It seems like all I ever hear anymore is how many people do not like Twitter or understand the concept. Those that actually have an account either use it strictly for business or forget that it’s there all together. So if this is the general buzz surrounding the social media site, why is it U.S. site traffic grew from a few million unique monthly visitors early last year to over 20 million by June?

Below is the projected continued growth of the site.

Do you believe Twitter is being utilized more often? Is it by people documenting their everyday life or business professionals trying to promote themselves? These are hard questions considering the general consensus used to be that Twitter would have lost steam by now.

While researching for a presentation I was to give, I hit a dead end.  Normally, I would ask a coworker or e-mail a friend but, because I was in a rush, I sent out a tweet in order to ask the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time. The outcome? Several helpful answers including links!

From this point on I have used my twitter accounts (yes, plural) as my personal help desk. If I’m stuck on something, stumped, or just plain feel lazy, I ask my plethora of acquaintances and time after time get great information.

So my question is, is this a helpful tool or just fueling many people’s need to take the easy way out. Would researching topics until you found the right answer yourself make us more knowledgeable than being directed to the only link we need?

As a recent advertising graduate, I can honestly say that one of the most influential books that I’ve read in the past year was not a textbook on advertising but instead, The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation by Frans Johansson.  Those who have heard of this book or had the pleasure to have read it understand why I believe this book reinforces the basic reason why most of us enter the field of advertising.  We all have ideas, perspectives, creative minds, or experience that has led us to believe that we would best be suited in an innovative and always evolving atmosphere.

In the Medici Effect, Johansson discusses how merging two completely unrelated fields produces breakthrough innovations that come together when old ideas intersect to create entirely new thoughts and perceptions.  This book not only discusses how to find such intersections but also gives real life examples of how some of the biggest ideas have come from some of the most unexpected places.

In the advertising world, generating new ideas for our clients and thinking of innovative ways to get a message across are consistently things we are trying to improve and conceptualize.  As Johansson points out, “creation comes from a combination of different concepts in a unique fashion and it is difficult to trace the origin of insight,” (p.67).  I think that as a person in advertising, I need to be open to new ideas no matter where or whom they come from in order to continue to grow and succeed in my profession.  After a while, people tend to build up associative barriers that can hinder their willingness to keep an open mind.  For example, this book has pushed me to be more open to experiencing new things when choosing what I eat, how I spend my free time, the places I visit, and even the acquaintances that I make along the way.  The Medici Effect urges people to interact with the unfamiliar. It is about breaking down old barriers and becoming submersed in new atmospheres, diverse people, and assorted occupations to come up with a truly new idea.

As with most people, I have zero patience for slow drivers during my morning commute. So while following the line of cars passing the offending driver this morning, I was fully prepared to give the stink eye… until something caught my attention.

Ok, I lied, two things caught my attention. First, the vehicle was wrapped in an advertisement for a weight loss product and second, the driver’s reason for going under the speed limit? He was texting!

This got me thinking (shock!). Does the behavior of the driver affect potential consumers’ feelings towards a brand?

In my marvelous morning mood (say that 3x fast), I immediately disregarded the brand, I can’t even recall the name of the product. I felt as if the driver was a reflection of it, just as a salesperson would be. If they could hire someone so unsafe on the road, how were they capable of making a safe product?

So I ask, should an advertiser make sure they have a superb driver before wrapping a vehicle? Or does this not have an impact on the effectiveness of an ad?

Maybe it’s the New Year that making me nostalgic, maybe it’s my upcoming wedding … not sure exactly, but something has got me reminiscing.  Funny that during this time, I saw an influx on Twitter about old-school advertisements, and ran by a nice photo homage dedicated to vintage healthcare ads.  Looking through the images, I am amazed to see how much the healthcare advertising rules have changed.  Take this ad for example:

The copy reads, “For prompt control of senile agitation.  Thorazine.  Thorazine can control the agitated, belligerent senile and help the patient to have a composed and useful life.  Can you imagine being a pharmaceutical company and running this print ad now?  The AARP would be outraged!

Not sure if the changes are good or bad though, I feel like now as healthcare marketers, we have to walk such a fine line.  What do you think?

