The tool-as-strategy trap is an easy one to fall prey to. It usually involves a shiny new form of media (Newspapers! Radio! Television! Internet! Telekinesis!) and a proclamation that all previous forms of media are forthwith null and void posthaste, etc. etc. Gurus arise (often of the self-anointed variety), agencies and clients are fleeced and large segments of the populace don’t notice a thing has changed.

The current tool du jour is social media. Social media includes such things as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a bunch of other sites that promise to be different than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn but really aren’t. Social media does not include such familiar anti-social media as television, radio, magazines and billboards. Because you enjoy those mediums alone, with nothing but the cold, echoing groans of your empty soul to comfort you.

Also, MySpace no longer counts as social media. It has carved a newer, niche-ier segment known as Perv-n-Indie-Band media. Also, kitties.

Companies as vast as General Electric and as tiny as the neighborhood dry cleaners are into social media, bombarding us with pleas to “like” their Facebook pages, follow them on Twitter and, as a favorite SM saying goes, “join the conversation.” Which is all well and good, assuming companies understand the difference between being on Facebook and Twitter and actually using the mediums to advance their businesses.

Because, as I may have alluded to a scant few sentences ago, social media is a tool, not a strategy. It’s like any other tool in advertising: Wield it well or be prepared to poke out an eye. Just as there is a wide gulf between great TV spots and anything starring Vince “Slap Chop” Schlomi, there’s a big difference between successful social media campaigns like Pepsi’s Refresh Project and Best Buy’s Twitter-based Twelpforce, and tossing your pizza chain’s locations up on Facebook and throwing some coupons to your 193 Twitter followers.

There are several attractive aspects to social media. First, it’s cheap to get into. Unless you’ve managed to hold onto to that TI 99/4a for the past 30 years, chances are your computer will load up Facebook and Twitter just fine. So, your initial investment comes down to time, which is often comes in the ultra-affordable form of intern-time. But that’s where too many companies and agency begin and end their foray into social media – with a young youth who either thinks he’s knows everything about social media yet knows nothing about the brand, or admits he knows nothing about either. Note the all-around lack of brand knowledge going on. So much for faking it till you make it.

Like all media, it is possible to create an effective campaign using social media alone. But, unshockingly, the best social media efforts tie into broader schemes. The best current example of this is Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign. This campaign originally launched with one thirty-second spot, a couple of fifteens and a microsite. And those spots exploded into all manner of glorious joy bits over YouTube, racking up at least 14 million views from my coworker Silver alone. Oh, and the thirty-second spot won the Grand Prix and Cannes. A nice piece of hardware, even if it stinks of mime.

Now, Old Spice and their agency, Wieden+Kennedy, could’ve kicked back, tossed out a couple more derivative spots and called it a campaign. And, in fact, they did do some more TV spots, although no one would accuse them of phoning those in. But then they did something that can really only be described as cool: They put their now über-popular character to the task of answering their fans with personalized videos. Pulling comments from multiple SM sources in real-time (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.), the creative team scripted responses that TMYMCSL (actor Isaiah Mustafa) delivered in his typical, manly style. Videos were posted to YouTube and their arrival disseminated via Twitter and Facebook. They did this for two days straight, answering comments from anonymous tweeters to celebrities to Mustafa’s own daughter. In the end, they had produced over 100 clips, lit up the online world and gained even more fans for the brand. It’ll probably win some more trophies next year. And, crazy of crazies, it was all part of a strategy.

Sure beats the heck out of “Who wants a coupon?” tweets, doesn’t it?

Later,

Fox

In a recent MediaPost article, Gary Leopold referenced two studies that could indicate future generations won’t share that love.

First, a study of 100K global teens by virtual world site Habbo concluded that today’s teens are far less inclined to want to travel or work overseas.

Then, a study commissioned by lastminutetravel.com said young people were spending more of their money on entertainment and technology than traveling the world. This, in turn, caused the UK’s Daily Telegraph to jump to say “perhaps worringly, a new generation will reject travel altogether in favor of gaming, social networking and ‘always on’ media.”

Telegraph, meet giant leap.

Still, would it surprise you if tomorrow’s adults liked to travel less?

This is a generation weaned online. They explore and connect virtually. It makes sense these experiences might supplant some of the need to travel.

Add to that the joys of travel today: Airports. Security. Global tensions. Not to mention, expense. And, let’s face it, you have to love travel to make it a priority.

Leopold offers the travel industry two pieces of advice. They’re good thoughts, whether you buy the doom-and-gloom or not.

Turn today’s youth into tomorrow’s travelers. In short, make them want it. To do that, you need to recognize what drives them is not the same as generations past.

Create ways to engage children (and help parents interact with their kids). Start a dialogue now that is going to make them want to pursue the wonders of the world beyond the screen.

Really, he’s saying, understand and engage the next generation.

Whether the studies cited point to anything or not, traveler marketers need to heed the advice. Turn on the news — terrorism, storms, oil, the economy. It doesn’t exactly breed a love of travel. If we hope tomorrow’s adults will have one, we might invest in helping grow it among our kids and youth today.

*RevPAR

Until now, paid search has always been a pull medium with unknown amounts of inventory. The amount you get is dependent on the amount of times searchers hit the search button — which is currently around 530M times a day. This seems like a lot of inventory, but advertisers want more. Because of the consistently high ROI that paid search delivers, a lot of brands have allocated more and more of their budgets to it over the years. And even though this is good news for the medium, several industries are seeing a rise in rates to record highs — posing an uphill battle in continuing to achieve effective ROI metrics.

Behold…

Access to more scale is now available with search retargeting. Here’s how it works. I like to think of it like a boomerang.

A searcher types something into a search engine, but then they get distracted or they aren’t happy with the search results and walk away. A day or so later, that same person receives a display ad that is directly related to what they’ve recently searched for. In other words, it takes a qualified lead based on real and recent consumer intents, and gives your brand another chance to get in front of that person moving them along the purchase funnel. They threw something out there with search, and a relevant offer or product came back around to them through display – like a boomerang.

Even cooler are the different ways to target based on the search query data. You can target by keyword, topic or category. Location targeting is also an option. And frequency capping is another important consideration.

We’ve now met with over 10 ad networks that offer searching retargeting based on search queries from Google, Yahoo! or Bing. And as we introduce more clients to this product offering, we hope to have more success stories to share. There are endless opportunities for targeting scenarios and compelling creative! More boomerangs to come.

But the truth of the matter is that after the positive sales numbers are in, the guest counts are confirmed up and product has long since flown off the shelves, we like to know that our peers around the country (not just our clients) think we do some cool and interesting work.

Thankfully, after careful review and industry scrutiny, it appears that for yet another year, we don’t suck. In fact, building on last year’s One Show award, DFWIMA “Best in Show” and being featured in Archive Magazine, this year is also shaping up to be a great one.

-Five Telly Awards for both television and online video

-DFWIMA “Most Effective Non-Profit/Public Service” campaign

-Art Directors Club for “Eat Out for a Change”

-Dallas Society of Visual Comm. bronze award for television

Yes, when it comes to creative, we work in a very “what have you done for me lately” kind of industry. But this is proof that lately, we’ve been doing great work for great clients. More importantly, it’s achieved great results. And isn’t that why we got into this business in the first place?

Back before Al Gore even dreamed of claiming to have personally hand-coded the internet, I was a young, willowy sapling of a writer, trying my best to get a job in the red-hot advertising market that was Kansas City. I had been doing some freelancing for a small (six-person) shop on their retirement homes account. Seeing that I was not scared away by these glamorous assignments, the agency owner decided to use me for their next Jiffy Lube spot.

The local Jiffy Lube franchise was going to begin offering windshield chip repair and wanted a TV spot to tout this new profit center. The only requirements were that it had to feature the local franchise himself (as all their spots did), and it had to be cheap (as all their spots were). The former I knew I could somehow accommodate. The latter, well, I had no idea what anything cost to produce. So I winged that mother.

I gave the agency three scripts. One that, I would later learn, would be considered “direct.” (I now hate the phrase “make it more direct,” btw.) One compared rock chips to potato chips. And another that was the eventual winner. As I was a freelancing neophyte at the time, I was not invited to the set. In hindsight, not getting to sit around all day looking at a bearded rich dude standing on white cyc wasn’t much of a blow.

Lucky for you, I discovered a VHS tape of this spot whilst digging through my Archive of Advertising, currently located in a couple of plastic bins in my home office closet. So I fired up Final Cut, digitized that mother and stuck it on YouTube. Behold its wonder:

Produced in December 1994 and aired the following month, that spot is now over 15 years old. Sadly, it is not the worst spot I ever produced. That honor collectively belongs to spots #2 through #7. Some for Jiffy Lube Heartland and some for the national Jiffy Lube client (yes, somehow a tiny shop in suburban KC had an $8 million national account). Some of the spots’ awfulness is fully my fault. Other atrocities I can lay squarely at the feet of others. But the story of my first real war with account service will have to wait for another day.

And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t show this (or other old spots) to my now-wife whilst in the midst of pitching woo. I waited eight years. Which, for the spot I shall only refer to as “Lobster,” was still two years too few.

Later,

Fox

Our client, Stripes, donated new soccer nets to nine different youth soccer leagues in and around Corpus Christi and began rehabbing a soccer field as a Field of Dreams for one particular team. The program made sense for the brand and the community, and the timing was ideal with the 2010 World Cup starting that week.

What we didn’t anticipate was the extreme outpouring of gratitude from those who were receiving the donations. The presidents and directors of the soccer leagues that I spoke with to coordinate the donations could not say “thank you” enough and kept telling me that we just didn’t understand what this would mean to their all-volunteer, not-for-profit organizations.

While in Corpus to help with the donations and coordinate media coverage, there were several times when I was literally stunned at the response we got – from parents, from kids, from soccer team coaches and even from the maintenance worker at one of the soccer fields at a city park, who gave one of the most sincere and heart-felt expressions of gratitude, telling us that the impact of this program on the kids would be immeasurable.

It doesn’t get much better than having a seven-year-old little boy walk up to your client, shake his hand and say, “Thank you for the cool new nets for my soccer team.”

On the surface, the client donated soccer nets and some turf for a new field. But what we really did was offer some much-needed financial relief to organizations that often don’t get any breaks; helped lower registration costs next year across the leagues so it’s a bit easier on families with kids who want to play soccer; and made sure thousands of kids, who often see nicer fields when they play “away” games, can take pride in playing on their home fields because they look much nicer.

No big budgets, nothing glamorous or cutting-edge about it. But we sure did find a way to make a mark on our client’s hometown community. Made a mark on me, too – reminded me why I love doing what I do.

Here’s our story in pictures:

Early on, we made a pact to eat only red meat for the rest of the trip. This seemed like a right manly idea at the time. The consequences however, would be most unfortunate for one of us.

First thing Saturday morning, we made our way to our boat for a little fishing…

They tell me that, as the boat did have an actual motor,
my constant “vvvvvvvvvvvrrrrrrrrr” sound effects were superfluous

2 minutes later, Silver catches a fish (which may or may not have been embiggened in Photoshop).

4 minutes later, I start to catch something else. Thankfully, knowing my general intolerance for red meat, I plained for such an eventuality and brought my tiny pink buddy aboard. The day was saved.

Fast forward another few minutes and the day was in fact not saved nor was my pride…

I think news of this event had reached all of Firehouse some 30 seconds later. (Thanks, jerks)
For the record: I made it (barely)

After a long day in the sun, the only proper way to finish the evening is with a sugary, fruity boat drink (indefinite article used to protect the guilty):

When boat drinks come together with the great outdoors, things happen. For example: New and creative (albeit not all that effective) pest-control methods are explored…

…talents are revealed…

Not only can Zack juggle, he can juggle while wearing a delightfully-ironic t-shirt.
“Coke is it,” indeed, sir!

…man’s deep connection to fire is explored anew…

Perhaps too much lighter fluid? Maybe.

…flash lights turn into light sabers (of course)…

…eyebrows are torched…

…and light itself becomes a form of artistic expression.

We were trying to spell “association” but ran out of flashlight batteries. Honest

That night, we heard what sounded like a sasquatch arguing with a chainsaw while riding a 12-horse-power riding lawnmower echoing from the canyon walls. Come daybreak, it was discovered that this creature was the source of the ungodly cacophony:

The silver-back couchsquatch’s legendary growl (some might call it a “snore”) is most terrifying
to those unaccustomed to it’s siren’s call.

I think, based upon all the evidence collected over the course of a fantastical weekend, I can confidently say that team building is far more effective when boat drinks and fire are substituted for PowerPoint slides and stale pastries.

Of course, PowerPoint slides, no matter how poorly-formated, won’t cost you an eyebrow. Then again, eyebrows grow back, so given the choice, I’ll take my chances with fire any day.

]]> http://thefurnace.firehouseagency.com/2010/06/08/team-building-trip/feed/ 0 http://thefurnace.firehouseagency.com/2010/05/28/firehouse-celebrates-a-graduation/ http://thefurnace.firehouseagency.com/2010/05/28/firehouse-celebrates-a-graduation/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 14:45:04 +0000 Doug http://thefurnace.firehouseagency.com/?p=1517 Congratulations Jan Norton — a part of our extended Firehouse family. Jan graduated with Honors from Tarrant County College on May 18, with a degree of Associate of Applied Science in Mental Health Social Work and Chemical Dependency Counselor.

We met Jan back in December of 2008 through the KLTY Christmas Wish program. Jan has battled serious health issues and financial setbacks, all while working on a social degree so that she could share her life’s experience and make a difference in the lives of others.

Jan did not stop — she persevered through it all and graduated with Honors. We are so proud of Jan and her tremendous accomplishment, and pleased that we could play a small part.

While the banner was great for driving clicks (and in some cases he will still be good for this), the artist formerly know as the banner looks way different. He’s more about finding messaging opportunities and developing content, rather than advertising. His purpose is to inform and to entertain, to create an emotional bond.

You might not recognize this guy, but he does stand out as being rich – living among marketing and content. Whenever you hear him speak, he’ll want to exchange something that’s of value. A real 2-way communicator. Lastly, he’s a big believer in doing more — whether inside the ad unit or the context of the entire screen.

I think you’ll be glad you met him particularly as we see the value of the impression going down and the value of attention going up. With that said, impressions aren’t going anywhere — they’ve been around for years. To quote Doug Weaver, who’s also been around the digital space for years, “There’s a reason we call it an impression, not a transfer.”

Let’s all be prepared to hit play on the artist formerly known as the banner and get ready to be engaged!