Marketing and Advertising Direction

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Ads on Sports Jerseys: The Seventy Stubbers

Let's Just Call Them The Stubs

This Monday, the Philadelphia 76ers became the first team in the four major U.S. team sports to sell an ad on a jersey. StubHub will pay $5 million a year for three seasons to get a 2-inch patch on the top left of the basketball team's game day duds, in what may be the first step to an inevitable rush to revenue.

Some background... Philadelphia, the team I've rooted for my whole life (can't say it's been a very good ride, though it's had its moments), hasn't been trying very hard to win games for years now. Under the leadership of a new management and ownership group that comes from the world of corporate takeovers and tear downs, they've played the youngest roster in the league, haven't signed any significant free agents, and traded assets in the here and now for the potential of picks in the somewhere else and later. They've also run into some bad luck, drafted some injury risks, and also invested in players in foreign leagues who might come over later.

They've been so blatant about not winning games (and, of course, paying the lowest possible salary that the league will allow) that the rest of the league has complained bitterly about them, because they can't sell tickets to see this team. When the team has shown signs of competence, they've doubled down on the strategy and traded even more players for picks. It's been controversial, and now that the team is finally ready to transition away to try to win games again... well, this.

Typically as a marketing and advertising consultant, I'd applaud a client for a willingness to innovate in an attempt to increase revenue streams. But a pro sports team isn't a traditional business. It's a participant in an artificial monopoly, where competition is limited to a set number of partners, who get to share in mutual revenue regardless of competence. No matter how badly the Sixers have played basketball in the past three years -- and last year's team barely avoided winning the fewest number of games in a regular season in the league's history -- they have gotten to stay in the league. Last night, they even won the draft lottery, and get to pick first in the upcoming next influx of talent. If this strategy comes to full fruition and lays the ground work for a championship team, it really could threaten the nature of how leagues operate.

Which brings us back to the jersey move. Given where the franchise is from a PR standpoint, this is the literal floor for what a jersey sale will bring in... but it will also possibly stigmatize the practice, and may make it even harder for the team to bring in free agents. The money is basically pocket change in something like the NBA, and won't do anything more than cover some missed ticket sales. And while it's easy to imagine that sports fans will just learn to accept the ads, the same way that they have for teams and sports in other countries, it's also possible that this does brand damage, and maybe even cultivate a backlash. (To wit: an NBA tank top isn't exactly the most flattering piece of apparel for non-athletic bodies. And it's hard to imagine the Sixers have sold many commemorative jerseys recently.)

Finally, on the off chance that this just seems like a sports fan wanting things to stay the same... well, sure, there's some of that. But not all change is good, and at some point, the camel's back of revenue from a fan base has to break... especially when it's placed in front of a younger fan base that spends much of its time blocking ads, questioning corporate interests, and wondering if, say, they need to have a full cable package (which subsidizes pro sports teams to a shocking degree), vote for new stadiums in local elections (increasingly unpopular), or go to live games at all (graying audiences, especially in baseball).

Because that's the problem with diluting your brand with sponsorships. Once you break it, it stays broken.

And maybe leads to two logos, or five...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Short Term Or Short Sighted

One of the things that I do at my day job is read white papers and take in Webinars on trends in my industry. And what you see, over and over, is the move from mass adtech moves, and spray and pray distribution, to custom work, dynamic generation for personal relevance, and a concierge level of service.

There's a simple reason to this: custom work is a service, instead of a commodity, and making money from commodities isn't fun or sexy or what venture capital likes to see from adtech start ups. Commodities are always subject to third-world offsourcing and your revenue model getting hacked, because, well, hey, commodity. As an old manager told me once, you don't want to be the guy putting sugar in packets; you want to be the guy putting some zero calorie sweetener in packets, because that's going to get you a margin premium. (I have no idea if he was right on the sugar, by the way, but the point is still valid.)

And all of this seems fine and inevitable and sensible, especially when you've got consumer segments that are lucrative and small... but this also runs straight into the wall that is scalability, while also taking some serious damage from the possibilities of cybercreep and privacy actions.

Having worked on the front lines at a number of places where the tech allowed us to do wildly targeted tactics, what I can tell you from personal experience is this... abusing the potentials does not pay off. What winds up happening is that a sizable percentage of the group gets spooked by your messaging, and quickly takes steps to make sure that you lose this kind of access. Also, to let others know about the practice.

But in the short term, it works, but only if you look at things from surface and immediate metrics. And you get to look proactive about driving better rates, especially if your goal is short-term success that will prove you should be around for the long run.

Unfortunately, what inevitable winds up happening is that you eventually get to a better metric: return on investment, or ROI. That's not always a great moment for marketers, especially if the new customer acquisition turns out to be, well, a very unprofitable kind of customer. To wit; if you have only ever conditioned them to buy on price, to expect a deal if they don't buy right away, to never pay for shipping or without a coupon code... well, how good does that boost in short-term rates look now?

The better way to run your business, in my opinion, is to get to the metrics that matter as soon as possible, and to get buy-in from your management on a more holistic and long-term approach.

With the obvious caveat that, well, you need good management to get to this better place.

But if you aren't working for good management in the first place, I have one piece of advice for you... hit the short-term goal.

And make sure you're looking for your next gig, and getting paid as soon as possible for this one.

Because bad management can end more than your marketing gig, if you catch my drift...

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Friday, May 13, 2016

Love Your Outliers

Go Right, Young Marketer

Today in the column, I'm going to do something odd: direct you to a long-form piece that has nothing to do with marketing and advertising. So go read about "The Lazarus Effect" in the New York Times Magazine, then come on back. (Oh, and if you refuse to click, the story covers what cancer researchers use to refer to the phenomenon of a drug having an unexpectedly great outcome for a patient, which isn't predicted based on past performance in the sample group. That's where the phrase of "extraordinary responders" comes in. It turns out that part of the massive undertaking in curing cancer is that each person's fight has aspects of unique genetic coding, and we just don't know enough yet, but are learning more than we ever have before, partly through, well, studying the outliers. This isn't meant to give false hope for a cure, because the awful nature of cancer progression is that all of the great aspects of evolution are at work in reverse, but yeah, it's OK to be hopeful anyway.)

