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Long-time Brogan & Partners fans know all about our legendary out-of-town mystery trips, but fewer people know about our local quarterly trips. (Why do we do them? To make sure we keep our less than 5% employee turnover rate?)
A group from the North Carolina office took in a mystery trip yesterday. We went to the Carnivore Preservation Trust, a 55-acre tract in Pittsboro, North Carolina that takes care of carnivores that are found mistreated. The non-profit offers tours, which are extremely interesting. Well worth checking out.
Here’s a slide show with just a couple pics from our trip:
Spam: no longer the weird pink meat-like product we ate as kids. The American classic has taken on a whole new meaning for email users. It’s sent by those inconsiderate junk mailers who want to clog our email system. We all get it. We try to block it. We delete it. We wish it would just STOP. But could you be a Spammer??? Do those massive group forwards or the “send this to 3,000 of your closest friends for good luck” emails make you wonder??? Well, here is what the folks at CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Market) canspam website define as SPAM and the guidelines they have devised:
False and misleading header information is banned
- This means that an email’s “From,” “To” and routing information, including the originating domain name and address, must be accurate and identify the sender.
Deceptive subject lines are prohibited -
The subject line cannot mislead the receiver of the message to open it under false pretenses, thinking it’s something else. The receiver must not be mislead as to the contents or subject matter of the email.
Opt-out methods must be provided - A response mechanism must be provided for the receiver to opt-out of any future commercial messages from the sender. In addition, opt-out requests must be processed
for at least 30 days after the initial commercial email was sent, and senders have 10 business days
after an opt-out request to stop sending messages to that address. Messages cannot be sent to the opt-out requestor on behalf of the sender by any other entity.
Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and it must include the sender’s valid physical postal address
The receiver must be clearly informed that the message is an advertisement or solicitation, he must be told he can opt-out of future mailings, and a valid physical postal address must be included in the message.
Receivers must be warned of sexually explicit material
- For any message that contains sexually explicit material, the warning “SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT” must be contained in the subject line.
Other interesting statistics:
The most prevalent type of SPAM is advertising-related email, which accounts for about 36% of all SPAM messages.Can you guess #2?? Rhymes with the most searched topic on the internet…You GUESSED IT… pornography.
Identity theft (or phishing) makes up at 73% of online scams.
SPAM costs businesses about $20.5 billion annually in decreased productivity and technical expenses, according to Radicati Research Group, Inc.;
And Nucleus Research estimates that the average loss per employee annually base of SPAM is approx. $1934.
I don’t know about you but I’m no longer hungry. Wanna know more visit spamlaws.com
I think I watched about 1 hour of TV over the last 3 months. There was nothing on. I’ve got stuff to do. I didn’t really miss it.
But then Monday: Wham! TV was back, and it wasn’t playing around. How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, the new weird show Chuck. Tuesday with Two and Half Men. All of sudden TV was back. And I watched some Monday and <<gasp>> even a bit more on Tuesday. (Completely coincidentally, I just overheard Chris in my office say to Erin: “Isn’t tomorrow the Office premiere? Boom. Done. I’m there.”)
There’s been lots written about fragmentation of TV channels, the proliferation of DVRs like Tivo, the rise of alternative entertainment choices (online, gaming, etc.) and much of it is true. But let’s remember that TV can still be an event that brings people together.
These events are advertising opportunities, and they are getting more valuable. Think season premieres, season finales, award shows, big sporting events… We’ve bought the Oscars for clients and been very happy with it. TV has problems, but to reach the world quickly, there are still opportunities.
Rupert Murdoch is a smart man. He bought MySpace in 2005 when it made $23 million from ad sales. In 2007, it will make $525 million in ad sales. So he knows a thing or two about Internet advertising and the value of it.
The Journal makes a good living locking up “the good stuff.” The estimated loss from switching to an open system is estimated at $30 million. But since the Wall Street Journal has exceptional content, a great brand name, and a strong web presence already, Murdoch is pretty sure he can more than make up for that loss with Internet ad sales.
