In a world where time is of the essence, the infographic is king. Unfortunately folks sometimes try to squeeze waaaay too much info in an infographic. I mean, if I'm staring at it for more than 2 seconds trying to figure out what you're trying to say, I might as well be reading a paragraph (heaven forbid!) At least then I'll feel confident that by investing my attention for 13 more words I will be rewarded by knowing your (hopefully) coherent thought.
The infographic du jour is from Design Taxi, and it is an interesting snapshot of colors of logos. When I was working at MSN, the network undertook a redesign. They thoroughly tested their various design templates, and the conclusion was... blue. Still. Again. "People like blue." This apparently is true (check out the infographic below), but does that make it memorable? Moreover, is is reflective of your brand personality? Does everyone like the person who is trying to please them, or do they more admire the person who expresses who they are, living in the moment, being genuine?
(Those weren't rhetorical questions. Feel free to answer them.)
I'm still looking at updating my portfolio, and today I dug up an advanced predictive piece that was drafted five and a half years ago. It was grounded in hours (or minutes) sitting cross-legged in my tent gazing into my crystal ball...foretelling the far-distant future of... Web 2.0.
I was looking at updating my portfolio site recently, and flipped through the archives. One of my favorites is one that's a few years old—a campaign for Intel, in conjunction with Dell. It consisted of an email, print ad, a set of banner ads and a landing page. The offer was a free backpack for the back-to-school season.
What's so great about this particular ad? It's simple. (I mean, the concept is simple, the design is simple, the copy is simple, the call-to-action is simple. Thus, the answer is simple, too.)
It's been a year since I last posted, and it had been quite some time since the previous post as well. Life tends to get busy, especially with a kid and all that other life stuff. It's like the children's book The Mitten. Your life gets full, and just when you think it can't get fuller,something else wedges its way in.
It is the thick of summer and the rain is dumping, I tell you, d-u-m-p-i-n-g. From my 20th story window I can see two cruise ships docked at Elliott Bay. I do wonder what all the out-of-towners think? "Oh, it rains in Seattle." Yes, it does, but not like this. I actually saw lightning on my drive this morning. I have not seen lightning in years. It's a special occasion. I'm actually happy about the rain! I love it, especially when it's a break from summer heat and sunshine.
If you're looking for a marketing musing, then I direct you to a local establishment, which was picked by AdWeek for the Ad of the Day - Museum of Glass.
So... I've been busy at work with a simultaneous product-launch-website-launch-corporate-rebrand-oh-yeah-and-let's-reorg-while-we're-at-it event. Hence radio silence for the past couple of months. Energy all focused on those things.
Within that, I did write a few case studies. Here's one.
The ad world is abuzz with the Wieden + Kennedy ad for Chrysler during last night's Super Bowl. I am struck by how bold a move that was.
A. Lot of time to fill. On the one hand, long form copy is easier to write than short form. You can take a little time to get to your point, and you can meander around any nuances you want to make. But that's completely different when it comes to television. I picture being the creative director whose lap receives this plum assignment. First thought: "HUGE opportunity. Hooray for me." Second thought: "Oh, fuck." B. Not cheap. "Less than $9 million" for 2 full minutes. Which means more than $8 million. That's a lot of room to fail. Not to mention production costs. C. The flip side of "lots of room to fail" of course is "lots of room to succeed." Which I suspect they have done. D. "Imported from Detroit." Just brilliant.
The life of a freelancer is like a teenager learning to drive: full throttle, screeching halt, full throttle, screeching halt… Ad infinitum. When it’s slow, you’re dying for some throttle, and when you’re at full throttle, of course you’d give anything for a break.
I’ve been pleasantly full throttle for two months now, which makes me very optimistic about the economy. But also is currently leaving me depleted. Which is why I had to remind myself to take a breath.
If you're like me when you’re swamped with new projects, it's very easy to procrastinate on that much-needed battery recharge. "Well, only another week and then this project will be done. I'll take a break then." But the day before you deliver the project, something new comes up, or there's a last-minute addition that means you have another week's worth of work. And no break. What to do?
Take a breath.
