I am writing you today to deliver some sad and unfortunate news. After 15 years in business, my wife Gretchen and I have made a decision to close our firm, Renaissance Creative.

Roxie Lute, PR Specialist

Who says internships don’t pay?! Raquel “Roxie” Lute is the perfect example of an intern who joins a company on a part-time basis, then proceeds to make themselves so valuable, the firm can’t afford to lose them upon graduation! After interning for 3 months prior to her graduation from the University of North Florida, Roxie accepted a full-time position as Public Relations Specialist at Renaissance Creative. Nice work, Roxie! Just the way your professors drew it up.

Roxie earned her Bachelor of Science in Communications at UNF, with concentration in Public Relations. A social-savvy digital native, Roxie brings youth, energy and an ever-flowing number of new ideas to the Renaissance team, not to mention a “roaming gnome” that seems to have to have begun randomly appearing in different areas of our offices the day Roxie moved in (No one knows why… No one asks why… We just inherently know to stay calm and not touch it, or look at it directly in the eyes.)

At UNF, Roxie was a strong contributor to the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), serving as Vice President. She also served as Account Executive for the University of North Florida’s student-run public relations firm, giving her the real-world skills and leadership qualities needed for her professional career. Roxie also brings practical experience from the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network and the Children’s Home Society of Florida. She is continuing to pursue her Masters in Business Administration at the University of North Florida, while helping with accounts like III Forks, Cantina Laredo and Nemours BrightStart! to name a few, here at Renaissance.

Stacey Steiner

Wow, there has been a lot happening here at Renaissance Creative over the past few months– new faces, new brands, new work… and trust us, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, once we started juggling, we silent on the blog… So much to say, so little time to share it all. Her’s what we’ve been up to.

In March, we bid a fond farewell to Social Media Strategist, Ben LaMothe. Ben moved over to Tampa with his girlfriend, Michelle. Love hurts (although Ben was feeling pretty good about this big step!) Ben secured a client-side gig with BayCare Health Systems where he’s currently running social media for multiple healthcare facilities. Ben was great to work with and excellent at his craft. We’ll miss him, but no worries- we can all keep up with him via his endless number of circles, groups, feeds, streams, posts and status updates! Thanks for your time at Renaissance Creative Ben, your hard work and friendship– and best of luck to you and Michelle in Tampa! (Don’t forget to check out the recently re-opened and re-designed Dali Museum. It’s awesome!)

Although we lost Ben, we were very excited to quickly persuade Stacey Steiner to join us as our new Social Media Director, one of our area’s top talents.

Stacey previously worked as Assistant Marketing Manager for SMG Jacksonville, where for over four years she coordinated marketing, public relations and social media efforts for events held at SMG-managed facilities including EverBank Field, the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center and the Jacksonville Equestrian Center. Stacey holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of North Florida.

Oh, and did we mention that she also happens to be the Co-founder and Director ofSocial Media Club Jacksonville?!

Most importantly, Stacey is a very cool, highly intelligent and client-focused with all the professional skills necessary to help businesses and brands achieve success through social media marketing including multimedia content creation, distribution and aggregation; online community development and management; and customer relationship management.

Welcome Stacey!

On Wed. March 9th from 5:30-8:30, bring your colleagues & meet us on the patio at III Forks for “Wind-Down Wednesday”, an evening of collaborative networking at III Forks in Tapestry Park.

Sponsored by us at Renaissance, and our new collaborative partner, leading web design and internet marketing company, Interchanges, the event aims to bring together professionals across Jacksonville for a night of networking and more.

Our client III Forks will serve up delicious hors d’oeuvres, plus $5 wine & martinis. As a special for the attendees, your first martini or glass of wine is on us!

Renaissance began a strategic partnership with Interchanges earlier this year. As a result of this partnership, both Renaissance’s and Interchanges’ clients have access to the expertise that each agency has available. Since Renaissance and Interchanges each have different specialisms, this partnership works very well.

From the Interchanges website:

Interchanges, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is made up of several highly skilled teams of Internet Marketing experts, each expert specializing in his or her respective field. We have search engine gurus, world- class programmers, paid search specialists, social media professionals, savvy copywriters, and award winning web designers/developers.

This event is a good opportunity for people to meet and network with us at Renaissance, the great people at Interchanges, and meet other collaborative business partners in the area.

We hope to see you there!

Last night I moderated a panel discussion at the University of North Florida called Strictly Social. The purpose of the event was to bring together professionals in Northeast Florida who use social media every day in their jobs, but who each do very different jobs.

By doing so, I hoped to bring together people with different enough backgrounds, and diverse enough expertise, to facilitate a quality conversation about a range of topics. Now that the event is over, I believe that I was successful.

I’d like to thank both UNF’s PRSSA chapter, and UNF, for both inviting me to speak, and for hosting the event. Without them, it would not have been nearly as successful!

Panelists who appeared on the panel were:

Jason Sadler, Founder of IWearYourShirt.com

Aliera Peterson, Social Media Manager at Dalton Agency

Lauren Teague, Fan Outreach and Social Media Manager at PGA TOUR

Jason Pratt, Public Affairs Consultant at Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

The panel tackled the following topics:

• What does the shifting age demographics within social media mean, both for individuals and for brands?
• What does a successful online community look like? How can one be built?
• The state of the “Check-In”. What is the long-term viability of this? In your view, is it here to stay? How will it evolve over the next few years?
• What role will niche/topic-specific social networks fulfill over the next few years?
• How will social media’s role in customer service change over the next few years?
• What is the future of of q&a sites in social, both for personal web use, and for brands?

Almost 50 people were in attendance for discussion, and lots of tweeting was happening. To see all that was said, follow the hash tag #strictlysocial on Twitter.

Here are some of the more interesting quotes/tweets from the evening:

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We’d again like to thank everyone who came out to the event last night!

Since this event went well, we hope to put together another one in the near future. When that happens, we will write about it here.

I’m very excited about this event, and have some hope that it could become a recurring event. I’ve been thinking about putting together an event like this for a little while. So when I was approached by two representatives from UNF’s chapter of PRSSA, I jumped at the chance.

The plan, initially, was that I would speak to the chapter members about social media. However, once I got to thinking about it, I saw how this event could potentially be something much bigger.

Here in North Florida, we have a considerable amount of talent and smarts relating to social media marketing and online communities. I know a lot of people who do this professionally, across numerous industries.

Knowing that, I decided to approach a few of those people about the idea of appearing on a panel discussion. Instead of having me up there talking, I would serve as a moderator for a discussion amongst a few other professionals who work in the industry locally.

Every person I approached about appearing said yes. Here’s the list of who will be appearing on the panel:

Who: Aliera Peterson

What: Social Media Manager

Where: Dalton Agency

Who: Jason Pratt

What: Public Affairs Consultant

Where: Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

Who: Jason Sadler

What: T-Shirt Wearer/Founder

Where: IWearYourShirt.com

Who: Lauren Teague

What: Social Media & Fan Outreach Coordinator

Where: PGA TOUR

The event is free to attend. If you’re interested in social media/online communities, this is a can’t-miss event!

Yesterday I spoke at the Creative Company conference in Five Points, which was organized by the advertising and marketing firm Wingard Creative.

My talk focused on the importance of a business or corporation creating an online community for its customers. I used examples from companies such as Sony, Starbucks, Target, Southwest Airlines and more, to illustrate my point.

I used examples of branded communities across different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, DailyMile, Last.FM, Foursquare and Goodreads.Each of these networks has a different function, but each has the capacity to host a branded online community.

After I was finished speaking, I realized that there were other platforms that exist that could also house a branded community, including Quora, LinkedIn, DailyBooth and Formspring.me.

Most of the questions that I was asked dealt with Facebook, because it’s the biggest platform with the most direct impact on a small business. But in my talk, I tried to broaden people’s horizons a bit by showing the audience members that other platforms exist; that social is going vertical very quickly, and users are taking notice.

I closed out my talk by emphasizing that online communities are not platforms meant for just selling. These are places where your customers come to connect with your company, to get information, and to be heard when they have a problem. That isn’t to say that you can’t market to them. But when you do, it must be transparent and clearly beneficial to the community.

Overall, Creative Company was a great event. I hope it comes back next year, and is even bigger.

The phrase “monkey see monkey do” is, on the most base level, about mimicry. When you were a kid, being seen as imitating someone was often met with ridicule. However in online communities, it’s an important part of what keeps things moving.

If you’re managing an online community, one of your goals is to create conversation and encourage interaction. If things get a little quiet, you step in and create a topic for your community members to discuss and react to.

When someone joins an online community, one of the first things they will do is determine what is happening. That’s the first impression, and the impulse reaction: Is something happening here? And if it is, how can I join in so that my contributions and posts don’t give away that I’m the “new” guy?

This is a good thing. If people come across your online community and instantly feel a bit of anxiety about how to best contribute, this means that they want to “fit in” and become an active part of the community.

The community manager’s job is to create the atmosphere where contributions are constantly happening. But it’s also important to instill some consistency. For example, make Monday’s be about photos, and Wednesdays, ask a question.

When someone new comes across your online community, ask yourself: Will they have a Monkey See, Monkey Do moment?

Photo credit: Kyrill Poole/Flickr

We’re very excited to begin working with George Frank Jewelry to help build buzz in social media around a truly awesome brand, and an incredibly talented local jeweler.

Owned and operated by  George Georgallis in Jacksonville Beach, George Frank Jewelry has become known locally for creating intricate and beautiful custom-made pieces, varying in size and shape.

Here’s what George has to say about his business:

George Frank Jewelry is a Family business, brothers who left the family retail environment to create a new experience. After learning how to operate a retail store, it was obvious that in-order to stay ahead it will be necessary to control all elements of the business. By mastering every aspect of the process, we have learned what it takes to ensure customer satisfaction. Today, we make sure our clients have the most freedom and luxurious options to choose from. So if you are ready to design that special ring for your bride or just add some sparkle to your favorite time piece, we are here for you. Representing the new generation of luxury jewelry.

Look for some great things to come in the near future from George. Be sure to become a fan on Facebook and visit his site!

Online: http://www.georgefrankjewelry.com

On Facebook:  http://www.Facebook.com/GeorgeFrankJewelry

Whenever you make something, the inclination is always to think in terms of the end result: I’m going to start building this, and be done with it on this day. Your entire process becomes built around a self-imposed deadline, that you’re trying to keep. If you don’t keep it, you will likely feel like you’ve failed somehow.

That’s called taking the long view. Seeing a project only in terms of the end result.

It’s an approach that works in a lot of ways. If you’re planning to run a marathon, then you have to take the long view so you can build your training around the singular goal.

But when it comes to building an online community, the long view can be deadly.

More recently the trend has been to see online communities as a numbers game: Gain X new members in Y period of time.

Or worse, offering up guarantees on final numbers for an online community. I’ve heard that a number of times, from agencies and individuals who work in the online community space. They will guarantee someone X number of community members. How they are able to say that with a straight face continues to baffle me.

When building a community online, the long view means you’re instantly impaired to the small things that need to happen to ensure your community stays alive and vibrant during the critical initial days and weeks of its creation.

In a posting today at his online community blog, FeverBee, online community consultant Richard Millington said the following about what it means to be a founder of an online community:

The founder will be starting most of the posts, initiating discussions and keeping the activity going. At this stage the founder needs to be persistent. S/he needs to start a discussion then individually message members to reply. They need some prodding before it becomes a habit.

By taking the long view, something like this is glazed over in favor of the bigger picture. Instead of thinking about how to get community members engaged and active, you’re thinking about how to inflate the total number of community members.

In my view, that’s a wrongheaded approach.

Instead of focusing on inflating the number of passive members of your community, focus that same energy on recruiting active members.

The community will be a lot smaller, but it will be a lot more useful for everyone involved.

Image credit: Lisa/Flickr

Two weeks ago I was a visiting lecturer at my alma mater, Central Michigan University. Over the course of three days, I spoke to about 16 different classes. It was an exhausting experience, but I also learned a lot in the process.

I talked a lot about Facebook, Twitter and foursquare during my lectures. However one lecture seemed to focus largely on blogs. The class I spoke to had a very (in my opinion) extreme view about the value and long-term value of blogging.

One student suggested that people no longer have the attention span for blogs; that anything beyond 140-characters is more than many can handle.

I countered by suggesting that while personal, Here’s-What-I-Did-Today blogging may be falling by the wayside, corporate blogging is experiencing a major surge.

This chart by eMarketer illustrates that well:

Corporate blogs offer companies something that traditional press releases don’t: An opportunity to show the “human side” of both the company, and the people who work there.

Recently, CEOs have been jumping on the corporate blogging bandwagon. A good example can be found in Bill Gates, who recently launched his own web site and began blogging on the section of his site called “What I’m Thinking About.”

Disney Parks has a corporate blog, too. The purpose of it is to offer a “behind the scenes” look at what goes on at Disney’s various parks.

Computer company Dell is numerous blogs, dealing with a variety of topics. They use one landing page to collect all of the updates from the blogs.

When developing a digital strategy, in addition to advertising and social media, a company should consider the value that a corporate blog might offer. It’s not for everyone, but for many, having a corporate blog creates a humanizing effect about the company, in the eyes of consumers.

Photo credit: LennieZ/Flickr

There’s a disturbing trend currently taking hold in social media marketing and community management. Businesses are hiring firms to develop their social profiles, but aren’t asking anything else. They aren’t asking what the progress is, aren’t asking for data points, referral information or engagement stats.

Businesses aren’t asking for a return on their investment. They’re just ticking off the “social media” box on their media plans and moving forward. While I’m sure plenty of agencies are getting away with this, boosting their revenue because they aren’t being asked to provide anything resembling proof, I’m confident that this will do more harm than good to the industry, and indeed social media as a whole. It makes me glad that that, unlike many others, Renaissance Creative does not take that path.

I came across this disturbing trend while reading Econsultancy’s Social Media and Online PR Report 2010 yesterday. Here’s the bit about ROI that shocked me:

That’s just stunning. So many companies are putting money into social media marketing and online communities, don’t have even a vague ROI figure in mind. They’re throwing money at something without any real direction. When has that ever worked?

A true social media and online community strategy involves both a content strategy and an outline for desired outcomes. Even a vague outline of desired outcomes would be better than nothing and hoping for the best.

Social media should not be treated as some experimental strain of quasi-marketing, exempt from being results-driven. While social media for business and commerce is in its infancy, the person at the wheel should be capable of reporting back with what is working, what is not, and where the campaign should go next.

Instead a lot of agencies are operating under a veil of secrecy, because clients are letting them “work their magic”, not wanting to meddle in something that they have little understanding of. Not us.

Sooner or later, clients will wake up to what’s been going on and they will demand accountability from whomever is running and developing their social media presence.

If you’re an agency that is guilty of that, my recommendation is to open up, become more transparent and become more honest with your process. Educate your clients on what you’re doing. Operating under a veil does everyone a disservice, including yourself and your agency.

Image credit: Geek and Poke

Today Foursquare added a new feature to its web site: Buttons.

