Status and a story

All of my friends are making dates to come visit me.

I’ve been lying low while I get the new business going and now I’m starting to get back together with friends.
They imagine me sitting at the breakfast table in my bath robe, a cigarette dangling from my lips and the Daily Race Form in my hand.
Believe it or not, I’m so busy; I have to keep a daily “things to do” list. I have my spiral binder and every morning I carry over all the things I didn’t get to and add all of the new things I have to do. The list is long.

I’m giving the keynote address at the New England Direct Marketing Association (NEDMA) Direct Marketer of the Year dinner on May 12th. I think this is my fourth visit to NEDMA over the years. They’re a great organization, a real talent incubator.

Being awarded the Direct Marketer of the Year award is a great honor. It means that you have gone above and beyond what’s required. It’s an acknowledgement by your peers that you have made a difference. And that makes me think of a good story.

In 1994 The Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association (PDMA) held their Direct Marketer of the Year event as a luncheon. The luncheon was fast approaching and I got a call from one of my clients, Tami.
Tami said, “Jon, I want to go to the PDMA luncheon that’s coming up.” Now Tami was a good client, but I didn't want to go to the PDMA luncheon. “Tami,” I said, “Pick any restaurant you want and we’ll have lunch there. We'll never be able to talk business at the PDMA Direct Marketer of the Year Luncheon.” “No,” she replied, “I want to go to the luncheon and see who gets the Direct Marketer of the Year.”
“If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine with me” I said. “But all we are going to see is one idiot hand the award over to another idiot.”
So there I was, sitting at the table with Tami and friends at the PDMA Direct Marketer of the Year Lunch and to my total, utter, ignorant shock, I’m the other idiot.

The agency had a field day with it. It seems that after Tami got off the phone with me, she called my agency staff and told them what I said. When I got back to the agency that afternoon, there was a giant banner across the front of the building that said;

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE OTHER IDIOT

It really is a great honor and to whoever receives the Direct Marketer of the Year award in Boston on May 12, my sincere congratulations!

Jon Roska

What would we build in its place?

Now that I’ve jumped from the direct advertising agency side of the business to the eCommerce side of the business I can say without any hesitation that the word “direct marketer” as a noun is dead.

Two years ago I was attending a national DMA function. I was standing next to a gentleman who is considered a pillar in the direct field. He turned to me and said, ‘Jon, I don’t know anybody in this room.”
I nodded in agreement and replied, “That’s because you and I are direct marketers, and most of these people aren’t. They’re “marketers” who are here to learn how to use direct marketing as part of their total marketing mix.

Direct mail is dying. It’s slow, cumbersome, expensive and not “green”. I believe that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has some smart cookies working there and that they are very aware that they are in deep shit.
I’m sure that they are asking themselves,

“If there was no Post Office, what would we build in its place?”

Would we build anything in its place? Would we even miss it?
(I just thought about my NetFlix account and realized that even NetFlix is starting to stream movies to me.)

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has the same problem and they’re looking for a new president. I’m sure that they’re talking to all of the right people (they did not call me). Whoever takes the job has to ask the same question.

If there was no DMA, what would we build in its place?

If the DMA disappeared tomorrow, would we miss it?
I hope the next President of the DMA is a visionary who is given the freedom to do
what has to be done.

Jon

Moving On With A Vision

I have sold the Roska Advertising and Marketing Agencies (Roska Direct, Roska Healthcare and Roska Digital) to a partner of many years.
I leave behind a staff of some of the best advertising and marketing experts in the business and I have no doubt that the team will continue to grow the organization’s reputation for excellence.

I have always been a firm believer in hiring people that are better than me at what they do (many of my friends would say that has never been difficult for me). I then made sure to hang onto a majority control of the company so those brilliant hires could not throw me out on the sidewalk. I was successful, so successful in fact that I put myself out of a job and now it’s time to move on.

I’m starting a new company called “Roska Ideas”. Its focus will be eCommerce, with a centralized platform and multiple retail websites. I'm in the process of locating new offices and doing all the many things setting up a new business requires.

I'm looking forward to sharing the next adventure with you.

It's amazing what can happen in your life if you have a vision and stay focused. When things get tough, some people will cut and run. Others realize that it's the time to refocus on their vision, make the necessary adjustments and move forward. One thing I can promise you is that tough times will eventually turn into good times and vice versa. It's your vision that will get you through the bad and into the good.

Here's an interesting story on how to hang in there.

When I was 18 I loaded everything I owned into a beat-up old car and drove to the turnpike entrance in Scranton, PA. I had $35 in my pocket. I got out of the car in front of the turnpike booth and flipped a quarter; heads New York, tails Philadelphia. I had never been to either city and did not know anybody in either one.

Tails it was.

I drove into Philly and not knowing any better, parked my car in an underground parking lot and got a tiny room with a cot at the YMCA. After 3 days I ran out of money and talked the parking lot owner into letting me sleep in my car.