While doing social media training here at the agency, I finally figured out why so many people do not respond or follow on Twitter…

They don’t know how!

Although Twitter seems pretty self explanatory, especially to those of us that were in college when Facebook and MySpace first hit the social media scene, that doesn’t mean everyone can follow along and quickly grasp the concept.  For those who need the extra help, it means there will be some research involved… yes, you have to google how to twitter. Sounds like a simple enough request, right? Wrong. Most people look to social media because it should be fun, easy and exciting… not one of those words implies having to LEARN first.

I can now say from experience, that little effort to learn something new goes a long way to gaining a positive new tool to promote your business and yourself.  Do you disagree? I’d love to see your thoughts.

P.S. If you can’t get somebody’s attention through social media like this poor man, maybe you should try a new tactic!

Yippee!  On Sunday Mad Men  won the Golden Globe for best dramatic TV series.  It should also take the cake for its disturbing portrayal of women.  Note that I am not talking about January Jones’ headband.

Disturbing not because wrong, but because so right.  Women were subjects for mockery, objects for ogling, and –at the very best– professional second bananas in the 1960s workplace when series takes place.

And also in early 70s when I began my ad career.  Even though the Women’s Movement was starting up and even though I was working in a non-traditional ad agency.  My agency was then known in town as the Jewish agency.  Our execs were not invited to join the mainstream business or golf clubs.  Although we did great creative work, it was primarily for retailers and not for auto clients–which in Detroit was the sign of being a real agency. 

Our founder was a man of principle, of enormous talent, of great courteousness and generosity; his warmth, spirit and drive drove the culture of the workplace.  Yet even with his mindset, no woman held a truly senior position at that time or ever.  (Which was the cause of my starting my own agency in 1984.)  And in the 70’s a senior creative manager regularly harassed women — and they were fired for non-compliance.  This included my creative partner, who never even thought about confronting or reporting him–at that time, there was no such thing as a sexual harassment concept or crime.  (The owner was  reportedly shocked, angry and embarrassed to find out about his colleague’s longstanding behavior when revealed in a lawsuit a decade later.  And fired the slimeball.)

 Like Mad Men, our agency had a Joan, the eyes and ears of a top executive…who amassed power over other women.  Our Joan once instructed me to tell a colleague to use more deodorant and to stop wearing hotpants to work.  (Hey, it was the 70s;  I got my job wearing white go-go boots…)  I refused Joan–and could get away with it only because I was a creative professional and not in a secretarial of administrative position. 

Even though I was somewhat protected both from Joan and from any harassment by my position and  by my boss–like the owner, a man of integrity and fairness–I was still a mAD WOMAN on behalf of friends who did not have the same situation.

If you are interested, I will tell you some of their stories.

Mad Men has become the iconic go-to TV show for those mad about advertising,  business life, the 1960s,  unbridled smoking and drinking,  adultery,  the oh-so-smoldering Don Draper.

It’s also an inadvertent history lesson about a woman’s place in the workplace. 

A history that I have lived.  Even though I started in  advertising in 1972 and Mad Men is taking place in the early 60s, my workplace and my industry mirrored the show.  For example:  Most of the women at my first agency were secretaries or administrative level; every senior level position was held by a man; no racial diversity; the city’s major local ad club and business club did not admit women–in fact, at the business club a woman guest had to use the back door.

In this blog series I’ll celebrate what’s changed for women place in the advertising workplace.  Rant about what hasn’t.  And orate a bit about what is changing for everyone in the advertising business.   

Please add your voice, your experience, your 2 cents.

“If the client won’t buy good work–try great.”

I didn’t suggest this first. One of my bosses at DDB said it to me many years ago. I don’t know if it was original to him. (John Noble. A funny, smart, irreverent man who said lots of good stuff. May he rest in peace.) It may have come from Bill Bernbach (May he rest in peace.) who was infinitely quotable and said many things worthy of stitching on a pillow or tattooing on your arm.

