[Our Haus]

TheDieline spotlights standout student work from package design competition

2010-02-15T07:20:00.000-08:00

Masters student at Escola Superior de Disseny José Luis García Eguiguren developed the following for a package design assignment asking students to create an elegant product line for a famous chef. (full article).

The type is simple but memorable, one part of a clean and attractive layout that also showcases photography nicely.

From a strategy standpoint, Eguiguren manages to feature Ramsay's presence tastefully (the half-hidden black/white photo placed in the corner) in a way that's visible but not overwhelming and allows the colors to stand out. The food and the chef get equal treatment, with taste. More:

As shown in the kiwi example, some of the packaging switches up the way Ramsay himself is treated. In general, some of the food photography could be rethought --- the salmon didn't look so appetizing --- but that doesn't detract from the creativity and intelligence of his overall approach.

Chiquita's new branding

2010-02-04T12:24:00.000-08:00

You know those stickers on bananas? Not a likely piece of real estate for inspired branding you'd think, but you have to see this. Design:Related is running an article/interview about designer DJ Neff, who created new sticker designs for Chiquita. Very bold strategy for a classic brand, beautifully executed.

Here's the old one:

Here are the new ones:

and

Feel like there should be some kind of banana pun in closing, but it's not coming to mind.

-Eric Hayward

Vintage package design from Mountain Dew

2010-01-26T14:02:00.003-08:00

This "throwback" version is available through February.

Social media IRL ("In Real Life"): brands big, small employing authenticity as strategy

2010-01-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

A professional services firm is looking for social media help. They're a little overwhelmed. It forced me to whip out an email summary of what's out there and some high-level ideas. Additionally, it pushed me to highlight unique opportunities we're discovering for professional service firms --- consultants, attorneys, accountants for example --- who may have greater chance of actual results, in terms of sales, than, for example, huge consumer brands. It seemed like these ideas could be useful, and a little more tangible than theory (which is well documented) so I'm putting a transcript of it here.

Dear X.

When clients ask me about social media, I tell them it's not that different than the oldest business practices in history. It's about building relationships. A legal firm will understand that; attorneys have referral-based businesses.

Nothing new, but potentially better

To build business relationships online, the same way people would build relationships passing out business cards, having chance meetings in the airport, or making conversation at a bar or restaurant, companies have to make a sustained effort to stay active online in the right way in the most effective environments for their needs.

This is more than picking the right social media channel (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) although that's some of it. It's choosing the channel and the related message as part of a broader and more traditional marketing and sales strategy.

Now serving Canned Tweets

It's also more than using Twitter, for example, as another "billboard." The business using social media is still operating in a social space. Continually feeding marketing messages into the channel where people also discuss, say, the Vikings, is like telemarketing --- using a personal communications channel to sell stuff.

Other companies recognize the need for authenticity, versus blatant marketing, in these social environments, but they haven't pried social utilities out of the hands of traditional marketers at their organizations. These efforts come off looking canned, as in Pepsi's strategy --- which employs the look, feel, and terminology of social media without the people --- or Wendy's strategy, which makes it look like real "Tweets" about various topics are actually about Wendy's.

These inauthentic approaches feel more like pyramid marketing. Someone invites you out for coffee to catch up. Halfway through the conversation their strained smile, clumsy attempts at small talk, and curious habit of driving the discussion toward the subject of cleaning products make you realize: they're winding up for an Amway pitch, and you can't get away.

Success stories

The companies doing social media in the most effective way, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Chevy for example are 1) out there all the time having normal, authentic conversations with customers (e.g., Chevy, "Hey I like the picture you posted of your Camaro - love the custom rims - check out this picture of next year's prototype. We're excited about it.") and 2) using Twitter, for example, for customer service. To respond personally to customer questions, complaints, requests, and praise (e.g., Best Buy, "I had trouble getting my speakers to work with that receiver too; here's what I did.")

Letting internal enthusiasts do what they always do

These two examples are analogous to buying a new stove from a salesperson who really loves to cook. They're enthusiasts, and start talking to you about a product from experience, rather than reading a pitch. You believe them. There are enthusiasts at most companies who love what they do and talk about it a lot. Social media extend the reach of their real opinions in an authentic, versus canned, way.

Results?

Last is results. Social media strategies need to be measured in the same way as traditional advertising, testing for increased brand awareness, for example, versus expecting a huge and immediate spike in sales.

I do believe small firms will see far greater, actual results in terms of sales contacts than a Pepsi or a Wendy's could easily track. I believe attorneys can meet clients, or people who refer clients, online.

Social media becoming a price of entry for relevant marketing

Mostly, I say a social media presence is just like a web presence used to be: at a certain point, if you didn't have a web site, your company began to look irrelevant.

Later, agency partners began to show them what they could actually DO with the web sites they once threw up in haste just to catch up. Social media will be the same way. Companies will have to get involved, and as social media just become part of business, the way web sites are, benefits will begin to come. But we don't want to scare clients. We want to inspire them.

Unique uses of social media for professional service firms

For a law firm or accounting firm, for example, there are unique ways of using social media as an
extension of the types of marketing they're already doing. Today, legal experts might offer talks, seminars, and workshops connected to services they actually bill for to build credibility and contacts. (e.g., An estate attorney could be invited to the Rotary Club to talk about "challenges of estate planning." If he/she gives a great talk, audience members will remember and be inclined to call that firm when they need help.)

Social media can, to be simplistic, put those kinds of efforts on steroids.

There are plenty of ways for service firms to extend their 1) credibility and expertise, and 2) personality and presence, to far greater lengths using online reach.

Enough theory

What the actual activities firms can engage in look like are things such as (I) a very detailed strategy and plan (so employees don't, for example, throw off random, off-message posts on
various media that prove ineffective; so marketing people don't mess up the opportunities by posting too much "sales" content) (II) perhaps, writing and editorial help planning and creating "content" (articles and posts) (III) possibly, some design, creating consistent branding across these new channels and (IV) possibly, custom technical development to mine and use information for greater effect, or how not to (Wendy's employs a robot to search Twitter for the words "Bacon," "Hungry," and "Wendy's" and reposts Tweets containing those words on its web site in a big cloud, showing an allegedly authentic online buzz about the fast-food restaurant).

I'd love to talk to you about how we can help.

Your "Friend" (in social media terms),

Eric

Signature campaign pattern

2010-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

I like this. Our designers came up with it as a signature element running across all the materials in an integrated campaign reaching out to stylists for career opportunities at one of the big retail salon brands.

Vintage Package Design from London's Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertising

2010-01-08T13:03:00.001-08:00

TheDieline posted these. Wish I could go get completely lost in this place.

Packages

2010-01-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Gorilla Coffee packaging by 1Trickpony.

Not bad for Microsoft.

Clever and pretty. Unsure of brand.

OK so this is one of ours. Loose leaf teas.

1800 Vodka commissioned artists for this series.

- Eric Hayward

Photos are re-posts from dzine.blog except for the one.

The visual storytelling of James Cameron's Avatar

2009-12-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

Todd Cherniawsky, supervising art director, could be considered the real storyteller behind Avatar, which opened in 3D this weekend. You could almost turn off the dialogue and not only still understand what' s happening, but understand it better.

The quickest possible synopsis: wheelchair-bound ex-Marine Jake Scully signs up for a tour on the moon Pandora to run an Avatar---a host body fusing the pilot's DNA with a native Na'vi body---for a research project bound to the rapacious agenda of a mining company protected by a Marine contingent.

Much of the plotted tension, between the Na'vi, who live completely in harmony with nature in a mysterious biological link, and the forces that would uproot them in search of the valuable mineral "Unobtanium," happens visually. To work, the film needs you to connect with the Na'vi, but rather than courting your brain with narrative, it courts your eyes, cutting from green, blue, and phosphorescent forests of the moon surface to the dusty green and gray of the mining base. (It's like stepping out into the lobby after having been inside a really good aquarium).