This week at my gig, a marketing program brought in a startlingly high response rate, about 2X more than predicted, for a very mature program. The amount was statistically significant, in a reporting system that's stable, and possibly explained due to creative and tactical choices. Needless to say, I'm thrilled by the performance, and staring it down to see if I can replicate it with other programs. But in and of itself, it's just one campaign, just one data point in an ever-growing sea of numbers, and might not be a breakthrough.

Now, the other side of the street. I also performed a post-mortem on a challenged campaign, where the client tried something very different from our usual practices, and wound up producing numbers that were substantially below our medians. A co-worker who is new to this sort of analysis called the result terrible, and while I don't disagree, I had to bring in my perspective... which is that no data is terrible, especially because we didn't know what metrics the client was anticipating. While the set of numbers we got in this instance looked like underperformance, we will only really know that later, once these metrics prove out as ordinary, or give us an outlier.

So if your marketing programs are delivering consistency and certainty and a narrow performance array, shake it up. Push your levers, either creative or tactical, more to the margins (in, of course, a test cell). Even if this means that you leave some money on the table from something that you'll later think "Well, of course that didn't work," it's still got crazy value, because it puts a number on the practice, and lets you counsel clients later away from trouble.

Because if you are in this for the long-term benefit of your client and career, you quickly learn that the outliers drive the learning... and that any marketer or advertiser that isn't learning isn't, well, likely to make a career of this.

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Why People Hate Marketers: Back To School Fuel

Like This, But With More Money

In my marketing and advertising feed today? Back to school sales, forecasts, and strategies.

No, seriously.

And I understand the rationale. Planning ahead is required in this line of work, as any number of August projects with icicles and Christmas trees in my past have shown. There's only so much in the way of Dads and Grads that you can pitch, especially since all of that stuff should have been in the pipe a month ago, and July 4 just doesn't hit that many consumer categories, or extends to that much spend. But the thing about back to school is that unlike those projects, they don't hit you straight in the teeth of something you might already be struggling with. Thinking about Christmas in the dog days of summer can actually be kind of pleasant.

To wit, it's mid-May, folks. There's still a month left in the current school year here in the mid-Atlantic region where I live. Weeks of rousting the kids out of bed to do something they don't want to do, weeks more of slogging through the interminable paperwork, weeks of trying to keep their eyes on the prize of grades and attendance when they already have eight months of pulling on that rope. They are beaten down. I am beaten down. The sun is finally coming out, and the days are getting longer, and the distractions are getting thicker than the lawns on a daily basis. Dances. Concerts. Proms. Bike rides and blockbuster movies and cousins visiting from places where the school year is already over, and all of it -- every single last distraction -- is more interesting to them, and me, than the day-in day-out of the last six weeks. Especially the last two weeks, when the schedules go all sidewise because we don't want to spend on air conditioning with our tax dollars.

It's the last mile of the current run, which is always, well, the one that takes the most discipline to complete. Oh, and admitting any of this out loud? Does you no good. Gives the kids the great hint that, well, no one really cares that much about their science fair project, how important the recital is, or anything more than the grades on the report card. Not even how they got them, really. There may be parents out there who are hitting on every cylinder at this point of the year, but I, personally, don't know any of those people. The rest of us need some time away from the grind -- you know, the good four to six traditional weeks of summer vacation -- to look forward to those eight hours a day where the little darlings, um, get far away from the house. Rather than the current eight hours a day when we're trying to make sure they are doing what they need to get through.

So, to my fellow marketing and ad pros? Do what you need to do to get your BTS work cleared. Don't lose any business, hurt your chances of getting out for the Memorial Day weekend, or not look proactive to your clients.

But when the media calls to ask you about how the year's looking, when the sales are going to start, and how the new hotness is getting in the stores before anyone has ever been before?

Don't take the call, or give them the quotes they need to write the piece.

Because the life you save may be your own...

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Monday, May 9, 2016

GPS Sugar Beets: Tech Disruptions

Precision Food Inc

Here's something that I didn't know until recently... one of the hidden but potent benefits of global positioning systems involves doing a better job of feeding the planet. It turns out that the tech can be used for something called precision agriculture, where plants are optimally placed and watered, with exceptional control over the yield and livelihood of the crop. For items like sugar beets, which have exceptional fragility to go with delicate needs in terms of the mix of water, food and sunlight, the tech is wildly popular among farmers, because the return on investment is just a constant. All without any of the queasiness of genetically mutated organisms, scary chemicals, or anything else that would bring up moral issues.

Now, if you had seen ahead for this application of tech, you could have made some nice coin, either from starting a company that made the gear, or from providing venture capital at good rates to farmers that were looking to make the change, and so on. And that's how this all pivots back to marketing and advertising, which is what we discuss here.

No one, we can assume, makes mobile tech with the pure and unadulterated interest in impacting something as mundane as email... but, well, that's happened. In a big way. Responsive templates are now table stakes because you can't be sure what kind of platform and screen your lead will use to access your material. Subject lines are now subject to not just ISP filtering, but to truncation from smaller display screens. Geotargeting, once seen as creepy and ineffective because e-commerce plays for brick and mortar weren't going to match an office or home laptop to a shopping situation, is now increasingly necessary to close the last mile of a sale.

By the way? That pace of change is going to just keep growing. Smartphone use while commuting is going to go from text to voice, as laws and social prohibitions against distracted driving kick in hard. (Honestly, look for texting drivers to be treated like drunk drivers very, very soon.) Syncing email across devices and dayparts will be table stakes. Mobile sizes could easily change again, either through different sized screens (I still long for the error-free typing of a full qwerty keyboard and holstered phones, but I'm beyond the event horizon of prospects, I know), or through the inevitable introduction of holograms to more optimal screen sizes, or heads-up VR through appliances.

