Category Archives: I’m Calling You Out

Advertising on Architecture? Now You’re Reaching, Rahmbo.

When I was a kid, I read Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” It was a funny little poem that imagined a place where there’s no more ground under our feet. I’ve often wondered the same about Advertising. When it comes to placement of media in the public domain, where do WE end? Where are our limits? Do we have any limits at all?

This is no place for a giant logo.

I believe I’ve found that limit, courtesy of Rahm Emanuel’s first real blunder of his administration. To help raise $25 million toward a $600 million budget deficit, the Mayor is now allowing the placement of ads on city property that includes Chicago’s landmark bridges. So cross the Wabash Avenue Bridge and you’ll see a giant Bank of America banner on the bridge’s iconic tender house.

Oh goodie. Can’t wait until Spring, when the bus and boat tours packing tourists go by. “On your right, Ladies and Gentlemen, where you see the ultra large Bank of America banner, is the site of Fort Dearborn.”

How I wish this was Photoshopped and not real.

I know Emanuel wants to leave his own mark on the city, but this is not the anti-Daley move I had in mind. I seriously doubt our former Mayor, with his continuous intent on beautification projects, would’ve followed this path.

City Spokeswoman Kathleen Strand insulted everyone in this city’s intelligence by suggesting putting an ad on an architectural landmark isn’t all that different than the CTA allowing ads on buses and El trains.

Oh, Kathy, Kathy, Kathy. Can we talk?

You see, dear, I feel silly pointing out the difference, but in your case, apparently I have to.

Placing an ad on a public domain that devalues the experience of looking at that property is in poor taste by all parties that put it there.

Here’s your litmus test:

Do we say things like…

“That garbage can would be so much more attractive without the ads on it.”

“That bus would be beautiful without the ads inside it.”

“The ad detracts from this gorgeous Red Line train.”

Come on. You and I both know that nobody in their right mind says that. Because, let’s face it – buses, trains and garbage cans are not landmarks we’re going to put in a photo album. When my former college roommate Curtis was visiting this Summer from Indianapolis, what as the first thing he took a picture of? Our bridges. He wouldn’t snap that picture now. Not of the Wabash bridge. No way.

It’s tempting to pile on Bank of America for their role in this, but for once, this isn’t really their mistake. It’s the Mayor’s Office’s. Put yourself in the advertiser’s shoes if you will:

“Hi, this is Mayor Emanuel’s office. We’d like to offer you the opportunity to advertise on the landmark Wabash Avenue Bridge over the next month or so. You’ll have extraordinary visibility, obviously. Just give us $4,500.”

Seriously?

First of all, it’s an insult to the bridge you only asked for that much. More importantly, even if Bank of America didn’t think it was the best idea – they’re getting dibs on high visibility property for peanuts at a time when they had to pull back from a $5 monthly debit card fee fiasco. Could you really blame them for taking the Mayor’s offer?

There are more creative solutions to trimming a budget deficit. Personally, I thought trimming the City Council would be a good place to start and that would take care of a few million bucks right there. But I’ve also given the Mayor credit for his crowdsourcing effort through his budget site at ChicagoBudget.org. Yet, if the more than 10,000 ideas he got on that site, I just can’t believe that posting advertising on landmarks was one of the big ideas that rose to the top.

We’re so much better than this. There’s no doubt we need to close budget gaps and get creative in how we do it. I know $600 million isn’t going to go away. But that shouldn’t mean selling our soul by putting an ad on every available piece of real estate. And this is a veteran of the advertising world talking here, remember.

In reality, while B of A got a steal of a deal, it’s not even that great of a branding move. If you’re going to be this visible, send the audience to some place online where they can be part of a community or offer input. A web address? QR code? Anything? No. This is just a logo and tagline that obstructs what was there before and adds nothing. It’s so bad it’s basically a hair above littering, except the regular litter gets to blow away and not bother you too much.

Was it worth it? No. Is it worth ending the experiment in landmark advertising right now? You bet.

Because at the end of the day, a clear, unblocked view of the architecture is our city’s best advertising.

