Handshake Watch: CRI

Cutting Edge Recruiters International, you're on notice.

The <$10K Website

If you're a small company or nonprofit, here's the good news about websites: Many elements of a solid site are becoming increasingly commoditized and are getting cheaper. Cases in point:

- Most every site should be built on a content management platform (in other words, allow you to update it easily without paying an agency $200/hr. to add a comma). CMS platforms abound, ranging from "free and limited" to "expensive and robust." But the pressure is downward. Costs are going to come down as more and more elements of content management are packaged and commoditized.

- E-commerce functionality has also fallen to earth. Especially if you're a nonprofit, merchant accounts have also gotten more and more commoditized. In other words: Need to take credit cards? Not a big deal.

- Design should never be considered a commodity. I say this as the originator of Handshake Watch and as fervent opponent of using stock photography. But again, if the budget is extremely tight, the thousands of free WordPress themes out there can provide a decent design groundwork (although the integration from blogging themes to a "normal" website is not as easy as it looks).

This is all a long way of promoting one of my projects ... a website that took full advantage of this growing world of web commoditicization to give a nonprofit organization a good-quality site, with no handshakes or stock photography, linking to full e-commerce functionality and including some audio/visual bells and whistles--all for well under $10,000.

I mention this client because this client also represents a great cause: raising money to provide free legal services to people with disabilities and low-income families. So check out The Fund for the Legal Aid Society (and while you're at it, view their e-commerce section and send a few dollars their way). Thanks.

The Sorry State of Conference Room Communication

This has been a growing observation/pet peeve of mine for about three years now, and it has now reached epidemic proportions.

People don't communicate.

I'm serious. Everybody talks. Nobody listens. And the more people who are involved in any given communication, the less effective it is.

The first problem is the organizational setting. Some organizations are healthy and based on respect; others are clearly fearful and dysfunctional. You can tell immediately. My rule of thumb is that the people who claim to have "thick skin" and be "brutally honest" are actually the most over-sensitive and passive-aggressive. In the faux honest setting, people appear to confront each other without really doing it. By the end of the meeting, they're all nodding and happy, as if they've come to some agreement. In truth, they have come to no consensus whatsoever.

The second problem is this: Our verbal communication culture is mirroring our virtual culture. Right now I'm writing in one tab in Google Chrome. I have five other tabs open. I'm checking my email. I just got a call on my cell. I have IM open. According to my toolbar, I have 12 programs open at the same time, and I'm toggling between almost all of them.

In other words, if I get 30 seconds to devote to any one task, I'm lucky. Interruption has become the norm, so much so that we've internalized exterior interruptions and have started interrupting ourselves when no one else is around.

In conference room communication, the level of interruption is astounding. It used to be considered rude to start talking before the guy next to you has finished his sentence. Today, it's expected. Which means that when you talk, you have to talk quickly before you get interrupted. Talking, in fact, becomes a competition. Which is why in the end, everybody is talking and no one is listening.

Now tell me, if you actually got to the end of this post, did you do it without getting interrupted?

Viva la VIA?

Introducing the newest CC visual post, this time explaining in 90 seconds why Starbucks is making a branding mistake in introducing its new VIA(tm) instant coffee.

Strange Budfellows

Introducing the first Conk Creative TV commercial produced for Anytime Fitness. This is currently running for four weeks in five states. In Minnesota, you can catch it during the KARE-11 and WCCO morning shows.

Feedback welcome.

Simple Works

Once in a while I catch a real-life reminder of the benefits of "keep it simple, stupid"--or as former Gov. Jesse Ventura was fond of saying (in my opinion, Freudianically in relation to himself): "Keep It Simple AND Stupid."

Freudianically is not a word.

For all the hand-wringing about photography, copy and art direction, the concept (and how well it communicates) is what matters most. In this billboard campaign, which I see every day on the corner of Snelling and St. Clair, the client clearly wanted to communicate one thing: People who think they're driving "buzzed" instead of drunk are most likely fooling themselves, and they're a danger to themselves and the rest of us. How to communicate that on a billboard?

They could have gone any number of ways, but the execution they use is simple and perfect. First, they show the outcome, not the problem. (They could have pushed the edge and shown a cadaver, but that's going a bit too far.) Second, they show the exact same picture twice. The result is a Highlights Magazine effect, where you immediately start looking for differences between the two photos... only to realize, of course, that there aren't any.

Mission accomplished. Drunk driving and buzzed driving are the same thing. Stop fooling yourself. I get it.

