The Worst Thing That Can Happen

One of the best creative pieces that I've ever done was never used, and until you've had this experience, I don't think you've actually worked in marketing and advertising. I'll share it here, because someone really should get something out of this idea, before it completely passes from the culture.

Four years ago, I was part of an on-site team that was presenting at a major client, with lots of seasonal business around the Halloween season. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can guess who they were, too.) The team is trying to secure the business for a client that's pretty much uncontrollable, because my company really isn't up to providing the constant care and service required to satisfy their needs, but they are a whale, and we won't know any of the fail stuff until later. There's no saying no to them, unless you had a half dozen other major clients ready to sign IOs in your back pocket to cover the revenue shortfall.

Anyway, they are unhappy and making all kinds of threatening noises. As the tone of the meeting goes from bad to worse, my sales VP makes eye contact with me, and puts his Hail Mary pass in motion. On no spec, with no branding documents, on overnight turn, my team and I have made an ad for them. I've presented to less interested and colder rooms, but it's hard to remember when, really.

The ad is dynamic, so it pulls in recommendations based on the individual profile, with product photography and selling copy pulled from the client's site. It's on their brand, and it conforms to IAB standards. It could run on thousands of sites overnight, as part of our RTB solution. It toggles through a feed of items that match the buying pattern of the individual user. But one thing more.

Most of the banners in this world are to template, and use the list and offer, along with the strong recommendations, to pop on the user's screen. But this set goes one further. It uses the space to show the items on the backdrop of a Polaroid picture.

The room goes silent, then with wild praise for what the team has done. It's encapsulated the magic point of Halloween for parents; the photo moment, the knowledge that you'll be saving this memory and showing them to adult children and grandchildren so much later. It's as close as a formulaic and heavily automated ad solution can get to a Don Draper moment.

The mood in the room changes dramatically. The client apologizes for their overwhelming needs, and tries to scale back the ask to more in line with what we can deliver, with more advance notice for turn, especially over nights and weekends. We wound up keeping them for the better part of a year, and a strong amount of billing, before they moved on to other, better, vendors. My VP thanks me, profusely, later, for saving the meeting. It was one of my best days at that gig.

Oh, and they never used the ad.

Why? To this day, I have no idea. It wouldn't have cost them anything. It's not as if the ads came with bylines, or that it looked so different from everything else they wound up running. In the end analysis, I just think they didn't want to use any idea that wasn't theirs. And hey, they've got the market cap and the runaway success, so I guess that's all well and good...

But there it is, the great work I just had to kill, just about the worst thing that can happen to you as a creative, and something that happens, on average, just about once every two years.

Oh, and it just happened again, a couple of months ago.

Can't tell you about the client on that one yet, though. I haven't gotten their check yet.

Which is, actually, an even worse thing that can happen...

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If you like or share this column, it's a fine end to the pitch meeting. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or visit our agency. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Seven Steps To Make Golf Better

17th at Mercer West (8 here today)

Today at my local county public golf course, I had one of the best rounds of my life. (Note: I'm really not very good, but 100 was Heady Progress on the course in question.) Drives were straight and true, irons were frequently well-struck, and some of the wedges led to tap-ins. I holed out a bunch of long putts, got lucky a few times, and recovered relatively quickly from the inevitable shaky strokes.

It as all remarkably pleasant, despite a very slow pace of play. If you were judging by the state of the course today, you'd have no idea that golf was in serious decline.

Why? Well, it takes time, especially if the course is crowded. We played as a twosome between foursomes on a crowded course, on a Sunday afternoon, which meant that a round that could have been done in three hours took four and a half. It's pricey, but that's never stopped the game from doing well in the past. It skews badly on the demographics, as the game has always seemed exclusionary, old and classist, what with the enforced fashions and strong male bent. There has been, to date, no New Tiger Woods, so the game has just not sustained the popularity boom seen in the 1990s. Too many courses were made as part of the land / housing boom, for too few lifelong new players, and it's an open question as to whether we're going through a correction or a death spiral.

I think there's a lot that can be done to make the game better, not just for players, but for the areas where the courses are -- and without making the game unrecognizable with oversized holes and other fundamentally rule-busting moves. Here they are in list form.

1) Use the Internet of Things to enforce pace.

It's not hard to track carts with transponders (either driving or push) and get a sense of who is holding up play, and have them get a visit from a ranger. Especially for players who play from tees that aren't at their true levels.

2) Help hackers with beacons. The single most irritating aspect of play as a weak player is trying to find the ball on errant shots, and this should be the kind of thing that technology should be able to fix with a quickness. Wire that up to the cart, and I won't even mind paying more for it, since I'll be saving money on the lost balls that are the current bane of my existence.

