Holiday Shopping

Will you do more of your holiday shopping on-line or at retail outlets this year?

While I've been an on-line shopper for years - this year is the tipping point in which our family will be doing more on-line shopping versus visiting the retail store. Free shipping and great deals seem to be the rage this year for on-line shopping outlets.

The convenience of sitting on your laptop at home and picking stuff out has always been the draw for on-line shopping. But with all the incentives and free shipping this year - it is the year where on-line shopping will dominant in the Jenson household. Just last night on "Cyber Monday" we made some purchases on Land's End and got $20 off a purchase of $75 and received free shipping. With this benefit why would you even consider going out to a store and battle the crowds?

So this year we just put some Christmas music on the old iPod and shop away on the laptop. It's the future and for us this year we will be making the majority of our purchases on-line.

So how about you - are you going to be more of an on-line shopper or do you need to hit the stores to do your shopping? Let me know what your plans are.

How Goodby got back on track

When people in the advertising industry think about agencies that do great television advertising the usual names that come up are Fallon, BBDO, Crispin and Goodby Silverstein.

So I was excited to hear Derek Robson the Managing Director of Goodby talk about "Agency Evolution - Reinventing Goodby, Silverstein & Partners" at a Minnesota AdFed Breakfast this past Wednesday.

Derek was on the front line of the Agency Evolution at Goodby when he was brought in 2005 by Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein to change the course of the agency. The agency was fearful of becoming "irrelevant". This from an agency that typically churned out the best television creative year after year for clients like Saturn and Budweiser. But with tidal shift of interactive the leaders at Goodby felt that they were not ready for this shift.

Derek an Account Planner by trade from BBH in London set up a thorough assessment of GSP from clients, consultants, the trade press and from employees. His findings were pretty eye-opening. He heard often from the trade press they didn't align GSP with integration - ouch. And when visiting consultants he was able to see the video materials that other agencies sent out - very impressive "stories" about the integrated work that they did. He found that Goodby just had a TV reel and nothing else to show consultants. So clearly this was one thing that they needed to change - the "perception" that GSP was not just a TV shop but showing the other work that they indeed did.

His assessment was that things needed to change because in May '05 the creative work was 82% in traditional media and 18% interactive. Just one year later in May '06 it had changed to 58% traditional media and 42% interactive. So while the tidal wave of change was happening with the shift to increasing amounts of interactive work the creative department was staffed with more than half of the team being considered more traditional in their orientation. They started to shift this by pairing up a traditional and interactive creatives - and certainly there was turnover with those who were not willing to jump on the interactive bandwagon.

And since this shift in agency focus started five years ago - 75% of the staffed has turned over. They have recruited from areas like improv, gaming developers to content curators. It's a very impressive story and gives notice to all agencies out there to continue to evolve and change into a more digital mindset.

He closed with a great quote "Agencies of the future may not be the Agencies that have dominated in the past." How true this will be.

What do you think? Share your thoughts.

Great Email timing

This past Wednesday in the midst of the second day of "windy" bad weather here in the Twin Cities I got served a great email from Qdoba.

Headline of "Lousy weather got you down? Buy One, Get One at Qdoba!".

Perfect timing as the weather was horrible with 50+ mph winds and you know what a tasty burrito from Qdoba sure hit the spot.

Smart marketing and hats off to the good people at Qdoba for using their email program so effectively. Darn smart and my guess is that they will have other smart things coming down the pipeline.

Good products + good marketing usually mean success. I'll be watching to see what Qdoba does next - you should too!

Asking a good question

Last night I had the opportunity to speak at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis to Professor Johnson's Integrated Marketing Class. My topic was Digital Marketing - where it is today and where it is going.

I truly enjoy the opportunity to go out and talk to prospective students about our business. To review some of the cool things that are happening in the digital space and to think ahead about what is next.

It was a great class last night and one thing that really stood out was how engaged the students were and the questions that they asked. "What is the one social platform that a company should be on when they start out?" Now that's a great question. Of course it depends on the type of business and of course the resources that they have to participate in social media.

