Author Archives: Dan Gershenson

Is there such a thing as a Chicago ad person?

Lately when I’ve thought of what sort of people Advertising produces, for some reason my mind turns to clothing styles to spot this species in its native habitat. For example, you have the Creative Director, he of the thin glasses, goatee, jeans and blazer. Tends to refer to many things as “crap” and how we don’t do ads like we used to.

Kidding aside (kind of), I went below the surface and got to thinking a lot deeper in asking this question in relation to our environment: How deeply are Advertising people influenced by the city we inhabit and can the work we do be impacted as a result (good or bad)?

It’s an interesting theory. I suppose if cities took on the personas of, well, people, I think this is kind of what it might sound like if they got together for drinks to discuss this very thing. So New York, Miami, L.A. and San Francisco walk into a bar with Chicago in, well, Chicago.

New York: Hey, Chicago. Nice town ya got here. A little version of me.

Chicago: Easy there, NYC. We’ve got some things that top you too. You don’t want to start that pizza debate with me again.

Miami: Do they serve cosmopolitans at this place?

Chicago: No, Miami. They serve really great beer. It’s about time you learned what that tasted like.

New York: So you wanna talk shop here or what?

Chicago: Let’s do it.

L.A.: You know, Chicago, I just can’t figure you out.

Chicago: What do you mean?

L.A.: Well, what are you Advertising-wise? What kind of advertising people do you produce? Like, are you a creative town?

Chicago: Of course I am. Leo Burnett hung his hat here, after all.

San Fran: Yeah, it’s just hard to wrap our arms around you in a neat little succinct way. I mean, I’m a tech client haven in my corner of the map.

L.A.: I’m a whole lot of retail.

New York: You could say I’m the Granddaddy with still the most agencies anywhere so there’s always good stuff cookin’. So I never lack press coverage.

Chicago: Look, fellas. I know I’m kind of hard as an ad town to decipher sometimes. Yes, you guys get a lot of press and sometimes more than me. But if you really want to know what kind of ad people I produce, think about it this way. You can produce one of two kinds of people:

1)   The ones who complain or give up. They complain about how they don’t work on something cool. Or they just give up and use “Well, that’s the industry they’re in” as an excuse for doing shoddy work because that’s what they know the client will like. They’re safe. And boring.

2)   The ones who love being in a box and actually crave the challenge of producing something awesome when given boundaries. An ad in a trade publication? No problem. A financial client that’s full of restrictions? Bring it. Insurance? Let’s do this.

You know what? Sometimes I produce people who fall into Category #1. But I believe at my very best, I produce even more of Category #2 – Chicago produces some of the toughest Ad people around. We’re tough because we have to be.

New York: Get outta here. Tougher than New York? Ya gotta be kidding.

Chicago: Think about it, NYC. Stay with me on this. We’ve got some industries here that don’t always fit into high glamour. Like CPG. Pharma. Manufacturing. Health Care. These are not industries that are known for being particularly…well…

Miami: Sexy?

Chicago: Sure, Miami. Sexy. They can be more regimented and speak their own language. But nonetheless, they’re awfully important to the American economy, right? Somebody’s got to serve them – and in reality, not just serve them but do great work.

Miami: He’s got a point.

Chicago: It’s just that some people see great work defined by whether it gets a Gold Lions at Cannes or a Clio. No doubt that’s very creative, but I don’t believe it’s the only way you define great work.

San Francisco: Surely you’re not suggesting creativity doesn’t matter.

Chicago: Oh, hell no. If you’re not trying to be creative, you should pack it in and go do something else. What I’m saying is we need to have many different measurements of creativity beyond the “who has the most awards” measurement.

Let me give you an example. I think as a town, I’m as good as anyone when it comes to doing work within a very challenged space. For example, let’s take an industrial client needing a campaign within a trade publication. Not everyone in the world is going to see that campaign, so it doesn’t answer the cute cocktail party question, “Have I seen your work recently?”

Yet there’s a huge opportunity to stand out within the publication.

Why? Because, let’s face it – a lot of the stuff in that pub is going to dry, ordinary and matter-of-fact. Which means all the more of a chance to do some really great brand development.