This means the most to businesses actively using Foursquare, because it makes it possible to create buttons for individual locations and embed them on a web site as a button. Here’s the official word from Foursquare’s blog:

Say hello to the ‘Add to My foursquare’ button. You don’t always learn about new places from your friends, you may have read a review of someplace in the paper. Since there hasn’t been a good way of remembering a review when you’re nearby, we’ve rolled out a new embeddable ‘Add to My foursquare’ button, which connects what you find on the web with your foursquare To-Do List. Read the review, click on the button, and that tip about tasty cupcakes is now on your phone.

This seems to be the next step in what could become Foursquare’s own social graph, much like what Facebook has now.

For businesses with an interest in getting more involved with Foursquare, this is an opportunity to go all-in and develop that geolocation strategy.

The longer a company waits to get involved with geolocation, the greater their disadvantage will be when geolocation really goes mainstream.

As social media gained a foothold in the world of ecommerce, more buttons and widgets began appearing on web sites. The thing is, they were appearing in worthless places on the sites.

It became something of a web development standard to stick links to your company’s social media profiles at the bottom of the web site, where almost no-one will see them. That doesn’t work.

You’ve got a widget or a link that says “We’re On Facebook” or “Follow Us on Twitter!”, which then clicks-thru to your brand’s Facebook or Twitter page. You want people to find these pages and join your company’s online community.

Thing is, you haven’t given them a good reason why they should.

The first step to rehabbing this problem is moving your social links from the bottom of the page, to the top, or somewhere near the top.

Next, once you’ve got your widget in place , you need a call to action. You need to give them a reason to join your online community. Just liking your brand won’t be enough for most people.

Your call to action should explain, in a few words, what they stand to gain from joining your Twitter or Facebook communities. For example: “Like us on Facebook & get exclusive discounts.” Even that’s a bit wordy — but something like that would do the trick.

It’s time to move your brand’s social profile buttons from way below the fold, to front and center. Make sure your customers know why they should join your communities online, and spell it out clearly what’s in it for them.

If you don’t do that, all you’re doing is hurting your own social media efforts.

Photo Credit: Alana Fisher

With every online community, there exists some give-and-take between the members and those in charge of running and maintaining the community.

When a community is just starting out, there will be a period of experimentation where the users begin trying to understand how their membership in the community benefits them, and the community moderator understands what works and what does not, to encourage debate and involvement.

The process is similar when a previously dormant community, suddenly becomes less dormant and more active.

Community members become accustomed to a low level of engagement. So when activity and engagement increases, community members will react to it.

While not everyone reacts the same way to changes in a community they are a part of, the majority will react in one of three ways:

They do nothing. They are passive members of the community. They enjoy getting updates and news, but aren’t very interested in contributing to it. This subset of users is valuable to any online community. The increase in the flow of news and information is something they’ve either decided to ignore, or it’s something they benefit from. Another way to see their membership in the community is that, while they aren’t interested in contributing, they benefit in some way from being seen as a member of the community.

They leave. Suddenly a Facebook Fan page that was nearly dormant for six months, is suddenly appearing in your News Feed once or twice a day. The person perceives this as something like being spammed. They make a quick (about 30-40 seconds) assessment of the value of the content they are getting, versus their overall interest, and decide that they do not feel strongly enough about the community to remain a part of it. Believe it or not, these people, too, are important to a community.

They join in. Community members notice the uptick in content and respond by adding their thoughts, engaging in a variety of ways. This engagement will often spur growth in the community’s size, as others begin to take notice of a friend’s involvement in a community that they, too, are interested in.

(Here is where the more engaged members of the community will begin to show themselves. You will also notice that, while you may have a a few hundred members of your community, only about 100 are active. This is normal.)

Your goal should be to raise both the total number of community members, and the total number of actively engaged community members.

You won’t ever hit 100% engagement, but the higher the number is, the better off your community will be. The higher the number, the more value that you are able to deliver to your community members.

If you’re a brand or company, the increased value that you deliver to your community’s members will come back to the company via profit, brand affinity and a greater customer relationship.

Image credit: Alana Fisher

While having a dynamic web site is something most businesses should have, if you’re a small company just starting out, it might look more like an additional expense than a genuine resource.

For companies facing that decision, let me remind you that while Facebook is at its heart a social platform, it also serves all of the same functions as a very basic web site.

If your company trying to develop a web presence in the most cost-effective way possible, consider taking the amount you would have spent on a web site and apply it towards developing your business’s Facebook profile.

Here’s why:

The Basics

• On a Facebook page, you will have listed your company’s name, contact details, opening hours and more. This would appear on your web site, too.

• Every Facebook page comes with a built in CMS (content management system). You can upload links, images, photos and more. There is also a “notes” section that doubles as a blog, if you aren’t already running one off of one of the many blogging platforms.

• On a web site you’re likely to have a calendar of upcoming events, or in-store specials. While it’s not as pretty or customizable as what you would get on a custom web site, the basic function exists. An added plus, however, is that you can create an event and invite customers to attend.

The Perks

• Using Facebook as your company’s main online hub brings with it a few added perks that using a standard web site does not offer. At its core, Facbeook is a social platform. This allows your company to connect with customers in more direct ways.

• Having a content schedule means that the conversation is always ongoing. Each day you have a new topic that you’ll post about, and get comments from your customers.

• Company Facebook pages offer solutions for developing, promoting and implementing sales and special offers, directly to your customers, without the need for circulars.

• Facebook offers hundreds of applications that can be applied to your page, that create more dynamic, website-like experiences for customers.

There are more perks than just these, but you get the picture.

Dynamic web sites are useful to have for businesses. But for those just starting out, Facebook offers another option that should be considered.

Image credit: Kris Krug/Flickr

On Wednesday this week Steve Jobs and Apple announced a number of new products and concepts at an Apple event in California. Among them was the launch of Apple’s first foray into social media, called iTunes Ping.

I was listening to the event on my iPhone and following the commentary online via Twitter. There were lots of interesting instant-reaction Tweets by industry types. I found this one, by Kara Swisher, columnist for AllThingsD.com, to be quite interesting:

Apple Ping is “vertical Twitter” says Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, sitting next to me at launch event in SF

At the time of reading, I hadn’t used Ping yet. My first thought was, Oh, I’m Not Sure This Is A Good Idea. Apple is an utterly closed company, making its living off of closed platforms. There is no sense of openness, of encouraging sharing, that is required in today’s social media landscape.

However, I wanted to reserved judgement until I had the opportunity to play around with it for myself. I downloaded iTunes 10 and created my Ping profile ( iTunes link).  Ping profiles do not work with browsers. Everything must be done within iTunes.

I come to Ping as a five-year user of Last.FM (formerly Audioscrobbler), which can be accessed via browser and is an open social network.

First off, if you have an Apple/iTunes account, then by default you have a Ping account. You’ve just got to activate it and pick a photo for yourself. Once that’s done, you can find “friends” to “follow” (similar to Twitter) and talk about music.

How you do that, though, is the tricky part.

The entire purpose of Ping is to make people spend more time in the iTunes Store. Every action requires that you wade through the iTunes Store. Want to write about an album? Find it on the iTunes store, then click “Share”. Just want to “like” a track (a la Facebook)? Find the song and click the tiny arrow next to the price.

After you “share” an album or song, or “like” something, it appears in your stream as recent activity. It always appears in such a way to make the album or song easy to purchase, should the mood strike.

Sound weird? It should. I believe GigaOm sums it up well:

Ping is essentially an e-commerce platform for music disguised as a social network.

An industry standard for new social platforms is that they all must connect to the other existing social networks in some way. Tweet this, Post to Facebook, etc. You can’t find much of that in Ping.

Facebook is nowhere on Ping, either. Currently, there is no linking, sharing or participation of any kind with Facebook–or Twitter or MySpace–on Ping, which will work only on the iTunes software on computers, iPhones and iPods.

Despite that, people are joining. iTunes has 160 million users worldwide, so odds are in Apple’s favor that they will be able to make some significant gains.

However those gains could be wiped out if Apple is not able to get Ping’s spam problem under control.

Ping really is a “social network inside a walled garden”, as GigaOm’s Paul Sweeting calls it.

Just because you’re a wildly successful tech company does not guarantee success in social media. Just ask Google. They know all about that.

Image credit: Bruno Pedro/Flickr

Naturally there is an interest in understanding what this means for people working in marketing. How can this trend be used to benefit brands?

Before we can answer that question, it’s important to know exactly how this older userbase is using social media. The study has some interesting data:

One in five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago.

Among adults ages 65 and older, 13% log on to social networking sites on a typical day, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009.

Not big numbers, but for those companies operating in industries of interest to this age group, this growth represents an opportunity to further invest in social media and online community development.

Initially the 50-64 age group joined Facebook to keep up with family members. Not it seems that they are joining to do more than that. This is certainly a trend to keep an eye on.

You’ve got a Facebook profile, claimed your business on Google Maps and Foursquare, and you may even have a Twitter account. So far, your businesses is well situated to use the internet and social platforms to generate business and raise awareness of your brand.

But there is one other platform where your business is absent: Blogs.

The natural inclination of businesses is that blogs are time-consuming and labor-intensive. I won’t dispute that — blog posts require time and effort to write and publish.

But the benefits to maintaining a company blog are considerable. Consider the following:

1. Distribute content. Having presences on social media platforms is great. In addition to communication platforms, social media are also distribution platforms. Post your blogs to Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else you are active.
2. Improve SEO. The more of your content that search engines have to crawl, the better your search engine results will be when someone searches for your company
3. Advertise products. Blogs offer businesses a place to advertise and discuss their products.
4. Build reputation. Use a company blog to cement your company’s and your own status as an expert in a field, via informative posts.
5. Create community. Use your company blog as a gathering place for customers. Stick to a content schedule so that customers are waiting for your next post.

There are more reasons to do it than just the five above, but that’s a good start.

In the rush for businesses to get on Facebook and Twitter, some are forgetting about the value of blogs to their business. When developing an online and social media strategy, don’t forget to include a company blog in the planning.

When used correctly, company blogs can become an asset to the company’s presence online.

Talking about how great new innovations in social media are, is fun and easy. You can do this and you can do that. Isn’t it great?

More often, however, the difficulty comes in when trying to explain in clear terms what the benefit of these new social platforms is to business. Businesses want to know: What’s in it for me, how can we use it and how long will it take to see results.

Each of those questions is tough to answer definitively, because a certain amount of trail-and-error is required to know for sure.

Then I came across this simple four-step process for explaining the business value of Foursquare, developed by Ogilvy PR Worldwide. What’s interesting about it isn’t what they’re saying — any social media marketer worth their salt already know this — but rather how they are saying it

Take a look at the image below. Click here to see it in full-size.

Every strategy needs to be unique to an individual company’s needs. So trying to use the above figure as your company’s plan for geolocation/Foursquare would be a mistake.

Instead, use the above figure to start the conversation on the right track. Determine what you want to get out of the services, how your customers might already be using it, and set some goals for what you’d like the outcome to be.

Geolocation services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, loopt and now Facebook Places, offer businesses a lot of great tools to engage both current and potential customers. But each services is different, as is each business. In order to get the most out of them, it’s important to have developed a clear strategic approach.

Photo source: Team Sticker Giant/flickr

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduces Facebook Places

Last week Facebook debuted their latest product, a geolocation feature called Facebook Places. In the months leading up to the formal announcement, there was a lot of talk that Facebook was developing it, just no-one from the company would say so in any official capacity.

At the moment it is only available to Facebook users who have the iPhone application. Users had to download the latest update in order to get the new Places feature, which now appears directly in the middle of the menu screen on the application.

I had the opportunity to begin using the new feature on Thursday last week, while out with friends. We visited a few different locations, so I was able to try a few things out.

Facebook Places works two ways: You can check yourself into a location, or your friends can check you in. The latter is causing some uproar, because of the privacy implications. When someone checks in on Facebook Places, they are given the option to “tag” whomever else is with them. The problem is that discretion is entirely up to the friend, who can check you into a location without you even *being* there.

Early on, I ran into this problem. I was at a pizza place with one friend, waiting for another. I went to “check-in” on Facebook Places and tagged her as being there with me. I didn’t think much of it, but in fact she hadn’t arrived yet. She saw the tag and then untagged herself. She did not like other people checking her into places, which then shows up in her personal timeline on Facebook.

Count this as a “lesson learned the hard way” for Facebook after past privacy slip-ups. When they launched Facebook Places, they included an opt-out for letting other people tag you. It’s somewhat buried in the privacy settings, but it is there. Over at ValleyWag they’ve published a “how-to” for ensuring that friends don’t check you in places.

Once it launched, talk soon turned to whether Places would kill other geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla and loopt. My opinion is that it will not. Places is an interesting service, and I’m sure it will create greater interest in geolocation as a whole, but it’s a one-trick-pony as geolocation applications go. Plus on the day that Places launched, Foursquare recorded record one-day new user sign-ups.

It seems that the one-dimensional nature of Facebook Places was intended. Here’s an interesting quote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about that very thing:

When asked about checking-in to watching television shows or the like, Zuckerberg joked, “there’s a lot of stuff we’re not doing.”

Like with Foursquare, businesses can claim their spot on Facebook Places. However, unlike Foursquare, businesses using Facebook Places aren’t shown any meaningful analytics. You are shown how many people have “checked in”, but you aren’t able to see who they are. This could be an instance of Facebook being gun-shy when it comes to potential privacy flare-ups; however in this case it’s something that is needed.

Since Places is only available to Facebook users who access the site via iPhone, it is difficult to determine the overall success rate with any accuracy. Only a fraction of my friends are using it — most of whom are already Foursquare users — so the case for “mass acceptance” is not there right now. And since Facebook hasn’t released any usage statistics yet, we’re all left to guess.

Places could go on to be a major player in geolocation. But before that happens, they will need to build the service out and add more features and functionality.

In sum: Reports of Foursquare’s death at the hands of Facebook Places are greatly exaggerated.

Back in June I wrote about how restaurants can use social media on a daily basis to drive customers in, and generate conversation online. My example breaks the day down into different parts, and offers an explanation of what could be done for each.

Today I came across a broader explanation, in the form for a flowchart.

It was developed by Spork Media, a New York-based consultancy that caters (no pun intended) to the restaurant industry, to help restaurant owners develop their business’s digital and social media footprint.

Check out the flowchart here:

The reason this works so well is that it looks at the big picture. Successful social media and online community strategies are built around outposts that each direct users/customers back to the business’s digital HQ, which in this case is the official web site.

In March of this year, Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas-Nelson, wrote a great post about what he calls a “Social Media Framework” on his blog, which I encourage you to read.

When it is done right, restaurants can use social media, online communities and even content in a way that encourages online buzz and brings in new customers.

While each business and restaurant requires its own individual strategy, the above flowchart is a good starting point for any restaurant looking to dabble in social media for the first time.

Photo credit: Cedric Leclere/Flickr

Today Pace Communications released a breakdown of where most of the major grocery store chains in the U.S. stand with regard to total number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

The results were surprising in part because it painted a clear picture of how little this industry has invested in social, outside of major players such as WalMart and Target.

