How Fast It Goes

Timeless?

This last weekend for Labor Day, I took the family to our favorite amusement park for our annual holiday tradition.  As I rode down the modified ski lift that the kids insist on taking as a low-energy palate cleanser between thrill rides, and saw the whole of the valley and park before me, the kids lazily kicked their heels up with their cousin on the bench ahead of us. It was all very serene, and more than a little wistful. My wife took out her cell phone and took a minute-long movie for her Facebook feed. I just looked, becoming very aware of the cinematic nature before us, as more and more of the park revealed itself from the trees.

While the view seemed timeless, it really was anything but. There were new rides that we had never seen, an ever-growing mix of people, changing lights and so on, and so on. As usually happens around this time of year, the trees are just starting to turn, and the mix of smells from the forest and the food is never quite the same twice. Change is the only constant.

Changing even faster than the park were the passengers in the car ahead of us. My kids are 10 and 15, and while they both still love the place, things change, and at some point, maybe vacations together might seem more like an obligation than a treat. Also, well, my eldest keeps getting attention in ways that haven't happened before. There may come a day when she decides she has more interesting things to do than hang out in the same old park with the same old parents.

Life Is Changing. It's changing really, really fast.

From a marketing and advertising standpoint, I'm well over halfway done on the legal limits of parenting, with changes to my demographic class coming up quick. And the need to keep in touch with new technology, thoughts and and ideas has never been greater, really.

But the funny thing about those changes? The kids are going through them with speed, too. We were in a hotel room for a couple of days, and the TV screen never went on. That wouldn't have happened just two years ago, when we took our last vacation. It's also not because my kids are that virtuous and active, but because they'd much rather spend time with their personal screens (phones and tablets), where the content is more under their control, and they have more privacy and interaction.

Media buyers will note that their business is just fine, really. They sound a lot like record labels a couple of decades ago, or travel agents, and so on. That's just how fast it goes, and nothing is slowing down. Or probably ever will.

Even in the most timeless of places.

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Feel free to 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.

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.