When it’s brand engagement. And that is what my new agency does and does really well. I’ve just landed, what may very well be the best gig in my career. I am now the VP General Manager of the Columbus, OH office of Northlich. We are not an ad agency. You can view the press release here- http://tinyurl.com/yef9em9

Let me use the words from their site to help set the stage:

What is this Northlich I keep hearing about? First, we’ll tell you what we’re not. Northlich is not an advertising agency, public relations, media buying or interactive agency. Northlich is a brand engagement agency.

That means we consider the entire brand experience, not just advertising, when it comes to creating communications programs for our clients. We specialize in changing perceptions and behavior. Our product is ideas. Good ones. That engage a target audience emotionally, intellectually, behaviorally and gut-ally. We excel at leading brands to a culturally relevant place where they can be personally embraced and where true behavior change can be achieved. And don’t ya just love it when that happens?

This point of view is what makes this agency different and exciting. For me. For the people working at Northlich. For our clients. We know who we are, what we can do for our clients, our employees and our communities. One of the things that attracted me to Northlich was their commitment to Columbus and Central Ohio. Not just because we have some clients here, rather because of the belief that Columbus is a vibrant and creative city with a tremendous wealth of marketing smarts, great organizations and positive, upbeat vibe about it. Maybe having OSU here has a little to do with it as well.

I don’t want this to be an ad for Northlich. Just know this is a special group of people who have found their purpose, values and principles over the last 2 years and is poised for great things. I plan on making the Columbus office a big part of those plans.

If you want to say Hi, toss some “congrats” my way, or just comment on me or Northlich don’t be shy.

There is a very good post on Social Media Today http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/129423 on The Obama Administration dropping the ball on Social Media after what was an excellent start during the campaign. The central point being once you start you have to be consistent if you want to retain, engage and grow your audience, fans and advocates. Getting a consumer to trial is expensive, keeping them through a real and continuous dialogue takes effort but is a lot less expensive in the long run than trying to replace those lost to weak engagement.

If you are going to take advantage of the power of social media, understand it requires dedication.

The ad agency industry is all a Twitter, and a blog over the Zappos RFP. Some are thrilled with the process, most are pissed off. The recent Advertising Age article http://tinyurl.com/ks26tk
and associated comments are telling of the frustration agencies have with the RFP/pitch process. Well it does suck, sort of. Here is my comment posted on the Advertising Age site.

This is a challenge for both sides of the table. We were not one of the first 16, but were in the mix early and were able to have just about as much contact as necessary with the Zappos team. We also did not make it to the next round; we choose to believe our materials received a fair review. Aaron Mangness’ comment (added to Ignited’s blog)http://tinyurl.com/n3pe79 spells out the intention of Zappos.

I think Mike @ Ignited is right, I think Zappos is right – the RFP process sucks for everyone, Client/Agency relationships are more like marriage than deciding where one might eat lunch today. As such, some dating is in order – maybe even speed dating is necessary. It’s not pretty, unfortunately.

Where it appears things got hairy for Zappos was when so many agencies expressed an interest. Their RFP indicated “…all agencies will be invited to present their proposal.” That gave us the perspective there would be two opportunities to impress the Zappos people. When they became overwhelmed, it may have been to everyone’s benefit to communicate with all agencies about the situation and that the game is changing. Additionally, we were left waiting to hear about our status while those selected began Twittering about their good fortune. It was sort of like waiting to find out if we were voted off the island. It was not until 12:29 AM on Friday July 10 that we received word.

Now I understand why – more than 80 submissions, a looming deadline, and a holiday. So many factors for our friends at Zappos.

Do I wish we were there – no doubt, we believe we did what was necessary to get into the finals. Zappos, unfortunately did not. Would I do it again, not without understanding the number of agencies they are considering, but we’d most likely show up. Good clients are hard to come by and I believe Zappos would be as good a client as they are a company.
We are doing more and more to get away from the RFP/pitch process, it is unavoidable. And exhilarating. And sharpens the agency. For that alone we think the Zappos effort was worthwhile.