While the retail and food service industries have been quick to jump into social media, food retail (grocery stores, etc) appear to be more hesitant.

Grocery stores advertise their in-store deals to drive foot-fall via newspapers and magazines. That will continue for years to come, however social media offers another platform that should not be ignored.

Services such as Groupon and Living Social offer great opportunities to drive customers with discounts, traditional social media offers an added bonus of enabling engagement between customers and stores.

Over the next year or two, I believe that more grocery stores will begin to put greater emphasis on their social profiles, both for reputation purposes, and to drive customers into the stores.

Photo credit: Doug Wilson/Flickr

One of the side benefits of businesses using social media is that it requires some maintenance by actual human beings. For every business, this presents an opportunity. Whomever is managing your company’s social media efforts could become the face of your brand or company online.

The above screen grab is of Scott Monty’s Twitter account. Scott is the head of social media engagement for Ford Motor Company. Other than CEO Allan Mullaly, Scott is the the most recognizable “face” of Ford, because that’s how Ford positioned him to be.

Corporations and brands tend to be faceless organizations: The only humans that customers interact with are the ones they meet in brick-and-mortar locations, or via customer service. Social media presents an opportunity for companies and brands to humanize themselves. It goes towards perception, trust and ultimately, comfort.

In a recent Ad Age column, Chris Malone, chief advisory officer of Relational Capital Group, discussed this at length. Here are some of the key points that he made:

Social media are simply the most obvious place to apply insights about warmth and competence. This universal model of human perception has the potential to significantly reshape almost every aspect of the way companies build, manage, service and advertise their brands.

Because social media are ultimately a platform for conversations, brands can have actually discussions with customers, answer questions and more. This is the warmth that Chris is talking about. If you feel like someone is listening to you, then you’re likely to feel positively towards them.

Putting service-related honesty and selfless intentions on display for consumers to comment on and share with others will surprise, impress and inspire them.

This is all about transparency. Previously, all customer questions to a brand happened behind closed doors, on the phone, in the call centers. While a lot of that still happens today, some of it is shifting online, to social media platforms. Customers cannot be brushed aside when they leave pertinent comments and time-sensitive questions on a brand’s Facebook page.

In an article appearing today on Mashable, the author touches on this as one of the different “engagement styles” that can be used by businesses using Twitter:

With one friendly “individual” voice. This engagement style calls for a business to officially anoint someone or selected people from within the company to be the official Tweet-voice. Their personality is allowed to come through on some level within company boundaries. Customers need to feel as if they are being handled by an actual human being who is personable, but not too edgy

Businesses considering a social media presence should also consider having an employee as the “face” of the company or brand on social networks. It will lend to the credibility of the business, because customers feel like they are interacting with a person, not a nameless/faceless entity.

Instead of banging on about them all, I will talk about two of my favorites.

The first is TrendsMap.com, which imports “trending topics” via geographic location. We’re in Jacksonville, so this is what Jacksonville is talking about on Twitter:

What we see are the topics that are mentioned most frequently by Twitter users who are in Jacksonville, Florida. You will notice that there are not a lot of topics. It’s not because there aren’t enough users; it’s because not everyone is talking about the same thing.

This service is most useful when a large event is happening, such as a sporting event or award show. When that is happening, the map lights up and you get a real sense for what the sentiment is among Twitter users nationwide.

My other favorite is a new one, called WeePlaces.com. This services collects your FourSquare check-in statistics and displays them on a map. Click “play” and you are shown a a time-lapse of your checkins over time. Here are my checkins in Jacksonville:

As social media services evolve, there will be more sites like this cropping up, scraping the raw data created by using the web sites and turning it into something that is easy to understand and actually see.

The implications for marketing and business are hazy right now. One application that I can think of is similar to what The Hard Rock Cafe currently does. When you visit some HRC locations, there’s a video feed piped into the building showing visitors at HRC locations all over the world.

Retailers could use this to show who is checking in at their locations all over, as a way to show customers that they are popular and well-liked nationally. Just a thought.

Earlier this week Kevin Rose, founder and CEO of Digg.com posted a tweet announcing the launch of his friends’ new site, fflick.com. This site was utterly new to me. I hadn’t heard any chatter, or read any analysis. Sometimes that’s the best way to come across interesting sites — on your own, without preconceptions.

The page loaded and almost immediately, I knew what it was and how potentially great it could be.

Using the tag line “Instant movie reviews from you and your friends. Is that $12 movie ticket worth it? Find out!”, fflick.com capitalizes on the fact that Twitter has become the go-to place where people give their 140-character reviews and reactions to movies they just saw, plan on seeing or just have a general opinion about.

What fflick.com does is make sense of the madness. Once you log-in via your Twitter account (using Oauth), you are shown your most recent tweets that mention a film, along with recent film-related tweets posted by people you follow.

The goal is to give you, the movie watcher, an idea of what the Twittersphere — and your friends — think about the movies that are playing in theaters. If it sounds obvious, then you would be correct. There are a few other web sites that aim to do the same thing, but they do not do it nearly as well.

Sentiment analysis is a lively topic of discussion in the social media and PR blogs and industry titles. Some suggest that sentiment analysis is valuable, while others believe that sentiment analysis does not provide clear enough answers to make anything actionable.

I wrote earlier this week that we’re in the early days of social media. Sentiment analysis is part of the next step. I’m hesitant to offer any predictions about what will happen next, or how sentiment analysis in social media will evolve. But one thing that I do feel confident in saying is that sentiment analysis will continue to segment: Movies, books, running apparel, and so on.

Now that businesses are taking notice of social media and using it to engage with customers, there exists a need to look forward and understand what the next level looks like. The above image is taken from the 1991 book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore.

In a fascinating blog post, Axel Schultze, CEO of Xeesm, founder of the Social Media Academy writes in CustomerThink that social business is about to cross “The Chasm” as illustrated above:

Larger corporations demand a very different social media engagement. A 5,000 people enterprise won’t just throw a fan page at the market, build an online community and hope it sticks. Strategic engagements require teams and consultants who know enterprises and even SMBs inside out. Social Media Consultants need to cross the chasm in order to finally get to the much larger part of the industry. The past 6 years of social media was just a warm up round. The real race is starting now.

The idea that the past 6 years was a “warm up round” is equal parts scary and exciting. For agencies that offer social media solutions to clients, it means that there will be much greater investment in social media and online community talent. And for businesses, it means that the time for sitting around on the sidelines is official over.

First there was Facebook, leading the way and ultimately becoming the focus of marketers and businesses. Then Twitter came around. Now there is Foursquare. Both Facebook and Twitter are still major players — it’s just that now Foursquare must be considered when developing strategies.

In the next six months, there will be another site. That’s just how this industry seems to work. Being passive is not an option. Businesses need to either hire someone to stay on top of these trends internally, or ask an agency to lead them through it. Either way, standing still is not an option.

But those are not the only platforms that you should plan for. There are may other second-tier, niche social platforms that are worth considering when devising a social media strategy, whether for your agency or for a client. I recently wrote about one, called Take Me Fishing, meant for outdoors and fishing enthusiasts.

Here are a few more that are worth considering:

DailyMile.com

DailyMile touts itself as a “social training log.” In a lot of ways it can be explained more easily as “Facebook for people who like to work out.” Each time you work out, doing anything from running to rock climbing (there are actually 18 different exercise options), you post it on your page, including distance traveled and time spent doing it.

The social element comes in when you add “friends”, who can then view your exercise progress in their own feeds, similar to Facebook’s NewsFeed. Friends can leave comments, “like” posts, and even send you inspiration. Users can also post status updates and photos or videos.

Users can track their running and cycling routes, sign up for races/competitions, and participate in challenges with DailyMile users all over the world.

DailyMile could be useful for an individual, whether it’s a CEO’s attempts to be more transparent and public, or a politician running for office and seeking to fully engage social media across more than just Facebook and Twitter.

Dopplr.com

Dopplr calls itself a “a service for smart international travelers.” It has been around for a few years, but despite that, it has not found itself cemented into the public’s conscious as a major social network, even after being bought by Nokia. Geolocation social platforms are all the rage right now. But Dopplr was around before Foursquare or Gowalla.

Dopplr isn’t interested so much in where you are, as it is in where you’re going and where you’ve been. Its users tend to be professionals who use the site to track their business travel, whether it’s to meetings or conferences.

That being said, Dopplr is a great tool to integrate into a professional’s social media presence. It’s also great for people whose job requires quite a bit of travel, and a bit of transparency – such as athletes, authors, CEOs and more.

Dopplr becomes more social by allowing users to follow each-other, to see what their travel plans are. Users can also leave comments and suggestions for fellow travelers, such as recommendations for restaurants and hotels.

GoodReads.com

This one is for the book readers out there. Calling itself “the largest social network for readers in the world,” Goodreads sets out to let users share their reading lists with others, including reviews of books read and even recommend books to others.

Its core users are the kinds of people who buy multiple books at bookstores, or from online stores for their portable devices, which has them updating frequently. It’s also useful for more passive users, who want to find out what others are reading, and what they think of it.

One great feature is the ability to create and update a To-Read list. There is an iPhone app, so while you’re in a book store, you can add books to your To-Read list very easily.

Using a social platform such as this would be useful for authors and public figures. There are ways to pipe activity on Goodreads onto a website, so visitors can see what books that person is reading, and what they thought of them.

A platform like this can act as support, to broaden out a social media strategy, because it focuses on something more specific.

___

There are many more second-tier/niche social networking platforms out there, but these are three that I believe are interesting. When developing a social strategy each has something different that Twitter and Facebook can’t really offer in the same way.

The above can also add something to the Facebook and Twitter experience, since each offer the option to post activity straight to Twitter and Facebook from the sites.

]]> http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/finding-value-in-niche-social-networks/feed/ 1 http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/opening-up-unsocial-brands-5-tips/ http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/opening-up-unsocial-brands-5-tips/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:54:58 +0000 Ben LaMothe http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/?p=557

For some companies, the rise of social media has brought with it some hard truths, namely that their brand or company risks being left behind because it doesn’t lend itself well to traditional commercial uses of social media.

There is a hint of truth to that — not every brand has social built into their DNA. But with a little help, most unsocial brands can be made at least a little social by using targeted strategies.

The key is not to take a defeatist attitude. Just because it isn’t obvious, does not mean it’s impossible. Check out what your competitors are doing in social media, if they are using it, and determine how to make something work.

Here are five easy steps to turn an un-social brand more social:

1. Be creative: Some brands don’t have a long social media shelf life, and as a result, interactions come in waves. Devise creative ways to encourage more continuous interactions.
2. Define your target: Early on your user group will consist mostly of past customers. Find ways to engage them by asking for photos, video, comments and reviews. Then take this growth and begin targeting new customers.
3. Focus on content: If your customers won’t come together over a love for your brand or company, instead bring them together over content. Create blog posts, videos, audio and photo slideshows. Post them on your social profiles and use it as a basis for interaction.
4. Use as a backchannel: Social media offers a great platform for customer service. While many are still more comfortable calling with a question, some customers have converted to using Facebook and Twitter as a way to work out customer service issues.
5. Use to organize events: As many already know, Facebook has a great Events section, which it recently upgraded. Use Facebook Events to schedule in-store events and other company-related happenings. Twitter also has third-party websites for organizing events.

It’s important to remember that just because a company or brand is not obviously social, that there are no ways to make it work. It might require a more bespoke approach to engaging customers past, present and future, but it can be done.

Photo credit: Colin / Flickr

This afternoon eMarketer published a fascinating article based on research in ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report.

The report highlights what many already know: That customers are listening to brands on multiple platforms. Knowing that, it’s important to present a united front in your brand’s communication and marketing strategies.

Most Internet users studied in April 2010 engaged with brands only via marketing emails, but nearly a third subscribed to emails in addition to being fans of brands on Facebook. The vast majority of social media fans or followers were also email subscribers.

Very interesting findings, no doubt. What this means, ultimately, is that there is less room for fragmentation in messaging. Your customers are getting your e-mail marketing messages, but they’re also a fan on Facebook.

This also means that there are greater opportunities to tailor offers and engagement efforts to individual platforms, knowing that your customers are on both. If you are looking to boost engagement on your Facebook page, tailor your efforts to put the spotlight on the Facebook page and incentivize customers to use it in the way that the company would like it to be used.

As always, eMarketer has condensed their findings into an easy-to-read infographic:

Looking specifically at social media, the report found that Twitter plays a specific role in how customers use social media to interact with brands:

Twitter appeals most to consumers who want to feel up to date and in the know, suggesting information about new products and services or other brand initiatives would be of interest.

I’m inclined to agree. Just look at Twitter’s latest eCommerce venture, EarlyBird (@EarlyBird) which brings “exclusive offers from Twitter’s select advertising partners” to more than 87,000 Twitter users, a number that is growing by 2,900+ every day.

Measurement tools exist to help companies determine the success/failure rate of their e-mail marketing efforts. This new information should help companies better tailor their messaging, and ensure that all of its social channels are singing the same tune.

Photo credit: Mohammad Jangda/Flickr

Social media has quickly become commercially viable over the past year and a half as companies large and small have recognized its value. While today you’d be hard pressed to find a major company not involved in social media, occasionally one does pop up.

I happened upon one a few weeks ago. My first reaction was surprise, and perhaps a little disbelief. I thought, perhaps I’ve missed their official profile. So I did more digging and realized that I had not: Profiles for them exist on Facebook, some with more than 100k followers, but none of them are “official.”

For companies like this, all is not lost. While they do have hundreds of thousands of customers talking about their brand in the social space every day, often without an official voice to be found, that does not mean that the company should sit back and observe. They should seize the opportunity that is before them.

In some ways a big brand waiting to formally enter the social media fray can be a good thing. There is already a large number of customers using these platforms, so the biggest challenge right away becomes directing them to the official channel.

When a company is entering the social media space later than they perhaps should have, here are 3 things to consider when developing a strategy

1. What platform should you use? Facebook, Twitter and Youtube/Vimeo are not the same. Each serves a different purpose. Brainstorm what function you want each platform to serve before delving into specifics of a strategy.
2. How are your customers already interacting with your company in social media? Do a search of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to determine who is saying what, how often it’s being said, and how an official company voice could benefit the conversation, the company and the customer.
3. What should your content strategy be? Should you be writing blog posts? Or should your social sites link back to in-store deals/offers? When using Facebook, do you want people to interact, or do you just want to push content? All of these questions and more should be answered when developing a strategy.

Getting into social media late has advantages and drawbacks for a large company. But the important thing is that the company eventually does get involved and become part of the conversations that its customers are already having about their brand.

Photo credit: Stephen Mackenzie/Flickr

This is a primary barrier for many businesses that are considering becoming more active in social media: We use social media, but our customers don’t — so what’s the point?

My advice to businesses confronted with this dilemma: See it as an opportunity, not a barrier.

Your current customers may not be using social media so much that it makes sense to spend money to market to them — but your potential customers certainly are.

