From Steve Dubansky, MD, SVP, Medical Director, Palio

From Bob Rath, Associate Creative Director, Palio

Creatives live or die by their portfolio, otherwise known as their “Book.” It’s the most important thing in their working world if they want to show others what they’ve done with their career. No resume could show as much about them. It shows how good they are at problem solving and at selling an idea. Their level of taste, skills and cleverness can all be gleaned from the Book.

The Book got them their first job and each one after that. Good creatives work for their Book as much as their agency. Their Book has to always be good. They can’t hide or explain away what it demonstrates.

The “Good Book” should be an agency-wide commitment. Everyone on the team needs to have one. If the creative’s Book can show what good facts, insight, direction and strategy can do for creating ideas, then why shouldn’t everyone have one?

Account Executives, Planners and Medical Strategists have a huge part in guiding, selling and producing “The Book” that creatives show around. Why don’t they have one, too, to tell the tales of their contribution?

If everyone had a Book, very quickly everybody on the team would notice where the Agency bar is set. Being responsible for the Book would change views on judging and championing ideas. It would force them to notice the competition. Make them want to make their Book better. It could create a very different mindset – a good one… all in the pursuit of having a “Good Book.”

From Todd LaRoche, EVP, Managing Director of Creative, Palio

By now, most everyone who goes online either has a Facebook account or has heard about Facebook. But here are 11 very interesting facts about Facebook that you should know, especially if you have an interest in leveraging social media channels like Facebook to market a brand.

Check it out. Brought to you by your pals at Palio, where we’re always creating Never be forgotten brands. And after you’ve checked out the facts, check out this post from Christina Brodie about how Facebook and Nielsen Online probably know a lot more about you than you’d like.

[slideshare id=4817225&doc=11thingsaboutfacebook-100722112701-phpapp02]

From Shelly Hagen, Copywriter, Palio

Every now and then as I’m sitting watching a show with my boys, a commercial catches my attention. Not for the reason you might think – no, I don’t really want to purchase the Ped Egg foot care “system” or the Topsy Turvy tomato grower. More often than not, I find myself asking aloud, “Who are these advertisers aiming for? Who do they think is watching this show?!”

I should backtrack. Two of my kids are hooked on re-runs of shows like Malcolm in the Middle, The Simpsons, and Everybody Hates Chris. For the record, these are the only tween-ish shows that I can tolerate, and therefore the shows the kids are most likely to be tuned into if I’m nearby… but I digress. The point is that I’m continually taken by surprise when a show that is skewed towards a young, male demographic advertises products that are obviously meant for a much older audience.

Thanks to the clever folks at Listen Up, this was the only gift my middle son really wanted for his last birthday. Now he regularly asks if he can take this little gadget to church, just like the 80-year-old woman on the commercial does. Maybe he’s expecting to hear the voice of God through its purportedly incredibly powerful microphone, in which case, the folks at Listen Up have really outdone themselves with an over-promise.

The same son asked for the Sham-Wow for Christmas. While I was disturbed to see the delight on his face when he removed it from his stocking, I did take extreme pleasure in watching all 3 of my boys test the magnificent cleaning power of this cloth over the course of Christmas vacation week. My excitement waned when I realized they were creating spills just so they could attempt to clean them.

I know that these commercials are aimed at parents and caregivers like myself (although I will not admit to needing a second-rate hearing aid just yet). And their marketing plans must be successful, because the commercials are still rolling in these time slots. These companies are casting a wide net by aiming for one demographic inside another’s viewing time. The unintended result? Suddenly, we may have a generation of kids asking for things like the Shake Weight, the Slap Chop, and the Little Giant Ladder, because these products’ selling messages have been successfully woven into the fabric of tweens’ mindless downtime.

As a parent, I can’t decide if this really bothers me.  Honestly, I’d rather buy the kids a set of Hanger Cascaders than another video game, for all sorts of reasons.  Just be happy I’m not your mother.

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Whenever I hear discussions about one of the biggest urban myths associated with social media – that it’s “free” – I automatically think of Lewis Strauss’ infamous “too cheap to meter” quote about nuclear energy.

In fact, believe it or not, you can actually draw many parallels between these two misnomers.

The Nuclear Chain

The act of producing nuclear energy sounds fairly simple: use the heat produced from a nuclear reaction to convert water to steam that drives a turbine, and Bob’s your uncle – energy that’s too cheap to meter.

