On Entering The Pipeline

Let's Get Shifty

A base rule of marketing and advertising: it works on you, even if you are aware of it, well, working on you. I'm as prone to going for 2 for 1 deals, limited time offers, brand marketing blandishments and all of the rest as, well, anyone of my demographic class. Especially if the purchase in question is a low consideration moment in a retail setting, everything in the marketers' bag of tricks works on me. Even if I stop to think about why I'm buying something, it doesn't really matter. Tactics matter.

Which leads me to the latest moment of strong self-awareness, where my wife and I have started the process towards buying a new car. Our eldest daughter is moving towards driving age, has shown an aptitude for it in drivers education courses, and is poorly served by available public and school transportation. So we're going to gift her the 20-year-old Ford that's been serving as our second car, and add a third set of wheels that will serve as the primary ride for my wife, and for when we're all together as a family. (Our other car is a 6-year-old Honda hybrid, which is on its last payment.)

We've got several months before our daughter turns 16. It's also not as if we'll need to add a vehicle on that day, given that minors aren't allowed to drive without a parent for a good chunk of time. The idea is to go for one of the new set of sedan/SUV "crossovers" that avoid the issues that minivans have, but also don't completely abandon fuel economy, storage capacity, or passenger comfort. Finally, we haven't been in the market for a new car in many years, and don't really know that much about how these cars handle. Customer reviews are pretty similar on a lot of these, so test drives matter. Which means, well, going to a lot of dealerships. Three so far, with more to follow.

What's striking about this experience is how similar the different conversations are. You walk around the showroom and enjoy, or not, the prompt attention of commissioned salespeople. You give them your situation, and given that you are just going to take up someone's time without a sale today, a basic apology for where you are in the process. You take the test drive, and try to be polite about your level of interest in the vehicle in question. You learn what you can, then drive back to the dealership, and end the process with a cursory meeting with some supervisor, who thinks about a hard sell approach, and then thinks better of it. Then you go home, in your not at all new car, and try to remember all of the reasons why you can't just get something new today, because man alive, that new car is so much nicer than your current ride.

What comes next, of course, is the follow-up marketing; the emails, phone calls and alerts of what's available *right now* that would be just perfect for our needs. There will also be the promises of future service, possible incentives and offers, and so on, and so on. All of which is entirely defensible and expected, especially given how much is on the line for the various individuals we've met in the process, since they need to move multiple units every month to, well, remain employed. That's all occurring in a world where the Internet destroys margins at the dealer level, and makes competition at a price point easier and easier to know. Oh, and it's also with the possibility of technology just ending this business at some point, since self-driving technology is probably a when, rather than an if.

I feel bad for these guys, honestly. Even in the best of times, competition has always been intense, and it can't be a lot of fun to work in a business where tech just makes your job harder every month. But I don't feel so much for them that I'll take a worse deal, or fail to make my due diligence, once we've figured out our preference for brand, model and trim.

Oh, and the fact that all of my television and digital ads now seem to be relevant to my new car search?

Sure, it's a little bit creepy. But it's also reminded me to expand my consideration set to a few more vehicles that might be better for our needs.

Speaking of another business where tech makes your job harder every month...

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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.

Ads With A Hard R

My movie made how much?

A week ago as I write this, "Deadpool" opened to U.S. movie screens. Despite being a movie with a hard R rating that launched in the dead zone of February, it's brought in over $170 million in the US, and $300 million worldwide. With fan ratings and box office that more or less ensures repeat and word of mouth business, there's really no telling how much this could wind up bringing in. It also only cost about $58 million to make, which means it might be the best thing to ever happen to Fox. This is an absolute home run that's going to cover for a lot of strikeouts.

While the concept of the film is a little more talky and self-aware than most, it's still a superhero action movie; it does well in foreign markets, assuming its allowed to be shown despite content issues. My guess is that it will eventually make over $600 million at the box office, which is kind of astounding for a property that took forever to make, and owes its existence to "leaked" footage and fan community viral work. A sequel is inevitable, and if there was an over/under on how many of these eventually get made, I'd take the over at 3.5 in a heartbeat.

So why does it make me think about marketing and advertising?

Because of the reasons why it's doing well, and how they could, honestly, be ported to advertising with better martech.

A little more background first. Instead of following the usual tropes, Deadpool breaks the rules and doesn't feel like something that's been made before. It also manages to feel subversive through comedic mayhem and the fact that its hero is a cheerful psychopath, like, well, every video game avatar for decades. Rather than go for beyond tired gritty realism, Deadpool enjoys having powers, and refuses to admit to any responsibility for, well, anything.

Now, imagine you were an ad pro for a beer company. What kind of earned media and social play could you possibly get for your client if your ad was able to go to the lengths that Deadpool does in content matter?

Well, the Miller Light "Catfight" commercial dropped eight years ago, and hasn't really been done since. It also got millions of viral views, and did all of that before mobile tech exploded the amount of videos seen online.

How hard is it, really, for Samuel L. Jackson to use some of his signature profanity on different versions of those Capital One card ads, but just with adtech that makes sure the viewer is likely of age? Or salacious fast food spots to deliver, um, more branding impact?

It doesn't just have to go down the crass path, of course. I'm a father of young daughters, and if I could opt in for animated movie spots instead of horror trailers for the next five years, I'd be all over it. But the Deadpool tactic (hell, just being able to have a spend for the Red Band trailer of that movie would work) is where the growth will come.

You know how the rest of this goes, right? Adtech and martech that already exists on a retargeting level, that just needs to make the jump to the last mile. Cable and broadcast providers that have to sign off on the possibility of an outrage letter or six. And the money, as always, ready to come in and change the equation at a moment's notice.

Oh, and one last thing on this? There are already ads with profanity, and wildly successful ones. On podcasts, where hosts who do off the script reads seem to be bringing in major bank.

After all, if you can tune in content with this kind of rating, why can't the ads match what the audience has chosen to accept?

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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.

Better Call A Second Screen

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

The other night, I settled down to watch one of my favorite shows, AMC's "Better Call Saul", the spin-off to "Breaking Bad" that stars veteran comic genius Bob Odenkirk in a dramatic role. This column is only tangentially about that, though. I did something fairly rare for me; I watched it live. And in so doing, got the note for the "second screen experience", in which you can go to a web site and get additional points and trivia while the show plays out. So I did.

The content is fairly low-level, and doesn't really add that much to your enjoyment of the show. But what is being offered is a reason, however thin, to continue to separate yourself as a viewer, from the less lucrative on demand or subsequent streaming service, along with a greater share of voice for the show's lead advertiser. (Acura, and it says something fairly impressive that I remembered that, right?)