The only worry now: a billboard that's so effective, it distracts drivers, like they're drunk. Or buzzed.

Red Flag Phrases, Part 1

Introducing a new feature on Chaos2Clarity joining the ranks of "BrandWatch," "HandshakeWatch," "Focus vs. Inclusion" and "Random Rewrites." I'm calling it "Red Flag Phrases." Its purpose is to provide some preventive medicine for the marketing world by exposing the words and phrases that mark the early warning signs of impending catastrophe.

Kicking off Red Flag Phrases is the mother of all red flags. If you or someone you love says the following in a marketing meeting, stop immediately:

"We'll do that in a Phase 2."

What does this phrase mean? It means that the client has scaled back its expectations and/or budgets for a particular project... or it's been decided that surviving politically means tackling things in smaller bites instead of all at once. As in, "We'd love to have the bells and whistles on our website, but let's just get something up in time for the trade show and handle everything else in a Phase 2."

In the realpolitik of marketing, this phrase is very common and completely understandable. The issues marketing directors face related to budgets, politics, deadlines and unreasonable expectations are staggering (especially today, when those who are fortunate enough to be employed are expected to do the jobs or two or three people).

The problem is, the phrase spells impending doom for a project. I'm quite certain that in some universe, at some time, Phase 2 has actually happened according to plan and everyone has been happy. I've yet to experience it myself. More commonly, what happens is that the creative agency does the interim work (minus the "Phase 2"), and the client isn't happy with the results. Why? Because Phase 1 is boring, and even though clients say they don't expect to see Phase 2's bells and whistles yet, deep down they really do.

The key for both sides in this situation is to stop for a second and hammer out what they really mean by Phase 2. More often than not, with early detection, Phase 2 can be reached in Phase 1 without anybody getting hurt. (I was going to write more about this topic, but I'm saving it for a Phase 2.)

SEO vs. Brand

I recently found myself in a place of clear brand contradiction. These are the moments when Philosophy (how you want people to behave) meets Behavioral Psychology (how people actually behave). And the two go at it until they either shake hands or kill each other.

Working with a client in a brand consulting capacity (Philosophy), I followed the adage that the best way to cut through in terms of marketplace positioning is to define not only your organization or product, but an entirely new category around it (think "SUV" or "overnight delivery service"). I thought they should define themselves in a totally different way than their competition, and then name it. I presented the idea. I proposed a name. They liked it. It was time to do a new website. Time to use the new positioning. Time to conquer the world.

I put on my writer hat and developed a whole page devoted to this new angle, this new perspective, this new term. I storyboarded an animation they could use to show it visually. Then I made sure to sprinkle the term throughout the site to achieve consistency, clarity, repetition and reinforcement. Mission accomplished, right?

Wrong. Now it was time to look at the site from the perspective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO, at least in terms of title and description tagging, is the ultimate in behavioral psychology. To be effective, you have to live in the real world. What do people look for? How do they search for it? What terms do they most often use to find exactly the information they want?

SEO has quickly become one of the most important marketing considerations for virtually any company--especially business-to-consumer organizations. The problem is, it flies directly in the face of otherwise-effective branding. To effectively position something, you have to go against the wind. To make something SEO-savvy, you have to go with it.

If FedEx had been founded today, there would have been a huge fight among the marketing folks about whether to create the category of Overnight Delivery Service:

"It's original, no one else has thought of it!" would shout the philosophers. "And if we don't take it, someone else will!"

"No one is searching for it!" would shout back the psychologists. "It has no relevancy!"

In the end (as with everything except politics these days), the solution was a compromise. The new positioning could still be there front and center, but the site still had to be loaded with already-used keywords--both in the copy and in the tags.

Now comes the experiment: Will anyone start searching for the new term and create a truce between these two warring camps?

Buyers vs. Users

A recent study revealed some interesting truths not only about technology, but about human nature in general. It was commissioned to solve a mystery: Why do so many people buy technology-oriented products, only to return them a week later? The conclusion: because as a species, we're basically bipolar.

Maybe it's more accurate to say that we all have multiple personality disorder: We're one person when we buy something; we're quite another when we own something. For example, when looking at say, digital cameras, we care most about having lots of features. All things being equal, we want the device that offers the most stuff so we feel like we're getting our money's worth.

The problem is this: Once we take the camera home and start using it, we become an entirely different person. Our needs change. We want simplicity. And because loading a digital camera with all the bells and whistles needed to get us to buy it also increases the device's complexity, we get frustrated and return it. (The poor camera-maker then throws his or her hands in the air and says, "What do I have to do to please these people?!")