NBA’s Hammer Will Fall Hardest On Midwest

Welcome to the 2022 NBA Season. We’re 10 years removed from the lockout that claimed the 2011-2012 season and the landscape sure looks different. It should be an exciting season in the East/Central Division, which of course, is comprised of:

Chicago
Detroit
Miami
Orlando
Washington

What’s that, you say? Where’s Milwaukee, Indiana and Cleveland? Why, they fell victim to contraction. But so did Atlanta and Charlotte. Yet the Eastern Conference wasn’t the only conference affected by the Stalemate of 2011. The West was forever changed too, with the disappearance of Memphis, New Orleans, Minnesota and Sacramento.

Bulls fans will notice a lot of Midwestern teams in that mix for good reason.

For all the talk we hear from Commissioner David Stern about a brand that’s becoming global, the NBA is killing its small markets here at home with silly ping pong ball draft luck and revenue that isn’t spread to small markets that need it most.

Drive through the Heartland and you’ll see nice towns like this all along the way. Minneapolis. Milwaukee. Indianapolis. Cleveland. The big name free agents aren’t coming there and they’re not going to go there. Their stadiums are not in the best condition, yet owners want financing to come from a taxpayer population that’s hurting economically as it is. But if Jay-Z and a Russian billionaire want a stadium built in Brooklyn, it gets done in a couple years.

I don’t always understand the words coming out of ESPN’s Jalen Rose, but he made an astute point recently in saying that, in other leagues such as the NFL and MLB, you are traditionally compensated for bad seasons with the opportunity to draft the very best players coming out of college (or high school). There is no such opportunity in the NBA. If you have the worst record in the league, you have a better chance of drafting the best player, but not guaranteed. When your team is based in New York and it doesn’t work out, that’s not the end of the world. When your team is Indiana, that’s devastating.

Once in a while, the dumb luck works out. You’re San Antonio and your ping pong ball comes up in a year where Tim Duncan is available. You’re Cleveland and you get to draft LeBron James. And what happened even then? Tim Duncan came thisclose to leaving San Antonio for Orlando and well, we all know where LeBron went (sorry, don’t mean to reopen old wounds, Clevelanders).

Here’s the thing – the above scenario happens once in a decade at best. Big market teams have an opportunity to replenish their roster with free agents EVERY YEAR. Therefore, the NBA becomes a league that’s wonderful if you live in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami, Dallas, Houston and Philadelphia. If you’re bad this year, you can get better next year or soon enough, regardless of which way the ping pong balls bounce.

Besides drafting changes, there’s the revenue sharing issue that should’ve been discussed so long ago, it’s amazing we’ve waited to do it now. Think about this: According to league sources, 8 teams in the league made $150 million in profit combined. The other 22 teams lost a combined $450 million. The argument I’ve heard here against revenue sharing is that it rewards underperforming teams and punishes overachieving teams. I don’t see it as a reward as much as leveling an unbalanced field. And let’s look at the NBA from a season ticket holder perspective – obviously if you’re a team, you’d like to have long-term commitments from fans than single game sales. But how in the world can you ask economically challenged markets to make this commitment when owners are trying to get those same budget-strapped fans to finance the new home for a perpetually mediocre team or when fans can watch a game from their big screen/laptop/smartphone instead?

For a long time, the poster child of consistent small market success in the NBA was Utah. Each year in a bygone era, Stockton and Malone would keep the Jazz competitive and even get them to the Finals a few times. Later, the heirs apparent to that duo were Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. Neither are in Utah and longtime Coach Jerry Sloan finally stepped down. Maybe it was time and he was tired. Or maybe he realized that without big changes, it will be much harder for any small market to be a consistent contender in the NBA.

How do we fix it and keep a more level playing field so the brand of NBA basketball survives in the Midwest? Besides ditching a ping pong ball draft and implementing greater revenue sharing, I think Bill Simmons has some pretty great ideas on how to fix the NBA and he foresaw all this happening last year.