Now, the BCS crew is clearly making all of this "extra" content for later DVD release, so dishing out the additional behind-the-scenes filler doesn't seem to be causing them any undue strain. From an advertising standpoint, maybe it spikes the live ratings a bit, or helps to retain the audience a little more in subsequent episodes. On a personal level, I can't say it's going to work on me, because my professional basketball jones is strong, and a live game will always trump a canned drama. But I digress.

The point is that by using the now ubiquitous technology, the live show is made slightly more DVR-proof, and greater branding awareness of the network and advertisers is generated. If it works, and that's easily determined through live site traffic, we'll see more of it, on more shows. Maybe it will make the difference between what kind of shows are given the green light, and which ones are renewed or canceled. It's not just using tech to go beyond the traditional screen. It's using tech to fundamentally alter the business.

Which, of course, opens up all kinds of interesting marketing and advertising plays in the here and now, and much more so later, if the site ever becomes more interesting than the channel. Maybe more content unlocks on desired activity, like viewing longer ads. Perhaps you could get the season ad-free with, say, the acceptance of a test drive. Or the site uses retargeting tech to re-engage the viewer on show night. I'm pretty sure I'd notice, and probably even click on, banners for Saul Goodman. After all, I work in online marketing and advertising. I might need his services someday. (This is where people who are familiar with the show are, with any luck, chuckling darkly.

Now, something that has absolutely nothing to do with marketing, or advertising, but seemed to me absolutely fascinating.

After the show was over, AMC broadcast a talk show with Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn, who plays Odenkirk's love interest on the show. After a complimentary question about the chemistry that she and Odenkirk displayed, where the couple just feel like they've been together for years and years, Seehorn talked about an incident in which she tailed her co-star for hours, early in their working relationship, when Odenkirk was under the weather and unable to speak. Rather than fill the time with her own voice, Seehorn matched Odenkirk's silence.

You'd expect that to be awkward, and I'm sure that on some level it was... but it also made both actors very aware of each other, and to get beyond the need to impress, entertain, amuse and look good. Because, well, not talking. So they just became very aware of their body language, quirks and non-verbal emotions, the way that, well, people who have been in a long relationship with each other get.

Which also led me to the following realization. Many of my hobbies and day to day life lend themselves to similar experiences. Poker games. Going to a game. Playing a round of golf. And so on. All of these skew a little more traditionally male, and all of them can be done without a great deal of chit chat. It makes me wonder if this is at play in career advancement, personal networking and the like. And whether it's just easier, for one group of people.

So if I'm quiet near you, in one of my consulting or office gigs?

Might just be a compliment.

And the start of a very long-term relationship...

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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.

Banners Up, Criminals Down

Not So Fast, Grabby

Two notes from the social feed this week that made me wonder if we've got a trend. And if we've got this one, it's a pretty big one.

First, news out of Paris that Criteo, the market leader in B2C retargeting for years, passed $1B in sales. That's a whole lot of ads, and the remarkable thing about that amount is just how deep and sustainable it is. Criteo is a worldwide operation, with banner ads working on a CPC basis, and placements in any number of languages and consumer categories. They also were leaders in monetizing mobile, and making the utterly correct move of having their own publisher relation and media buying team, rather than relying on the same old automated indexes that everyone else used. When ad fraud and viewability went from niche to world-changing problem in 2014 and 2015, Criteo didn't just have better and more exclusive ad inventory. They had the only placements that anyone felt good about having. The doom and gloom probably helped their sales, not hurt.

Next, the report from Integral Ad Sciences, the ad monitoring business that's been reflecting the doom and gloom in the sector for years now. Funny thing: they think this world has turned the corner as well, with a sharp rise in media quality in Q4 of last year, and fraud dropping by as much as a third in programmatic display. Viewability also kicked up for programmatic, and even did so on the dirty old exchanges, and while the numbers are still not where they should be -- honestly, when you know there's fraud and non-viewable ads in your campaign, the idea that there is less of it is not a great feeling -- it's still on the right side of the trends.

Why? Well, because Web advertising is best understood as a Google / Alphabet product, and that company isn't going to let a revenue stream go to ground, just because a bunch of criminals want to make it so. Pretty smart people there, and reasonably well-capitalized. They might be able to fight against the tide of crime.

And while this isn't probably going to be a smooth arc to perfection, since ad fraud is such a target rich environment with worldwide access, the fact that the world got better in 2015 is, just by itself, incredibly encouraging. It proves that there is not an ocean of malfeasance, and the good actors are not armed with brooms. It's more of a fair fight than that.

But hold on. Aren't banners still something that no one ever clicks on purpose, and built on the current user experience mirage of error clicks on mobile? Well, there's some of that, especially for low brands and pure acquisition moves, and marketers that are dumb/lazy enough to think that anything, even a premium ad campaign in the safest of environments, is truly set and forget.

But for good brands on solid content sites, for advertisers that know enough to run A/B tests to show lift, and use the medium for a constant stream of learning engine goodness?

Well, they probably never stopped running ads. Because ads work. Always have, always will, especially if you've got the right list, offer and execution. T'was ever thus, t'was ever will be. Even in a world with fraud.

Oh, and one last thing for all of the people who seem so invested in the death of a medium...

What medium were you hoping would gain from the demise of this one?

And hasn't someone else declared it's dead yet, too?

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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.

Too Slow Tech

Faster, Please

As I was scraping the ice off my car the other day -- it's been a mild winter, but it's still completely fine by me if it ends soon -- I was left to think, as always, about technology. How nice a remote starter would have been, so my car could have begun the job without me. How close that tech is, really. And lo and behold, when I got to my desk and checked my social feed, there it was: the app to not just remote start your Tesla from your Apple Watch (well, OK, missing both of those things), but to have it open your garage and come on down the driveway to meet you. Next, of course, will be when the car drives me to work, and lets me get more sleep, because hey, more sleep. And it's not as if driving is that much of a pleasure. I'd happily take another half hour nap. Naps are great. (I'm kidding, I'd probably just use the time to do more work. It's a sickness.)

Now, all of that tech is pretty much at our fingertips, and if it was our top priority as a nation, it would probably be legal in months. But it's not, and if I had to bet the over/under on when it would actually happen in my MidAtlantic part of the world, I'd want at least a decade. That will be a decade of unnecessary deaths from driver error and fatigue, preventable fatalities where the car could have taken over for someone who was intoxicated or suddenly ill, increased greenhouse gases from the inefficient use of transportation, and, dammit, a decade of naps that I could clearly use.

It's not just the driverless car that's going to come slower than you might want. Wearable technology has a clear use in remote monitoring in healthcare, but it will probably take a really long time, because, well, inertia and billing and the medical establishment's lack of regard for patient competence, or tech they don't own and operate. We've mapped the human genome years ago, but the clear and present advantages of such a breakthrough don't seem to be very apparent.