The point is this: change, even in something that seems mature, is inevitable. Thinking through such things, and keeping an eye out for trends that could impact your business, is just required.

After all, these sugar beets aren't going to grow themselves, Neither is your business.

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Friday, May 6, 2016

Death Or Glory

Our once (and future?) logo

One of my first and most potent lessons in sales and marketing happened before I was, well, in the field. I cut my teeth as a DIY indie musician, leading a rock band for much of a decade, with a few hundred gigs in a bunch of areas. (Above, you'll see our logo. Bitchin', no?)

While the band was unsuccessful commercially, I learned great life lessons from the experience, and made some truly lasting relationships. It's also been a big part of my professional life as a consultant, because at its core, stage time is stage time, and it's fairly impossible to be too nervous in a corporate setting. The latter isn't going to boo, clear the room, or throw beer at you. Well, not often.

We're now coming up on a meaningful anniversary for the band, which has led to a spark of interest from some of the alumni... and there's the quality of what Seth Godin refers to as an idea virus here. I'm finding myself looking back through old track lists, mulling over what covers might work with those songs now, asking friends and players for ideas on staffing the holes in the lineup, daydreaming about T-shirt designs and so on, and so on.

All for a business that failed financially before, and will most assuredly fail again, at least in terms of time and money spent versus any income brought in. There's no hue and cry from our fan base because, well, there wasn't really a fan base to make that hue and cry. Even bands with fan bases are incredibly challenged in the current market environment, since digital distribution of music has been a simple case of devaluing the income potential for the musicians. If we do this again, it's strictly a hobby for the "benefit" of friends and family, even if we were to somehow attract outside attention.

Which makes it Art, perhaps, or something a little more onanistic. My thoughts so far are to play gigs rarely if at all, put new songs up on a web site for voluntary payments, and in a flight of fancy, replace or supplement all of the old T-shirts. If time is made for this, it will be to just do the stuff that's fun, and none of the stuff that isn't.

What's not fun as an indie musician? Grubbing for gigs, begging radio stations to play you, journalists to review and cover your events, and doing everything you can to drum up a crowd with sweat equity. And that all happens before the gear moving, fights with sound personnel and gate keepers, and so on. Even all these years later, with the fading of memory, I've got no inclination at all to spend time schmoozing gatekeepers, or finding someone to do that for us.

And yet... I can't completely separate the urge to create from the urge to find a market, because both urges are, well, creative. Asking me to make without marketing is like asking me to write and not record, or rehearse without performing; a near impossible separation of what has always seemed like a paired process.

Besides, imagine if we were, well, so much better or more successful at the enterprise now that we're older and filled with the knowledge that we aren't going to ever make a living from music.

It's, well, keeping me up just thinking about it.

Just like in the old days.

Play me out, Joe Strummer...

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Trump Wins, And Attack Ads Lose

Attack Ad Proof?

Tonight in Indiana, the Republican presidential primary more or less ended, as Donald Trump's end game victory over Senator Ted Cruz led to a suspension of the Senator's campaign. While Trump won't acquire the delegates needed until the final states vote in less than a month to wrap things up, and Ohio governor John Kasich seems ready to soldier on in the hopes of an 11th hour reversal, it seems fairly academic now. A man who has never served in elective office is the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for the American Presidency.

There will be a great deal of Monday morning quarterbacking as to how this all happened. There were plenty of factors. Too many candidates that were too similar early, which helped to splinter the non-Trump vote. A media that could never say no to a Trump appearance, leading to earned promotional benefits that dwarfed all other coverage. Trump's willingness to avoid canned stump speeches and predictability, ensuring more attention. A built-in competency at media manipulation, and an ability to bring in untapped voters to a larger tent, particularly in states with open primaries. A never-ending side show of outrage, controversy, late night humor fodder and red meat for the base, all of which meant that the story was rarely, if ever, anything but Trump. Add it all up, and it lead to a narrative of inevitability, and a political season that will dominate future textbooks.

But you read me for marketing and advertising, and what this campaign has proven, more than anything else to me, is the growing ineffectiveness of traditional political spots.

In state after state, the stop Trump PACs trotted out an absurd number of ads that never seemed to slow the candidate's momentum. While they might have contributed to the candidate's overall unfavorable ratings, or kept Trump from reaching majorities until later in the campaign, they rarely got to a point of real effectiveness. When rivals attacked Trump directly, the damage always seemed to come in reverse.

Consider the states where Trump actually suffered setbacks. Wisconsin, where an infrastructure of talk radio and a very active electorate gave Cruz his last meaningful win. Iowa, where caucuses played to Cruz's ground game advantage. Texas and Ohio, where Cruz and Kasich kept home field advantage. A number of smaller states, particularly in the rural West, where politics tends to be a personal and retail experience.

In none of these places was an air game of attack ads effective in stopping the real estate mogul. Even ads that seemed effective, like a spot where women read seemingly damming quotes from the candidate's own mouth, and made Trump himself wince on the podium, had no effect.

Why? Well, it's fairly simple, and also plainly terrifying to media networks: no one really watches television commercials any more. Especially outside of live DVR-proof events like sports or, well, debates. We're all ready to click off to something else, or eschew live television entirely.

So what actually works now? Social media, which Trump's campaign took to like a duck to water. Word of mouth, which is especially effective when a campaign activates someone who normally doesn't engage in politics. Again, a strength for Trump over his rivals. Email marketing that seems new, and different, and novel... and since Trump didn't push for donations, that, again, qualified.

Will it work in the long run? The betting professionals don't think so, and you generally have to respect those folks, because of their track record. But few thought Trump would get this far, and no one has put a lasting hurt on him yet.