Some might turn their nose up at that and think they’re above that kind of work. But in Chicago, we don’t do that. And we don’t want to be seen as that.

San Francisco: But doesn’t it frustrate you knowing that some of the industries you mentioned aren’t necessarily in a rush to embrace new directions like social media wholeheartedly?

Chicago: Sure. But they’ll get there. Some industries are slower moving than others, but as a city, I’m producing people who are gently shepherding them into it. And trust me, they’ll get there out of necessity. Take manufacturing, for example. You have some people questioning the viability of social media in upper management, but that’s not necessarily the feeling of those coming up through the ranks. They’re comfortable with these tools. So change is coming in these industries too, even if it’s a bit slower pace.

Again, we can be an “aw shucks, that’s the industry we’re dealing with” kind of town or we can seize the challenge and lead them into technologies that make sense. We can do great work in any category and we’re tough enough to do great stuff anytime.

New York: You know, Chicago, when you put it that way, I’ve got a new respect for the kind of Ad people you produce.

Chicago: Thanks, NYC. Bottom line – if you want to know what makes this town tick, it’s our ability to turn the traditionally “unglamorous” into the appealing and captivating. We’ve got the thicker skin for that kind of challenge.

Or maybe it’s due to the windchill temperatures. Probably a little of both.

What do you guys think? Is there a Chicago kind of ad person? Can the city influence the ad people working in it? Let’s hear from you.

(Special thanks to Steve Congdon, agency new business guru at Thunderclap Consulting Group for letting me re-post this guest post I did for him here)

Lesson of Lowe’s: Your Competitor Royally Screwed Up. Don’t Just Sit There.

Attention, Head Media Buyer for The Home Depot. Can we talk? You’ve got an opportunity for yourself handed to you on a silver platter if you’re intelligent and I’ll bet you are. So here’s what I want you to do.

I want you to pick up the phone and start placing ads on “All-American Muslim” like no tomorrow.

Don’t overthink. Don’t overanalyze. Just do it. I don’t care what your demographics are. I don’t care what marketing research tells you. I’m as big a fan as anybody of market research but when your competitor shoots themselves in the foot so badly by blowing their nose on an entire race of people, you’ve got to seize the moment and welcome those people with open arms.

For those who haven’t heard, Lowe’s did a royal screw-up by caving to outside pressure and pulling its advertising from TLC’s program featuring the lives of five Muslim families in Michigan. The backlash has been swift and the outrage intense, not just from Muslim groups but many others. Russell Simmons even offered to buy up all the airtime on the program that advertisers voided.

To me, the danger isn’t so much associations like the Florida Family Association, which urged people to engage in an email campaign to pressure brands like Lowe’s that advertised on the program to pull their advertising.

The danger is when brands actually listen to these fringe groups, tuck their tail between their legs and run for the hills instead of acting like intelligent brands that weren’t born yesterday.

Lowe’s justified the move like so: “Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result, we did pull our advertising.”

Ah. I get it. So the loudest voice in the room wins, no matter how bigoted and divisive their opinion may be. Just making sure that’s how you make your decisions.

Lowe’s acts like this came out of the blue and caught them by surprise. Nice try but I don’t buy it. Running from lightning rods is what big companies tend to do when they want to appeal to everyone under the sun. Ironically, that’s the opposite of what Lowe’s did anyway in the end. But why does controversy have to be a bad thing? I don’t think it has to be and can be a good thing. Lady Gaga is controversial. And massively successful. I doubt she’s hurting from controversy.

Let me replace all of the official public statements from Lowe’s, probably written by their PR firm or internal marketing people with the only two words that people really hear: We’re afraid.

Memo to brands of America: Beyond what you see on marketing analytics, the people who buy your stuff will be gay, Muslim and mixed racial couples.

And last I checked, their money is still as good in this country as a white person’s.

It’s too bad that showing these types of groups in advertising or advertising on programs featuring such groups beyond the white American family is seen as “progressive.” It shouldn’t be. It should be off the table as something advanced for us to talk about as a brand differentiator. It should be common sense that this reflects modern reality, so we can make marketing decisions based on deeper, more important factors.

