Experience Manifesto

Testing my SM Skills

Yes, I've been a little quiet lately.  Not because I don't have a lot to say, but I've been very busy on a new project that started last week. I'm working on the digital & SM strategies for the Chris Daggett For Governor campaign and getting totally immersed in the world of politics, something new for me.  I'm learning a lot about how the "traditional" politicos treat independent candidates, even when that candidate is polling in the double-digits, like Chris Daggett is.

Team Obama showed what could happen when you really bring the force of Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools to bear for a political campaign and it's just as important for us to mobilize the troops on this campaign.  Many people are looking to see if NJ can tip the scales in terms of our two party system, which frankly, isn't working like it should.  What we end up with all to frequently, is the candidates arguing with each other about who has more parking tickets or important items like that, while the real issues sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to notice them.

Chris Daggett is taking some bold stands on things and I'm really excited to be a part of the campaign.  I won't be posting any political thoughts here, but I will certainly post any tactics/strategies that we're using that I think would be interesting to you.  You can follow me on Twitter @Daggett4gov if you want the news from the campaign.

And if you're in NJ, give us a look.  I think you'll like what you see!

Why Your Advertising Isn't Working - BusinessWeek

This piece in BusinessWeek makes a number of good points, but this one really stood out for me. Why, because this is I think one of the top challenges that advertising faces. I wrote this earlier this month:

So, here's the thing. NOTHING, not cool ads, or a great campaign on Twitter or doing some UGC on youtube overcomes a bad experience. What people really dislike is when your marketing tactics don't match your actual experience.

But, as Steve McKee says in his piece, creating new ads is easier then actually fixing the problems you have. So we watch clients make constant agency changes rather then address core issues with the products. If you've been watching Mad Men this season, I loved the scene in the restaurant where they're talking about the plans for marketing Jai Alai and Horace, the client, says "If jai alai fails, it will be Sterling Cooper's fault."

So before you embark on a re-design on your advertising, make sure that it's not a problem with your product. You'll save a lot of time, money and effort.

It's not an advertising problem. A common mistake many companies make is trying to use advertising to fix another problem. It may be faulty or outdated product design, an uncompetitive cost structure, customer service letdowns, or any number of other things. It's not as if they do so intentionally; it's just that it's a whole lot easier to put on a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that's causing the drywall to crack (Emphasis mine). No company executes flawlessly, but until you can maintain a solid track record of excellence, spend your money on internal improvements rather than advertising. Paint may mask the problem for a short time, but soon new cracks will begin to appear.

Why Your Advertising Isn't Working - BusinessWeek.

The Real Privacy Issue- Pool Summer 2001 - Polinchock's Ponderings.

i [love] marketing. : not quite correct, mr. goodby

AdPulp has the heads up to this piece by Ana Andjelic on the Jeff Goodby response to the new book by Bob Garfield. I really like what she has to say about framing the question correctly to get to better answers. It bears repeating:

If Goodby asked: how do I inspire people to buy more of my clients' products in the current complex media environment (or, better yet, how to become more relevant in consumers' lives), then he may have come to a range of possible solutions, some of which may have been quite interesting, and all of which could have been actually expected to increase sales and/or promote the client's brand.

I believe that one of the biggest challenges facing is that we keep trying to find new solutions using old tools. Pre-roll, post-roll, pop-ups all come from seeing new tools through old lenses. We spend our time looking at how we can either force people to see our ads or trying to scream louder louder then anyone else.

It's the reason that I've spent so much time over the past 15+ years explaining to clients that we need to look at innovative ways to deliver better experiences. Ana says it very well -- how do we inspire people?

Take a look at how you ask and answer this question -- how do you inspire people to buy more of your products?

Simply put, Goodby seems to think that all we need is better advertising. Yes, times are challenging, and our response is to try harder to do what we are already doing. If we were just a bit more creative, or had a tad better copy, or be slightly more funny, then "advertising could morph itself into something people actually want to experience and seek out".

Good luck with that.

The question here is not one of advertising at all. And framing complexity and uncertainty of the current media environment as an advertising question, can only limit the range of possible solutions. If Goodby asked: how do I inspire people to buy more of my clients' products in the current complex media environment (or, better yet, how to become more relevant in consumers' lives), then he may have come to a range of possible solutions, some of which may have been quite interesting, and all of which could have been actually expected to increase sales and/or promote the client's brand (Emphasis mine).

But no, let's talk AGAIN about advertising.

Goodby wants a more efficient old system. And he is hardly the only one. This kind of path-dependency in thinking is known both in studies of decision-making and in real life. Thinking that agencies' can't change because "there's simply too much money and corporate energy devoted to this cause for those budgets, and hopes, to disappear overnight." Hm, something's not going to fail because there is too much invested in it? Bigger systems collapsed for less: financial system and Soviet Union come to my mind :).

i [love] marketing. : not quite correct, mr. goodby.

In Lieu of Headphones - Advertising and Marketing Blog - AdPulp.com.