All brands have value. That value is determined by how the brand is positioned with a specific target audience and differentiated from its competition. If that brand is discounted today to drive sales, does it run the very real risk of hurting its future? Martin Lindstrom thinks so, and I am inclined to agree. http://www.livemint.com/2009/04/14211012/Don8217t-cannibalize-your-b.html

I opened the June 2009 issue of Fast Company (yes I like the feel of a magazine in my hands, on a plane, on the throne, on a chaise) and saw the following – “Eye contact. Your most underrated skill set.” This was a headline for an ad, none-the-less. It got me thinking how very true that is today. Phone calls, email, webinars, all manner of social media has, unfortunately overrun the face-to-face meeting. There are times in business, hell in everyday day personal interactions, where a good look in the eye will do more to engender trust than any number of words, pictures or actions can ever express.

In our world, bringing consumer insights and engagements to life for the brands our clients entrust to our expertise is one of the reasons we get paid. As a whole we need to do more to get off our collective asses and start making more eye contact with the consumer. Marketers and agencies can hide behind syndicated data and reports. We look for analytics to tell us the whole story.

We do our best “Mad Men” impressions and use our gut to tell/sell a story about the consumer, sometimes based on our own biases. Often times after only a couple of conversations with people in the demographic profile.

I am not at all opposed to research, it’s critical to validating the gut and providing insights that may otherwise be unavailable. It can provide the “real” numbers that get a client off the dime. But, there is no better way to understand the consumer than to go toe-to-toe with them, walk a mile in their shoes and really understand why they trust some brands and not others with an in-home, intimate relationship. I heard Roy Spence from GSD&M Idea City speak a couple of years ago at the Mirren New Business conference in NYC and he talked about how they came up with the “Don’t Mess With Texas” line for an anti-litter campaign.  It came to one of their creative people who got out of the office and walked, looking at the trash, the mess all over the highways and that’s where inspiration struck.

Not long ago, I sat in a retailer that sells one of our client’s products and went through the whole consumer experience, they didn’t know I was anything more than a consumer and I learned a lot. I talked with other consumers, found out what brand they chose, why and what they expected. They I made my choice,our client’s brand of course, and experienced the sales process. It was filled with questions about my related  habits and other bits of information and it ended with a hard push to another brand. I knew that meant the salesman was receiving an incentive to push that brand over my client’s but I was undeterred even though I could have saved some $. Instead I endurred the “are you sure?” question; the “I’ll have to get that from another store comment” and finally a huff as the salesman bent to my will. Let’s not forget I’m the customer.

What did it mean for the client – recommendations on POS, in-store personnel training programs and online elements that helped arm the consumer with information to know what they want before they go to the store.

The bottom line, knowing the consumer means looking them right in the eye and understanding what is driving their behavior and buying signals. That’s the best way to know what’s really what. Go out and make some eye contact.

What possible harm can it do?

The first video on MTV was the Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star.”  This song celebrates the “golden age of radio” and a singer whose career is cut short by television. The proclamation that the radio was dead and that all things musical would migrate to the small screen was profound if not exactly true.

Much of the music world quickly jumped on the video bandwagon as a way of extending audience interest and sales. And that changed the paradigm for the music industry. The same can be said for the on-line world and the future of branding. Maybe. In a recent article in Adweek by visionary Bob Greenberg, the CEO of R/GA,  pointed out that the old rules of branding that served iconic brands like IBM, UPS and AT&T won’t work in today’s ever wired world. http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/bob-greenberg/e3id9a975e26c8545c537eabf30e962eed8 That consumers tune out with ever increasing frequency “traditional” marketing tools -the monologue brand’s typically have with consumers. No argument that the game has changed and that many consumers get information differently today than they did 15 or 20 years ago (let’s get out of the way the fact that much of the radio and television programming is being delivered digitally – we live in a digital world – that’s a fact). I don’t argue with the notion that brands have to give consumers a reason to have a relationship. I wouldn’t be in this business if I didn’t believe that consumer/brand relationships weren’t the linchpin to loyalty and advocacy. I contend that a blended approach to relationship and engagement with a consumer or community of consumers is the right approach. Consumers gather information from so many places – family and friends, editorial, the digital realm as well as traditional media that the development of a relationship is not the function of one medium or another. They work best when they work together. There is no doubt that technology has allowed consumers to connect with brands on their terms. It has also allowed brands, if they are so inclined, to create higher levels on attention for themselves and their products and thereby injecting themselves into the consumer consciousness more easily than before. Traditional media however still has the power to reinforce messages and reach large numbers of consumers which is of particular importance to brands and products with broad and deep consumer appeal.

