Lessons Learned by an Intern

My summer here at Kilgannon as an intern has given me quite an education.  I’ve learned a lot about the advertising world, the way a business functions, communication, and what I want to do with my life.  Many of these lessons came quickly, like when my boss tried to convince me that a ‘wrap’ party involved togas (this was a lesson in e-mail sarcasm), others took time.  So, just in case you were dying to know what I found out this summer, here is a quick summary.

1- There needs to be a focus

Everything you do should have a point, and it should get there fast.

2- Keep good company

For a team to work well together the people in it need to be comfortable with each other.  Make an effort to get to know your coworkers, and meetings will be less awkward.

3- Plan for the future

Time moves fast.  Be forward thinking and plan for the changes you see coming.

4- Listen to people

Be attentive and be focused.  If you aren’t, you will miss something important.

5- Ask Questions

If you don’t know, ask!  It’s better to admit ignorance before the fact, than to apologize for it after.

6- Sugar vs. Vinegar

Sugar wins, duh.  Being nice makes everyone’s day easier – including yours.

7- Like what you do

This is the most important; if you hate your job, you won’t ever be good at it.  It would be wasteful to spend 40+ hours a week on something that makes you want to cry.

So there it is, what I learned this summer.  It is certainly not complete yet, but these are the lessons I will take with me when I start real life after I graduate next spring.  So thanks, Kilgannon, for teaching me the ropes; it really was a lot of fun.

— Lee Anne Murphy, Intern

Keeping Score

New York battled Chicago Sunday afternoon in a game for the ages.  There was an overflow of raving fans in the stadium and a worldwide television audience.  They played many hard-hitting minutes into overtime.

Kansas tipped against Kentucky in last week’s finals in front of students, alumni and fans from around the country.  Both teams played a great game to the final buzzer.

Jimmy and Timmy lined up at the start line on a playground packed with kids.  Both sprinted the distance all the way through the finish line and were met with a cacophony of cheers.

So, what’s missing from the New York/Chicago game?  How about the Kansas/Kentucky tilt?  And Jimmy and Timmy’s run against one another to schoolyard fame?

Who won and what was the score?!?  How much further would you read any of the above without those details, as well as supporting information?  What were the teams even playing?

The same is the case for marketing (or any other business, for that matter).  Why spend the time and money if you’re not going to evaluate the work by keeping score?  A scorecard should be an integral part of each and every campaign or project, and CMOs around the world are now making these analytics a priority.

After all, without details of the outcome, how do you know who won?

— Gary Sayers, V.P. Account Director

B2B: “Boring 2 Brash”

What is B2B advertising notorious for?  Print advertising and trade shows.  Lots of information, uncreative messaging, unimaginative layouts, and rational appeals.  Just plain boring, boring, boring.  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s everything that consumer-facing advertising is not.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Case in point:

Manheim is the world’s largest provider of vehicle remarketing services.  They have set the standard for establishing a reliable environment for buyi ng and selling vehicles at auctions and online.  Their primary target: car dealers.  Like other companies, Manheim has traditionally reached car dealers via trade shows and trade pubs.

Guess what?  Times have changed.  Customers in the digital age expect dynamic and engaging communications, whether that target is a college student, a soccer mom, or a car dealer.  Not surprisingly, eMarketer predicts a very strong resurgence in online media.  Manheim is on top of this trend and has begun to shift the way they deliver their message.

Kilgannon developed a campaign for Manheim built around a brand video and interactive Web site.

The Web site provides dealers the opportunity to engage the brand: see and hear individual buyer and seller videos, download white papers, access other valuable resources, view instructional videos, check out upcoming events, vote in a dealer survey, and, of course, access Manheim’s online transactional tools.  Short versions of the videos will also run in news pre-roll and online flash banners across a variety of Web sites, including www.autonews.com, www.automotivedigest.com, www.autoremarketing.com.  Additional promotional elements, such as e-blasts, in-lane auction elements, and print, extend the presence and also drive dealers to the Web site.

But the new world of B2B marketing doesn’t stop there.  It must also be accountable.  Kilgannon will measure the effectiveness of the campaign via a Scorecard focused on a wide range of perceptual and engagement metrics, from readership studies and customized brand research to site traffic and video views.

If you’re still thinking that B2B is boring, be brash and think again.

— Gary Sayers, VP, Account Director

It’s the Idea, Stupid.