The Great Good Places

I originally wrote this piece just a few weeks after 9-11 for a trade publication in the amusement industry. They were looking for an article that would come out during the annual IAAPA conference and I usually covered topics like experience design and the importance of authenticity. But that week, I didn't know what to write. Sydney was just six months old at the time and I spent a great deal of time being grateful that she was too young for me to have to try to explain what happened and why.

So, on this 8th anniversary of 9-11, my condolences to everyone who lost family and friends on that day. Sadly, I'm not always sure we've learned the lessons of that day. But, when I look at Sydney and her friends, I'm happy to say I see hope for the future.

Great, Good Places.

As I write this, it’s been just three weeks since the tragic events here in New York. I have had a difficult time getting back into my normal swing of things. Thankfully I have not suffered any direct losses as a result of the World Trade Center attack, although I live in a place just outside of New York that lost many members of its community. In the weeks after the attacks, I spoke to many colleagues in the entertainment marketing field who all asked the same question: How do we go back to our business in the face of such a tragedy? What we do seems so trivial in the face of such tragedy…so unimportant. I, too, asked the same questions and wondered how I would get back to "business as usual" after these events.

At the same time, I’ve also had many conversations about Ray Oldenburg and his book The Great Good Place. I’ve talked to many friends and colleagues about what makes a community and what makes a 3rd place—the place Oldenburg talks about that is not home, not the workplace, but a place where informal social interaction happens. Places we know that we can always head to when we want to connect with someone.

During the dot-com explosion, it was clear that the 3rd place seem to be driving how offices were created—lots of recreational activities, lots of places to mix and mingle. The work place and the 3rd place had become one place. Part of this was driven by the fact that all of us seemed to be putting in more hours than ever before, with less time to spend outside of the office or home, but part of it also stemmed from the fact that those 3rd places seemed to be disappearing in the redevelopment of the American landscape.

Tragedies like the World Trade Center attack make us remember what really makes a community. People rushing to give aid without thought to their own safety, as evidenced through the almost 400 firemen and policemen who died at the World Trade Center. So many people offering to give blood and make other donations, that in New York, they actually asked people to stop donating! Even online communities came to life in this crisis. My parents were stuck in Fairbanks and one posting generated almost a dozen responses of people to help, or put my folks up or do whatever they could. People I didn’t know, in a place thousands of miles away, becoming a community in a time of crisis.

This past weekend, as I was driving into the city to have dinner with friends, I was thinking about everything and especially, what would I write about for Entertainment Management. After all, this fun stuff seemed so unimportant in the face of so much loss. But then it started to dawn on me. The 3rd Place, community and fun.

Several years ago, I was working for a dot-com looking to create a portal for the out-of-home entertainment market. As I went from meeting to meeting, I used to talk about how what we did was one of the very few things that people did that had to involve other people. It was always a social experience. How many times have we gone to a theme park or FEC by ourselves? How many people do you see waiting online for a roller coaster alone? And even when you do, you always know that the very loose social structure of the line will open itself up to embrace those alone.

As I thought more about it, the need for fun is a global experience. We may have fun in different ways, but we all like to have fun. Fun is one of the greatest tools we have to create a world of understanding and -- potentially -- peace. Hate can’t thrive in an atmosphere of fun.

So, as we gather for IAAPA and wonder what we can do and how to get our sense of fun back, remember how important what we do really is. What we do is not unimportant or trivial—it is critical. Let’s ask how can we create experiences that bring people together to share a common, joyous activity. What we need today is more ways for people to come together and share joy—and that’s what we do. So celebrate the joy that you create. Publicize it, share it and shout it out. Not since WWII have we as a country needed or deserved the distraction of joyous and fun entertainment more than today. Let us become the Great, Good Places where people gather, share and become a community. For it is only when we are a community that we can stop the hatred that creates such tragedies in the first place.

Download Great Good Places

Fashion Night Out 09

Just wanted to get a few quick thoughts out about Fashion Night Out that was happening here in NYC tonight.

I've often wondered why the stores in places like Soho & the Meatpacking District aren't opened in the evening, at least once/week. With the Mardi Gras like environment and the fact that some stores seemed to really making sales, maybe it'll happen more often.

I'm poorly paraphrasing here, but as the Beatles said, The love you get is equal to the love you give. The stores that were hoppin' were the stores that were giving. And I don't just mean price breaks. There was a vibe, an excitement and even the employees looked like they were having fun. And all that fun led to big crowds and I saw people buying. Yea, they got good deals I'm sure. But people were really having fun.

I don't think people have enough fun in their lives and the fact that so many people would be out for a night of shopping says something important.

Do you create opportunities for both guests and employees to have fun? You should. Of course, whatever you do has to be authentic to who you are as a brand, but put a little thought into creating some fun. It seemed to have worked for Fashion Night Out. They certainly had the eyeballs, let's hope they got the wallet too.

