Used to be Marketing focused. Now just using this as a place for friendly discussion and education. The main purpose is to cultivate our ability to see things from someone else's perspective. We find meaning in ourselves, by searching for meaning in the world around us.
Whatever it is that you want to do...graphic design, copywriting...there's one place to go in Seattle for a post-grad education in Advertising and Marketing:
The School of Visual Concepts was founded in 1971 and has been shepherding creatives into the agency jobs of their dreams ever since.
Tonight I attended a free panel discussion at their (slightly) new location (new for me as the office has moved since I last took a class in 2010) about the future of digital design and technology.
We heard from 5 very successful designers on everything from their personal design philosophy to their predictions about disruptive technology (like VR). And of course, they answered our questions :)
Shout out to Surya Vanka for hosting the event - @suryavanka
And a massive shout out to all of the panelist for taking the time out of their busy lives to give us some insight into their worlds, providing us with new persecutive about the future of design.
The short story...hmmm...I guess it would be: Work hard, don't be entitled, "iterate, prototype, test, repeat", learn to write, and virtual reality is the future.
I came across a blog post from Gary Vaynerchuk this week that I've been waiting to share with you. His blog post covers a topic that he actually discusses quite frequently, the idea of attention rather than impressions.
The advertising/marketing community, or anyone that really knows what they're doing, for example a small business owner who manages their own PPC ads, knows that the system is flawed. They know that 10%, 20%, even up to 50% of their digital marketing budget is going to circle the toilet bowl; wasted due to improper reporting, fraud, and a variety of other flaws in the marketing/advertising ecosystem that we're too quick to sweep under the rug. Or as Gary says:
"The entire marketing world is obsessed with impressions. You might hear someone say "40,000 people saw this video." But the truth is, they didn't. They didn't because as soon as the ad came up in video form, they clicked away to a new tab to look at something they actually wanted to see. But they count as an impression. They count as "seeing it."
And he's right.
We're too quick to accept impressions as a industry wide metric because it allows us to keep reporting these massive numbers to our clients who in turn continue to pay us.
But we should be smarter than that. And people like Gary are smarter than that.
If you're video got viewed 1 million times, but no one watched more than 10% of it, you probably missed the mark with the creative.
We need to measure attention because the simple fact is attention (read as: time focused) has become our most precious commodity.
1) The way we spend our time 2) Who we spend it with...those are the two most important things that will determine the outcome of our lives.
And it's not like it's rocket science to get the attention data, it's sitting there for you in google your Google Analytics.
But before we get any deeper, the purpose of this particular post is to share Gary's article with you as well as my response, a comment on his site that I've taken a screen shot of and shared below.
The reality is: The reason YouTube is such a success is because the content lives and dies by the sword of attention. People either watch your videos or they don't. If advertisers and marketers would approach their creative with the same intensity (mindset), they'd be more apt to produce higher quality work. Ultimately saving clients money in the long run while building a stronger brand (advertisements....shouldn't look like ads anymore). We see this happening already on the creative side with brands like Red Bull that just seem to get it. I mean, come on, they literally just show us dope clips from extreme sports athletes to sell us an energy drink that even THEY admit tastes horrible unless chilled to the perfect temperature. And we also see brands like Taco Bell extorting every last oz out of social media attention hotspots to further their cause. Taco Bell is disgusting. But I still like/respect the brand. I have no idea why. A little reminder that we don't think rationally 100% of the time. And that the correct use of media truly can sway the public.
Finally, if you're an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur and you haven't seen this video....thank me later. Stop what you're doing or set aside 45 minutes this weekend for a life changing (SUPER REAL) one-way conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk.
I have made a jump into content marketing and SEO over the past 4 months which has really made it hard to keep up with consistent posts on this blog... well make that zero posts in the last 4 months...excuses, excuses....
But there also comes a point in a man's life when he's got to go out and live it. Benjamin Franklin once said:
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Well, I've been off doing things worth writing about. And it jussssst might be time to start writing again. I'm still getting settled in with my new job and my new living arrangements but I am hoping to work out a schedule that will allow me to make time for personal writing and introspective topics and discussion (with myself! woohoo!).
woowwwww time has its way of flying. But luckily I can say that this time my negligence towards my personal blog has not been out of laziness, but because I've been so busy. Lot of personal stuff, and not too terribly interesting, but I'm excited about my other blog, Only The Beat, that has just broken the 1,300 Facebook fan mark. All 100% real and generated organically. Which is great for the first few months. I am looking forward to implementing new features, spending some serious cash on advertising, and hopefully beginning to throw our own events.
Anyways...as the title of this blog states, I use this site as a place to share, think, and talk about advertising (because it's my passion), but more importantly perspective. I am fascinated by the idea that we are all experiencing so many things together, simultaneously, yet have such different views, thoughts, and/or ideas about how these different events actually took place (what went down yo). Or how the same event happening to so many people can have such varying after effects and results.