Whatever your intellectual or moral reaction might be to real-world stories of environmental destruction, your senses revolt in response to any threat to the Na'vi's forest home.

The art directors deserve a lot of credit, Oscars really, but what they've done is directly translate the contents of film director James Cameron's imagination. As a London Globe and Mail interview reveals, Cameron, whose past films include Terminator, The Abyss, and Titanic, has a historical ambivalence for technology going back to his first screenplay, as well as a personal passion for diving and the sea. You don't have to look to hard for those influences in the imagery of Avatar. Cameron is himself an artist, if not a trained one. According to Globe and Mail he started his creative life sketching fantasy creatures in his school notebooks and later went on, after dropping his Physics education for English, to create special effects for director John Carpenter.

Cameron at work. James Cameron's Avatar: A symphony in blue and green.

To express affection, the Na'vi say, "I see you." This means a lot for them, a species who relies upon and values the wisdom of the senses. Advice to you, see this movie.

-Eric Hayward

Other pictures credited to Twentieth Century Fox Corporation, 2009.

Twitter as Counter-Propaganda - #doyoufollowme?

2009-12-07T10:51:00.001-08:00

From 12/3/09 Cool Twitter Conference Mpls.

"#doyoufollowme? Twitter as Counter-Propaganda"

View more presentations from Eric Hayward.

Fortune 100 CEOs not Tweeting

2009-11-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

Not sure how quantitative the research was that went into the following slideshow, but, it's anecdotally interesting. A very small number of high-profile Fortune 100 CEOs use social media. What's interesting is not that fact, but the fact that somebody could find this out in an afternoon doing online research. It means that a famous person's participation or non-participation in social media puts them only a few degrees of separation way from the rest of us. Your surprise in finding out only 13 CEOs have LinkedIn accounts, or that Warren Buffet isn't following anybody on Twitter, probably lasts as long as the time it took to read this sentence.

Fortune 100 CEOs Are Social Media Slackers

View more documents from Blue Trumpet Group.

The average CEO is already "linked in." She or he got to that position doing actual networking, for which desktop networking is only a supplement. 81% of CEOs don't have a Facebook page. Hopefully the rewards of being that successful include plenty of time to spend with family and friends at sprawling private estates vs. chatting online. These social utilities are for schlubs like us, stuck at our desks.

The underyling assumption seems to be that executive social networking is about perception. If people really need to see you as a technically sophisticated man of the people, you've got a lot more PR work to do than creating a Twitter account. The people here are probably shareholders anyway, who don't want the CEO spending hours a day Tweeting, but generating business.

Wendy's plays at real authenticity

2009-11-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

Is authenticity any more popular than it ever was? Supposedly the next consumer generation (the Y one) has a heightened taste for the real, and Wendy's is responding:

It's a funny ad with a good song (not so much a jingle, but a "jindle," that is, an understated indy pop riff, used as background to a concept, in place of a maddeningly catchy series of three or four notes) that takes good-natured shots at fast food competitors. Claiming Wendy's burgers are more real than others is not a stretch. Sometimes they're assembled a little sloppily, but the meat simulates real meat and the lettuce and tomatoes appear fresh. Their fries are also really good.

"The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real." -Jean Baudrillard

Eight Album Covers in Heavy Rotation

2009-10-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

From Print Mag:

"In Peter Terzian’s essay anthology Heavy Rotation, twenty contemporary writers remember the record albums that influenced and inspired them. We looked at eight of the covers of those albums and found a handful of interesting stories about how they came to be.... read more."

How Emotions Shape Our World. New Thinking (and Feeling) on Consumer Engagement in Health Care from Amino Lounge.

2009-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Are we using honest, compassionate communication when we talk to people about their health, or just spewing data? More importantly, are we listening? Studying Vulcanology, and earthly social science, we learn that Listening may be the key to consumer engagement in health care.

Minneapolis, MN, May 29, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Grossman Design Associates today announced the release of insightful new perspectives on consumer engagement in health care. These ideas, exploring the role Listening plays in engaging frightened health care consumers, were published on Amino Lounge, an online community:

http://aminolounge.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-emotions-shape-our-world_20.html

According to McKinsey Quarterly, health consumers were feeling "concerned and confused" about health care in 2008. Today, a year later, they are more likely feeling "terrified," says Creative Accounts Director Eric Hayward.

"It's frightening to think people are putting off important procedures and treatments for fear of the cost, for one thing," Hayward says. "How do we talk to somebody experiencing fear and uncertainty? Should we use technical language about procedures, treatments and the complex language of health care financing, or should we 'just listen?'" says Hayward.

In a dizzying route through deep space, exploring the role emotions play in the new Star Trek adventure, through anthropological perspectives on our primitive brain, the Amino Lounge article goes on to analyze three, recent, high-profile health care campaigns.

"How can we, as advertisers and health care business leaders, create communication that says, simply, 'we hear you?'" Eric Hayward says. "That's trite and too simplistic of course. The intricate science of advertising, which is half intuition and half strategy, may show us the way through this confusing universe."

###

Amino Lounge is an online community, accessible on LinkedIn/Groups and at aminolounge.blogspot.com, providing research and ideas for better consumer engagement through creative health care communication, branding, and advertising.For fifty years,

Grossman Design has created imaginative visual communications programs to fulfill our clients’ marketing goals. As a design firm with a marketing approach, we provide our clients with an enhanced ability to differentiate themselves from their competition and deliver a clear message that gets results.

Contact Information
Eric Hayward
eric@grossmandesign.com

2009-05-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Amino Lounge: How Emotions Shape Our World.

Creative Community Joins to Solve Health Care Crisis

2009-03-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Amino Lounge: Creative problem solving on consumer engagement in health and health care

(Minneapolis, MN) Amino Lounge, a creative health care community, launched online today as a collaborative solution to address the health care crisis through better marketing, advertising, and communication. Using a LinkedIn group as a forum, Amino Lounge brings creative and health care industry professionals together to form a new “standard” for health care communication. The community’s original ideas and analysis are published on Google’s Blogger at http://aminolounge.blogspot.com/.

Amino Lounge is envisioned as a focused and more participatory environment for groundbreaking new ideas --- ideas about elevating the quality of stories, media and creative used to communicate health care to the level of consumer advertising. Eric Hayward, Creative Accounts Director at 50-year-old branding and design firm Grossman Design Associates, has been using Grossman’s blog (“Our Haus” - http://gdahaus.blogspot.com/) as a platform for news and ideas about health care creative for the past year.

“If you want people to get more involved in purchasing health care, you have to make it compelling,” said Eric Hayward. “If I feel bad, Volkswagen and Lexus are doing a way better job telling me a new car is the solution to my malaise, or that I should be thinking about my next car, than hospital systems and insurance companies are to get me to think about my health,” says Hayward.

Other industries facing marketing and perception problems have traditionally banded together to influence market changes. Why not health care? is the driving attitude behind Amino Lounge.

Amino Lounge will discuss not just the tools and tactics of advertising, but more fundamental, previously unquestioned marketing assumptions made by providers and public health advocates alike. Its inaugural post discusses landmark research on the value of addressing the underlying social framework of health decisions vs. the individual accountability typically employed by organizations pushing consumerism.

“Advertisers are great at getting people to equate consumer products with personal values; even with social causes,” says Eric Hayward. “Health care is a more deserving beneficiary of this territory than, say, a soft drink manufacturer. Health care leaders can start challenging each other to be more creative, and that’s one function the new online community [Amino Lounge] can serve,” Hayward said.

