From Mike Myers, President

It still surprises me when clients and friends ask if their businesses need to be involved with social media.

Last week when dropped into this dialog with a client who felt that they weren’t “ready” yet, I simply said as I often do “OK, but you have to listen in on the social media dialog because people are already talking about your brand whether you’re involved with the conversations or not. You don’t own what your brand stands for in isolation anymore.”

Listening is important – responding appropriately and engaging in the dialog even more so.

Like it or not, social media isn’t going away. If you’re not on board, you might as well jump overboard.

And if you aren’t ready yet, just ask Marka Hansen, Gap North America President.

Last week, the Gap rolled out a new logo which seems innocuous enough as companies do own and control their brands, right?

Wrong.

Within hours of the announcement, Twitter was abuzz with designers, customers and anyone who had an opinion and Web access ripping the Gap’s new branding apart.

The Gap’s Facebook page became an open forum and the company tried to allay concerns and deal with the customer backlash.

The company even started a customer logo contest to see what people could come up with on their own.

Yet four days after their decision, Gap has recanted and is returning to their old logo.

Gap has about 3,100 stores in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Ireland and Japan. They are a multibillion dollar company.

Yet, a basic marketing decision of theirs was just undone by social media.

If you think it can’t happen to you, you think wrong.

Mind the Gap. If you haven’t at a minimum started to listen into the social media maelstrom, it has the potential to pull you in and under.

What do you think? Any thoughts?

What are you doing to engage your customers and communicate about your brand through social media?

From Sean O’Donnell, Group Copy Supervisor, Palio

Any time I sit back to admire my brilliant concept, clever headline or ground-breaking body copy, I ask my self, “What Would Joe and Dave Do?” Then I picture myself standing in Joe and Dave’s corner office, waiting to hear words of admiration flow freely. But it usually follows along these lines:

Dave: Yeah, keep going.

Joe: (perplexed) Did you read the brief?

Dave: Should we put someone else on this?

Joe: (sound of scribbling) You need a headline like this.

Dave: Or this.

Joe: Study the award books. Don’t copy ‘em.

Dave: Were you out late last night?

Then I’d take another look, a hard one, at my work. Yeah, my headline lacked punch. The body copy really didn’t have any flow. And the concept was a poor man’s iteration of an ad in Archive magazine. Damn, they were right again.

Who are Joe and Dave? My first creative directors, and more importantly, my mentors.

Hopefully you’ve had one. I was lucky to have two. Eleven years ago they saw potential in me. Or maybe HR told them that I’d be sent back to Project Management if I didn’t work out.  Either way, they nurtured, nudged and never gave up on me.

I didn’t look up to them only because they had won boatloads of awards and were written up in countless magazines. I admired the way they would grind it out without complaint. They were ‘roll up the sleeves and let’s get the job done’ guys in an office that had its fair share of prima donnas. But these two blue-collared creatives constantly churned out gold. And I was an eager writer who desperately wanted to learn how they created ads that were simple and powerful.

Over the years I’ve worked for a range of creative directors. Some who were one-trick ponies and should have never held the title. And others who were truly gifted, but enjoyed the power to belittle. But Joe and Dave possessed a rare combination in this business. They knew when to push, when to help, and when to give a pat on the back. To that young copywriter standing in Joe and Dave’s office right now – do what they say and you’ll turn out alright.

And if Joe and Dave were reading this right now, they’d tell me to cut the copy in half. They’re right again.

From Jon Hussey, SVP, Director of Brand Planning, Palio

Following is a presentation on the 10 best viral ads of all time, according to Advertising Age. I’m sure you’re familiar with some of them, but some are for products that get very little exposure otherwise. The winning ad is surprisingly simple and effective, and is something that you can try at home for yourself.

We hope you enjoy the presentation; let us know what you think.

[slideshare id=5241492&doc=10bestviraladcampaigns-100920094437-phpapp01]

From Bob Rath, Associate Creative Director, Palio

Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club?… Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals.  ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. ~ Barnett Cocks

There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee. ~ Lester J. Pourciau

Dangers of the “I way.”

Committees can be the most dangerous way to judge an idea – in fact, allowing a committee to critique and rule on an idea makes it almost impossible for a great idea to survive.