Dividing our personalities into "buyers" and "users" is quite fascinating on all levels. Think about how it applies to dating (buyers) vs. marriage (users), and you probably have a hit screenplay on your hands. Lately I've been thinking about how it applies to purchasing creative services. So often what companies look for when shopping for an agency is Creativity (with a big "C"). That's one of the reasons why Big Agency spends so much money on cool digs, hot young account execs, juice bars, ping pong tables and retro video games.

That gets the account. The problem is, once the account is won, the client switches from a Buyer to a User. Now what they want is high-quality work, responsive account service, strong attention to detail and reasonable prices. Unfortunately, putting on that sizzling dog-and-pony show to win the RFP costs money. Details and customer service? How boring.

My suggestion: Try to have a User mindset from the beginning. That way, you'll never get used.

Taking an Untraditional Approach

I'm happy to share the results of a recent project that covered the "concepting" part of my copywriting, concepting, clarity tagline.

A joint project--won through an RFP and executed between Conk Creative and 185 Media--the challenge was to create a 5-minute video that would get high school students excited about Hennepin Technical College.

The concept was to make the video as untraditional as the school itself:

• Focus on action and showing the facilities (rather than a talking head).
• Rather than a standard voiceover, make it a fast-cut music video with a custom-built soundtrack.
• Incorporate the actual sounds of the school's different areas into the soundtrack.
  
• Use clever transitions that link the different areas of study (e.g. a stove burner in Culinary Arts to a fire during a Firefighter Training exercise).
• Draw a clear and appealing distinction between the experience of Hennepin Tech vs. a traditional 4-year college.

Here's the result. Let me know what you think.

Chipotle vs. KFC

In the first of what I hope will be many visual Chaos2Clarity posts, I offer a 90-second analysis of recent brand-related uber-moves made by two fast food giants.

BrandWatch: The Photographer's Guild

Apparently, you can call the Photographer's Guild on Snelling and Selby for any of the following:
- Weddings
- Portraits
- Commercial
- Geo-Political Consultation

(And I thought it was weird that LeeAnn Chin was selling frozen yogurt...)

Ah, the Good Old Days...

The Incredible Effectiveness of Contrarian Marketing

It's rare that a piece of marketing really impresses me, but this one figuratively blew me away.

In a move to become less selfish (and knowing that my family is incredibly lucky while lots of people are really hurting right now), I recently gave some money to Second Harvest. I probably responded to the organization's latest direct mail campaign because I remember Bruce Springsteen talking them up during one of his recent concerts. (That's some high-level product placement...)

Anyway, in considering an organization that can enlist The Boss, I thought I knew what to expect in the way of follow-up. So when I received the standard thank-you note envelope in the mail recently, I knew it was going to be either the type-written form letter or the more advanced it-looks-type-written-but-it's-actually-just-Lucinda-Handwriting-font-with-your-first-name-ink-jetted- at-the-top-through-the-printer's-list-merge-program form letter.

But I was wrong. Take a look at this. It's a handwritten note. I repeat: an actual handwritten note! I've long considered the benefits of going totally contrarian in marketing (like responding to the current Twitter Mania by telling my clients to reach their target customers by sending them telegrams), but this is Marketing Contrarianism at its best. When is the last time you read a handwritten note, especially from a total stranger? (When's the last time you actually sent a handwritten letter? Or any letter?)

Bravo, Second Harvest. You're a great organization in every way, and I'm happy to use this supposedly advanced social media tool to promote your beautifully inspired use of a lost art--and to encourage everyone who reads this to support your cause.

Attention Deadline Disorder

I like coming up with axioms to explain behavior, because it creates a nice illusion of understanding and control. So far, I have only two axioms (axii?) that I consider iron-clad, battle-tested and USDA approved.

Axiom #1. The speed of a driver is directly proportional to his or her height. (The shorter the driver, the slower the driver... or at least, if you find yourself behind a really slow driver, chances are you can't even see his or her head in the front seat.)

Axiom #2. In marketing, a client's attention to a project is inversely proportional to the number of days before its deadline. Translation: People don't really start paying to attention to anything until it's due.

You know what I'm talking about. I recently completed a project that went something like this:

30 days before deadline
Client: "This is fantastic. No changes."

15 days before deadline
Client: "Just a few little tweaks."

3 days before deadline
Client: "What's with all the em dashes?!"

Don't get me wrong. The client is great. I'm observing, not judging. After all, I tend to write these posts starting about three days before I plan on sending the outgoing email. (Guilty as charged...)