The Real Privacy Issue- Pool Summer 2001

As I watch all of the conversations about social media today, I was reminded of an article I wrote about 8 years ago discussing the issues back then with online privacy. We're still having some of the same discussions today, how to we make sure that everything we do really focuses on the consumer and isn't about us, the company. But we're still seeing lots of companies trying to figure out how to handle SM from their POV.

A few years ago, I was doing a presentation to a conference on digital signage and my first question was "Where does create a better experience fall" on your list of reasons for doing something? It's the same thing with SM. Are you creating SM programs because it's the hip, cool, flavor of the month or are you really trying to create a better experience for your guests?

As I hear the conversations around about what companies are doing with SM. And it's why people are asking the wrong questions and trying to figure out how to measure the ROI of SM campaigns. If you're really focused on your guests, that's the ROI. You can see the companies who are genuinely & authentically doing everything because it's the right thing to do for their guests. It's a company like L.L. Bean. When you check on their guarantee on their web site, you don't get a lot of fine print, you get:

Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L.L. Bean that is not completely satisfactory.

They go on to say that L.L. Bean had a notice on his wall that read I do not consider a sale complete until goods are worn out and customer still satisfied.

Zappos says If, for any reason, you are unsatisfied with your purchase, you may return it in its original condition within 365 days for a refund. We'll even pay for return shipping!

See, that's the thing about companies and business today. Consumers can really find out the truth about you and what you're doing. And they have no problem sharing that information in real time and even from your location. I've twittered from stores when I've been having a bad experience and I am far from the only person doing that.

Social media is all about relationships and caring and being friends. If you have a 9 page return policy, that's not really about a relationships, is it? Do you market about how you care for people while making sure your employees only work 37 hour shifts so they don't qualify for benefits? Not really a company that cares for people, are you?

People love to point to a company like Zappos and say they're a great because they use social media. Not really true. Zappos is a great company that uses social media. 50 years ago, they would have used the phone or direct mail, but they still would've been a great company.

So, here's the thing. NOTHING, not cool ads, or a great campaign on Twitter or doing some UGC on youtube, overcomes a bad experience. What people really dislike is when your marketing doesn't match your actual experience.

So, make sure you're asking the right questions. Make sure that you're creating authentic experiences. Make sure that you're treating your employees as well as you want to be treated. That's what the two Sam's from my article below -- Sam Malone and Sam Drucker -- would do.

Here's my post from 2001:

Who doesn't like to go to a store or restaurant where "everyone knows your name." How many times have you paid more for something or driven further to get it, just because a particular place gives you better service because that store "invaded your privacy." Don't you consider this a positive experience in the offline world? In fact, we get such a warm feeling from the invasion of privacy, that we usually make sure that we take our friends there, just so they can be impressed when the bartender or store clerk knows our name!

See, I think we're dealing with the wrong question. While we certainly need to protect privacy online, I think that we should be focusing our efforts on how can we bring a value to the consumer that translates into a better online experience? What will make the consumer feel as though everyone just called their name when they walked in? How can we create an experience where the owner comes out to greet each visitor and thanks them for being there, while pointing out that they know what the consumer likes?

Right now, we all know that the focus of gathering information from the consumer online is for our value, not theirs. Sure, we pretend it's for them, but everyone knows better. Is it really a consumer value proposition that we can give them targeted ads? Is getting unsolicited e-mails about products that are similar to something they've purchased a value proposition for the consumer? No, of course not. It's a value proposition for us. If you look at how we generate revenue online, how much of it comes from the gathering, use and sale of consumer information?

The consumer knows that they're not getting anything of value for the information we ask of them. They know that right now, we're the only ones who really benefit from the knowledge we gather. Don't you think my wife and I would have stopped going to that little Italian restaurant if the information that he gathered from us was for his sole benefit? If we had walked into a restaurant around the corner and found that he had sold our information to other restaurants, how would we have felt? The reason we didn't mind telling him what we liked and disliked was because it always gave us a better meal and a better experience. And that, in turn, created value for him as an owner.

I think that's what the consumer wants from their online experiences as well. They want to see value from the information they give up. They want to know that if they give us something, they'll get something back. They want a place "where everyone knows your name." We need to create that place and do it pretty quickly.

There are two ways for us to create a value for the consumer. I guess the simplest way would be to cut the consumer in on the value of the information they give to us. Giving them great strike prices on stock would certainly entice the consumers to share themselves with us.

Of course, the better way would be to figure out how to put Sam Malone or Sam Drucker into every web site. To make sure that the consumer is the one who benefits from the giving of information, not us. Our benefit should come from the experiences that we create for the consumer, not from a quick sale of their information.

Consumers all want their experiences to be authentic and that's why my wife & I liked our Italian restaurant. And that's why we wouldn't want to walk into another restaurant that had received information from ours and acted like we were old friends. It would not be an authentic experience! And neither is getting e-mails and ad-specific banners. We're all consumers ourselves, we should know better.

Now, we are the creative industry, so perhaps we could at least come up with some better terms! I mean, can't we make "data mining" at least sound warm and fuzzy? At least that would buy us some time while we wait to see whether or not either of the Sam's is available for our sites!