The process of allowing a committee – a group of diverse backgrounds, tastes, and experiences – to judge creative work is flawed. If not governed, it can become a process promoting the belief that a committee’s collective opinion represents that of the target audience.

The committee’s views on art style or execution don’t matter. Their likes or dislikes don’t matter. They were not trained to create ideas that persuade the target on many subtle levels and that, at the same time, are relevant, original and stop the target dead. And when individuals of a committee don’t agree, the resultant half-hearted consensus will most always create a bad idea.

The “I’s“ don’t have it!

What matters is knowing the target, defined in the Brief. In fact, everything needed to judge the creative idea should be found in the Brief. If it isn’t in the Brief, it shouldn’t enter into the judging process… but too often, when a committee is involved, it does.

When each judge takes turns being “I” — as in “I like it” or “I don’t like it,” the fragile creative begins to dim and soon dies. Truly original ideas don’t stand a chance. The more “I’s“ there are, the faster the idea weakens, as each ”I” slowly shaves away its strength, edginess and uniqueness. Before you know it, the idea is eviscerated, it’s gone.

How to get off the “I-way.”

Why allow a committee to judge creative work? Simple: they are important and indispensible as judges because each person of that committee is an expert in his or her own way. Each has been educated to judge based on his/her unique perspective. Each possesses knowledge that is critically important to the judging. The committee can be an invaluable way to help form an idea. They also can use all that knowledge to stand in the target’s shoes and present an incredibly valuable point of view… as long as you don’t allow judges to build their own ”I-way.”

Personal views should never enter into the judging process. Keep comments impersonal. If you hear an “I” from a judge, it should be phrased as, “I think this idea will work, or won’t work, with the target because the Brief says…” Remember, the only way to judge is by seeing it through the eyes of the Brief’s target audience, not your own.

Keep the “I” in imagination.

It falls on the highest ranking Creative Director to make the final call. A call based not on the personal tastes and opinions of the committee but on a specialized knowledge guided by the Brief. The CD combines all that he or she has heard with a creative instinct… and voila, you have what matters. Not adjusting ideas to group design or group taste permits an idea to remain its purist. When “I” stands for the inspiration of its creator, the individual it was created for and judged by creative instinct of the creative lead… it can truly capture the imagination.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

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

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 Bob Rath, Associate Creative Director, Palio

To creative people, the “That’s it!” moment that gives birth to ideas is part of the problem-solving experience. They first discover it, and then craft it into shape with talent and passion. As creatives, it’s simply what they do. The Creative Brief is their bolt of inspiration. It sums up the communication needs and frames them as simple problems in search of a solution. It connects facts to a benefit, and provides a motivating insight as a logical guide for ideas. The creative’s search for an answer becomes the springboard for ideas.

Ideas are at the heart of every agency. They are the solution to a client’s problem when delivered simply, in a focused and direct fashion. The good ones are so engaging that anyone who “experiences” its logic falls under its spell.

A great idea can be a little scary. It shows up on the wall in every review. It’s the one that worries someone in the first meeting and then often ends up on the floor by the second. It’s on the A-list for weeks, then becomes old news and is replaced by a last-minute entry. Maybe it gets re-drawn, re-designed, re-written… but by then, it’s unrecognizable, a shadow of its former original self.

When the great idea sparks, it’s the creative instinct that sees the glimmer of something special. To survive, the creatives must protect it. That’s their toughest job. Sure, it’s on brief, but that doesn’t make it comfortable – that makes it the most fragile thing on the wall. It takes guts for others to embrace it and for the creative to defend it. If it’s attacked or dismissed too soon, it will fizzle out. Left unsupported, a nitpick or nay-say will be its death. It’s scary.