Social media engagement offers your company an opportunity to do a minor re-brand. You don’t need to change your identity, or your logo.

Instead re-focus and use social media to raise brand awareness amongst people who are not already customers. You should ensure that your current customers are aware of your social profiles and the benefits that come with being involved with them, but your focus should be on using social media to bring new customers.

It won’t happen over night, but over time you will see results.

Assess the social media plan after six months. Look for successes and failures. If possible, find a way to track new customers who came in as a direct result of social media engagement. This could be done by offering a discount, or other kinds of value.

Have realistic goals for new customer acquisition and be prepared to change course quickly, if an element of the strategy does not appear to be working well.

Also don’t forget to check back with your current customers — have any past customers joined? Are any past customers using your company’s social media channels frequently? If so, how are they using them?

Analytics are crucial, especially in new customer acquisition. Social media can enable that, so long as it’s done right.

Photo credit: Beck Tench/Flickr

But the post I read this morning by Richard Millington, an online community consultant, made me realize that while some companies can make due with just one community manager, larger companies will need a team.

Richard breaks it down into five roles: The Friend, The Recruiter, The Enforcer, The Editor, and The Entrepreneur.

If your community is growing and you need to recruit more people, it makes sense to split these roles. Let the editors focus on content, the entrepreneurs focus on business development and the recruiter recruit.

While you likely don’t need to hire five people to cover these roles, you will need more than one person in order for your community (or communities) to be effective. Some of these roles will become larger than others — your brand or company may need a more active Enforcer.

Each company is different, and so, each company’s online community is different. It’s hugely important to understand what your community is like, what makes your community members tick and ultimately what makes them react.

Once you know this, you can make more informed choices about how to develop your online community management support team.

This trend towards vertical online communities presents businesses with a choice: Leverage Facebook and Twitter to develop your online community and online customer experience, or develop your own bespoke online community.

For many companies it will come down to a matter of budget: Twitter and Facebook are free, or nearly free (depending on whether you pay for added options) whereas developing an online community costs money to plan, build and maintain. Sites such as socialengine and Ning both offer the ability to develop branded online communities, for a price.

Another deciding factor will be whether your customers are the kind that would benefit from, and ultimately, use, a customized, branded social media platform. It requires a specific connection to the product and brand for it to be successful.

One of my favorite examples is one I was just told about, called Take Me Fishing, developed by the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation. Here’s how they describe it:

RBFF has developed a wide variety of programs and products that make it easy for people to get involved in recreational boating and fishing. Under their Take Me Fishing™ brand and Anglers’ Legacy™ program, RBFF provides the tools to help people get started. RBFF also reminds lapsed boaters and anglers — people who enjoy the sport but no longer participate — about the joy they’ve been missing.

When users log into Take Me Fishing they are presented with a unique online community geared specifically toward their interests in fishing and outdoor activities. They interact with others who have similar interests, and are visiting the site for the same reason. The site hosts a crowd-sourced guide for the best fishing spots across the country, and has a social network called Fishington, where users can create profiles and interact.

This is a soft sell. The RBFF isn’t directly selling anything other than their image and their brand. This platform creates trust and brand recognition for the organization, by giving away something valuable.

Bespoke online communities are not a good fit for every brand, company or product. But for some, it is worth the investment in the long term.

Even though his face was really made for TV, Renaissance Creative’s Social Media Strategist, Ben Lamothe will be working out his vocal chords this coming Monday. Ben will be joining host, Melissa Ross, on our local NPR / PBS affiliate, 89.9FM’s “First Coast Connect” at 9am (7/12/10), to discuss the Crisis in the Gulf. Ben will specifically be addressing BP’s social media response to the crisis. After a fumbling start, BP now has substantial social media strategy in place- but is it working, or being upstaged by Twitter’s satirical BPGlobalPR? Ben will let us know his thoughts. This is educational stuff, so tell your boss to “Back off!” (…or “Tune in!”).

Here’s a good example of that from ZDNet’s Enterprise 2.0 blog about community management:

In this infographic is a fairly in-depth breakdown of the various functions of an online community manager. It’s a position that is still being understood by businesses that don’t expressly work within the technology field. But as social tools and blogging becomes more widespread, more companies are understanding the value that an online community manager can offer their company and their customers.

So, does your company need one?

A theme that came up consistently throughout is the “time” dilemma: There are these social media platforms that your company or brand should be using, but everyone is stretched so thin that the time just is not there to make anything work.

It happens to bloggers, too.  It even has a name, called “blogger fatigue.”

Here’s what I told the people from Hubbard House to help them overcome this problem and move onward to a sustainable and realistic social media strategy:

1. Be realistic: There’s an expectation that a social media strategy will show results in a matter of days. While there are a few that might, most will not. Give yourself six months to devise and implement the strategy. At the end of the six months step back and evaluate what worked, what did not and what you would like your next move to be.
2. Have individual strategies: Determine what you would like to get out of each social platform that you are using. Twitter is nothing like Facebook, and neither are anything like YouTube. Cross-posting from Facebook to Twitter works best when it is strategic. Blindly doing so fails to offer anyone value, including the company.
3. Write a schedule — and stick to it: No one is saying that you’ve got to monitor Twitter or Facebook for hours each day, or that there needs to be a steady stream of blog posts queued up. Pick a day, or a time, and stick to it. You will find that it will eventually become a part of your routine.

These three steps should get you on your way to developing a personalized social media strategy that will, over time, become effective and sustainable.

The entire article is fascinating, but I found this part the most insightful:

As more in-store shoppers—especially millennials, who are used to turning to their mobile phone to stay connected anytime, anywhere—become mobile web users, demand for an in-store experience that takes advantage of web capabilities will only grow.

Developing and executing an in-store mobile marketing strategy can be expensive, which is why it will mostly be done by larger companies with numerous brick and mortar stores. However, opportunities exist for small and medium-sized businesses to develop a more cost-effective strategy for developing an in-store mobile marketing strategy.

Here are four possibilities:

1. In-store web coupons: Have the coupon URL of a coupon posted in-store. A customer can visit the coupon’s site on their mobile phone, load it and show it to the cashier at check-out
2. Get an app.: This is a more expensive option, but it has the potential to pay off in the longer term. Have a mobile app. developed that gives back automatic discounts for in-store use, such as price scanning and more.
3. Partner with a geolocation service: Earlier this week I wrote about how SMBs can use geolocation. In this instance, when a customer checks in at your store, they are presented with a coupon to be used during that visit.
4. Text message discount codes: Give your customers a number that, when they text it, they are sent a coupon code that can be used in-store. Each day (week/month) the code and discount is different.

Mobile marketing is an emerging field, but the opportunities today are great and diverse. Some are more expensive than others, but all promise to engage customers who shop in-store, in a more direct and meaningful way.

The latest evolution in social media, geolocation, has dealt with the same withering criticism by non-users. The difference is that the commercial applications of geolocation are much clearer than they are with Facebook or Twitter. There are many companies and services vying for geolocation users’ hearts, but right now that crown belongs to Foursquare.

Geolocation’s early adopters who saw the commercial appeal included Starbucks, who signed a deal with Foursquare to promote their Frappuccino Beverage by offering a discount to the “Mayors” of individual Starbucks locations.

Now it has begun to trickle down to SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses), who are also beginning to offer discounts and benefits to customers who “check-in” at their store.

Here are some tips that SMBs can use to engage their customers, encourage them to check-in and get them to tell their friends:

1. Keep it simple: If you’re going to offer a special via Foursquare or another geolocation application, it’s critically important that the steps a customer needs to take to receive the discount are as few as possible — ideally no more than two.
2. Don’t be cheap: If you’re going to offer customers discounts for checking in at your business, make it worth their while. The better the offer, the more likely customers are to tell their friends.
3. Track your stats: Foursquare offers businesses an analytics dashboard if you register with them. This allows businesses to track the activity at their store, including who checks-in most often, who last checked in and what the busiest check-in day is.
4. Keep it fresh: Mix up your offers to correspond with specific events or products. This encourages repeat check-ins, new customers and raises product awareness.
5. Move offline: When your business gets a new “mayor”, offer to recognize them in-store by having their name on a board, or posting their photo.

Every business is different, and as such, each strategy for using geolocation will differ. But the above five tips is a good jumping-off point for creating an individualized strategy for a small or medium-sized business.

In Wednesday’s post I made reference to our client III Forks — Jacksonville. I’m going to reference them again, because they’re a good example of the opportunities that exist in ensuring that your employees are working to nurture the company’s online communities.

In a restaurant setting, the opportunities for using social media are great and applicable across almost every area of the restaurant operations. III Forks is a dinner-only restaurant, which changes things a bit. Here are some examples of how social media can be implemented across the restaurant operation:

Pre-opening

Post to the Facebook Fan Page what that day’s specials will be, whether there are any changes to the dinner menu, and if there are any changes elsewhere in the restaurant that night.

Write about the night’s drink specials at the bar and any speciality wines that are available.

Opening

Write on Facebook about how busy the restaurant is that night. If there are holes in the reservation schedule that night, let people know: “We’ve got reservation openings tonight for 8 and 9 p.m., if anyone is interested!” This won’t always work, but it will cause people to think about making a spontaneous decision to go out to III Forks for a nice dinner.

Mid-Evening

Write about the dishes that are most popular that evening and whether there are any birthdays happening that evening. If you have an opportunity, take a few photos of the “behind the scenes” action in the kitchen, and post them to the Facebook page.

Ensure that waiters are asking diners to visit your Facebook page and leave a review. Not everyone will do it, but it’s all part of raising awareness of the page and encouraging interaction.

If you’ve got photos from the Happy Hour, post them to the Facebook page.

Closing

Post some stats from the evening, such as which dish and desert was most popular. Also, post any other photos that you might have from the evening. Also take this time to answer any questions or responses that fans/customers may have left on your posts from the evening.

It’s important that your employees are trained on how they should be using these mediums, and what they should be doing to direct attention to these online communities. In situations like this, awareness is often driven online from an offline position, such as in-store.

It may seem like a lot, but after a few days of doing it, it will become more natural. After all, it’s only about five posts per day. With everyone working in tandem, you will create a much more active online community that will deliver value back to the company sooner, and ensure that customers are getting  value out of the company’s online community.

During a meeting this afternoon with our client, III Forks — Jacksonville, we discussed their Facebook Fan Page, which has attracted 670+ local fans. We discussed ways to create a greater sense of community for its fans, and ways to deliver more value to them.

Because III Forks is a fine dining restaurant, and thus offers a fine dining experience, the community that it has online is a blend of different types of customers.

Despite that, these clusters of customer type share something in common: They’re all a part of III Forks — Jacksonville’s online community. They must be interacted with as one, not as groups.

III Forks has a great opportunity to offer tons of value to its online community in a variety of ways. The online community makes up a part of their core customer base — they’re the ones who will spread the brand by word-of-mouth and invite others to join the community.

If your brand does not have a community around it, one can be built. You’ve got to understand what platforms your customers are using online, and how they are using them. It’s also important to understand what you can offer this community to keep them engaged, and to ensure its continued growth.

With a restaurant, try offering exclusive discount opportunities. Facebook ads work well to raise awareness about specials. Or, if your restaurant offers something unique, use the ad as a way to raise awareness and distinguish yourself. Ensure that your ad also gives users the opportunity to “Like” your page.

Restaurants can also host exclusive tasting sessions. Creating an air of exclusivity for your brand’s online community is critical to ensuring that the community members feel appreciated and engaged. It also increases the likelihood that they will want to tell others about you.

When your online community starts working for you, then you know you’re doing something right.

]]> http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/06/why-building-community-around-your-brand-is-important/feed/ 2 http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/06/social-media-as-customer-service/ http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/06/social-media-as-customer-service/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:40:56 +0000 Ben LaMothe http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/?p=447 If you own an iPhone and have a Twitter account, chances are good that you’ve used Twitter to complain publicly about something AT&T has done, or in some cases, has not done. It may have seemed like no-one from AT&T was listening. We now know that is not the case.

Today Ad Age published an article detailing AT&T’s new social media plan, aimed at helping customers and ultimately turn negatives into positives. From the article:

On a normal day, AT&T has 10,000 mentions on social networks, but during stressful moments like these they rise precipitously. The marketer is out to calm those twit storms by staffing up its social-media customer-care corps. The team, led by its first-ever social-media strategist for customer care Shawn McPike, has been building steam since August of last year and is now poised for full-scale launch.

AT&T has the opportunity to duplicate the success that Comcast has experienced with @ComcastCares, and in the UK, BT (British Telecom) with @BTCare. With a company the size of AT&T, there will always be upset customers. But when you add social media to the equation, customer discontent is amplified and spread very quickly.

The timing also could not be better for AT&T, as a parody Twitter account has popped up recently, called @ATT_Wireless_PR. It appears to be attempting to do what @BPGlobalPR is currently doing against BP.

Chris Brogan, of New Marketing Labs, and social media marketing expert, had this to say about the move by AT&T:

“I’m glad they [AT&T] are going to push forward,” said Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. “They are a bit behind, like Comcast was. They’ve really let the media run the story for the longest time.”

Chris is right. Up to this point, AT&T has been content to let customers determine the company’s image in social media. As a result, complaining about AT&T’s service on Twitter has almost become cliche.

If you’re a big company, it’s likely that your customers are already talking about you on various social media platforms. Sitting on the sidelines is increasingly less of an option, especially in times of crisis or bad publicity. Get off the bench and start talking with your customers.

You can turn passive customers into brand evangelists and former-customers back into current-customers, all by getting involved with them on social media.

Over at mobile marketing blog Mobile Marketing Watch, they have a breakdown of what Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester laid out at the Untethered conference:

She expects 3.5 million tablets — including the iPad and other tablets — to be sold this year, growing to 20.4 million in 2015.  In addition, she expects desktop sales to drop from 18.7 million units in 2010 to 15.7 million units in 2015.

Take into account that Apple is selling about 1.2 million iPads per month, according to Apple Insider, and you soon realize that tablet computing is here to stay and its impact on web and digital marketing will be significant.

Because of the hype surrounding both the iPad and tablet computing in general, it is likely that digital agencies are being approached by their clients about whether they should take the plunge and develop their own iPad application.

If a client asks about developing an iPad app for their product or brand, first ask them these three questions:

1. The most basic iPad costs $500, and the 3G-enabled iPad costs $650. Are your core customers buying them?
2. The most successful applications on iPhone and iPad are games, so if your app is not a game, are you OK with not ranking highly in the app store?
3. Do you have an iPhone app, and if so, how successful was it? What would be different on the iPad app?

Having an iPad application means offering content all of the time. It is a media consumption device more than a media creation device. You can send e-mails and do most everything that you can do on a laptop or desktop computer, but with the iPad, the experience is different. The screen is large, so design and user experience is much more important.

The iPad offers brands a way to interact with its customers in a new way. But it also requires brands to be more open to these changes, as they are happening rapidly.

First, I want to clear a few things up. No two social media platforms are alike, and each requires its own strategy for engagement and ROI. It’s important to go into any social media strategy session with that in mind.