A couple of more days went by looking for work and not eating. On Sunday I found a newspaper in the trash and there was a help wanted ad for a company looking for door to door salesmen. What caught my eye in the ad was “Interviews Monday morning, coffee and doughnuts.”

COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS!!

The next morning I was sitting on the front step of the company when the manager arrived. He had two boxes of doughnuts under his arm. He unlocked the door and I followed him into the reception area where he set the doughnuts down and said, “Make yourself comfortable, I’m going to go make some coffee and then I’ll be right back.”
When he returned, one of the boxes of doughnuts was empty.

I got the job.
Jon

A Teaching Advertising Agency

I have been asked on several occasions what I consider to be my greatest achievement. You can read my Bio which is connected to this blog and see a long list of awards and honors. But you will not find my greatest achievement there.
My greatest achievement is the college graduates that I hired and trained over the years.

If there is a single statement that defines our agency, I hope it would be that Roska is a Teaching Advertising Agency. An agency that provides marketing and advertising education and training to future leaders in our field.

It all started many years ago when I realized that whenever one of my managers needed to hire somebody, they would say to me, "I need somebody with experience." So we would search for somebody with experience and usually find out that experience does not always equate to excellence. We would end up having to train the individual anyway and the first part of the training was to correct all of the bad training they had from their previous experiences.

In the past when we hired young, recent graduates, we did what most agencies do; we threw them into the water and if they could swim, they made it. Like most advertising agencies, we wrecked a lot of good young people like that. The young hires were overwhelmed and judged harshly, many burned out early and left for other careers.

College makes the cup, life fills it.
The aha! moment came when I realized that hiring a college grad with a degree in marketing/advertising, a 4.0 GPA, captain of the cheerleaders and student body president didn't mean squat if we did not have a proper training program in place.
I'm not talking about a training program to learn how to do marketing and advertising. They learn that just from working with the experts on the agency staff. I'm talking about a training program that teaches the lessons they will need to know for the rest of their life.

How to manage their time
How to multi-task
How to delegate
How to dress
How to resolve disputes
How to present
How to lead
How to follow
How to teach others

These are life lessons that when learned properly lead to excellence. And every trainee receives intensive training in these points during their first year at Roska.

If you have been reading previous posts, you have seen seveal references and stories about some of my training experiences. I'll leave you with this one.

One of the things that must be dealt with early when we hire a new graduate, is how to dress. Young people right out of college dress well for their interview, but usually lapse back into college attire within their first 30 days. I remember a young lady, very smart, very attractive who wore very short skirts. I took her aside and pointed out that I wanted our clients to admire her for her intelligence and great marketing; not for her great ass.

She replied, with a look of total innocence, "This skirt passed the 'hands over the head' test."

Jon

A Knot Between Every Word

I received a phone call tonight that Steve Barcus has passed on.

Steve was a creative director at Roska for many years. Those of you who knew him will never forget him. For those of you who did not know him, I’ll share a small bit of who Steve Barcus was.

A creative genius, a husband and father, a true friend to many.

Steve loved nature and he loved to fish. I have stood with him on a Nantucket beach casting all night into the surf to catch a big Striper. And during that night I heard great fishing stories of when he and his friend stacked the Stripers like cordwood, 20, 30 40 pounders. Based on those stories, I now understand how the Stripers were put on the endangered species list for many years. It was because Steve was personally responsible for almost wiping them out.
I have fished for Bone Fish in the Bahamas with Steve and for giant Bass in the mountains of Mexico. And every time he caught a fish, I remember the excitement and joy he exuded, like a 12 year old who has caught his first fish. He loved the sun. He was bald and would rub his head with Wesson oil and fish all day in the sun. “Steve”, I would plead, “put your hat on.” He would put his hat on and when I turned around, he would take it off again. “Steve, put your hat on.” I would say again. “I swear to God that your head is starting to smoke, it smells like bacon frying.” “Yeah”, he would say, “isn’t it wonderful!”

Steve was one of the most creative people I have ever met. He could craft the written word to touch the very core of your emotions. Words that made you laugh or cry or want to buy whatever he was writing about. Steve was the master of creating the special moment.
Steve was the kind of writer that you had to rip the copy from his hands before he would stop writing. He was never satisfied. When we were telling him it was the best copy we had ever read, he would change a word and make it better.
Steve once told me that great copy was like a string of expensive pearls. When a jeweler makes an expensive pearl necklace, he puts a knot between every pearl. “That”, he said, “is how copy must be written; with a knot between every word.”

Steve, you were a special person, you lived your life to the full, and put a knot between every moment.

Jon

The DMA Meeting Love Fest

The DMA business meeting was held on Sunday in San Diego.

They moved the meeting to a much larger room because everybody wanted to attend to see what a proxy vote shoot-out between Gerry Pike and the Board looks like.

I don't know how many proxy votes Gerry picked up with his campaign, but it must have been a lot. When I got there the word was that Gerry and the board had gone late into the night to come to a settlement.