That scariness is what makes an idea original – the real thing, made up of truth, skill, and cleverness, something that’s never been seen before. It’s too red, it’s the wrong size, and it’s colored with a child’s crayon. It bothers. It zags, and then zigs, always spinning right on the edge of what’s expected, but never quite dipping down into it. The great idea doesn’t look like other ads in the category and it certainly isn’t what the client asked for. It’s quite impolite. It’s the one that makes noise and creates verbal brawls at every presentation. It’s polarizing. Half the reviewers break out in hives while considering it, while the other half wish they had thought of it. Here are some scary idea examples:

Volkswagen, “Think Small“, 1959

All of America loved their big American cars. Until this campaign, all car ads showed the car as part of the consumer’s desired world, one of affluence or power. Ads were always based on positive messages about bells, whistles, frills and fins. Absolutely no car ads would think of mentioning a negative fact about its product. The ad campaign did not start out as a slam-dunk. It was, to some, an amusement to an industry that took itself very seriously. It was radical. Ads before it were either information-based and lacking in persuasion – more fantasy than reality – or reliant on the medium’s ability to deliver repeated exposure. VW ads, though, connected with consumers on an emotional level, conveying a product benefit in a way consumers could relate to in a new, novel way. Plus, the ads were simple. One ad featured only a small picture of the car with the headline “Think small.” Copy highlighted advantages of driving the small Beetle vs. a big car. The small car presented itself as the anti-consumption vehicle and became a badge for those who wanted to feel they were immune to being led by typical advertising. The youth rebellion of driving age boomers embraced it as their car. VW sold 120,000 cars in the U.S. in 1959, four times the number sold in 1955. “Think small” was quite a big idea.

Avis, “We try harder“, 1963

At the time, a 50’s-minded America believed we were the ”Top Dog,” #1. We were still high on coming out on the winning side of WWII. American’s believed in winners and that winning was the American way. Second place was still losing. Saying “We’re No. 2, We Try Harder” was very “un-American” at the time. The Avis campaign dared to boast about being #2 and seemed at first look to exalt the position of being an underdog. They used the negative to grab attention and then focused on good old-fashioned service. One ad even showed the contents of a filthy ashtray as the main visual. Unsurprisingly, it failed pre-campaign testing as people thought the ads meant that Avis was second best. It was an inspired decision to run it. The result: customers admired its refreshing honesty and it was a runaway success. Prior to the campaign, Avis had only $34 million in revenue and losses of $3.2 million. One year later, revenues had jumped to $38 million and for the first time in thirteen years, Avis turned a profit of $1.2 million. In 4 years Avis market shares grew from 11% to 35%. Zigging when the competition is zagging is a scary idea.

Apple Computer, “1984“, 1984

The entire Board of Directors at Apple hated it. Steve Jobs loved it but was warned by his Board not to run it. He didn’t listen. This TV ad ran only once in the third quarter of the 1984 Super Bowl; it was strange and very different for a celebratory Super Bowl advertisement. It opens on a strange gray “Blade Runner” world. Chased by storm troopers, a beautiful woman athlete breaks into a room pushing aside lines of mindless drone-like workers and then throwing a sledge hammer into a huge screen face of Big Brother, destroying it. The voice-over ends with saying “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ’1984.’”  Apple associated the Macintosh with an ideology of “empowerment” – a vision of the PC as a tool for combating conformity and asserting individuality. This dramatic act of aggression and rebellion explained the Apple philosophy that people, not just governments and business, should run technology. “Don’t be controlled by computers, take them over by making them accessible,” was the message based on the insight. A.C. Nielson estimated the commercial reached 46.4 percent of the households in America, a full 50 percent of the nation’s men, and 36 percent of women. The commercial recorded astronomical recall scores and went on to win most every advertising industry award out there. This one spot changed the way we looked at a commodity and changed both buying patterns and even career paths. This was a very scary way to sell technology.

Within every client pitch should be one scary idea. Keep it alive. If it needs adjustments, let the authors do it. Don’t over think it. Don’t try to tame it or fix it too much, and be careful what you add to it. Don’t make it look or fit with others on the wall. Keep it original and let the target be taken by its originality.

It just might be the Big Idea.

From Paul Harrington, SVP, Creative Director, Palio

You sit down to dine at a fine restaurant: it’s supposed to be the best in town, impeccable service, and the food is reputed to be out-friggin’ standing. It’s going to cost you a bundle, of course, but worth every penny, right? So, would you hand your menu to a stranger at the next table and let him order for you?