The screen shot I've included in this post depicts an experiment that was conducted to test peoples perceptions. Take a look at the picture and I'm sure you can determine the issues that arises when the person viewing the objects in the book shelf from "your view" are asked by "the director" to move the top left truck on the shelf. Surprisingly, or maybe not, people moved the incorrect truck about 50% of the time. I think statistics like this show us that however rational we assume our peers might be, people really do tend see things from there own perspectives the majority of the time. And not only do I think this means we need to make a greater effort to help people see things from different perspectives, we too, also need to make sure we are considering the way that others view things before we make decisions. Frame your story to fit your audiences perspective, and then help them come to a realization, or solve their problem.
Another great find while watching Ted Talks during my lunch today, wait, that's an understatement. The free mobile app in this demonstration, called Aurasma and created at Cambridge, is going to have a monumental effect on the advertising industry. I'm going to tell you what it does, but not even that will spoil the amazing capabilities this app encompasses.
It allows anyone, for free, to tag an image, with a video. That means that anytime the app is open, and one holds their phone up to an image that his been tagged, the image will come to life, acting out whatever video (even 3D) has been prompted to play. It can fit in with the picture, the picture itself can begin to move, or a completely random video can pop up. But the fact that we can now create free interactive experiences for consumers, in their environment, is just absolutely mind blowing. Not to mention they are already using it for education! Having a smart phone is becoming more and more like having a magic wand. You can tag text books to come to life and give extra visual learning opportunities. Dressing room experiences are going to become more animated. Billboards interactive with rich media. The possibilities are endless; and what's even more excited, something Matt mentions in the Ted Talk, is that the processing power/phone technology is only getting better and better, faster and faster.
If someone big gets behind this app (Think P&G POP/in-store visual product demonstrations), and sinks real money into it (someone will, I will!) the world of advertising will never be the same.
Try asking an advertising agency what it is they really do. There have been two noticeable trends in advertising etiquette over the past 10 (ish) years that have greatly affected the answers you’ll receive. The first being the major trend against referring to oneself as an “advertising agency.” Rather, you will most likely be scolded and reminded by your peers that they work for a conversation catalyst, or idea factory, which is fine. We should applaud any attempt to give greater depth and insight (transparency/honesty) into our organizations true practices. The second trend, which seems to make itself present on many agencies website’s is an explanation (usually video or flash) of why one should feel the need to market their Brands “story,” or the “story of their Brand.” This idea of a telling a “story” might have been hard for some people to grasp/accept at first, especially when the Brand in question has sales that result in millions of dollars, and never used a “story” to get where it is today.
Well it turns out that people in the advertising industry are not only onto something, but hitting the nail on the head with deadly accuracy. There is no such thing as a race to the bottom; and in an era where outsourcing has dropped prices to unprecedented lows, a products design and the brand’s story, are now the two main influences on a consumers decision to purchase. The story is more important than ever before. The inspiration for this post came from a Ted Talk by Joshua Foer, a journalist who, “accidentally” won the U.S. Memory Championship after attempting to walk a mile in his subjects shoes. It’s a twenty minute video, but well worth the watch.
Joshua explains to his audience that people who compete in these contests of extreme memorization are just like you and I. They don’t have abnormally large brain and they aren’t necessarily more intelligent than the next guy/gal. They’ve simply strengthened and conditioned their minds/memories using memorization techniques that are over 2,500 years old. And not to ruin the video for you, but what do you think one of the main techniques memory polishing techniques is? You guessed it…telling a story…a wild, crazy, (sometimes raunchy!) descriptive, and unforgettable story that connects your mind visually and emotionally with what you are trying to remember. Now wait, remind me what they goal of advertising is again? Oh yes, to REMIND people what you product is, to REMIND them what problem your product solves (the why), and to REMIND where and how they can buy it.
David Fowler wrote a short guide to advertising called The Creative Companion that a friend of my shared with me back in college. It's witty, entertaining, and useful. Oh, and it's free...
Ok, so this post is less about symbology or association, but I just saw this new commercial for State Farm Insurance on adage.com and I actually laughed/smiled! Check it out here: State Farm Commercial
There are a few different reasons this is worthy of a post:
1) I wanted to give a shout out to the 2010 Washington State University NSAC team who put together a campaign for State Farm and should have gone to nationals. Not only were they robbed by faulty judging, but they were robbed by State Farm! Does "The Agent Method" ring a bell? Ya, that was their campaign....
2) I finally feel like the correct humor was used to reach the correct target audience in this commercial. So shout out to DDB on this one. It was a simple situation that anyone old enough to buy car insurance can relate to. Yet, not too tacky or suggestive, aided by the wife's obvious fault in her accusation.
3) I really like their new tagline. "Get to a Better State." A lot of the time I will go over things multiple times and start to over think them. So when considering this new tagline. I watched it once, and just wrote down what i felt. And in the moment, I totally got it. Yes, now when I watch it over and over I start to think, "well, do they mean get to a different geographical state?" But even common words start to sound funny if you just keep repeating them. Moral of the story, I got the message they were trying to convey, I smiled, and they held my attention long enough so that I didn't change the channel.
Well done DDB & State Farm. Tell me if you see it a different way.