I know some of us who are fortunate enough to live in big cities may not care. But if we care about not only the brand of the NBA going forward but the continued economic viability of major American sports in general, we can’t have leagues where the Haves are defined by the number of skyscrapers and the Have Nots by the number of cornfields.

Book Can’t Tarnish the Enduring Brand of “Sweetness”

As I learned of the details of Jeff Pearlman’s new biography on Walter Payton, “Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton,” I admit my reaction was the way many Bears fans would react: I wanted to find Jeff Pearlman in a bar and ask him to step outside. But after I cooled down a little, I realized that, regardless of what Pearlman has written about Payton in the way of his painkiller use, extramarital affairs and depression, his book is as useless for touching the brand of Walter Payton as a New England Patriot in Super Bowl XX.

This is not the voice of a pure fan talking, believe it or not. It’s the voice of reason based on what I know about how iconic sports brands endure above those that shockingly fail us. Particularly those born and bred here in Chicago.

First, let’s play Devil’s Advocate and assume for the sake of argument that every word Pearlman has written about Walter Payton is true. In fact, many fans and friends who witnessed his behavior off the field after he retired wouldn’t disagree or be shocked by some of the allegations. Pearlman interviewed 678 people for the book and I’m sure there were consistencies. So I’m not even going to naively dispute any of that.

Just like I’m not going to dispute that there is a foundation in Payton’s name that has catapulted organ donation sign-ups in Illinois and elsewhere – the same foundation that donates toys to underprivileged children in the Chicagoland area. Or there is a High School named in his honor. Or there is a section of the UIC Medical Center called the Walter Payton Liver Center.

See, where Pearlman did get it wrong was when he said the book was “definitive.” Perhaps in the eyes of a Sports Illustrated columnist who followed the trail of interviews to build a story. I certainly don’t believe Jeff Pearlman is an inherently bad person or that he intends to demonize Walter Payton. But his book will not define the brand of Walter Payton in the eyes of Chicagoans. Not one word. Why?

It’s not like we didn’t know our most iconic sports brands have had their personal faults. We know it and we love them anyway.

Michael Jordan had a failed marriage, gambles huge sums of money and gave a Basketball Hall of Fame speech that was more “F*%$ You” than gracious. Some might even quibble with the fact he smokes cigars as he signs autographs for kids. But we love him anyway.

Mike Ditka has a medical chart like a train wreck, a DWI conviction, tossed a wad of gum at an opposing fan and flipped photographers the bird. Not to mention he is also ’til this day the worst 7th inning stretch singer of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” But we love him anyway.

Phil Jackson. Ryne Sandberg. Mark Grace. Bobby Hull. Mistakes off the court/playing field/ice? They’ve made a few. We love them anyway.

We have been lucky to watch the special talents of these icons, but they have been lucky to have a relationship with a town as forgiving as Chicago. I am not entirely sure other cities with bright lights always have such warm hearts. When you do well by us on the field, we tend to understand your humanity off of it. It doesn’t mean we agree with it or excuse it. It means we know great players and coaches can make human errors because they are human beings.

Let me take another angle away from the field of sport. As any iconic brand realizes, when you build up a long legacy of delivering a superior product or service that people appreciate year after year, decade after decade, it is easier to maintain loyalty through the eye of a storm. It’s the difference between a bump in the road and a full-on catastrophe. Why? Because many of those people who invest in your brand look at the “big picture” of what you’ve delivered on up to this point and understand that people in business can relate to. I’m also not talking about a scandal on the level of Enron, but minor things like a foreign object falling into a Big Mac that shouldn’t have.

To be sure, the allegations of the book on Payton are anything but minor. Yet the faults of him and other icons in this town have been the same demons many people grapple with at one time or another: Staying faithful to your spouse. Gambling. Drinking too much. Painkillers for old injuries. Failed business ventures. Depression.

Tell me you or someone you love hasn’t had to face at least one of these challenges. We all have. And thankfully, nobody is writing a tell-all book on us.

Even if they tried, we’d say that author of the tell-all didn’t define us. Because even if we aren’t performing in front of thousands of people any given Sunday, we are all striving for a personal brand that is defined so much more by our positives than our shortcomings.

