Ideas Are The Real Currency

I came across this line in a Tim Williams article today and thought it was worth sharing. "In a world where many of the most powerful media have a cost of $0, ideas are the real currency of marketing, not money."

For the full article on the 15 Risks Agencies Can't Afford Not to Take go to: http://ow.ly/F1iz

The (Not So) Secret Ingredient

Without a doubt healthy relationships are key to a successful business but quite often we overlook what fuels these relationships. I believe the (not so) secret ingredient is quality ideas. Quality ideas that exceed expectations and stretch the minds of both client and creator keeps everyone inspired, opens a dialogue and ultimately strengthens the relationship. Believing that we are exclusively in a people business can lead to a relationship without a lot of substance. In my experience great ideas lead to strong, long-lasting healthy relationships. Not the other way around.

Creatively Speaking

Creativity Magazine is a print publication that I still read religiously because it has an interesting mix of voices talking about the creative industry. I particularly enjoy this expert from David Nobay's POV article:

"SUITS 1: CREATIVES 0

Admittedly, you'd have to be profoundly medicated to ignore the general state of the world's finances right now — but, well, we're creative people aren't we? Surely, we are precisely in the business of thinking our way out of excruciating tight corners? Faced with a life of potentially nothing, isn't it up to us to create something? Not a fictitious valuation, or a shady shelf company, but rather something tangible.. Something of worth. Christ, perhaps, even something of great beauty?

Rather than talk ourselves into a dark hole, what if we viewed the current shitstorm as a catalyst to a new, governing class system? Not the Working Class, the Upper Class, or even the Emerging-Technology Class. THE CREATIVE CLASS (That's right; us). More specifically; a class diametrically opposed to The Uncreative, Intangible, Unimaginative Class that has shaped society and fucked up our ideas for far too long."

He also goes onto say that "There are too many of us, crammed into an ever-decreasing space." It's a breath of fresh air to hear someone speak so frankly.

There's some other antidotes that I wanted to capture before my issue gets lost or I throw too many things on top of it and forget.

• The most important thing I have learned about leadership is to jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.

- Tony Davidson of Widen + Kennedy London

• Because it's (the internet) is the most populated universal modern environment, and it's where the newest languages and rules of communication are evolving and being created from scratch.

- Andrew Keller from Crispin Porter + Bogusky

• We learned with "Truth" that we could affect social change. And so we applied that to MINI with the thought that we could change culture to embrace a product rather and change a product to mirror culture.

- Andrew Keller from CP + B

• Almost everything I know I learned from Kiss and the Catholic Church.

- Andrew Keller from CP + B

• The biggest challenge right now is not the economy, it's relevancy.

- Linus Karlsson & Paul Malmstrom of Mother NY

For more info on Creativity go to: creativity-online.com

Serious Play

Paula Scher's talk at TED sets the groundwork for developing innovative design solutions through serious play (and being completely unqualified).

Green Garbage

A great idea from BigBelly Solar. Philadelphia has installed several of these on their city streets. Below is the press release from BigBelly. 

BigBelly is the world's only solar-powered cordless compaction system. It uses the sun's energy to automatically compact trash at the point of disposal, dramatically increasing capacity by 5 times within the same footprint as ordinary receptacles. Increased capacity reduces collection trips and can cut related fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. The enclosed design keeps pests out and litter in. Safe and easy to use, the BigBelly has proven successful in urban streets, parks, colleges, arenas - and in all weather conditions.

Art & Copy

As much as I enjoy the drama of advertising in Mad Men, I'm glad there's an authentic film about creativity (and advertising) being released soon. "I believe creativity can solve anything" is all I needed to hear to get me into the theatre. 

ART & COPY trailer from Baldwin& on Vimeo.

The Printed Blog

The Printed Blog is having a tagline contest. Here are the rules pulled from their Facebook page:

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We want you, our readers and online community, to come up with the new tagline for The Printed Blog. Then we will narrow them down and let you vote on your favorite. The future of TPB tagline is now in your hands!

As a little incentive to get those creative juices flowing we are offering up a brand new Nintendo Wii to our winner. Your tag line will appear in the March 3rd issue of The Printed Blog (along with credit).

How to enter:

* You can have three tagline entries. Only three, so make them good! 

* Make sure to comment with your taglines by Thursday, February 19th at 11:59PM. The following day we will pick finalists and put up a poll.

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Here are my entries:

1) Today's Journalism In Your Hands.

2) people+pixels+print

3) New Media. New Ideas. New Edition.

Flame-Broiled Engineering

The insight into social networking that Burger King uncovered is so simple I can't believe it was overlooked for so long. The Whopper Sacrifice asks "what are your Facebook friends really worth?" Pure genius. BK completely flipped the Facebook value proposition on it's head by rewarding users that sacrificed 10 of their "Facebook friends" for a free Whopper through a viral application. More than 230,000 friends were removed by 82,000 users during the very short promotion. 

Due to a few technical issues around privacy the promotion was pulled but I give BK (and CP+B) a lot of credit for producing an idea like this.  

