New terms in marketing...
I recently sat through a 12-minute video interview with Crispin Porter’s Alex Bogusky on BusinessWeek’s web site. (View it here.) For the most part it’s fairly boring, kind of staid and lacking any of Bogusky’s usual energy and strong opinions. But as it’s running, I’m thinking as I’m listening, and I jotted down four phrases that overlap, connect or characterize his ideas and my own.
1. “Brand Advocacy” - Actually the interviewer, David Kiley of BW, used this term, but it’s a good description of the relationship we try to have with our customers. We’re not their partners. That word, “partner,” is used too much - and too loosely - by too many people. Yet we care more, we’re more emotionally invested and involved than merely a “vendor.”
Our best thinking and our best work come when we straddle the roles of “marketer” and “consumer.” We want to sell the product or service, but we insist on doing it honorably, as if we were convincing our-very-own-selves to buy it. This is why we talk so much about “brand experience” and “customer relationships”...those kinds of things. It’s real, and we try to live it.
2. “Media Agnostic” - Another term Kiley used to describe CP+B’s approach, and it’s wonderful, especially since so many “advertising agencies” (there remain a few thousand of them) still worship at the altar of the TV spot. “Communicating” is what we do, not “advertising,” and the most effective of us think both inside and outside the normal message delivery channels. No, we’re not media atheists; rather, as agnostics we approach media as though we just don’t know what’s best ... yet.
3. “Follow the ideas; others will follow the money” - I kind of came up with this one on my own as I listened to Bogusky talk about how at most client companies management’s scrutiny is usually where the big dollars go: the TV spots, the national ad buys, that sort of thing. But smart creative people - brand advocates - should track and follow ideas. Think of it this way, he said: this year more people will view the tray liners in Burger King restaurants than the will view the next two Super Bowls. (“Media agnostic”) indeed. This is what allowed CP+B to create the “Subservient Chicken.” The cost was $50k. Do you think that project had a chance had it been pegged at $5 million? even $500 thousand!?
4. “No yelling” - Maybe my favorite. For years I’ve told our clients and employees alike: stay cool. I’ve promised I’d never ask a Burrisite to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Bogusky says this is the key way they decide whether to work - or stay - with a client ... or not. It’s a measure of human courtesy. And it’s right on.
Not a bad package of value for a meaningful business relationship. Next time you’re looking for someone to advocate - not just promote - your brand, someone who has no media biases (except that there should be none), someone who puts the idea first and stays cool under pressure and fire, give me a call.
Thursday, May 25, 2006