Back

I'm back after a two-month hiatus.  My workload took priority but I'm back today and will start posting on a regular basis.

Birthday cakes and why don't we have more fun with them.  My wife recently celebrated a birthday and her sisters picked up a fun "summer" birthday cake at Target.  It is always amazing to me the reaction people have to birthday cakes that are different. "Hey that's cool" and "That looks like a burger - I want the big meaty part".

Sometimes it is the simple gestures that make all the difference in the world.

So ask yourself today what are you doing to make something ordinary different today?  Love to hear your  thoughts.

It is all about stories.

This past weekend I was back home in North Dakota with a family gathering of about 45 immediate family members to celebrate my Mom's birthday. It was a fun weekend full of everyone sharing current and past stories.  Isn't that what it is all about?

Whether it is personal or professional the ability to tell great stories is the linchpin to everything.  And from a personal perspective the older the story the better as they get slightly enhanced over time.

It really hit me yesterday driving back the ritual of storytelling and the importance of passing it down from one generation to another. And for brands it is important to share stories with your customers across the wide range of platforms today and especially social media.  Yes stories are what it is all about.

The next big thing

Yesterday Google launched its mobile-payment platform called "Wallet" for smartphones.  This truly is the next big thing as now smartphones will truly become our wallets and replace credit cards.

Wallet will be a combination credit card, rewards program and coupon case when consumers tap their smartphones at the cash register.  Google has partners with Mastercard and Citi for this application.  What is interesting is that for now consumers will need an Android-powered smartphone with a near-field communications (NFC) chip, like that found in Google's own handset, Nexus S.

This year will go down as the one in which mobile payments will take off.  Jack Dorsey from Twitter has launched Square and mobile carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have similar aspirations.

As phones become our wallets - will people start to steal mobile phones?  That's something to think about - what do you think?

What do you think of retro packaging?

This past week my son brought home a retro package of Mountain Dew and it brought me back to my youth.  "Yahoo it's Mountain Dew" as an advertising tag line probably wouldn't cut it today.

Soda brands and cereal brands have been using throwback packaging for a couple of years.  Probably to add a little excitement to their brands when they don't have product improvements to tout.
What do you think of retro packaging?  Will you buy something with packaging from years back?  Would love to hear if this entices you to buy a product.  Let me know.

The rewards of being a Mentor

Recently I was at the 2011 Mentor Appreciation Dinner at the University of Minnesota.  It's a great event to celebrate the mentees and the mentors.  I've been doing this for over 7 years and truly enjoy the interaction with young marketing communication students.

My goal as a mentor is to provide guidance, support and understanding by sharing my experience and knowledge to give this young person a strong start into our exciting business. 

I believe that everyone should try and be a mentor at some point in their professional or personal careers - it's a chance to give back.  People often ask me what makes a good mentor and I've identified five areas:

1) Patience
2) Ability to listen
3) Be willing to give more than receive
4) Ability to engage in relationships
5) Respect

And I think that the third area of willing to give more than receive is of critical importance.  You have to be willing to invest the time and expect very little in return.

However, some days that return is huge.  I received an email last week from a person I had mentored briefly last fall.  This person had been struggling in trying to find a path in advertising.  We chatted and it become clear to me that this person was very passionate about music.  We talked and I encouraged her to pursue her passion and look for a position in the music industry. She did and got a great position with a music company and for that I'm very happy for me.

What she wrote in her note is what made me happy and proud.

"It was your encouragement and words of advice that gave me the courage to drive after my passion and discover my dream career, which promises an opportunity for me to one day also compose music for commercials.  I cannot thank you enough for lending yourself as a sounding board and helping me discover myself."

Wow that is the goal of every mentor to help springboard a person into an area that they want to be in.

So step back and think about - how can you help mentor someone to find their passion?  It just some times and some good listening skills - I know you can do it!