# # #

Contact:

Eric Hayward
612-986-9412
eric@grossmandesign.com

# # #

For fifty years, Grossman Design (http://grossmandesign.com/) has created imaginative visual communications programs to fulfill our clients’ marketing goals. As a design firm with a marketing approach, we provide our clients with an enhanced ability to differentiate themselves from their competition and deliver a clear message that gets results.

Grossman Design Associates Builds Online Home for Family Strengths

2009-03-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

Design and branding firm expands strategy to reach families in need, online

(Minneapolis, MN) Grossman Design Associates is pleased to announce the launch of http://sharingfamilystrengths.org/, provided by Family & Children's Service to families and the practitioners and organizations that support them.

This summer, Grossman Design was asked by Family & Children's Service, a 130+ year-old private social service agency, for a strategy to increase engagement with the powerful findings of its Minnesota Family Strength Project Research, which identifies nine landmarks for family strength based on interviews with over 2,000 families. The result was the Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet, which Grossman today follows with launch of an online home for this unique design and content strategy.

"The idea was to reach parents through kids," says Eric Hayward, who led the Grossman Design project team as creative director. "We thought, if kids did the coloring, word search and other activities, they'd not only stumble across information they might communicate back to their families, but the booklet would be around the house for parents to pick up."

Once parents do flip through the booklet, then its readable, editorial style --- written in the voice of other parents, supported by appealing visuals, and also available in a Spanish version --- makes it more likely the message of the nine strengths can cut through the clutter of many demands for parents' attention.

In addition to creating new coloring, word search, and other activities, Grossman worked with experienced program staff at Family & Children's Service to identify the activities they've found most effective in working with families. These, as well as edited descriptions of the landmark strengths, are presented in a design with a cross-generational appeal. The new online home for the booklet includes a printable version of the activities while also presenting the nine strengths.

"Like it or not, adoption of video games cuts across generations. We subtly evoked a 'Nintendo' kind of look with the character illustrations we included, putting these against the types of patterned backgrounds you're seeing in everything from web sites to blogs and ads. You don't want to alienate older kids," Eric Hayward said.

The nine strengths identified in the booklet and website include Communication, Health, Time together, Spirituality, Support, Respect, Unity, Cultural traditions, and Extended sense of family.

"We really hope this approach will take off, and other organizations will expand their thinking as Family & Children's Service has to include creative ways of reaching the important populations they serve," Hayward said.

# # #

For fifty years, Grossman Design (http://grossmandesign.com/) has created imaginative visual communications programs to fulfill our clients’ marketing goals. As a design firm with a marketing approach, we provide our clients with an enhanced ability to differentiate themselves from their competition and deliver a clear message that gets results.

Family & Children's Service has given help and hope to more than one million people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region since 1878. The organization provides a unique combination of mental health services and innovative services aimed at building strong families, vital communities and capable children. To learn more, visit their website at http://www.everyfamilymatters.org/.

Google's blog on Google Health

2009-02-10T12:44:00.001-08:00

Google's official blog has a current post about Google Health, which I discovered the existence of myself at Moveo's blog and posted an entry about yesterday. Google Health is a new personal health record (PHR) letting people post and manage health records and histories online.

I'm just spitting back some information from the Google blog, which gives four differentiating factors of the new site over others: 1) Assurance of privacy and security; 2) A platform letting you import records and test results, and later, set appointments and fill scrips; 3) Portability of health records; and 4) User focus.

I'm particularly interested and excited about the last point. Google says, "We aren't doctors or healthcare experts, but one thing Google can create is a clean, easy-to-use user experience that makes managing your health information straightforward and easy."

If Google can execute on the usability promise, which certainly is a brand asset, it's a piece that's been missing piece all along. Past PHRs have been convoluted and kind of ugly. I'd be surprised if they built any consumer confidence in the security question, as a lot of the ones I saw have kind of a homegrown look. Here's some other PHRs:

http://www.myphr.com/
http://www.recordsforliving.com/HealthFrame/Ideas/PersonalHealthRecord.aspx
http://www.pdhi.com/webnew/products/ConXushealth.asp

The other point of interest is the platform description, which claims it will allow integration with services, tasks and providers. In the past, similar services have lacked background muscle on promotion and networking to fill them adequately with participating providers. Again, I'm hoping Google's brand clout will get the participation to make this aspect worth consumer's time.

I'm considering reviewing the service and writing about it; has anybody used Google Health?

with Google and Microsoft involved, big step for health care "consumerism"

2009-02-09T17:28:00.001-08:00

This is some news: http://blog.moveo.com/moveo_weblog/healthcare/

Both health care organizations and technology companies (from portal providers to more back-end-oriented shops) have been trying to get into the online health records business for years. The idea is giving consumers a single place to post information about their health visits and history --- most humans don't do a great job of this. At least I don't.

Anyway, I don't believe anybody's quite done it right. The attempts I've seen that have failed mostly did so because of the same combination of elements: great technology, terrible web design. (Also possibly a lack of promotion).

The news posted on Moveo's blog that Google and Microsoft are getting into online health records is of interest.

Hopefully this will bring a level of consumer-sensitivity to the navigation, content, and most importantly, marketing of these sites to drive participation.

Here is a link to Micrsoft's HealthVault: http://www.healthvault.com/
Here is Google Health: http://www.google.com/health

comprehensive site for health care marketing

2009-02-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

http://healthcaremarketing.ning.com/

Dan Dunlop moderates this site, which is a vast clearinghouse of information on health care marketing. He has taken the time to crawl the web and find good articles, not just linking out to them but providing summaries. He's also got examples of successful print, TV and video campaigns on there.

The site is definitely a first stop if you are an in-house marketing person at a hospital system or other institution, and for sure if you run an agency that wants to break into health care or enhance what it's doing.

This is the article that first grabbed my attention by the way. Obviously I've tried to write on this topic here.

Reinventing advertising = unseating the snob within

2009-01-27T07:49:00.000-08:00

When I got my first job in marketing, I was a total snob.

(I was one of those English-Majors-for-life, who feels his grammatical skills and summary knowledge of titles in classic literature hold him above the rest of the world.)

I applied this in my role as a marketing communications manager for a software company. I fashioned a bubble around myself and my desk --- from within which I wrote wordy press releases, brochures, and sales sheets --- fancying that I was some kind of Machiavellian spin doctor.

Life and maturity lifted me out of this ridiculous plane and dumped me into the street with the rest of us.

I learned the hardest possible way just how equal I was with everyone else in the eyes of nature and the human world. This humbling experience made me a better marketer, by way of making me a better person. I became more authentic and understanding.

I believe a lot of the advertising and marketing community still resides within a self-perpetuating bubble, its own unique culture of genius. In some moments I bow to it, wishing I were half as good as these, truly the smartest guys in the room.

Smart or not, the lofty position all of us marketers hold at times is not helping our craft.

I, Narcissist

In boom times, it's a seller's market. TV ads get weirder and more self-referential as we begin to amuse ourselves at the expense of everyone else. We're making art, or perhaps merely scribbling cartoons for each other in the margins of notebooks that everyone else is forced to read. Barely discernible, what actual brand messages do exist are at best out of touch and at worst, big brotherly --- statements of fact rather than invitations to dialogue.

Panderama

Inevitably, because people are smart and adaptable, consumers get wiser and more discriminating. Traditional advertising responds with a craven and obsequious tone. The spokesman for your cereal hisses at you from behind a grinning rictus, desperate for your business, recycling adages that are just as removed from reality as those uttered in his better times.

The rich emptiness in-between: listening

What's the answer to all of this? Better listening.