But when the time does come to develop strategies, use this handy five-point checklist as a guide:

— Facebook is nothing like Twitter

— Some brands are not Twitter-friendly (i.e. the user base either isn’t there, or it’s not the appropriate channel)

— Some brands are not Facebook-friendly (i.e. people don’t feel connected to the brand in such a way to leave messages on a large message board)

— If your Facebook fan page does not offer value to users and customers, it will not deliver value to the company

— Deleting negative comments on Facebook left by fans or users will ultimately do more harm than good. Do the leg work to turn a negative into a positive

For this post, I’d like to address the fourth point, about creating value for users and customers. While there are many examples of companies that do this poorly, there are a number that do it well. One great example of this is Ford Motor Company. Over at the Inside Facebook blog, they’ve got a breakdown of what Ford is doing with its Fan Page:

The Ford Motor Company has chosen the Ford Explorer Facebook page to give the public a first glimpse of the totally redesigned 2011 model. This breaks from the usual debut of a new model, which traditionally is made at large auto shows, and shows the auto company’s commitment to its social media marketing efforts. There is no set date for a full unveil, but teaser photos are already up on the site, as well as video of a cloaked 2011 Explorer in action.

This strategy is being characterized as a success, and rightfully so. Ford is offering tangible value to its fans on Facebook. The company isn’t giving its fans money, or even discounts. Rather, they’re treating the fans with respect and status: Become a fan on Facebook and get the first look at the new model of Ford Explorer. It’s a highly targeted campaign, and because of that, the engagement levels are high.

Before your company launches a Facebook fan page for itself, first think about why you are launching it. As yourself these questions:

— What do you want your customers to get out of being your Fan on Facebook?

— What will you offer your brand’s Fans on Facebook, that will make them want to stick around, and tell others about it?

— What do you want to get out of having a Facebook Fan Page for your brand?

Answer the above three questions and then decide if a Facebook Fan Page is right for you. Launching a Fan Page just to have one has the potential to cause more harm than good. Leaving it unattended opens the brand up to fans taking it over and thus diluting your brand’s messaging.

But if you have someone at the helm, monitoring and, at times, controlling the conversation, then the brand and company will be much better off.

Among them is wealth.

Spend time using Twitter or Facebook and you’ll soon realize that the only “rich people” who use it regularly are celebrities or entertainers, who are trying to communicate with the masses. The area between middle class and celebrity, in terms of personal wealth, has become a robust audience for social networks. They might have a  Twitter or Facebook profile, but that won’t be the place they do most of their social networking. Many have decided to join ultra-exclusive social networks exclusively for people like themselves — the rich and famous.

How affluent people use traditional social media platforms has been the subject of numerous studies. Specifically, what is their relationship with brands on these platforms?  Brian Solis wrote about one of those recent studies it in a recent blog post:

The Unity study to the contrary, shows that affluent consumer, for the moment, maintain a different relationship with brands within social networks. They visit brand pages, but do not always take the next step of “liking” the brand in Facebook. Of those well-off consumers, only 25% of brand page visitors actually liked the page.

This has numerous implications for social media campaigns that target affluent people. In short, unless your goals are small, you are better off not launching a campaign for affluent people on Facebook or Twitter. It’s not because they’re not there. Rather, it’s because they’re not engaged.

Another hurdle is with how affluent people identify themselves on mainstream social networks. In 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article on this topic.

The first problem is getting the rich to label themselves as rich online, given their concerns over privacy and scams. Wealth peering groups such as Tiger 21 and CCC Alliance both have successful online components. But they are more like listservs than open public networks — online extensions of groups that meet in person every month or quarter.

To find affluent social media users, you’ve got to work on their turf. Over the years, niche social networks such as Diamond Lounge, A Small World and Spire have sprouted up.

Marketing to this user base is difficult, because these communities are effectively closed. In order to gain admission, you’ve got to be evaluated. And in some cases, admission is conditional upon the recommendation of a current member.

Getting accepted to these communities could be done with a bit of creative, long-term guerilla marketing. The returns will not be instant, and it will require relationship building. But if you can become a part of this community and passively-promote whatever you’re seeking to promote, then you could see success over time.

Ben has been a guest blogger for such prestigious online communities as Media140.org, Econsultancy.com and FreshNetworks.com. His areas of expertise include developing and implementing unique strategies in Social Media Marketing; Multimedia Content Creation, Distribution and Aggregation; Blogging; Online Community Development (internal and external); Customer Relationship Management (CRM); and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM). Ben has worked in industries ranging from non-profits, to farming, IT, luxury marketing, academia, news media, textiles and destination resorts.

I met Ben through a brief Twitter exchange one evening (surprise) while we were both up late working on marketing plans. He quickly showed himself to be a very creative, intelligent and knowledgeable online marketer and journalist, the kind of professional that’s hard to find, that you can’t have too many of these days.

While Ben is the kind of person who may operate his own full-time consultancy one day, our plans are to slowly, get him addicted to the high-octane, double-caffeinated coffee we brew around here, then “convince” him its best not to leave. At any rate, as long as he’s working on his thesis, Ben will be ours! Look for Ben to be contributing to “Make Belief”, the official blog of Renaissance Creative with a focus on new and social media; web marketing trends; branding and community building.

He’ll also be taking a look at the online presences of businesses throughout North Florida, so don’t be surprised if you get a phone call from him one day, or if walks in and introduces himself and offers to show you how we might be able to help your business in this challenging and ever-changing new economy.

Welcome Ben!

For those that didn’t know Steve, he was a kind and generous guy– always quick with a smile and a wry remark, often laced with a little self-depreciating humor. He loved traveling, music, the ocean and his family- including his wife, Cindy; their two daughters; and his three brothers, with whom he was very close.

Like many of us here in North Florida, Stephen was a survivor of the real estate market meltdown. He was Vice President of Parker Associates, a real estate development / and marketing consultation firm where he shared duties with his father David, and older brother, Chris. From Florida, to Costa Rica, to Russia, if you wanted to know what to build upon a certain piece of property; how to position it; price it; and market it; then these guys could tell you. Their endurance through the market turmoil is a testament to their expertise and professionalism. With markets still trying to find their way forward and property changing hands, their insights today are more valuable than ever.

As many from Jacksonville (we, who lived “inside” of one of the nation’s largest real estate bubbles), will tell you, the battle back has been long and arduous. And while Steve and his family have overcome incredible challenges that saw so many other real-estate related companies fail over these past 2.5 years, the merciless serial killer that is cancer came along and buggered up the victory celebration for all of us.

Or perhaps I should say, “almost all of us”. Not for Stephen, himself.

You see, what those closest to Stephen reassured us was that he passed away with absolutely no regrets. He never waited for life to “happen” to him, but always “attacked” it with gusto. If there was a place he wanted to visit, but he didn’t have the funds, he’d find a way to get them. When there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for the business at hand, he’d still find a way to get the job done and do so without sacrificing time for his family, friends or even just acquaintances, who he always made feel important. To me, achieving this kind of balance is what defines a “successful” life.

Today more than ever, it is easy to lose sight of the immeasurable value that each day holds and the pricelessness of the people we spend those days with. Our family. Our friends. Our co-workers. Yes, we face a challenging economy and uncertain times. Yes, technological evolution has enabled, and as a result, required us to fit more tasks into fewer hours, often for less money, raising the bars for efficiency and production to ever higher levels.

But at the end of each day, or more appropriately, at the beginning– we owe it to ourselves to pause and reflect on the things that truly matter in this life. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. We are not even guaranteed our next breath. So, if you wish to live a life with no regrets, the kind of life that Stephen George William Parker lived, then don’t wait on it to come to you. Go out and grab it. At home. At work. On the beach. And remember to always do it without losing sight of the important people around you. You never know when they’ll be gone. Steve, we will miss you.

The scene outside of my hotel

I made it back safely from India and let me start by saying it feels good to be home! Not because of any cultural divide between east and west, but simply the challenges of coming and going. I arrived back in the United States on May 9^th after my 12-day journey turned into a 13-day one, due to a missed connection in New York. That made two such occurrences on two separate domestic airlines (United and Delta), on both ends of my trip.

I can report that after sitting in the airport at JFK waiting hours to see if my flight was going to be canceled (it was), I then had to fight for a hotel voucher when United rescheduled my connection for the following am. (After asking for a service manager, I finally got a coupon for the “lowest available hotel price”, along with a $125 discount on my next flight). It is no wonder US airlines are in such disarray. There is no sense of customer appreciation!

The office building of my hosts

My trip was equally fascinating and exhausting. I slept for a full day straight upon my return and several days later, am still adjusting. As expected, I lost a little weight, the result of the primarily vegetarian diet of the local area that I visited, as well their policy of prohibition. A “cold one” after a long day at work in Gujarat might refer to juice, soda or water, but not a Bud Light. Additionally, many in India prefer their beverages served at room temperature, rather than chilled. This in a place where daily summer temps regularly hit 113 degrees– Go figure!

It is easy for westerners to experience culture shock in India and it is a challenging place to describe. Lonely Planet calls it “complex”; an “enigma”; and a “land of contradictions”. I would say all of these are accurate. It is incredibly diverse, even from one city or town to the next, each with its own dialects and culinary specialties. It is also one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, one that has battled overpopulation for decades where prosperity and poverty sit side-by-side in ways hard to go unnoticed.

Elegant and complex Indian architecture

According to Hindu tradition (the primary religion in India), the caste system is what defines the basic social structure of society- your social standing; your job; who you marry. You are born into one of four castes and by living a righteous life and fulfilling your moral duties (your dharma), you raise your chances of being reborn into a higher caste, and better future circumstances.

All of the people I met in India were kind, warm and hospitable. Their conservative culture places great emphasis on religion, tradition and family. While I was there, MTV had to issue a national apology for inappropriate programming on the Indian reality show, “Splitsville III”. Can you imagine MTV or any other television network apologizing for inappropriate content over here?

Most families live together under one roof– parents, children and grandparents, perhaps even aunts, uncles and cousins. So, you had better get along with your in-laws! Indeed, many of the soap operas in India get their storylines from the home-based tensions arising from mother / daughter-in-law relationships.

Their vegetarian ways are rooted in religious beliefs that emphasize kindness. They believe that pain is something that is experienced by all living things to relative degrees including humans, animals, and even plants and they do not wish to inflict pain on anyone or anything. In fact, many Indians will not eat plants with roots for this reason (although they will eat fruit, which is borne for the purpose of consumption).

Marriages are arranged, typically around age 18, following about three months of courtship. While our instinctive western reaction to this tradition may be that it is one borne out of oppression, sexism or some other “negative” trait; after talking with fathers over there, I can assure you it is rather related to their strong sense of family, and love and concern for their children.

I had to try this. And no, I didn't get in a fight. That's a red dot (Tilak/Bindi), provided to me for good luck on a night out!

They believe arranged marriages allow for better parental guidance and greater long term security because they are after all, based on “references”. They allow parents to understand exactly who will be marrying their children, as it is typically the child of another family they know. (Aren’t product recommendations what it’s all about these days?) Additionally, many of introductions are at the request of the children themselves.

Whatever the case, it seems to work. Divorce in India is rare, and the families I met while there, all seemed quite happy.

I learned a great deal on my journey, both about Indian culture and conducting business on a larger and more efficient international scale (more on this and the business outcomes of my trip, in future posts.) Looking back, it’s what I have always found on all of my travels, both within the U.S. and internationally. That while there are plenty of differences that define us (You eat veggies, I eat burgers; You pass on the right, I pass on the left; You say grace is earned, I say it is given;) there are still more ways we are alike (We love our families; take great pride in our traditions; and realize that there is much to be gained by working together, resourcefully). In short, we have more in common, than not.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to my hosts, and all the new friends I met while in India. I look forward returning the hospitality, one day soon.

Some of my new friends including three college students, part of a Rotary International exchange program that one of my hosts was involved in. In the days ahead, these young girls will be well prepared to interact in an increasingly horizontal global community.

It is day 5 of my trip to India and I have been working hard and learning a lot about this bustling subcontinent, its people and life here. I’ve moved from Ahmedabad, further east to Rajkot. I’ve haven’t been able to take a lot of pictures, as I’ve mostly been inside offices or in transit by car. My hosts had hoped to take me to see lions inside Little Rann of Kutch Wildlife sanctuary, but unfortunately it is closed as they are counting the lions in the forest– a good thing, because you wouldn’t want to “lose” one of those.

Rajkot is an interesting place. You cannot eat meat here, only vegetables. It is also located inside Gujarat, the only state in India that practices prohibition. I believe I’ll be coming home healthier and a few pounds lighter.

Earlier today, there was an unnerving event: There was an “imminent” terrorist attack warning issued for Delhi, and all westerners were urged to stay away from crowded marketplaces there. I am south and east of the nation’s capital, but that didn’t make me feel better.

About the same time, I happened to be watching a television program detailing the November 2008 terror attacks on ten landmarks in Mumbai (including the landmark Taj Mahal hotel) that killed 173 people. The film showed clips of the police interrogation with one of the terrorists, who authorities captured. A Muslim who trained in Pakistan, he said his “leaders” had told he and others who helped that that their people had been “left behind”, while others “got rich and moved forward” (standard M.O. for these types-preying upon the socio-economic disadvantaged, to do their dirty work). The terrorist recounted that after all training was complete, they were instructed: “Now go and kill as many people as you can, until you die”.

Fortunately, later in the day, authorities reported that today’s threat turned out to be only a hoax. Ha! Good one!

A few more interesting notes:

• Five days in and I am still suffering from jet lag. As a result, I opted for a back massage today (Sunday, the only day off for Indians, who work six days a week- no wonder they’re so industrious!) The 30-minute massage cost me a mere $7. The downside–women don’t give them to men due to their traditional, conservative culture. So, a little different.

• I’ll be headed back to Ahmedabad later in my trip. I learned that that city is home to Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi’s headquarters, which he founded in 1915 where his poignant, spartan living quarters are preserved and there’s a pictorial record of his life.

• Ahmedabad is a progressive state that in 2008 secured the large and lucrative TaTa Motors Nano car project. I always wanted to see a real Nano, which gets 50+ mpg, yet costs only $2,000 (No, that’s not a misprint- $2K!) Now I’ve seen one and they are cool little cars. Hey TaTa, can you send some of those America’s way?!

• Speaking of cars, they seem to communicate with horns quite a lot here, not unlike New York City, but more constant, and a little friendlier. As a result, noise rarely ceases. Last evening, one of my hosts took me up to a restaurant on the outskirts of town, removed from development. After 3 days in the city, the silence there was remarkably noticeable and calming.

• In Rajkot, my hosts have put me up at The Imperial Palace, the finest 5-star hotel in the city. It is very nice and stands out amongst the older buildings that are packed tightly around it in this bustling town.

• I am discovering that Indians are kind, hospitable people who treat their guests very well. Last night, I got a red dot/slash on my forehead, which is symbolic of their belief/tradition that “the guest is God”. Of course, then they immediately proceeded to try and do me in with their spicy, hot cuisine known to give western visitors stomach fits! I sportingly tried everything they threw at me and liked about half of it. I’m a fan of hot things, but some of the spices are simply too strong and flavorful for my pallet.