I know the brand of Walter Payton will enjoy that positive definition too.

Every social media cocktail needs a beer chaser.

By now you’ve probably been bombarded with enough posts elsewhere on Google Plus, so you’ll be glad to know this isn’t one more of them. Because what I’m writing about has wider implications than just one tool. It has to do where your entire brand lives in the social media realm.

I’ve come to the conclusion that clearly in terms of social media we should all be on TumblrGoogTwitBookTube.

Sorry for the confusion, but I think others with their behaviors and proclamations of late are just as confusing.

I’ve had it with those who feel another social media tool has to die so that another may live. Maybe it’s the rush to be proclaimed as a prophet of some sort, but it’s bogus. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s dangerous brand strategy and it risks burning the relationships you’ve cultivated.

I really have to marvel at people who are writing about how they are leaving their current outposts because something else has come along that’s far superior.

“We were on Facebook but we’re moving everything to Tumblr.”
“We were on WordPress but we’re going over to GooglePlus. Follow us there!”

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

They’re missing the point of how their own fans and followers use social media, which is to say that we almost never put all our energy toward one channel.

We have a hub and then, many times, we have at least a secondary channel. The most common example I’ve witnessed of this is Facebook for personal relationships, LinkedIn for business relationships. Or LinkedIn/Facebook as primary hub, Twitter as a 2nd, lesser visited destination.

It’s kind of like a favorite of restaurant of mine that serves a Bloody Mary with a beer chaser of Miller Lite during Sunday brunch – every good primary hub deserves a secondary accompaniment. Much like the primary and secondary ways we consume social media. Or “Hubs” and “Outposts.”

It’s downright rare for us to spend 100% of our time in one place and that’s more than OK. Yet, every single time a new tool comes along like Google Plus, it has to be the Killer of something else. It was the Facebook Killer, the Twitter Killer and the LinkedIn Killer.

Nope. I’m not buying it.

Why can’t we research, experiment and explore? I spend the majority of my time on WordPress, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Not only because it’s what I’m comfortable with at the moment but more importantly, it’s where the people I have relationships with and potential clients are spending their time online. With Google Plus being new, I’ve done my due diligence to check it out because like many other people, I was curious. If enough of my audience is there – and stays there – I’ll deepen my commitment (I wouldn’t get hung up on the 10 million people who signed up for it until we see the staying power months from now).

I remember a much simpler time when we only debated in absolutes between “digital” media and “traditional” media. 

Which was seriously only a couple years ago.

Now, just as social media is gaining credibility in the boardroom as a viable option for marketing budgets – yes, I believe we’re moving past that point – we’re going to complicate matters and confuse them by saying, “No, don’t go here anymore, you want to put all your energy over here.”

“But I thought you said Facebook was equivalent to the 3rd or 4th largest country in the world.”

“Yeah, I did, but it’s on its way out. You want to be on Tumblr. You can do so much more with it.”

“But our audience is in their 40’s. Isn’t that a tool more popular with Gen Y right now?”

“It’s OK. They’ll come around to it.”

Sure. But they’re not all there right now. So it’s more sensible to dip my toes in that water before jumping in with reckless abandon.

This may sound like you shouldn’t be flexible, but I’m actually championing for greater mobility.

Far before this thing called the Internet and social media came along, advertising agencies who had intelligent planners knew that their audience probably watched TV, listened to the radio and read certain magazines. They didn’t tell companies to put 100% of their marketing budgets in one medium.

We shouldn’t be telling people that now.

What I’m hearing is the equivalent of someone not only telling a marketer to put all their money in TV, but all their money in one channel like ABC. That doesn’t sound like good advice, right?

Well, telling a brand to go “all in” on one social media channel is probably along the same lines of competence.

We should be telling people to diversify and plan based on what we have gathered about the way their audience has, is and will behave. If social media is a component of their brand strategy – which it is – we should be treating it as such by diversifying our percentages of time spent on various channels rather than flipping off the light switch while people are still in the room talking.

