Updates from Mike RSS

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  Mike 12:46 pm on January 4, 2013 Permalink  

  Advertising should _____________. 

  Ask people if they like advertising and 8 out of 10 will tell you they absolutely hate it.

  The other 2 likely work in advertising.

  Now ask people if they like the Old Spice Man, the Allstate Mayhem campaign, Nike commercials, Nike Fit (that’s advertising too), the PEMCO campaign, the Washington Lottery flightless birds spot, Skittles advertising weirdness, Larry Bernandez or Leonard the Goldfish (to plug a few of our own) and you’ll likely get a much different response.

  Here’s the thing. People hate most advertising. And that means the industry as a whole is failing. It means for every hit there are hundreds of misses.

  What are we doing wrong? Better yet, what should advertising look like, sound like, ultimately be?

  That’s exactly what we want to know. And so do our friends at Portent here in Seattle. Working together, we’re opening up the conversation to include the very people we’re trying to reach everyday. People like you.

  So please tell us what you think. Just use the hashtag #AdvertisingShould on Twitter and help us get better at creating the kind of advertising you won’t hate.

  We’ll listen. We promise.

  We’re also collecting the responses at advertisingshould.com for everyone to see, and Portent will be analyzing the Tweets for trends and insights.

  What’s our angle? To be honest, we don’t have one. There’s no client behind the effort and no money to be made. We just want to find out what people think about this industry that so often thinks the only smart advertising answers come from within our own walls.

  Consider yourself officially invited to join the conversation. All you need to do is finish the sentence “#AdvertisingShould…”

  We look forward to hearing from you.
   
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  Mike 7:11 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink  

  Why an economic recovery could spell doom for Facebook 

  Let me preface this post: a sample size of one doesn’t make for much of a scientific study. But let me tell you about the person who gave me a glimpse at Facebook’s potential fate.

  I was following a very smart, funny woman on Twitter. And I wasn’t the only one: she’d amassed a following of more than 3,000 by simply tweeting about her daily life here in Seattle.

  Then one day I ran into her in the real world and we had a chance to chat. Turns out she’s a 21-year-old UW student who will be hitting the job market next year. We talked about her success on Twitter, and then the conversation turned to Facebook.

  “I’m probably going to quit Facebook as soon as I get a job,” she said.

  Quit. Not change privacy settings. Not delete potentially embarrassing photos. Not unfriend certain people. Her timeline will end and she’ll be gone. Poof.

  She has over 600 Facebook friends & has been active on the site throughout her teens and into her 20s. With her efforts on Twitter, she’s dancing on the edge of the social media elite. And Facebook will lose her soon.

  The reason? Mixing coworkers, bosses, family and friends in one place could hurt her career at some point. And besides, she said, “My grandma’s on Facebook. That means it’s pretty much dead, right?”

  But it’s not just her. She says she has “5 or 6 other friends” who have already quit Facebook because they found jobs beyond the part-time variety. Presumably these are people like her – smart, young, ambitious college grads who will soon have disposable income. That’s a demo a lot of advertisers like.

  Twitter is my social drug of choice. I’m admittedly not a big Facebook guy so I don’t have a lot invested in my Facebook page. I always assumed the people who had invested a lot had built something that would be tough to abandon – photos, friends and hundreds (or thousands) of connections.

  Apparently it’s easier to give up than I thought, at least for 20-somethings.

  For now, the job outlook for recent college grads is still pretty grim (the unemployment rate for 16 – 25 year olds was double the national average back in March). So chances are good they’ll be posting party pics from Saturday night on their wall Sunday morning just like they always have. But when they trade in their nametag jobs for desk jobs, they might tear down that Facebook wall for good. And that could spell disaster for a company that already seems to be losing its edge.
   
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  Mike 11:17 pm on November 28, 2011 Permalink  

  Enough with the private thank yous. 

  I was leaving an audio session at Clatter & Din the other day, and our sound engineer, John Buroker, had done an incredible job on our spots. I mean he killed it. Which is what John does.

  I thanked him, shook his hand and left.

  You know what? That’s not good enough. It’s people like John who make the work what it is, yet the agency gets almost all the credit. To try to right these terrible wrongs, I’d like to publicly thank a few people and share some of their work. Starting with John.

  John Buroker is one of the nicest, coolest people you’ll meet. He’s also so easygoing it’s easy to forget how damn good he is. Like what he did with our Folksy Announcer spot.

  Then there’s Scott Wiess from Pure Audio. When Scott leans over and says, “Hey, what if we try…” you do it. First, because you like him (everyone does), and second because his suggestion is going to make your spot waaaay better. Like with Leonard & the Seattle Aquarium.

