The Philadelphia Inquirer declared bankruptcy.
Ten years ago, our agency was hired to launch what was to be America’s first National African-American weekly newspaper. It was called “Our World News”. A brilliant idea, conceived by a great newspaper man by the name of Don Miller.
When we launched the paper, subscriptions were good, not great, but good. We also created a website called “OurWorldNews.com”. And a strange thing started to happen.
Slowly, over the next year the website traffic climbed while the subscriptions slowed down.
When I went to Mr. Miller and pointed out that there was something happening with the newspaper’s website that we might want to take advantage of, he told me to focus on marketing the printed newspaper. That was understandable, since Mr. Miller was a solid newspaper man. Sadly, Our World News ran out of funding and had to close its doors. I often think about what might have happened if we had focused on the Internet. Our World News might have become the premier on-line news source for African-Americans.
That was ten years ago, when no one could imagine that the internet would bring on the collapse of America’s newspapers over the next decade.
That’s why I was very surprised when I heard that Brian Tierney was putting together a group of investors to purchase the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Why would anybody want to buy a newspaper,” I wondered. “Mr. Tierney is a smart cookie. He must have the big idea,” I told my friends.
Wrong.
He tried to make the Philadelphia Inquirer better and probably did in an incremental sort of way. Big deal. Trying to improve a printed newspaper is like trying to improve a steamboat.
It’s all about the business model.
What if Mr. Tierney and his team moved the Philadelphia Inquirer to the Web? 100% lock, stock and barrel. Just imagine what a team of top interactive developers, designers and writers can do with a national flagship brand like the Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead of chasing a declining local revenue base, they could become a leader in the reengineering of the American newspaper and reap the rewards of a growing national revenue base.
It’s all about the business model.
Jon
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
It's a Test
Back to training.
Last year I got a call from a client who invited us to pitch for a new product. I sent an email out to our agency team that would fly there for the presentation and copied my new trainee.
In the email I told everyone about the opportunity and ordered my new assistant to make bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team to take with them on their trip.
About a week later, I walked into the agency and there was my assistant, wrapping up individual bags of bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team. “What are you doing”, I asked? “I’m making the sandwiches for the team to take on their pitch”. There must have been twenty bologna and cheese sandwiches on the table. “I was kidding,” I said.
She looked me in the eye and said, “Everything is a test”.
She’s right. She passed that test. The way a person goes about their job, says a lot about what that person is like. If they complain about making a bologna sandwich, someday they will be complaining about writing a marketing plan.
I once told a trainee to go make a pot of coffee and got the, “I’m not here to make pots of coffee,” look.
I replied with one of my “I’m smarter than you”, looks and said, “If you’re not capable of making a pot of coffee, you’re certainly not capable of managing a client’s advertising.”
When I hire a trainee, they get a textbook on direct marketing. Inside the flap I write a message.
Welcome to Roska Direct. Read one chapter a week and be prepared to discuss intelligently. Everything is a test. Knowledge equals confidence.
The focus of training during the first three months is not on advertising or marketing, it’s on self-management, communication and leadership skills. They are the key to a successful career and need to be taught. Things like:
-How to communicate clearly
-How to prioritize and delegate
-Managing pressure
-Speaking up in meetings
-Anticipatory management
(We’ll address all of the above points at another time)
Once the trainee has grasped these basics on how to work in an agency environment, you move to the next level:
You intentionally overload them with work to a point where they start to freak-out.
You then use the freak-out as an opportunity to review the skills they have been taught.
As they gain control over their work, they become more confident.
I tell every trainee, “When you wake from a sound sleep, sit up in your bed, your heart racing because you forgot to do something at work that day that had to be done.
That’s when you know you’ve arrived.”
And it has happened to every one of them.
Jon
Last year I got a call from a client who invited us to pitch for a new product. I sent an email out to our agency team that would fly there for the presentation and copied my new trainee.
In the email I told everyone about the opportunity and ordered my new assistant to make bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team to take with them on their trip.
About a week later, I walked into the agency and there was my assistant, wrapping up individual bags of bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team. “What are you doing”, I asked? “I’m making the sandwiches for the team to take on their pitch”. There must have been twenty bologna and cheese sandwiches on the table. “I was kidding,” I said.
She looked me in the eye and said, “Everything is a test”.
She’s right. She passed that test. The way a person goes about their job, says a lot about what that person is like. If they complain about making a bologna sandwich, someday they will be complaining about writing a marketing plan.
I once told a trainee to go make a pot of coffee and got the, “I’m not here to make pots of coffee,” look.
I replied with one of my “I’m smarter than you”, looks and said, “If you’re not capable of making a pot of coffee, you’re certainly not capable of managing a client’s advertising.”
When I hire a trainee, they get a textbook on direct marketing. Inside the flap I write a message.
Welcome to Roska Direct. Read one chapter a week and be prepared to discuss intelligently. Everything is a test. Knowledge equals confidence.