Of course not. While the anonymous diner next to you at Chez Fancypantz might have some things in common with you – after all, you both breathe oxygen, you’re in the same restaurant on the same night, and might both be able to afford a meal like this – you really are your own person, with your own tastes and objectives. Why would you let a perfect stranger order your dinner for you? Instead, maybe a better idea would be to lean over and confidentially ask, “Say friend, how’s the steak here?”

You solicited an opinion to help you make a more informed decision. That’s the American Way: free thought, individual choices. So why, for Pete’s Sake, do brand managers let a roomful of strangers choose a marketing campaign for them in research instead of choosing themselves?

Tummy troubles.

Research/testing/interviews are just what their name implies: they are fact-gathering exercises. Fuel for making informed decisions. Yet all too often, advertising agencies sit back in horror and watch their client brand managers abdicate a marketing decision to a roomful of strangers. Talk about a case of indigestion.

Millions of dollars go into the preparation of concepts for the purpose of testing. And this litmus test of ideas is terrific, a crucible that helps separate the good from the bad, the better from the best. Opinions count, and understanding what your customers want is critical. Yet to let the strangers on the other side of the glass choose your marketing campaign is a recipe for disaster.

It takes guts.

However, a room full of gastrointestinal surgeons is not a room full of marketing experts. They don’t know your business plan, your competitive challenges, the looming FDA hurdles, and the rest. They know intestines. God Bless ‘em, they know intestines inside and out.

So let them tell you what they know about their specialty, their practice, their patients, and even what they think about the intestine medicine concept your ad agency created that uses the Gordian Knot analogy. That’s valuable information.

But their input is not a “get out of jail free” card. It doesn’t shift the responsibility for making the hard marketing decisions from our shoulders. We, the marketers, have to account for their tastes and opinions, but in the end, we have to have the intestinal fortitude to make a decision and pick a concept that will change behavior. (Sensing a digestive theme here yet?)

Queasy? Good.

In the ‘80s, there was a great quote: “If your advertising doesn’t give you butterflies, don’t run it.” A quarter of a century later, we seem to have forgotten that advertising is supposed to be inherently risky – the old, “nothing ventured, nothing gained” mentality has gone the way of the dodo. Advertising must be daring and unorthodox, because we are asking the audience to change the way they presently think. Why would they do that if the ad you show them only reaffirms what they already know.

Ergo, if 4 out of 5 gastrointestinal surgeons liked the Gordian Knot concept, that doesn’t make it a good ad to run. Their appreciation may well mean that this concept made them the most comfortable and felt the most familiar. It didn’t rock their world too much. It was the safe choice. Sure, it’s good. It tested near the top. It makes everyone feel swell, and everyone up the corporate food chain will stamp it “a-ok.” Mission accomplished.

Run. Don’t walk – RUN from this concept. It doesn’t possess the power to change behavior. It doesn’t challenge conventional thinking, and it doesn’t challenge the audience to consider another POV.

You want your advertising to make people uncomfortable. They will then purchase your product to alleviate that discomfort. If everything is safe, happy, and bouncy, why do they need what you’re selling?! Disturb them. Rock their world. Shake their faith. Make them question their fervently held opinions. Then, in a true behavior modification model, reward them for doing what you wanted by giving them a savory treat: your product.

Listen and learn from your stomach.

This is a risk, of course. It takes guts, and might cause you some sleepless nights and a trip or two to kneel before the porcelain throne. It’s damn scary. But it’s scary good too, like a great carnival ride. Buckle up buttercup, cuz it’s gonna be a wild ride.

However, you will ultimately own the day. You, the bold one who dared to follow your inner voice and break a new trail, will be validated. You looked, You listened. You internalized and studied. And in the end, you trusted your experience, heard the counsel of your peers, and ultimately followed your gut instinct. Boo-yah.

An advertising campaign that “listens” to research instead of “obeying” it?

Mmmmmm: tasty. Order up, and dig in.

- Paul Harrington, Iron Chef

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

In the March issue of Pharmaceutical Executive, you’ll find this article, which highlights the “trend setters, the image makers, the creative geniuses” who have architected some of this year’s most memorable and innovative pharmaceutical ads. It’s a great display of work, completely worth looking through.