Clarity Is Good

(Warning: This post is incredibly self-serving. But then again, so is this entire blog.)

After harping on bloated branding exercises, busy graphic design and the oft-made tragic choices of "inclusion" over "focus," I'm happy to share a Conk Creative campaign that will hopefully bring clarity (and excitement) to an unlikely place: academia.

About four months ago, I was hired by a group at the University of Iowa called the Iowa Center for Developmental and Learning Sciences (ICDLS). Yes, despite my resume in fitness, technology, manufacturing and media, this group trusted an outsider to take on a project in the world of high-powered university research (an area no less competitive than the others, by the way).

The core membership of the ICDLS is a group of professors who know more about human learning and development than you and I can ever dream of. In their market, they're the upstart Davids in a world dominated by old-school Goliaths--the Apple trying to break the grip of the oppressive PC by exposing "nature vs. nurture" as a false choice and bringing gene worship back down to earth.

They invited me to come down to Iowa City, do interviews, learn about what they do, and develop a marketing plan. The marketing plan turned into a Brand Blueprint, and the recommendations were aggressive. Change your name. Design a new logo. Embrace a new icon. Change the way you talk about yourselves. Launch a new website. Make a video. Start a Facebook page.

To my shock and awe, they took every recommendation and re-hired me to help them execute the plan. In two months.

The result was a classic example of strong collaboration and applying creativity not only to materials, but to budgets. Not enough money for a full video? We created simple "Lessig-style" videos out of the interviews I had recorded. Can't hire out the entire website? Fine, we'll do the overall logo and graphic design and turn the buildout over to your internal staff.

As of today, the new website is live. The ICDLS is now the Delta Center. The launch party is tomorrow, and I'm headed down to IC. Feels good to walk the walk.

(Here's the website.)

Handshake Watch 2009

A simple word of advice. If you're putting together any promotional vehicle--be it a brochure, a direct mail piece or some Flash loop for an upcoming trade show--and you or your designer don't know which image to use for that section about Partnership--do not... I repeat, DO NOT reach for that shaking hands stock image.

Generic Handshake Stock Photography Users: Consider yourselves on notice.

Beware the Bloated Branding Process

In 2000, Saturday Night Live ran a TV ad for a fictional company called Westlink. Filled with beautifully vague images--a hang glider soars past a mountain top, Japanese children carry parasols, an elderly man walks with a pick-axe swung over his shoulder--it ended with an authoritative announcer stating, "Westlink: Even we don't know what we do."

I think of this ad when I see some of the bloated branding processes that flood the marketplace today. I'm sure that many of these processes (which are supposed to bring clarity to confused brands) are wonderful and worthwhile. But the last two that companies have shared with me seem built to achieve one of three objectives: to confuse, to introduce unnecessary complexity, or to fatten the agency's profit margins.

One was a finished brand consulting report filled with page after page of the company's supposed Core This and Core That. ("Core Values: Integrity, Innovation, Service"; "Core Personality Traits: Passion, Commitment, Fun!")

My Core Reaction: Puke. By the time I was finished, I was not only unable to determine what made the company unique; I couldn't even discern its industry. The second was a bloated but extremely well-designed proposal for a long and intensive branding process. The price tag: $75,000.

These kinds of reports make me want to swing a dead cat. Not because I don't think branding processes are worthwhile (everybody could use one). And not because they're packaged (I have my own, called Brand Intervention). It's because they're ultimately little more than a clever way of monetizing corporate navel-gazing. Who doesn't want to believe that their company, organization, product or department isn't centered on Integrity, Innovation, Commitment, Service and Passion? Is it worth $75,000 to pay an agency to say that, just to make you feel good (and to sound just like everybody else)?

I work from a simple premise: Marketing isn't about saying what you want to say; it's about saying what people want to hear. Sound crass? Sorry, but it's the reality. Sound manipulative? It is if you can't back it up. But the truth is, if you're not offering people what they want in the first place, and then telling them about it in ways they can understand and get behind, then you're in the wrong business or targeting the wrong customer. In other words, you've got bigger problems than branding.

Like good writing, good marketing isn't about more; it's about less... about stripping things away, making them simpler. Good designers, writers, photographers, videographers and motion graphics experts all know that one marketing cliche will always ring true: less is more.

Which reminds me, it's time to end this post.

The Joy of Controversy

A few weeks ago, I embedded a YouTube commercial Conk Creative co-produced for Anytime Fitness. As anticipated, that spot has now prompted a complaint letter from a certain well-known animal rights group.