The Lake Effect

Lake effect snow has always been an interesting phenomenon to me because it's a lot like creative ideation. With the right conditions you can accumulate a lot of material. In average conditions you net average results.

Beyond The Bumper Sticker

Politics aside, Barack Obama's presidential campaign was one of the finest integrated marketing efforts I've ever seen. Of course the message and the man are core factors to the campaigns success. But the brand discipline has created a powerful framework for how people connected with the message and the man. Ultimately this branded connection is greater than the sum of its (branding) parts and inspired change.

Here are some of the basic elements of the framework that helped develop a simple and compelling story about Obama.

The Message: Obama's clear and compelling statements outlined what he stands for and how he would deliver it. "Change we can believe in" became the brand promise and allowed the audience to connect to his vision of who we could become. In short the brand essence: transformational.

The Brand Personality: Obama's message of change harmonized across both the intellectual and emotional sides of the brand. The intellectual side appeared authentic, thoughtful and progressive. Emotionally he connected with an approachable, open-mindedand and an empowering tone.

The Brand Design: From the consistent use of the American inspired Gotham typography to the gracefulness of the "O" logo, each of these elements helped shape reinforced his message with a consistent visual voice. The design did more than just look nice in a news clip, it demonstrated a level of control that you don't often find in even high-end consumer brands.

The Brand Connection: The campaign website it truly the experience engine of the campaign. From a design perspective it presents the candidate and the messaging in a clean, smooth and elegant fashion. Of course the content is relevant and dynamic, and because it was updated daily (and sometimes hourly) it opened the door for a "real time conversation" of sorts between the candidate and the audience. Not only was this a chance for the campaign to make meaningful connections, it allowed the audience to share what they felt was relevant, the way they wanted to share and consume it.

Opening The Brand: Taking the website experience a step further with a solid brand framework as its foundation, the Obama brand to become an open brand experience. Being an open brand didn't mean giving up control of the message, rather it allowed people to participate with the campaign on their terms. Of course there were blogs, video feeds and real time feedback but there was a sense that this campaign was be co-created with the community. People were interacting and sharing with perfect strangers over the internet through social networking. Micro-communities were springing up all over the internet and created a momentum that took on a life all of its own and became difficult to blunt let alone stop.

Obamamania Goes Viral: This campaign took on a life of it's own through associations wanting to connect to Obama and what the brand stood for. Everything from the will.i.am mash up to inspired citizens creating videos, art and music began to circulate online. You could see tangible evidence of the bottom up model creating content and embracing the message. This wasn't a creation of the media. It was an authentic and it also helped to convert passive online viewers into active (financial) contributors to the campaign.

The Obamamania experience came to a crescendo on November 4th with the celebration in Chicago's Grant Park. Not only did the brand evangelists come out by the tens of thousands but the man, the message and design framework came full circle once again as the echo of "Yes we can" was heard around the world.

I'm certain that there will be dozens of books written in the months to come about how the campaign leveraged marketing principals to reach its goals that will be much more thorough than my entry. But there are a few additional points worth mentioning:

1) The design framework that shaped the open brand campaign approach brought a level of inclusion and intimacy that you don't often find in brand let along political campaigns.

2) An obvious but critical element to the success of this campaign (or any brand) is it was easy to donate (or make a purchase) online. There was also an instant follow up confirming and thanking the individual for contributing. These were design and communication elements that were planned well in advance that gave the user a level of comfort and sense of forethought.

3) People love brands for the experience they deliver not just the product specifications. You'll never see technical specs in a iPod commercial because nobody really cares. Much like a high-end brand Obama was able to project and reinforce the essence of his brand himself without getting pulled down into the marketing weeds. He left the policy specification to other tactical channels and was able to build equity into his core message where his competition couldn't compete.

4) This campaign was less of a political machine and more of a media organization. Control of communication is critical across the organization as well as to the audience. Design can play a significant role in optimizing the message as well as the presentation of the message.

5) Brand design is more art than formula. If there's one thing that was mastered by the Obama campaign it was creating a balance between structure and flexibility.

The bottom line is that building a brand framework that leads to a self sustaining community looks less like marketing or design and more like customer relationship management. It takes the combined effort of different disciplines to bring life into something that has an extreme level of control. It's not a campaign you can launch and let the media buy do the rest of the work. However, if you are fortunate enough to have an audience that wants to connect, it's something worth developing.

Art and Advertising

Art can meet personal objectives. Advertising has to meet business objectives. Can't we all just get along?

This months issue of Creativity recognizes and celebrates the artistic side of the industry. I posted this to remind myself that "art and commerce need each other" for a healthy future and one can inspire the other.

Aurora Art Walk

After a long week it was a pleasant surprise to see Downtown Aurora's streets full of life on a Friday night. Despite the rain Aurora's Art Walk was in full swing. This was first opportunity I've had to view the galleries and other creative venues since I've moved downtown. I was really impressed with the John Stanicek pieces at the Blues Alley Art Gallery and I'm regretting not taking any photos to post.

