I was just about to leave a Birmingham Venture Club event the other evening when I stepped into a conversation with Josh Watkins (an attorney at Feld Hyde) and Brian Cauble (an iPhone app developer with Appsolute Genius) on my way out the door. Both nice guys, to be sure. However, I am not a weeknight person—and when my internal Time To Go clock starts buzzing, it’s TIME TO GO. So I suggested we all talk again soon, and handed both guys a business card. That sparked an entirely new conversation.

Josh got a real kick out of my title (High Commander)—which reminded him of a story of he’d heard about the development a local website. Seems that the site developer had used cartoon drawings as image “placeholders” until the client could supply actual photos of its people. The clients liked the cartoons so much, they decided to keep them when the site went live.

Which reminded me, I told Josh and Brian, of a radio spot I’d produced for William Bell’s City Council campaign in 2005. The spot centered on testimonials from Bell supporters. One of whom was Mrs. Yvonne W. Turner, a sweet woman we used as the voice of District 5’s Senior voters. After Mrs. Turner finished her testimonial, I said to her (tongue in cheek), “Great! Now, if you’ll just sing a little for us, we’ll send your tape to the folks at ‘Star Search’.”

“Why I would be happy to,” she replied. Whereupon she turned back to the microphone, and began ad-libbing a gospel song proclaiming her intention to “do what The Spirit say do” (which was, of course, vote for William Bell). The instant she started singing, I turned to Nick Punch—my engineer for the session at Boutwell Studio—and pointed to the Record button. He got it. The results were so perfect, we ended-up using Mrs. Turner’s one-take vocals for the spot’s music bed. After which, Nick turned to me and said, “That was the most spontaneous recording session I’ve ever been involved with.”

“I know exactly what you’re talking about!” said Brian. “Because the other night, I shaved my cat.”

Silence.

Josh: “You did what?”

“I shaved my cat. She has really long hair, I have terrible allergies, so about every six months I have to shave her. And the other Friday night, I had a choice: Watch ‘Dear John’ with my wife, or shave the cat.”

Me (gasping for air): “OK, and that’s spontaneous how?”

Brian: “Well, because afterward, I thought to myself, ‘Should I Tweet about this?…Oh what the hell!’ I got more responses to that one Tweet—and they kept coming in for days. People loved it. And the photo.”

So what’s the point here? Brian tells me roughly 75% of all the new business he gets right now is coming directly from Social Media—which is more than I’ve ever heard from anyone. And these days, I’m reading at least one Social Media success story a day.

Obviously, the guy’s doing something right. Which just goes to show that, while a lot of people are working overtime to define “the rules” for marketing in the wild frontier, sometimes there’s no predicting what’s going to work.

At the same time, I learned a valuable lesson for myself: Sometimes it really pays to tell the old Time To Go clock to put a sock in it. Thanks to Brian for the best laugh I’ve had in months.

And oh yeah: Click Here to see Trouble, post-makeover.

Got a totally random Social Media experience that generated a huge response? I’d love to hear about it.

(Wherein The Author Comes Out Of The Closet)

This column, its 75-song Playlist—and easily 12 hours of listening time over past few weeks—were directly inspired by a brief clip from the new Will Ferrell / Mark Wahlberg buddy-cop movie. The team receives radio orders to Bust A Perp. And not just any Perp. The big one. So for that extra blast of adrenaline, Ferrell cranks up his Perp-Busting music: The Little River Band’s soft rock staple, “Reminiscing.”

Click Here to read the entire column, and launch a free click-to-play Playlist (at the bottom of the column).

Dunn Building Company is a client we’ve long enjoyed working with. Aside from being consistently friendly and reasonable people, they’ve allowed us to do some pretty Out Of The Box creative work—compared to the typical construction company’s stuff. Like this ad:
Click Here

Anyhow, they recently asked us to produce an employment recruiting ad. Although Dunn isn’t really in the market for new employees, they felt they needed to buy ad-space in an upcoming Birmingham News “Construction Employment” insert as a goodwill gesture toward the sponsoring association—of which they’re a member.

I called my contact at Dunn (Brett Clark) to discuss our selling message. During that brief conversation, the part that stuck-out to me most was this: “We basically have zero turnover here.” He then sent me some additional info—including the fact that Dunn had been named one of the Birmingham Business Journal’s 10 Best Places to Work in 2008.

Together, those two nuggets led to this eye-catching headline (and roughly-worded intro sentence)—which I dashed-off and sent over to Brett for consideration:

——————————————————-

FOR THE FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR, OUR
EMPLOYEES GAVE US A BIG FAT ZERO.