By the time we showed up, it was a love fest. With the board announcing that Gerry had been reinstated for a second term and Gerry telling us what a great bunch of people were on the board. In addition to Gerry being back on the board, he gets to nominate three more board members.

I'll add to the love fest by saying that there are a lot of smart cookies on the DMA board and I hope they figure it out. If not, I think a lot of members will vote with their feet in 2010.

I went to the Electronic Retail Association (ERA) party Monday night and had a good time. It reminded me of the dot.com explosion back in the late 90's. Lots of good contacts, lots of booze. Lots of people wearing all black. Back in those days you could walk into a party and by the time you got to the bar, you had been offered at least $20 million by three different venture capital groups.

No matter how dumb your idea was.

Jon

DMA Conference-DMEF Awards Dinner

Direct is alive and kicking!

I attended the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF) Awards Dinner last night. Close to 300 marketers from all over the country gathered to honor Beth Smith, http://sbdirect.net/ with the Edward Mayer Award. Beth is a super lady who over her career has taught so many people direct advertising that she probably has had a direct affect on the country's GNP.

For the past three years the DMEF has asked me to do the auction part of the evening. That's because I'm a shameless ham who has absolutely no problem asking people for money in public. Some day, I will probably have a very successful career as a homeless person.
I must admit that with the economy the way it is, I did not have great expectations to raise a lot of money, in fact, I had decided to go easy on the crowd and not shake them down for their last penny like I usually do.
Well let me tell you something, when it comes to a good cause like the DMEF, direct marketers step up, no matter how bad the economy is!
In about 30 minutes, I think we raised over $150,000.00, I haven't heard the official count yet, it might be more.
I must admit that putting me on "before" dinner was served was a brilliant strategy and I apologize to everyone for threatening to not feed anybody until they gave me all their money.
Hey, it was for a very good cause.

Today is the DMA board meeting and they have moved it to a much larger room so that we can all come to see what a proxy fight is all about! (see my previous post). Everybody is talking about it and excited about the changes that could take place.

I'll fill you in on what happens.

Jon

DMA - Time for some changes

There's a big controversy brewing at The Direct Marketing Association (DMA). One of their board members by the name of Gerry Pike has nailed his proverbial theses to the door of the DMA in the form of a website titled http://abetterdma.org/ . Mr. Pike is asking all voting DMA members to give him their proxy vote so he can implement the changes he feels are needed to change (save?) the DMA.

The DMA has lashed back with an email to it's members http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1328 that if you didn't know better, would portray Gerry Pike as a trouble maker who is bitter over the board not nominating him for a second term.

I'm qualified to make a few comments

As a 25 year member of the DMA and an expert in direct marketing, I think that I'm qualified to make a few comments on the situation.

First let's start with Gerry Pike. I've known him professionally for several years. I've had drinks and dinner with him and other professionals in the field on several occasions and he never came across as a wacko. He's a professional who is not afraid to speak-up. I can see how he might rub other DMA board members the wrong way.

On the other side is the DMA board. http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/disppressrelease?article=1225 There are approximately 40 people on the DMA board, all top professionals and they only meet three times a year as a full board, so things move slow. John Greco is the President of the DMA. There have been some very big lay-offs at the DMA and their ability to service members has suffered. On top of that, Mr. Greco makes over $800,000.00.

Three or four years ago I was having a chat with John Greco and told him that the term "Direct Marketing" was antiquated and misunderstood. When you tell someone you're a Direct Marketer, the usual reply is, "So you do direct mail?" I said, "that was why I changed our agency name to Roska Direct Advertising instead of direct marketing." To most people, Direct Advertising covers all forms of media, including interactive. The name change has really worked. Not only our clients perceptions, but our own perceptions of what we do.

John Greco asked me if I was suggesting that the DMA change its name to The Direct Advertising Association? I said yes and added that if they didn't, some other associations were going to eat their lunch.

Most people don't call themselves direct marketers anymore

Direct Marketing is not dead. But it has gone through a transformation. Most people don't call themselves direct marketers anymore. Today people identify themselves as marketers, and they "use" direct marketing as a tactic.

To the majority of brand and product managers I have worked with over the years "direct marketing" usually means "direct mail" or "junk mail". Our industry has done a terrible job of educating or expanding knowledge in the direct field. The DMA claims that over 50% of total advertising spend is direct, yet we do not have a proper college level textbook and the majority of colleges and universities do not teach direct/interactive courses.

Whereas "Direct Advertising" is perceived as multi-channel, including interactive. We could go as far as to rename it The Direct and Interactive Advertising Association (DIAA). Changing the name to Direct Advertising will meet today's marketers perceptions.

More importantly, changing the name is an important first step in a commitment to change the DMA into an organization that is in tune with where things are going and not focusing on trying to save the past.

And John, take a pay cut. Temporary.

Jon

Staying Busy

You can feel when the agency is doing well.

Everyone has a glow of confidence and there is a definite smoothness in the work process. Everyone’s busy and the work is good.