For the first 70 years of the twentieth century, agencies were paid based on how much media they bought for clients. This imploded after the growth of television drove the cost of media (and consequently the amount they paid agencies) through the roof. So for the next 30 years, agencies got paid based on how many hours of service they gave their clients. This imploded after client-side consultants and procurement folks practically drove agencies out of business by process-engineering the costs down to nothing.

Problem with all this is that it has nothing to do with the core offering of an agency. What is that – Media? Not anymore. Services? Not really. Most clients hire agencies because they want help persuading prospective customers to buy more of their stuff. That generally requires a bright idea that gets effectively communicated to those prospective customers. So, do clients pay agencies based on how bright the idea is? Or how effectively it reaches the customer? Or if it helps sell more stuff? Nope.

A media transaction is a market-determined price, so it’s easy to value. An hour of time is easily measured by a clock. But, how is the brightness of an idea measured, or the effectiveness of communication? These are really fuzzy, non-touchable things to measure. In the land of lawyers they’re called “intellectual property,” and payments for them are generally determined through royalties and licenses.

Underlying the license and royalty are the basic concepts of “Use” and “Value.” If intellectual property has value, it probably is going to be used a bunch. For example, Microsoft Office creates a lot of value to a personal computer. I am using it now to write and post this blog. Our enterprise decided to use it a bunch by loading a version on every computer in the agency.  Even though the disc it came on only cost a few cents, we paid a couple hundred bucks for each license on each computer. The program had value; we used it a bunch. We paid Microsoft accordingly. Our procurement people don’t pay Microsoft based on how many hours their programmers spent developing it, or on how many bytes of media the program occupied on the disc. A similar use and value license is employed in the music, publishing, or art world. Back here in advertising, though, we are a little slow on the uptake.

Despite the difficulty of measurement, agencies and clients need to move to a compensation model tied to “value and use.” It more closely links to what we do and what clients want from us. Most every idea gets embodied into some kind of material (an ad, a banner, content, SWAG, etc.). Most of these materials get used (tv, radio, internet, events). Generally speaking, the better the idea the more it gets used.

The payment system should deliver money to the agency based on the idea’s use and the value it creates, even if the client is still using the material and the Agency is not providing services. Why? Because the idea is still producing value to that client and they are using it. In a Darwinian Adam Smith-type system, this would ultimately lead to good ideas and the agencies that produce them flourishing, while bad ideas and their agencies go the way of the Edsel. Isn’t that the most efficient market mechanism?

At our agency, we have spent a long decade trying to transform our compensation systems to ones based on use and value. In the long run, it’s the only win-win for us and our clients. It involves us identifying ideas, tracking their use, and putting skin in the game based on whether they produce value or not for our clients. Last year 25 percent of our revenue came from intellectual property payments. The AAAA’s met in California last week to discuss “transforming” our industry. Perhaps the only thing that needs to be transformed is how we get paid. It’s the idea, Stupid.

— Mike Reineck, Principal

A Holiday Message from KilgannonSays

I was sharing a rant type of blog with one of my business partners. His reaction – unspoken at first – then:

“I don’t know – it’s good, but it seems a bit, umm…you know… umm…”

“Angry?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe there’s another way to frame it.”

“But you admit it’s true,” I said. “Right?”

“Yes, maybe just change the first paragraph – then you won’t alienate anyone.”

The next morning, our blog editor said, “I’m loading in your new blog.”

“Don’t!” I said. “I’m editing it a bit – I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

So, I sat down to edit it. I read it again and noticed that it lost its edginess. It lost its zeal and, well, anger. Now I had mush. Who wants to read mush? Not me.

Therefore, I’ll make the point I was trying to make in the original writing. Here you go:

I love my staff. They put up with a lot – from each other, from suppliers, from clients. In this very difficult year, they have soldiered through and complained very little. Some have endured salary rollbacks, limited training and seminar opportunities, and new kinds of pressure to build the business back to the glory days of 2008 (yes, just last year).

Some of our clients are not exactly nice to them (to me, it verges on abusiveness, but that’s all I’ll say about that). Others are extremely grateful for the work we do and take the time to share that with us. Those are the types of clients you want to break your back for – it’s a mutual admiration society.

But it’s all the Kilgies who I’m most grateful for, and I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank them. They are the best, and I’m glad I’m going into 2010 with them.

Happy holidays, Kilgies!

Simplification

It’s getting to be a lot like the holidays. That means festivities, gift-giving, yummy food and renovating your corporate brand. Wheeeeee!

What? Renovating your brand isn’t on your list?

Well, it ought to be.

Brands must evolve over time or risk all kinds of baaadddd things happening. Corporate logos and brand architecture that have grown stagnant are impacting your company in ways that might surprise you.

Maybe the company acquired another and a bit of the acquired company’s logo was blended into yours as a gesture of unity. It could have been as “innocent” as a color change. Or maybe your company has a long heritage and is hanging onto a symbol designed in its distant past. Or your company suffers from the dreaded “mega-sub-brand,” a product or division that is bending attention toward it with the gravity of a black hole. Not even light makes it out of that mess.

Regardless, all that stagnation and inconsistency mean one thing—confusion in the marketplace. CONFUSION—confused customers, confused sales channels, confused employees, or worse, all three. Confusion = lower sales. That’s bad, right?

Worse, multiple logos can create strife within your organization. Executives protecting their division’s brand turf mean they aren’t focusing on supporting the most important thing—the one main brand. And what about the capital costs of different signage, stationery, and the like. Or the personal embarrassment of being in a large sales meeting when all your various division directors and VPs of this and that whip out their business cards and the client wonders aloud why they all have different logos on them. Ouch!

Trust me, I’ve heard verbatims just like those from companies. Fortunately, there is a simple solution. Call in the professionals (What? You thought I was going to say do-it-yourself?). A firm that will review your company’s brand architecture; interview stakeholders (executives, sales teams, channel partners, clients, ex-clients, heck, the facilities maintenance guy if they need to); do a full in-depth brand audit of all materials; provide a full assessment of the need, strategic guidance, a roadmap, a continuum of possible solutions, and a plan for rollout along with the ability to implement the rollout. If the firm your company is reviewing doesn’t do all those things, call them up and cancel any future meetings. This isn’t the “it’s just a logo, I know a guy, who knows a guy who once went to art school” kind of thing. We’re talking about the single most recognized part of your company.

The solution may be only minor renovation or it may be a total overhaul. It’s even possible that what the company thinks is the answer isn’t even the question. Corporate politics being what it is, rarely will executive management truly hear the unvarnished truth—truth that a great planner can get out of a one-on-one interview. Truth that in some of our clients’ cases have led to an answer that was there all along, but had never been given any room to grow. (And that is why you can’t DIY this stuff).

So, in summary, if your business card has a bunch of logos on it, put it down, and call for professional help to get your company on the way to lowering its brand confusion.

With our guidance, New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a venerable company in upstate New York, was able to evolve from three brand logos into one and transition from a tongue twister of a name into a much friendlier acronym.

Ad Agency Sleepers

Unless you’ve been living in a cave this Millennium, you’ve heard of fantasy football. While you may not play it, appreciate it, or understand all the rules, you know it exists. An FX television show, The League, has even been created to mock this season-long event that has become a part of popculture.

There are a variety of fantasy football leagues, but the premise is simple: pick NFL football players at various positions to make up your fantasy team. Your chosen players’ performance in real life is how your fantasy team performs. If your fantasy team scores more than your opponent’s fantasy team, you win. Boiling it down, the team with the most wins, wins the league.

Most everyone who plays fantasy football knows who to draft. They are the superstars. You know who I’m talking about: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, etc. However, the fantasy teams that win may have a superstar, but many also have a “sleeper” or two. A sleeper is a lesser-known NFL player a participant correctly predicts to have a breakout season. The whole point of selecting a sleeper is to give owners a competitive edge with lesser-known players and a better return on investment. Sleepers are a good buy and are the difference makers in any fantasy league.

So, how do fantasy football sleepers relate to advertising, and why should you care? Well, sleepers can be found among advertising agencies, as well. You likely have a basic knowledge of the well-known agencies. You know who they are and their characteristics. They are entrenched in traditional media. They are group owned. They take a long time to get things done, and they bill at really expensive rates. And, you generally get what you pay for, which is good work.  Return on investment: even…at best.

The sleeper agency is the antithesis of the traditional agency mentioned above. It is an agency that may excel in one particular area that fits your category and business model exactly, as opposed to being something for everyone. It is an agency you may not have heard of, but you’ve found by taking your time to research and learn what each agency does well. It may be an agency like Kilgannon that establishes specific objectives and metrics, with a scorecard evaluation, for each campaign or project. Or, it could be an agency that specializes specifically on promotions and driving product trial. By taking the time to learn more about each agency’s strengths, you’ll be in a much better position. Return on investment: the sky’s the limit.

So next time you’ve got a project, challenge yourself. You don’t need to be selecting a new AOR. Do a little research, try out an agency on a project basis, and see if you can discover a sleeper agency to get the competitive edge and return on investment that you need in today’s dog-eat-dog world.

Don’t believe everything you think.