There’s a reason Dunn Building Company has had no employee turnover for five years…

——————————————————-

It turned out that (while Dunn’s executive leadership has indeed remained constant), they’d had an office person move to another company in the last couple years—so my headline didn’t work.

Imagine my despair.

About half an hour later, I hit on a second idea I liked a lot more. This one based on another comment of Brett’s: “Everybody gets along here. There aren’t any egos or fights.” In a high-pressure industry like Construction, that’s pretty neat. And pretty unique. So here’s what I sent them:
Click Here

They didn’t get it. Which is, of course, an Ad-Man’s way of saying They didn’t like it. What’s more, it started a multi-part Reply All discussion, primarily among Dunn folks who haven’t been involved in marketing in the past. Here are some of the comments that discussion generated:

—What do you think about dull???? I think “fun” or something similar would be better.

—We need to make sure that people understand what we do. Therefore, words like concrete, steel, roofing, craftsmen, quality should try to be incorporated if possible.  It doesn’t have to be a straight list of services we provide…we should be able to play on these words in some way. (…craftsmen looking for a ‘concrete’ company, look no further than DUNN…)

—Another thought may be something like…our commitment to family is as strong as the steel we hang.

Those messages were all waiting in my inbox this morning (Friday the 13th). And since their “Dull” ad had pretty much been the highlight of an otherwise dreary week, I decided I’d go ahead and send them exactly what they asked for. It took about 15 minutes:
Click Here

Guess what? They got that one. More importantly, they understood that I really did send it to them in good fun—NOT as a thumb to the nose.

True, I still think the “Dull” ad would work very well for Dunn. But you know what? They hired us to produce an ad for Dunn. Not Hare Communications. Besides, how can you not love a client who gives you permission to post a Behind The Scenes At The Sausage Factory blog entry like this one?

Moral: Work with people you love working with. It’s a lot more rewarding, and fun, than getting your way all the time.

(FROM MY 8.10.10 B-METRO COLUMN)

I have a Word file entitled “keepers”—where I’ve ranked my favorite records, by year, dating back to 1980. Aside from being critical to maintaining Geek Cred, it’s a handy reference tool I use before making over-the-top claims like this one:

Stephanie Finch’s debut album, Cry Tomorrow, is my favorite pop record by a female artist in a decade.

Click Here to read the entire column, AND to access a free click-to-play link to Finch’s entire album.

Our fine young intern Josh Hedrick recently pointed me to a New York Times article entitled “Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons” (http://nyti.ms/cy02W1)—which asks, “If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?”

And while the article reports that Climate Change skepticism seems to be particularly high in Great Britain, it also noted: “A March Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed that the seriousness of global warming was ‘generally exaggerated,’ up from 41 percent a year ago.”

Even after a record June and July heat wave tailor-made for the Global Warmists’ predictions, I’m still not seeing the issue dominating weather-related headlines this summer.

So what’s going on here? Clearly, the most damaging blow to public trust came from the numerous media exposés of Climatologists playing fast and loose with their facts (IE: Naming, as allies, any number of reputable scientists who are resolutely agnostic, or even skeptical, on the issue. Suppressing valid evidence that contradicts their gloomy predictions). For years, I’ve been asking the question: Global Warmists have so much to support their position, what possesses them to undercut that position by incorporating outright lies into their argument?

If there’s one area where most members of my profession are profoundly understood, it’s this: Advertisers cannot lie. We can’t even make unsupported exaggerations. It’s a recipe for the death of your client’s business.

There’s also a converse proposition to that reality: Nothing will put a bad business out of business faster than good advertising. I once worked with a creative director who assembled a brilliant print campaign for a bar-b-q restaurant in Atlanta. The ads were so effective that, on the restaurant’s Grand Opening day, the line to get inside literally wrapped around the building. There was only one problem: The restaurant made appalling bar-b-q. And thanks to that remarkably effective campaign, word spread like the plague. Within a couple of months, the restaurant had closed its doors forever.

That said, I would argue that the Warmists’ second biggest mistake has been misguided messaging. While there is certainly a genuinely educated segment of our population that understands the threat, for the average “man on the street”, Global Warming rates a big So What. Particularly during the winter months—when Global Warming sounds like a pretty good deal indeed.

I haven’t given a tremendous amount of thought to formulating a messaging strategy for the Warmists, but my impression is that a far more effective platform would be, “Man-made POLLUTION is worse than ever. It’s poisoning us and our ecosystem. And by the way, it’s slowly heating-up the planet to the point where some really bad things are going to happen for all of us.”