We’ve been hiring over the past few months; writers, designers, account managers, even some just graduated trainees.
We took our “it’s the economy” hit last year. We got so freaking paranoid as business slowed down that we trimmed down, tightened up and re-evaluated every process and procedure. We got focused on what clients need, right now.
We must have done something right.
The agency came out of the gate strong in 2009 and whatever it is that we are doing right; we plan to keep doing it!

Speaking of Trainees
We have three new college grads starting next week.
They will go through six months of training and if they’re still here in 6 months will be promoted to Assistant Something or Other. Their first week, we don’t give them any work. It’s all about orientation by different departments and agency process training, which can be pretty intense. They walk around in a daze and tend to cling to each other. We have a pretty good training process in place. On average, it takes two to three months before it all comes together for them and they have what I call the AHA! moment. All of a sudden, they understand how the agency can go from a challenge to a brilliantly executed solution and what part they can play in that.

What’s good with having several trainees at once is that they learn to work as a team and support each other. Once several years ago, I had a trainee that just wasn’t getting it. She was a hard worker and very smart, but not firing on all cylinders. I called together three other trainees in the agency and told them that it was their responsibility to get her up to 100%. I also told them all of the terrible things that would happen to them if they failed.
Worked like a charm.

I love eCommerce
Ever since we built the PetFoodDirect.com site in the late 90’s, I’ve been fascinated with eCommerce.
We just soft launched an eCommerce site called www.SkinRenu.com . The site sells high quality skin products. We needed to keep the budget in control while we built the first phase of the site. So we went with a Yahoo Store Front that we customized. It looks pretty good and started pulling orders right away. But there’s still a lot to be done over the next six months.

A RPV session led to the concept of “Love what you see when you look in the mirror.” The brand vision is paid of well on the site. Next we start to build in all the response triggers. Things like special offers, promotions, and events. Once we get all the bugs out of it, we’ll begin testing Search Engine Marketing (SEM). You’ll see the site grow and change over the next year and I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening and what I’m learning.

And I’m open to your suggestions! Really.

Jon

Eyeball Candy Websites

We’re working on a lot of websites at the moment.

When I think of websites, I think of a seminar I went to given by Amy Africa, an authority on how people use the internet. Go take a look at her website and when you come back, I’ll make my point.
http://www.eightbyeight.com/

My point.
You probably think her website is butt-ugly. But I’m telling you, Amy Africa knows more about building websites that generate business then I will ever know (and I’m pretty good). She uses all the tricks she’s learned doing research on how people surf, purchase and interact with anything on the web. This is a website that generates response!

Using the Rosen Velocity Scale -- http://www.rgrosen.com/velocity.html ,
I would rate Ms. Africa’s site at an 8 or 9.
That’s because the site is totally focused on visitor interaction.
When I tell our interactive and web designers to go to Ms. Africa’s website; they all moan and cry about its lack of beauty and failure of design. They are missing the point.

The secret to a customer interactive site is Eyeball Candy!
Ms. Africa has eyeball candy piled up all over her site. Your eyes go from tidbit to tidbit. Offer to offer. She knows that the reds and blues and orange are the best colors for a website.
The secret to improving your website is not to copy the Africa look. Though I would say that you couldn’t go wrong if that’s what you did.
The trick is to incorporate eyeball candy technique into your site wherever possible.

One trick to create your eyeball candy is to make a list of every key fact, offer, benefit and feature you want the site to deliver on the home page. With this list you create individual pieces (eyeball candy) that show a visual, headline and a short punchy copy lead that draws to eye to it. Each one of these candies allows you to click deeper into the site to find out more. You might have three different eyeball candies that all click to the same inside page, each one leveraging a different feature/benefit.

Go take a look at this site:
www.PetFoodDirect.com

I designed this site 10 years ago. It’s an eyeball candy site. I think Amy Africa would be very pleased with it. The homepage consistently converts visitors into orders better than anything that has been tested against it. That’s because the homepage delivers everything it can to pay-off the anticipated needs of the visitor. It then draws the visitor into the site to capture the orders.
If I could redesign this site based on what I know today, I would do a better job of brand delivery, but the eyeball candy style would remain and continue to draw visitors in.

Eyeball candy design need not be ugly. Done correctly, it can be dramatic and award winning design. If your website is to be judged on clicks, sign-ups and/or orders…eyeball candy works!

Jon

Where's the Gee Wiz?

Direct marketing is not a sexy word.

Whenever I told someone that I was a direct marketer, the universal response was, “Oh, you mean direct mail.” It would drive me freaking crazy, because direct mail is only one channel of a
multi-channel/media discipline.
So I started referring to my work as direct advertising and right away, people had a better grasp of what I did.

Direct advertising is not a sexy word either, but it’s better.
Direct advertising is advertising that has clear accountability, as well as a good brand delivery. It consists of a mix of direct mail, web, TV, print, outdoor, etc.; you can even spray paint your ad on the sides of sheep, as long as you can read the results.
I'm going to focus on direct mail for this post. What a lot of people don’t realize, is how powerful direct mail is. And I’m not talking about all those postcards I receive and toss in the trash every day. We have client direct mail campaigns going right now that are doing so well that a tear of happiness runs down my cheek every time I read the reports. And on top of that they look great!

