Reasons for Reasons

5 reasons for writing a list of reasons

1. There's not a lot of writing (but, hopefully, a lot of thinking).

2. It's easy to read if people don't have a lot of time.

3. Your opinion/advice can help someone.

4. You can promote yourself or your company without promoting yourself or your company.

5. In your research/thinking you may come up with an idea that you can use.

And the winner is?

Awards seem to be very important in our industry. As I write this, the ad industry is abuzz with news of the Cannes festival. Everyone likes to get recognition for the hard work they put into a project. Lots of companies publicize their honors in their marketing and new business efforts and Firstborn is no different. A recent article in Ad Age pointed to the fact that some agencies spend tons of money on their awards submissions. Then why do some people think awards shouldn’t matter so much? Should the focus be on doing great work for your client no matter how you think it’ll do if you enter it into a competition? Is it all a bunch of smoke and mirrors? Do clients really care? As long as it matters to the marketing and advertising world it seems that you’re left behind if you don’t follow the herd and toot your own hardware.

Twitter & Hugging

Last night the good folks at Rackspace invited me to sit on a panel at an event they held at the New York Stock Exchange for some of their agency clients of which Firstborn is one. The discussion focused on social media and Twitter in particular and I was asked towards the end of the evening whether I thought these networks could be monetized by companies. It got me thinking about a wonderful tweet I read the other day by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos who I follow on Twitter.

Twittering is like hugging. Just because it's hard to measure the return on investment doesn't mean there isn't value there.

That statement struck a chord with me since the work that we do at Firstborn largely has to do with user engagement rather than raw commerce. Sure, the projects we create are implemented with detailed metrics and we're able to see incredibly large amount of time spent which is one indicator of success but is this enough? Getting back to Tony's quote, I think it's going to require a change in mind set of marketers about how they measure ROI and be comfortable about other bench marks that add to brand equity. After all, will Twitter be ever used to directly sell products or services in an e-commerce model? Probably not. So we should all get used to the fact that the social media are more of an indirect sales tool whose monetization must be thought of in new ways.

Discovery Channels

5 Reasons Why a Discovery Phase Makes Sense:

1. The scope of work hasn’t been defined. A thorough discovery phase will allow you to establish the business, creative and technical requirements of the project.

2. You’re engaged with the client sooner. If the project’s scope hasn’t been established in detail, signing an agreement for discovery allows you to start the relationship rather than having to wait for someone to figure it all out.

3. It’s a great way to become immersed with the brand. You’re way ahead of the game if you can become an expert in the client’s business.

4. You can test the waters to see if this is a client you want to work with. A discovery phase is limited to a relatively short period of time so you’re not committed if you need to bail. Likewise, the client can see how wonderful you are to work with.

5. You may discover other business problems that need to be solved and hence, more potential work for your company.

Buzz Off

Ours is an industry that just loves its buzz words. So, boys and girls, let's look at some of these bon mots and how they've been used to the point where they have no meaning.

Viral. As in "we want to do a viral campaign". Is there any successful campaign that can't be considered viral? Does viral just mean a funny video on the web? A micro-site that lots of people go to? An app that gets sent around? Can't traditional old school television commercials be considered viral e.g. "Where's the beef?" and "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" if people tell their friends about them? How about a print ad that someone cuts out of a magazine and passes on to a friend? All of the above or none of the above? If you're trying to be viral, chances are you'll fail anyway if you don't have a good enough idea that people will want to tell other people about. So let's please retire the use of the word viral.

Stickiness. Is sticky having people come back to your site on a regular basis? Does that mean that a website isn't successful if people only visit it once? What if they engage with the brand for over 10 minutes and then never come back? Is that then a measure of failure? Of course not! No more stickiness.

Synergy. I think I knew what this word meant but I admit having heard it thrown around so much I had to look at Merriam-Webster to get the official definition. Okay, so it means participants or elements coming together to achieve a common goal. (I think.) Question for you buzz-worders out there: is there any initiative in which you want disharmony and disunity amongst participants whether they're creators or audience? There was definitely a lack of synergy when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter to start the U.S. Civil War.

Nimble. This one is bandied about when comparing how small companies operate versus larger ones and I have to admit that I've used this one in the past when talking about Firstborn. Is there a salesman out there who wants to present their company as being bloated, lethargic and slow to move? So let's use some other adjectives instead of nimble from now on.

Low hanging fruit. For some reason, this conjures up some bizarre images in my head but perhaps that's the result of my childhood. Fruit is fruit. Sales is sales. Opportunities are opportunities. Low, high and everywhere in between.

Social networking. I'm treading on a minefield by including this one in my list since it's the red hot topic du jour in marketing and advertising. Isn't every medium social in some way or another? Did we just invent the transmission of ideas in a social way? You could argue that when Guttenberg created his printing press he was creating a bit of social networking. I'm not denying the importance of this phenomenon in our modern culture but it's time we stop throwing it around whenever we talk about communication.

