 |  |  |
It's the Message and Not the Medium
Marshall McLuhan is momentarily famous for five words: "The medium is the message."
With those few words, he got it wrong.
While he wasn't specifically thinking about television-even a common light bulb is a medium-he wrote these words during the golden age of television. Television at the time was the most important medium.
Today, the most important medium, in my view, is digital or internet or social media. Some people call it new media. I think the word "new" gives too elementary a focus to what is merely an evolutionary process, probably an inevitable one.
No one can question the current and future impact of digital media. Sir Martin Sorrell reduced his giant conglomerate during the recent recession by nearly 14,000 employees, 12 per cent of the work force. Now he is ready to hire back-but only in the digital area.
However, digital will always be, I believe, an important supplementary medium. The reason for this should be obvious to anyone in the communications business for any length of time. The fact is, in terms of what we do, it is about the message-not the medium.
If the medium were so important, we would be communicating today by smoke signals.
My feeling is the communications disciplines are merging. The 30-second television spot, while still hanging on, is diminished in importance. The hum-drum news conference, still effective, has been splintered by more personal communications techniques.
Advertising and public relations, once kissing cousins, now find a convenience in marriage. At our company, we try to train people in both disciplines. If we don't, the ad solution to a client problem might come form Mars and the PR solution Venus. When that happens, it is a disservice to the client.
The problem is the focus on delivery systems or platforms. The emphasis should be on the content, and that was secondary to Mr. McLuhan who felt the medium was paramount in the 20th Century.
McLuhan died in 1980. I think if he had somehow stuck around to the age of digital, he would realize the message will trump the medium every hour and day of the week.
After all, the influences of delivery platforms come and go. Messages can also change. They are ever involving. However, that is the point: Messages are fluid while delivery platforms are finite and static.
It could be, someday in the distant future, that messages are communicated by telepathy. The emphasis here-even if the pronouncements were by a latter day Galileo-would not be either on the means he used to communicate or even on the personality. It would be on what he had to say.
In other words, everything we do in any sphere of the communications business is about the effective delivery of messages. If that were not true, what relevance would we hold for our professions?
It's About Attitude. Not Age.
Surviving professionally after 50 is all about attitude, not age. But sometimes it is hard to convince the 35-year-old boss in the corner office whose historic frame of reference is Aerosmith--not Elvis.
When I was in my 20s, I looked at someone approaching 35 as middle-aged, slightly mildewed; someone at 50 as definitely over the hill and someone my age, close now to mid-60s, as a fellow who plays checkers all day and waits for the grim reaper's visit.
These days, if you are looking for a job at 60, you have about the same chance of landing one as being caught-as they say about 40-year-old divorced woman getting married-in the crossfire of a terrorist attack.
It's not easy out there.
I think the same perception-versus the reality-carries over to older professionals who have jobs in advertising and public relations. There is a feeling they have lost a step, and probably need to retire or take a less challenging or less creative job in the agency.
This stereotype is sometimes reinforced by people in the industry, such as Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, or even business philosophers like Charles Handy.
Sorrell, himself 65, said recently ad agency management is too old to really understand new or digital media. Business philosopher Charles Handy, nearly 80, once wrote that creative directors are less creative as they grow older.
This is nonsense.
The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright did his best work after 60; world-renowned heart surgeon Michael DeBakey helped oversee Boris Yeltsin's by-pass surgery in his 90s, and the famous fried chicken man, Col Harland Sanders created a fast-food empire, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), when he was a pensioner.
In my view, Picasso, Matisse, and certainly Monet, did their best work after age 60. And then there is Harold Burson, PRWeek's Man of the Century a decade ago. His creative and strategic advice is still sought by Fortune 500 companies. He's 88.
But what I find is that many older professionals simply don't know how to handle themselves, whether in job interview or even when approaching potential clients who just might be younger than their children.
For this reason, I put together my list of pointers for professionals who have already journeyed into what some of us call the "yellow leaf" period of our lives and careers:
1. Remember--tattoo it on your arm or somewhere--survival in the business world is about attitude and not age. Steve Jobs will, we all hope, one day be 65. My gues is that no one will think Spanish moss is hanging on his persona.
2. Live in the present. Corporate war stories are great around the bar but make you sound stale in a job interview or when being interviewed by a perspective client about your agency's services.