Everybody understands pollution. You can look out the window (or down on the gulf), and you can see it. There’s absolutely no pretending that pollution isn’t created by man’s activities—and there’s no intelligent way to argue that it isn’t bad. What’s more, if we tackled the pollution problem, guess what: The global warming threat would pretty much take care of itself.

And where that aforementioned converse proposition is concerned: Let’s just say that we did everything Climatologists want us to do, for the sake of preventing Global Warming—and the planet just keeps on heating up, utterly disproving (at least in the public’s mind) their predictions. Nobody will ever listen to them again.

Finally, think of how many effective public service campaigns have used memorable icons to represent their message: Smoky the Bear. The crying Indian Chief in the legendary anti-litter TV spot from the 1960’s. Global Warmists need the same thing: Something that’s going to either grab our hearts, or put just enough fear in those hearts to spur action.

None of my suggestions are rocket science. Just common sense. Unfortunately, for all the solid science Global Warmists have on their side, the one element their campaign appears to be lacking altogether is plain common sense.

Originally published 7/23/10 in the Birmingham Business Journal. http://bit.ly/bqjO7E

(By the way, if you didn’t get the comic strip joke,
think about the warning verbiage in Viagra’s ads)

Despite the best efforts of my 13-year-old son, a monthly subscriber to Soccer America and a devoted fan of English League Football, I’m suffering from a serious interest deficit in this year’s World Cup. And the sad truth is, the American in me is winning-out over my own best efforts to maintain the same level of interest I had four years ago.

Forget, for a moment, that the US soccer team’s chances of winning The Cup are about as strong as Dale Junior’s. It’ll take nothing short of a tectonic shift in the sport (most notably the off-sides rule) and/or the American psyche for soccer to generate anywhere near the interest it commands in the rest of the world.

The most obvious problem is, of course, the lack of scoring; an Unforgivable Sin in a culture increasingly insistent on instant gratification. Adding insult to injury, there’s the all-too-frequent occurrence of games ending in draws. As Rick Reilly (one of our least parochial sportswriters, in my experience)  wrote in his June 15 column on espn.com,  “In the NFL in the past 10 years, there have been two ties. In the first 11 games of this World Cup, there have been five ties. I hate ties. Doesn’t anybody want to win in this sport?”

Lack of scoring, however, is only one element of the more serious disconnect between soccer and literally every sport with a popular following in this country: It simply isn’t TV friendly.

For starters, there’s the near-impossible task of Americanizing the broadcast with eye-catching graphics, stats and human interest stories—since the “action” (a term itself with which many Americans would take issue) only stops for serious injuries. For one, it relegates the match commentators’ role in the perceived drama to the level of pinball-game narrators. And, for another, it eliminates the possibility of all-important beer-grabbing and/or bathroom-visiting during commercial breaks—while minimizing opportunities for highlight-show-worthy instant replays.

Soccer is, overwhelmingly, a game of flow—whereas virtually every popular American sport hinges on The Moment: Fourth down. Ball at the one foot line. Penn State down by six points. These are the moments we’ll discuss between plays, during timeouts, at the water cooler, across the dinner table, on the talk shows (hell, everywhere) for decades—and in American sports, virtually every big game produces scores of those Moments. Not so in soccer.

Moreover, because of that Big Moment structure, the crowds in American sports play a central role in the games’ drama. We love hearing the roar before and after every big play—in the same way that we love our sitcoms filmed before live studio audiences: That way, the folks at home always know when to roar, or laugh, as the case may be.

Soccer crowds have never been particularly punctuative. But this year, the human voice of the crowds is utterly de minimis, under the unsurpassingly-irritating drone of the vuvuzelas (3-foot-long plastic trumpets)—which South African fans blow, without so much as an inhale, from well before the national anthems to well after final whistle. Given their average 130-decibel output (10 above the human pain threshold), numerous players have complained they can’t hear themselves thinking—and (again, the TV issue) it’s forced ESPN’s technicians to dramatically alter the sound mix.

Yes, I understand vuvus are an important part of the South African culture—and since they’re the host nation, I should be sensitive enough to accept them. But the American in me cannot listen to those horns blare without asking, “Seriously, what the hell?” I’d honestly rather hear Mississippi State’s clanging cowbells.

And finally, for me the World Cup has suffered greatly in comparison to this year’s unusually compelling NBA Championship Series—Game Five of which, for instance, produced a third quarter so highlight-filled that even my wife was glued to the set. Except, of course, during the commercials—when we enjoyed every available opportunity to recount the Moments, grab more beers, and run to the bathroom. Because after all, that’s what we Americans like to do.