• The folks that we are considering partnering with (for back-end web development support, among other things) have impressive operations and management. They have incredibly smart people and well-developed business and operational systems in place. There’s a lot we could learn from working with them.

• One of the things I like most is that they are entrepreneurial in spirit and continually innovating, trying new techniques with code; launching new sites of their own; and providing insightful consultation for online business development for a few really big clients, who I can not name.

• In India, business executives focus more on human capital and long-term vision than solely next quarter’s numbers. This is in alignment with my own philosophy. Executives here are also held in esteem for giving back and social awareness. With so much poverty (there are many sights here reminiscent of what I’ve encountered on two trips to Haiti) and disparity between the “haves” and “have nots”; most feel compelled to give back, and indeed, one of the partners of the company with who I am meeting, is big into Rotary International. He took me to a library stocked to the hilt with western books, computers – and children – that he and a group of supporters have funded entirely. It was a beautiful sight. I think the kids got a kick out of seeing an out-of-place American there, based upon their quiet giggles. Shhhh… it’s a library!

That’s it for me from here, for now. Uh oh… I think I just felt my tummy rumble.

Imagine stepping into a time machine and traveling into the future. That would be a neat trick, wouldn’t it? Well, I can tell you what it’s like because I just did it; mostly on Emirates Air, racing along at about 575 MPH for more than 26 hours of non-stop travel from Jacksonville, to Atlanta (Delta), to New York, to Dubai (yes, that one), all the way to India. Along the way, I leapfrogged US Eastern Daylight Time by about 10 hours. If you need the score of Saturday’s cricket match (India’s beloved national past time) by end-of-day on Friday, just call me, and I’ll hook you up.

So, why am I here? As I mentioned, exploring the future. You see at Renaissance, we live by the mantra, “Think Forward”. It’s how we help our clients think about their businesses and how we always think about our own. For this reason, we’ve been researching forging a strategic partnership with an organization that operates inside India, the UK and elsewhere in the US and are studying ways we might be able to work with one another.

During this time, I’m spending 12 days in a place that is quite unlike any other I’ve ever been to. And since I haven’t posted to our blog in over a month-and-a-half (an SEO no-no– as those search engine crawlers have insatiable appetites for new content), I thought I’d use this opportunity to share some of my experiences in this fascinating land. I only arrived yesterday, but here are some notes I can report from my trek thus far:

• I consider myself a strong traveler, but am feeling seriously jet-lagged. It is a long haul.

• Dubai’s airport is beautiful and the city is quite stunning from the air in the early morning light.

• Emirates Air has the nicest jets and best customer service of any airline I’ve ever flown on from the terminals, to the food, to the pleasant and immaculately dressed stewardesses in their professionally elegant burquas. The technology on the jets is exceptional– media players on the backs of every seat with rear, forward and below live action cameras, great to watch night landings with! And their First Class seating could only be described as something out of Star Trek (I passed through on my way to economy!) They also handed out warm, moist towels on multiple occasions, which was a nice touch. In case you were wondering how they afford to do all of this while American airlines struggle to survive, I give you two words: “jet fuel”. They get theirs for much less.

• They say that Indians don’t typically worry too much about the pace of life. Because their culture often emphasizes destiny as a shaping force of events, they tend to operate by the mindset that, “What will be, will be”. Unfortunately, this attitude was not evident at the airport on the night I arrived, judging by the stampede from the plane to immigration!
Our flight got in at 3 am and I didn’t exit the airport until 5 am after being mercilessly out-positioned, out-hustled and out-jockeyed by nearly everyone including babies and a few (deceptively) harmless looking, but obviously experienced and tactically-savvy granny line-ninjas. “Sure, you can cut in front of me. Bring your whole family!” : ) I think I knew what my own destiny was, so just accepted it with a smile.

• I thought Florida was the “King of Hot” and given its humidity, could give India a good run for its money. Nope! The nighttime temperatures here are 95 and daytime temps, 107 every day this week (Did I mention that it was sunny?) And summer is only just getting started.

• I am staying in Ahmedabad, a growing technology and educational center up in the northwest corner of the country, not too far from Pakistan. The city has a mix of old-world buildings and modern architecture. It looks like an area in the midst of a growth spurt.

• The are a ton of motorcycles and auto-rickshaws on the roads and masses of people (1.18 billion in this republic).

• Steering wheels are located on the right hand side of autos and driving is to the left; errr… right; err… middle! Yikes! Thank goodness I have a good driver!

• Everyone I’ve met has been warm, friendly and very smart (There are a lot of Doctors and engineers in India, including the husband/wife Doctor/Engineer couple I sat next to on the plane). They were expecting a baby who I predicted for them would grow up to become a bio-medical engineer.

While India is mind-blowingly vast and diverse, I am here for business, and not sightseeing. But the sights are everywhere, so I will be posting more pictures (and perhaps some video) in the days ahead, as my experiences and time permits. Hope you enjoy it.

Namaste! (“Hello” and “Goodbye” in India)

The 2010 Winter Olympics are behind us and I for one am sad to see them go. There were so many compelling moments that defined the Vancouver Games for me, from snowboarder Shaun White’s incredible Double McTwist 1260 in the half-pipe (a trick only he can perform); to Apolo Ohno passing the Chinese team in the anchor lap of the 5000 meter short track relay to become the most decorated American in Winter Olympic history; to the final frantic seconds of regulation and overtime in the US–Canada gold medal hockey game. But nothing brought me to edge of my seat like Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller’s exhilarating performances in the men’s and women’s downhill.

What I love so much about all of our Olympic Athletes and find so well-exemplified in these two, in this event, is their absolute understanding and embracement of a simple, but profound principle. One I believe creatives should never forget: That distinguishing achievement often requires more than talent and training; more than skill and desire; more than preparation or luck. It most often requires exceptional courage and a willingness to take extraordinary risks. And that’s not easy or natural, for anyone.

Consider that when Vonn raced, in addition to a badly bruised leg, she also faced the pressures of a spectacular run by teammate Julia Mancuso, just moments earlier. Vonn was rattled. But rather than downplay the challenge, Lindsey’s husband and coach, Thomas, radioed his wife specifically to confirm for Lindsey that Mancuso had a “special run” and to relate, “You’re going to have to be perfect to win.” Vonn would later state that this strategic message from her husband allowed her to “let go” of her fears and instead, “focus on that challenge”. She subsequently took the most aggressive lines all the way down the mountain, coming perilously close to wiping out at nearly every turn. The result– she beat Mancuso’s “sepcial run” by over a full half-second.

Likewise, ignoring treacherous course conditions resulting from warm weather and light snow, Bode Miller attacked the downhill course with reckless abandon to become the first American men’s skier to stand on the podium for that event since Tommy Moe, sixteen years ago. His bronze medal time was 1:54.40, only nine hundredths of a second behind gold medalist, Didier Defago, the smallest differential between gold and bronze in Olympic history. Said Miller of his performance and his American team, “We went after it. We weren’t scared. We were always aggressive.”

Of course, while a willingness to lay it all on the line can pay huge dividends as it did in both of these instances, it never guarantees success and often sets the stage for spectacular failure. Later, attempting to go 5 for 5 in Olympic events in the slalom –the one event for which he had not won an Olympic medal– on a difficult course on sticky, wet snow that was proving difficult for many of the racers, Miller did not change his approach. The consequence: he ran into trouble almost right out of the gate. Said Miller,  “It’s unfortunate to go out so early, but you have to take risks… and I did.”

I believe creatives, from designers, to copywriters to marketing strategists should take the same approach as Miller, Vonn and others and not allow themselves to be constrained by fear. I appreciate creatives who are willing to explore their most conceptual ideas, even if it results in more misses than hits. I know that by doing so, this will give them the best chance to come up with something great, which is the only thing I ever want to present to a client.

Great creative work must always take a point of view. It has to “say something” to be memorable. Remember that people respond to “different” and “unpredictable”. In this sense, “safe” is risky. The real problems begin when fear- the fear of mistakes, the fear of looking foolish, the fear that someone won’t “get” your idea, prevents you from saying anything at all. I once heard Jeff Kling, ECD of Euro RSCG put it this way: “Screw-ups are tools of evolution. They help us survive.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that statement. Remember also, that in the business of marketing and advertising, we’re not looking to connect with the 80% of people who may not “get”, or like, or even care at all about our creative, but rather the 20% who do, and are inspired to act upon it. 

So the next time you’re faced with a daunting creative challenge (or business challenge, or life challenge), don’t allow yourself to become compromised by fear. Rather, recognize that most of life’s rewards are not without risk; that we all fall sometimes; and that even those instants leave us better prepared to make some truly extraordinary runs in the future. If nothing else, we’ll put people on the edge of their seats. At least for marketers, that’s our job.

Related videos (Note: Viewing videos from nbcolympics.com may require a quick, free upload of Microsoft Silverlight)
• How to Stomach Fear in the Downhill
• Lindsey Vonn’s 2010 Olympic Downhill Gold Medal Run
• Bode Miller’s 2010 Olympic Downhill Bronze Medal Run

Thanks to Matt Earley, an Arkansas-based creative, musician, minister, ad man and achiever for his inspiration. During a recent Twitter exchange in which I commented how much I loved the, “put-everything-on-line” spirit of the Olympic athletes, it was Matt who came back with the question, “a great parallel for life”? Yes Matt, it is. Keep attacking! Join us on Twitter: @mattearley; @thamby

1. Instead of “LifeLock.com”, someone will create “LifeHock.com”, the first web portal where you can go to freely surrender your non-identity theft personal data– name, age, profession, income, hobbies/interests and contact information, in exchange for commissions based on how many times your information is re-sold to marketers, and how desirable your demographics. They’re going to get it eventually– why not get a fair cut and receive only high-quality, targeted spam?

2. Traditional media — In a last ditch effort to survive, newspapers will give up trying to marginalize bloggers as non-journalists and begin aggressively recruiting and hiring the most influential among them, in an effort to capture those bloggers’ audiences for their own benefit (cable has already thrown in the towel). Print will continue to shrivel under the heat of digital media.

3. The science of networks, not just social and MLM, but physical, virtual, biological, mathematical, online, offline, proven and theoretical will grow into a huge topic of conversation.

4. Ashton Kutcher will demonstrate the Klout of 5,000,000 Twitter followers, when he announces his bid for Governor of the State of California. At the height of the media frenzy surrounding his massive fundraising potential, Kutcher will show up unannounced on Larry King, revealing to scheduled guest and prior leading candidate, Jerry Brown that he has just been Punk’d!

5. The cult of celebrity won’t die no matter how hard stars themselves (Charlie Sheen, Tiger, Paris, etc.,) seemingly try to extinguish it. Celebrity is only enhanced by controversy.

6. Television also won’t be going anywhere (except to our mobile phones). And lo- I can envision a time when more brands will skip product placement and go straight into the cable network business. Consider: The Walmart Home Shopping Network; Coca-Cola “Happiness” Channel; IKEA Home & Design or Pfizer Health Sciences Networks.

7. Augmented Reality and 3D TV is (virtually) upon us. Get ready to hear a lot of, “But, ‘Fill in the Blank’ has a 3D TV!!!” from your kids.

8. “Crowds” will begin turning into angry mobs, once they realize that they are actually working inside “virtual” sweatshops.

9. The social media pendulum will begin to experience the full effects of gravity as nay-sayers, never-tryers and contrarians increasingly question its effectiveness as a legitimate marketing tool. There are already websites where people are going to commit “social media suicide”.

10. …However, I believe social media is an undeniably valuable tool for SEO (still one of today’s marketing cornerstones), and that it can be used very effectively for branding and marketing when integrated strategically, naturally, creatively and consistently. Those who give up on it too soon will be sorry down the road because networks by their nature, grow exponentially over time.

11. Aggregation and digital distribution will continue to make a lot more people rich.

12. Collaboration, a “new” old concept in work/business models, will also result in growing partnerships between brands as effective sales & product extension strategies. While Apple and Google won’t be hooking up any time soon, Ford recently announced it will use Best Buy’s sales force to demonstrate their new Sync voice controlled communications and entertainment technology.
Old concept: Collaboration. New Buzzword: Symbiotic Marketing.

13. Advertising won’t “go away”, as it is part and parcel of capitalism and free market economies. We can only hope that it will be more thoughtfully “imposed” upon us. Concepts, ideas and overall creativity will become more valued than high-quality executions in digital or traditional media, except to those inside the industry, who understand the critical importance of both.

14. Top agencies will increasingly be looked to as high-level strategic partners, contributing more significant ideas for creation of new markets, product development and broader corporate sales and marketing initiatives. In so doing, simple pay-per-service fees may be supplemented or replaced with equity partnerships and return-on-performance financial models.

15. The stigma associated with asking creative agencies for spec work will finally begin to resonate outside of the industry and into the collective consciousness of the corporate mainstream. Clients will eventually quit asking, out of concern for their own ethical reputations.

16. Giving back is going to become fundamental, and “givewashers” will be “outed”. Corporations and uber-wealthy individuals have it in their power to affect serious change in the world, while also inspiring an army of brand loyalists and imitators. Critical will be approaching it earnestly, creatively and in a way careful not to suggest self-appointed elites pushing Marxism as “progressive”.

17. “Honesty, transparency and authenticity.” Aren’t you sick of hearing those words? Me too, and I’ve blogged about them a lot. But the fact that these themes aren’t going away is a wonderful thing. If you’re something other than what you purport to be, someone will discover it; share it with ten friends; and you’ll be left to watch relevance slip through your fingers like sand.

…And my final prediction:

18. It’s nothing specific I see coming, just a feeling I can’t escape. It’s difficult to describe, and even harder to define. But, from tidal waves to earthquakes; from global warming to global recession; from fractured governments to failing banks; from falling idols to faltering families; from tea parties, to housing hangovers, to “reality” that is created and still largely controlled by the media– something over the past decade has left us feeling seriously “undone”. But, I predict that as this sentiment continues to emerge, that we’ll all respond in positive ways… By giving more to others than we expect back in return. By collaborating, sharing resources and ideas. By putting our children’s interests before our own. Listening to one another. And most of all, by seeking guidance, not from our celebrities, politicians or even our Facebook friends– but from above.

Have a great 2010.

P.S. Did I mention that I thought Leno at 10 PM was going to be a brilliant move?…

That person who just whizzed by in a Prius with the “My mother is Earth” bumper sticker may be motivated less by altruism and more by self-interest.

A new national study, called Green Living Pulse, has upturned a number of myths about green consumer behavior. The 2009 Shelton Group study polled the 77 percent of the population that are actually buying green.

What the surveys found might surprise you.

According to this study of green consumers, the environment is not their top priority and while many know what they should do to help the planet, they often don’t do it.

Suzanne Shelton, whose firm conducted the study, says, “Most green advertising is created as if there’s one pool of green consumers and they’re all motivated by ‘save the planet!’ messaging.”

