Are you working the Idea?

The Idea should help your business. That seems common sense, but sometimes we get caught up in our own work and miss the big picture.

Just because an Idea is wacky and memorable, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Develop an achievable, measurable goal for your marketing, for you growth, for your business then measure your work against it.

Just because you always spend money and time at that event in the fall, that show in Vegas, that direct mail campaign; doesn’t mean that it still tracks with your business goal.

Why are we doing this? What are we hoping to accomplish? How will this get us more subscribers, sell more toilet paper, fill the seats in our stadium?

That’s the Idea. Do what helps and not what you’ve always done. 

Evolving Great Ideas From Bad Ideas.

In my years of generating Ideas, I have found that while each one is unique, the path is eerily similar. In my head this process is generational in that it takes one step to create the next.

The first generation of Ideas are the easy ones. The puns, the things that are like other things, the simple connections. These make sense, have the basic feel of an Idea and sometimes convince you that you are done. A little time watching TV and you’ll see plenty of these. The most basic is the illustrate the problem. “Auto Insurance got you pulling your hair out?” And the visual is a guy pulling his hair out. Heh Heh. That’s great. Look at him with the wacky hair and he looks pissed. And there’s your logo. 

Illustrate the problem is but one example of First Generation Ideas. Write em down so they no longer take up valuable space in your brain.

Second Generation Ideas make no sense. Sometimes in brainstorming you think they make sense. But when you go back over your list, you end up asking, “What did we mean Ice Cream Sundae of home repair options. I thought that was cool yesterday, but I can’t really explain it today.”

Don’t worry. You are moving toward an Idea. Crazy connections that don’t work, that others don’t understand, that take three page explanations are part of the process.

Because then you come to the beauties of third generation Ideas. Having gone thru the obvious and the derivative, moved past the insane, you’ve arrived at Gold. OK all the concepts you develop here aren’t Gold, but to come up with a clear, strong concept that uniquely connects your product/service to your customer/prospect, it takes work.

So don’t settle for the common or the crazy. Work to get to the Idea.

The Idea makes it easier for your employees.

The Idea tells more than your customers who you are, it tells your employees too.

With a clear expression of what makes your company unique, your employees know exactly what to do in every situation. You’ll never be surprised how they react to a customer. Do they issue a refund with a smile or do they keep the money in the drawer? Do they bring in the right new business that you are looking for or are they wasting valuable sales hours with bad referrals?

Make sure you express your Idea to your employees as well as your customers.

It doesn’t have to be difficult. It just has to be consistent.

The jukebox response.

Even though I’m old, a jukebox was still before my time. But I’ve always thought a good Idea delivers the Jukebox Response. That is, when you push J8, you used to get Chuck Berry. When I push cold, thirst-quenching drink while driving, I get 7-11’s Slurpee.

What buttons need to be pushed to have your brand to show up in the customers’ minds? What situation/filters/time of year/emotion makes them pick you out of the stacks of competition?

What I like about the analogy of the Idea as a Jukebox is that you can only own one thing. And it has to be unique to you. You can’t be cheap and quick if someone else in your space already is. You have to come up with a button that is all your own.

So ask yourself, if the customer wanted to find your brand, what jukebox buttons would he push?

Now you’re getting to an Idea.

Roll over Beethoven. 

Everyone doesn't have to be right. Everyone just has to be included.

Machiavelli told us it is better to be feared than loved. But Machiavelli would make a terrible marketer.

Input is important. Listening, writing down, and showing that you heard what everyone said. Once you have their input, you can use consumers to tell them that it is not cogent. But if you tell them their Idea doesn’t matter, whether that is by action or directly, they will tell you your Idea doesn’t matter.

The start of any Idea generating process should be consensus building. This is when concepts are inexpensive and plentiful. Court them from everyone. Make sure your problem children get special attention.

When they are heard, they will listen. When they have been included on the input they will have ownership of the output.

Build consensus and you can build an Idea that permeates your organization. 

How BK missed the Idea and sold Big Macs.

Working at Leo Burnett in the late 80s, the most coveted assignments were the “reputation” spots for McDonalds. These were some of the most memorable spots McDonalds has ever done, because they put McDonalds into people’s lives and didn’t try to cram cheeseburgers down their throats.

Roy Berghold, the one man responsible for all the McDonalds advertising during that period tells the story of the power of the Idea.

For years McDonalds had done reputation spots like Olympic Hopefuls about the little kids and their Olympic aspirations and the classic Country Hero spot where the kid loses the big race but is greeted at the train station by the whole town when he returns. 