Direct mail is not a postcard.
You lose most of the advantages of direct mail by using a postcard. And the number one advantage is having all of the room you need to deliver a marketing message and ask the recipient to respond.

Good direct mail always has a well written letter.
The letter is a personal one-on-one communication that clearly explains what we are offering you, what it is, what it can do for you, how you get it. . The letter refers the reader to the support materials that are in the package like a brochure, fact sheet or reply device. Each additional piece in the direct mail package supports the brand message/offer and works with the letter to generate a response.

I refer to the letter communication as:
A logical progression of thought that leads to a specific outcome.

In addition to the letter comes the supporting material like a brochure and response card. This is where you can pay off the brand creative with a big “Gee Wiz” idea that brings in creative memory triggers and/or unique positioning. These “Gee Wiz” ideas can be carried over to the outside envelope where they break through the mail clutter (usually a bunch of postcards from your competition).
Sometimes at our agency you’ll hear someone in a creative meeting ask,
“Where’s the Gee Wiz?”

And if it’s not there, we start looking for it.

Jon

Accountability by Testing

You need early accountability to succeed.

As an agency founder with my feet firmly planted in direct marketing, I've never had a problem with being judged by the results of my work. The quicker I know that something I'm doing is not generating business for my client, the quicker I can get it fixed!
That means that not only do I need to find a way to measure the results of my advertising; I need to measure those results as early as possible.

Vision and energy...no clients
When I started Roska Direct, I had a vision and a lot of energy. What I didn't have was clients. I hauled my portfolio all around town, banging on doors and driving people crazy looking for my first big break. That break came from Marty Goodman, the national circulation manager at TV GUIDE. I honestly think that Marty gave me that first assignment just to get me off his back. The job was to create a direct mail package for new subscribers. I worked on that concept day and night for two weeks and when I presented my ideas to Marty, he liked what he saw and gave me the go ahead to finish it up for a test mailing.
I continued to work on the package day and night for another two weeks and when it was done, Marty included it in a group of test mailings.

And when the response results came back...my creative did so poorly that when it hit the ground, it left a crater. I remember walking into Marty's office after the results were in with my head down, knowing I had blown my big opportunity. Marty looked at me and said, "What's your problem? We all thought your idea was a good one, now we know it doesn't work." and he gave me another assignment!
Once again I worked day and night, applying what I had learned from the first test. When the results of the second test came in Marty told me that it had done much better, but did not beat the control. (The control is the direct mail package that generates the best results with a positive ROI) and he gave me a third assignment. The third assignment became a control position for TV GUIDE for the next four years.

Test early, test often
Marty Goodman taught me that testing early, testing often and learning from each test leads to advertising success. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work with him.

Most advertisers don't test, they come up with what might be a very good idea, sometimes do research to validate the idea and then shoot the entire advertising budget on a campaign. They find out if the idea worked or didn't work after the ad budget has been spent. That's one of the big reasons why the average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is around 2.4 years!

Good marketers approach their job like a general approaches a battle. The general tests different parts of the enemy's lines, looking for weak spots or opportunities. When that opportunity is identified, that is where he strikes!

Test, find the opportunities and focus your resources where they will generate the best ROI.
Jon

My Secret Sauce

When your advertising is accountable...you better be good.

I know the results of every campaign we have done because as a direct marketer I test and build in accountability to prove the success (or failure) of our advertising.
Over the years I've learned what the power of incorporating good branding into direct advertising can do. I've developed and tested the techniques that allow me to "fuse" brand and direct together to create a different type of advertising.

These techniques are my "secret sauce"

Here are the ingredients:

1. Reputation - What customers and prospects are saying about your product or service.


2. Promise - The tangible attributes that your product or service deliver.


3. Vision - What customers and prospects will be or become through interaction with your product or service.


4. Response Triggers - Words and visuals that get customers and prospects to take action.


5. Memory Triggers - Words and visuals that remain with the prospects who do not react to the response triggers.


6. Individuality - A unique communication experience for each customer or prospect.


7. Accountability - A risky ingredient, but well worth it to prove success.
   

When you combine these ingredients the right way, you create my secret sauce--advertising that delivers brand and generates response.

Jon

The Annual Roska Picnic

Our annual agency picnic is fast approaching!

That means all of the trash talk emails start flying around the agency as different agency teams try to recruit or just psych-out the competition. Ed B. and I love to play horseshoes and below is our trash talk email:

Equestrian Footwear Competition
That's right folks, it's that time again.
You have a shot at beating the unbeatable, of gaining some serious bragging rights by winning a game of horseshoes against the Jon R./Ed B. Equestrian Footwear team. We've won so many games over the years that we have lost count. The only team that even came close was the Ed R. team and we came back last year and beat them so bad that Ed R. needed a sock puppet to tell his therapist what happened to him.

