Of Clipboards and (Future) Convicts

The killer as a young genius

My first job in marketing was at an independent music trade show. The show in question was started by my housemate, who saw an opportunity based on an underserved region, and his friendships with a great number of hustling indie musicians. That number included me, but I also held a couple of degrees, and the aggression taught to those who study journalism.

The show needed a lot of everything, and the job was different just about every day, because most of the work was done by volunteers. Organization was haphazard at best. Either I was listening to showcase submission tapes, arranging sessions, selling advertising and sponsorship slots, writing the directory, and so on, and so on. There was always something to do, always a fire to put out, and, well, I've got a motor. I wound up doing so much for the show that it led to my second job in marketing, because the lead sponsor of the show was impressed, and hired me away from it.

Anyway, my all-around fireman duties included talent relations, because music industry celebrities would much rather talk to each other than the public, and need a gentle amount of rousting to get them to conform to a schedule and get to their various rooms. At an event such as this, where the fans aren't just fans but incredibly desperate creatives who are trying to secure fame and fortune by impressing industry, getting them to and from various rooms is pretty much a nightmare. Which is why this advice is absolutely golden: carry a clipboard.

Why a clipboard? Because when you have one, along with the studied air of blue collar indifference and/or annoyance, you seem like someone who has Some Official Duty, and that's all you really need for a lot of real-world situations. I've walked past an inordinate number of security guards with nothing but a clipboard and a desire to not spend time explaining why there was nothing but blank paper on it. It doesn't work nearly as well as it used to, but it still works a lot. People think you are there to check on the electrical or plumbing. Anyway, back to the main story.

Twenty odd years ago, Phil Spector was universally regarded as a producing genius, as close to famous as any rock producer had ever been. We also knew he wasn't a very nice person, not at all, and that he liked to carry a gun to places where he probably should not. He was also one of the biggest names to show up for our show, and knew it. So he came late, with the limo dropping him right at the front entrance of the hotel, with the driver storming off because he had clearly offended someone in the process of getting there.

No security. No entourage. Just a famous and very scary recluse, in front of hundreds of people with demo tapes in their pockets and dreams in their hearts, and no one is particularly interested in having him get to his panel. We also know he's armed and Not Right. (Spector turned out to be all kinds of not right later, and was convicted of murder. He'll be behind bars for the rest of his life. Having met the man, color me not surprised.)

So I whipped out the clipboard, pretended I was at least a foot taller than I am, and decisively cut through the crowd, and shepherded Spector. We got through the crowd, with an awkward pit stop at the restroom (I got lucky and guessed the best right direction to get to one), and the panel proceeded without incident. Spector's limo came back some hours later, and he left without rancor. The trade show's attendees got the access they paid for, and not more.

A bluff, strongly presented, took down the hand and saved the day. Nothing went wrong, when so much could have.

Which, when you are doing event marketing, is about all you can hope for, really.

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To pay for my clipboards, please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at 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.

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.