  And there’s Dave Howe at Bad Animals. Man that guy can mix. You’ll be having a great time with your client, chatting away, then Dave will say, “How about this?”, then play you the spot and blow you away. Exhibit A: Fluffy Bunny.

  I can’t forget the Vince Werner, a true audio icon. I won’t go into detail about his work on the Mariners, but it’s so far above and beyond he should charge us triple. But he won’t because he’s a fantastic human being. I give you What’s in a Name.

  But what’s sound without picture? Hmm, guess that’s radio. Anyway, the directors we work with all share common traits: they’re nice, sane people who are good at what they do.

  Life is too short to work with jerks. So in the non-jerk director category, I proudly present:

  Steve Utaski of Remedy Pictures. Terrific director who makes shoots fun and spots great. Like this Fred Willard work for Symetra Financial.

  Ron Gross of Blue Goose Productions does the impossible: shoots five to seven Mariners commercials in three days with non-actors who sometimes don’t speak English. And ta da, out comes Larry Bernandez of Encore Encore fame.

  Then there are the two greats from North by Northwest: Jeff Noble & John Eames.

  Jeff has this thing down to a science, which is how he made a desert out of Moses Lake for the WSU Arid Crops spot. While John’s directorial brilliance is helping us make boringly good surprisingly engaging for LifeWise with spots like Work It.

  Onto Jack Barrett of Wacko Films, who shot and edited our new World Vision spots. A pleasure on and off the set, he handles pressure like it’s not even there. Check out Angel By Your Side to see his handiwork.

  Speaking of editors, Kelly Vander Linda of Collective and Troy Murison of Dubs Inc. spin raw footage into gold. Here’s one of Kelly’s spots for Seattle Children’s, and Troy’s Dance Troupe spot for LifeWise of Washington.

  Need post effects? You need Kevin Adams. A former Wazzu kicker turned amazing aftereffects artist, Kevin makes things look far better on screen than they do in your head. Check out his work here.
  
  To borrow from most acceptance speeches, there are plenty of other great people I’m sure I’ve missed. So to all of you I offer up a very big, very public thank you. And you’ll probably get the private thank you handshake at some point too.
   
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  Mike 7:09 pm on August 10, 2011 Permalink  

  5 reasons I’m happily afraid to fail. 

  The prevailing wisdom goes something like this: If you’re afraid to fail you’ll never succeed.

  This looks great on a book jacket in the self-help section. So no successful person has ever been afraid to fail? Good for them.

  When it comes to advertising, I’m afraid to fail. It’s not a paralyzing fear, but a slow burn, a voice in the back of my head that says, “What if you’re out of good ideas? What if this campaign bombs?” It’s a decent-sized list of fears actually.

  Granted, this is advertising. My failure isn’t going to cause a plane to crash. Still, the fear is there every day. And I love it.

  Here are five reasons why:

  1)     It pushes me.
  With every new assignment, I feel pressure to succeed. I know the only way to avoid failure is to work really hard until I come up with something good. Hopefully great. Without any fear, it’d be easy to kick back and think “I’ve done this before, I’ll do it again, no problem.” Then give half the effort.

  2)     It makes me scrutinize my work.
  This is a dicey one. I know I have to ask myself the right questions, like “Is this REALLY the best it can be?” or “Will this strike a chord with the audience?” or even “Is it kind of funny or very funny?” The wrong question is “Is it possible somebody might not like it?” (ads that go unnoticed never get hate mail.) But taking a long, hard, objective look at my own work forces me to find the flaws and hopefully fix them before I produce something I’m not completely proud of.

  3)     Fear encourages me to share my ideas.
  We have talented people here whom I trust. When I have an idea I think might be pretty good, I ask them what they think. If it is pretty good, there’s a good chance they’ll make it better. If it’s bad, they’ll tell me that too. If I’m supremely confident in my work all the time, there’s no need to get anyone’s opinion on anything, right?

  4)     It keeps me focused on every single client.
  Our job is to help each one of our clients build a brand, sell products, and put butts in the seats. And as most of us know, an advertising failure tends to hang around longer than a success. So that tinge of fear makes me want to do everything in my power to ensure success for each and every one of our clients—for them and us. And that happens one assignment at a time.

  5)     It makes me an eternal student.
  I know I absolutely have to keep up with emerging and popular technologies. How do I know? My small nagging fear of falling behind is there to remind me, morning, noon and night. Which is why I try to study and use every potentially useful social media and mobile tool I can, and I’m constantly looking for the next big thing that might translate to the next big advertising thing.