But I digress from my mountaintop to speak purely on a marketing level so you can apply the lessons learned from this situation to your own:When you have a scenario like the Lowe’s one where a competitor does something stupid, you have two choices:

1) You can be lazy and have a nice laugh at your competitor’s expense. You may say you’re not going anywhere near the situation with a 10-foot pole and believe the customers will naturally trickle over to you.

2) You can get off your butt and move quickly to cater to the disenchanted audience. It’s called being proactive because it’s the right thing to do marketing-wise and in some cases, morally as well.

You buy media where they dropped media. You use social media to target the voices that are angry. You issue releases and blog posts speaking to the pains people are expressing. And it’s not really about the competitor at all as much as heavily amplifying how much stronger YOUR principles are. Don’t waste any time retelling their story – the disenfranchised are already doing that for you. Tell yours in a way that helps the audience connect the dots easily on how you’re different regarding that particular issue.

This window of opportunity can happen at the most basic local level too. Not all that long ago, a auto dealership in the Chicagoland area fired a man for coming into work wearing a Green Bay Packers tie. Now, I bleed Bear blue and orange, but obviously that’s just a dumb move. The media picked up on the story and the auto dealership that formerly employed him got some massive and unwanted attention.

At this point, other dealerships nearby could have just reveled in a competitor screwing up. But one had the initiative to seize the moment while the story was still hot. They hired the Packer-wearing tie salesman almost immediately. Not only was that the right thing to do, but the focus shifted from one stupid dealership to how the new dealership did something heroic. THEY became the new focus of the story.

My point is, when events like this happen to a competitor, don’t run from the chatter. Dive into it. You want to talk about how you can engage a community? You’re looking at it. Put up or shut up time.

There’s one thing Lowe’s got right in separating itself from a program with the words “All American” in it: When brands are this easily swayed by the agendas of extreme groups that they forget their own values, whatever it is they’re building together is anything but All American.

Have you ever capitalized on a competitor’s mistake to acquire new customers and become the hero? If so, how did it happen and what did you do? Share away, hero.

You’ll Never Have Enough Time. Thank Goodness.

This blog post would be better if only I had more time to write it. But the window I have to write it is now. And I like that. Because it mirrors the nature of a crazy, fun and manic business we chose to be a part of. The “Hurry Up and Wait” state of advertising agencies and marketing firms is something I’ve had to deal with in every culture I’ve been a part of, including my own.

Agency people like to imagine a perfect scenario like so:

Agency creates product. Client approves product. Product goes out into the world. Everything is on time. On to the next project.

Gosh, that was a fun daydream. Now let’s see what happens in the real world.

Rounds and rounds and rounds of tweeking and honing the creative product in the eyes of the Creative Directors, Account Executives, Executive Creative Director, Head Account person, etc.

The creative product gets beaten up more than Rocky Balboa before it even goes out the door.

Then it goes to the client. Client has to take it to their boss. Product sits on boss’ desk for a while. It’s a priority, but there are even bigger priorities to attend to. Agency waits and gets antsy – “Why haven’t we heard from them?”

Hours pass. Days pass. Then…BOOM! Client gets feedback back from their boss and tells agency to change A, B and C before the end of the day.

It’s here that the measure of a creative person is taken. They’ll complain right off the bat with a “What? Now? Before what time? You’ve got to be #$@*ing kidding me with this.”

But then, they’ll settle down, realize that the impossible is actually possible, come together and come back with, lo and behold, a better product than last time.

I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again. It does no good to complain about the pattern or try to wish for a more efficient production path. Instead, we have to embrace the beast, not fight it. And realize that yes, things don’t hit our desks exactly when we’d like them to, but it also gives us an opportunity to shine in the eyes of our client once more. Many of them do realize that the time they have to give us what’s required can be somewhere between tight and insane. They’re not clueless. But they’re also looking for partners who can make them look good in the eyes of their bosses, their peers, their board. The last thing they need is a group of whiners who lecture them by saying, “We could that better if only we had more time.”

We all wish we had more time in business and in life to do the things we want to do on our terms. But the funny thing is, when we are given more boundaries, we find ways to excel within those boundaries.

