In My Humble Opinion
People here at the agency typically aren’t shy about sharing their opinions. Sometimes those opinions can be found in an interview or an article penned about a hot industry topic. Other times it might be a blog post, a speech, a book or maybe just an interesting rant.
Here’s a collection of our favorites, humbly submitted for your review.
IF THE CALCULATOR MADE EVERYONE BAD AT MATH, WHAT IS THE iPHONE DOING?
by Rye Clifton
You no longer log on; you are constantly connected. Information is on demand and at your fingertips: phone numbers tied to faces tied to names tied to birthdays tied to addresses (possibly physical, definitely email).
Your phone is your alarm clock. Wake up anywhere in the world and Google maps can tell you how to get home. Check Facebook or MySpace and you might be able to figure out how you got wherever you are, see who you were with, and what you were wearing the night before. Those pictures are likely time stamped, geo-tagged, captioned, and commented on too.
WANTED: CATALYSTS FOR CO-CREATION
by Earl Cox
"Collaboration" is one of those business buzzwords that’s been used and abused so much it’s gone out of style. And yet in today’s ever-changing, increasingly interactive media world it may now be taking on a whole new meaning. That’s because the marketing world is now captivated by a new business buzzword: “consumer-generated content.”
Some say it will be the death of marketing as we know it. They say, just get out of the way and let the consumer tell your brand’s story. Yes, the consumer will be telling brand stories more and more in the future, but the last thing marketers should do is get out of the way. Word of mouth has always been powerful. With the aid of consumer-accessible technology (the Internet, podcasting, video production, etc.), it’s now on steroids.
In fact, to succeed in the coming years when consumers have more influence with other consumers than marketers have, marketers will need to develop a new perspective and a new skill set. Those who do will be hailed as tomorrow’s innovators. Those who don’t will be labeled with the dreaded T-word: “Traditional.”
THE POWER OF POLARITY
by Matt Williams
Creatives and account people. Designers and accountants. Long-term goals and short-term needs. Team building and diversity. An interesting thing about business today — whether you make ads or widgets — we all deal with tension. Some companies may feel it more than others, but in this environment of faster and faster change, tension has become a fact of business life. So the question isn't how to avoid it, it's how to ensure that tension acts as a positive force in your company, not a negative one. Because in the end, your response to tension will play a large part in determining your success.
Polarity is the ongoing tension between opposing forces. It's also the source of much of the tension in business. As a marketer, you face polarities everywhere. You can't help but notice them. By learning how to identify and manage them, you can turn the tension in your company into a positive force.
YOU DON’T WANT TO BITCH. SERIOUSLY, YOU DON’T.
by Mike Lear, VP/ Associate Creative Director
We all bitch sometimes. Some of us love to bitch. It makes us feel better. But some of us bitch A LOT. And it moves beyond a release to a focus. It can become a way of life.
I’m sure some of you even bitch about this school. I did it. I bitched about my school. (But a side note on that…every graduating class has a small group that gets AMAZING jobs. So if you don’t get a great job, it’s not the school’s fault my friends – it would be yours.)
So let me try and persuade you not to bitch.
KINETIC BRANDING
by Matt Williams
Late at night, you lie awake and stare at the ceiling, worrying.
You’re thinking about achieving growth — dramatic growth — of your customer base, of your brands, of your top-line revenues. You’re awake because you think achieving dramatic growth is fraught with risk, and you know that those unwilling to take risks are pushed aside by competitors with the ambition, skill and courage to uncover and capture transformational opportunities.
Too many marketers overlook the most powerful source of those opportunities — one that’s right at their fingertips: their brand’s existing equity. Rushing into repositioning, these marketers risk sacrificing the brand equity they’ve worked to build, throwing their organization into an identity crisis and confusing the consumers they were hoping to attract. Providing a framework that helps marketers avoid this mistake is what kinetic branding is all about.