What I do know, however, is this: if Trump is finally stopped, and it isn't done through broadcast media spots, but through another marketing channel?

We will see very different campaigns in the future. Ones that the broadcast networks, or broadcast advertising pros, won't like nearly so much.

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Monday, May 2, 2016

Heavy Rotation Hurting

They Aren't Kidding

(with apologies to one of the most influential skits ever, the great "Deep Hurting" riff from the Mad Scientists on "Mystery Science Theater 3000." See it here, if you haven't already.)

This weekend, I indulged my strongest sports addiction -- the NBA playoffs -- and was struck, as I am every year, by the relentless problem that is the marketing and advertising impact of broadcast media in real time, when combined with heavy time commitments.

It would be one thing if I were a fan of just, say, the Golden State Warriors. But I'm pretty much watching as many of these games as I can manage around the rest of my day, and seeing how I also maintain a sports blog, that's a lot of hoop... and a lot of the same commercials. Over. And over. And over.

Now, I understand that the demographics of pro hoop are a marketing gold mine. Affluent, diverse, national and international, tied across top tier channels and DVR-proof, with games that resolve in 2+ hours, with pretty consistent action and limited replay and injury breaks. It's one of an ever-decreasing number of places where you can be pretty sure your ads are being seen, in real time, with no skipping.

Which also means that, just like last year's too visible moments for daily fantasy league plays and direct to consumer pharmaceutical outlays in the NFL season, we're going to lose our minds over this. Tina Fey making payments with her Amex card, the head-scratching "Angry Birds" movie tie-in, testimonials to the DIY virtues of people who don't pay for satellite service, lather, rinse, repeat.

When I was a kid (pre-DVR and yes, per-VHS), watching re-runs was just something you did. From countless Bugs Bunny cartoons to prime-time shows, seeing something twice was just unavoidable, even if you complained about it, because, well, not much else to do. But now that commercials are a relatively rare phenomenon in the streaming age, repeats get your brand noticed, and I'd even argue, over-noticed. There are brands that I'm so aware of that I can't imagine feeling good about patronizing them, especially when my level of irritation with their ad campaigns is factored in. Even slightly modified ads with mildly different content would be something of a relief now. Especially as we've got another six weeks or so of the NBA playoffs to go.

So if you are in charge of one of these campaigns, I'm begging you... dial back the frequency. Mix in some other treatments. Reconsider your awkward game tie-ins with athletes interacting with your characters.

Because what you are doing is just painful in the extreme. And eventually leads to Adam Sandler's current career and reputation.

Deep Hurting. DEEP HURTING...

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Friday, April 29, 2016

More Games And Less NFL Draft, Please

Read Name, Lift Shirt, Repeat

Tonight, the NFL Draft started -- the first of a 3-day festival of Not Games that, in my lifetime, has somehow shed its original No One Really Watches This into untold hours of highly watched, well, content.

And while there is a certain Reality Show vibe to the proceedings that must appeal to people who are not me, especially when a highly touted player sees their standing slip, and stews about it on camera in a waiting room... you have to be way too into the proceedings to consider this exceptionally, well, entertaining. And I say this as a world-class football and sports nerd.

Still, well, the market has spoken, and with two networks covering it breathlessly, the goal of every other league is to replicate this success. But what I think the draft really shows isn't the broadcast potential for a long and delayed reading of names, but just how underserved the market is for professional football.

Thirty five years ago, the USFL generated ratings that were higher than MLB or NBA... despite being a brand-new league with no established rivalries, and relatively limited star power. Minor leagues with players that are not at the NFL level (aka, the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football variant) are stable and long-standing, which speaks to, well, profitability. There's even a women's league now, and immense interest at the college and high school level. If this was any other industry and any other market, more inventory from rival companies would flood the market. We are nowhere near satiety, as a nation, in our hunger for football.

But since the NFL is a protected monopoly, and the public buys into the idea that these other leagues -- particularly college -- has to exist, since they always have. As if the business of running a football team has much to do with the business of running a college. But what's really going on here is an unnaturally cautious business and an underserved market.

Imagine, if you will, two or three NFL tiers and separate leagues, with overlapping seasons. Not a minor league, and with teams that are not affiliated with each other, but with a clear tier situation (possibly by contract size) that passes champions up into higher tiers, and sends the worst teams down. Kind of like how most other nations (the English with soccer being the best example) handle wildly popular sports.

So instead of a draft, football fans would have, well, games to watch. Just about every week, with all of the games mattering, played under the same rules, in all kinds of cities, both "major" and minor. With players that, eventually, even casual fans would have heard of, or maybe followed for a longer period of their lives. The average NFL career is only about four years, mostly because there are hundreds of younger and cheaper players trying to take the jobs of older players every year. Also, well, injuries.

We'd have fantasy leagues all year long. Much more in the way of gambling and live stadium action and commerce. An impetus to get colleges out of the business of football. A significant amount of jobs created, and a strong corrective market force to teams that try to move away for sweeter stadium deals. More live content with prime advertising opportunities, and programs with ratings that will likely outperform other live sporting events. A much more fluid situation that would lead to teams in non-U.S. markets. In other words, a correct market, with all of the good that our capitalistic hearts yearn for.

Instead, we've got artificial scarcity. Cities like St. Louis losing teams, with Oakland and San Diego likely to follow, with no idea if or when they'll ever be replaced. Advertising opportunities that only exist in one season. De facto subsidies of basic cable channels by the entire populace, instead of just the people that, well, want to watch football.

And people spending half a week of their lives to watch a very slow reading of a list of names.

So. Honestly. To anyone who is really into the draft, one simple question:

Wouldn't you rather be watching football?

And if the answer to that is yes, why aren't you asking the NFL to stop being such communists and expand?

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

5 Ways That Offices Matter

Respect My Space

In the MidAtlantic region where I live and work, the change in seasons has come, as it usually does, with a surge in thunderstorm activity in the afternoon. My company is also in the process of upgrading our office space, so we can turn three locations into one, and become more integrated across teams. It's going to be a really great moment for the company, in ways that I'm not sure many of our people even realize, because many of my co-workers, frankly, haven't gone through this kind of thing before.

I've been at companies that have moved locations, and it's much like moving on a personal level. There's always a reason to go, and you always get enthused about it, because change is always better to take on the rise. Finally, and this is kind of an odd coincidence, the old building inevitably fails you in some way, usually just before you leave. (We'll be in our new location in a few more weeks.)

Anyway, long set-up complete. Today, the power went out after a thunderstorm, and everyone got to (well, had to) go home early. We've also had issues with the wifi, the AC (well, maybe that's just me, I seem to be under a vent), leaking windows that have gotten to a mold situation, security issues in the parking lot, and so on. So while I was driving home today and thinking about if I would do better to log in tonight to clear the last bit or just come in early the next day, it struck me... my office is, honestly, just in my bag, and has been for decades now. I've also worked out of my home for decades as a consultant, or on the road at various locations. So what are the common factors in the offices that have helped me work better, and those that held me back?

1) Enough space, and make sure there's a mix.

One of my start ups in Silicon Valley, another in Manhattan, and an old-school place in the greater Philadelphia region, put people way too close to each other as a deliberate act, either due to high real estate costs or mistaken ideas about collaboration. It can provoke an intense camaraderie and occasional big wins from unavoidable eavesdropping on telephone calls, but in the long run, it's just disastrous, especially around any excuse to get out of the torture chamber for meals. Too little space makes for people just wandering off to get work done, and a room that people just don't want to be in. Especially if some of these roles are more vocal than others.

2) Many commuting options.

If an office is in a commuting choke point, and there's only one way to get there, with no public transportation option, what you have is an office that's at routine risk for an unpleasant commute... and that's just deadly in the long run, because it just creates a reason for turnover that's persistent and invisible in the actual venue, and contributes to an overall negative tone.

If your office isn't blessed with walkability, public transit options or alternate highway support, what I *strongly* recommend is flex time to avoid traffic. When I worked in the Bay Area, doing a 10 to 7-ish shift meant that I'd get back a full hour of my day, every day... and since the commute was car only, that hour of traffic avoidance just meant that I didn't spend five hours a week thinking about finding a different gig.

3) Don't neglect, or overdose on, the start-up areas and touches.

If you work in a traditional office setting, you tend to look wistfully, or skeptically, at the clubhouse touches of start-up offices. These would be the Foosball tables, game consoles, lounge areas, and so on, and I've been at places where getting my work done was downright difficult due to the buzzing of hobby drone blimps and first person shooter games.

When these touches work, it's because they inspire teams to spend more time with each other outside of work, and to make bonds that limit turnover. (As an aside, if I have one piece of advice for any marketer that needs support from engineers... develop a Foosball game. Mine has done me no end of good over the years.) You can always curtail the fun and games to certain hours, or move on from the hire that has the best Halo skills, later.

4) Health makes wealth.

When you set aside a quiet room for nursing mothers, a variety of snack and beverages options, flexibility in desks with standing points or beyond the law handicapped accessibility, push for a better health care plan, matching 401K, etc... well, yes, this all costs money, and limit choices that you might make in terms of bonuses, competitive compensation, increased staffing, and so on.

But you also create a situation where distractions to cover these needs just go away, and an undistracted work force makes for efficiencies and less turnover. You also create, and this is a big plus, a company where your people recruit and assist your hiring.

5) The biggest gain from a good office is in recruiting.

Especially if you've been suffering with a weak office, interviewing in a good one just puts stars in your eyes. It speaks to success, to stability, to a progressive and inspiring future, rather than one where you get caught in the weeds of commuting, parking, and so on.

Offices matter, even if you've got a distributed work force, and heavy road miles. If you are only making the decision at a bottom line basis, you probably aren't making your best decision.

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Monday, April 25, 2016

5 Client Retention Lessons from Frank Underwood

He's Hard On Housekeepers

This weekend, in between other chores and my inevitable NBA playoff watching, I caught up to the latest season of "House of Cards", the Netflix political drama / soap opera that's won awards and no small amount of attention over its first four seasons. (Don't worry: I'll avoid any spoilers.) The life and times of Frank Underwood, the show's central character and MacBeth-esque figure, have done Kevin Spacey a world of good, and the show has already been picked up for additional seasons.

That's all to the good. But while I'm still a pretty big fan of the show, and probably will remain so for as long as Spacey and Robin Wright are around to chew the very expensive scenery, I can't help but think that the show has passed its peak... if only because my binge-watching was entirely sane this time around, and obvious drama turns and episodic arcs became, well, a little more predictable. (Don't worry, this will all come around to marketing and advertising soon enough.)

This isn't fatal or even all that surprising. There's 50-odd episodes of HoC in the can now, and at this point, we all know what we're going to get when we fire it up. But it struck me, on some level, as indicative of where you get as a consultant, especially when your client relationship gets more and more seasoned. How do you keep the relationship fresh when there's a world of other people with ideas and experiences that would just love to take your spot, or clients that would never turn down an opportunity to cut down their expenses?

1) Develop new tricks.

One of my issues with Season 4 is that Underwood kept going to the well of direct violence against the women in his life... and while that's entirely correct for the character, it also undermines the core hook of the show. Like Walter White in "Breaking Bad", viewers get pulled into rooting for the protagonist through his occasional virtues (in White's case, righting past wrongs, and in Underwood's, competence in getting his goals accomplished)... but when he uses the same methods, that competence is undermined, and we're just left watching to see what happens, rather than being more emotionally invested.

As a consultant, if you are all about one method -- analytics, creative, copy writing, design, list management, etc. -- you are going to eventually seem limited. Good craftspeople have more tools in the belt, and make sure that the task matches the means.