This column (which was written during the World Cup’s first round, or Group Stage) appears in the July print edition of B-Metro Magazine

June 18, 2010: After months of intense speculation, adoring fans across America are queued-up (some since the night before) to be among the first to own the latest release from Apple. It’s a scenario not uncommon to my generation’s once-upon-a-time frenzy to procure tickets to a Beatles concert. And in many ways, Apple today has become this generation’s Beatles. An analogy with its upside, and its downside.

On the upside, Apple represents much of what is great about America, particularly in its near-unrivaled history of innovation. From the original MacIntosh to the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple has literally created new product categories altogether—fulfilling needs that consumers didn’t even know they had, and in the process genuinely improving quality of life for millions.

But it’s not just product features that makes Apple so unique: It’s everything about, and around, those products. From his consistently impeccable sense of product-design aesthetics to his advertising, packaging and product-delivery system, Steve Jobs has created arguably the strongest single brand in the world today. A brand that inspires cult-like loyalty, and consistently rewards its fans with the best products of its kind.

And since that brand is so carefully controlled, we never have to worry about anyone at Apple claiming, for instance, to be bigger than Jesus. Or inspiring millions to experiment with mind-expanding controlled substances.

Then there’s Apple’s recent track record for blockbuster commercial successes—which has been almost as strong as the Beatles’ was. All of which is why Apple (despite lagging significantly behind Microsoft in total sales) now has a higher market valuation than its Seattle-based competitor.

That’s pretty much where the rosy side of the analogy ends. For starters, the Beatles created art. Music that touched the souls of millions, and still resonates with listeners more than 40 years later. Apple makes things. And that new Apple thing you want so much right now? It’s replacing that old Apple thing you wanted so badly just a year or two ago. Forget about that new thing you just bought touching your soul for forty years. The 4g Thrill you’re currently experiencing won’t even last four.

Then there’s the fact that people actually waited all night, sleeping on sidewalks, to buy that thing. When people waited all night for Beatles tickets, they actually got better Beatles tickets. Waiting all night for that new Apple thing didn’t get anyone a better thing. It only got you an extra day or two with that thing. And honestly: How could an extra day with that new thing possibly be worth the pain and inconvenience you endured to get it?

That’s where the analogy gets really sad: What does it say about us, when one of our single most unifying cultural icons is a publicly-traded corporation producing perpetually-replaceable objects—rather than anything of lasting value?

I’ll bet, if you asked Steve Jobs in complete confidence, and promised to cut off your 4g high-def camera before he spoke, he’d admit that, fifty years from now, Apple’s latest Coolest Thing Ever Made will inspire about as much loving hyperbole as the Altair 8800 or the Commodore PET does today.

And yes, I freely admit that the iPad and iPhone are very possibly the two coolest things ever made. But if you asked me, Steve Jobs’ enduring legacy, the accomplishment that we’ll still be talking about fifty years from now, will be his role as a co-founder of Pixar Studios. Where they know a thing or two about touching people’s souls.

This column also appears on the B-Metro website: http://bit.ly/appletoapple
(Special thanks to Kevin Boyd for the photo illustration)

Note: This column was originally posted on the B-Metro website July 15, a week after the column above, and a couple days after the iPhone 4 “dropped call” problem made headlines.

Apparently, Apple Computer is bigger than Jesus. If that intro line made you mad, 1) It should, and 2) The line was a reference to a previous column in which I advanced the argument that Apple has become this generation’s Beatles.

That said, given the company’s initial public responses to the discovery that the iPhone 4g drops calls whenever it’s held a certain way, we are very possibly witnessing the dawn of a PR disaster on par with John Lennon’s offhanded “We’re bigger than Jesus” remark in 1966.

Let me emphasize that Apple’s real problem is not the phone’s design flaw. It’s the company’s response—starting with Steve Jobs’ catastrophically-stupid suggestion for solving the problem: “Just don’t hold it that way.” Yesterday (July 14), I ran a Google search for “iphone 4 don’t hold it that way”. It generated 5,500,000 results. To be perfectly honest, I did not click on all 5.5 million results—but of the sites I hit, not one said, “Great idea! Thanks, Steve!”

Now comes the news that not only has Consumer Reports slapped a Not Recommended rating on the iPhone 4g, but that the Apple.com Forum moderators had deleted multiple customer posts reporting CR’s decision. What’s more, there’s still no indication that Apple intends to fix the problem (although, to be fair, the company is offering refunds).

