype I have described in this post.  I have worked with some of these stars at imc2 and work with some currently at The Martin Agency and they are truly great, but they are the exception to the basis of my argument.

I would advise anyone who is early in their advertising career to consider working at a small agency at least for a few years.  You will be better off for it.  You may even find that you enjoy small shops more, but even if you return to the land of big agency beauracracy you will be better off with the experience and your big agency will benefit from your rounded talents.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have moved my little family across the country from Dallas, TX to Richmond, VA so I can bring digital to The Martin Agency.  From a work/agency perspective, and from a wonderful town to live in perspective I could not be happier with my decision.  However, the one aspect that I did not consider thoroughly enough was the “how to sell your house in an effing recession without losing your arse” part.  We have dropped the price several times, and at this point are at a point of having to bring a significant amount to the table just to sell the place.  Even with that, we are not low enough to drive activity and sell the place.  So, we (…and by “we” I mean I decided and then begged and pleaded for my lovely wife to trust that I am right) decided to put our house in TX up for RENT….we will be landlords (yikes).

That part I am OK with actually.

The part that is eating at me is that since I will have to set the monthly lease price at lower than our monthly mortgage amount…..it puts us in a position where we really cannot buy a home here.  We will have to rent in order to live in a house that is up to our standards (insert high & mighty sigh here). Now here is where the transparancy kicks in and I direct the frustration all right back at myself….

• If I had not accumulated so much debt I would have more equity in my house and therefore could drop the price lower and sell it
• If I had not accumulated so many credit cards over the last few years, I could afford to rent my TX house and still easily be able to afford to buy here
• If I had not accumulated so much of bullet 1 and bullet 2…honestly I would be effing rich as I make a very nice salary

Conclusion, I have nobody to blame for my rent situation other than myself.  Hope the dinner’s out and other unneccessaries were worth it dumbass.  Rent Rant over….dummy out.

I purchased a great new book at the airport for my long flight to LA (online shoot for The Martin Agency) called What Would Google Do? I am about halfway through the book, and while some of it is predictable it is an excellent read so far.  The author really does a great job of applying the insight that the consumer is in control to a variety of industries.  I highly recommend it.

I recently left imc2 and joined a fabulous agency called The Martin Agency.  They are behind the hilarious GEICO Cavemen commercials, and the catchy UPS Whiteboard commercials.  They have been well known and respected in the industry as a creative/branding agency on the traditional side for decades >> and I have been brought on board to help them create a similar presence and reputation on the digital side.  Currently they have a strong digital foundation….a core group of resources (creative – conceptual & production) that is good but are lacking the digital talent on the business, operations, and account services side.

So, this is the first post of many where I try and document the experience of trying to change the old traditional operations machine to better integrate digital.  Old habits are hard to break, and I expect there will be some extremely frustrating obstacles that I encounter.