2) Don't play the game everyone else plays.

The best moments in HoC come when Underwood or his associates use creativity or a greater vision to out-maneuver their adversaries, because being in the presence of people who are good at what they do is, well, captivating.

In marketing and advertising, if everyone else is selling impressions on prestige and branding, consider a paid acquisition model -- because if those numbers work for you, you've moved from an idiosyncratic choice to one that's a business imperative. If your client insists on sticking with a practice that you know is a loser, think about steering into the skid to truly show the extent of the mistake (assuming, of course, that you are also able to run a test cell with a less ruinous message, to limit the damage and ensure the learning). Move away from single metric measures of success or failure, because life is rarely that simple, and it will give you more ways to achieve. And so on. While choosing the lesser of two evils is sometimes necessary as adults, it's also not the way to run a business.

3) Candor can devastate. Use it carefully.

The "showiest" aspect of HoC is when Underwood breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly about his inner motivations, in moments that none of the other characters hear, or react to. It's part of what leads to the whole MacBeth aspect of the show, along with Underwood's ambition and single-minded need for power, but what it also does is makes the audience complicit, an insider, someone with extraordinary insight. Only Underwood gets this power, even though there are plenty of scenes where he's not on screen, and these moments rarely disappoint.

Candor can intoxicate, and the right client can make you feel like you can fully "level" about what's going to happen in the business, or why something is going down the way it is... but it can also unsettle, since it can show that you only see one outcome. Especially if that outcome doesn't come to pass, at which point even the most impressed client has to wonder about your skills. My advice, learned from a long time in the trenches: be candid when you are completely sure of something. And try not be completely sure too often.

4) Control the pace.

In the current season, Underwood is undermined by the calendar of events in a political campaign, and has to take more drastic actions to put the odds back into his favor. As consultants, we usually have to deliver by certain deadlines, show results in time for Q4, and so on. But that type of thinking can leave opportunities on the table, and prevent more lucrative and successful initiatives, especially when you are trying to change what a brand means to the end user.

My experience says that if you can be direct and upfront about the desire to go beyond your limitations, you can often win more business and a longer rope. And even if you aren't able to get what you want right away, you lay the groundwork for winning it later.

5) Think from other perspectives... but never assume that such thinking will be airtight.

In the season finale, Underwood has to adjust when a risky ploy goes sideways, and the reason why is highly instructive. Since they know the background of the person they are dealing with doesn't quite jibe with his current situation, a leverage play is used to get him to do what they need... but the pull of the new position is stronger than what could be reached through realpolitick. While the outcome wasn't entirely shocking, and on further reflection seemed like a weak moment of plotting to my eyes, it's still instructive.

One of the easiest mistakes to make in marketing and advertising is falling for the Naturalistic Fallacy, simply known as "what is true for me is true for all." It's fine to put yourself in the shoes of a client or prospect, and work to find a solution from a different starting point. Just be aware that this is an easy way to make howling mistakes. So make sure to get "sanity checks" from outside perspectives, especially from people who are unafraid to tell you uncomfortable truths. It could save your business.

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Friday, April 22, 2016

Lessons In Brand Marketing: The Life Of Prince

Signature Super Moment

First things first; I'm a lifelong fan of the late and very great artist, going back to high school days with cassette tapes played until the music warped in my car's deck. Since the news came out on Thursday, I've been alternating between joy in viewing so much unearthed archival footage, and reliving all of those hits, and coming to grips with the loss. But you read me for marketing and advertising, and how the man handled his affairs has some lessons for and against our field.

First off, the easy stuff; his uncanny discipline in creating, and success in exploiting, his personal brand. From a signature color to the symbol he used when he became TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As...), he always gave the media what they needed to write about him consistently... and then he gave them reams and reams of content, through a tireless work ethic, an ability to reinvent design looks, and more. From feuds with his label to scandals with any number of people who were convinced that he symbolized the downfall of the culture (and to be fair, that ventilated outfit at the MTV Awards while performing "Gett Off" is as red meat as it gets to goad the goad-able), there was a very long period of time when the sizzle nearly drowned out the steak. Like David Bowie before him and Madonna concurrently, Prince reinvented himself while not losing his core audience, and never limited himself to a single market. This was a global business, and one that ran with a relatively minimal amount of scandal, considering his field and subject matter.

That's not to say that everything was a Gold Experience. Most of his attempts to make it in film, or to recreate the "Purple Rain" success, were bad misses. His relentlessly prolific output exhausted casual fans, and the label battles meant an eventual saturation release experience, with good materials lost in the clutter. He never really adapted to the Internet age of music, and lost relevance and reach by staying away from streaming services. Litigation efforts that prevented his catalog from gaining new fans, and an old-school attitude towards not using his music in commercials, cut back on his relevance to newer audiences. While no one ever doubted his genius, pop music changed, and he, well, didn't.

Here's the thing, though... very little of that did any long-term damage to the brand. Because the plain and simple of marketing is that the quality of the work will overwhelm matters like last-mile creative failures, delivery and distribution mistakes, pricing issues, personal foibles and the other flotsam and jetsam of a real life.

What we do for our clients is important for the success of the enterprise, especially when it comes to finding new markets, monetizing to proper levels, positioning for the future, and so on, and so on. But this isn't alchemy, or the reverse. If you've got the goods, the marketing and advertising can succeed, even if it's sub-optimal. If you don't, all of the tap dancing in the world won't keep the curtain up.

And, well, with a catalog of dozens of hits in a variety of tempos and instrumentation, and a signature sound and acumen that's unmatched by anyone in his field or era, Prince's legacy is secure.

But, sadly, just not as long as it should have been.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Better Call Another Ad Strategy

The Ad Model Is Also Uphill

A study hit my feed recently, in which a social media researcher blasted a big hole in the idea that second screening for premium broadcast content was, well, something you actually want to advocate or support, as a marketing and advertising professional. This is something of an anecdotal field, because one person's premium content is another person's meh who cares, especially in an era of niche audiences, but the point is still valid. The stuff that people really care about isn't what they live tweet, because they are too busy, well, watching it.