So if you're looking for some long hanging fruit that's a sticky, nimble viral campaign with synergy and social networking please keep it to yourself.

Here Comes the Judge

While my blog has been primarily about business development in the digital industry I wanted to put on my political cap for a moment; or my judicial robe as the case may be here. I've been reading about President Obama's choice to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. This woman grew up in a housing project in the Bronx and since her father died when she was 9, her mother worked 2 jobs to put Sonia and her brother through school. She eventually went to Princeton, graduated summa cum laude, then on to Yale Law School and from there worked as an assistant DA in Manhattan before rising through the ranks as a judge. What a story. It's a cliche to say this is yet another example of the American dream (there, I said it anyway) in which hard work can reap many rewards. Now that I think about it, this has everything to do with business development in the digital industry.

From the Horse's Mouth

I attended an interesting panel discussion last night about digital marketing for CPG at the Interactive Advertising Club that featured panelists from Schering Plough, P&G, Kraft and Mars. One of the questions that was asked to the panel was what they think makes for a good sales presentation. The consensus seemed to be the following:

1. Differentiate yourself from your competitors

2. Understand their business of the marketer you're meeting with and the problems they're looking to solve

3. Show them results

I've discussed topic before on my blog and it's also part of an ongoing focus within Firstborn but thought it very helpful hearing these thoughts from the type of people we're hoping to work with.

Ode to Sequential Liability

Oh the joys of sequential liability

An adventure in fiscal futility

Omnicom says the cost

Is to sign or get lost

If we did we'd lose all credibility.

The Idea Rules

Great ideas don't need to take a million dollars to execute. In fact, some of the best ones cost practically nothing at all to make. Take for example this hysterical video that's a spoof (I think) of a tourism ad for Cleveland. Very low fi, clever, funny and memorable.

Dominos Delivers

Two dunderheads at a Domino's Pizza franchise in North Carolina thought it would be funny to video themselves doing nasty things to some sandwiches they were preparing for delivery. But the bozos didn't stop there; they went ahead and posted the videos on You Tube. One million views later the videos had caused a public relations nightmare for Dominos. Needless to say the pranksters are now ex-employees and in fact have been arrested for their misdeeds. Dominos has responded by creating a special Twitter account to address its customers concerns and a video of their President doing damage control was placed on You Tube. It's another example of the power of social media. If content is compelling enough people will spread it like wild fire. You can't buy media like that. I think I'll use this as a case study in future sales presentations.

Seth Godin Rocks

This morning, my colleague at Firstborn, Dan LaCivita, passed along this TED presentation by Seth Godin. It’s an oldie (from 2003) but definitely a goodie. Seth talks about how marketers need to figure out what people really want and how to give it to them. Not only is his message fascinating but how he delivers it is awesome. Seth is a dynamic, charismatic, engaging and funny presenter. This is story telling at its best and all under 20 minutes. And there wasn’t one slide that had a bullet point; they were truly supporting his talk rather than competing with it. Coming in with a presentation like this would knock any marketer’s socks off and Seth has done much sock removal in his career.

When Low Fi is Hi Fi

Our friends at Big Spaceship have just re-launched their website in blog format. EVB and Juxt have also recently revamped their sites using the Wordpress platform. It's an interesting marketing strategy that not only has a low cost factor but also emphasizes the conversations that brands are seeking out these days with their customers. The latest incarnation of the Firstborn site debuted in October of 2008 with a Flashed-based design that showcases our most important selling tool, our portfolio of work. We've no intention of a redesign anytime soon - our previous version stood the test of time for almost 5 years - but nonetheless the low tech trend happening with some of our competitors is noteworthy from the standpoint of how everything old is new again.

Remember the Alamo

I've been to the SXSW conference a couple of times but I didn't know Austin was this much fun. I read on Ben McConnell and Jacki Huba's Church of the Customer Blog about an amazing event at the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater. They were holding a special screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn along with a 10 minute clip from the upcoming Star Trek movie. TWOK begins and after about 10 minutes the film"breaks". Who walks out on stage? None other than Leonard Nimoy! He suggests that they show the new Star Trek film in its entirety. And that's what happened. It was all just a stunt in order to stage a sneak preview of the new movie. What a great idea and it made me think of what an awesome moment it must have been for those Trekkies when Nimoy came out. Although limited to just the people who were lucky enough to be in that theater at the time, what a dramatic and thoughtful way to reach hard core fans of the Star Trek franchise. I wonder how this might be applied to other brands?