Bad Campaign = Arby's It's Good Mood Food

OK it's been running for a few weeks now but I want to officially say that the current Arby's campaign "It's Good Mood Food" is bad.  It does not communicate anything positive about the brand.  It's the type of campaign that actually makes you not want to go to the restaurant.

The tag line is so far from reality it is actually laughable - is that what they were trying for?

The spokes character is not a good singer.  And the spot with the bank robber taking a break to have a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich is just plain dumb.

This is the type of advertising that gives us advertising professionals a bad name.

C'mon Arby's you can't do better than that?  Does anyone else think this campaign is bad or is just me?

Top 10 Trends for 2011

This past Wednesday Ann Mack from JWT was at the Minnesota AdFed Breakfast talking about the Top 10 Trends for 2011 and beyond.

Ann is the Director of Trendspotting at JWT and they having been publishing trends for the last six years.  Here are the 10 trends that she says impacting us this year and beyond.

1) All the world's a game - It is all about gamifying life across all our lives.  She mentioned what http://www.epicwin.com/ and scvngr are doing as some fun new examples.
2) The urgency economy - the success of Groupon and other couponing sites show that deals are expanding far and wide. Impacts both value and high-end goods.  http://www.toviefor.com/ is a high end reverse auction site.
3) Non-commitment culture - Zipcar a prime example of people not being committed to cars and the growth of "pop-up" stores.
4) Eat, pray, tech - amazingly while overall the economy is soft - sales for tech goods are on the rise. The tablet market which sold 11.5MM units in 2010 is projected to sell 54.8MM in 2011.

5) Deteching - people who want to unplug from technology.  The NYTimes did a feature on four people who unplugged and chronicled their stories in a recent feature.  And we are just starting to realize the impact on critical thinking and that impact being negative.
6) Retail as a third space - Apple store as a prime example to go along with Starbucks.
7) Create urban renewal - What KFC did to repair potholes in Louisville and Kia's program called Drive Change in Canada.
8) Worlds collide - explosion of QR codes that enable brands to provide deeper data.  The reality of Minority Report coming to life with billboards in Japan.
9) Hyper Personalization - combined efforts of Bing and Facebook to search for old friends.  And of course the very successful Old Spice campaign from the summer of 2010.
10) Outsourcing self control - apps that don't let you text and drive and allow you only so much time on line,

Ann is a very articulate speaker and well versed on what is impacting our lives both professionally and personally.  If she writes about something take the time to read it.

Great customer service at Universal Studios

Last week on our annual spring break voyage to

Florida we visited the Universal Theme Parks in Orlando.

On our second day at the parks we were at the Islands of Adventure park. We had been planning this visit for several years ever since the announcement that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter would become a main attraction at this park. Our kids have thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter as millions of Americans have.

The Harry Potter area does not disappoint as it draws heavily from the books and movies and has lots of clever touches throughout the area. It really is a must-see if you are into Harry Potter.

So last Wednesday morning we were there for the 8AM park opening to get an early chance to ride the "Forbidden Journey" the ride inside Hogwarts Castle. We walked "slowly" with hundreds of other guests and got to go on the ride. It's a very cool theme park ride - probably the most advanced in the world right now. So after the ride my daughter becomes ill and throws up. So we've just spent a small fortune on tickets, stayed at a Universal Hotel the night before so we can gain early entrance and now we have a sick child.

We took her to the first aid station so she could lie down and rest. Here on a day she has been looking forward to for a long time - she ends up getting sick. We spend several hours at first aid as she rests, etc.

And here is where the great customer service comes in - one of the staff members says since she couldn't enjoy the park today - if she feels better tomorrow we will provide you passes. We were relieved to hear this and are very appreciative of the Universal staff. They quickly made a positive experience by letting us come back the next day.

Does your business treat your customers like this? Would love to hear any of your positive customer experience stories. Share them.

Which path do you take?

Every morning millions of people from around the world get up and go to their daily jobs. How many do you think take the same road/path each and every day. The routinenessof the same way in every time. Maybe it is comforting to same, just plain easy to others and clearly boring to many.