On some level, like a lot of research, this comes down to an Of Course moment, because it matches our own day to day experiences. Prior to writing this, I finished up the second season of "Better Call Saul," the acclaimed AMC drama and spin-off of "Breaking Bad" that's a personal favorite. As the ending came down, despite the laptop in my hand, a side desire to keep abreast of my baseball fantasy team and the NBA playoffs, along with my buzzing smart phone with other accounts firing...

Well, I only had eyes and ears for the principals of that show, and I'm pretty sure you could have set off the fire alarm in my home, and I'd have still stayed with it. Despite having the ability to pause the proceedings at any time, as I wasn't even watching the episode "live."

But here's where my experience gets unfortunate for the show's producers. I have no recall of any of the "BCS" advertisers. And I really *want* to remember them, because that show is just the best, and I want its monetization strategy to succeed. But, well, it doesn't. Second screens exist to distract the audience from the ads, and even my deep fondness for the show can't beat the hard-wired desire to ignore untargeted broadcast ads and remain productive during down time. Especially with deadlines pending and other tasks to complete. I'm busy. And when you've got a second screen, everyone can be.

Which turns into yet another moment that makes sports the be-all and end-all of broadcast, because it's the only content that is simultaneously engaging and yet has clear diversion moments that you can't really avoid. Not to mention the criticizing fun of live-tweeting a game, which does happen, in spades.

But the bigger point is still in play, which is that the age-old marketing and advertising value exchange of getting involved with prestige shows... might be a terrible play. Well, I'm not sure it's a defensible play, honestly. In terms of ad recall, the NBA tie-ins for the rest of my evening's viewing experience were much higher in my consciousness, even if they were not well-regarded. I didn't want to remember those ads, but since there were so much more of them, and they were much harder to avoid, they're in my head. Not to mention the simple fact that a game is going to last two hours, versus "BCS" one. The entire second season of "BCS" was matched by just my weekend of playoff hoop.

Which is the kind of message that few in the field are going to want to admit to, because the alternatives -- saturation messaging on second-tier networks and platforms, and frankly down-market moves like product placement -- just have little appeal. But data isn't something that leads to a human grease element, personal taste, or unprovable benefits. In the long run, it's hard not to see how the commerce goes elsewhere, the content doesn't get more into a pay for play model, or the product placement doesn't get way more over the top. We may be in a so-called golden age of television programming right now, but what works from an artistic level really isn't working from an advertising one.

Because what we're doing now just seems like an increasingly indefensible business model, and unprotectable from market forces. The well-viewed 30-second spot at the end of an act break isn't sacrosanct, and neither is the next move to supplement it.

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Monday, April 18, 2016

Breaking The Boomerang

Solution: No Basement

This weekend, I was talking to some friends whose children are nearing college age. As we chatted about choices and what lies ahead, they dropped the bombshell that, as soon as the kids were in school and away, they were planning on selling their home and going to something smaller. Apparently, they had been waiting to do this for a very long time, and they had only stayed in their home for this long to avoid disrupting the kids' education.

This was delivered without winks or humor, in the earshot of the affected kids. They reacted to the pronouncement with the practiced shrug that you only really perfect as a teenager. But knowing the parents in question as I do, I know they are absolutely serious, and that this is what is going to happen. This is a family that's going to go from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom as soon as they can, for the clear and simple reason that the house they pay a mortgage to hasn't increased in value, and they have no great faith in the idea that their kids are going to go to school and get out without long-term debt.And that, if they have the option to return after school, they will.

This is where you can pivot, if you like, to a political point about various presidential campaigns, or something about the housing market, or the cost of education. But as the goal of this column is, as always, to discuss marketing and advertising concerns, we're going to pivot to aspects that may be of value in your day to day. Namely:

1) Millennials are going to be co-habitating longer. When I was in my 20s, I spent about five years in the range of having housemates, before my relationships got serious enough to transition to, well, housing with benefits. Maybe that time doubles, or even stays that way after marriage. Which means that your direct mail efforts to that demographic are going to continue to draw lower effectiveness, since the churn isn't going to stop any time soon. That's independent of the demographic not really responding to direct mail in the first place.

2) The small house movement isn't going away, either. While my friends might not be willing to house their offspring into their 20s, and may be aggressively moving to prevent it, that also means that products with a big footprint are also going to be fighting market forces. Combination appliances, space savers, furniture that moves or folds or has additional storage... these are all on the side of the angels. Along with, well, storage service areas.

3) Disruptive technologies that save money, and generic brands, will continue to gain market share. While the affluent might still buy on brand or for a premium experience, Millennials and their parents aren't going to go back to old and more profligate ways of spending. They can't.

4) Retirement isn't seen as an out, either. No one in this demographic class seems to think they've got a pension, good 401K plan, iron-clad stocks or bonds, or anything beyond lottery dreams to get them into a traditional view of one's golden years. Maybe their kids eventually get to prosperity and can help, but pragmatism and just getting through the next year, then the one after that, is seen as far more relevant.

5) Technology makes diaspora much easier. In the past, people like these would be bound to an area from their friends and family, along with their property holdings. Now, thanks to social media, even those who have been in the same place for a long time do not feel obligated to remain there. When long distance phone bills no longer exist, and everyone can stay in touch in ways that were not popular even a decade ago, scattering for low housing costs and a more pleasing population density holds far less sting.

If all of this sounds sad and limiting, I won't disagree with you. My own children aren't as close to their college years, so maybe I haven't been as worn down by their teen age behavior as I will be later... but the idea of forcing a move so that I can prevent their return seems draconian.

But give me another five years, and more time where my home remains underwater, and maybe I get there, too.