Burger King tried to do their own reputation spot and actually did a really nice job at it. They entered it into a national award show and won a big award. But what happened next proved the power of the Idea.

The person in charge of the award show called up McDonalds and told them they had won a prize for their spot. They went back and looked it up and they had to admit Leo Burnett didn’t enter a spot of that title.

It was the Burger King spot created by their agency. But the Idea of a reputation spot was so firmly McDonalds that even when BK did it well, the credit still went to the Golden Arches.

The Idea can make excuses for bad service, can create new markets and can even make your competitor’s work sell your product.

The Pitch:Episode 1. Think Fresh. Buy Stale.

This article may be a spoiler for The Pitch, but The Pitch is a spoiler for agencies and the Idea.

Here’s the episode if you haven’t seen it: http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-pitch

The conceit is a bit fake: a major assignment for a big client that doesn’t include a digital component and only five days with no paying work to do for current clients.

OK. It’s reality TV not reality.

But what happens here is a pretty good analogy for the problems the agency world is facing.

As clients see less and less value in long-term relationships, they look to buy individual ideas from a wide roster of agencies and freelancers. The concept of a “tournament of ideas” plays well to their bosses. “Look at how many brains we have working our problem.”

The problem isn’t with the idea generation. The problem is that in this competition both on TV and in the real boardroom, Ideas don’t win. Clients pick the safe, the trite, the hackneyed or the derivative—never the new.

The Idea is uncomfortable. Clients buy the Idea from a trusted partner who lives and dies with them. The Idea is a risk. And this way of choosing creative doesn’t reward risk.

So Subway ends up with an idea that McKinney literally took from YouTube. They had half a million dollars worth of “creative” talent in the room and the best they could come up with was, “I saw this guy on YouTube.”

In the follow up interview, the client as much as said that zAMbies was the most intrusive Idea, but he said he chose McKinney because he “could see lots of possibilities for Freestyle Breakfast.”

Yes. He gravitated to a place where he felt comfortable. The client said he wanted "not the Same ol’ Subway." But what he eventually bought was stuff he felt comfortable with.

Look, I don’t think zAMbies is the Just Do It of QSR breakfasts, but white guy rapping ingredients to a breakfast sandwich is the equivalent of that Subway CMO kickin’ it at a Skrillex show. It’s uncomfortable, wrong and rings false to the 18-24 year olds who it is supposed to appeal to.

The Pitch shows how clients, with the best intentions, make the poor decisions; how the Idea is being overshadowed by millions of YouTube views or some other metric that MBAs use to show their own worth; and how broken the agency business is.

When I saw the people at McKinney back at their office celebrating and hugging and patting each other on the back, I was repulsed. Their one idea, talking food, was an awful execution of a solid line, “Let’s fix breakfast.” The winning concept was such borrowed interest that it wasn't a surprise that the Creative Director would say to camera, “We’ll just have to wait until Wednesday to see what he (the rapper) comes up with.”

So the value of an agency is that it scours YouTube for talent? Then it turns the complete creative control over to a guy whose only credentials were that he rapped about pancakes? Then they get awarded the business?

From a business perspective, I can understand why everyone involved played along with The Pitch. Subway got a one-hour product placement. Both agencies got paid and got incredible coverage.

Going in, I thought it would be difficult to rebound from a broadcasted loss for the agencies. But now that I see the way WDCG and McKinney work, I would say it would be even harder to bounce back from the win.

WDGC lost The Pitch, but delivered an Idea. McKinney won The Pitch, but, I believe, they showed themselves to be creatively vacuous. 

And the real loser was Subway which ended up with a terrible execution of a bad concept.

Let’s hope future CMO’s use the venue of this TV show to try something risky, to move away from the seen and to force agencies to come up with brilliance—not just recycled crap.

 

Social. You are doing it wrong.

I’ve been reading about the latest trends in Social Media. Some experts are pointing out that many brands are just using Social as a new place for broadcast messages.

Interesting. When you don’t have an Idea and you just talk about your products all the time, you are using Social as Broadcast.

Look back at your last couple of tweets/FB posts and see if you are simply broadcasting your products and services or are you engaging your customers in a dialog?

Bring some relevance to your product. Make your service mean something. Help your prospects and customers for a relationship with you.

Like the early stages of dating, bring flowers, put on your good shirt and talk about them.

Print out your Company’s profile and highlight product statements. If there are no consumer benefits there, you are doing it wrong 

Build On Your Wins.

I was talking to a small businessman this week about his marketing. Of course, I asked him what his Idea was. What was his one dollar difference? And he hemmed and hawed.

I could tell it was hard for him to think of a differentiator. He said, “In a way, it’s like trying to predict the future.”