Since college, I’ve wanted to work for Brogan & Partners. I heard great things about both their award-winning creative and warm, friendly work culture. Sadly, it seemed as though I had graduated at the worst possible time in our ad community’s history. Then, the clouds opened up and finally shed a bit of light when I was presented with an opportunity for an internship here!

Over the 3 months working here I got back a lot of what I had lost. At the College for Creative Studies ad department, there aren’t many boundaries to what you can do creatively. Then, the diploma is accepted and you’re spit out into the real world (which does not always involve the mind-blasting creative projects you dreamed of). Things tend to get watered down, over-analyzed and put through the appropriate systems.

But, it’s different at Brogan. And working here has reminded me why I enjoy advertising so much and why I wanted to go into this field in the first place. They strive to produce breakthrough, award winning advertising while still meeting the satisfaction of their clients. I’ve never worked at an agency that was able to find a happy medium between the two.

It’s also been fun and educational getting the chance to develop creative for non-automotive accounts. There’s a satisfaction that comes from working on creative healthcare accounts, because you really feel like your helping market something that helps so many people.

I’ve always seen advertising as smart art. It’s not just a place to showcase your creative abilities, but it also needs to be smart, intuitive and effective. This is something that Brogan & Partners helped teach me. I will take many good memories and new insights away from my time here. More importantly though, the experience has gotten me excited about advertising again. And at this point in my career I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Interested in an internship at Brogan?  Let me know if I can give you any pointers!

Bill Bernbach, the legendary  and inspiring founder of Doyle Dane Bernbach, started the creative revolution that changed how people did advertising. He was smart, ethical, funny, thoughtful, insightful and quotable. Infinitely quotable. Really. You have to wonder who followed him around and took down all the terse eloquence left in his wake. It’s dandy somebody did because his words still work. And keep in mind they were said starting in the ‘50s.

Try this:
“You cannot sell (to) a man who isn’t listening.”

Now, there’s a lot written about the current creative revolution: Social Media. Social Media provides interesting new, creative opportunities for talking to people. Social Media is very one-on-one. Very personal. Very instantaneous. Also very congested. How do you get someone to listen? Same way as always. Be interesting to them. I’ll guess you’re getting a lot of messages that you can’t delete fast enough because the sender isn’t talking to you. It’s artless. It’s like they think if they just lay all the merchandise on the sidewalk, the world will flock to them. When I’m doing the searching, I go past what seems to be nothing special to find something exceptional. Something that calls out to me for some reason.

“There is practically nothing that is not capable of boring us.”

Oh boy. Dullness. Yada, Yada. Blah, blah. Everything I always wanted to tell you about me and then my hat and then more about ME. Plus, there’s just so much of everything out there. And between my ADD and the volume of stuff people are vying to get me to read, I’m overwhelmed.  It’s like being in a constant ad blizzard.

“Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.”

It’s how you cut through any medium. Think about your products and/or services. What is unique to them will start pointing the way to interesting, fresh, creative ways—ideas, IDEAS!!– to develop a deeper, two-way relationship with your audience. And maybe de-mystify some of how Social Media and any media can work harder for you.

“The magic is in the product.”

Yes. It is. Let’s take a look at some of the interesting opportunities that new (and old) media might have to make your magic interesting to more people. Contact us.

The creative gang bang. Don’t fret, it is nothing that would land me in a sexual harassment lawsuit. It is a Darwinian approach, common at most agencies, where the best work rises to the top through creative team (writer/art director) competition. Only now, with the proliferation of the internet, the concept is going global. Clients can post their creative brief and creatives do the assignment pro bono hoping they can win a grand or so for their time and effort. Is this a good idea? For a one-off, perhaps. Or for clients who have no relative brand identity. Or for clients that burn through agencies because they hate trusting anyone besides themselves. But while a former art director partner of mine is worried about the ramifications of such trends, this creative director is not. Great work comes from great relationships. Shared passion for the brand. Greater insight working together from strategy to focus groups to production. I would think clients would want an agency who was 100% invested and cared about the work working, the phone ringing, the web hits rising. And I’m glad I work at that kind of agency. So if you want to work with us, we’ll pitch you some great ideas. But we won’t pitch them through the internet.

What kind of marketing partner do you want?