3. Don't get into the "been there, done that" syndrome. In most businesses, particularly the ad and PR business, it isn't about what you have done but what you know you can do in the future. Give the person sitting before you a glimpse of how you are going to increase his or her business.
4. Don't be tone deaf to current culture. Yes, I watch MTV and VH1 on occasion and subscribed most years to Rolling Stone magazine. This doesn't mean one is trying to re-capture youth. It does mean that one's frame of reference is something other than the 1960s.
5. Bring different dimensions of your personal brand to the table. In other words, continually add to your professional portfolio new talents-talents that will impress a job interviewer or a potential new client. We're not talking about the ability to do magic tricks here.
6. We live in a technical world. Introduce yourself to it if you haven't already. Don't brag that you once stood in front of the printer waiting for a fax to come out, or that you are lost in any other computer program than "word".
7. As a corollary of No. 6, be technically social. We once heard of an agency in New York not being hired because those making the pitch were not on Facebook. Be familiar with social networks, and use them.
8. Don't be yourself. Be your re-invented self. This goes contrary to a lot of business wisdom out there. However, is you are consistently adding to your portfolios, you will be an interesting subject for a job interview or a client interview.
What can we say. It's a jungle out there and getting tougher. You need to learn to play the game with finesse, or settle for an under-funded retirement and a shuffleboard court in Sun City.
IIOC: Out to Lunch on Social Media
Dear International Olympic Committee,
Get a grip.
The IOC has issued what appears to be a lawyer’s equivalent of a Rube Goldberg device in handing down what Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic participants can and can not do when it comes to social media.
The participants—identified as “Accredited Persons”—can only blog about their own Olympic related personal experiences when posting anything that has to do with Olympic content.
In other words, even though some of the more famous sportsmen and women might have thousands of fans following them on Tweet, they can’t post a blog commenting on anyone other than themselves. They are also similarly restricted in pictures they post
This is all in an apparent attempt to protect the Olympic brand, and, though it seems rather far-fetched, exclusive television rights. In doing so, they have only hurt opportunities to enhance the Olympics for television viewers even more.
In essence, they are putting a kibosh on Olympic buzz. The sad thing is they might be so far out of touch this hasn’t dawned on them.
The restrictions read in part:
“It is required that, when Accredited Persons at the Games post any Olympic content, it be confined solely to their own personal Olympic-related experience. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, blogs of Accredited Persons should take the form of a diary or journal and, in any event, should not contain any interviews with, or stories about, other Accredited Persons.”
And the IOC rules go on to say:
“Accredited Persons may feature still pictures taken of themselves within Accredited Zones provided that such pictures do not contain any sporting action of the Games or the Opening, Closing or Medal Ceremonies of the Games. It is the Accredited Persons’ responsibility to obtain the consent of other persons appearing in any pictures which may [be] featured in accordance with this Section. Still pictures may not be reproduced in a sequential manner, so as to simulate, in any way, moving images.”
Now that’s a mouthful.
Perhaps someone should inform these Olympic-sized bozos that social media creates an awareness for large television events and the ratings go up. By trying to contain social media, the IOC is shooting itself in the foot and undermining its own broadcast strategy.
Pitch Strike Nonsense
Some 20 agencies in Belgium have gone on what they call a "pitch strike" which is tantamount to going into battle armed only with a toothpick.
The agencies-and we're talking many major network agencies here-obviously have never head of what one-time Young & Rubicam CEO Tom Bell called the Golden Rule: "He who holds the gold, rules."
It is not that the agencies in Belgium, and elsewhere for that matter, don't have a solid case. They are saying they will boycott every pitch that has more than three contenders and an incumbent participating.
They say it is nonsense for the advertiser to hold and the agency to participate in tenders that often have 10 or more participants invited, and they are right on several counts. The agency has a better chance investing its pitch money at the local casino.
However, our friends in Belgium have gone about it all wrong. A pitch strike will have the consistency of cotton candy and the staying power of an amateur boxer in the ring with a Klichko, either one of the brothers.
After nervous Belgium agencies have sat out a couple of juicy pitches, the strike will fold. On the other hand, I would like to think the ad industry as a group could appeal to the collective common sense of the advertisers.