Want to go beyond the health sciences? There's traces of water on Mars, and the ability to draw replenishable power from solar panels, and... no timeline for when we're going to have more than probes up there. There's an increasing amount of water on moons in our solar system, which means that there might even be alien life within reach, but once more, no clear timeline on when we might move than from conjecture to proof. 3-D printers and the Internet of Things and all of these next level businesses that you read about in the Gartner Group or see valued in the markets, all of it tantalizing close, but slow, slow, slow. We were supposed to have flying cars and robot laundry and so much more by now, right?

Why? Well, we're spoiled. The tech that's in our hands every day -- phones and screens and the like -- has gotten so much better, so quickly, that we're lost all perspective on how fast things actually happen, and how it all has to be backwards compatible with the existing infrastructure. Also, how many parts of our world are *not* like the Internet, or able to take down years of venture capital before it can exist without clear profit.

Sometimes, the pace of change and technology all seems to be going so bewilderingly fast, especially when it runs against ethics or employment or the environment. But in reality, it's not going fast enough, and we will, someday, wonder how we managed to put up with life as we knew it.

Tomorrow comes fast. With another forecast for snow to clear off my car.

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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.

Past The NFL Event Horizon

Showing Its Age?

I'm a father of daughters, and while I'm a big sports fan and blogger, I've never really insisted on my kids liking what I like, or watching what I watch. That's even extended to past Super Bowls. But with the game this year featuring musical acts they've heard of during the halftime show, I extended the invite to my man cave, then took notes of the neophyte reactions. There's possibly some telling stuff here for the future marketing of the biggest show in America, but one that's going to need to grow to replace aging demographics fairly soon. So instead of providing yet another ranking of the ads that cost $5 million to show during the telecast and next to nothing online, let's get into the diary...

> Pre-Game

The news that people bet on how long the national anthem will go was utterly fascinating to the kids. They immediately whipped out their phones to time it, giggled like mad when it became apparent that Lady Gaga was milking it, and we were off to a rollicking start to the evening of snark.

My youngest then asks, "Dad, why did the airplanes fly over the stadium?" Can't say I've got a good answer for that one. Also, having been in stadiums where that happened? Not pleasant!

The amount of preparation and pretense around the flipping of a coin also strikes the crowd as kind of crazy. Looking at it objectively, I can't say they're wrong. Why a coin? Why do we need to explain that the coin has a heads and a tails, as if that's not kind of how coins work? Why not Rock/Paper/Scissors (Nothing beats rock! Good old rock!), or just have the ubiquitous Microsoft Surface tablet computers on the sidelines spit out a random generation? Well, Because Tradition. Moving on.

> First Quarter

Willem Dafoe replaces Marilyn Monroe for the latest Snickers ad, and it just causes bewilderment. "Who's that guy?" Then, after the reveal, with maximum sarcasm, "I love the transpobia." Cheap advertiser humor might not be a great move in another decade or two.

Oh, and the ultrasound Doritos ad, and Puppy Monkey Baby for Mountain Dew? Jaw-dropping astonishment, but no interest in, say, having some of the product. (Both were in my cave, actually.) I suppose that's what they were going for. In less explosive news, as they've heard and loved Flight of the Conchords and Key and Peele, they were good with the Marmot and Squarespace ads. Though not, of course, actual customers.

Second Quarter

Carolina scores, but running back Jonathan Stewart does not hold to the team's season-long pattern of giving the ball to a kid. (They know about this because, well, I've told them.) This gets a lot of side eye from the new audience, and more or less kills off any rooting interest for either team.

As for Peyton Manning, who you would think would be on everyone's mind after being in a billion ads? Not on their radar. They don't do ads outside of this game, really. They do kind of laugh at him when he stumbles on defensive pressure, then tries to throw an underhand pass forward that ends in sloppiness.

By the end of the second quarter, the party is entirely on their phones trying to Snapchat each other with the most embarrassing possible exposure, and are clearly just killing time before halftime.

Halftime!

At the two hour mark, people are lapsing into food comas, but the appearance of Coldplay gets them back online. They sing along without too much enthusiasm because they know the songs, then express concern for the innocence of the youngest when Beyonce and Bruno Mars enter the arena.

Good times are had as we all kind of Mystery Science Theater the experience, and when the telecast moves to a retrospective of the past 50 halftime shows, complete with video of multiple performers who are no longer with us, they're more or less blissfully unaware of all of the recent deaths. As soon as the music's over, so are the teens.

Third Quarter

My youngest is in the game just long enough for her to be the only person in the room for the PSA on domestic abuse. Kind of happy she was tuned out at that point, honestly. My wife and I send her off to bed, and that's it for the next generation for the rest of the night. In terms of good snark, my wife contributes "Is he still alive?" as a reaction to the Christopher Walken Kia ad, but otherwise, well, not much to note.

So, final tally?

My good TV screen holds no sway over their personal phones. A game that you don't get into by a certain age won't hold much sway. Telling someone how much an ad costs won't make them care about it, other than to wonder just how messed up adults are. (Can't argue with them on that one.) It's still football, and no matter how much you dress up a dull game, dull games are dull games.

By the end of the third quarter, I was pretty much the only way paying attention, even to the ads. When I checked in with everyone afterward, they were glad they watched and had the time together, but mostly just because it was family time, and no one asked me who won. I suppose they'll watch it again next year, but I can't say for certain. You've got some work to do, NFL...

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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.

The Emperor's New Super

When my kids were younger, I'd read to them before bedtime, mostly because it would spark conversations, and there's nothing better in my world as a father than the conversations.

One of which has occurred often enough so that the kids know the answer before they even asked the question. "Daddy, what's your favorite fairy tale?" My answer, always, is "The Emperor's New Clothes", the classic point of how peer pressure to see something that isn't there doesn't, well, create it's own reality. I give it my own special spin by noting how much I love the tailors in this story, who get paid for, well, nothing. (When I tell the story, they get away clean and live happily ever after. A better ending, really.)

So it's the days before the final pro football game of the season, which is also the 50th of its kind. It's also the week where the media persists in the shared public delusion that ads with a $5 million 30-second price tag are culturally relevant. Also, that we should watch them with the same attention that we might, well, watch the game, despite the fact that they will all be online now or later, and they are, well, ads. Many of which will be beaten into the ground for anyone who watches sports within a week.

It's also, well, right in my wheelhouse, in that I blog about sports as well as marketing and advertising. So why resist the easy content, right? I should just kick my feet back and let the blog write itself, maybe with a piece about old vs new (one of the team's quarterbacks has been on every ad campaign in the past 15 years, while the other has a young guy that's likely to be on every one in the next 10 years), or serious vs. fun players, or...