This is different than facilitating staged focus groups that are ultimately bent on confirming a predetermined product agenda. It's about finding the places where consumers naturally assemble to talk about your brand (or your client's brand) and hearing what they have to say, good and bad.

I'm a salesman at heart, so I'm opportunistic. My first instinct when I stumble across this kind of customer data is to get ravenous, to seize hold of the obvious chunks of information, wipe off the blood and gristle, and put them right back on the plate. But consumers are smart enough to know when they're being fed what they supposedly want to hear.

(This data comes from lots of places. In a later post I hope to talk about the specific role interactive plays in providing us with it.)

At these moments I try to remember about listening. I sedate both the analytical and hungry parts of my mind and just really look and listen to what's there. I don't polish it up or reposition it out a desire for authorship, because the temptation to seek out an "I made this" moment is great. Rather, I complement myself on the ability to stay open and just look.

All goodness springs from a level plane

Listening to what consumers say, and restating it authentically, is the first step towards a needed reinvention of advertising and marketing communication.

This approach will unseat many of us who have enjoyed the perception of elevated status.

Once we realize we belong down below, because we're consumers too, it will only increase our ability to communicate with authenticity. Reinvention can happen from the ground up.

Funny or decent health care ads

2009-01-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

#1. Production budgets do make a difference. But that said, this is funny. Love the contact sounds, and the cactus. From United Health:

#2. I usually run distinctly in the other direction from ads with "funny kids," but this is endearing and surprisingly funny. Is she from Long Island?:

#3. From the other side, "Insurance company rules." ("A fun alternative to the social contract"):

#4. This one is my favorite for taste, production quality, subtle humor and great music. It's a PSA for, of all things, orthopaedic health:

Hey Hey

2009-01-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

This song will get inside your head and you won't get it out. Also affects children. My kids have been singing this for weeks. Please help us.

Long Overdue: The Complete Annihilation of Employee Sales Training

2009-01-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

Hey I know you.

You're a creative person and a fantastic marketer. You work in consumer electronics. You believe in the products you're selling.

You should be doing groundbreaking stuff with Web 2.0 and interactive --- creating games and contests; building communities; flexing your brand; showing how smart, funny and beautiful you are.

But you feel stuck in an obscure corner of the marketing organization, the training department.

The consumer brand people at your company don't always see you. They're looking in a direction they believe is "up." Sometimes this means chasing after the next, great, award-winning broadcast campaign. They have full internal and agency resources at their disposal. What are you left with?

Employees and salespeople are also consumers. They have emotions and tastes and they buy stuff.

Working in retail is not always so rewarding. Every opportunity to make a customer happy presents a moment's relief from the sustained stress of dealing with the public day after day.

One way to make customers happy is by getting them a product that supports their lifestyle, achieved by communicating shared excitement over the possibilities it presents.

What kind of record-breaking sales would result if retail employees felt as excited about your latest device as consumers do?

I bought a Blackberry Pearl from someone who loved his Blackberry Pearl. He was smart, funny, a hipster. It's everything I'd like to think about myself. (Complete side note: I guess I'd also like to think about myself as being similar to Clive Owen, who is taller, richer and better-looking than me. He might also own a Blackberry. We're not sure.)

(Clive Owen possibly handling a Blackberry phone, courtesy of http://celebrityblackberrysightings.com)

The product training people at T-Mobile communicated something to the sales associate that became a shared excitement with me. It led me to buy a phone in half the time I would have elsewhere.

I was excited about the phone. I was more excited about taking funny movies of my kids and emailing them to Grandma, about enjoying the music I love without replacing my broken MP3 player (now that my bank account, also, is seemingly broken), about being able to work better and smarter while looking good, because I'm all about the presentation.
And, I got a rebate.

A sales employee told me all of that, not an ad.

Good creative and interactive can be applied equally to employee training, which is really about "internal marketing," in the same way they are applied to consumer brand campaigns. What needs to happen is a cultural shift within the marketing organizations at consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers.

This involves making a business case to merchandisers and product managers showing that employee excitement translates into consumer excitement.

It also involves being aggressive and visionary, getting to the table at the big conversations, arguing for the reinvention of employee communication as a bottom-line marketing issue.

Their Downturn is Your Upturn

2009-01-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

"Strategy" as a cheap, practical activity for leaner times

If you're reading this, you probably work in marketing.

(You're also probably very smart and cool, because this blog is awesome).

While a would-be downturn seems like a terrible time for marketing, it's actually a great time for cheap, easy and invigorating efforts that will elevate you to the top of this tidal wave.

You may be in one of two positions:

1. Your budgets have been magically preserved
2. Your budgets have been vigorously slashed

If you're in the first position, bless you. Dig into the inventiveness that flourishes in tough times. Find unique ways to speak to your customers about your role in helping them through it all.

Emerge as their friend when other brands have gone dark.

If you're in the second position, take heart. You will use this time to fix problems that have plagued your organization for years.

Companies in both positions will benefit from a healthy review of their current state of affairs...

Conduct a marketing audit

A marketing audit is a controlled effort to review what you're doing and either consolidate messages or form new ones.

If you're in position one:

Grab a conference room.

Brainstorm about the numerous ways your brand and product messaging can be tweaked to express value, comfort, longevity, partnership, care and loyalty -- qualities bringing relief to tough times.

Look at all of your customer touch points. Eliminate redundant communication, focusing your efforts on high value, high return efforts to reach customers with inventive new messaging.

Get creative. Be bold in asserting a confidence customers can cling to when everything appears to be falling apart.

Think long-term, however, about more timeless brand values you can reassert. Find ways to sync these up with more trend-oriented messaging. Build a brand that will stay relevant in the inevitable upswing.

If you're in position two:

Grab a conference room.

Spread out copies of ads, collateral, direct mail, letters, website messaging, emails and other communications you still send out. Can any of them be eliminated?

Look more carefully at the combined (or often disjointed) "story" these materials are telling, and start documenting new ways to position yourself when an execution budget arises.

While you're doing this, take a good look at all of your customer touch points to also identify any redundancies or gaps.

The initial cost of these efforts could be as much as, I don't know, whatever it costs in internal hours to rent a conference room and perhaps order one of those big boxes of coffee. If you have an outside someone you trust, you may ask them to facilitate the discussion and certainly assist with the brainstorming part, if it comes to that.

In any case, cost savings can be an outcome of these efforts. Some organizations, particularly health care insurers, save many thousands by eliminating unecessary member communications.

Conduct a mental audit

What? Yes. I am so far from being an economist, but I believe perception and attitude play a huge role in changing the kinds of behaviors that can jumpstart an economy.

Am I deluded?

One way we can act on this is by helping out others who may have lost jobs. Getting out of our own heads for a bit will be a huge relief, and will magically free up our best thinking about solutions to the problems that plague us personally.

Good times are on the way, I swear it. What you do today will help you take full advantage of the upswing when it arrives.

Have a Healthy Downturn

2009-01-06T12:05:00.001-08:00

Actionable Strategy for Health Care Brands

In the last post I launched a new effort I'm spearheading to help my favorite companies through the alleged downturn: a marketing audit.

A marketing audit is intended to save money, by eliminating redundant efforts. It also sets the stage for future, highly-profitable activities. When better budgets arrive, a plan is in place for execution.

Health care organizations have unique issues to consider, particularly health insurance companies and hospitals.

All types of organizations can benefit from collateral reviews, analyzing customer touch points, consumer segmentation, and a review of core messaging.

Health care organizations, however, can especially consider a "communications audit." They often send out a lot of collateral to patients and members.

Auditing your collateral

Content-wise, there's tremendous value in having someone go through the various pieces, from an editorial and communications-planning perspective, to look at messaging:

Can certain print pieces, bearing redundant messages, be eliminated?