Spectators and challengers are invited to watch Ed B. drink gallons of beer while throwing ringer after ringer. Don't miss Jon R. insulting the competition's Mother, children and dog as he caps their last throw. Come by, take your best shot, while Jon and Ed open a can of horseshoe whoop-ass on you.

Hear Ed and Jon not only insult you and everything you hold dear in life, but as a bonus you get to hear them insult each other with disparaging remarks sure to have you cheering.

So pick your partner, get some practice and say a prayer, light a candle or dance naked around a chicken, whatever works for you. See you there!
This trash talk is brought to you by the Jon R./Ed B. Equestrian Footwear World Champion Team.

Talk to your HR department before you send trash talk emails out.

Jon

Don't Forget the Memory Trigger

“Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tasty Cake!”

A great advertising man, Charlie Coffey, who I had the honor of working with for several years, once told me, “If you can’t think of anything to say about a product, sing it.”

One of his best was the Tasty Cake jingle. Once you get that little tune stuck in your head, you were condemned to replay it over and over, for the next 24 hours. Now that’s a memory trigger.

Memory triggers are a key component to incorporating brand into a direct advertising campaign. They can come in many forms, visual, music, copy and they all relate to your product, service or brand.

Take a little quiz
Here’s a list of 10 memory triggers. You tell me what brand or product they represent –

1. Blue Box
2. Duck
3. Hot Air Balloon
4. Gecko
5. Repairman with nothing to do
6. LSMFT
7. Garden Gnome
8. Rabbit
9. Cowboy
10. Zoom Zoom

All of the above are memory triggers for large, broad market brands. Their advertising budgets give them the reach and frequency to ensure that most of you will be familiar with them, (#6 is worth bonus points if you get it right). The best memory triggers relate to things that we will see, hear or encounter in our everyday lives. It doesn’t matter how big the audience is; memory triggers can make an advertising campaign better.

Memory triggers help direct advertising work better
Many of you have a finite audience and using targeted direct advertising that delivers a memory trigger that ties back to your brand will do a better job.

We are working on a direct advertising campaign right now that uses famous statues in unusual poses as the memory trigger. The visuals are very creative, easy to remember and when people see a picture of the actual statue during their everyday work or play, they will relate it back to our client’s brand on a conscious or subconscious level.

Our objective is to generate an immediate response from a portion of the target market, while leaving strong brand memory triggers with the non-responders. This will maintain or improve response from the target market during future marketing efforts.

The RPV session leads to memory trigger development
As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, clearly defining your brand reputation, promise and vision gives you the positioning statements and power words you need to focus your creative thinking. It’s not unusual for a big idea to leap out of the process and deliver a great copy line or visual. Turn that into a memory trigger and you’re creating great advertising.

Here are the answers to the quiz

1. Blue Box – Tiffany & Co., if you’re ever lucky enough to get a gift from Tiffany’s, hang
onto the box. You’ll look like a big spender when you toss a $5 pair of earrings into it
and give it as a gift. In fact, that’s probably what the person who gave you the box did!
2. Duck – Aflac Insurance
3. Hot Air Balloon – RE/MAX Realtors
4. Gecko – GEICO, the lizard is good.
5. Repairman with nothing to do – the Maytag repairman
6. LSMFT – Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco – A famous campaign from the mid 40’s.
If you got this one, you’re old.
7. Garden Gnome -- Travelocity
8. Rabbit – you get two chances to get this one right. Kix cereal, “Silly rabbit, Kix are for kids”
or the Energizer Bunny.
9. Cowboy – Marlboro Man
10. Zoom Zoom – Mazda Automobiles

Jon

The Advertising They Deserve

We get a lot of "Request for Proposal" (RFP) at the agency.

It’s the first stage of how a prospective client begins a search for a new advertising agency. They will send out a RFP to a group of agencies that they think might be a good fit with them. When the response comes in, the client will review and select several of the agencies for a meeting. Sometimes that will lead to a hire and sometimes it leads to a full agency pitch between one or two other agencies.
What a lot of potential clients may not realize is that a good advertising agency is looking at them, just as hard as they are looking at the agency! As much as a company wants a good advertising agency, a good advertising agency wants a good client.
We recently received a RFP from a company that had an unusual request in it.

Describe your ideal client and working relationship

Now you might think that this is a very common request in a RFP, but I cannot remember the last time that I have seen a request like this and it leads me to believe that this company might be a very good client. I thought I’d share our response with you --

There is a famous saying by David Ogilvy about the advertising business,

“Clients get the advertising they deserve.”

Your first impression when reading Mr. Ogilvy’s quote might be to take it as a negative comment. But let’s assume it was never meant that way and put a positive spin on it.

“Great Clients get great advertising”

When you’re a great client, everybody in the agency wants to work on your account. Creative staff put in extra hours to deliver their best work for you. Account Executives find excuses to be at your place of business. HR hints to a hot new talent they are trying to recruit that they “might” get to work on your account and Project Managers send you emails with little smiley faces at the end.

