Strategic Insights – We’ve Got Ideas

I do some of my best thinking on the run–literally. I do a few miles most every lunch hour and am consistently amazed at the directions my brain takes. It’s not always quality stuff, mind you, and it’s hard to remember it all, but there’s something about being out on the “open road” that releases a certain kind of endorphin. It’s not quite the same on the treadmill in the building’s workout room, but that’s where I found myself during one rainy lunch hour recently. The ideas weren’t flowing, so I picked up the remote and flipped on the TV across the room. And that’s when I saw it: a commercial for Poise bladder-leakage pads.

This was no standard-issue “Depends” type spot, featuring “active seniors” living their “lives” to the “fullest,” moisture be damned. This was a surgically targeted and ingeniously structured niche campaign called “One in Three Like Me.” The celebrity spokesperson, Whoopi Goldberg (I know), directed viewers to a website, 1in3likeme.com. Whoopi didn’t pitch the product–she elicited empathy. It’s a brilliant tactic–get the problem out in the open, then associate it with a well-liked celebrity to nudge the target toward action. The website does all the selling, and even there, it’s hardly aggressive.

There’s a blog, a series of message boards, a survey w/results, well-shot testimonial videos (real women? actors? who cares), a Twitter feed, even an application for a free sample. They’ve even branded the problem itself: LBL (light bladder leakage). See what they’ve done there? By calling it “light” bladder leakage, it minimizes it without dismissing it. By giving it initials, LBL, you can talk about it in code, without using words like “bladder” and “leakage.” By giving the campaign the umbrella of “1 in 3 like me,” and giving the microsite the same URL, it instantly lets the visitor know they’re not alone–literally millions of women share this problem.

Poise is a Kimberly-Clark product, and they’re no stranger to massive ad campaigns or successful brands, but this one stood out for me for both its branding insight and in its effective use of social media–as opposed to being tacked-on, this genuinely starts a conversation and keeps it going. These message boards are being used! This blog gets updated regularly! They’ve even appointed a “resident LBL expert,” Marilyn (guess Whoopi was too busy).

Congratulations to the creative team and the client for taking a potentially boring or even off-putting product and turning it into something interesting and engaging. I’m sure they’re seeing results.

I ordered a sample kit. Just want to see how effective these things are during a 4-mile run.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

Can you spot the error? Congratulations--you give a rat's.

I’m using a blog to vent about social media. Can you handle the irony? Are you LOL? Perhaps ROFL? You would think that with the rise in computer-based communication over the last 10+ years that people would become better typists, more aware of grammar, more conscious of spelling. After all, in conversation, these things don’t matter, but when they’re written down, all your ignorance is on display. But here’s the catch–social media has trained us to think that all communication is disposable, and errors inevitable and forgivable. Everyone’s in such a hurry to “push out content” that the accuracy–indeed, the basic structure–of the content is secondary. The internet–and blogging in particular–has turned everyone into writers. This is not necessarily a good thing. Like being a parent, there’s no test one takes to “qualify” for blogging, much less tweeting. If you can enter a username and password, you’ve earned the right to spout off to the world. Don’t worry about proofing, just get it out there! So what happens when those standards infiltrate huge ad agencies and venerated literary magazines? This, which appeared in the New Yorker late last year–on the inside cover, no less. I doubt anyone got fired or even yelled at. After all, it happens every day.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

For every Butterball nailing the entree, there’s a Pepperidge Farm acing the side dish.

While meeting with a business development resource the other day, we got into a discussion of my agency’s strengths. As most of you know, what you set out to be and what you become aren’t necessarily the same thing. As one of my restaurant clients discovered a while back, you are what your customers want you to be. So while we got into the business hoping to leverage one set of core skills, another emerged.

Some would say being a client’s “second” agency implies a lack of status in the client’s eyes. Often, we found the opposite to be true. Over the years, we’ve worked with clients who would overwhelm us if they dropped their whole account in our lap. However, we carved out a niche for ourselves by serving as a local resource for mid-sized to large clients who had primary agencies elsewhere in the country. This frustrated them. Communication was sporadic or slow. Meetings were few and far between. Prices were high. Projects were sneered at or ignored.