Even three or four fewer pieces sent out a year per member (for insurers, for example), at multiple thousands of members, not only cuts costs but increases the likelihood the right message lands.

More administratively, are you sending the same pieces out twice? Religiously I received two, big benefits booklets from my old health plan, every year.

These audit projects pay for themselves.

And at the very least, the organization has now also invested in a valuable review of its core messages. At the very most, they've gotten closer to the bigger, fundamental review of health care branding that I am recommending all health care organizations take (see this post):

We need to reconsider the fundamental story we're telling patients and members in light of what they really care about. Talk to your writers about this meditative activity for the downturn.

In addition to a deeper analysis of a health care brand, a cheap, high-value activity is this:

Review photography that can be easily replaced on the web or in print.

One of the most valuable services your design and advertising partners can offer in health care branding is photo direction. As we evolve the underlying story, or "messaging platform," an interim step is simply choosing more original imagery. With a little help you can replace photos and artwork without changing layouts just yet. (Which I also recommend considering).

So a downturn is a time for strategy. I keep "strategy projects" at arms length of course, wanting to ensure they are always linked to executable suggestions and not simply generating documents. The ideas here perfectly represent actionable strategy for health care brands.

Memo to Health Care Marketeers

2009-01-02T14:57:00.000-08:00

Listen:

Of all the marketing messages consumers receive, those dealing with health care are arguably the most important.

Weigh the social impact of a Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper against news of life-saving technology or facilities.

And yet, poor health is communicated far better to American consumers than is good health.

It's not as if health is less interesting.

Health does far more for your sex life, your family life, and your waistline than greasy pork and nicotine. Advertisers are just better at connecting these products, in consumers' minds, with the things they care about...

...The fundamental promise of pleasure (for example), especially appealing in tough economic times, is an easy sell. Identity is wrapped up in there, too. I choose Burger King because I'm funny, creative, and young(ish).

As health care marketers, before we even write copy or shoot photos, we can start with a better fundamental promise.

Right now, we're stuck in a preachy, "apple-a-day" mentality. Thinking top-down, we start from a position of expertise held over the heads of all of you, unhealthy slobs that you are. The fundamental promise of health care is a "should"...

...Exercise more because you should. Eat better because you should.

It's also, often, a negative. Take this and you won't get dandruff, heartburn, or worse.

Product advertisers not only start with a better fundamental promise, they express it far better. They use words, colors, sounds, and images that evoke and invite.

Us health care marketers, on the other hand, have gotten lazy! We dip again and again into the same pool of words and images. Clichés like the friendly, silver-haired doctor, the earnest and dedicated researcher, or even the happy seaside jogger are falling flat with consumers.

We're also far too technical, and scary. More than once recently I've seen the names of complex and unpleasant medical procedures used in headlines and lead copy.

We're allegedly in a downturn (I'm an optimist) and need to spend our money carefully. So let's start with something cheap, or free:

WHAT I SUGGEST:

Write Your Own Revolutionary Memo.

Before beginning, I suggest you listen to this,* for mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OTHnXwr_s

And read this, for tone: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html

I also wanted to include "watch this," but it has a bad word in it, so be warned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UeR0CqI4iw)

Now you should be suitably juiced up to open your email program, or better, the case on your college typewriter, and send an urgent note to leadership in your organization about radically rethinking the fundamental assumptions we make in:

1. Forming an underlying health care brand, and
2. Expressing that brand through marketing and advertising.

Tell your people to start watching commercials for pharmaceuticals very carefully (those guys really get it) as well as reading, watching and listening more closely to product advertising for soap, toothpaste and shampoo, as well as cars, turkeys, Wendy's, Mighty Putty, anything.

Tell them to get excited, because you're excited. And then get excited...

...Most of us not-so-secretly desire to be part of something big, and good. We feel guilty about the failure of our working lives to line up with the urgency of widespread, unmitigated suffering in this confusing world.

Those of us working within or as a partner to health care organizations have an opportunity to get creative, which is fun, about delivering a message that saves lives, which is inspiring. And also has some huge dollar signs attached to it too, by the way.

WHAT'S NEXT:

I am working hard to develop more thoughts like these, mapped to practical actions and outcomes. I put a lot of them on my blog (gdahaus.blogspot.com). You can read it.

Way more important, I want to form a loose coalition of like-minded people excited by the creative and socially relevant opportunity of transforming health care marketing. Want to join me? Write eric@grossmandesign.com.

BEST OF LUCK AND HEALTH TO ALL OF YOU IN 2009.

Eric

Creative Accounts Director
Grossman Design Associates
M:(612) 986-9412
O:(952) 922-4343
http://grossmandesign.com/
http://gdahaus.blogspot.com/

*There could conceivably be a spoken lyric in this song that offends somebody. It it's you, tune the words out (for shame) and just listen to the bass line. It's hot.

A Movement Toward Better Health Care Marketing

2009-01-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

The stakes

Of all the marketing messages consumers receive, those dealing with health care are arguably the most important.

I mean, it's hard to argue against the value of knowing there's a "spicy" Baconator out there, and who would deny the role of Mighty Putty as a vital glue to our consumer civilization?

But connecting people with the professionals, tools and technology that can enrich, if not save, their lives still seems a more valid exercise for mass communication.

"Importance" is subjective, and not the best metric for evaluating the potential cause and execution of good advertising. But if we do care about the mission of better health, we have a responsibility to share that mission more effectively with patients.

Pharmaceuticals have it sewn up pretty tight. Big marketing budgets are one thing, and they sure have them. But underlying the most effective campaigns is something that transcends money. It's an understanding big pharma shares with Wendy's, OxyClean and Nike.

The understanding is that advertising is a translation process. Advertising maps a mere product agenda to heartfelt human desires. Where Wendy's has escape, pleasure and convenience going for it, health care has these true biggies in the realm of human want: love, lovemaking, longevity and freedom. For starters.

If we can subvert clichés (which I believe are the first of three health care marketing mistakes) we can more quickly connect with the needs and beliefs consumers care about, rather than losing them in a stream of hackneyed words and images the mind is all too good at tuning out.

The clichés

Of these, my favorite is the "silver-haired family doctor."

The silver-haired family doctor is always smiling, smiling as he peers knowingly into a little girl’s ear with his otoscope. She is smiling too, clutching her favorite doll. Mom is also there, just smiling away.

Why is everyone so happy?

This silver-haired doctor gets around.

You've seen him comforting an elderly woman in a hospital bed. Sometimes he looks directly into the camera. Other times he stands with a group of doctors, arms crossed in welcoming but confident postures. What are they doing?

Who can tell? The image, like most of the stock-photo scenarios used in ads and marketing materials for health care services, is steeped in unreality, emptied of relevance and meaning. Why?

Telling better stories

We've gotten lazy. We keep dipping into the same pool of superficial generic images, forgetting to create new, better underlying stories. That's what advertising is: translating the brute reality of mere marketing into great stories that reach our hearts. If we put story first and details second, the better story will inform more relevant choices for the words, images and sounds that activate feeling and drive action. A better story is one connecting health care with personal desires for beauty and freedom, versus connecting it with morality.

It's easy and convenient to recycle a preachy, "apple a day" storyline about what we should and shouldn't do as a cause for better health care.

It's harder but better to appeal to human self interest, looking at the self-generated motivations consumer/patients identify as their own reasons to pursue better health care.

If our own laziness as marketers is truly the culprit, guess what? Patients will get lazy too.

Left without a reason to choose your services over another, they also will pick whatever is closest at hand. Will it be you?

The Revolution Has Not Been Televised

2009-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Why the health care revolution has not taken root.

The past five/ten years saw the uprising of a number of "revolutionary" health care organizations.