3) Dial in for food and beverage. Nothing's more annoying than waiting on a group that is ahead of you as they do business with the beverage service; as always, of course, having other people wait when you do the same thing is fine. If these orders can be sent in and billed to a standing account (say, the same card you used to pay for the round), then the service is no slower than a drive and drop. Plus, no one's fumbling over change.

4) Develop a Web-wide player profile. I play a handful of courses within an hour of my home, and I doubt that I'm a strong outlier in my golfing habits. If my rounds tend to go faster or slower than the 10 to 17 minute per hole speed quoted on most cards, that should show up in my record, so that when you set me up to play at your course, you don't just slot me at the same time as everyone else. Eventually, we might get to the point where everyone's playing without spending so much time waiting.

5) Expand the available time to play. I haven't tried it yet, but a local course to me has offered night golf, with special equipment and holes; it sounds like a blast. I've played on indoor simulators that have gotten better and better, though the putting is still a mess. I'm pretty sure that we'll eventually get to at-home set-ups that allow for realistic play, which might even get to letting you play the course of your choice, with your remote friends, at the hour of your choosing. Virtual also helps fix the next problem, which is...

6) Make this a much more green enterprise. Chopping the use of strong pesticides, using alternate materials in areas where elements aren't local, and using the lay of the land instead of wild modifications, should all be standard operating procedure. It's also a point that should be used when marketing and advertising the course.

7) Use technology to improve the overall golfing experience. Use the tech to give me distance to the green from driving the cart to aid in club selection. (Some clubs do this already; make it the standard.) Give me the option to tune in the game on that cart screen, which would be wildly popular during football season. Have scoring incorporated into the cart tech, so that we're not spending time doing math at the turn, and can have the card e-mailed later. Maybe do shot analysis from beacons, and even selected moments of video capture, with the ability to post to social media, so my friends and family can see the 30-footer I holed out from the fringe today.

It's not as if there isn't the money to do this, an audience that says no to technology, or any reason to just keep doing things the way we've been doing them. The future of the game is at stake. Use the tech to secure it.

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If you like or share this column, it's as good as a gimme putt. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or visit our agency. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Business lessons from fantasy football

This Year's Board

T'is the season when America's football fans get their statistical nerd on, and I am no different. I've also been playing in leagues since before the Internet, because the nerd runs all the way back to childhood... but in thinking about the exercise and the agency, it struck me that some of the rules that you play by have been of high value over the years in business.

1) Get Your VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) On.

Especially in an auction situation, good strategy is to go the extra mile to get players that have something special. In football, that usually means the player has talent to help you in more than one way (running backs who also catch passes, wide receivers that are good at multiple kinds of patterns, quarterbacks who can run for extra yardage, etc.). In marketing, it's creative people that make pieces that stand out, or can work in tight spaces. Difference makers, in other words.

2) Play your position. 

Most leagues have some form of draft order, which means that you will be making your picks with action likely from a few specific competitors. If you know what they need, and what they value (especially if someone acts on a real team allegiance), that is information you need to use to your advantage... because, rest assured, the other savvy players are doing it to you. In business, this is known as knowing the competition, and it's table stakes for doing work, but you'd be amazed how many people just come and play their own hand, without a care in the world as to how others are working them like a speed bag.

3) You can't win on Opening Day.

There's never been a league where I've drafted so well that I haven't had to work the bottom fifth of my roster like a day trader. Most seasons are too long, and injuries are too prevalent, to just set and forget, especially if you are any kind of league with quality competitors.

From a business standpoint, the corollary is that no matter what your starting advantage might be in a market, the grind is all -- and that winning a client is only the start of a long road. Motors are required.

4) Run through the tape.

Only one person can win a league, and at least a third of the players will know they have no chance halfway through the year. Far too many people will then use this info to throw in the towel and stop playing. Not only does this run the risk of ruining the game for others who are still in contention by making things easier on some members of the league, but it just shows poor character.

In business, the equivalent act is mailing it in as soon as you get a new job, or pulling the chute on a client that shows signs of leaving. Sure, it's defensible in the short term as a matter of prioritizing, but this is the kind of thing that people remember, and not well. It can easily become the defining aspect of your personal brand, and, well, deservedly so. Run through the tape.

5) Do it with your whole heart.

In my league, the winner gets an authentic old-school leather helmet, with the winner's name on a plate on the front of it. It's very stupid, but the extra mile matters, and ties the name of the league together, in a way that's distinctive and special. I also run the league as a real-world experience, with big labels and a room that's prepared just so. The people in my league have the choice to play or not, and any number of other leagues to join. They stay with mine, for the most part. I appreciate it.

In business, the same kind of commitment applies. Go all-in and sweat the details, because those details are how you separate yourselves from other professionals. The people at your company have the choice to work with you or not, and any number of other things they could be doing with their time. Make them want to stay with you, and appreciate you.

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Something else you should do with your whole heart: like or share this column. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.