Shelton goes on to say, “We need a revolution in this thinking. Not all green consumers are the same, they’re not all motivated by the same messages and they’re not all inclined to buy only green products.”

The study identified two distinct mindsets — the Engaged Green Mindset and the Mainstream Green Mindset.


The Engaged Green Mindset is marked by a propensity to try new things and is more likely to respond to themes of innovation and possibility.

The Mainstream Green Mindset, on the other hand, is more apt to like things known and tried, responding to themes of security and reliability.

Yet, both mindsets point to the economy as their No. 1 concern. In fact, 59 percent called it their top concern, while the environment lags far behind at 8 percent.

When asked what the most important reason was for reducing energy consumption, 73 percent chose “to lower my bills and control costs” and only 26 percent chose “to lessen my impact on the environment.”

What all this means to builders who want to stand out in the “green” market place, is that you have to make sure that your message clearly defines the personal benefits of greenbuilding: Save money. Lower maintenance. Better return on investment. Safer & healthier living.

To be a leader, you should also position your company on the cutting edge, one whose standards and performance verification sets you apart in the science of greenbuilding.

Your website, brochures, PR and social media should all show that greenbuilding is affordable in the real sense of the word: a lower cost of ownership + qualify for subsidies/rebates and green-advantage mortgages + have a better resale value.

After all, the real cost of home ownership is much more than just sales price. It’s all the on-going and escalating costs like maintenance, energy, water and health.

Then there are all the less tangible, yet valuable commodities like contentment, comfort, peace of mind and, oh, yes the satisfaction of living responsibly.

Do green education right and you will attract the consumers you want. And who knows, you might even help save the planet.

The first LEED Platinum, Zero Energy Home (ZEH) in Florida built by StalwartBuilt Homes.

Instead of the traditional holiday card, we created a custom “video card” celebrating L’Arche Harbor House, a local group whose goal is to be a sign of hope to the world. L’Arche communities are family-like homes where people with and without disabilities share their lives together, give witness to the reality that persons with disabilities possess special qualities of acceptance, wonderment, spirituality, friendship and joy.

Part of an international network of 126 communities in 30 countries, L’Arche Harbor House is the only L’Arche community in Florida.

The video highlights the “joy” of this special community as its members share in the ordinary things of everyday life. We created the video along with a microsite where it plays and can be shared with others.

The “Joy” video card is meant to remind us all that the happiness we seek is in the love we share daily. Henri Nouwen, an author and teacher who spent three years living in a L’Arche community in Canada, once said, “I’ve always thought what makes us human is our mind. But at L’Arche I’ve learned that what makes us human is our heart, the center of our being where God has hidden trust, hope and love.”

A lovely thought any time of year.

The answer lies in the current advertising environment, the future of marketing and quite honestly, our own values.

The current advertising environment is both a bold, new world and a vexing journey into the unknown. While some may long for the three-martini lunches, fab clothes and fat media commissions of the “Mad Men” era, those days are long gone, as agency compensation is increasingly tied to performance and outcomes. That’s actually a good thing, because delivering on performance is always a great opportunity to prove the value of good work.

The frustrating part is that right now, a lot of advertisers, private developers in particular, are sitting tight, playing wait-and-see with the economy. As an agency, we can’t afford to do that. We need to keep moving ahead. Even if that means becoming clients ourselves. So we’re making things that people want. And making sure they know how to find them.

We see this as the future of marketing.

With all the media platforms out there today including social networks, marketing over the next years will increasingly become more direct (one-to-one), and more permission-based. People want to know about the things they care about. And agencies are uniquely suited not only to promote those things, but to imagine and create them.

And Sanctitees is something we care about.

In essence, we’re wearing our faith on our sleeves. Now, some people might say faith and business are two separate things, and perhaps they are. But my faith informs my values, and I believe that clients appreciate knowing who you are — especially when they’re thinking of doing business with you.

Sanctitees is just one of our firm’s entrepreneurial ventures. We’ve also partnered with StalwartBuilt, a green-building science company and have started our own line of modern, green homes called, “Habitectur” (website under development). And, our partnership with America’s Education Guide has helped the expansion of this comprehensive guide to accredited public and private schools, colleges and universities into six new markets in Florida, Virginia and soon, California.

Faith. The environment. Education. And of course, real estate (more precisely, its exciting future). We’ve invested ourselves in these areas. And we’re moving ahead with even more to come.

They say do what you love and success will follow.

Over the past 12 years, this has always held true for Renaissance — though these last two have certainly been more challenging than the first ten. But, we believe that by branching out and creating things, by being true to who we are, we will succeed.

Be it revolution or evolution, we are continuing to “Think Forward”.

“Can a Beard blush? RT @bogusky: Flip-flopping to success http://post.ly/45kX.”

The link was to an enlightening, inspiring story that Alex Bogusky (Crispin Porter + Bogusky) had written about Clow on his blog. It’s worth five minutes of your time. Go ahead. I’ll wait…

What’d you think? Good stuff, huh?…

I strongly related to Alex’s story because I had a similar illuminative moment a few years ago at an AdWeek conference in Miami, the same city where Bogusky began his creative rise. And while our takeaways paralleled each other, the sources of our inspiration and circumstances surrounding them could not be more dissimilar- almost “flip-flopped”, you might say.

Alex’s seminal moment came when he was a young art director– a beach boy wearing a tie who felt uncomfortable faking the false trappings of business. He found himself inspired by the long-haired, back-pack toting, flip flop-wearing creative rebel, Clow, who not only stirred Bogusky with his insights about achieving creative excellence, but also let him know it was OK to just be yourself.

My experience didn’t occur early in my career, but rather a decade into it. And the person who made an impact on me was not a counter-culture iconoclast, but a Mad Man cut from slightly different cloth– Mike Hughes, CEO & Creative Director of The Martin Agency.

Like Bogusky, I’m a lifelong Florida “kid”– a die hard surfer with a genetic disdain for coats, ties and corporate BS. I also spent the first few years of my career at a small agency, earning little, but working hard to learn everything about the ad business.

When I decided to open my own agency, doing so with my former creative director and now business partner, Matt Britt, we established Renaissance Creative, a firm built upon high-level work and valuing our team-members as much we do our clients. Flexible hours? Been doing that for 13 years. Vacation? “Take as much as you need, just be responsible.” Health insurance? We still pay for every bit of it, for every full-time employee and their family, despite the recession.

Oh, and wearing ties?… please.

Now fast-forward 10 years. The agency has grown to 27 people and I’m burning out and need to recharge. On a whim, I decide to go to the first ad conference of my life. (I was just never into them. I thought they were so much pomp and circumstance. I was wrong.)

Unlike Bogusky’s experience, at the conference I attended, not a lot of people were wearing suits. Nope, there were a lot of t-shirts. Lots of artsy glasses. Lots of laid back, long-haired creative types, like Alex. I wore jeans and sneakers every day and felt right at home. Each day of the three-day conference provided terrific presentations from young, high-powered global ad execs, showcasing edgy, viral campaigns. Great stuff.

All of them were trying to answer the question, “Where is advertising headed?”, the theme of the conference.

Like Bogusky, the entire time I was there, I kept noticing this one guy who just seemed… well, kind of out of place; a tall, silver-haired gentleman who wore unassuming slacks and a business shirt. Amidst the young, hip creative types, he looked downright corporate– like some kind of tobacco industry power executive from one of Bogusky’s TRUTH campaigns. I just envisioned him as some kind of tired older sales executive, who had likely spent his life pumping hands, playing golf and who probably felt uncomfortable amongst us, “creative” types.

But, as the event went on, I began to notice one person after another approaching this man and shaking his hand. And I couldn’t help but notice the clear look of deep respect in every one of these people’s eyes as they approached him; and the warmth he exuded in taking his time and speaking to each of them.

Then, I noticed that it wasn’t just the attendees like me who were approaching him in this way, but the various conference presenters, themselves, all with that same look in their eyes, as if they were in the presence of royalty. Turns out, they were.

Wondering who this man was, I found out the following day, when they called Mike Hughes to the stage to give the closing keynote. While all of the presentations at the event had been informative and inspiring, Mike’s was downright enriching.

He began by being the first presenter at the event to admit that, he “couldn’t say where advertising was headed”. He said he “had some ideas”, but wasn’t going to try and predict with any certainty (Thanks for shooting straight, Mike. The fog was only just starting to get thick at that time, and we still haven’t come out of it).

Mike talked about how brands used to focus on one unique selling point, but had now begun to present multiple USP’s, as exampled in The Martin Agency’s, Geico campaigns. And he talked, not only about the latest trends, but also about things that endured- like the importance of a good story. Of great copywriting, of compelling imagery. And human emotion. Needless to say, I was compelled. He pulled out work that I had seen in CA years earlier, work that had inspired me and that even today, I still consider some of the best ever.

And then Mike took us down a different path… He quit talking about work and started talking about life.

He told us how he had spent much of his own focusing intently on work, often at the expense of his personal life. A life-long non-smoker, he told us how he had been diagnosed with lung cancer; and despite being given an 85% chance of dying within five years, had now been living with it for more than ten. Living with and winning a battle against cancer for so long may seem impossible for many, yet sitting there mesmerized, I began to understand how someone like Mike Hughes could do it. I also began to understand that, regardless of his decidedly unassuming, businesslike appearance, he was one of the most masterful storytellers I had ever had the privilege of hearing.

Of course, our greatest storytellers always provide a twist– and Mike did not disappoint.

He said that when he was diagnosed, he had to make some important choices about his life. Naturally, this included “spending major time, doing major things” with his family (which he said had always planned to do, but would now no longer delay). But then Mike said he, “surprised even himself”, when he realized he also wanted to continue to work. Because Mike was passionate about his work. It brought him joy. And he loved the people he worked with. Because they were his family, too.

He closed, like Clow in Bogusky’s story – by encouraging us to always pursue excellence in our work. But he also reminded us to never forget to also pursue excellence –and joy– in our lives. To be a good father or mother; a good husband or wife; a good mentor, co-worker; or just a good friend. Because life is short, you don’t get any of it back. And there are only 24 hours in every joyous day.

I share this story with you not only to provide you Mike’s profound wisdom, but also point out that whether you are a beach-loving creative rock star; a flip-flop wearing, bearded groundbreaker; or a storytelling Don Draper in business slacks, with the fortitude to beat back cancer and the courage to admit you don’t know everything; there’s much to be learned about simply being, authentically you.

Author’s Note:
Mike’s story had special resonance for me, as my other longtime business partner, friend, designer, architect and general superhuman Ed Bondi — who possesses many of Hughes’ fine qualities — won his own near-death battle with cancer at about this same time. Like Mike, Ed has long been a huge source of inspiration for myself and others around him; he’s just not as tall or famous.

Following Hughes’s speech, I wanted to go introduce myself and shake his hand, but never worked up the nerve to interrupt the many conversations that swirled around him. Nonetheless, I felt he had already given me just what I needed — a renewal of my passion for the work and confirmation of what I had long suspected— that honesty is the real genesis of good creative; a requirement for successful brands; and a fundamental quality for a truly satisfying life of excellence– and joy.

Thanks again for the inspiration Mike, Lee, Alex and Ed.

I don’t know how much buzz the profile garnered, but as a creative, I noticed a real gem in it that I felt merited further focus and discussion.

What’s that in the “frame grab” you ask? These are Chris Martin’s notes to himself and his bandmates, one of many posted on the walls, a whiteboard and even Martin’s studio piano (he scribbles on it in green marker),

More precisely, they are reminders of key principles which have helped Coldplay become astoundingly successful- a “secret formula” if you will, of philosophical beliefs and strategic tactics that the band employs consistently, covering everything from song construction; to photo / video guidelines; to marketing and public relations positioning; and general business.

In the interview, news journalist, Steve Kroft, framed Martin’s practice as somehow aberrant, stating: “He is a compulsive worrier and list-maker. He sends himself electronic messages, and scrawls notes on scraps of paper, on his hands, and anything else that’s available, lest he forget some brilliant idea. Like many artists, he is openly, gloriously neurotic.”

“Neurotic?”

I call it pure business acumen- (beautifully) equal parts creative and analytical.

How many new ideas or profound realizations arrive for many of us at unexpected moments? Insights that you just can’t afford to forget? What do you do? Grab a pencil and jot ‘em down, of course! Most designers I know keep idea/sketch books handy and I’ve got plenty of notebooks and post-it notes full of marketing, design, business and leadership lessons that I’ve either come to realize myself, or have picked up from others much wiser than me.

“The most powerful element in advertising is the truth”…
“Always have a point of view”…
“Make an emotional connection”…
“Don’t be afraid that a concept will go over your customers heads. If you assume they’re dumb, they may be smarter than you”…
“Safe is risky”…
“Advertising can’t create product advantages, only convey them”…

And so on.

I keep them where I can always be consciously reminded of their powerful truths. If you happen to be the kind of person who instinctively organizes your standards and observations into digital files- congratulations! If you prefer a bulletin board, whiteboard or post-it’s, I can relate. If you use a green sharpie on your white grand piano, then ummm… well, o.k…. maybe Martin is a little bit more obsessive than most.

But, based upon what I can clearly see in Chris’ notes, he is a man that is more calculating than confused; more cognitive than compulsive; more analytical than anxious. I see someone who is introspective and intelligent, and not inappropriately impulsive. Creatives, take note.

Coldplay’s “mysteries”, revealed:

1. Albums must be no longer than 42 minutes, or 9 tracks.
2. Production must be amazing, rich, but with space, not overlayered, less tracks, more quality, groove and swing. Drums/rhythm are the most crucial thing to concentrate on; difference between “Bittersweet” and “Science of silence.” [A reference to The Verve and Richard Ashcroft solo]
3. Computers are instruments, not recording aids.
4. Imagery must be classic, colourful and different. Come back in glorious technicolor.
5. Make sure videos and pictures are great before setting release date. And highly original.
6. Always keep mystery. Not many interviews.
7. Groove and swing. Rhythms and sounds must always sound as original as possible. Once Jon has melody, twist it and weird it.
8. Promo/review copies to be on vinyl. Stops copying problem, sounds and looks better.
9. Jacqueline Sabriado, ns p c c, face forward/review. (?)
10. Think about what to do with charity account. Set up something small, enabling and constructive. Ref J. Oliver Fifteen [a reference to Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Restaurant in London]

No sooner than I had thought this, than another group member, posted this reply: “This approach assumes that design is to be judged on some standard of design, independent of anything else. First comes an objective in regard to marketing materials. Marketing establishes an objective (or objectives) and develops a strategy to realize those objectives. Design not only does not perform independent of these things, but to be successful, it must assume that marketing did their job correctly and visually enable the strategy to effectively work, to realize the objectives. Good commercial design (i.e. graphic design) when done well is a measurement of how well marketing did their job.”

This designer’s thoughts were similar to mine, but I believe there’s a little more to it. Criteria is the foundation of effective design and includes more than just objectives and strategy. It includes things like a thorough understanding of who your audience is, how they are unique, where they are, what they do and what their passions are. It includes understanding attributes, benefits, strengths and weaknesses of the brand. A study of competition, how to stand out… and much more. The designer should help contribute and synthesize all this in the design process.