At the Source

Doing great work and be compensated for it fairly is what we all strive for. As they say, half of show business is business. Firstborn's contracts are structured in such a way that our clients own all the files necessary to run the experience whether it's a website, online advertising, kiosk, application, etc. But when it comes to ownership of the source files that were used in the creation of said project, we prefer to retain ownership. This is particularly the case with all the 3-D work we've been doing. In the past, the 3-D source files that we used for a website project were being re purposed for print and broadcast without our company getting paid for it. Now if a client wants to use our work in a medium other than what we were originally hired to create, we negotiate a separate license fee. This isn't meant to squeeze out of our clients of every penny we can but in fact, it sometimes can actually work to their advantage. There was a ton of CGI work in a recent M&M's site we did collaborating with our friends at proximity Canada. They asked us to do the broadcast spot leveraging these assets and it ended up costing them 70% less than if they had hired another company to produce it from scratch. It was a win for everybody.

Believing the Hype

We recently met with a client that markets a cool collection of brands. In doing our research prior to our initial meeting we came across this very clever application they developed that really impressed us. During the course of our praising the client for having come up with such a great idea, we learned that they made it all up and never actually created the product. Well, their plan worked. It certainly got our attention and they had already gotten a lot of press mentions which was how we found out about it in the first place. Is this dishonesty or one of the oldest PR tricks in the book? Technically anything you want to mention can be "in development". Of course, here at Firstborn we would never hype a project that we couldn't show since our portfolio of work is our most effective marketing tool. Nonetheless, just as impressed as we were about this client's idea, we came away even more impressed by their idea of hyping the idea.

Social Schmocial

One of the hot topics of discussion in the marketing world is how to use social media. As Michael Gass points out in his latest newsletter, a report from the Aberdeen Group on "The ROI on Social Media Marketing" says that 63% of companies in their survey planned to increase their social media budgets this year. But what constitutes social media since its meaning seems to be changing all the time? What are the other touch points that marketers can reach consumers other than just having a Twitter Feed, Facebook/Myspace page, corporate blog, etc? Everyone seems to be getting on the bandwagon because in this economy budgets are tight and getting your customers to participate with your brand can be more cost effective than the traditional channels, especially when you consider the fact that consumers are tuning out all the advertising they're bombarded with on a daily basis. It'll be interesting to see in the coming months which marketers are successful in figuring this all out and which ones get drowned out in the conversation. And can we please come up with another term other than "social media" which has fast become old.

Jon Schneider

I was wondering whether to write about a very sad subject but I'll go ahead. We learned yesterday that Jon Schneider, Executive Vice President, Director of Client Services at MRM, died of a massive heart attack on Sunday. He was 52. I spoke with Jon during the contract negotiations for an Intel website that we worked on for MRM in 2006. There were some tense moments but Jon was always a great guy to deal with. I happened to be at Disney World for my 5th anniversary at the time and remarked to him that it seemed like a Fellini movie with all the noise of the Magic Kingdom in the background. Jon's response: "Fellini? Welcome to my world. Web 8.75 ;)"

Small is the New Big

Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter wrote a good article in Ad Age about how much he admires small agencies and what they can do compared to the large firms and holding companies. At Firstborn, we've always had the model of a boutique sized shop; currently we're at around 40 people and don't have plans to ever expand too much past that number (perhaps 50 or 60 tops). We don't have layers of account management; our producers serve that role in addition to their project management duties. It allows us - as Mr. Bogusky points out - to have a lower overhead than the larger companies, and as they say in sales land, we can pass on the savings to our clients. Being a small sized shop allows us to get stuff done quickly and efficiently. I like to point out in client meetings that you don't need large teams of people to produce high quality large scale work. Just look at our portfolio and you'll see what I mean. Long live the small shops.

Sue Me Sue You Blues

I've commented before on the issue of 3rd party infringement warranties in contracts with our clients, particularly our ad agency partners. Essentially, while we say that our work will be original we can never agree to any language that states our work won't infringe on the rights of a 3rd party because that statement leaves us open to frivolous law suits that could potentially put us out of business. Also, agreeing to this means we take on all of the risk rather than sharing it in a fair manner with the agency we're working for. Now comes the news a couple of weeks ago that Omnicom is now enforcing a sequential liability clause in its contracts with vendors which says that even though our contract is with the agency, if they don't get paid by their clients, we don't get paid. Needless to say this scenario is creating an uproar in the production community. Fortunately, we have organizations such as the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), of which Firstborn is a member, to push back on these unfair edicts. The net effect of the Omnicom mishigoss could be that companies who are producing great work will refuse to work with Omnicom and the slack will be taken up by crappy companies who will sign to anything and as a result, the quality of production will go in the toilet.

SXSW

I attended the SXSW conference from Sunday through Tuesday. It's always a balancing act to attend as many panels as possible to learn what other people are doing/saying and to network with people that you know or want to know. So between the educational and social elements of such a conference I supposed I focused more on the latter this year. It's my sense that's what most people lean towards although I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone who does sales. There were still a bunch of people that I wished I'd met but in the end, I was happy with the new contacts I made as well as catching up with friends I hadn't seen in a while.