It’s a good life philosophy. But it also rings very true in the wonderful world of advertising and marketing communications.

It’s all too easy for marketers to drink their own Kool-Aid and serve up pablum. Some are so steeped in their own corporate culture that they fail to look at things from the market’s perspective. As agency folks charged with delivering campaigns and messaging that moves the needle for our clients, it’s our job to ask tough questions. Many times, it can be very difficult to get clients to take an honest look in the mirror.

This may come as a surprise to some, but advertising (and communications, in general) can’t fix everything. Sometimes, there are underlying operational, product development, or customer service challenges that must be addressed first — with as much gusto, passion, and urgency as directing an agency to come up with a killer campaign. Always, it’s critical to get honest about what value you’re delivering to your customers and prospects, how you’re delivering it, and whether it is truly meeting the market’s needs. There are just too many alternatives to whatever it is you are selling.

Keep the following question in mind when you start touting the merits of your brand: SO WHAT? Most times, that’s the first thing that pops into my mind when I see or hear any type of sales pitch. And it’s how the company answers that question that determines whether I will do business with them or not.

It’s just not enough these days to rest on the laurels of a storied brand. You have to be in touch with your audience’s needs and address what’s important to them. You have to fix what’s broken before you can effectively communicate how terrific you are. Or, if you can’t fix everything, be honest about who you are and what you can deliver, letting people know you’re working on the known issues. People appreciate honesty, not false promises or arrogance.

So go forth and ask yourself why you think what you think about your brand. Is it because you’ve been told to, you’ve always done it, or it’s in the company handbook? Or is it really true? Then get honest about your strengths and shortcomings with your agency partner. I promise, the work will be better. And your customers and prospects will respect your authenticity.

Ban the Strategic Buzzwords

We’ve all been there.  A meeting is called to discuss marketing strategy, and the result is a carefully crafted value proposition, brand promise or campaign strategy that is nothing more than a series of carefully connected buzzwords:

Our commitment to excellence provides exceptional value to our customers.

Our innovative product design and best-in-class sales team provide service and quality that exceed any customer’s need.

We are driven to provide the best customer service in the industry.

Trust and confidence built on a history of innovation.

Our people make the difference.

We do the right thing.

Who wouldn’t say they do the right thing?  What company doesn’t believe they are committed to excellence? How many organizations try to claim that their people are different and better than everyone else?   Are these referring to a bank, a car or a box of cereal?  These statements satisfy everyone but inspire no one.

To develop a more powerful marketing strategy, first understand what your customers truly want, and then articulate how you solve that problem or address that need better than anyone else.  If you ban the top 10 buzzwords from your strategy meetings, you are one step closer to a relevant and inspiring statement that will set you apart in the marketplace.

Here are my nominees for the top 10 marketing buzzwords.

Best-in-Class Commitment Customer-Focused Expertise Innovation Integrity People Quality Trust Value

What buzzwords are on your list?

Three techniques for using your customer’s voice to give you a competitive edge

With the products and services the agency supports, we often recommend bringing in the voice of the consumer to the conversation. It’s a gut check to ensure a client is really hearing what its customers are saying. While we spend time gathering the inside point of view from the client and their teams, there is no substitute for uncovering the true opinions and perceptions of the marketer’s customers, prospects and even its competition’s customers.

Are customers passionate about the brand? And why? Do they have negative feelings about the brand or a product? Have they had a good or bad experience recently? This is insight that can be used to bring in new customers, improve products and address misconceptions. Or even better, get your existing customers to buy more and tell their friends about the product.

Unfortunately, there are businesses that just don’t embrace this point of view. Sometimes, it’s not because they don’t value their customers’ and prospects’ opinions. More often, it has to do with corporate objectives and strategies that don’t necessarily line-up with outside points of view. And, in this economic environment, the importance of marketing communications falls to the bottom of the priority pile.

During these times, it’s getting even more difficult for a company with a deaf ear to succeed. Because no matter how much money they spend talking to the consumer, they will have never addressed what the consumer has asked for. And with consumers, using social media to talk about their experience, word will spread quickly if a brand doesn’t listen to its customers.

The good news is that it is easy to begin listening. Here are three ways you can start today.
1) Regularly conduct independent research and track your results. This is even more important in a tough economy.
2) Use social media tools to track opinion and reach out to consumers in real time.
3) Finally, make sure you are working with PR and marketing partners that will tell you the truth and help you effectively communicate it to your customers.

No matter what’s going on internally – and this recession has changed that even more – discovering the outside view of your product or service is critical to success.