Well, no. I just can't do it. Because while I enjoy that advertisers have a gold ring to shoot for -- it's not like there are many creatives that get the chance to talk to nine figures of people at once -- the plain and simple is that this was an irresponsible marketing decision decades ago, and it's a more irresponsible one now.

But it's not really the reach that's driving this, because getting to nine figures of people isn't really a good move for anyone outside of maybe a laundry detergent manufacturer, and maybe not even them. There's just not that many consumer segments where the prospect list goes that deep.

It's just the spectacle of how much the placement costs, and the knowledge that every 30 second spot is another $5 million down the memory hole.

As for the idea that the ads are content now, well, no. They are ads. And while content has gone down in value a lot in the past few years, with user-generated work and fan fiction and cosplay and all sorts of weak tea getting a foothold in the mainstream, um, no. They are ads. Even the "best" native work isn't content, because They. Are. Ads. Moving on.)

Paying attention to these campaigns just because of the price tag is like going to a 5-star restaurant to drink the tap water. It's like making a new car purchase decision based entirely on the paint job. It's like refusing to consider clothes in a shopping trip if they are on sale.

It is, basically, insane.

And the fact that the insanity happens every year, and only seems to get more insane?

Well, that doesn't make the emperor any less naked, does it?

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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.

They Who Must Not Be Named

Pleased To Meet You

The other day, I was on the phone with a good friend from my network, for the first time in a long time. As we caught up and talked about some of the places we've been, the conversation turned to a mutual acquaintance that had done well for themself, while their company had, well, not. As my contact had inside knowledge on the size of the largesse, and how little that seemed to be, well, earned, the mutual thought went through both of us: namely, what a perversion of the process this was, and how unjust it seemed, compared to what others had done and received for their time.

It is, of course, a terrible place for your brain to go, and yet, it's pretty much irresistible. Think about it long enough, and you'll lose your faith in capitalism, or at the very least, a just and loving deity. But the plain and simple fact about people who drive no value to anyone but themselves is, that, well, at the end of the day, they have to be them... and in so being, they will be unlikely to know real peace or satisfaction from that windfall.

Or, at least, that's the hope.

The reality is, of course, whatever occurs in that particular situation. We also might not have the full story of the work done by the person we didn't think much of, or what their real agenda or mission was. For all we know, we've got it all wrong, or even if that's not the case, that they might be doing amazing work for charity, or have a bevy of challenged family that need the funds. Hell, even if it's all going to terrible luxury purchases, some artisan had to make those, right? Capitalism wins again.

There's also this, and the very obvious reason why this entire post was (as far as you know) theoretical, along with anonymous... my contact and I are tight, but what if we had the conversation in a coffee shop, rather than on the phone? And the right / wrong person was in said shop, and caught wind of our true feelings?

Well, that's how billables, opportunities, and connections dry up, honestly. And if we've both learned anything over the years -- and we've learned a lot -- it's this: there is no such thing as job security in this world, and you are only as good as your network.

Which might include our affluent friend!

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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.

The Ever-Constant End Of Email

User Error

In my feeds, there's a column I've seen at least 30 times over the years, all by different authors, with different words, but the same point: email is just the worst, and it's going away.

It's time-inefficient. It's strangling people's days. Such and such company got rid of it altogether, and now they are swimming in cash and endorphins. Along with the non-standing desk, the existence of coffee and the fact that some companies persist to have meetings, there's no greater silent killer of the business class. And so on, and so on.

What I'm always reminded of, in the scant moments that these things pass by my eyes, is something I picked up in a college philosophy class. I'm reducing it from it's complete definition to a more useful simplicity, but here goes...

The Naturalistic Fallacy: What is true for me is true for all.

There's probably a dozen ways to reach me digitally. Social media accounts, email channels, texting numbers, instant messenger windows; honestly, whatever platform you want, I'll work with it. What you'd also find in all of those accounts is that the in-box is clean, or will be within a day. (Also, that the way to use email is different than IMs, so your in-box for one isn't as critical as another. But I digress.)

Do I spend the entirety of my day on email? Hardly. I'm pretty ruthless with my time, and when I'm at my best, I am only doing one thing at a time. What I get out of email is, on a daily basis, a lot more than what I put into it.

That's because it compromises the majority of my competitive analysis and research for the day. If someone is sending me stuff that isn't helpful, I block it. I don't take days off to let the task accrue to dangerous levels, and I file obsessively, because that practice routinely pays off when I'm trying to answer a question or formulate a plan.

There's also this: I can't really think of too many co-workers, over the years, that were overwhelmed by email... who I'd really choose, if I were starting a company from scratch, to hire.

Literacy matters. Focus is important. Discipline in how you spend your time is a major difference between companies that work, and the ones that fail.

So... who, exactly, are we trying to save with these innovations?

And if you are one of these folks with the email problem, shouldn't you look to adjust the way you work, rather than hope for the functioning world to change for you?

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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.

Five Universal Truths in Marketing & Advertising

In my current gig, I'm doing something I've been lucky enough to do a lot in my professional life, and that's pitch to an entirely new category with entirely new rules of the road. (In this case, pharma to health care providers.) But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the commonalities might inspire in your own day to day.

1) Relevance and timing always matters.

No matter what you are pitching, getting it to the target with optimal placement, sequence and utility is worth its weight in gold. Otherwise known as why adtech companies exist, really.

2) List trumps offer, and both trump creative.

T'was ever thus. If you aren't playing in the right arena, and bringing the right pitch, it doesn't matter how well you might execute it. I've seen some truly regrettable pieces deliver great results, and perfect shiny objects fail. In so many different categories and channels.

3) Niche players don't care that they are niche.

No matter how specialized a list is -- and in my current gig, we can cut it down more than any provider I've ever worked for -- it's not as if those people wake up in the morning and fail to breathe air, grope for the coffee and struggle with a commute. Everyone is subject to the same kind of challenges and issues that others face. If everything in your consideration set is about the niche, your work will never try enough execution options to learn optimal practices.

4) Tactical wins travel.

There are test results that I've picked up in wildly different categories, and sometimes not even in the same channels, that inform my work today. That's because most creative test wins work for reasons behind niche reasons, especially when the results are conclusive and repeatable. Besides, most of our current lists are affluent, in demographics I've pitched to before, and overlap other clients. Experience, and a good memory, helps.

5) Every audience rewards respect.

A side note. Nearly a decade ago, I was doing acquisition work for a very compromised category that offered financial services to people with poor credit. Dominant art was all about fans of money, and if you didn't read the copy, you might think that you were reading lottery ads. Faced with a sameness issue that highly compromised learning optimal practices, my team and I created pieces that spoke to specific very good reasons why the prospect might have a need for cash fast. Hospital emergencies, transportation problems, services shut offs, and so on.