They take a number of forms. Most are entrepreneurial ventures of health care veterans providing more customized ways to purchase services. Equally driven by idealism and opportunism, these pioneers all seem to agree --- consumers can be elevated to a position of volition and power.

A lot of these organizations have struggled. Many have failed, or changed forms. Why?

Revolution comes from the ground up, from people. It's hard to sustain a movement conceived top-down in a conference room instead of a break room. People like you and me have tried to create a revolution out of a marketing agenda.

"The people" simply haven't followed, whether it's consumers themselves, or the providers who have to participate in a new form of business to get on board. What's missing?

Two things: 1) Grass-roots organizing and 2) Effective advertising.

The advertising part is simple...

First, we can strike all health care clichés from the images and messaging used to talk about health.

Second, we can stop talking about health.

We can start talking about life, love, lovemaking, freedom and all the other emotional causes that drive people to reconsider their health. Versus talking about cholesterol and colonoscopies.

As for grassroots organizing, it's vital, but more complicated.

First, we have to reconfigure our attitude, from a top-down approach (I concoct a marketing agenda and push messages at consumers) to a democratic one (I listen to what consumers are saying and help them talk about me).

How are we letting what consumers want change our agenda? How are we communicating those positive changes back to consumers?

An alleged downturn is a great time to start formulating an attitudinal shift. It takes little money. It takes lots of inventiveness, which thrives in tough times.

Revolutions also thrive in tough times.

People are now assembling on their own to figure out their personal health care messes. Will you be tapped to join the conversation?

Where Clutter Comes From

2008-12-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

This somewhat amusing, but very enlightening, video illustrates "design by committee," which we talked about in the last post:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298&q=microsoft+ipod

While that post dealt with pitfalls that non-profits face in design and marketing, the problem is far from exclusive to them, as evidenced by the fact the above video was developed at Microsoft.

The video in question is an internally leaked presentation. It is great at dramatizing how design suffers when designers allow themselves to fall prey too closely to the individual whims of too many internal clients.

I've been involved in processes like this, and I have to be honest, I most often blame myself. When I'm reluctant to set expectations or show leadership in recommending the best creative process, I can't really blame clients for responding the open-ended forum for commentary that I have created. My bad.

Using Design to Differentiate Your Non-Profit - Part II

2008-11-17T09:12:00.001-08:00

(Click here for the original presentation this post is adapted from, a round-table discussion David facilitated for a non-profit federation marketing seminar in November '08)

The previous post discussed some challenges non-profits face in trying to break through internal obstacles to effective design. So what does good look like? There are a couple of ways to think about this, in terms of strategy and creativity.

Strategy - a brand is more than a logo

In his book Brand Sense (http://www.brandsense.com/) Martin Lindstrom did a tremendous job articulating advice most design firms give their clients: the idea that a brand is much more than a logo. As Lindstrom puts it, you should be able to "smash your brand" and have each of the individual pieces serve to identify your organization.

A great example is UPS (http://www.ups.com/) who uses both the color brown and a recognizable shield logo to identify itself.

If you're relying on a logo alone, you're missing other opportunities to build recognition. Organizations use colors, unique compositions and layouts, and unique typefaces that work together with a logo to create a comprehensive brand essence.

We helped one of our own clients, the Minneapolis JCC (http://sabesjcc.org/), establish a collage composition that can be varied according to color and photography, in print and on the web, while still remaining recognizable. JCC sends out direct mailings to different markets repeating a series of rectangles in different colors with different images relevant to their audience.

We believe you can get audiences to recognize a system rather than a specific, adding tremendous flexibility and depth to the goal of brand recognition.

Creativity - How do you know if your idea is "different"

The easy answer to this question is, "It scares the hell out of your executive director." In the last post we talked about the inevitable resistance organizations feel to something new. You don't want new-ness for its own sake, though. So what could be new for you?

>> Own an unusual color.

Livestrong is a great example of successful use of an unusual color to spread a message about courage in the face of adversity. Yellow is not your first choice as a color representing toughness, wherewithal and manly persverence. But it works. It's also a logical color for cycling gear, which is one of the merchandising strategies Livestrong has used to raise money for its cause:

http://www.livestrong.org/site/c.khLXK1PxHmF/b.2660611/k.BCED/Home.htm

>> Own a bold color.

Gap (Red) is a clever campaign that not only makes use of one of the most vibrant colors in the spectrum but also treats it in type ("[Red]") to let words back up the message:

http://www.joinred.com/Shop/shop_gap.aspx?gclid=CKjW8OOG_ZYCFRg6awodET_HXg

>> Own a unique style.

This is a great example of how a "brand" can work as more than just a logo. Look at how this organization uses type, style, photo choices and treatments, and composition to create a unique brand essence:

http://www.fightnightdc.com/

>> Own a provocative message.

Gillette Children's made a courageous and clever move in launching "Cure Pity" -- a campaign that turns one of the worst and weakest words for the topic of children's health and disabilities on its head:

http://www.curepity.org/

>> Connect with your audience.

This campaign from the Ad Council uses a clever way to speak directly to its audience of dads:

http://adcouncil.org/download.aspx?id=912

You don't have to be this literal, though in this case it works really well. Just be sure to keep your audience clearly in mind as you plan and execute your communications. Who are they, and what do they really care about?

>> And make people think.

See the bus campaign featured at this site. The campaign aimed at challenging religious and cultural bias by showing common phrases like "Rock, Paper, Scissors" spelled out in Arabic on parchment backgrounds. In a post-911 world it's designed to challenge audiences, allowing them to experience, realize and ultimately question their own fears:

http://www.rethinkbias.org/

How do we afford this?

It's not so much about money, it's about ideas. Of all the resources Apple has to throw at a marketing idea, look at how simple this highly effective campaign -- that really uses two guys and a white background -- achieved widespread success through an idea that fuses a very tangible marketing message:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzeRV6J0ZSw

This particular campaign was absurdly expensive if you're taking the example literally. Most non-profit and many for-profits dont' have the budget to run a national broadcast media campaign. What I'm saying is, challenge yourself to find your version of the "two guys on a white screen" example. It's the idea that makes the difference.

Non-profits are perfectly positioned to foster a design-friendly organizational culture. Why? Because they're mission driven. This gives them an advantage over some for-profits, who many times have to rediscover their purpose in order to connect with the valuable and rich territory of mission as a source for more relevant and engaging branding.

Design is subconscious and emotional. It comes from the same realm of belief that also drives your organizational cause -- your mission. So when it comes to design, non-profits are halfway there.

Using Design to Differentiate Your Non-Profit - Part I

2008-11-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

(Click here for the original presentation this post is adapted from, a round-table discussion David facilitated for a non-profit federation marketing seminar in November '08)

Have you heard this before?

> Marketing = "I'm great in bed."
> Advertising = "I'm great in bed. I'm great in bed. I'm great in bed."
> Public relations = "Trust me: He's great in bed."
> Design = "Let me show you how great I am in bed."

All of these approaches (I mean marketing, advertising, etc.; not so much love-making) have their place in outreach and communication to members, donors, constituents. Non-profit organizations struggle with all of them, but design, with an emphasis on pictures instead of words, tends to give them the most trouble.

Pictures vs. words

Universally, non-profits are content experts. They have unique academic knowledge, research expertise, unique understanding of a particular constituency, or skillful approaches to delivering services. This makes it pretty easy for them, as organizations, to write about or say what they do. (Although there are plenty of challenges there). But to show it?

How the brain works - noticing what's different

Many for-profit companies have learned this. They know that our brains' primary role is to protect us from too much information. Because it is hardwired to notice what's different, they've learned to use brand images that catch us unaware in the continual stream of as many as 4,000 marketing messages we witness daily as Americans. You've heard this before -- be different. But what does that mean?