Do you want to be a great client? Just wanting to means you probably already are, but I’ll give you some inside tips that can make you even better and you’ll see the results right away.

Be the cheerleader
Your positive attitude is contagious! Great clients know that their agency will come up with the “big idea” and you’re there to help them in any way you can. One great client sent 20 pizzas to the agency with a thank you card after a successful launch. We’d take a bullet for a client like that.

Share your ideas
Let’s be honest, every idea is not a good one, but like President Reagan loved to say, “There’s got to be a pony somewhere in this manure heap.” Great clients join with the creative team and we all share in the success.

Be realistic with your schedules
If we go for it, we go for it together. Great clients make sure that their agency has everything they need to get the job done. They return phone calls and emails and if, God forbid, we miss the date by a day, thank the team for trying and for the great work.

Be open with information
We are at our best as an agency when we’re working as an extension of your marketing team. The only way for this to happen is when we know as much about your business as possible. So share as much as you can – your goals, plans, priorities, and hurdles – and invite us to your company picnic! The more your agency knows, the more they can contribute to your success.

Great clients get great advertising

Jon

Fishing Where the Fish Are

I used to fish in a lot of Bass tournaments.

It was a lot of fun, flying across the lake in my 20 ft bass boat, pushed along by a 200 Horse, fuel injected Merc engine. But I never caught a lot of fish because I could never figure out where the fish were! I read in a fishing magazine that 80% of the fish were in 20% of the lake. The problem was that they were very big lakes.

Advertising has the same challenge. 80% of your customers are in 20% of the country, or marketing channels, or media.

I once gave a presentation before an audience of around 1000 marketers and I asked if anyone in the audience had a $100 million or more ad budget to work with, no hands were raised. “What about $50 million,” I asked, and two people raised their hands. I didn’t see more than ten hands go up until I dropped below $10 million and the vast majority of hands rose when I hit $3 million or less.

When you have a limited budget, and I’ll make a safe bet and say, ‘That means you.” you cannot afford to waste one dollar on advertising to people that will never buy your product or service. You must fish where the fish are.

Now I may not be a very good fisherman, but I’m a pretty good marketer and I’m going to tell you how to find out where your prospects are.

A best customer profile
You start by clearly identifying the characteristics of your best customer, we call this a “Best Customer Profile” (BCP). How old are they? Gender? Where do they live? How much education? Do they have children? How old? Pets? Hobbies? Income? Etc.
The same technique is used if you’re a business marketer. Look at your business customers and identify your BCP.

You then start looking for prospects that match your BCP. In our agency we have mapping software that allows you to overlay all of the different best customer values and
you begin to see the areas where your prospects are that match up with your BCP. We call these areas “Opportunity Zones”. They are where you want to focus your limited marketing budget to get the most bang for your buck.

Here’s an example of how this technique worked very successfully for a client.
In 1997 we launched PetFoodDirect.com (PFD), a dot.com start-up that sold pet products. PFD had a marketing budget of around $5 million.

At the same time Pets.com launched a competitive operation with a marketing budget of over $100 million. Pets.com hired a big, broad market advertising agency and started spending money like a drunken sailor on a Saturday night. They created the Sock Puppet mascot and ran TV spots all over the country, including Super Bowl ads.

We did our homework.
23% of all the pet owning households in the USA, with a household income of $50,000 or higher, and a wife and two kids are located down the I-95 corridor between Connecticut and Carolina. And guess what? 80% of all pet product purchases are made by females. We knew what our Best Buyer Profile was and we knew where our best prospects were.

We targeted 100% of our marketing efforts on those pet owning women who lived in that small part of the country and had the money to pay for the product.

Long story made short, PetFoodDirect.com today is the largest, web-only pet product site in the country. Pets.com went bankrupt after a few years and the last I heard, the Sock Puppet was shilling loans out of an alley in Las Vegas.

Fish where the fish are.

Jon

Copywriting Tricks

Trick #1- Buy this book.

The best copywriter in the business is Herschell Gordon Lewis. His book, “On the Art of Writing Copy” is the finest education your money can buy.

I consider myself the third best writer in the business and there are two rules that I follow when writing good advertising copy:

1. Know exactly what you want the reader to do or take away before you start writing.
2. Write like you talk.

Another trick that I use when a writer brings me their first draft to review is to cross out the first (and sometimes the second paragraph) before I even start reading. And the vast majority of the time, the second or third paragraph is the best lead. That’s because when most people write advertising copy, it takes one or two paragraphs before their brain hits its stride.

Cut and paste is your friend!
When you write copy, you usually try to put your thoughts in order before you write. The problem is that your brain doesn’t work that way. Your brain just shoots out a constant flow of unrelated material. If you try to put it in order before you begin to write, you end up sitting in front of your computer with nothing on the screen. Just write it down! Don’t try to arrange it, just let it spew out as it comes along. You can then arrange your random thoughts into --

A logical progression of thought that leads to a specific outcome.