The ads performed nearly as well on response as the fanned currency. But more importantly, they did dramatically better on conversion. By bringing the point of the ad to the prospect's very good and very real reasons for converting, we put them in a better frame of mind to take the action we wanted them to take. That approach quickly took hold across the industry.

Regardless of category, your prospects are likely time-stressed, easily distracted, and wanting to be efficient with their browsing decisions. Designing and executing your campaign around their needs, rather than branding points or legal dictates, is almost always a clear win.

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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.

Managing for breakthrough insights

Finding your insight

In the current day gig, I got to do something that's almost always a hallmark of a winning position. I get to call my shots.

What does this mean in a marketing and advertising context? Well, I can't get into the very proprietary details, because you have to be one of our clients to benefit from what's being learned. But I can tell you my qualifying points on what I'm looking for in an insight.

1) Does it have a story?

Think of this as the analytics equivalent of an elevator pitch. To me, this means that what you are bringing to the table comes from work that you've done before. Also, that you can summarize it quickly. It's not that you need to dumb down the business, but you do need to be able to explain the insight at a 5,000 foot level, and not get lost in the weeds. People are busy, and they shouldn't have to live in your head space for a half an hour to get the benefit.

2) Does it have measurables?

Especially in creative executions, there's nothing like putting numbers to your new way of doing things. It takes everything away from who did what and whose role is being threatened, and into the realm of an optimal learning engine, where everyone has some skin in the game from better art.

3) Does it scale?

When it comes to analytics, you don't want one-off solutions that can't be used outside of a single execution or two. What you want is that classic old-school direct marketing gold, where you can replicate the win in other places.

A final point: there really isn't anything better, in this line of work, then having your goals in your own hands. Because when you've been a consultant for as long as I have, you know the speed in which you want to work, or the tangents where you are going to explore. Explaining every step of the way probably means you are going to skip steps, or never take the long way and learn something deeper.

So if you ever find yourself managing someone in my tribe? Don't just get their buy in. Get their all in, because when you do that, you'll get so much more than what you were asking for.

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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.

My Super Bowl Ad Dream

Buy Me By The Pound

So here's a fun moment from the feeds last week, says the consultant who was clearly responsible for the monster snow storm by having fun at the expense of people who freak out over snow storms...

 Advertisers who release their Super Bowl ad on social media before the big game get much more from their campaign than those that wait.

Which means, well, one great and very meta point: You don't really *need* to have your ad on the telecast to get a significant amount of the pop.

You just need people to *think* it will be there, and they will put it in the same list of ads.

You can also go for the super meta version of this, which is when you say your ad has been rejected due to a network's standards and practices as being Too Hot For TV. We call this the Go Daddy route, though even that business has gotten away from that, seeing how, well, no one ever remembered what Go Daddy did from their ads.

Anyway, now that we've cracked the code of the Emperor's New Ad Roll, a small but potent point that will eventually reach mainstream attention...

Why are some ads considered to be content, and only for a limited time, just because they have a large media buy?

A 30-second spot in this year's game is said to sell for $5 million, while the telecast itself will reach around 115 million viewers. So if the advertisers wanted to just reach people directly -- say, through the same YouTube channel that many people will use to view the ads before or after the game -- they could do say, and cut out the middleman with direct micro-payments. And since we all know, as advertising and marketing pros, that some of those households are far more valuable than others, particularly for the automotive buyers...

Well, let's put it this way. I'm considering a new car purchase in the next 90 to 120 days. I'm looking at a crossover SUV, as we're a family of four with a dog and significant storage needs, with the occasional vacation travel trip. I have a good credit rating, and I don't have a locked in brand type. I am willing to watch ads... but only for the right price. 

So hit me, Nation's Automotive Advertisers. Save on your TV spend and show me your 30-second spot for just, say, $5 per 30 seconds.

Heck, I'll even agree to watch 10 of them a day, or submit my information so you can check my credit ratings and my past new car purchases, so you can see my sterling reputation as the sweet spot in your demographic.

And all you have to do is get away from an antiquated and absurd media buying approach, and into a thoroughly modern absurd media buying approach. Can't wait to hear from you! And a dozen others just like you, so that we can be truly informed about our next new car. (Mostly, informed about how we can miss a few of the payments.) 

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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.

The Marketing Genius Of Snow

Tell my family... I'm bloated

As I write this from my comfortable cave in the greater Atlantic Seabaoard megalopolis, there's a forecast of snow for later in the week. It would be the first of the season in what has been a particularly warm winter, and as this part of the world averages a few feet of the white stuff per year, we're all taking it with the usual shrug and bear it cadence of tough East Coast people.

Oh, wait! Actually, people are losing their minds. Like always, really.

Perhaps I'm prejudiced by my upbringing. I spent my college years in one of the snow capitals of North America (Syracuse). There, everyone either didn't have a vehicle, or had one that they could handle in snow., because they pretty much had to, what with yards of the stuff coming down every year. We then lived in the Bay Area for several years, which meant that snow was something that you visited at altitude, rather than something you actually had happen to you, without a choice. But as we moved back here nearly a decade ago, we're back in the realm of SNOWPACALYPSE.

It starts with the warnings, each one slightly more dire than the last, about 4-5 days before the SNOW EVENT. Assuming that the forecast stays wet and white, we then get a constantly changing estimation of how much will stick, loving descriptions of various degrees of wind chill, and to the minute descriptions of what will happen and when. Which are almost never accurate, and which no one will call to task for inaccuracy later.

As we get closer to the Big Day, we move to media coverage of the increasing amount of near panic from local residents, which creates a Prisoner's Dilemma of grocery shopping around perishables. You might not drink milk or eat eggs or bread on a daily basis, but by the 24 to 36 hour mark before precipitation occurs, especially if it's during a traditional commuting hour, you will find yourself elbow to throat with people who will treat the acquisition of such items as a life and death moment.

During the actual Snow Event, you'll probably be... well, doing what you normally do on a quiet night at home. Watching some show or movie on your content provider of choice, or working from home if your gig allows it, because the plain and simple of precipitation is that most of us won't have our lives too dramatically inconvenienced by it. So long as the power doesn't go out, the most that is going to happen is that you won't get to do exactly what you want to do, assuming it's an activity that's outside of your home, for some small period of time. Maybe you'll also have to do a bunch of cold and wet yardwork when it's all over.

Oh, and if the whole thing turns out to be not such a big deal, and the weather prediction professional turns out to have entirely exaggerated the threat?

Well, there's always the next storm. Which generally shows up in less than a week, and everything resets, with no one retaining any memory of the past SNOWPACALYPE. While the rest of the nation quietly, or not so quietly, snickers at just how unable to deal with any kind of disruption everyone in the Megalopolis seems to be.