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Friday, April 15, 2016

Craft Risk, Or Drink She

Not A Joke, Honest

Not to put too fine a point on this, but there's a story that showed up in my social feed this week that I feel like I need to discuss. It is a story that I'm not sure that I can easily share with you, or one that I should just jump into.

So if you are squeamish about body issues, move on, by all means, move on. We'll have something far more palatable for you next Monday, on our normal publishing schedule.

Still with me? OK, you're brave. Here we go.

There is a craft beer start up that is using crowd sourcing. The goal of this project is to mix bacteria from a particularly salacious model, seen above.

Well, to be more accurate, bacteria from discharge in her nether regions. They'll mix that into the beer to create an, um, unique product.

No, seriously.

And no, I'm not linking to it. I'm sure you'd be able to find it all on your own.

Since the project launched on April 1 and would seem to be a fever dream from the worst of bro culture, many hoped this was just some publicity stunt and bad joke... but, well, no, it seems to be moving forward. According to my sources on this (for the record, I'm not much of a beer drinker), there's been beer made with all sorts of other human biological contributions, so maybe it's just me that is considering this beyond the pale. Or, at the very least, worthy of public health regulation and censure, because you would have to think that this might put the drinker at risk for something. I'm not a scientist, but I'm also pretty sure that adding in bacteria for marketing sizzle is also being done for health reasons.

Maybe you're more of a free market uber alles person, and wouldn't want the government to step on innovation. I used to work with a guy who subsequently bankrolled caffeine-infused jerky, which has made it all the way into big box retailers all across the U.S., so good for him. The market will decide.

But let's get back to the potable. The very nature of it reminds me of a moment during a golf round. I was playing with rented clubs at a really nice course in Southern California, and was paired up with an eccentric and outgoing rich guy. We bonded well enough, and eventually made our way to a par 3 on the back nine. I pulled out my 5-iron and hit it fairly well, but the ball wound up short and to the right. My playing partner then told me to hit another, but to try his club, and handed me a 5-iron from his bag. Which felt really good in my hands, and produced a pretty shot with more length and a sweet bounce up on the green.

Handing the club back to him, I thanked him for the experience... and was told how much the club cost. If true, it was something like 50X more than any iron I'd ever used before or since. I'm not entirely sure, because at the moment when I got this information, my brain short circuited with the deep desire to never, ever touch this club again, for the fear it would break in my hands and be the most expensive second of my life.

That's the nature of gear that's wildly beyond your price point and comfort level. If you really like it, you might not be able to live happily with anything less. When I've taken my wife out for test drives in the past three months, we haven't looked at cars that are dramatically beyond our price point, because, well, the same reason.

So, to finish up on this, and hopefully provide the final word on this sort of enterprise, a final question to anyone who might want to bankroll or try this concoction...

What, exactly, would a positive end result be?

Since the three most likely reactions -- disgust, delight and apathy -- all put the user in a position that's much worse than where they were before the experience?

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Wednesday, April 13, 2016

What Drives You

Not A Problem

Occasionally in pitch sessions or interviews, I'm asked about how I've accumulated the work experience that I've pulled off. I'm happy to tell the story, of course, because you can't really do this gig unless you're able to tell a story... but the one that I share with clients isn't entirely the full ride. If I can beg your indulgence for a few hundred words, I'll give you that, and also what's really driving this train.

Six months before I proposed to my wife, she suggested that we do a seminar together. It was the kind of thing that I would never have done on my own, and never did again... but what I got out of it was substantial and lasting, and I still use aspects of what I learned to this day. With the change in both of us, I proposed on Christmas Eve, and we set the date for mid-May.

Our wedding, you will probably not be very surprised to learn, was a festival of marketing, and great humor. We're not formal people, we had a great deal of similar friends and family, and so we had lots of touches like business reply postcards for the invites, logo merchandise, and a themed URL (Wedding Fun Now, Dot Com. No, seriously.) We actually turned a profit on that, and saved the money for a down payment on a house.

Three months after the wedding, we had found a house a few miles away from where I worked. My job was secure, for a business that had been around for half a century... but I got a job offer to join the dot-com economy on the West Coast. My wife gave me the green light to not just put off a home purchase and move, but also drove out with me in a rented U-Haul with our pets and possessions, despite having her own contracting gig that required her to fly back East after the trip. Our lives got even more interesting when, after the flight back, she learned that she was pregnant with our first child. Whom she carried for the first two trimesters, alone, before we were able to reunite.

Six years, three rentals, three start ups and two kids later, she had a fresh network for her business, a deep fondness for the Bay Area... and a husband who had limited prospects for ever affording a house anywhere closer than several hours away from anyone we knew. So she green-lit another big dramatic move, this one landing us halfway between Philadelphia and New York. That was ten years and four start ups ago now, along with the start of my consulting business. (We now own a house, and one of these days, it might even be worth more than we owe on it.)

So what I've become, over the course of my adult life, is a consultant who has been able to learn a ferocious amount from too many start ups in too many consumer categories... because I've had the base and support that's made it all possible. In all of those jobs, I've been able to bring high focus to the work, not just because that's how I'm wired, but because my wife has given me the freedom to do that. Along with the confidence to always know she had my back, and that she trusted me to do what was right, in the long-term, for the family.

It's her birthday today, and what I really wanted to do for her was get her a new car that we've been researching and planning since the start of the year. That plan was compromised by forces beyond our control, a tax bill from several years ago, that exists due to a mistake from an old employer, unrelated to my consulting work. It will likely resolve in our favor, but in case it doesn't, we have to put off the purchase. It's just, honestly, the worst.

Just like 15+ years ago, when we postponed home ownership, she will support a decision that requires faith in her spouse.

And just like then, she'll make me understand, in ways that are simple and profound, why she's the best thing that has ever happened to me.

So, if you want to know how I've managed to keep moving forward, and to always be in a position where I'm learning something new, and striving to be better?

It's because I've got someone who brings that out of me.

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