For years I've tried to come into work a different route several times a week, just to see some different stuff and start my day a little differently. Why? Simply because I think it's important to experience things differently - see what is changing or not along the way.

In our business it is important to bust out of our routines and try things differently. And everyone has their own way.

How about you - what do you do to break the daily routine of getting to work?

You have to see this - March Madness App

March Madness is about to begin and those with an iPhone or an iPad are going to want to check this new app out. It's a free app called "NCAA March Madness on Demand".

You can watch every game of the 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament live on your iPhone or iPad. This great app is loaded with lots of bells and whistles. You can set up score alerts for your favorite teams, you can follow your bracket and see how you are doing. Check out the latest scores and schedules. And of course you can connect into Facebook and Twitter.

This past Sunday night I was able to watch the selection live on the screen and it worked out great. I'm very excited to try it out this week and next week when I'm on vacation.

Would love to hear what you think of it. Let me know.

The Idea Writers by @tiezzi

Great presentation at MIMA last night by Teressa Iezzi the editor of Advertising Ages Creativity magazine. She spoke on her experiences and what lead her to publish her new book "The Idea Writer: Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era."

As we all know in the past great advertising campaigns were typically built from television ideas and with great language driven by copywriters. However, today's copywriter must be multifaceted and create across many different platforms. I really loved her comparison that "copywriters are truly now inventors".

She spoke for a long time on how the Internet is not just a medium but rather it has been a behavior changing vehicle for brands.

The assumption that copywriters need to take today is that they need to create something that is useful, entertaining, beautiful or all of the above. It's all about connecting the brand that they are writing for with people. It's about freedom and that we can't hold back people from having a conversation with the brand.

I loved this platform of change that she spoke of: "We've gone from Big Ideas = Big Ad Campaigns" to "Big Ideas = Big business ideas that might not involve advertising at all".

And then she quoted Rei Inamoto "My equation is the idea = emotion x function. So I'm looking for partnerships between copywriters and UX designers." Yes it is a different world that we live in - the days of just art directors and copywriters creating things is in the past. It's onto the future with creative technologists, UX designers, and content curators and so on.

We all need to think of agencies as "developers" and what we can bring to help our clients solve their problems.

Guess what book I'm going to be buying this weekend?

Great Idea by Kodak

Kodak has done something extremely innovative on a very basic thing.

This morning I go the USA Today site to read a story about the Super Bowl ads. And I want to take it home to read over the weekend and I go to print it out.

And viola the screen shot to the left shows what popped up. A print screen with a Kodak brand printer on top - what smart placement. Something very simple yet very effective. I didn't even know that Kodak made printers but the next time I'm in the market for a printer I'll think about Kodak.

This is a great example of a brand finding an application that works to their benefit. Kodak makes printers and they are sponsoring printing on the USA Today site. Very, very smart and well done Kodak.

What I learned at #CATFOA on 1/31

This past Monday night the first Conversations about the future of advertising event (CATFOA) was held at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. Despite a snowy day a decent crowd awaited Ana Andjelic (@andjelicaaa) Planning Director at HUGE, Inc.

Ana's topic was "Do we need a new definition of creativity?" Ana is a native of Serbia and has received a PhD from Columbia University. She opened up by saying that the digital space is kind of like a kid's birthday party as you kind of never know what will really happen at the party.

"Creativity is the medium and not the channel." She mentioned the "neighborgoods" site as one that uses collaborative consumption. And "skyara" as a marketplace for experiences.

She closed with five guidelines/signposts for creativity:
1) There are NO shortcuts -
2) How do you frame the problem?
3) Choose your own adventure
4) Behaviors, not tools - the DonQ Rum brand as an example
5) Bricolage, not jigsaw - the chalkbot from Nike as a great example

A great quote that she used was "Be less wrong than yesterday" from Adam G. Message being learn from your mistakes and clearly that is critical as we try to move our clients businesses forward.