The other pleasant surprise was the Back Third Audio recording studio. I've walked by this building almost everyday on my way to the train and I wasn't even sure if was open for business. I'm glad to report that Aurora does infact have a music scene and Back Third is in the middle of it. When I arrived Rebel Rouser was in the middle of a set that sounded great. The Back Third space was really cozy and it was great to see a fully functioning creative studio in the heart of Downtown Aurora.

For more info visit these sites:

www.auroraartwalk.com
www.backthird.com
www.myspace.com/rebelrouserr

Are You Walking in the Rain?

When I arrived at the name Updside-Down-Umbrella for this blog I thought it was a unique enough to standout on the web. I was wrong. It seems as if it's getting harder and harder to come up with an original title for just about anything these days. All you have to do is Google a name or an idea and chances are someone else has thought of it or is using it already. In the case of Upside Down Umbrella there's a UK band who go by the same name. The good news is they have some very cool electronic tracks thick of ambient rhythms and textures. It's great music to blog to.

You can listen to their tracks here:
http://www.myspace.com/upsidedownumbrella

It's not just your idea anymore.

We all have great ideas but bringing them to life so that they are fully formed and can live beyond the printed page is becoming an art in it of itself. The function(s) of planning, development and production expertise has become an upstream necessity for agencies that traditionally haven't placed a premium on these roles. The August issue of CREATIVITY does a great job of crystallizing one of the bigger challenges of today's shops by stating "...the issue of determining where an idea stops and where it execution begins and who are the creators and who are the producers goes far beyond award show credit. It speaks to significant changes in media, creativity and technology and the way in which those things combine to make new kinds of ad experiences."

Creativity is still king but without in-house (or seamless partnerships with) development teams, production planning and innovative management, clients won't have the security blanket to move forward with the biggest and best ideas. 

Going Backwards To Move Forward

Yes, we all know that The Diamond Dave show is worn out. Eddie at times seems to be choreographed trying to recapture some of the stage energy from the early 80's. It's not a pretty thing to look at a couple of men in their 50's singing "Hot for Teacher" but if you focus on Eddie's guitar playing he sounds reborn. Hopefully, after this tour there will be some new music that will take advantage of Eddie's refined style, hard work and new perspective on life. Right now he's just having a little fun (that costing us a $150 a ticket) and we're loving it. 

Tag you're it.

TagCrowd (tagcrowd.com) is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud or text cloud.

Today, text clouds are primarily used for navigation and visualization on Web 2.0 sites that employ user-generated metadata (tags) as a categorization scheme. One of my favorite examples is on charlierose.com.

Here's the TagCrowd for  http://upside-down-umbrella.blogspot.com

 

ads bags believe beware boise brand business carbon change chicago com comments commodity creative design directory don eddie firstflavor footprint going green happiness idea innovator labels magazine marketing mouth paper patrick people per plastic pm posted print rate really reducing seems starbucks stinson technology think throw water welch www year

created at TagCrowd.com

Get A Sack

The relatively small retailer Whole Foods has made a big influence in the grocery store business by getting rid of it's plastic bags. Proving once again you don't have to be the biggest to come up with the best idea on the block. (Not to mention that this has sparked an entire series of very cool reusable designer bags).

Just keep creating.

I've mentioned in previous entries that I've always been inspired by musicians because sometimes it takes so incredibly long to see their ideas come to life. Here's another artist that hasn't quit. Edgars keeps his music moving ahead and it's sounding better than ever. You can check out the latest at: http://www.planebandsite.com

Innovative Leap

The company I work for (Stinson Brand Innovation, Inc.) used the extra calendar day this year as an opportunity for the entire company to get in the same room and cover the walls with tactical ideas that would benefit our clients brands.

From my perspective the most innovative ideas that were presented were operational ideas that would allow us to streamline communications with our clients. There is so much potential with all of these new tools (Adobe Connect, WebEx and Creative Manager Pro to name a few) that clients and agencies will really start integrating teams on a whole other level. Not only will these tools transform the way we work they will most likely transform entire organizations.

Just as technology propelled certain organizations through the Industrial Revolution, these new tools will propel marketing organizations through the digital revolution.

For Those About to Rock We Salute You.

Some days it is really hard to get anything creative accomplished. That's when I turn to really loud music. Thank goodness my friends are musicians because they have plenty of volume to go around. 

Over the last 15 years or so I've been watching my friends take the stage at various Chicago venues. It's been exciting to witness the eveloution of these artists and I am amazed by their drive. On occasion we'll have some deep conversations about why they keep doing this and what keeps them going. With all of the egos, empty beer bottles, heart aches over women and other bad habits it's amazing most bands stay together at all. At the end of our conversations we always end up in the same place, "it's about the music". That's what I love about the music culture because it's the one thing everyone can agree on. 

Creativity, whether you are humming a song or drawing tree has one fundamental rule. If the work connects with you it connects and you know it. And if the work doesn't then it doesn't. It's pretty simple.

It's about the work. Because the work is all that matters.