All You Need Is A Good Idea!: June 2017

How can you keep up?

Below are some recent, though perhaps soon to be obsolete, products; actual, imaginary or anticipated. This is, of course, in addition to the latest updates for your current technological products, each usually tweaked just enough to require an intense learning new/forgetting old curve.

3D Printers
Google Glasses—updated
Smart(er) Watches
WIFI Wedding Rings
Bit Coins/ethereum
Drones
VR
Smart refrigerators
Amazon Tap
Apple HomePod
Snarkle TV

Since you are a creative type, or visiting the wrong blog, part of you is in awe of these good ideas. When you are finished wondering why you didn’t think of them, you are probably wondering which will actually survive, which will make your creative life easier, and with which of them you will have to develop enough expertise to explain to your clients why they should ignore, support, purchase or purchase advertising on.

Here’s the bad news: You can’t. There are simply too many innovations, tech or otherwise, for you to become the expert go-to person for all of them. The good news? No one else can master them all either. And, if you are as lucky as I am, the one you pick to become proficient in will disappear as quickly as Google Wave.

My advice? Be aware of what’s new, through blogs, feeds, conferences, colleagues, etc. And focus on what’s most appealing to you, personally or professionally. If it captures your imagination, you are most likely to want to find out more about the process or technique. And since you are not a cat, don’t worry about what curiosity might do.

Got the idea?

Posted on June 28, 2017 at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: 3D printing, advertising, AirPort Express, Amazon Echo, business, creativity, good ideas, ideas, IPhone, marketing

My 1,000th blog (with comments by Frank Lloyd Wright)

U.S. postage stamp honoring Frank Lloyd Wright, with the Guggenheim visible in the background. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One thousand published blogs! You may not be amazed, but I certainly am. Sure, it took a while; my very first attempt was way back in 2008. But dedication, discipline and a badgering wife made it all possible.

With occasional—but somehow relevant—exceptions, the focus has been on conversations about how to create and how to implement good marketing ideas. Sometimes I proclaimed, sometimes I used examples (both good and bad), and sometime I took the easy way out by using updated versions of blogs from four or five years ago. (And yes, it did hurt that no one noticed the recycling.) One interesting change is that when I first started, I was writing a blog. But now, I am providing content!

I pushed my book, (All You Need Is A Good Idea! (How To Create Marketing Messages That Actually Get Results.), I pushed my fun app, (S.L.O.T.H. — the pedometer app that encourages you to slow down). But mostly I pushed my belief that a good idea is the single most important part of a marketing plan. It is the most economical, most effective way to stand out from the competition.

And, as Frank Lloyd Wright (Do they think we will confuse him with another Frank Wright?) said, as quoted in the New York Times from a long ago interview regarding the New York skyline: “I don’t see an idea in the whole thing anywhere. Do you? Where is the idea in it? What’s the idea?”

So, as I move on to my next 1,000, let me remind you to ask yourself that same question, every time you create something:

“What’s the idea?”

Posted on June 21, 2017 at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tags: advertising, Architecture of the United States, business, creativity, Frank Lloyd Wright, good ideas, ideas, marketing, Robie House, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The end of advertising

English: Continental is the only airline to operate out of Terminal C (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The name of today’s blog comes from the title of a book by Andrew Essex. I read about it in the advertising column in the New York Times, which reported on an event held to salute the book and its author.

Mr. Essex, a founder of the ad agency Droga5, was quoted as saying, “the title of the book is not particularly imaginative but really should be ‘The End Of Bad Advertising.’” He thinks that most advertising, including television commercials, is annoying, excessive and lacking creativity. And the point he makes is that the future of marketing will need to rely on creative, innovative models.

One commercial his agency made awhile ago, for Newcastle brown ale, features Anna Kendrick, and was almost a Super Bowl commercial. (Hard to explain “almost.” Easy to watch below.) It is exactly the kind of creative, inventive idea Mr. Essex is talking about—though he is now talking about it from a different stage. He has left his position in the agency and is now serving in an advisory position, though he continues as chief executive of the firm behind the Tribeca Film Festival.

So, if his next book actually talks about bad advertising, what are you going to do to avoid being featured in it as an example? And don’t just think about doing a better commercial. Don’t even just think about doing a commercial at all. For example, Mr. Essex mentions airline terminals. “An entire airline terminal brought to you by Citibank, rather than filled with random spots and dots.”

Got the idea?

Posted on June 14, 2017 at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: advertising, business, creativity, good ideas, ideas, marketing, Tribeca Film Festival

How powerful is your MacGuffin?

TOMS Shoes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First, of course, you have to know what a MacGuffin might be. No, it is not an Apple version of a WidowsGuffin. Our learned friends at Wikipedia define it, in fiction, as “a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator.”

However, a MacGuffin can sometimes take a more abstract form, such as money, victory, glory, survival, power, love, or even something that is entirely unexplained, as long as it strongly motivates key characters.

So, how will you motivate your key characters, which I will define for you as your target audience. You certainly can’t do it using the ‘same old, same old.” If your competition is using the same motivation, promotions, discounts, etc., as you are to attract customers, then you damn well better up your game. Here’s one random example.

Everyone seems to do a “buy one of my thingees, and I will donate x per cent of the profits to a worthy charity.”

When a store like Macy’s, or a chain like McDonalds does this, even if they only donate a few pennies for each purchase, the sheer volume makes a major impact. But what can you as a small business do to stand out? Simply offering 10 per cent of the price, while certainly admirable, will not do much to impress your customers or truly aid a charity.

That’s why companies like Tom’s (“With every product you purchase, Toms will help a person in need.”) and Warby Parker (Buy a pair, give a pair.) up the stakes, by providing products to the needy when you make a purchase.

So should you try a really grandiose MacGuffin? For example, let customers know that if they buy your company’s T-shirt for $25, you will then donate a shirt to (name of charity goes here). Yes, you are out the cost of your T-shirt. But you are buying good will with an unlimited upside, along with actually doing good.

The grand gesture, especially if it seems socially aware, rather than the usual, “How little must I do to make an impact,” is a great way to capture your audience’s attention.

Got the idea?