Here’s the next trick. Go back to the previous paragraph you just read, the one that starts with, “Cut and paste is your friend”.
Count how many “you” and “yours” are in that paragraph. Thirteen, there are thirteen freaking you and yours in one paragraph. And that’s great! Because to the reader,

“It’s all about me”

Your reader is not interested in you, your product or your company. They are interested in themselves and what your product and your company can do for them. Everything you write should relate to your reader. Go back through your copy and wherever possible change every I, me, we and our to you and yours.

If you run into a situation where you can’t seem to come up with the right words to use, try this trick. Pretend that you’re sitting in front of your prospect or customer and you are talking to them. What you say is what you should write.

When I’m reviewing copy, I will often write notes on the side, sometimes they’re nice, sometimes not so nice (it often depends on my mood at the moment). I have grown more diplomatic as the years have passed.

On one occasion, I was reviewing a long and poorly written B2B sell letter and after I realized that editing the letter would take too long, I took my red pen and wrote down the side;

“The ranting of someone who desperately wants to write the great American novel and has failed miserably at it”.

Later that afternoon the manuscript reappeared on my desk with the note, “F@*k you”, written under my comment. What was I to do? How was I to teach a promising young writer with a lot of spunk that he should never mess with the Creative Director?
The solution was simple. I mailed the copy, comments and all to his Mom with a note attached that said, “Look at how your son talks to his boss.”
His Mom was waiting for him at the door when he got home.

That young man, I’m very pleased to say, is today an Executive VP Creative for a leading agency and a brilliant writer. I take some credit for his Mom giving him a good whooping and setting him on the right path.

Jon

Share the Vision

If you can see it, they will buy it.

This is the third installment about RPV Sessions, (Reputation, Promise, and Vision) that we have at our agency. (see the February 14 and March 7 posts) These sessions, when done correctly, help us gain clarity on what the brand and it’s position is. We end up with a list of “power words” tailored to the brand. These power words become the base for concept and copy development that leads to big, ideas that bring tears of happiness to a client’s eyes.

Vision is the third part of the Reputation, Promise, Vision (RPV). For a quick review--
Reputation is what prospects and customers are saying about your brand.
Promise is the tangible attributes your brand gives the customer.

Vision is what people will be or become through interaction with your brand.

Here are some examples of visionary words:
Happier, healthier, prettier, safe, confidant, relaxed, stronger, popular, respected.

When you are considering the purchase of a piece of exercise equipment, how do you envision yourself?
A - All buff and toned up, with members of the opposite sex (maybe even your spouse) throwing themselves at you?
B – All sweat-stained and gasping for air as you crawl off the machine after a 30 minute workout?
If you’re looking to get laid, it’s the first vision that will get you to buy. If you’re looking for a good workout, it’s more likely that the second vision will trigger your purchase.

The right vision will get you to buy the product. And as my example above demonstrates, there can be more than one vision, depending on who you are targeting your message to.
You must be very careful to deliver on one focused vision in a marketing communication. If you try to communicate multiple visions by putting something in for everybody, you will water down your message and response will suffer for it.

Get out a Sharpie and write this on your cube wall:
We communicate to our target audience, to the exclusions of all others.

Different customer groups have different visions. If you try to be all things to all people you will fail.
Today’s technology allows us to target our prospects and customers like never before. You can write one advertisement that delivers on the vision of a specific customer group and write another ad that communicates a different vision to another group. You end up with two ads that generate a better return on your investment.

People’s visions are positive things. I’m always amazed when I see advertising that communicates negative visions in words and/or photos.
Negative ads reflect back on your brand.

Think about it. What makes you feel better?
A little baby seal with its brains bashed out?
A little baby seal playing with its little baby seal buddies?
Showing the positive results of the brand vision will always generate a better response.

If you have been following along, you now have a list of “Power Words” for your brands Reputation, Promise and Vision. Your mind is focused on your brand.

You are closing in on a big hairy, honkin’ idea!

Jon

New Trainee

Starting a new trainee today

He’s your basic, overachiever type that we recruit out of school. 3.8 GPA in Marketing and Digital Art, worked every summer, socially involved. Right now he’s in culture shock. All his life he’s been one of, if not the smartest kid in his class, now he’s surrounded by people as smart as or smarter than him…a lot smarter.

First thing I did was hand him a spiral notebook.
“Jim, write your name and today’s date on the cover, when the notebook is full, write the end date on the cover and start a new spiral notebook. This way, if the beer truck runs you over, your replacement will be able to pick right up where you left off.”

The main reason I do this is to constantly drill into a trainee the importance of taking notes, it’s one of the keys to becoming a good account executive. When a trainee is caught without their notebook, they face a barrage of verbal and physical abuse while they run back to their desk to grab the notebook.

Good notes lead to good client contact reports. Good contact reports mean that the agency team knows what’s going on and can react quickly to the clients needs.

One trainee went home over the weekend to visit her parents. Her Mom called her into the kitchen to tell her something and the trainee showed up with a notebook and pen and started taking notes while her Mother was talking. “Wow,” her Mom said, “that new job is really making a difference!”

Jon