And I've learned that one breath is not enough. I can’t tell you the number of times when I've said, “I need to take a moment.” And I take exactly that: one moment. And then immediately get wrapped up around whatever was on my mind in the first place.
I utterly missed the point of the exercise, n'est-ce pas?
So take seven and a half of those giant gulps of air. Seven and a half is the designated number because it's not a neat, round 10 or five: you will get a little bit out of your head just by keeping track of the count. And keep doing it until your mind has wandered on to something delightfully meaningless and irrelevant to your immediate work. (If you are afraid you're going to forget something important, you should be keeping notes written down somewhere other than that tightly wound brain of yours).
Lastly, it never can hurt to ask for time. I got an email from a designer three days ago inviting me into a project she’s working on. "The copy's not right, and I’ve gone back and forth with the client several times. We could really use your help. He wants to launch on Friday." I emailed the client and said I couldn't get to it for a week, fully expecting he'd go find someone else. Instead, he said no problem.
It's hard to contradict the venerable Mr. Godin, and I'm not going to try. It's very interesting, though, to suggest that we've all been "branded to death." Going further, if consumers are going to choose a product not merely based on the message, but in order to belong to a tribe--how are they going to identify with that tribe? Social media? I'd like to think that the best product will win--at least the first consumers will be analytical about the product, before the followers come.
On a related-but-not note, I was speaking with a colleague who is 21 years old and was among the first Facebook users, and she was predicting the demise of Facebook: "I find I don't use it as much anymore. We're all getting too open. It's too much information."
If we don't have Facebook, how will we find our tribe? Fundamentally, the drive to belong is primal, and s/he who figures that out holds the key to the future, whether it's Facebook or something else.
A few days ago I mentioned I’d found 2 great B2B voices. Last week I talked about IBM (which still surprises me how well written their site is—though I should clarify that’s not because it’s sooo head-and-shoulders above the rest, but rather I still hold onto an apparently inaccurate IBM stereotype).
The other voice is TribalDDB.
In the agencies where I’ve worked (which is to say, not big ones), their agency website was always an afterthought since between billable hours and non-billable hours, billable is going to win every time. Apparently that’s not true for biggies. (Huh. Putting as much effort in your own site as you would a client’s. Smart. Maybe that’s why they got big.)
At any rate, what’s working in their voice? TribalDDB makes what they do sound exciting. They don’t overwhelm with too much information. And they speak in metaphor that distills the potentially dry service offering into something easily understood as beneficial. For example, describing SEO/SEM the headline is “Hey needle, time to burn the haystack.” SEO/SEM is spectacularly boring except to people who really understand its power. And guess what? That headline describes its power.
Why aren’t more B2B voices like that? Is the problem that TribalDDB doesn’t want to spend as much time getting to know it’s clients’ benefits the way it does its own? I sincerely doubt that. More likely clients won’t hand the reins over. They’re scared to be too different. And maybe it’s right to be afraid of being different. But standing out is also how you beat the competition.
So quite a while back I posted that I’m looking for great B2B
voices. They are hard to come by, in my experience. Over the course of the past few months I’ve looked and have 2 good examples, though I don’t think by any means this is the conclusive list.
Let’s start with the one I found first: IBM. I know, crazy, right? They have nicely humorous TV ads (which, as I mentioned, is where B2B often has fun), but who knew they could nail their voice on their website, too? If you’re interested in this stuff, which you must be if you’re reading this, seriously go to ibm.com.
They do a wonderful job of delivering the facts—which are of course heavy in technology systems and other topics that could easily become tangled, boring and jargony. They manage to avoid that very well. In fact, they are great at keeping it simple, warm and friendly—maybe not compared to a consumer product/website, but certainly compared with the competition.
The most important part is that they place a terrific focus on you.
The design (which is not my focus, but of course is relevant), is simple, clean and lets the content come through. Tabs at the bottom of the home page make for quick scanning of the volumes of info available on the site. Information on deeper level pages is also well divided into digestible chucks for the average scanning user.
Lastly, while their TV ads and website have a very different voice and look, it’s not too radically different. It feels consistent. IBM has a great UX and content team. IBM, give them a raise.