It is insanity to enter a pitch with as many as 10 agencies competing. If the agency is serious about winning, the economics don't work, especially since winning one round doesn't insure victory in a second or third round of a pitch. At each step, the agency ups the ante and spends more to win.
There exists in Ukraine another situation. Many times a tender is called when, in reality, the winner has already been chosen. However, the advertiser wants to maintain a sense of transparency to the outside world so invites multiple agencies to compete.
My view is that advertisers are generally reasonable people. The ad industry should forget strikes they won't win and try, as a group, reason and common sense with the company people who make the decisions.
For the advertiser, wholesale cattle calls simply drive up-not push down-the overall cost of advertising. Additionally, do they really want their agencies chasing every skirt that walks down the street and not concentrating on their accounts?
Of course they don't. I think there is room for discussion here.
Six Super Bowl Winners
Living in Eastern Europe, we didn’t camp out at a sports bar to watch America’s Super Bowl in the wee hours of the morning on satellite. However, like true ad folks, we did watch the television spots later.
For our European friends, the Super Bowl is the U.S.’s largest sports spectacular with more than 90 million viewers tuning in to the championship football game, that’s one-third of all Americans.
While the cost of a 30-second spot was a impressive $3 million, as a whole our Willard Marketing Monthly panel was rather disappointed in the TVCs. Most were sophomoric at best.
There was a traditional and juvenile “flatulence” spot as well as just plain goofy spots with men walking around in their underwear—which seems to be a new trend in commercials.
However, our experts have picked the six spots out of more than 50 that appeared which we feel work as entertainment, though it’s probably a stretch to say all helped move product or services.
It is interesting to note that the first Super Bowl in 1966 drew a third of the audience as 2010 but way back then the ads only cost $46,000 for a 30-second spot.
We chose a spot devoid of all images with the exception of a Google page as the top spot. We felt it best communicated an effective message by showing Google’s ease of use.
However, ad agencies be warned: The spot was created in-house at Google and not by an agency. In fact, a handful of the spots were created by consumers and not ad hot shops.
So, without further discussion, Willard Marketing Monthly’s best ads of America’s Super Bowl.
 |
Title: Fences Brand: Budweiser Agency: DDB, Chicago |
 |
Title: Green Car Brand: Audi Agency: Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco |
 |
Title: Whale of a Tale Brand: Bridgestone Agency: Richards Group, Dallas |
 |
Title: Man's Last Stand Brand: Dodge Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore. |
 |
Title: House Rules Brand: Doritos Agency: Consumer-generated |
 |
Title: Parisian Love Brand: Google Agency: In-house |
Welcome to the sixth issue of the magazine too ornery to die, the magazine for CEOs, marketing specialists, advertising mavens, public relations executives and anyone else with the God-given talent to move product and services.Selling the story an important part of marketing
Often the success of a marketing campaign fails because the public relations support effort is not successful in bringing a corporate change or new product the public attention needed.Skype Gaining Steam in Ukraine
After a slow start, Internet telecommunication-the most famous example being Skype-- is catching on with Ukrainian businesses. There are two major and obvious reasons for this: It saves time and moneyThe Accidental PR Specialist
Contrary to the belief of some, public relations is a rather complicated profession, though many stumble into it like a drunk can often find his way home by sheer luck.The Fantastic Facebook Challenge
This month's contest is simple. We expect tons of entries and have turned over the judging of the contest to our arbiter of good taste and man with a plan, the Sagacious Swami of SpinTraditional vs. new media: Which one wins the loyalty of Ukrainian Internet users?
More Ukrainians say they trust so-called "new" media over traditional media but 70 per cent say they would not pay for access to online content.These are just two of the findings in a major study by iVOX* Ukraine on the attitudes of Ukrainian internet users toward traditional and new media.
We would like to be fans of this Sanahunt billboard. After all, it does command attention, sitting as it does across from the Dnipro Hotel in Kyiv. It makes the viewer wonder, "What is happening here."Tough Love with The Sagacious Swami of Spin
Back for a sixth issue of Willard Marketing Monthly to answer the toughest of questions on advertising, public relations and life in general is the Sagacious Swami of Spin.The Corpse in Waiting?
I think it is time we put the terms public relations and advertising in a time capsule. Fact is, we all went to sleep one day and woke up in a new and different world.