I truly empathize with any creative person who has to be suddenly brilliant on the spot. It’s not ideal and there’s a great deal of pressure involved with that. I suppose that’s why I’ve always favored teams brainstorming concepts rather than forcing one person or one partnership into their corners and telling them to bring me their deliverables like I’m the king of the throne. When we can be fighting the clock together instead of individuals, we can beat the clock, create a smart solution and go with the flow as our clients need us to be.

There will never be enough time. But we have to accept that fact and consequently set the table for an environment where one writer or one designer can have the reinforcements they need to take on Father Time. This kind of efficiency is good for the individual, it’s good for the agency from a business perspective (hello, we do have to bill sometime!) and it’s good for the client.

When it comes to prioritizing what to do, my friend and colleague Rob Jager from Hedgehog Consulting looks at it this way – “There are 6 things that can be done in a day. List them out in advance and put the least important thing 6th. That way, you don’t feel so bad if you have to kick it to the next day, but make that thing #1 the following day.”

Time’s up. Gotta run.

5 Ways To Avoid Social Media Fatigue

It’s not easy establishing our own personal brands in the world. You have to blog, tweet, connect, and like…let’s face it, it can be rather exhausting to keep up this kind of consistency. No wonder I hear the term “social media fatigue” used more often. Yet, if it’s a given we all have to build awareness of ourselves, aren’t we forgetting an opportunity right before us that might help share the burden of producing fresh content?

I’m talking about strategies to pool resources among like-minded people so you promote yourselves even farther. Here are a few great ones: 

1) Invite Them to Guest Blog
Coming up with content for a blog all by yourself is tough, no matter how many resources you have to help (thank you, though, Google Reader). So it’s a great relationship builder to invite someone you trust to provide a guest post for you. They’re flattered by it usually and it can be refreshing for your audience to hear viewpoints in a blog from a different voice outside your own. And of course, you can take a temporary break from blogging yourself.

2) Interview Them
Whether a blog, article, podcast or video, you’re enabling someone else to share their story or viewpoints by bringing them into one of the social media tools you’re using. I’d be sure to do some prep work in advance as far as ample questions to keep the conversation flowing, particularly if it’s video or audio content.

3) Build a Twitter List Around Each Other
Twitter Lists are an underutilized tool in my opinion, especially when you have potentially thousands of people to keep track of, that you’re following and following you. Build a list around certain people who have proven to be good referral sources for you so you can easily retweet their best tweets and they can hopefully do the same for you. Those retweets from the group can help get some extra mileage out of your next tweet.

4) Start A LinkedIn Group Based On Interest
Think of the common thread that runs among your group – it doesn’t even have to be strictly business-related – and start up a LinkedIn Group among yourselves. While you might have to be the designated discussion starter, if you have a lively group, these discussions can take on a life of their own. For example, a Chicago Cubs Group has a topic that’s been going strong for months now! That might be an extreme timeframe, but even if you can get the ball rolling with a compelling enough discussion topic to stir conversations for several days, the group keeps the momentum of interactivity going. All the while, who does the credit come back to for originating the discussion? That’s right, You.

5) Co-Present A Webinar or SlideShare Presentation
Why try to sell the same canned speech to the world when you can share the load in creating a new one with a related business? Both of you can then enjoy the credit for the joint presentation, wherever it would be given. If a webinar, your combined prospect audiences may be bigger than if just one of you had been presenting.

When it comes to new content, you just don’t have to always come up with one amazing topic after another by yourself. That leads to social media fatigue and eventual burnout. So join forces by using these opportunities and others like them to bring attention to both your name and someone else’s in the process. If all goes well, it’ll be both of you invited into a buyer’s office, simultaneously too.

Personal branding friends and I chat on Blog Talk Radio’s “Metropolis”

Deborah Shane, host of "Metropolis"

Yesterday, it was my distinct honor to join my colleagues at the Personal Branding Blog for Deborah Shane’s Blog Talk Radio program, “Metropolis.” In addition to myself and Deb Shane, the panel included Wendy Brache, Devin Hughes and Elinor Stutz. 

If you have about 30 minutes to spare, I think you’ll find it a worthwhile listen as we covered some great ground on personal branding in the digital age. Click on the show’s link above and let me know what you think.