I get shivers when I see great ad copy. Just saw two today:
Billboard for Group Health Cooperative. For those who don’t know, Group Health is a big coop in this area. It’s a health care option that’s commonly offered especially at tech companies (last I heard, it’s still on the menu at Microsoft). The billboard had simple copy: Live Long and Prosper. Talk about nailing your audience AND benefits AND humor!
Small delivery truck for Staples. We all know the office supply company, so this doesn’t need explaining. The copy is “I break for empty staplers.” Brilliant. I love the double entendre of staplers as in the handy little device, and staplers being people who use Staples delivery services.
Mark Schaefer wrote a good post this morning that discusses a key point in blogging today: about how so many bloggers (or, as I may call them, "blogbots") engineer their blog posts based on keywords.
In my humble writerly opinion, content engineering is a slippery slope that may turn the relationship building aspects of social media into... meaninglessness. It used to be that only those who really had something to say went off and blogged. People who followed them were interested in hearing it. Now many are doing it not because they have something to say, but instead are focused on the delightful end result of
page views --> brand building --> sales.
Ideally, these keywords bubble up organically through what you would normally want to talk about on your blog. If you're forcing it, then you're going to sound funny. Robotic. And unless you're JPL, that's probably not the voice you're looking for.
While such a focus may yield short term benefits, you may well end up sacrificing the relationship part. And it makes the consumer kiss more frogs before finding their prince.
The marketing world is all atwitter (pun intended, of course) with the Old Spice social media success. @edlee pointed out quite correctly on 15 July that the phenomenal message generation was all started with millions of dollars in traditional media—the TV ads and the witty agency that came up with it.
Social media and traditional media don’t have to be bitter enemies: they actually are great friends. We marketers are still in the process of testing how to best use them (educated guesses, but still guesses to some degree). Old Spice just made the commitment. I mean, personal video responses to tweets? That’s commitment that most marketers would run from in horror.
“Boldness has genius, power and magic in it,” said Goethe (I’m citing not to show off my superior intellect, but rather so I don't have to go to all the trouble of linking to the quote).*
On the other hand, @edlee also just tweeted that Old Spice sales are down 7% in the US (not including Wal-Mart). Is that A) a game of knock-the-leader-off-the pedestal or B) numbers from before this campaign or C) proof that humor can distract too much from the real product benefits message? Time will tell.
* After posting I nerdily read up on this quote... apparently it is not really by Goethe. It's really by W.H. Murray who claimed it came from Goethe—presumably using an extremely loose translation of G's work.
Sometimes, you just gotta get out of your shell. As a creative, we're expected to be fresh and different and unique and resonant... all the time. It's exhausting.
There are many ways I've stumbled across to overcome this. Things like going to a different location (other than your desk), handwriting (or hand-drawing) rather than using the computer. Little things like these can make a surprising impact on what you create. They'll help you get out of the proverbial box.
The one I haven't seen written down anywhere is doing Bad Writing. You know the stuff. Cringe worthy horrors of adjective-laden, passive-voiced drivel. My technique is to sit down and purposefully write stuff that would never, ever make it to my portfolio. Throw in some needlessly poor grammar, too (see the headline of this post).
While you're at it, set your inner critic free and rip it to pieces for not being bad enough.
If you're a designer, throw color theory out the window, mix 72 different fonts, go wild with visuals that make you want to poke your eyes out.
I have a theory that this stuff sometimes gets bottled up in your system, blocking access to the golden harp-strumming prose and design that you need to make a living.
So open the tap. Let it flow. Write the worst possible stuff you can come up with. Often times after doing that, I walk away and come back. And find that towards the end of my flood of atrocities, there's the nugget of something good.
When it comes to social media, it's all about relationships, relationships, relationships (to borrow the timeless expression about real estate). What's exciting about social media is that these relationships can no longer be Potemkin's Villages constructed by companies. They can't be cardboard cutouts of engagement. These have to be the real deal.
Regarding "why corporate social media fails" - that's the issue. Being real. Real is what builds the relationships. Real demands that companies trust their consumers as much as the consumers trust them and their products (and the money they spend on those products). We socialmediaphiles can type till we're blue in the fingers, but companies have to trust their consumers. Really.