I've got to tell you folks, as a marketing and ad pro, I'm deeply envious of such professional opportunities. When in our lives do we get a captive audience of wildly present people, ready to take all of our content without a first thought? Or any kind of penalty for being wrong? We're in the wrong business.

(Oh, and if the coming storm turns out to be entirely worth the hype, and the Blizzard Of '16 causes fatalities, civic unrest and extraordinary expense? Well, then, at least you'll finally feel justified for hoarding all those groceries.)

Happy surviving!

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Decorating for other holidays

Like This, But On My Lawn

Every year, around this time on the calendar, I become very wistful. A quick digression to explain.

When my wife and I had our first child, and much more free time, we had such grand plans. Not for the usual things that fall by the wayside -- the kid won't ever eat sugar, watch television, play video games, etc. -- but for other aspects. We both come from creative backgrounds, and also have idiosyncratic and highly active senses of humor. I listen to a ton of comedy podcasts in my spare time, have done stand up comedy a few times, devour specials on Netflix and go to the occasional show. I also write for comedy on other blogs, and really can't get through the day without exploring such tangents in my mind.

Not the least of which was the idea that decorating one's house for Halloween and Christmas, while fun and fine and dandy, really didn't go far enough. At least, not for the purposes of High Creativity.

To wit: why not President's Day? (But only the more obscure ones; giant heads of Martin van Buren and Millard Fillmore on top of the house, just to see what kind of comments we can generate.) I'd rather skip Valentine's Day because it just seems tacky, but some kind of vengeful leprechaun action might be interesting for St. Patrick's, or maybe just a great mass of snakes to symbolize what was being driven out of Ireland. Mother's Day should get as many mothers in the windows as possible (Mother Teresa, Ma Kettle, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention), and Flag Day could get the place looking as close to the UN as possible.

This doesn't even get us into the more obscure ones, of course. Big Bill Murray printouts for Groundhog Day, the never ending spree of numbers for Pi Day, all manners of madness for Leap Day (perhaps the most special of holidays, given the rareness)... there's opportunities on a daily basis to be the kind of people that the rest of the neighborhood either treasures or avoids. If your life is the story that you tell about it, I'm fond of the idea that the story should be big and memorable. Or, failing that, more than a little goofy. It's how I'm wired.

Of course, this isn't what happens in the day to day. Just staying ahead of the writing, the day job, the fitness goals and the other obligations is 3 or 4 jobs, and there isn't enough money, or time, for the things we should be setting aside money and time for (college, retirement, charity, sleep...), let alone hardcore foolishness and inexplicable public behavior.

But, still.

The temptation to construct a field of presidential busts in a "Hunger Games" style arena on the front lawn, just to make the President's Day weekend more than a little sinister and very, very memorable?

Well, if we ever manage to have a significant Wealth Event from one of our clients with equity, it's gonna happen.

And if it starts a movement?

As good of a marketing moment as anything I've ever done, honestly...

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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 visit the site. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Taxes On The Stupid

Pay Up

When I was a (had to be) remarkably painful to live with teenager, my mother would spend a few bucks on the lottery. As a single mother raising three kids on her own, it was likely one of life's few and good diversions for her, as a bartender who logged late hours to keep a roof over our head. She'd connect more than a few times on the three digit daily draw, and when that happened, she's share the wealth. Nothing too dire or difficult in that, right?

Well, of course not. But here's where I prove my stripes as a world-class pain in the posterior. Having always had a political bent for aspects involving class systems and how poor people stayed poor (yes, you guessed it, we were not particularly well to do), I had picked up what legislators called lotteries, in private.

"Taxes on the stupid."

Now, to be very clear about this: I'm not insulting my mother's intellect, either then or now. The same way I'm not insulting anyone who played and lost in the most recent spasm of activity. We are, at our core, nearly helpless to resist the momentary good feeling and day dreaming that hits when we've got a ticket in our hands, and the simple truths of the purchase are undeniable. Can't win if you don't play. It's only a trivial amount of money. It's fun to dream.

But what's not fun is paying off people who think you are stupid, and proving it with the payment.

So I made my mom a deal, all those years ago. I told her that the next time she hit the lottery, I wanted no part of the winnings... but that every time she played, I wanted her to give me a dollar. For whatever reason, she put up with this disrespect. And then I left those dollars in plain sight, in my room, near where she'd drop off laundry. (Why wasn't I doing my own laundry by the time I was a teenager? No idea, really. Probably because, as this whole story shows, Mom had the good wisdom to regard laundry as a welcome respite from putting up with me. Anyway...)

I was fortunate enough, as a kid, to have relatively steady employment. First as a paperboy, then as a gopher and counter person at a miniature golf course, and finally as a content provider at a pre-Internet telecommunications start up. So I didn't have to touch that pile of dollar bills that started piling up on my dresser. And when they hit a certain tipping point -- probably $50 or $60 -- my mom told me tht she wasn't playing the lottery any more, and I'd made my point. (She also refused to take back the pile.)

Since then, lotteries have only gotten bigger, with a spiraling amount of "news" coverage that just strikes me as downright unseemly. I pay my own taxes for being dumb, mostly through gambling with friends at a poker table or in fantasy leagues, or less often, in casinos. (It's still a tax on the stupid, but the difference is that I can feel like I've earned my luck in those games. It's a more fun illusion.) But I never got the lottery bug, because I've never lost the need to refuse payment of cynical political operatives. Or the knowledge that the only people who consistently get paid from this game are the ones working for the house.

Where this ties into the mission statement of marketing and advertising perspective is that we all, as professionals, make pitches to ourselves just to get through the day. Knowing why a pitch works allows you to counter it, use its power to subvert it, and maybe, in the long run, make better choices. Or, at least, better pitches.

Our world would be better without lotteries. Especially if we just donated to charities routinely, rather than believe the most over the top cynical political move of saying how a portion of the proceeds goes to a good cause, so losing in the lottery is just like charity.

And the trick to taking the juice out of this purchase, and keeping more people from succumbing to inertia the next time the pot gets big enough to make everyone forget the earlier losses?

Well, turning off the unpaid propaganda for it in the media would be a start. As would keeping in mind what the people who run the games think of the customers...

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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 visit the site. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The Serious Business Of Fun

Yes. Yes, We Are.

Recently, I was asked for a single word that related to my idea of fun. Which, as any routine reader of my content will attest, is an absolutely impossible request to fill. I'm barely able to answer, in one words, yes or no questions. An occupational hazard. But anyhoo...

After thinking way too long and way too hard for anyone who actually knows what fun is, I finally have an answer. (Don't worry, there's a practical marketing and advertising application for all of this later.)

Fun is Focus.