  I don’t confuse being afraid to fail with a lack of courage or aversion to risk.  I also have a fear of doing humdrum work that’s invisible. I have to channel fear to drive me to do better. So here’s a quote about fear that I prefer:

  “To fear is one thing.  To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”

  And I’ll certainly always learn something from my failures too. But that slightly frightened voice in my head will make sure I do everything possible to succeed first.

  I wouldn’t have it any other way.
   
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  Mike 4:27 pm on May 27, 2011 Permalink  

  An Open Letter to PETA & Atheists 

  Hi there. I’ve noticed your work over the years, and I was hoping you could answer one nagging question for me.

  What are you doing?

  I’m not trying to be a jerk here, I seriously want to understand what both your general thought processes are when it comes to advertising. More specifically, what are you hoping to accomplish?

  If you’re trying to alienate people and cement the stereotypes that you’re both radical fringe groups that aren’t worth listening to, congratulations. You nailed the brief.

  I’m in advertising, so you’ll forgive me if I’m over-thinking this by trying to attach a strategy to your work. For all I know your goal may just be to see your name mentioned in the press as many times as possible. Sort of the Lindsey Lohan approach. You’re certainly talked about, and that’s all that matters.

  Let’s cite some examples. For PETA, there’s this and this and this. And if they have their way, this.

  And Atheist groups have produced the following gems, viewable here and here and here.

  One of you thinks it’s a good idea to publicly make light of a politician’s cancer diagnosis, the other decides to sully both religion and a beloved children’s figure in a single billboard.

  Both of you are impressive for your sheer ability to offend.

  I’m guessing this will fall on deaf ears, but let me rewrite the brief for each of you.

  PETA, your strategy should be to 1) separate the legitimate, substantiated, and most egregious forms of animal cruelty from the radical “anything beyond petting animals is pure evil” causes and 2) use advertising to educate people about your legitimate issues in a way that might actually get the average Joe to think you’re making a reasonable point.

  Atheist groups (that for whatever reason feel the need to advertise), here’s what I’d do: focus on spreading a message of tolerance of all beliefs, including the choice to not believe in any higher power. Isn’t that really the goal anyway? To get everyone to feel like they can believe whatever’s in their heart without the need to condemn anyone who doesn’t share their exact same faith? For most people, that’s a pretty easy message to get behind.

  So that’s it. Your track records indicate that this probably won’t change your minds. I do think people, and groups, get addicted to media coverage, good or bad. And what I’m suggesting here probably will get you less attention from the press. No, it would likely result in something much less important to you: getting people who aren’t already members of your group to actually listen to what you have to say.

  Thanks for your time.

  Sincerely,

  Mike Hayward

  Helen Szablya is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Helen Szablya 4:10 pm on June 8, 2011 Permalink

    Mike,
    Your evaluation of both is right on target! You guys do awesome work. Keep it up! Helen

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  Mike 5:27 pm on February 9, 2011 Permalink  

  We do not do subliminal advertising. 

  Seriously. We don’t. You can stop looking for hidden messages.

  I read an article a few months ago in Time or Newsweek (what’s the difference again?) about an advertising study focused on radio commercials. The study concluded that people respond most positively to the sound of babies cooing and dogs barking and some other painfully obvious thing I can’t recall. Brilliant work, science. The article then implied agencies were using this information to craft radio spots that would SUBLIMINALLY GRAB YOUR BRAIN THROUGH YOUR EARHOLES AND MAKE YOU DO STUFF!

  Which agencies? What creative teams? I’ve never heard of any reputable agency or creative trying to incorporate any subliminal messaging into anything. Ever. Here’s an even bigger shocker: the vast majority of ad people never intentionally distort the truth.

  I think there’s this misperception about ad agencies that we use smoke and mirrors to trick you into buying things you don’t really want. We lie about our products and what they do. We’re slick politicians, telling people what they want to hear regardless of the truth.

  It doesn’t happen here or at any agency I know of. When we get a creative assignment, we sit down and talk about the product or service – good and bad. We look at the audience and then we try to determine the best way to start a conversation with them. That’s it. Really.

  A great example is the Old Spice campaign we’ve all seen. Yes, the campaign is epic. But it’s also built on sound strategy and research. Watch the video case study here and you’ll see what I mean: http://vimeo.com/14029410

  Of course, we do focus on the positive aspects of our clients’ products and services. But an ad is like a first date. You start with your finest qualities. You do your hair, put on a nice shirt, tell some jokes. You don’t walk up and blurt out, “Hi, I’m Mike. I have a large hairy mole on my shoulder and make gurgling noises in my sleep.” (For the record, neither are true).