The reason why is that they don't have a choice anymore. That's not nearly as apocalyptic as it sounds. It's an exciting time to be in marketing! Embrace change, Corporate America/World. You'll gain ground vs. your competitors because of it.
It's a cop-out, I know, but I had a tough couple of weeks of illnesses; not mine, but rather my family and my feline companion.
The family are fine, but my cat didn't make it. The show must go on. I suppose that would constitute my observation about marketing as well as life. Sometimes despite your most valiant efforts in [life/marketing] you get overtaken by other events; then you get back on stage and do your damnedest.
Still on the hunt for the best B2B voice, but wanted to dive in on a great, underrated consumer campaign: the Travelocity Gnome campaign. What's working?
1. Voice and message balance. The creatives really nailed the slightly edgy, self-deprecating humor that resonates with the online-savvy, 25 - 45 crowd. Humor has to identify and "be one" with the audience--but not offend. This Travelocity does deftly.
2. On-message. Inserting humor is comparatively easy, but it's tricky to use humor without distracting from the message. The Travelocity campaign manages to walk that fine line successfully, for the most part.
3. Social media elements. The Facebook component of the campaign has been simple and easy, pitting 2 locations against one another for voting. Plenty of terrific photos. Once again, the humor and personality is present but not over the top.
4. Differentiated. Competitors like Expedia are taking themselves very seriously. Travelocity gets the creative advantage of being the underdog--and they're using it well.
I confess I originally thought that the Gnome would be short-lived. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next from McKinney.
There was a great article last week from MarketingSherpa entitled “Copywriting Lessons from Social Media.” It’s so good I won’t regurgitate it here, but it’s worth a read, both for writers and every marketer who makes a request from a writer. In short, an honest voice is so rare in copy that it sings when you finally see one.
Even rarer? A great B2B voice.
I can think of a few B2B TV ads (which air during the Sunday a.m. talk shows) that use humor to make the point about a B2B product. In web copy, we tend to get shy and return to our “innovative, industry-leading solutions” and other such gobbledygook. The trick for the copywriter is striking a balance between features and benefits. Obviously the B2B audience is less about having fun than getting useful information about your product. But that doesn’t preclude a great voice.
I am now officially on the hunt for the best B2B voices. Top 5 will be featured in a one-of-a-kind praise-ridden blog post by this humble copywriting blogger. Submit suggestions in the comments.
I’ve been writing a lot of webinar programs lately, because they STILL work and can be highly cost-effective for driving revenue. Here are some tips:
Leverage happy customers. This is two-fold: 1) to include in the webinar presentation itself, to tell your story to others then 2) to get testimonials for other webinars. Solicit feedback in follow-up thank you emails.
Tell a story. It’s true for any presentation, and this includes webinars. Stories take your ideas from the realm of the abstract and transform them into something real and personal. Even (especially) a product demo needs some concrete examples with which your audience and identify. Use challenges faced by your actual customers (better yet, feature that customer and let them speak in person at the webinar) and show how things have improved.
Looks matter. You don’t need to be a presentation wizard, but a few animations, colorful text or photos can make a world of difference.
Invite often—but not too early. Unless it’s a one-of-a-kind, can’t-miss, groundbreaking webinar, folks aren’t going to feel capable of planning that far ahead. I’ve seen a lot of success with webinar invites sent the day before and day of the webinar (obviously, test to see if this applies to your target customers).
Leverage content after the fact. Creating a great webinar is a lot of work, so use the content in whitepapers, testimonials, audio/Podcasts, on-demand replays, etc.
I drove past one of those letter-board signs this morning, one describing a service or product as "quality." As a copywriter, I cringe at the word, for a variety of reasons:
1. ____ Quality Widgets. Good or poor? The best or the worst? Quality originally was a noun, not an adjective, and it still screams for a modifier when immediately preceded by a noun.
2. Don't make me think. Good ol' Seth. Quality is abstract--it's not going to create an emotional reaction. It's going to make me keep driving. Did I remember what that sign was about? Nope.
3. Accuracy. Don't waste characters. Is "quality" really the strongest adjective out there for your particular product? Is there another word that's more specific? Of course there is.
The marketing world is all atwitter (pun intended, of course) with the