Well, let’s take an easier path. Let’s connect the dots of your successful sales last year. He had 20 of them. Let’s see what each of those 20 might have in common, then let’s find ways to do more of that.

Sometimes you can create an Idea for a business or a product. Sometimes you just have to recognize it. If you are having problems defining your niche, whether you are a big company with lots of customers or a small one with just a few, look at your successes and see what consistencies you can draw from them.

You don’t have to predict the future if you have a strong understanding of the past.

You love cats. I love cats. You love babies. I love babies.

I had a friend during those post-college, meet-girls days who was the absolute best at taking girls home. He wasn’t the handsomest or the most successful in business. But there he was, every night, arm around another beautiful woman heading home.

So one day, I asked him, what was his rap? How was he working it so darn well? He described his conversations in the short line: “You love cats. I love cats. You love babies. I love babies.”

People want to make a connection. They want people who love the same things they love. Tell me you don’t like your Facebook friends who agree with you more than those who challenge you.

Well, marketer, what do your customers love? How can you establish that common ground where you both are on the same side? Is that cause marketing? Is that community involvement? Is that simply the way you handle returns or service problems?

Remember, it’s not I love cats, so you should too. The focus is always on what your customer wants, likes, and identifies with.

It’s not about you.

Create ideas where you can share interests with your prospects and you never know how successful you’ll be.

In Defense of the Liberal Arts

I’m often asked by young people what they should study to get that elusive first job in marketing or advertising. I’ve also noticed that many corporations feel that Marketing degrees are prerequisites for a job in the marketing department.

Marketing, in practice, isn’t like a vocational trade you learn in school. In fact, the marketing part of the marketing career is the easiest part of the job. When I ran my agency, I always looked for a job seeker who had an ability to think through a complex problem; develop a point of view; and, finally, express this view in a cogent and concise way.

That “skill” comes from studying the Liberal Arts. Find something that interests you—History, Literature, Philosophy. Then make smart, supported arguments about your point of view.

As a marketer, I would rather have a new employee who could make a tenured professor in History rethink his view on the Russian Revolution over one who can recite the four P’s of whatever that is.

Look, I can teach you the marketing. In fact, most employers have a method that they want you to follow. But, if you are a critical thinker who can write passionately about a given topic; welcome, you have arrived at the top of the resume pile.

You simply can’t teach smart.

The added bonus to me is that the Liberal Arts are what Universities do really well. You will never get a chance to argue Shakespeare, Descartes, or Mao with people who really know their stuff like you have at a University.  The best academics teach the Liberal Arts. The best marketers aren’t teaching, they are selling.

Learn to think, to write, and take advantage of the University for the experience it was created to promote. Study the Liberal Arts.

Drop the puck.

While I’ve started this little blog writing mostly about creating the Idea, it can’t be overlooked that the power of the Idea comes in its implementation.

I’ve seen the marketers and the companies where winning a meeting or creating the killer Powerpoint is the goal. I’ve also seen those leaders who are just one research project away from pulling the trigger—all the time.

At a hockey game, you’ll sometimes hear the fans scream at the linesman to, “Drop the puck!” They know the game is won and lost during play, not in the endless fidgeting of players before the faceoff.

As wonderful as the Idea is, there is only value in it if you are brave enough to act. Go ahead. Drop the puck. See what happens.

How to arrive at the prettiest shade of grey.

I was up for a job and the Chairman of the Board was kind enough to write me a personal note to let me know I was not moving forward in the selection process. “I fought for you as an ‘out-of-the-box’ candidate, but was outvoted.”

I had to smile. Anytime a committee is set up to make a decision, they will end up with a compromise. Innately, change and new ideas are things that do not do well in groups.

Groups are inclusive. Groups make a lot of people feel like they’ve been heard and are invested. Groups can throw birthday parties, organize picnics and even generate a number of random concepts quickly. But groups are terrible places to innovate and terrible places for the Idea. You see, groups tend to gravitate to things they have seen or heard before.

The Idea takes a strong individual champion—a Steve Jobs, a Warren Buffet, a Richard Branson. A visionary-- not a group.

There has never been a statue made of a committee.

The Idea is a bold black or white. And committees are set up to choose the prettiest shade of grey.

What’s your excuse?

I was in a focus group of coffee drinkers when I heard one of the most amazingly powerful Idea stories ever.

This group was filled with Starbucks loyalists, and someone brought up a time where the ubiquitous coffee purveyor under delivered.

“The Starbucks I get at O’Hare and on the plane sometimes is bitter and lukewarm,” he complained.

Swiftly, one of the other attendees countered with “But those aren’t REAL Starbucks.” And the group quickly agreed.