In reality however, the process is a little more complex, and getting to that energy production requires an intensive process involving exploration, mining, and enrichment before uranium ore is ready to be placed into a reactor. And it doesn’t stop there; once the fuel is spent, it’s either recycled (reprocessed) or converted into material for nuclear weapons (both extremely complex processes).

In addition, at each stage along this nuclear chain, the radioactive waste that is produced must be carefully handled and stored, and if there is an accident (a Chernobyl style meltdown, for example) or if the radioactive material falls into the wrong hands, the results can be catastrophic. Therefore the whole process requires careful handling and intense security, and suddenly that cheap energy is not looking so rosy, or cheap.

The Social Media Chain

Similarly, the use of social media to promote your brand also sounds fairly simple: Utilize the free channels to set up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a YouTube account, develop a blog, and you’re on your way.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple; in fact it’s a whole lot more complex and requires careful planning and oversight. Analogous to producing nuclear energy, the process for developing, executing, and maintaining a successful social media presence is very intensive and requires the similar steps of exploration, mining, enrichment, and production

• By exploration, I mean strategic planning – Developing clear marketing and communication objectives for your social media efforts
• By mining, I mean insight mining – Gaining a deep understanding of how your target audience uses these channels, and uncovering the unique opportunities on how you can connect with them there
• By enrichment, I mean content – Clearly defining what type of content will be developed and distributed
• And by production, I mean propagation – Defining who, and on what time frame, is responsible for generating, and maintaining content

Then there is the monitoring component of social media. In this space, things can easily go wrong and you can quickly lose control of your brand and messaging (akin to a reactor meltdown or having radioactive material fall into the wrong hands) so it’s essential that you are constantly monitoring the space to make sure that you are able to react to anything negative. Pre-planning for these types of worst-case scenarios can help you respond quickly and redirect ill-will to avert disaster (reprocessing, to draw another nuclear analogy).

At what price free?

All of this, of course, takes significant amounts of time and energy, and this is where the waste component of the nuclear chain comes into play. While the hours you invest in your social media efforts are not waste per se, the process of developing, executing, monitoring and maintaining them is extremely labor intensive, and those hours have to come from somewhere or someone (i.e. they are an unexpected drain on your resources). And when you start adding up those hours, assigning dollar signs to them, and including them in your ROI analyses, suddenly your “free” presence in the social space is not looking so free anymore, in fact you might find it’s not even looking too cheap to meter.

From Todd LaRoche, EVP, Managing Director of Creative, Palio

It’s an age-old debate: Just because an ad is acknowledged with awards for creativity does that mean it’s effective? Many would say that creative ads are great to look at but often fall flat when it comes to moving product. Making sure the target stops, watches/listens and takes away a clear message that leads to brand consumption is, of course, fundamental to the success of any advertisement. But do a lot of what we would call “creative” ads ensure that that happens? A recent survey suggests that the answer is, in fact, a resounding “yes.”

A study carried out by the U.K.’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising claims to prove a direct link between creativity and effectiveness that it’s touting as a good argument for quality over cost.

The report from IPA, a trade organization representing agencies, examined 213 case studies of advertising over the last eight years, including campaigns by marketers such as Cadbury, Volkswagen, Budweiser, Honda, Audi and Orange. It claims to demonstrate objectively that creatively awarded campaigns are 11 times more effective than campaigns that do not win creative awards.

“Creatively awarded campaigns are a more reliable investment — they achieve greater effectiveness levels,” said Peter Field, the marketing consultant who authored the report, which looked at a number of business metrics in the study to determine effectiveness, including market-share growth, sales, profits, return on investment, likability and emotional appeal.

The report concludes that the link between creativity and effectiveness is driven by two important factors: the emotional communication model favored by the most creative campaigns, and the much greater “buzz” effect that creativity engenders.

“Creativity and effectiveness are inseparable. This is a good first step, but there’s still a lot of work to do to show the exponential value of great creative ideas,” said Bert Moore, chief strategy officer of Lowe Worldwide. “It’s bizarre to believe that there’s a creative answer and a business answer. In other creative industries, like architecture, film and music, the creative solution is always the answer to the problem.”

Continue reading more about this in this Ad Age article.

From Steve Dubansky, MD, SVP, Medical Director, Palio

Apparently, you can put lipstick on a pig yet still be punished for it!