You've probably rolled your eyes at this point and are about to go find anything else to spend your time on than more time with a workaholic, but hear me out.

Name anything that you find to be truly fun -- for me, that's water slides, poker, golf, playing Frisbee with my dog, playing my guitar, making my kids laugh, watching a good game, and other less public activities (there's a particular Michael Palin skit from Monty Python that works here)... and there's a common theme running through all of it.

It's the only thing that I am doing at the time.

You are almost never having fun when you are doing two things at once. Fun is utterly ruined by distraction. It's destroyed as soon as you look past it to the next thing, even if the next thing is also Fun. Fun is relaxed, monomaniacal, and childish... because children are the only people who rarely have two or more things going on in their heads at once, and who are totally present to the moment.

Fun does not involve clocks, unless having to fit into a set span of time is part of the Fun. The fact that Fun can end at any moment is, perversely, part of the Fun, because that's what makes you so present to it. It's not usually found on mobile devices, because every mobile device is absolutely ready to distract you with something else (perhaps something very Not Fun) at any moment.

Want more? Anticipating an event is often more Fun than the actual event, because the actual event has to be enough Fun to prevent distraction, whereas the anticipation has no such bar to clear. People who are having fun are almost always attractive on some level, because others want to be more like them.

Finally, this. Fun is a choice. I've had great times cleaning my house, just because. There have been aha moments in analytics that can make me giddy. Catching the scene of an optimal tactic, then tracking it down to its workable essence? Downright joyous.

And if you're in a situation where you are not having fun at work, and you used to? Ask yourself whether your manager isn't keeping enough distractions away from you, so you can go back to having the fun. (Oh, and this is also a reason why consultants... seem to be having all the fun.)

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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 visit the site. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

When Marketing Gets Personal

Wall Crusher

This evening, as I checked my social feed for news from friends and family, I saw a GoFundMe for someone near and dear. It's to help pay for the medical bills for my niece and goddaughter, a high school senior who is undergoing an operation to take out thyroid cancer. You can see it for yourself here, and by all means, feel free to add to the fund or share it.

It's a simple page, for what we all are hoping is a simple procedure, because while life is rarely fair, it's more than a little obscene to have to deal with any form of cancer at age 17. Especially when you have always played by the rules and taken advantage of your opportunities, through diligent schoolwork, athletics, activities and more.

As scary as something like this is, I have every confidence in my niece, and on some level, I'm not surprised to see her take this step to deal with the situation head on. In any equation where there is a wall between this kid and a goal, it's a bad day to be the wall. You are, on every level, putting your money on a winner with this campaign.

I knew about the surgery, of course. The GoFundMe is another matter. My family tends to be pretty private folks, and incredibly hard-working. But where this goes beyond just using my platform to publicize a good cause is to note how, once more, technology is changing the world in a million small and powerful ways.

There is, honestly, nothing to stop anyone in the world with Web access from directly impacting someone's life in a small but potent way, through acts like funding a medical procedure. We spend so much time noting the horrible moments of the Web -- shameful comments and behavior, timewaste content and addiction enablement, social media use by evil actors, malware and fraud and so on -- that it's really easy to forget how much good can be done.

That's the nature of communication without filters, and peer to peer conversation. A power that can be used for great good.

Oh, and one final point? I didn't coach her on anything involved with this. Seems to be entirely her idea, and her execution, and as a consultant, I think she nailed it. Pitch is short, sweet, and to the point -- and keeps everything in its proper perspective and tone.

Nice work, Em. Now, go kick cancer's ass.

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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 visit the site. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Five Steps To Effective Ad Creative

Step 3

In my capacity as a marketing and advertising consultant, I'm frequently put into the position of advocating creative changes that, to be blunt, serious design pros resist. I do this for one very simple reason. My loyalties are not to the finished piece in someone's portfolio. They are to the performance metrics that the piece will generate.

This doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, and it rarely is. But to a time-stressed and/or inflexible designer, it can sure seem that way, especially if the changes are coming from outside of their chain of command. Advocating for effectiveness can put you into a position of stepping on the toes of personnel that got the piece through a committee to approve, and challenging the wisdom of their professional judgment.

Do this without a degree of finesse or experience, and you can set yourself up to fail by by appearing out of your element. Force the changes through with pure stick and carrot (or the designer realizing that you only have those tools in your bag), and you work without their emotional buy in. The most you can hope for in that situation is inefficient and under-effective execution. The least will be sabotage, personal drama, and other side effects of failure.

So.. how do you side-step all of that?

Step 1 - Forget the why.

Why a designer is opposing change, especially if they are not on a comfort level to honestly communicate, is an endless rabbit hole that you do not want to explore. Maybe your designer is insecure about their position. Maybe they secretly wish they were back in art school. Maybe they are trying to win awards so they can get out of their current gig. Maybe they feel that you are trying to turn them into a hack. See what I mean? Endless maybes, and all of this is not getting your job done.

Avoid the temptation to psychoanalyze, and focus on the most effective uses of everyone's time and talent. You do that by...

Step 2 - Replacing emotion with data.

In direct marketing creative, this can be done through putting metrics to practices, and ideally, by showing analagous test results that support your changes. A ghost button may be very forward-thinking and spot-on for many consumer classes, and will look sharp in a portfolio... but if the audience doesn't skew to a younger and more affluent demo, it might just be the wrong message for the brand's price point. Serving the audience gets easier when it's not your taste, but your numbers.  

Step 3 - Use the NS10s.

A small aside: in a previous professional life, I fronted a rock and roll band. We made multiple albums, in studios that had some of the best sound equipment money could buy. But when you got down to final mix for what a consumer might hear in their sound system, you had to -- absolutely and without question -- run the work through consumer-level audio.

The speakers that every pro back then used were Yamaha NS-10S. They were the industry standard that every sound engineer utterly hated, because they were flat and dry and lost many a nuance and small point that you worked like mad to achieve. But they were an absolute godsend as a sanity check.

The same concept applies in design. Working up materials that look fantastic on full screens and oversized monitors, but don't work in a mobile-first environment, can easily sink your project's effectiveness. And just saying that the piece is responsive and will render to fit a screen doesn't mean you've done all you can. Knowing how your audience will see your materials should be the start, not the end, of the process.

Step 4 - Design to individual people, not demographics.

Everyone is prone, on some level, to the Naturalistic Fallacy. (That's a philosophical construct, best simplified this way: "What is true for me is true for all.") Even if the prospect is dramatically different from the team, creative pros will choose their pet fonts, colors and favorite tactics when possible, because no one thinks they have terrible taste, or starts a project with the goal of ugging it up for the dumbos.