The focus of training during the first three months is not on advertising or marketing, it’s on self-management, communication and leadership skills. They are the key to a successful career and need to be taught. Things like:
-How to communicate clearly
-How to prioritize and delegate
-Managing pressure
-Speaking up in meetings
-Anticipatory management
(We’ll address all of the above points at another time)
Once the trainee has grasped these basics on how to work in an agency environment, you move to the next level:
You intentionally overload them with work to a point where they start to freak-out.
You then use the freak-out as an opportunity to review the skills they have been taught.
As they gain control over their work, they become more confident.
I tell every trainee, “When you wake from a sound sleep, sit up in your bed, your heart racing because you forgot to do something at work that day that had to be done.
That’s when you know you’ve arrived.”
And it has happened to every one of them.
Jon
Saturday, February 14, 2009
I heard about your brand the other day.
Let's talk about your brand's reputation.There is a process that I have developed over the past five years and we use at our agency to focus us on the client’s product or service. It brings clarity to the positioning and consistently generates good ideas. In addition we end up creating a concentrated list of "power words" that help set the tone for the copy and creative.
The Reputation, Promise, Vision (RPV) Session
It's called the "RPV Session", a group of five or more people get together to identify the brand's Reputation, Promise and Vision. The players do not have to be "creative types"; in fact we get some of our best ideas from people who claim to have no creative ability. What's important is that each member of the RPV session has read all the product or service information and done their homework. What you're going to see is that the RPV Session consistently delivers new and different material.
We start with-
Reputation
That's what the customer/prospect is saying about our product or service's brand. How they would describe it if they were at lunch and talking about somebody.
"She's intelligent" or "He's aggressive." Reputation is what attracts us to the brand (or makes us run the other way).
Reputation comes in several forms-
No reputation
On a new product or service you have the opportunity to define what you want the brand's reputation to be.
Bad reputation
Be honest, if that's what it is, then that's what it is. Now we know what needs fixing.
Good reputation
Run with it. Make it better.
So think about your company's product or service and ask yourself, "If my brand were a person, what would my customers be saying about them?" What is the brands reputation?
Here are some reputation words to help get your brain going-
Warm, Friendly, Experienced, Happy, Serious, Professional, Quiet. Nerdy, Aggressive, Pushy, Honest, Strong, Fast.
Once you list your reputation words, you usually begin to see a pattern that can lead to the development of a brand look or feel.
For example, if reputation words were Warm, Caring, Helpful and Approachable, we might consider developing copy/creative that delivers a warm, caring, approachable message.
All right, you should now have a list of "reputation" words for your brand. Think about how the reputation words can help set a look or tone for your brand. The next thing I'll write about will be the "Promise" part of the RPV session and how it works with your brand reputation.
Jon
Monday, February 9, 2009
Hiring and Training College Graduates
There are two areas of business that I have a passion for.
One is Direct and Brand advertising integration, the other is bringing young people into our field by hiring and training college graduates.
Here's a fact: Most advertising agencies do not like to hire college grads. That's because they (and they do not like to admit this) do not have a clue on how to train them.
Most young people who get into advertising start off in a corporate environment and then move to an ad agency after they gain experience. They're usually poorly trained and their experience doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
When ad agencies do hire college grads, they don't train them, they work them. Some young people make it, most don't. They get burned out and quit.
For years every time one of my agency managers needed a new hire, they would say to me, "I need somebody with experience. They have to hit the ground running." When I would suggest that they hire a bright young person and train them, they would give me their best "You don't have a clue nor do you appreciate how valuable I am to this organization and should not be wasting my time training people" look.
They would proceed to look for somebody with "experience" and occasionally they would find one, but usually the new hire had a lot of poor experience and had to learn the job by osmosis.
Around eight years ago, I decided to see if I could hire and train some bright college college grads.
The first thing I did was establish some recruiting ground rules:
- They must have a degree in marketing, advertising or communications.
- They must have graduated with a minimum of a 3.5 GPA
- They must have worked every summer, including high school.
- They must demonstrate social involvement or leadership (sports, charitable ventures, student clubs, etc)
They had to meet these minimum requirements just to get an interview and there were no exceptions.
The next thing I did was start meeting marketing professors at Colleges and Universities in the Philadelphia area. We have a lot of colleges and Universities in the Philadelphia metro market, I've been told that we have more than Boston, though I've never counted them all up,
Over the years I've made some great friends in the academic community and they have sent me their best and brightest.
I'll leave you with this little story.
I hired a bright young man, who met all of the requirements. I had a meeting scheduled with a big client and decided to take him along to observe. On the way to the clients office I turned to the new recruit and said, "Look, you don't know anything. So if the client asks you a question, simply respond by saying, 'I don't know sir, but I'll get back to you with the answer', you got that?" "Yes sir, got it," he said as we entered the client's offices.