I read with interest that the Cadillac division of General Motors changed its advertising agency for the second time in 5 months. What else would you expect? The economy remains severely troubled and Cadillac sales are down, so, just as happens in the pharmaceutical ad world when drug sales falter, the client frequently looks for a scapegoat. The client means business, and he’s not just horsing around. And there, somewhat sheepishly cowering in the corner, sensing it’s a lamb soon to led to slaughter, is the unfortunate ad agency. The Cadillac client spies the agency and says, “Agency of record for Cadillac, it’s all your fault. Now hit the road, and no pun intended.” But the Cadillac car is clearly the turkey here, and their brand team is just too chicken to admit it.

Okay. Enough of the faintly amusing and highly derivative puns. Simple story really. Poorly designed car with faltering sales in hard financial times. The agency couldn’t put lipstick on a pig, and so, like an old jalopy, they were kicked to the sidewalk. Imagine how surprised I was when simply out of curiosity I looked into Cadillac sales figures.

What! Total sales for June were up 39 percent versus the same month in 2009. Retail sales were up 35 percent. The Cadillac SRX crossover model saw its total sales rise 462 percent for its 10th straight month of triple-digit percentage increases. Its CTS sports sedan posted its best retail month of the year with total sales up 31 percent and retail sales up 23 percent.

So the agency wasn’t scapegoated at all. Quite the contrary. They had been part of a rather remarkable sales upturn. So why were they let go? Hard to know, but it’s indubitably related to the arrival at GM of a new marketing executive. Interesting to note that the new Cadillac agency, until last week the agency-of-record for Chrysler, when offered the Cadillac business, displayed their undying loyalty to Chrysler by dropping them in a heartbeat when offered a no doubt more lucrative Cadillac assignment. You can bet that the difference in fee is not  a poultry-sorry, I mean paltry- amount. Perhaps the new agency is trading loyalty for the Benjamins and being just a bit piggy.

So what have we learned. The advertising aphorism, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” and a corollary truth, “If you can’t put lipstick on a pig you’ll be scapegoated,” clearly don’t apply here. There’s a new agency in Cadillac town for reasons not to be found on a profit and loss sheet. Personality clashes? The agency not obsequious enough? Perhaps the agency had the temerity to say, “No” to something? One editorial mistake too many? One deadline missed by a day? As any of us who work in agencies knows well, there are many possible explanations why companies dismiss their agencies.

I don’t wish to duck the issue, but perhaps in this case it was nothing more than the new marketing guru wanting a new team of vendors. Kind of like a new baseball manager firing the old coaches and bringing in new coaches of his own choosing. The only difference? New baseball managers are usually hired to redirect underachieving teams. It appears that both Cadillac and its old agency can hardly be said to be underachieving.

There’s another baseball saying that’s worth remembering. It’s an almost universal truth: “Every manager knows that he takes the job only to be fired later.” Similarly, when a company farms out their promotional business to an ad agency, that agency must remember that beginning on day one, their time as agency-of-record is limited. The clock starts ticking. Fortunately for most of us,  it usually ticks longer than 5 months!

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

One of the biggest factors in ensuring a successful launch of a new prescription drug lies in a marketer’s ability to generate pre-launch buzz and brand name awareness. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done, due to restrictions by DDMAC on what can and can’t be said about products in development.

So what are the allowable forms of pre-launch promotion, and what can you do as a marketer to generate that critical pre-launch brand awareness while staying compliant with DDMAC’s guidance on prelaunch promotion?

If you need a quick answer to this question why not take a minute out of your day, and read “The 60-Second Guide to Understanding DDMAC’s Guidance on Prelaunch Communications”

As the title implies; it’s a quick, easy, yet informative read.

[slideshare id=4754845&doc=the-60-second-guide-to-understanding-ddmacs-guidance-on-prelaunch-communication-100714131747-phpapp01]

No Slideshare account?! Download it here – The 60-Second Guide to Understanding DDMAC’s Guidance on Prelaunch Communication

From Erin Rossi, Art Director, Palio

I like to travel. No, I take that back, I love to travel. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing glamorous about takeoff, airplane bathrooms, or delays, but it’s thrilling to step into new territory. From people watching, to trying a new dish, or possibly getting a view of a world wonder for me can cause heart palpitations. Though personally, one of the things that I really find fascinating is checking out the ads and seeing how they differ from those in America.