Avoid the mistakes most non-profits make in their marketing

We've had the good fortune to work with many, wonderful non-profit organizations. Here are some of their pitfalls when it comes to launching design projects.

NO CULTURE OF DESIGN.
Study the administration of our outgoing President and you'll learn that leadership doesn't require knowledge of all the ins and outs of your particular discipline. Likewise, you don't have to staff your leadership team with graphic designers to create a base-level belief in the importance of marketing and design. This makes your organization more likely to budget and commit resources to a strong marketing focus that will support design efforts.

FEAR.
Many organizations would sincerely like to be more creative in the way they communicate their brands, but talk themselves out of it. There will be resistance to something new. If the approach you're conceiving is well though out, it's worth challenging that resistance.

TMI (TOO MUCH INFORMATION).
I was recently working on a a web project for a large, non-profit professional association. I asked them to prioritize which of the content "buckets" they wanted on their web site were most important. Someone said, "Well, the events committee will tell you events are most important." Weed through these multiple agendas by asking yourself what your audience needs to hear, not what you want to say, to avoid visual or verbal clutter.

CLICHES.
There's a stockpile of images we instantly reach into when we need to represent something visually. Stay away from there. Everyone else is dipping into that stockpile of hearts, globes, little dancing people and religious icons. You won't stand out.

THE SWOOPER.
When organizations haven't fostered a creative culture, leadership is not involved upstream in marketing and design decisions. The "swooper" is the individual with veto power who swoops in at the last second, when the rest of the team has signed off on a design project, to say, "but I hate red," for example.

ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE = NOTHING TO NOBODY.
Focus on the audiences that really count rather than trying to make your message suit every possible audience. You risk twin extremes of either too much information or generic appeals. One-off audiences don't need a home on your organization web site; they need a one-pager.

DON'T DESIGN BY COMMITTEE.
Identify a select group to steer your design project. Then survey the general organization for feedback, so they can feel they participated, but let the small group winnow down and prioritize the responses and work with your designer. Ask people for feedback on general approaches rather than minute details. Judy in the mailroom has crashed many would-be successful design projects by bogging down the process with endless edits that eat up the budget and leach energy from the process.

"BUT MY WIFE DOESN'T LIKE IT."
It's good to solicit outside opinions, but remember they come from outside. More than once we've gone through a well-thought-out, consensus-driven design process only to have an executive director tell us he's having second thoughts because his wife didn't like the typeface. If his wife was part of the target audience, that's important feedback. If not, take it with a grain of salt -- or at least ask for opinions like these earlier in the process.

AVOID BORING.
If you work for a non-profit organization, you're on a mission. Don't settle for a design approach that doesn't excite and inspire.

The end result of all these pitfalls is a message that doesn't get through, or doesn't land, sometimes because the project never even gets completed.

Hope? A Running Commentary

2008-11-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

About 10:00 last night I decided to take a run, from Uptown Minneapolis down to Lake Street and back.

Wheezing along, applauding myself on the decision to definitively quit smoking once and for all, I began hearing shouts --- seemingly from isolated spots all over town --- around 10:15.

Passing by Figlio's restaurant I looked in the window quickly at the big TV screen over the bar and saw a clip of John McCain talking, with the caption announcing Obama's win.

Jogging along the rest of the way home I uttered a silent "Thanks."

Still noting the littered streets, failing businesses, and other signs of poverty, and wondering how much the world could change for some people --- like that guy leaving SuperAmerica gas station lighting up a cigarette, or that one trying to jumpstart his rusted-out car --- I nevertheless had an interesting feeling that somebody had been elected leader who might better represent more of us, but who also represented me. With that I enjoyed a private moment of affinity with all people as I passed through my multi-ethnic, multi-income neighborhood.

Do I think the feeling could be two-way? I don't know. I have the luxury of musing on these elevated thoughts. But returning home and watching the victory speech the persistence of my good feelings was great.

The individual words rang out and the field lights hummed, it seemed, with the subtle echo of what's to come --- reality superimposed --- a sense that the words I was hearing would be heard again, notable in the inclusiveness, forgiveness and hope they carried.

Watch the Tackiest Attack Ads of the Season

2008-11-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

Opportunistic and reactionary, part of what's so trashy about attack ads is the way they are conceived, shot and put on the air so quickly. Politicians do surprisingly little to think of how their ads will affect their overall "brand" in the long-term.

I mention this as a followup to the last post. It's suprising how often companies take an "attack ad" approach, wanting to create ads on the fly to respond to competitive threats. Defensiveness is not a value of lasting merit in terms of a solid brand foundation.

Anyway, for fun I did a quick search on "worst attack ads" and came up with some richly crappy and tasteless stuff:

Elizabeth Dole's attack on Kay Hagan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhUOfgxg2c&feature=related

Flowing with bitterly pungent metaphor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhEm2V-VJ8o

I don't know what to say about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2iC-kVZYo8

Here's how to exploit tragedy for personal gain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1F6O7tHiT4&NR=1

The same search revealed lots of people's votes for "worst commercials" in general. These are just for fun:

IBM - voted "worst" by some unknown rating institution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFz--z5Meho

This is wonderful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk

This Avis commercial is very disturbing. The way their mouths fall open reminds me of that that little kid from The Grudge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXR2iDoyLMc&feature=related

Very quick edits in this Barbie ad. You're going to want to watch it a few times. I don't think you'll believe your eyes. What are they feeding that dog?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hAdWqmWDRM&feature=related

-Eric

True Love on Paper [Part 2]

2008-10-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last post discussed three essential questions you can ask in evaluating a potential creative partner. 1) Question #1: Who do you want to work with? 2) Question #2: How well do they meet your specific requirements? 3) Question #3: If there are gaps, can their approach and experience overcome them? Below I look at these in a little more detail.

Question #1: Who do you want to work with?

Out of all the firms you’ve invited to your conference room, one of them has stood out as the one you liked the best. You want to award the work to this firm but have reservations. They’re too small, too big, they’re expensive; they don’t have enough experience, they have too much experience.

Good advice is to put this firm in your finalist category right away.

If you have a good feeling about them as individuals, you’re getting a flavor for the interpersonal relationship you’ll develop in the course of working together. Many, many times this relationship leads to the best work. You understand each other and communicate well — the firm goes the extra mile for you. You get their best thinking.

Question #2: How well do they meet your specific requirements?

Great personality can’t replace specific creative and technical skills. And yet, getting too fixated on specific items from The List may arbitrarily blow the best firm right out of the race. Here are some leadership qualities to look for:

>> Do they have good taste?

Graphic design and advertising are not high-brow disciplines. Their outcomes are mostly aimed at mass appeal based on fundamental human drives. You don’t need an art history degree to determine if a firm’s work is “good” or not. Do you like it? Good enough.

>> Do they have vision?

When you talk to the right firm about their past work, or your project, you hear them talk not about tools and tactics, but ideas.

>> Are they experienced marketers?

An understanding of branding and marketing principles helps a good agency partner get to the root of an issue. As the firm talks you through its portfolio, listen for examples of problem-solving and strategy.

>> Are they strategic?

The right firm will recommend a creative approach not because they like it, but because it also makes business sense now and in the near future. They can articulate why.

>> How much relevant business experience do the leaders have?

In the era of virtual teams the value of creative and business leadership has grown. How big or small a firm is can be less important than the experience of its leadership team and senior associates.

>> What kind of business continuity can the partner demonstrate?

Determine that the firm will be around tomorrow to complete your project and provide ongoing support. Ask them what they do to record their progress and back up your project files.

>> For interactive projects, what are their technical leadership capabilities?

Find out how involved leaders will get in understanding and ensuring accountability to your technical requirements.