  And just like any first date that leads to a second, no good relationship with a customer can be built on deception. Or puppies and babies for that matter. Honestly, us advertising people don’t want to trick you, we just want to break the ice, chat a little about our clients. So chances are that subliminal ad you think you saw or heard is only in your head.

  Mark Inlow is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Mark Inlow 5:18 am on February 22, 2011 Permalink

    Hi Mike,

    So you don’t do subliminal advertising, eh? Then let me ask you a question about the Old Spice commercial which starts out with the guy on the beach in a hula skirt. At the end of the commercial the guy is reclining and dusting an object which just turned brown. If that feminine-looking slit that opens in the “pelvic area” of the brown female fetish object isn’t subliminal advertising, what is it? I’d really like to know – and so would my wife!

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  Mike 10:47 pm on December 6, 2010 Permalink  

  Presentation Zen and the art of telling a joke 

  My dad really knows how to tell a joke. His cadence, his timing, his facial expressions. When the punch line comes, people are rolling. Let my sister tell the same exact joke and she’ll barely earn a sympathy laugh. Sorry, Sue. You have many other fine qualities though.

  Which brings me to PowerPoint presentations.

  You’ve all been in meetings where the presentation material is important, relevant and interesting. Yet the mind-numbing way it’s presented, well, cue the crickets. The book Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery can help change that.

  The book isn’t rocket science. But it’s practical, and smart, and with every chapter you find yourself thinking 1) yes, that’s exactly how we should be doing it and 2) why didn’t we do it that way before? Things like:

  Make a presentation that requires you to be there (as opposed to writing everything out then reading it aloud)

  Don’t rely so much on bullets (which PowerPoint prompts you to use). Heck, you might not need bullets at all. I know, blew me away too.

  Create metaphors to capture concepts and make them memorable.

  Simplify graphs to their core idea, incorporate photography, don’t slap your logo on every page, and so on.

  We’re applying the teachings at C+F now, and Kurt Reifschneider and I recently gave a Zen-inspired presentation internally to show how it can work. When we started presenting, it was like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they open the ark and all the viewers are instantly stunned by its awe-inspiring beauty. Except no one’s face melted in our meeting. Maybe it wasn’t quite that impressive but it was well received, and promises were made that we’ll try to do more of it. Plus people laughed at all my jokes. Thanks, Dad, for passing along the gene.
   
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  Mike 7:53 pm on November 29, 2010 Permalink  

  Support your friendly, local out-of-state mega corporation. 

  There was an ad campaign running here a few months ago that basically read like this:

  Seafood! Coffee! Rain! We know Seattle!

  No. No you don’t.

  There’s nothing wrong with localizing a message if it makes sense. But if you’re going to do it, go beyond the very first link that pops up on Google. Would you run an ad in New York that talks about the Statue of Liberty? Or do a campaign in France that features a mime holding a baguette?

  In the case of this latest campaign, it was downright insulting. We know you’re new to the city. So please, by all means introduce yourself. Tell us what makes you unique and why you’ll make a great neighbor. But don’t start our conversation with, “Have you seen that Space Needle thing? And do you know they toss fish at your market?” And it’s even more patronizing when you just pop a comma Seattle at the end of your headline and act like you’re suddenly speaking my language. As in, “You can find the best house paint at our giant national chain, Seattle.”

  Better yet, talk to people like they’re people, not target markets. Find that universal truth about your product and find a compelling way to tell me about it like I’m a human being, not solely a Seattlelite.

  A few years back, we even got a chance to play off some of this pervasive, fake local-ness in a radio spot for a real local company, HomeStreet Bank. Take a listen if you’d like.

  And for the record, I drink a limited amount of coffee, don’t like seafood, and it doesn’t rain here nearly as much as you think. But yes, I do still like to watch the fish tossing thing now and again. It’s really cool. And that’s a universal truth.

  Gordon Morris is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Gordon Morris 9:19 am on November 30, 2010 Permalink

    It’s sad, but true. Many marketeers today have been seduced by someone, maybe researchers, into thinking they can adopt one position, one message and one campaign that’ll rule all markets. That may work in Lord of the Rings, but in Realville you end up spending millions on a campaign that misses the point just about everywhere.

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  Mike 12:15 am on November 19, 2010 Permalink  

  All Hail the King. 

  Felix Hernandez wins the 2010 AL Cy Young. They got it right.

  With a 2010 ERA of 2.27, 232 strikeouts, and a league-leading 249 2/3rd
  innings pitched, Felix left an impression on hitters, fans and reporters
  alike. Even more impressive, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
  So congratulations to Felix Hernandez on a well-deserved Cy Young Award.
  Turns out the baseball writers see him the same way we do.