I was recently in Europe, trying not to be an obnoxious American tourist, when a certain ad in Paris caught my eye. I saw it in subways, in magazines, and remembered to snap a picture with my iPhone while barreling past the billboard in a taxi. Karl Lagerfeld, famously the creative director for Chanel, and arguably one of the most influential men in fashion, had paired with Coca-Cola for a co-promotion.

As an art director, not only am I interested in the message, but the overall visual composition as well. To me, this bottle was designed in a classic graphic way and I am a fan of the black and white aesthetic. The vibrant splash of color within the silhouette that introduces “Light” as the differentiator of the soda is a nice break in color. What better way to represent the designer than with his notorious black suit uniform with ponytail? However, it might have been interesting to see his platinum hair represented within the silhouette as well. The current American soda ads tend to focus on colorful branding, the dignified Coca-Cola Polar Bear (on a positive note, Coca-Cola has set up a support fund for these endangered creatures), celebration, or historical value/slice of life.

­

It’s interesting to see that soda is being supported by the fashion industry because the glamour of soda (or pop if you’re from the mid-west) in the US seems to be on a downward spiral. In the past year, the Governor of New York has tried to put a tax on soda to raise more money for the state, and to encourage a healthier lifestyle. Now, while I am not certain that this will deter individuals from buying soda, the health ramifications of this proposal are beneficial. There are no positive properties to soda: it causes tooth decay, headaches from the artificial sweeteners, as well as obesity if consumed heavily. The artificial sweeteners, like aspartame, in diet soda are also not great for you. The Mayo Clinic suggests that diet soda increases the risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Also, aspartame has been linked with lymphoma and brain tumors in lab animals.  Knowing all this, why would serious models choose a soda over a glass of no-calorie, all natural water?

Pairing soda with a model, albeit promoted by a king of fashion blows my mind — but in a way, this ad makes sense there. Paris is the fashion capital of the world. Why wouldn’t Coca-Cola want to advertise its product fashionably? In addition, Coca-Cola Light is allegedly a favorite drink of Karl’s because of the low calorie content. So, is it safe to say that Karl and Coca-Cola are sending the message that soda is fashionable only when the beverage is devoid of calories? You too can be a model if you consume Coca-Cola Light. Personally, I think Karl should stick to what he does best: promoting/designing luxury and high fashion.  To quote Karl, “Fashion designers are dictators of taste.” Luckily for Coca-Cola.

From Alan Steele, VP, Director of Studio Services, Palio

A review of The Invention of Air: A story of science, faith, revolution, and the birth of America, by Steven Johnson

This book discusses the interdependence of faith, politics, and science during the Enlightenment in England, America, and France. Joseph Priestly epitomized the multi-disciplinarian scholar of this eighteenth century era by engaging in revolutionary chemical experiments in the laboratory, challenging established Christian thinking by founding the Unitarian movement, and corresponding with Benjamin Franklin and other American politicians to advance democracies and overthrow monarchies. He theorized that, by using scientific method, trial and error, and reason, the world would become a better place. However, progress undermines tradition; because of his radical views, Priestly’s home in Birmingham, England was torched by a mob.

Priestly is remembered most for discovering different kinds of air. By placing a mouse in an enclosed jar he noticed it died within seconds. A mint sprig however, under the same conditions, survived. With a mouse and a mint sprig together, the mouse survived longer. Priestly determined plants give off oxygen which animals breathe, animals give off carbon dioxide which plants use, along with sunshine, for photosynthesis. Priestly also discovered, when carbon dioxide was added to still water, the water became carbonized, the basis for soda.

A large theme of this book is that collaboration is necessary during revolutionary eras. The London Coffee House served as a gathering place for intellectuals. The Lunar Men (lunatiks) met during the full moon in Birmingham. Letters were exchanged across the Atlantic Ocean via post, papers were written and distributed; information flowed freely. Ideas influence and are influenced by other ideas (influence: “to flow into”, influere, Latin). To contrast, a medieval monk scribing alone and without means to share his work, has little ability to influence or be influenced.

The author argues that cultural systems exist on many levels from the smallest neurological transfer, to individuals, to social groups, to global energy flows. This ecosystem perspective explains that when more of these layers of cultural systems are synchronous, the opportunity for invention is greatest.

Do you think we are living in such a time now?