We’re in a new world, folks. The business of advertising is changing. What good content means, how it’s valued and who will pay for it is changing.
Depending on your business model, this could have profound effects on how you deal with your customers and prospects. Do you have great content hidden away on the one hand? Or should you be paying for highly targeted Internet ads on the other hand? One thing is for sure, hang on to the status quo and you’ll lose status…
With so many “citizen journalists” publishing so much content online, the issue of copyright is being tested in new ways.To deal with that in an open way, a non-profit organization called “Creative Commons” set up a series of licensing structures that let’s you define quickly and easily how others can use your work.
Good idea. Assuming you understand what license you are giving away. The Associated Press (and lots of bloggers) are talking about the lawsuit filed by a Texas family who discovered a photo taken of their daughter and uploaded into photosharing site Flickr was being used in an ad. The ad is shown here.
Turns out that Virgin Mobile Australia found the picture on Flickr, published by the photographer under an open Creative Commons license, meaning the photographer gave up his rights. The model, apparently did not. And apparently she’s not excited about the tagline, which says “Free text Virgin to Virgin.”
The damage to Flickr if they don’t deal with this could be enormous. People may think twice about using the site (even though you can indicate that your pictures are copyright protected if you so wish). Flickr’s got great momentum otherwise–they need to nip this in the bud quickly.
In the advertising agency business, all of our contracts talk about who is responsible for securing the rights to photography. It’s a big deal to get it right. Some folks believe that Virgin is on solid ground legally because the photographer donated the picture to the world (knowingly or unknowingly). But for a company as big as Virgin to use the shot without being sure they had permission was a significant mistake from a PR perspective, even if they get away with the legal side…
Shortcuts can hurt… What do you think? Should Virgin be allowed to do this if the photo was published under Creative Commons license that allows them, too? After all, they disclosed right on the poster that they got the picture of Flickr? Or should you always check?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service had the best of intentions when they sent out an e-mail to 67,000 employees with the purpose of sharing information about energy conservation. Unfortunately, the communication touted a list of fuel-efficient cars to purchase, all foreign… not one American car. Needless to say, this got the attention (in a bad way) of the American auto industry, American auto workers and a delegation of Michigan elected representatives.
On Friday Joe Ellis, assistant secretary for administration for the HHS issued an apology. “I deeply regret that our newsletter offended anyone, especially those Americans working in the automobile industry and the millions of people who make American automobile manufacturers successful,” said Ellis. Well put. And praised as the right response. “They did the right thing and I applaud them for it,” said Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines. “When you are in a hole, stop digging.” Very well said.
Mass communication is a powerful thing. And when it goes wrong it can go really wrong. In this case, the smart way to respond was clear… stop, drop and apologize.
So, what is the lesson in this for businesses and other entities? Well, obviously, be careful in your communications, have a instinct for diverse opinions, beware of “unintended results”, have professionally trained folks managing mass communication and most importantly, when something goes wrong be prepared to respond to it.
The fact that the HHS responded so quickly and so honestly and so openly, makes me sure that they had excellent, professional public relations advice. Their crisis communications response was perfect. They were in a hole. And they stopped digging.
Social networking is fascinating. Simply looking at the membership in the popular social networking sites is mind-boggling. 50 million visitors to MySpace? 80 million? 200 million? That many people doing the same thing? Without anyone really (perceivably) planning for it? For a control freak (like me) or at least someone who has spent their life planning and running businesses, this kind of force is daunting and humbling and fascinating.
But then I look at Friendster, the darling of the Internet in 2003, with 20 million visitors. But suddenly, and inexplicably, its visitors started dropping like flies. The popularity, and sudden unpopularity, of a site seems serendipitous. No surprise, when you consider that most social networking sites are driven by teens and young adults.
Even those who develop and deploy social network sites can be puzzled by their success. Piczo is a Canadian social networking site that burst on the scene with over 10 million visitors last year. Its founder, Jim Conning says “I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I’m going to start a Web site for teenage girls.”
There is no question that teens and young adults and more older adults are gathering on social media sites. We humans are busy as bees, creating our hives. And like our apian brethren, we sometimes inexplicably swarm and buzz off to a new hive. Fascinating.
