Monthly Archives: July 2008
Originally published at Ad Age, Digital Next
Once upon a time, newspapers, TV and radio entered our lives. These wonderful innovations spawned yet another one – multichannel advertising. Then along came things like DVRs and everything digital, which spawned yet another invention, the backlash of traditional advertising. For the record, traditional advertising isn’t going away anytime soon, and despite the pronouncement of its death, it will live on – albeit in an evolved format. And it actually still works. I look at billboards on highways. How can you not?
But “tradigital” could be another story. Tradigital, in my opinion, means using traditional marketing methods in the digital space. For example, creating an advertising campaign and “extending it digitally” usually ends up as a checklist. Micro-site? Check. Online banners? Check. Social media? Check. Mobile? Check. But these days, I’m thinking digital people have even tougher challenges than our traditional cousins. And “tradigitalists” may have it toughest of all. Why? Because some of us on the digital side have become just as set in our ways as our traditional counterparts.
- Where’s the Experience Section of Your Website: Harley-Davidson is a Textbook Study in Customer Engagement
- How to Survive a Recession: Focusing On Customer Experiences to Retain Your Most Profitable Customers
- Strategies and Tactics for Successful Service Recovery
- The Future of Computer Applications: Help Me or Entertain Me
- iPhone: The New Personal Computer
- International Design Mag’s 2008 Annual Design Winners
- Measuring User Experience Performance
- Trend Watching: Innovation Avalanche
- What the F**k is Social Media?
Originally published at Ad Age, Digital Next
These days, I find myself in a unique position. I talk and people listen. Don’t get me wrong, I get challenged fairly regularly (thankfully), but for whatever reason, people are willing to hear me out. Sometimes I wonder why. But then I think about one of the stories I once told during a few of my earlier speaking engagements. In the movie “The Doctor,” William Hurt plays a smart and capable hospital physician with terrible bedside manners. Then his world gets turned upside down when he gets terribly sick. His story unfolds as he undertakes a journey as a patient, seeing and experiencing things from the other side of the bed. His whole perspective changes once he knows what it feels like to be sick; as his body heals, he contemplates his past actions. Needless to say, when Hurt’s character returns to full health and begins practicing again, he comes at it with the empathy that one can only have when you’ve experienced something for yourself.
The problem with marketing is that it often doesn’t allow marketers to go deep, to gain an intimate understanding of human behavior. We’re strapped for time, spread thin and torn between making our clients or bosses happy while trying to do what we think is right. We’ve got access to the latest trend reports, market segments, personas and metrics. We’re surrounded by smart, capable people who, like William Hurt’s character, know what they are doing. But there’s a question we need to ask ourselves. Are we making the time to walk in the shoes of the people we market to? Are we willing to swim in the deep end?
Originally published at Ad Age, Digital Next
Pop Quiz: What’s the first thing you do after reviewing the resume of a serious candidate? You Google them, of course. Brands and businesses of all kinds have been waking up to the reality that the way their companies show up on internet search results can define them more than any PR campaign.
Actually, the good PR campaigns factor in search results as a core strategy. But increasingly, the same goes for individuals. When we present ourselves to prospective employers or even enter new relationships, you can be sure the odds of getting “Googled” are pretty good. Throw in social networks and what you’ve got is an entirely new kind of profile — and it matters just as much as the polished version of yourself that you carefully craft on your CV.
While “gaming” search engines or representing yourself inaccurately in a social network is inadvisable, there are certain things you can do to help you custom-design your personal brand online in a way that is unique, memorable and positive. Here are a few things you should think about when building “Brand U.0.”
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Originally published on Advertising Age
To the Millennials reading this, here’s something you might want to save as a time capsule or something. I entered the workforce in January of 1995. My first job was as a graphic designer for Columbia House — the 10-CDs-for-99-cents people (that’s right, before CDs became drink coasters, you could order them through snail mail).
More important, I was the “tech savvy” one because I had a personal e-mail account via AOL and a dial-up modem before my new employer had even adopted e-mail at all. Can you believe that? I would leave the office after a full day only to come home and have no work e-mail to contend with. I only had personal e-mail and the occasional chat-room exchange. Personal e-mail and chat rooms were fun for me back then. Kind of like social networking now.
