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.