What's interesting is that my client is demonstrating cutting-edge PR acumen by not shying away from the controversy. In fact, they've uploaded the video to their corporate Facebook page--as well as the complaint letter and their response--and they're encouraging everyone to make up their own mind about whether the ad is offensive.

I'm interested in your opinion as well. The Facebook page containing the video, the complaint letter and Anytime's response can be found here. I'd encourage you to follow this interesting tale of how PR and social media converge (which is most easily done by "fanning" the page, BTW). : )

Focus vs. Inclusion Part V

The biggest tension between the people who get paid to market their organizations and the people they hire to help them do so is the tug of war between Focus and Inclusion. I've written about this tension many times, and it has, in fact, become a small obsession of mine.

It goes like this:

When you're paid by an organization to be accountable for its marketing and communications, most of the value is placed on quantity ("We want people to know everything we know about ourselves or product X, because then they'll get it"). When you're paid as a general communicator, on the other hand, most of the value is placed on quality ("Let's find the most effective message and say it in the most effective way").

It's the difference between opening a door (and revealing something shiny inside) and pushing someone in the room and locking the door.

The other night, I was watching The Colbert Report and waiting to see another academic make a good point badly. This happens often on Colbert and The Daily Show. Colbert and Stewart do academia a tremendous favor by temporarily making a Dartmouth professor as sexy as Jessica Simpson (oops, bad choice). But too often, these professors are painfully bad at communicating in the late-night talk show format. Why? Because they want to say everything that's in their heads and in their books. And instead of having the improviser's knack for saying "yes, and..." to every curve ball thrown at them from the host, they're easily caught off guard and stubbornly (and humorlessly) try to maintain their agenda.

What a surprise, then, when Robert Ballard appeared on Colbert. Here's a guy who has either been media trained or just has a natural gift for communication. Who would think that an oceanic archaeologist could be interesting in a mainstream way? But Mr. Ballard knew that he had the time and format to get basically one point across: It's more important to study oceans than outer space. And he succeeded wonderfully.

Watch the clip and notice how he finds ways to say the same thing in different ways (e.g., "We know more about Mars than our own oceans"), and how he seamlessly returns to that message time and time again.

Focus: 1
Inclusion: 0

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Robert Ballard

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You Can't Force a Video to Go Viral Video, So Make This Video Go Viral!

Catch the Virus

Now that my own mother has friended me on Facebook, I know that we've entered a new phase of social media. But what exactly is it?

My guess is that we've hurtled headlong into The Great Sorting Out--at least when it comes to the marketing applications within social media. This is what happens when a critical mass of the population finally tunes into something (like Facebook), but at the same time, economic pressures make sure that no efforts are wasted and only the strongest survive.

This will be a healthy phase. There will be less pressure to do something (like Twitter) just because it's new, and more impetus to make rational decisions. For me, that starts with defining one particular element properly: "viral."

Credit a friend and colleague who recently offered these words of wisdom: "Viral" is an outcome, not a tactic.

Now, I won't go so far as to say you can't set out to make a viral video (you'll see why in my next post), but viralness, viralocity, viralocitude (or whatever you want to call it) is ultimately an attribute that is earned, not made. Put differently, to claim that you're making a viral video is akin to saying you're filming an Oscar-winning movie. The market decides, not you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to share this post on Facebook and see what my mother thinks of it.

Thank You.

A year ago today, I did a very scary thing: I handed over a letter of resignation, walked away from a good job and created a two-contractor household during a recession. On Feb. 1, 2008, I woke up with a mortgage, a four-year old, no business card, no website, no clients and no source of income. My father sent me a New York Times article on the looming economic meltdown with a one-word personal message: "bleak."

But today was a different story. Today, despite a morning temperature of 21 degrees below zero, I just finished the most rewarding day of work in my life. I shot a commercial that I developed and wrote, based on an idea that is absolutely ridiculous and absurd, and which I hope you and many others will see in the coming weeks and months.

In honor of my one-year anniversary, I just wanted to say thank you. The support I've received in my first 12 months has been nothing short of amazing. I've seen friends insist on paying for services that I would have offered for free. I've been hired by people I haven't worked with for 10 years. I've had colleagues share their clients, buy me lunch and give me a conference room to work in until I got on my feet. I've experienced the wonder of simply being trusted for no apparent reason.

When you start your own business, they call it "going out on your own." The truth is, I've never felt less alone. Thank you for making Conk Creative not only a reality, but a dream come true.

And here's to 2009.

- Marc