Meetings suck. How many times have you felt like your entire day was hijacked, taken over by other people’s mysterious random agendas? Of course, meeting have their good side. We are social animals, and communicate best face to face. So much more is accomplished when we actually can see the people with whom we are communicating. So, why then do meetings feel like torture sometimes?
Without rules and structure, meetings, just like children, can get out of hand and turn into ugly, annoying monsters. Never allow a meeting to take place without publishing:
The purpose
An agenda
Start time and end time
And here is my pet peeve, the non-sacred start time. Five people waiting ten minutes for the sixth person to show up is a waste of nearly an hour of productivity. It is cruel to add onto everyone’s already long day by disrespecting the start time of a meeting. Make it a policy to start and end on time. Latecomers can catch up. Last one in the room is elected the note taker!
So, with just a little forethought and sticking to some simple and basic rules you can tame the meeting monster. Hell, you might just start enjoying meetings! (I think the guy in the red hat is actually having a good time…)
How many times have you heard some jargon in a meeting or in conversation and just wanted to shout “Bull$#*% Bingo!”? We have all been there, a client or a co-worker is struggling with marketing problem and goes to the “thinking outside the box” well. As a well-known creative agency there is an expectation that we are going to come up with the prize-winning “out of the box” idea. Acquaintances speak of their envy and admiration for the fact that we simply sit around awaiting the arrival of the Wacky Idea Muse. Ahhh… little do they know that the best ideas are spawned by the unassuming Strategy Muse.
We never venture into the “out of the box” zone without clear strategic direction. The creative process here at Brogan & Partners is a powerful force, but always guided by strategic parameters. Creative without context does not create value for our clients and we are all about creating value for our clients.
Creative ideas generated within a strategic framework are no less original or inspired than free-range creative ideas. They just work better. Consequently we don’t ever forget to take strategic thinking out of the box or in the box or wherever we may be doing our thinking. Who is the customer? How do they think? How does the client’s product compare with the competition? What do we want the client to do? What is the message and why would anyone believe it?
“Creativity at Work” is our mantra. We never forget that Creativity and Work go together. Strategy is work. Results are work. Creativity with results is the end result. So whether we are inside the box or outside the box, we are ALWAYS where the strategy is.
Brogan & Partners may be a great advertising agency, but I sure am not going to try to sell you a $2,288 manicure. Nor did I ever pay that for one. But I am going to tell you why manicures are worth that to me. I am talking employee turnover. Something we work hard at managing.
So what do manicures have to do with this? And why $2,288? One can calculate the cost of employee turnover using some handy dandy calculation tools available on the Internet - www.uxex.edu/CES/cced/economies/turn.cfm - is one. Adding up the costs associated with turnover can add up in the thousands. A sample calculation shows the cost of one departed employee is $2,288. Some writers will even say that the cost of turnover is 150% of the employee’s salary… averaging $75,000! Can something like a company-paid weekly manicure impact this cost? You bet it can!
Believe me, workers are not so naive as to accept a paid manicure in lieu of superior benefits and competitive pay. They are, however, keenly attuned to a workplace that respects and appreciates their time. It ain’t the $15 we pay for an on-site manicure, it’s the fact that we are giving our valued staff (men and women!) the gift of time. It is more than the simple act of paying for a manicure, it is a signal to everyone that the agency truly practices what it preaches— “Creativity At Work” — that’s our themeline and it goes beyond being a creative organization and creating smart and effective marketing and advertising. We are creative in our workplace, in our perks and in our expressions of appreciation.
Our creative perks all work in concert to keep our employee turnover well below 5%— against a national average of over 12%. On-site manicures, company-paid out of town weekend mystery trips, paid lunches and other creative perks all let workers know they are valued and respected. And most important, workers know they are in a supportive organization.
So the manicure may cost $15 but can be worth $2,288 to our bottomline. Because an award-winning creative advertising agency runs on the talent, time, creativity and passion of its workers. And that’s priceless.