But when you do a fairly simple exercise in naming your prospect, you get past uncharitable work for, say, 55-year-old homeowners that skew 80/20 male, and have disposable income for lawn equipment. Instead, you start making something for a guy with progressive lenses, financial worries from kids that are in college and retirement not too far off, who uses the Web to try to keep up with new music so he's got something to talk about with his kids. (See how we're sneaking in sympathy for the prospect? See how your designer is feeling better about moving away from that cutting-edge and hard to read font, and giving you an easy call to action, because the prospect has so much more o worry about in their life than finding the buy button?)

Step 5 - Be grateful.

If you are able to get a design pro to show real flexibility, don't take it for granted. That minimizes the contribution they've made to the process, and also keeps you from having a stronger relationship in the future. Instead, find ways to bring back some of the earlier prestige points if possible, and show that you are open to collaboration. A little listening can go a long way here.

Besides, if the ad can be both effective and a portfolio piece? Then everyone's happy. For a very long time, and maybe so happy that they'll find you other gigs later.

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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 visit the site. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The New Way To Troll

Don't Snack On Me

I'm partial to political humor in my daily entertainment mix, which means I've found any number of "YallQaeda" takes in the past day. (In case you haven't been following the news, YallQaeda refers to the Oregon militia members who are occupying a federal building in rural Oregon.) The protestors have vowed to remain for months to draw attention to what they see as an unjust criminal proceeding against two local cattle ranchers, and have managed to get considerable media attention... but now that the authorities have decided to turn off the power and wait out the occupation, rather than risk an armed conflict, the news of the day is that the protesters are using social media to ask for donation of supplies, including socks, snacks, and energy drinks. Which has led to a considerable amount of ridicule, really.

There are, of course, any number of people ready to talk about the politics involved here, or to show how the police treatment of these protestors might differ from, say, how Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or those who come near a political convention are treated. This shows a lack of sophistication in the difference between police forces over the country, in my estimation, and Oregon is not exactly a population-dense area. But I digress, and as a consultant, it's not my role to show a side in these matters.

What I find new and interesting about this, especially from a marketing and advertising perspective, is how advances in communication technology allow for fundamentally different interactions between citizens. The protestor message may be brought to you by cable news and and the mainstream media, but the response sure isn't, especially when a postal address is given. (Yes, there's some good fun to be had from anti-government activists collecting supplies through the use of the US Mail. Stay with me on this.)

Imagine, if you will, how moments in our nation's history might have been fundamentally altered with social media and the Web. The Boston Tea Party as flash mob. William Randolph Hearst's efforts to foster fervor around the sinking of the Maine with a timely hashtag. Pancho Villa would have been all kinds of a sensation, honestly.

I don't mean to make light of what might turn into a terrible event. As a nation, our history does not always stay comedic when individuals take up arms against federal employees. But what's different about this is striking and substantial, and speaks to how the news is now not just an industry, or a profit making enterprise, but also a participation sport. Either from the breaking of the event through the use of social media, the escalation of the same, or the changing nature of it. Especially if that P.O. box fills up with items of note.

What does this mean for marketers and advertisers? Well, you have to wonder if a youth-oriented snack brand is going to take a shot at nearly free publicity by putting their wares in the box. No reward without risk. Or if supporters send enough of one brand to make it a de facto sponsorship. Lots of companies make socks and energy drinks and the like, and the temptation to get on the social media gravy train might be too strong to resist.

As a consultant, I'd probably advise a client to steer clear of this if we had any kind of standing in the marketplace. The humor could drain from this situation very quickly, after all, and no one wants their brand to be at the scene of a tragedy. But if I had an entirely new brand and no PR dollars, or was an also-ran or failing already? I just might roll those dice.

And as for what else might come out of this? Well, that's the intriguing part of social media. Supporters and detractors find you the same. And what one group might send to satirize or diminish your position might be very different than what you were asking for.

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Post-Season Potpourri

Cleaning up in many ways

Two unrelated items as we get back into the swing of things after the holiday break...

First, on the off chance that anyone in the audience is involved in the creation of movies or animation, I've got a new tale to pitch. Saint Necassrius, the post-holiday embodiment of putting away all of the trimmings of the holidays, so that your house doesn't turn into that sad place at the end of the block where everything is up for way too long. Won't you sing with me?

Hail good Saint Nescarrius
He cleans up all our crap!
Halfway through his task you just
Might find him taking a nap!
(because he is a middle-aged 
demon who enjoys his naps)
Hail good Saint Nescarrius
He cleans up all our crap!

I'm thinking Walter Wolf, but either with a Krampus horn or elf trappings. Really, it depends on whether you want to scare your kids into helping, otherwise their stuff disappears, or if you are more happy with them clearing out and giving you time and space to yourself. (And yes, my kids get odd holiday traditions, the foremost of which is the Christmas Weasels.)

The second involves finally getting around to taking the better half to her popcorn movie of choice, which is the latest Star Wars installment. I'll defer from getting into any major plot points in this, since that sort of thing is just poor form for those who haven't been yet, and are still planning to go, but I've got complaints. Minor ones, for the most part, and pointless because of the astounding success it's achieving in the market (see, this turns into a business column after all), but to wit...

1) There is, I read, some actual Oscar buzz around this film, because people seemingly feel bad about big money blockbusters never getting critical acclaim. To which I would say... um, why?

You don't go into a sci-fi blockbuster looking for people who are acting up a storm. You go in for explosions, effects, and other feet up, brain in a box stimuli. (And yes, I know, plenty of smart people like to entertain themselves with populating the Star Wars universe with additional content. That doesn't make it Art. If the audience can do better than the creators, in my opinion, that doesn't speak well to the efforts of the professionals.)

2) You might have heard how George Lucas, the maker of the first six of these franchise events, is disappointed with how the latest has turned out, because it feels to him like a retro event, and that the new corporate owners (Disney) have done more work at this with a merchandise and licensing angle, rather than make something new.

It reminds me of nothing so much as an aging rock band that makes the audience suffer through the new album, rather than play the hits. You can do the former, of course, if you are willing to make less money, play smaller venues, and live with lower crowds. Heck, for a true validation of your art, you can do what David Bowie did in the early '90s and not even use your own name on the marquee, just announce it as a different band. That way, everyone who comes knows what they are getting, and you aren't tempted to use the crutch of past hits to get the crowd on your side. You'll live and die with the new tunes.

But that wouldn't single-handedly save Q4 for theaters, or even generate some weird back-hand award talk now, would it?

As a marketing and advertising consultant, I've always known what acts I was doing for love, or art, and which ones I was doing to pay the bills. If you are very lucky, you can sometimes mix the motivations and hit it with your whole heart, and true pros never give away the game of when it's just a mental exercise.

But no one gets to do just what they want to do, all the time, without compromise or commerce.

It's just a shame that Lucas had his moment of discovering this in front of a reporter, really.

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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. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.