Her main theme was that briefing/planning has typically been focused on one person. She believes that "context maters more than a perception" and that we need to think broader from a planning perspective as we move forward.

Once again a great session at CATFOA and looking forward to the next event in February. Will you be there?
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Taking pictures at 18 below

On the way to work this morning I needed to stop and take a picture of a very cool transtop for our client virtuwell. Our team has created a petri dish that will grow in three different stages and we needed to capture stage two today before it changes.

So on the coldest day of 2011 at 7AM in the dark - and a chilling temp of -18F I was out taking pictures of some of our creative work over at the University of Minnesota this morning. And I like to do this for our clients and the PK team.

If you live in the Twin Cities and happen to go by some of our newest creative work for virtuwell by HealthPartners - let me know what you think. We are pretty proud of this work.

So what did you do this morning - the coldest morning of 2011 so far?

Cultivating a User-Centered Culture

Last night at the first MIMA session of 2011 it was Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker of Clockwork Active Media Systems talked about a user-centered culture.

Good discussion after a tough start with some technical glitches at the beginning - here were the main takeaways:

1) Define your values - this begins with leadership but involves everyone

2) Align hiring decisions with your values - job skills are table stakes

3) Communicate openly

4) Cultivate a sense of ownership - everybody owns the promises made

5) Find clients that align with your values -don't be afraid to say no

6) Listen - understand what they mean not just what they say

7) Treat the client as the expert - they are

8) Extend your values to your end product - be who you say are and it will be reflected

9) Don't allow "us vs. them" attitudes - be user-centric to the core

10) Communicate - you can't over communicate

It was interesting discussion with some basic premises on how to create a better culture in our organizations based on being focused on the end user. Sometimes we will lose sight of this end goal so this was a great reminder of how we need to think about our work.

Good start to 2011 for MIMA although the crowd was a little down. Must be the good winter keeping people in.

As I was driving away my main takeaway was the importance of building a culture built on trust. What can you do today to impact your company's culture? Think about it and just do it.

Do you answer all your messages?

OK this is a fair question - do you answer ALL the messages you get? Whether it's from someone you know or not? A voice mail message, an email, a tweet a Facebook post?

I try to and overall if I say so myself do a very good job.

However, I do find it irritating when people don't offer back the same professional or personal courtesy with a response? I mean it's not that hard to type back a response via email or Twitter or Facebook. But why do some people not respond?

Are they ignoring your message? Why for me I think that's the case. And both personally and professionally I think that's something that we should all work on to get better it. Ignoring a simple question really is not a truly professional response and especially from people who are communication professionals.

I speak for myself and I vow to answer all my messages in 2011 - how about you? And if not I'd love to hear why not.

Technology hits ordinary things

When you think of all the impact that the iPhone has had it is mind blowing. How the smart phone momentum has changed the way many of us live our lives professionally and personally.

I received a gift this Christmas that I never would have thought about for a smart phone user who has a touch screen key pad.

Here in the Upper Midwest it can get kind of chilly in the winter and to use my iPhone I have to take off my gloves. My wife has seen me do this many times. Having a great eye for details like that she got me some new 180s TecTouch gloves.

They have a couple of little metal pads on each thumb and forefinger of the glove. They are actually called "conductive fabric pods" and allow you to easily operate an iPhone without taking off your gloves. That's innovation for a pretty staid category.

Is this something that you would buy? I'll let you know how they work for me.

What's your word for 2011?

As we come to a close on the first business day for 2011 - I'd like to pose a question as to what will be your defining word this year?

What is the ONE word that will guide your journey through 2011.

Examples of this could be:

-Creativity
-Renew
-Invest
-Connect
-Passion
-Balance

OK you get the point. What is the one word that will define you in 2011?

My word for 2011 is "Authenticity". I want to focus on being real, true and genuine. In everything that I do professionally (and also personally) I want to true to who I am and not try to portray or communicate things that are no true to my soul.

So there it is - my word for 2011 is "Authenticity". What's yours?