We picked up the slack. We were available for meetings, we responded quickly, we gave the projects the respect they deserved (after all, to us, they were a large client). Sometimes this meant working within the parameters of a campaign established by the primary agency, but if it was good, solid work, we didn’t mind. Being good stewards of a brand is brand-building itself. Other times we had complete freedom. Overall, a win-win.

I’ve been in this business long enough to see the pendulum swing back and forth a few times: from “full service” agencies to “specialty boutiques.” Integrated marketing! Decentralized disciplines! Bundles! Bottom line–how can we make it easier for the client? Something to consider: consolidate your “big stuff” with a national agency to satisfy the egos in the C-suite, then use a nimble, local resource for projects–to work in tandem against tight deadlines and more modest budgets. Not a “production shop,” mind you, but someone who understands your objectives and believes in your brand.

Just a roundabout way of saying we like being the turkey, but we’ll happily play the cranberry sauce.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

The man who directed Animal House, Trading Places, An American Werewolf in London (personal favorite), Thriller and yes, The Blues Brothers is now available to shoot the storyboard for your client’s anti-fungal toe cream.

Although it came to my attention only recently, apparently John Landis has been directing commercials for a while now, albeit mostly overseas.

Of course, he also directed Spies Like Us. It’s a slippery slope, folks.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

When I think of all that time I wasted watching Sesame Street when I all I had to do was pay more attention as my mom wheeled me around the supermarket. Guess I was too focused on my Barnum’s Animal Crackers.

Along the lines of Andy Warhol, artist Heidi Cody has assembled an intriguing piece of pop art called American Alphabet. While I had fun trying to guess the letters associated with the brands, I came away with an unintended lesson. The logos the alphabet owes its letters to are at least 20 years old (correct me if I’m wrong, but Bubblicious is the new kid on the block, and that emerged in the late 70s, if memory–and dental work–serves).

Lesson? Pick a logo and stick with it. You don’t even need a great logo (that’s right, Uncle Ben, I’m talking to you), you just need to commit to it. As a manufacturer, you will get tired of it long before your customers ever will. Customers like familiarity, comfort, reassurance. Ever-changing logos do not provide this. The same goes for taglines, or spokespeople, or strategies in general.

For the record, I nailed an impressive (or depressing, depending on your view of American consumerism) 22 out of 26 without consulting the key.

Test your Logo Quotient (LQ) and see how you fare.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

“You’re not an artist. You solve problems.”

I didn’t say it. Don Draper did, to Peggy. He was just reminding her that advertising is a business, like any other. But unlike most others, words and pictures are the tools of our trade. Words and pictures! That’s so close to…literature and art! Some advertising does transcend its original purpose–eventually. Instant classics are rare in this gig. Still, that won’t stop me–or countless others before and after me–from trying to make a difference on another level. I’ll solve the client’s problem, all right, but I’m going to do it in the most compelling verbal and visual way I can. Sometimes that means touching an emotion. Kinda like art.

A few weeks ago, the manager of my kids’ elementary school cafeteria succeeded in obtaining permission to adorn its blank walls with positive character traits. Since my wife is a tireless volunteer at the school, and I’ve got a not-so-secret hobby of cartooning, one thing led to another and I was offered up for the job.

I was emailed a list of traits. No sketches, no suggestions–a blank slate. Hearkening back to the style of my youth (both artistically and that of the kids’ clothes) at Aspen Hill Elementary, I chose to show the traits wherever possible. Writing is always more effective when you can show vs. tell, and what parent doesn’t know the power of setting a positive example? And speaking of examples, one of my sons asked if he could contribute his own drawing to the mural. How could I refuse?

Over the course of two weekends, several other families and teachers pitched in to transfer the drawings to the walls, then completed them with an assortment of semi-gloss paint. Everyone’s been very happy with the results so far. More importantly, the kids were actually talking about it to their parents. Who knows if it will make a difference? Will just seeing an illustration of “Kindness” day after day make a kid kinder in the long run? By itself, no. But it certainly couldn’t hurt. And it’s sure more stimulating and inspiring than a big wall of nothing. It wasn’t my idea, but I’m glad I was a part of it.

Bottom line: the cafeteria is prettier now. I used art to solve a problem. Does that make me an artist?

Maybe the two aren’t mutually exclusive after all, Don.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights