Creative Concepts

1. Let’s make this more effective.
2. Let’s make this more entertaining.
3. Let’s make this easier to understand.
4. Let’s solve someone’s problem.
5. Let’s eliminate our redundancies.
6. Let’s thank someone who deserves it.
7. Let’s learn more about our customers.
8. Let’s learn more about ourselves.
9. Let’s ask “why?”
10. Let’s listen.

Photo attribution:

Or, asked another way: to whom is your marketing directed?

On one hand, maybe you’re convinced that influencing the influencers is your best bet.  Rather than spending money to reach an audience that isn’t prepared to act on your message, you’d rather focus on the tastemakers, innovators and icons whose behaviors create culture.  And if a person whom that culture trusts is willing to vouch for your product or service, that person’s own audience is more likely to believe your message than if it came from you personally.

On the other hand, some people don’t believe influencers actually exist.  They advocate a more fluid approach, in which your message (or your very product) is released in multiple versions.  Then, by tracking your audience’s responses, you can continually zero in on the version(s) that work best.

Which approach is the right approach?  The one that works for you.

Certain brands perform exceedingly well simply by targeting the tastemakers in the markets they’d like to penetrate.  But those influencers (if they exist) are highly sought-after by all brands, which means you need to stand far above the pack before they’ll ever notice you.

Other companies are experts at casting a wide net and refining their message based on which of its aspects are most resonant.  Yet this approach requires rigorous reporting and analysis of incoming data in order to clarify your own understanding of the public’s perception, as well as a willingness among your team to repeatedly tinker with what they feel may already be working well enough.

Neither method is “right” or “wrong,” but one of them is probably a better fit for you at the moment.  But before you can decide on the direction of your marketing, you need to understand two key facets of your own company:

• Are you more interested in appealing to the tastemakers or the masses?
• Which methodology is your team best-equipped to process and execute?

Once you know who you are, you’re much better prepared to communicate your assets to the people who most need to appreciate them: your customers.

It’s no secret that people learn more from their mistakes than they do from their successes.  Maybe that’s why we’re all so reluctant to share stories about our failures: it’s not that we’re embarrassed about “doing it wrong,” but we’re afraid that someone else will learn from our mistakes before we do.  (As if succeeding wasn’t already hard enough without giving the competition a free education!)

But social media is public media, which means new successes and failures happen every day, out in the open, and anyone who’s paying attention can follow along in real time.  Lauren Litwinka has done such a thing, compiling an insightful (and acid-tongued) list of companies who are “doing it wrong” on Twitter.

In Lauren’s case, “wrong” means “not making conversation a two-way street.”  She believes social media provides companies with valuable access to their customers’ desires and opinions, and squandering that two-way invitation with one-way marketing will alienate the very people you’re trying to reach.

How did these companies lose their way?

• Misunderstanding the way customers use these media channels.
• Failing to discern what kinds of information people consider valuable.
• Setting low or unreasonable expectations.
• Ignoring customer feedback (or lack thereof).
• Not implementing lessons to adjust their approach mid-stream.

But that doesn’t mean each of the companies Lauren cites are lost causes.  On the contrary, now that they’ve been told their execution could improve, they have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.  And that makes the time and effort they’ve invested up ’til now every bit as valuable as it would be if it had led them to automatic success — and maybe moreso, since they now know for certain what won’t work.

Remember: there’s always value in making mistakes.  Just make sure you’re learning from them (before your competition does).

Hunting is about obtaining food.  Marketing is about obtaining sales.  Either way, you can’t eat unless you first understand how to use the proper tools.

A spear is a distance weapon.  You refine the tip until it’s razor sharp and guaranteed to cut through anything in its way.  Then you attach that point to a long, sturdy staff that’ll hold up under stress.

A spear is designed to be thrown.  It allows you to maintain a safe distance from your target, penetrate its defenses, and then drag your prized kill home to be devoured.

That’s traditional marketing.