By now, it might appear that I am “Anti-New Media” which couldn’t be further from the truth, case in point is this blog and the fact that I’ve helped develop both experiential marketing and digital marketing skill sets within two traditional ad agencies.  What I am is against saying any one thing is dead and that technology and the new media are the apes taking over the humans like in Planet Of The Apes. There has got to be a balance in the application of all marketing communication tools – old and new media, direct, public relations, experiential.  The ratios come from understanding the consumer community with which a brand is trying to create relationships.

This leads to tremendous complexity for brands, CMOs and their partner agencies.  To Mr. Greenberg’s point, consumers are on a path to pulling information rather than having it pushed upon them and brands must change the way the create engagements or interfaces in order to have success. This means much more than repurposedcreative for multiple channels. Mr. Greenberg is right in the assessment that brands cannot take a top-down approach as has been done for decades.  I believe it must be a 360-degree approach from all sides to help the consumer with awareness, acceptance, trial, loyalty and advocacy.

Let’s not do the death march for “traditional” advertising just yet.  Maybe Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive” is a more approriate anthem to describe the evolution of advertising.

Does the Twitter phenomenon have any application for brands? Well that depends on the brand in my estimation. There is no doubt that a company can be more personal, more approachable by using Twitter to tweet about what’s going with them. But does it impact sales? And isn’t that the end-game for brands, building sales? Maybe if you have a really deep understanding of your audience and their engagement with Twitter you can create connections that lead to sales. It takes time, you cannot just go out and tweet a desperate plea for people to buy your product. Doing a series of features and benefits tweets probably won’t work either. And if you’ve been sold on doing it just because it’s one of the latest and greatest do yourself a favor and think long and hard about it. If you aren’t responsive, fast to get news out or not stimulating dialogue you won’t get very far. And the last time I looked the most valuable asset most brands have is time and wasting it is never a good investment.

Jeremiah Owyang has a great post on the Evolution of Brands On Twitter http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/08/18/web-strategy-the-evolution-of-brands-on-twitter/

I think most brands are still moving in the slow lane and should probably stay right there. This should not be part of your web strategy. Think about it, a brand creates a presence on Twitter and is fairly prolific, responsive and relevant. Then a consumer goes to their site or calls customer service and gets a totally different experience. Bam! The brand is dead to that consumer and probably 1,000s more that he or she connects with in the various social spaces and places they frequent. Ouch. Most brands should stay on the sidelines if they aren’t going to make the commitment because the ROI is as tough to quantify as any social media or traditional public relations program. Get your house in order first. For these brands, time and money should be spent on first SEO and customer service. Then on SEM where they can really measure their web strategy and efforts all the while creating a dashboard to share results with the guys in the corner office. There is a post from Adverblog that parallels my POV on this subject.  http://www.adverblog.com/archives/003542.htm

If you do decide that Twitter is going to be one of your engagement tools, it can be really powerful for making connections with a community.  You can use it to promote something new, dispel a rumor and create a conversation.  It may just be momentum changing for your brand.  Joe Jaffe had some interesting thoughts on Twitter Chatter as he called it http://www.jaffejuice.com/2007/05/twitter_while_y.html

I’ll admit it is absolutely impossible to know everything that’s going on with advertising, branding, communications and consumer insights but if you are in the hurricane of today’s marketing communications environment you have no choice but to try.  If you are in an agency, like I am, it does not matter if your agency is doing it or not you need to know what tools are out there and figure out how to serve those tools to your clients before someone else does.  That does not mean being all things to all people, but rather knowing how to create partnerships to benefit the client.  A client who has been served well will give you credit for knowing what they need and how to get it done.  Most clients don’t want more relationships, they want more solutions that positively impact their business goals.