I know. I know. Starbucks is an easy brand to both pick on and to revel in. But here was a person who loved the Idea of Starbucks so much that he developed a story—a rationalization that allowed him to still keep his opinion high—even in the face of a disappointing product.

We are all going to under-deliver at one point or another. Will your connection to your customers be strong enough so they will excuse it?

That again, is the power of the Idea. It doesn’t just make it easier to find new customers, it makes it easier to keep them. 

The One-Dollar Judgment

Your best prospect is stuck. It’s between you and your main competitor. Amazingly, your prices are but a single dollar off and you are the more expensive option.

What is going to make him choose you? How is he going to justify that barista’s tip premium that he has to pay to choose you?

Most of the business people I ask this question to immediately fall back on “customer service.” That’s the business equivalent of “we’re nicer.” And I hate to say it, but your competitor thinks they’re pretty nice too.

So what would you say if you had that rare chance to talk directly to your prospect at the moment of their decision? How would you move their sentiments and overcome the single dollar difference?

That, my friends, is the Idea. That Idea can move you from a one-of-many to a unique market leadership role.

So try the exercise. Talk, in your head, to your prospect about what benefit he would derive from spending the extra buck on you. Help him choose you. Try out a number of your unique benefits, but work to discover the one that means something to your customer.

Once you can justify a single dollar, you can start to justify more. And when you find the story that moves you away from a straight commodity purchase, you can creatively tell that story everywhere.

There is power in the Idea. Harness it and there will be many dollar judgments coming your way.

Social Media isn't an Idea.

Facebook isn’t an Idea. Twitter isn’t an Idea. Pinterest isn’t an Idea.

These are vessels. They carry Ideas.

Brands with a voice, with an attitude, with a purpose have no problem filling these vessels with interesting content that engages their audience.

But companies that have no Idea find themselves putting sand in canteens and water in wheelbarrows. Their messages are awkward and uncomfortable.

I don’t want my professional trade association to ask me about my Oscar picks. I don’t want my primary charity to ask me about my summer plans. Even if these softballs generate a ton of responses, this isn’t marketing. This isn’t even social. It’s just some ill defined and poorly directed social media director trying to keep his job.

For a local Credit Union, I created a number of short videos that helped people make better financial decisions. Through social and traditional media, these videos were promoted and shared. Each video led to a deep channel of other videos that ranged from basic knowledge to insider information. That was an Idea. We want you to be a better consumer.  We have knowledge and we will be generous with it for you.

My favorite little restaurant shares seasonal recipes and simple ways to make a homemade meal more elegant. They are generous with their knowledge also. I feel the better for having a relationship with them.

So, when thinking about social, don’t find the vessel and stop. Please, think of what you want that vessel to carry.

It’s easy to see the frustration of those companies that have invested heavily in water bottles, but forgot to put any effort into gathering water.

Get out of the tube.

I had the opportunity to work at Leo Burnett in the United Airlines group when some of the best airline advertising was being created there. One rule we held steadfast to was: Get out of the tube.

That is, once you go inside the plane, every airline is the same. You can’t differentiate in the tube.

Plus, let’s face it, nobody wants to be on an airplane. Everyone wants to be in Cozumel, Paris, New York.

We used the same idea with a financial institution. While they sold auto loans and mortgages, we had to remind them that nobody wants an auto loan. They want a car. Nobody wants a mortgage. They want a home.

For many of you, your product or service is really a catalyst to another state for your customers. Is there a better, more exciting way to express it than by a list of product qualities?

Can you show how you improve their life? Can you move the benefit to a higher place than transactional? 

Can you get out of the tube and into Paris? 

Where’s the gate?

Almost every internet idea that I’ve had pitched to me includes some sort of gate. A subscription, a paid entrance, even just a form to fill out.

Don’t gate.

The more you can be generous with your content, the more traffic you’ll build. The more traffic you build, the less you’ll have to ask of each of them.

My favorite example of this is Mint.com. I have a total site crush on Mint. You see, Mint is run by the folks at Intuit, the same people who used to sell you Quicken for $25.99. What they found was that there was more money in the traffic than there was in selling discs.

So they moved their gate. They used the technology they had to track transactions and gave it away. Now, they sell the access to people who they know are qualified and interested. (Hey, Ed, you seem to like to dine out, try the new Chase credit card that gives you 3X points on restaurant purchases.)

And people are OK getting sold to as long as there is some utility in it for them.

So what gates can you bring down? How can you make it easier for people to experience your brand? How can you make it more shareable? How can you be more generous?

Build community, build utility, build traffic. And knock down gates wherever possible.