All of which has a lot of longtime loyalists wondering why they never noticed the emperor’s suddenly-conspicuous lack of clothing—while instantly boosting credibility for crackpots (like me), who can’t tolerate the restraints that come with buying products from consumer technology’s number one Control Freak.

A few of my Jobs-related complaints over the years: He builds the best, and most user-friendly, computers money can buy—then equips them with a never-ending series of infuriatingly typist-unfriendly keyboards. He refuses, for years, to equip his computers with a 2-button roller mouse, because it isn’t as aesthetically appealing as his plain white mouse.

He makes the best MP3 player in the world, but won’t allow it to work with Rhapsody—a music service which enables subscribers to download (to any MP3 player but the iPod) virtually any track in its 750,000+ album library. All for a single monthly fee of $14.99. Wouldn’t that be neat, to fill your iPod for less than the purchase price of 13 songs from iTunes? Not gonna happen.

Finally, there’s the aforementioned iPhone—which you cannot use without an AT+T Wireless subscription. I freely admit that The iPhone is one of the coolest things ever made. But I’ve never heard anyone, particularly former Verizon subscribers, say they loved AT+T’s service—whereas I’ve certainly heard people say they hated it.

All that said, I’ve shared those rants, ad infinitum, with Apple customers over the years—and you know what? They don’t care. Frankly, they shouldn’t care. Not as long as their products’ positives outweigh the negatives. What’s more, they won’t care as long as they perceive that, ultimately, Apple is serving them. Rather than vice versa.

And that’s the real problem with the current iPhone design fiasco: Given the tone of the company’s response thus far, suddenly the issue of who’s serving whom is not nearly so clear.

Following-up on Monday’s entry (two posts down from this one), the topic is, once again, PR blunders.

#2: THIS LITTLE PIGGIE WENT WEEWEEWEE ALL THE WAY TO COURT.

The National Pork Board is threatening the makers of Canned Unicorn with a copyright infringement lawsuit. One would assume the Pork Board did not want this issue to become widely publicized. However, I learned about it from a TIME tweet. At last count, TIME.com had 2,088,677 followers on Twitter alone. Oops.

Here’s the story: On April Fool’s Day, Think Geek—a web-based novelty product shop—introduced (for $9.99 a pop) Canned Unicorn, under the headline Pâté Is Passé. Unicorn – The New White Meat. Obviously, that last part is a play on the Pork Board’s 23-year-old slogan, Pork: The Other White Meat. A slogan which, Think Geek notes on its Facebook page, the Board is strongly considering replacing anyhow.

Apparently, the Pork Board was not amused. On May 5, Think Geek received a 12-page Cease And Desist letter from the international law firm of Faegre & Benson—ordering said novelty shop to forever refrain from using the slogan The New White Meat.

To be fair, I can see why the Pork Board would want to protect their own brandline’s integrity. Even from obviously fake products like Canned Unicorn.

But it seems to me that the best way to handle a case like this would be to call the happy-go-lucky folks at Think Geek.com personally, and ask them real nicely if they’d please not use the line anymore. Maybe even offer to buy a few cans of Unicorn as a token of goodwill.

If that approach didn’t work, for a fraction of the money they spent on Faegre & Benson’s Cease and Desist letter, they could’ve hired a freelance copywriter to offer Think Geek alternate brandlines.

Or they might have even had some fun with the whole matter by posting a tongue-in-cheek entry on their own Facebook page assuring Pork fans that Canned Unicorn contains no pork—and should, in no way, be confused with the Original Other White Meat. If, of course, they had a Facebook page. Which they don’t.

Instead, they paid a lot of money to get a lot of unwanted publicity that rightly makes The National Pork Board look, yes, downright pigheaded.

We recently started work with Baggett Transportation, a privately-owned trucking firm specializing in military equipment and munitions transport. They needed a new driver recruitment ad campaign.

The first thing we learned about Baggett’s folks was pretty much the same thing we heard from every driver we interviewed for background: They’re really nice people.

Their drivers (all Owner Operators, not Company “employees”) consistently reported what a good company Baggett is to work with. And how proud they were to be serving the armed forces.

All of which led to a pretty dramatic overhaul of their ad campaign. Click on the images below to see the ads in a larger size. Then you can zoom-in on the larger images by holding down your Ctrl button and rolling your mouse-roller forward.

The copy pretty much came straight from the couple profiled. When I read it to Wayne and Bonnie over the phone, Bonnie said, “Boy! I got chill bumps.”

Now that is why we’re in this business.

BEFORE

AFTER