The Vice President of Marketing came down to meet us and I introduced my new hire as we got on the elevator to go to our meeting. On the elevator the Marketing VP turned to the young man and asked, "Are you from this area?"
My bright new hire looked the VP right in the eye and said,"I don't know sir, but I'll get back to you with the answer."
We'll continue this discussion later.
Jon
One is Direct and Brand advertising integration, the other is bringing young people into our field by hiring and training college graduates.
Here's a fact: Most advertising agencies do not like to hire college grads. That's because they (and they do not like to admit this) do not have a clue on how to train them.
Most young people who get into advertising start off in a corporate environment and then move to an ad agency after they gain experience. They're usually poorly trained and their experience doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
When ad agencies do hire college grads, they don't train them, they work them. Some young people make it, most don't. They get burned out and quit.
For years every time one of my agency managers needed a new hire, they would say to me, "I need somebody with experience. They have to hit the ground running." When I would suggest that they hire a bright young person and train them, they would give me their best "You don't have a clue nor do you appreciate how valuable I am to this organization and should not be wasting my time training people" look.
They would proceed to look for somebody with "experience" and occasionally they would find one, but usually the new hire had a lot of poor experience and had to learn the job by osmosis.
Around eight years ago, I decided to see if I could hire and train some bright college college grads.
The first thing I did was establish some recruiting ground rules:
- They must have a degree in marketing, advertising or communications.
- They must have graduated with a minimum of a 3.5 GPA
- They must have worked every summer, including high school.
- They must demonstrate social involvement or leadership (sports, charitable ventures, student clubs, etc)
They had to meet these minimum requirements just to get an interview and there were no exceptions.
The next thing I did was start meeting marketing professors at Colleges and Universities in the Philadelphia area. We have a lot of colleges and Universities in the Philadelphia metro market, I've been told that we have more than Boston, though I've never counted them all up,
Over the years I've made some great friends in the academic community and they have sent me their best and brightest.
I'll leave you with this little story.
I hired a bright young man, who met all of the requirements. I had a meeting scheduled with a big client and decided to take him along to observe. On the way to the clients office I turned to the new recruit and said, "Look, you don't know anything. So if the client asks you a question, simply respond by saying, 'I don't know sir, but I'll get back to you with the answer', you got that?" "Yes sir, got it," he said as we entered the client's offices.
The Vice President of Marketing came down to meet us and I introduced my new hire as we got on the elevator to go to our meeting. On the elevator the Marketing VP turned to the young man and asked, "Are you from this area?"
My bright new hire looked the VP right in the eye and said,"I don't know sir, but I'll get back to you with the answer."
We'll continue this discussion later.
Jon
Monday, February 2, 2009
Everything Is Changing
Everything is changing in the advertising world.
Technology is starting to give the average consumer the power to block out marketing communications that they do not want to see or hear. Some good examples of this are the "Do not Call" lists, email opt-outs and growing privacy and "do not mail" legislation.
As consumers gain more ways to block out advertising that they do not want, direct marketing becomes less effective as access to qualified prospects decline.
Brand marketing has its own problems as the reach of broad market channels like television, newspaper and magazine grow smaller and more expensive and increased choice splinters viewership or viewers migrate to the web.
What is needed is a combination of direct and brand advertising. Not working side by side, but combined into a new form of advertising. Advertising that builds brand while generating accountable response.
There's just one problem with that.
Brand and direct don't get along!
When brand is added to direct, response declines. When direct is added to brand, the brand weakens.
There is a way to make brand and direct work as one and that is what we're going to be focusing on over the next few months. The following list will be our table of contents:
Technology is starting to give the average consumer the power to block out marketing communications that they do not want to see or hear. Some good examples of this are the "Do not Call" lists, email opt-outs and growing privacy and "do not mail" legislation.
As consumers gain more ways to block out advertising that they do not want, direct marketing becomes less effective as access to qualified prospects decline.
Brand marketing has its own problems as the reach of broad market channels like television, newspaper and magazine grow smaller and more expensive and increased choice splinters viewership or viewers migrate to the web.
What is needed is a combination of direct and brand advertising. Not working side by side, but combined into a new form of advertising. Advertising that builds brand while generating accountable response.
There's just one problem with that.
Brand and direct don't get along!
When brand is added to direct, response declines. When direct is added to brand, the brand weakens.
There is a way to make brand and direct work as one and that is what we're going to be focusing on over the next few months. The following list will be our table of contents:
- Reputation - What prospects are saying about your product or service
- Promise - The tangibles that your product or service delivers
- Vision - What your prospect will be or become through your product or service
- Memory Triggers - Words or visuals that will remain with the prospect
- Response Triggers - Words or visuals that get the prospect to take action
- Individuality - A unique communication experience for each prospect
- Accountability - An accountable interaction with the brand
Stay tuned,
Jon
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