On the occasion of my Grandfather’s 100th birthday.

Nothing like the combination of the untimely death of a former classmate coupled with a three-day celebration of my grandfather’s first century to make a man question his mortality and the meaning of life.

Heavy topics certainly. But one that spins nicely into The Idea.

When I think of my friend Scott, I recall a series of small moments, of simple things that, together, built a picture of him in my head.

When tasked to toast my grandfather, I tried to point out that the accomplishment of a century was one part genes, and one part the result of the millions of decisions he made over that time period. He chose to play handball when others chose to smoke. He chose to eat a peach when others had sausage. He chose to marry, to have children, to live his life honorably and cleanly. Certainly, he made some bad decisions, but my grandfather’s 100 years of life came from making more good decisions than bad.

I believe that we build brands, images and lead like a Seurat painting, not like a Mondrian. We do not make big bold statements with thick black borders. We, rather, build point by point; small event by small event.

My grandfather and my friend Scott created a beautiful image with every action and every decision.

And every one of them matters; personally and in business. These millions of points gathered together illustrate the idea.

Remember that everything you do to support the idea builds a larger image. This is true for you as well as your brand.

RIP Scott Mitchell and Congratulations Jack Kleban.

The joy of being uncomfortable.

New ways of thinking create a sense of discomfort. So next time you are asked to come up with or judge ideas, don’t settle for that concept that feels right. You’ll be disappointed in the long run.

Push. Be nervous. Take a chance.

Find the one that makes you a little uncomfortable—the one that stands out. You’ll know it. When you think back about the presentation, it will be the one you think of first. When you tell your spouse over dinner, you’ll gauge his/her reaction to see if it really is too far out there.

Remember, new ideas are, by definition, different. That’s what makes them special.

There is a risk to being different. You might stand out. You may attract attention. You could be talked about.

Just a word about almost all of Quiznos advertising and any number of youth-oriented ads. Being different just to be different is annoying. Be unique with a sensibility about your target. Be smart, clever, even vulgar. But weird is still weird. Don’t be weird.

It is a fine line between insightful and silly. Trust your gut. And remember to be happily uncomfortable.

Are you facing the right direction?

I met with a small software company. They make software that helps accountants comply with new federal reporting regulations.

They said they were looking for a marketer with software marketing experience. Of course. If you spend all day looking at your product, it would be easy to assume that you were in the software business.

But that’s a mistake. They were facing the wrong way. If they were looking for category experience, it shouldn’t be in software. What they needed was a marketer who knew accountants.

What knowledge is more important in selling their software—the traditional rollout pattern of software or what problems CFO’s face?

They were facing backwards towards their own product rather than forwards toward their customer.

Have you found yourself selling to internal stakeholders, selling against competitors instead of selling to your customers?

Stop and look at the last communication you created. Are you talking to your customer’s needs or are you talking about your product?

After countless internal meetings it’s easy to get turned around. But before you send out anything more, make sure you are facing the right direction.

You can’t cut your own hair.

I’ve heard some reticence from my client and agency friends about outside resources.

For clients, it is the concern that these outside folks won’t have the depth of knowledge about their product or service. Exactly. That’s why you want fresh eyes on your product. Sometimes you get so caught up in the minutia of your professional existence that you lose the big picture. You forget that the consumer doesn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of your category.

For agencies, you get caught up in getting the day-to-day and lose track of why clients brought you in in the first place. You are the fresh eyes that I spoke about in the last paragraph. So stop reacting and start leading.

If you are an agency or if you are responsible for ideas, once a quarter, bring in a team of freelance creatives. These people are paid to generate ideas and are comfortable coming up with a quantity of ideas. Pay them by the hour.

Put a little time into how you will direct the brainstorm. Don’t just give them your problem and ask them to solve it, even though they will. Ask them to do a little homework an come with examples of ideas they like.

As a creative, I always enjoyed what I called the cheap, one-night stand of concepting. That is, just create a bunch of ideas and don’t worry about how they might be carried out thru a variety of media.

You’ll find those people who will give you a couple of hours for a couple of hundred dollars. Rotate thru some and keep some you really like.

Every quarter, you’ll work on the idea part of the business and not just the execution part of the business. Keep your people in the room with the concepters and they will come out energized. And you’ll have a hundred new ideas every quarter.

Look, they won’t all be good. They won’t be all brand voice correct. They may not pass the CEO’s crazy tests. But fresh perspectives are where ideas are born. And you don’t have that perspective if you’ve been caught up in the day-to-day of your business.

Fresh Perspectives. It’s as easy as remembering that you can’t cut your own hair.