>> Will the people who sold you the project service the project?

Ensure you’re not buying into a sales pitch from firm leadership but getting a junior associate for the job.

>> Last, do they seem interested in your project?

Intellectual or creative passion to solve your marketing problem goes a long way.

Question #3: If there are gaps, can their approach and experience overcome them?

If you’ve found a firm you like, with the above qualities, you probably have a winner. However, companies can still get hung up on specific items in their List. Here’s where you decide how essential those specific criteria are.

Don’t back down on your project criteria: the right firm must be able to articulate how it will solve the essential requirements of your job (e.g., design a package, build a web site, create an ad campaign) or have good reasons why it recommends another approach. But other requirements you think are essential could prove less crucial. Like size.

The number of people actually required to deliver a project is fewer than you think. Ask your prospective partner if they’ll supply project leadership, creative leadership and two to three team members per discipline in the design and development areas. Business continuity and leadership trump size.

What good looks like

A successful project is more than a robotic exercise, churning out safe but highly polished creative products from some remote, genius factory. That’s an old myth, one which denies the invaluable role of collaboration in telling great stories. Which is what creative work is about. Going back to the dating analogy, trust your fortune cookie when you evaluate what you think you need in a creative firm versus what your instincts and experience are telling you: An unconventional beauty will turn your world on its end.

Grossman Develops Family Strengths Activity Booklet for Family & Children's Service

2008-10-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Kid-compatible design and content bridge gaps to reach families in need

(Minneapolis, MN) Grossman Design Associates is pleased to announce publication of the Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet, provided by Family & Children's Service to families and the practitioners and organizations that support them. Grossman Design was asked by Family & Children's Service, a 130+ year-old private social service agency, for a strategy to increase engagement with the powerful findings of its Minnesota Family Strength Project Research, which identifies nine landmarks for family strength based on interviews with over 2,000 families.

"The idea was to reach parents through kids," says Eric Hayward, who led the Grossman Design project team as creative director. "We thought, if kids did the coloring, word search and other activities, they'd not only stumble across information they might communicate back to their families, but the booklet would be around the house for parents to pick up."

Once parents do flip through the booklet, then its readable, editorial style --- written in the voice of other parents, supported by appealing visuals, and also available in a Spanish version --- makes it more likely the message of the nine strengths can cut through the clutter of many demands for parents' attention.

In addition to creating new coloring, word search, and other activities, Grossman worked with experienced program staff at Family & Children's Service to identify the activities they've found most effective in working with families. These, as well as edited descriptions of the landmark strengths, are presented in a design with a cross-generational appeal.

"Like it or not, adoption of video games cuts across generations. We subtly evoked a 'Nintendo' kind of look with the character illustrations we included, putting these against the types of patterned backgrounds you're seeing in everything from web sites to blogs and ads. You don't want to alienate older kids," Hayward said.

The nine strengths identified in the booklet include Communication, Health, Time together, Spirituality, Support, Respect, Unity, Cultural traditions, and Extended sense of family. Families, agencies, and therapeutic professionals can download the booklet at http://sharingfamilystrengths.org/.

# # #

For fifty years, Grossman Design (http://grossmandesign.com/) has created imaginative visual communications programs to fulfill our clients’ marketing goals. As a design firm with a marketing approach, we provide our clients with an enhanced ability to differentiate themselves from their competition and deliver a clear message that gets results.

Family & Children's Service has given help and hope to more than one million people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region since 1878. The organization provides a unique combination of mental health services and innovative services aimed at building strong families, vital communities and capable children. To learn more, visit their website at http://www.everyfamilymatters.org/.

Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet Now Available – Free!

2008-10-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

(Republished courtesy of Family & Children's Service)

News Release: October 14, 2008
Contact: Annie Lewis
Communications Director
annie.lewis@fcsmn.org or 612-341-1650

(Minneapolis, MN) Family & Children's Service is pleased to announce that the newly published Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet is available at no-cost to families, teachers, mental health professionals, social workers and community professionals who work with kids and families.

The Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet is a 16 page hands-on guide that will help parents and children identify and nurture their family’s strengths through fun activities and helpful ideas. Using this booklet, families will learn together how to keep their family strong for years to come.

As part of The Minnesota Family Strength Project Research, Family & Children's Service asked more than 2,000 families what makes them strong. Nine landmarks for family strength emerged and are now used widely as the foundation for building stronger families and communities. They are:
1. Communication
2. Health
3. Time together
4. Spirituality
5. Support
6. Respect
7. Unity
8. Cultural traditions
9. Extended sense of family.

Thanks to a special grant from the American Legion Child Welfare Foundation, the Sharing Family Strengths Activity Booklet is available free of charge until supplies are gone. Go to www.everyfamilymatters.org/booklet to request a copy be mailed to you or download your free copy.

Family & Children's Service has given help and hope to more than one million people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region since 1878. The organization provides a unique combination of mental health services and innovative services aimed at building strong families, vital communities and capable children. To learn more, visit their website at www.everyfamilymatters.org.

True Love on Paper [Part 1]

2008-10-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

How to let instinct and chemistry play a role in your criteria for selecting a creative partner

In your early twenties, you begin compiling The List, that catalogue of specifications for the perfect mate. It goes like this: He has to be smart, but good hygiene is essential. She has to love classical music and foreign films, but also appreciate crappy TV. He can’t have a criminal record, but total rule-followers are no fun. Inevitably, we fall for somebody. Invariably, it’s for none of these reasons. It usually works out anyway, as long as we stand firm on categories like hygiene and criminal record. We can be surprised by the great things that slip between our expectations.

Is choosing a creative firm like falling in love?

It certainly can be. Often the best partner for the job is not the obvious choice on paper. We have an instinctual pull toward a certain individual or firm, and we can listen to that instinct or not. Often, when we do, the results exceed our expectations. Nevertheless there’s money and reputation at stake. How do you include evaluations like chemistry in the selection process while still doing your due diligence? The answer is, make something you might call “creative leadership” a primary criteria for partner selection.

Creative leadership (here “creative” refers to creative disciplines, like design, writing and advertising) comprises a core set of professional qualities like taste, marketing skill, strategic thinking, vision and energy that are the foundation of any successful project.

Below are three essential questions, some versions of which have helped countless companies select a partner with the vision and experience to solve their marketing problem.

>> Question #1: Who do you want to work with?

>> Question #2: How well do they meet your specific requirements?

>> Question #3: If there are gaps, can their approach and experience overcome them?

Fission for a Mission

2008-10-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

mission = the mother of all marketing

One of the most depressing places in the world is that abandoned cubicle where most companies keep their mission statement.

It's not the statement itself that means anything. Most of them are pretty formulaic. Rather, what seems to count is having a formal sense of purpose to refer back to. Something serving as the ultimate, idealistic baseline for all of an organization's efforts.

Marketing has to be driven by some form of motivation.

Without a sense of mission, it's fear, whim, habit, greed and internal politics that step in and take up the slack. Honestly, I would trace the driving force behind most of the projects I've worked on back to these client issues.

I've been most successful when I can help clients take a breath, and go from "my CEO listened to a motivational speaker this weekend, and now we're shifting our whole focus" to starting from some kind of a plan, leading to a strategy, that ultimately has a sense of mission at its root. Mission not only sustains overall organizational direction, it improves the quality of individual efforts like advertising.

To realize these benefits, I believe a company's mission has to be somewhat idealistic.

It's good to ask the question, "If my company were suddenly turned into a non-profit, what would be its reason to exist?"

Your mission is the answer to that question.

I was struck by this quotation from the Tao Te Ching: "The best businessman serves the communal good." This suggests it is most harmonious for companies to act from a desire to provide something of value to the world, an in being most harmonious, will also make you rich.

-Eric