A hook is an invitation.  It’s frequently adorned with something eye-catching, to help lure the attention of a passing target.  It can float in the current for a long time before it loses its edge.  And when a target does take an interest in the hook, then you’re able to reel it in.

That’s social marketing.

Both tools work.  Just make sure you know whether you’re hunting or fishing, because that spear might get lost in the river.

There’s a great conversation happening on Amber Naslund’s blog, where she asks: What does the next generation of marketing professionals need to know?  The answers from her readers are practical, including:

• Critical thinking
• Storytelling
• Consumer behavior
• How to engage with multiple (and quickly-changing) demographics
• The difference between actual value and spam

All of which I agree with.  But Amber’s question stems from her observation that the field of marketing is changing dramatically thanks to the Internet — which means the rules you’re taught today may result in disaster tomorrow, when the tools you’re using (if not the entire playing field) changes.

So instead of tactics, marketers need to focus on strategies.

Tools always change.  Twitter, Facebook and Flickr were fictional* words a decade ago, and they may be cultural footnotes tomorrow.  Their rise and fall shouldn’t have anything to do with long-term consumer awareness of your brand, but what your brand stands for should.

Demographics always shift.  What the Baby Boomers wanted in the ’60s isn’t what they want today, and Facebook was a college hub before grandma sent you a friend request.  How people communicate may change rapidly, but what they value rarely does.

Make sure your brand is something consumers value, and the marketers will always have something to talk about — regardless of the tools.

* Yes, twitter has long been an actual word, but its meaning has most definitely changed since 2006.

Ever wonder if your messaging sticks with your audience?  Just ask your kids.

When we joined Cindi Bigelow on a trip to her alma mater (Boston College), we were blown away by just how many college students drink tea (we figured college was a serious coffee haven).  But even more surprising than the students’ taste for tea was how they developed their tea-drinking habits: it came from their families.

If you had told us beforehand that we’d find a random wave of passersby (none of the students were pre-selected) and almost all of them would have had a love of tea instilled in them by their parents, we would have said you were crazy.  Why?  Because of sterotypical preconceptions, like:

• Kids don’t listen to their parents
• Kids rebel
• Kids define their own personalities in opposition to family tradition
• College students have horrible eating habits
• College students live off caffeine

And so on.

Yet, if college students are willing to admit that their parents’ love of tea has rubbed off on them, what other bits of wisdom (or, conversely, what other bad habits) have you passed on to your kids?

Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  If you have students returning home from college — or if it’s you who’s heading home for the holidays — take a moment and find out which elements of your (or your parents’) messaging have survived the gap between the backyard and the dorm.  You may be surprised.

And you may learn a thing or two about the kinds of messages that last.

Heidi Sullivan’s* recent blog post about “the Amp app” makes a valid point: “Don’t alienate your customers.”  She also gives credit to our client, Bigelow Tea, whom she cites as a positive example of a brand adapting its messaging after discovering its social media audience differs from the audience it expected to find.  This is the kind of advice and execution businesses tend to appreciate.

But there’s another side to the Amp issue — namely, PepsiCo’s willingness to alienate potential customers in exchange for the attendant publicity.  Since those presumed to be put off by the application are women, Amp — which is aimed at young, active males — is willing to offend half the planet’s population simply because its parent company has already written women off as unlikely purchasers of their product.

But Amp apparently didn’t count on men being offended by the app as well, or at least not men in their target demographic.  So now it’s conceivable that more than 50% of potential Amp consumers will have a negative opinion of the brand, which means Amp had better hope that it could remain profitable based solely on sales to those in its expected demographic (and that they didn’t also find Amp’s advertising objectionable).

Controversy may generate publicity, but why so starkly reduce the number of individuals who are likely to see your brand as an emblem of positive self-image?  Why market a product in a way that makes others doubt the values of those who buy it?

Social media isn’t just about the message — it’s about the people (or companies) who conceive of it, create it and share it.  And no bad idea gets a greenlight without someone thinking it’s a good idea.

Make sure your messages represent the values YOU want to be known for.

*  Our own Valorie Luther was thrilled to be joining Heidi on a Blog World Expo panel until a sprained ankle forced Valorie to cancel her role in the event.  We here at Creative Concepts still wish Valorie’s panel-mates a spirited and productive debate!

Ad Age’s announcement that magazine sales dropped in 2009 for 24 of the top 25 sellers is a sobering thought, especially if you’re in the print business — or if you’re Cosmopolitan, who’s single issue sales dropped nearly 8%. But what’s less sensationalized is this tidbit from the report (emphasis mine):

Total paid and verified circulation, however, slipped just 1.2% as subscriptions held their ground, gaining 0.6%

Roughly translated, this means readers who intend to consume magazine content on a regular basis haven’t changed their habits.  They still subscribe to the same titles they did a year ago, recession or no.  What has changed is the concept of magazine-as-impulse-buy.  With less discretionary cash in their pockets, shoppers are less likely to splurge on Cosmo at the checkout counter when they can glean the same information online at home for free.

Likewise, the big drops in paid and verified subscriptions came from titles like TV Guide, National Geographic and Playboy, all of which offer content that’s easily found (and more highly targeted) online.  Meanwhile, a closer inspection of the list itself shows minimal drops (and occasional gains) by titles aimed at homemakers and senior citizens — two groups more likely to have the time and inclination to read from the page than the screen.

This leads me to two conclusions:

• Magazines providing how-to guides or evergreen informational resources are still considered relevant and worth purchasing in their offline form, while…
• All other topics that see significant competition from online resources — either in terms of actual content or presumed readership — must offer increased offline value or rapidly shed costs in order to survive.

So: if your company routinely advertises in magazines whose target audiences consider them to be increasingly irrelevant, you need to follow those audiences online.  And, more importantly, you need to keep them talking about you once they’re there.  Because how we choose to consume our information is always changing, but we never stop needing to know where to find it.

One of our clients, Ouidad, has ventured into the world of web video with a trio of hair care tips for the terminally curly. Each video has a different focus — beauty & empowerment, hair care on the go and 4-minute curls — which means each video also (presumably) has a different audience, despite the fact that they’re all coming from the same source.

Since Ouidad and her daughter, Sondriel, are so comfortable being themselves and sharing their insights with the camera, we knew they’d represent their business better than any hired hosts possibly could. But they also realized that Sondriel’s expertise may sound more authentic to a teen or young adult audience than Ouidad’s would, because not every audience perceives “authority” the same way.

If you (or a client) are creating original media for the web, you need to be consistent in your branding, but don’t be slavishly insistent on a single point of view. Your audience is multifaceted; let your messaging be, too.

In a recent post for Social Media Today (SMT), Tactical Transparency author Shel Holtz makes the case that traditional PR can still be just as effective of a marketing resource as the hot new grassroots options like “trusted peers” and word-of-mouth.  The catch?  In Shel’s view, traditional PR needs to start operating a little more… non-traditionally.

Holtz advocates newly-popular concepts like acting transparently, forsaking astroturfed messaging, etc.  Common sense, really.  It should go without saying that PR agencies ought to engage people in ways the people themselves find meaningful, rather than using new tools to reinforce old, erroneous and ineffective messages.  And yet… why have Holtz and countless others had to go out of their way to say it?

The popularity — and, in some ways, the mere existence — of books like Holtz & John C. Havens’s Tactical Transparency and Chris Brogan & Julien Smith’s Trust Agents would seem to signal that audiences now crave a return to authenticity in media.  But how did the practice — or the perception — of PR ever stray so far from these principles to begin with?  Why is social media heralded as an antidote to unsavory, top-down control of a company’s messaging?  And how have common sense observations about the need for honesty become so resonant?

It’s flattering to believe that social media is somehow immune from the excesses (or improprieties) that have become associated with the black hats of PR.  But that’s a false sense of entitlement.  If we’re all smart, the next stage of social media’s integration into mainstream messaging will focus less on how new messages are spread and more on what those messages are actually saying in the first place.