As the introduction asserts, “The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars every year marketing treatments that they spent billions to create, but more often than not, no one knows who the ads’ creators are. Much like the Wizard of Oz, drug ads are heard and seen, but the teams get little credit for their ingenuity. For years, pharma companies have kept the agencies behind their products a secret, and few of their stories have ever been told.”

So take a look at the article to see some great examples of compelling creative and to find out a little about the people behind the work… “the unsung heroes behind a large portion of the advertising you see every single day on television, on the radio and Web, and in magazines and journals.”

And when you do, let’s not forget about the unsung heroes behind the unsung heroes. No article such as this can truly recognize all of the people that it takes to create Great Work. Sure, the creative leads are the “front men” of the band when it comes to recognizing creativity. But Great Work, creative work that achieves its purpose, takes Brand Planners who capture the insight that drives the strategy behind the work, it takes dedicated Editors who make sure every detail is correct in the presentation, it takes Designers (at Palio we engage our Design Lab on most every creative project) to bring the work to a finer finish, it takes skilled Production folks who ensure the work will appear right in the various media being employed, it takes Medical Writers and Strategists who keep the work credible, it takes dedicated Project Managers who keep the development of the work moving ahead on schedule, and it takes talented Account people who are adept at keeping relationships strong and the business on course. In fact, it takes a whole lot more people than those I just mentioned — it takes an entire agency.

So here’s to the cast of 2010 All Star creatives behind the work, and also to the people behind them who had major roles in making the work Great!

Courtesy of Todd LaRoche

From Guy Mastrion, Chief Global Creative Officer, Palio

The best agencies create opportunity for great work to happen. Opportunity starts with access to good clients, brands, and assignments. But it is also much more than that.

Creating the opportunity to do great work means creating an environment where creative folks feel that their ideas are supported and that they are respected; there is a belief by everyone that the creative team’s ideas solve client problems and help drive business for the agency. It’s an understanding that ideas have relevance and meaning that grow and expand with the needs of the brand. Ideas that, when nurtured as they are shared among all constituents, become the driver of subsequent ideas. In this way, the ideas are always turned on and live beyond the “page.” They become the platform for client engagement, not simply the next deliverable or something that can simply be turned on and off like a light switch. Stated simply, there’s a fundamental belief that ideas are the currency of success.

Opportunity also means creating the necessary time, space, and atmosphere, because ideas don’t always happen on demand. First and foremost, the best creative minds want to know for themselves that they had the opportunity to come up with their best work, a simply brilliant idea that no one else has thought of or a startlingly unique execution. It means that they don’t fail themselves, their client, and their agency. They must feel that they’ve had the opportunity to create the best idea anyone could have ever imagined.

For even the best creative minds, their work is both a burden and a joy, a struggle and triumph. It’s emotional, not mechanical. It’s thoughtful, philosophical, smart, clever, and well-crafted, not trite, familiar, dull-witted, and sloppy.

The best ideas solve problems for consumers and clients and create opportunity for more great ideas to flourish.

It’s been my observation after many years of working in many agencies that it’s an almost universal tendency to culturally minimize these efforts in what becomes the “need” to drive the budget, increase the margin, etc–as if these objectives are mutually exclusive. This essentially guts an agency’s core drive and pollutes its essence. And, frankly, the effect is usually the exact opposite of what made the agency successful in the first place.

The values, talents, and commitments of truly professional creative folk struggling to achieve greatness for their clients is an ideal that they hold as their sole responsibility. Great agencies never dismiss their creatives’ needs as carping, their insight into client business as substandard, and their challenges to any given situation as unprofessional and not “business-like.” It’s my perspective that agencies that fail to flourish have developed a “factory-floor” psychology about getting the work done. To those who exist in environments like this, the experience suggests that throughput, vs output, is what matters most.

In the current economic climate, like so many recessions that have come before, there will be winners, losers, and those who barely survive. Times like these really test an agency and reveal what it’s made of. It’s a time to push like hell and not settle for second best because in the end all we have is our work and our reputation. In an expanding economy everyone looks like a hero. But in these times, the weak, indifferent, and mediocre will fail.

It’s a time for the best ideas; the most thoughtful, strategic, insightful, energetic, witty, powerful, and disruptive ideas. It’s simply not a time to shy away.