I’m not suggesting that you should spend time on a dying channel or a channel that’s not reflective of your audience. That would be silly. What I am suggesting is that you should add social media channels rather than burn bridges. We can still be pioneers and sherpas of social media while being true to how our brand’s followers are living today. Then, if and when it appears that either the channel is on its way down for the count or that your audience is steadily trickling away from that channel, you make a move to change your commitment to it. From “primary” to “secondary” to “non-existent” if you have to.

So it’s OK to suggest when appropriate that we should take a hard look at spending time on a new channel because that’s where we believe based on research and conversations that this is where our audience will be headed. We’d be doing a disservice not to communicate this.

It’s just that when you build up a following on any medium, it’s something that’s not only taken time on your part but is a serious investment made on the people who have chosen to follow you that should never be taken for granted.

Sometimes I wonder if brands and gurus remember that before they torch the old place.

Your Comment turned into an E-book and now it’s a full-on Buzzkill

Hanging out in enough discussion forums, from LinkedIn to the AdAge Small Agency Diary blog/forum, I enjoy the generally good discourse that takes place between people. Opposing views can be great for the conversation. But what I can’t stand is when someone takes over the discussion with what can be only described as the equivalent of a filibuster.

I’m talking about the dreaded Comment From Hell.

You know what I’m talking about. The CFH is not a few paragraphs. It’s a 10-paragraph-or-more “look at how intelligent I am compared to everyone else here” comment. And it’s like tossing a grenade into the room. I’m exhausted trying to read the point, whether it’s good or not. Recently in LinkedIn, I had to power my way through a guy’s lengthy diatribe over why he wasn’t convinced on the power of social media. He didn’t think he’d seen enough proof that it worked.

Great. I respect your viewpoint. I don’t agree with it, but I respect it. But when your Comment is that long, there are a few things you should ask yourself.

1) Is this my blog? My website? My Facebook page?
No. You’re a welcome invited guest into a conversation with others. You’re in someone else’s “house.” If you want to deliver a speech, go deliver one. Elsewhere. If you want to have a conversation, have one that doesn’t consist to grandstanding and shameless self-promotion. Show you care about what other people have to say other than the voice in your own head.

2) Is there another place I could be posting this opinion?
Yes. Your blog, your website, your Facebook page. Just for starters. Even there, you should be inviting commentary back. Which I do here, by the way. Nobody is telling you not to share your thoughts. But could you apply that energy to a place where it is better suited?

3)  Is it taking me longer than 4-5 minutes to make my point in the Comment area?
That’s right. Time yourself. How long is it taking you to get the words out? I can recall writing an radio spot for my boss with entirely too much copy – no wonder his response back to me was, “This screenplay sounds great, but what I’d really like is a 30 second spot.” You can write something impactful and compelling in fewer words. I guarantee it.

4) Do people have to scroll down very far to read my comment?
Let me be very clear. When I see an ocean of words associated with one person compared to everyone else who can generally make comments in 2-3 paragraphs or less, my first thought is: Angry? Frustrated? Egomaniac? Not interested in having a real conversation in a place where conversations are supposed to occur?

Of course, maybe this isn’t you at all. But think about the impression and effect you have on the rest of the discussion.

So what to do to be a Conversationalist and not a Buzzkill via a comment manifesto?

Simple. Imagine yourself at a party where you join an ongoing conversation. Are you going to listen first? Hopefully. Are you going to enjoy the conversation more if there’s a bunch of give-and-take? Probably.

Or are you going to just butt in, interrupt everyone and start talking about what happened to you today on the way to work, regardless of whatever else the rest of the group was talking about before you got there?

Unless it was a laugh-riot, they’re probably going to look at you funny with an expression that says, “Who invited this guy?”

Embrace the dialogue in these groups and the genuine opportunity to build relationships by self-editing. If you want to promote the heck out of yourself that badly, provide a link at the end and if you’re at all interesting, we’ll go there. If you’ve bored us to tears, we won’t.

I see I’m approaching a word count that would be totally unsuitable for a Comment Area. But not bad for a Blog. So I’ll wrap it up here.

Comments welcome. Seriously.