And that was just one of the great questions that were posed. So all these great questions got me to thinking about the importance of asking a great or should I say a better question?

As brand strategists the ability to ask a better question is crucial to our success. The ability to uncover a key insight is paramount to building a great creative strategy and it usual comes from the ability to ask a great question.

So my challenge for the week is for all of us to ask a better question, dig just a little bit deeper and uncover that nugget of an insight that will help lead to a better creative idea. So let's go for it.

Sharing, Sharing, Sharing

Over the past week I've had some conversations about one of the key reasons why the Web is so important. And it all goes back to coin the old real estate war cry - location, location and location.

The web has been used as a great sharing tool by many, many people. Think of Wikipedia and what that would be if we didn't share things. Yes my post today is about the importance of sharing and how this drives so much of the web traffic today.

When I "Googled" the word sharing the first entry is called the web version of sharing "using or enjoying something with others". That is a great definition. Think about some of the popular social media platforms like "Facebook" and "Twitter" and the foundation of their success is clearly based on sharing. We like to share professional and personal stories etc. on these platforms.

The world has been developed on the basis of sharing. When Gutenberg first produced the Bible this become a way to share the word with more people. As Andrew Carnegie built libraries all over this country in the early 1900's he too was sharing with everyone.

And think of what has been shared over the last 20 years on the Web. It's mind boggling to think of the amount of knowledge and information that is out there for each and every one of us to consume and to broaden our knowledge base.

Sharing is why I love the Web. I love to see what other people in the advertising business are talking about. Just today I read a presentation by Aki Spicer of Fallon on "apps". What a great discussion piece on what an app is and if you should pursue it. Five years ago the only way that I would have ever seen this presentation if someone from Fallon would have forwarded it or sent me a copy. But today because of Slide Share it is readily accessible for one and all to see.

So I say hurrah for sharing! Let's all be transparent and share info with everyone. We can all make this world a better place with more sharing.

The power of a Thank You note

I received a beautiful hand written thank you note in the mail last week and it reminded me how powerful a note like that can be.

It is an art that seems to have been lost. Think about how many hand written thank you notes you get these days? Most likely none and some even come by way of email.

Yes I believe the hand written thank you note is a thing of the past for many people. This very simple act to send someone a thank you note for something that they have done - it is a powerful form of communication. If you don't write thank you notes I challenge you to write one. Go ahead pick up a pen and jot a note to someone - make their day.

I learned the art of writing notes from my Mother - one of the last great letter writers. She set a great example for me and I will try to do the same and to teach my children to do the same. It is sometimes easy to say oh I don't need to send a note because they never send me a note. But that attitude becomes pervasive and then no one writes thank you notes.

So take this challenge and send a hand written note to someone who has done something nice for you. Let's not let this simple act of common courtesy go by the wayside in our increasingly complex lives.

Smart Marketing - The Mesh

Earlier this summer I purchased an advance copy of Seth Godin's newest book - Linchpin. It's a great read for any in the business market.

But this post is not about that book but rather about a very smart marketing effort. Last night when I got home a package from Amazon was there. I had not ordered anything recently from Amazon so I quickly got the package open and discovered a book - The Mesh - by Lisa Gansky in it. I've heard about this book but had not ordered it.

I then opened up the book a letter from Seth Godin popped out. In the note from Seth he said he wanted to share this book with people who had purchased Linchpin. He said it has great insights into the future of business and he wanted to share this with people who share his same passion for business. All that he asks that if the book resonates with me that I buy a copy for a colleague.

Wow this is smart marketing. I will read the book because it is endorsed by Seth and not just because it is free. And yes I will "pay it backward" by buying a book for a colleague if I like it.

I think this Seth Godin guy is onto something about marketing. It's all about touch points and conversations with people.

I'll let you know what I think about this book when I'm done with it?

What do you think of this marketing approach? The utlimate in consumer trial a FREE book.