I think more thought leaders (CEO’s, CMO’s, CTO’s), are recognizing the rich benefits of seamless collaboration between disciplines and “departments”. I believe it is critically important that marketers understand design methodology and that designers be actively engaged in criteria development from the start- not sitting and waiting for the next “order”. How can you achieve full creative potential with an assembly-line mentality? You can’t.

The same holds true for interaction between web designers, programmers, PR, strategists, media planners, writers, etc. Here at Renaissance we are about seamless collaboration. Our designers are intelligent, strategic thinkers who have a broad range of individual capabilities. And we use all of them to achieve the best results for our clients.

Many years ago, legendary ad man, William Bernbach had the vision to combine copywriters and art directors into two-person teams—they had commonly been in separate departments. So, why did we ever stop there? Fragmenting the brand internally will inherently, weaken it externally. The bottom line is that the more diversified skill sets you put on a problem from the onset, the better your chance of arriving at an effective solution. In my opinion, this is one “general” principle of design that if utilized uniformly, would allow us to say with conviction, “Here’s what all great pieces really have in common”.

And on a more serious-minded note- you’ve likely heard about Brad Pitt and his earth-friendly entourage’s efforts to “Make it Right” in the lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans by building 150 sustainable residences for people whose homes were ravaged by Katrina.

Green is fun. Green is hip. And Green most certainly is our future. But Green Living can be very expensive, making it impractical for many outside the cultural elite.

…Until now.

Renaissance Creative and StalwartBuilt, an extreme green homebuilding science company, will soon announce a high-profile project expected to draw national attention and advance the evolution of high-level, affordable “Beyond Green” living.

Stalwart Built home

StalwartBuilt president, Julius Poston, a long-time developer and green building innovator from the Florida Panhandle, may just have cracked the affordability code. StalwartBuilt is responsible for building the very first LEED Platinum “Net Zero Energy” home in the Florida, and the Southeast region.

LEED Platinum is the highest rating possible from the nonprofit U.S.G.B.C (United States Green Building Council) that uses an extremely stringent, national, third party certification system for green homes.

Renaissance Creative partnered with Julius and StalwartBuilt almost two years ago, developing brand identity, a website and promotional materials for the company; coordinating public relations; and providing architectural assistance during product development.

Unlike so many modern green home concepts, the StalwartBuilt LEED Platinum home, located in Callaway Corners, a new single-family workforce housing development in Panama City, reflects the coastal vernacular of its Florida setting.  Yet, the home’s building science boasts the state-of-the-art in green-o-vation.

Photovoltaic solar panels. Geo-thermal heating. Honeywell air filtration for 98% allergen-free interior air quality. Cost & waste saving modular construction. Extreme wind-load strength.

And much more.  

And the price tag? Just $125 a square foot, not including the lot.

The history-making home is now the model for a soon-to-be announced regional initiative that will be putting hundreds of “Beyond Green” homes in neighborhoods that need them the most.

Hey, naked bike riders may attract gawkers. And movie stars may get lots of ink. But Julius Poston and associates, including Renaissance Creative, are getting it done. We are quietly and definitively making the dream of a hyper-green home an affordable reality for ordinary folks.

How cool is that?

1. Provide Valuable Content – For successful search engine optimization (SEO), content is king. Provide information on your site that your target audience will appreciate. Make yourself a resource. COST: FREE

2. Write Effective Meta Tags – The three most important are your Title, Description and Keyword tags. Titles are the text seen at the top of browser windows on all pages. These are the most important to search engines. They indicate what each individual page is about. They should be succinct (not exceeding 75 characters), include high traffic keywords and for most businesses, be geographically specific.
Description tags are the descriptive copy web-surfers see when organic search results pop up. This information helps people determine if they want to visit your site, so make them strategic (use keywords), informative and compelling (250 characters or so).
Keywords are a list of words and phrases relevant to the content of your site. They are not as important as Titles and Descriptions, but still help. COST: Once written, an hour or two of coding time

3. Secure Inbound Links – Incoming links into your website increase traffic. Also, when Google and other search engines see multiple incoming links into your site, they assume it’s important and rank it higher. Encourage as many relevant links into your site as you can. This can include strategic “partners”; satellite offices; Chambers; subs, etc. One-way links are considered the most natural and desirable, though “reciprocal links” are fine, if they are logical. COST: FREE

4. Submit Your Website to Directories – Submit your site to key directories, providing as much information as possible. Then scouting the numerous other business and specialized industry directories. The important ones include: Google Local Listings (aka Google Maps); Yahoo Local; MSN Live Search; and the Open Directory Project (dmoz.com). COST: FREE

5. Blog – Want links? Become a resource; encourage inbound traffic; publicize new content; and encourage others to pick up your stories, all in one step! The secret to blogging: Don’t worry about being a journalist; keep it short, conversational and dedicate a set period of time to it (an hour or two a week). COST: FREE

6. Pinging Services – If you’re going to put in the time to blog, make sure people know. Each time you make a new entry, visit Google Blog Search Ping Utility at http://blogsearch.google.com/ping and type in your blog address. Pingomatic.com is another good one. COST: FREE

7. Write & Submit Articles – See #5 Above. Submit content to article directories for abundant backlinks. Go to www.ezinearticles.com to begin. COST: FREE

8. Write and Distribute Press Releases – Yes, you can do it yourself for only the cost of your time. Distribution is free at PRlog.com COST: FREE

9. Leverage Social Networks – Linkedin for professionals; Facebook for friends and family. Both provide invaluable exposure for your website and your content and there are many more. COST: FREE

10. Promote Yourself In Online Forums & Blogs – Participate in online groups. Get started by investigating Google Groups (groups.google.com) COST: FREE

Well over half (57%) of American households have broadband and they spend more than 30% of their media time, online. According to a 2008 NAR survey of Home Buyers and Sellers, 87% of homebuyers said they used the internet as a resource when researching residential real estate. That’s 2% more than those who said they consulted a real estate agent! Does this mean that Realtors are no longer relevant and/or that traditional advertising is dead? Not by a long shot!

The survey also reported that a healthy 47% of searchers looked at newspapers or other print ads (5th place, behind Internet- 87%, real estate agents-85%, yard signs-62% and open houses-48%). And that of the 87% percent of home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home—well, 87% of those folks eventually purchased through a real estate agent! These statistics tell us that real estate marketing (still) relies on strategic, integrated marketing utilizing both on- and offline media to deliver targeted messages to various audiences; and on the expertise of trained professionals to help homebuyers navigate the market and assist them with these large, life-changing transactions.

But, what about those third graders?

I suppose the critical point is that they’re in third grade– and still growing and evolving. And unless you are in denial about the Internet’s importance to marketing, you should be continuing to evolve, as well! Your media mix —whatever it includes—will ultimately run through or revolve around your website. It is, or at least it should be– the hub of your marketing wheel. And while it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the seemingly unlimited creative possibilities of Web 2.0 with its streaming media (web video), mobile media, blogs, widgets, podcasts and syndication technologies like RSS (really simple syndication), there’s no excuse not to understand the basics of online marketing. If you are not getting the desired results from your website, here are some helpful hints and best practices to consider before investing in a potentially under-performing site.

1. Avoid 100% Flash websites. My creative brain loves the slick, dynamic look and seamless experience all-flash sites can provide, but search engine traffic is an important part of our clients’ business models and search engines can parse little content from Flash-based sites relative to HTML and CSS. In addition, if you have a lot of site content, or think it will need to be updated more than 3-4 times a year, then it makes sense to stay away from 100% Flash for budget reasons. I prefer balancing usability with creativity by combining HTML and CSS with some Flash, as a little Flash can go a long way to enhance user experience when used creatively and intelligently.
2. Mission Critical: Content – For successful search engine optimization (SEO), content is king. Your site should provide valuable information that references specific terms and concepts unique to your site with text on as many pages as possible, weaving keywords into compelling copy. Often, it’s not the broad keywords you might have imagined people are using to find you, but very specific ones. Search engines typically index the first 500 words of copy on each page. Site maps (outlines of your site) help search engines, as well.
3. Always use title tags, or page titles, that are relevant to the content of specific pages. Title tags define page titles, which are seen at the top of the browser window. Search engines place significant emphasis on this text when conducting searches and returning results. In most cases, your titles should describe what you sell and where your business is located. They should be succinct (usually not exceeding 75 characters), strategic and compelling since this is the link text in search engine results. Besides a good title tag, you should have a good description tag, which is hidden text that search engines use for page summaries. These should also be concise (1-2 sentences), informative (tell me what I can do here) and clear (what is the content of the page).
4. Avoid title tags with too much competition. A Google search for “Jacksonville real estate” puts you in competition with a universe of 3,050,000 other pages with the same links. “St. Johns County real estate” reduces it to 411,000. “Ponte Vedra Beach real estate” drops it 244,000. Try to be specific and localize.
5. Remember that conversion is your ultimate goal. Top placement may be a by-product of successful online marketing, but conversion is king. SEO is just one part of the process. To be effective, your online marketing should convert visitors into customers. This means considering such factors as your own unique selling points, calls to action, site navigation, conversion and conversion path.

By simply keeping these few principles in mind, you should at least be on equal footing in the competitive online marketplace. More likely, you’ll find yourself ahead of many and might even be able to teach your third grader a thing or two!

The story applies beautifully to all of those who become too comfortable with any aspect of life, not anticipating change and innovation, nor planning appropriately for the future.

We believe in this principle with such conviction at Renaissance Creative that we use the phrase, “Think Forward” in conjunction with our logo and brand identity. It’s how we help our clients think about their own products and services and the mindset that we apply to all of our creative work. Because failing to do so can have serious consequences, as Kendrick and Orthlip’s history lesson shows:

“Colonel Mastalerz was one of the most prestigious men in all of Europe- a decorated soldier and leader of the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade. As head of the 18th Lancer division, he was in charge of defending the Pomeranian Corridor. Built around the strength of its 84 infantry regiments, the Polish military had reigned supreme for two decades, turning back numerous assaults and defending their borders victoriously.

Tactically, they were superior. Their training and horsemanship were unsurpassed. Their determination and bravery had earned them an international reputation as one of the fiercest fighting units the world over. But on the morning of September 1, 1939, even Col. Mastalerz knew that Poland’s string of victories was about to end.

The horses of the Polish calvary grew skittish and reared up restlessly. A deep rumbling sound shook the earth, growing louder by the minute. In the distance, Mastalerz could hear the sound of trees cracking and falling to the ground. Through the morning mist, the 2nd and 20th Motorized Divisions of the Third Reich made their way toward Masterlerz and the small hamlet of Krojanty. The invasion of Poland had begun.

In the hours that followed, Polish soldiers on horseback fought a war of attrition against a German unit of tanks and armored cars. It was one of history’s great juxtapositions. The unthinkable was happening. It was a contrast equal to the Wright Brothers observing a space shuttle launch, or Alexander Graham Bell witnessing an Internet Videoconference. Residents from two different worlds met in an iconic exchange of ideologies, as one bygone era surrendered indefensibly to the next. Time and technology had marched by unnoticed. And that changed everything”.

Just like the Polish army, we as marketers must continue our push to evolve. Enduring success will be enjoyed not by those looking to leverage the tried and true, nor those satisfied with remaining in lockstep with their peers; but rather, by those willing and committed to thinking forward and considering: What’s next? How can I do this differently? How can it be improved? What changes can I anticipate (cultural, media, technological)? How can I leverage these trends?

Our industry today (integrated marketing, advertising, public relations and brand communications) is characterized by profound change– extreme shifts in technology and fragmentation of media, all occurring at unbelievable speed. Is there really any question that the ways we deliver messages must always continue to evolve?

As the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade proved, if you’re not committed to the process and looking far enough ahead; you’ll one day find yourself at the unwelcome crossroads of time and technology; of the past and the future; of foresight and hindsight. And you’ll have no choice but to surrender to those who eyes were fixed on a point on the horizon, much farther than your own.

As Kendrick and Ortlip so eloquently put it, “the advance of time has a great way of correcting nearsightedness”.

Note: The Blueprint for Life Study from which the story of the Pomeranian Calvary is referenced, is a truly enlightening (and exceptionally well-developed and designed), multi-media resource that takes valuable, secular-styled lessons for intentional living and goal-setting and applies them to Christian principles. I highly recommend this $59 study for groups or individuals. You’ll find many more brilliant illustrations you can apply to every area of your life. www.blueprintforlife.com.

I’m not referencing the lack of aesthetic refinement of any particular American make or model. Perhaps to the surprise of some, great design isn’t just about looks or style. Nor is it an issue related specifically to engineering, price, performance or service following the sale. Rather, it’s about the cumulative nature of all of these qualities and how a company’s products and services make their customers “feel” over time.

Great design emerges from a specific kind of organizational “culture”. It is guided by a commitment to understanding your customers (and your “brand advocates”, including your internal team and supply chain), on a human level, so that you can connect with them there emotionally. It’s a problem-solving process that can be utilized in every facet of your business. And in today’s world, it is fast becoming not only a powerful competitive advantage for those all-too-familiar companies that clearly “get it” (Apple, Target, BMW), but a survival tool for those hoping to compete in a tumultuous new economy — a world where companies are increasingly being forced to choose between operating as standardized commodities, or class leaders. I’d theorize that the fact that American automakers occupy neither space distinctly or consistently is a potential source of their problems.

So, how can we utilize the power of design to its full potential in our businesses? A great way to start is simply understanding what design is and the methodology behind it. And don’t worry– you don’t have to be Steve Jobs or Michael Graves to do this.

While design was one of my responsibilities years ago, it rarely rose above my roles as a writer, marketer, strategist and generalist. But, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside some great ones for many years, and so have come to understand their processes well. Whether you’re talking about industrial, environmental, graphic, interactive or experiential design or whether you’re referencing product development, marketing, branding or organizational attributes, the methodology remains wonderfully, consistently effective.

It is a process based on inquisition; exploration; anticipation; innovation and continual trial and refinement. It is focused obsessively on user-experience (i.e. What’s in it for the customer?). It’s about fostering positive emotional connections with users by focusing on the most sublime details (this is where professional designers are worth their weight in gold and where brands — some knowingly, some unwittingly — often make that choice between invariable “commodity” or “class leader”). Oh yes, and be forewarned: The design “process” never, ever “ends”, because time inherently presents us with new sets of problems to anticipate and resolve.

Many people fail to recognize design as this type of a problem-solving “tool”. They understand it only as one recent prospective client did, when in the course of attempting to pay our firm a compliment, noted our reputation as a creative agency, and said that we are great at making things, “pretty”.

As we noted in a subsequent blog post (http://www.rencreative.com/blog “Pretty?!! Please!!!”), design isn’t about being “pretty”, “good-looking” or even “kinda cute”. Design is about criteria-based problem-solving. And only when a project’s criteria calls for “pretty”, will it be designed in such a way because form follows function.

This is where much public understanding of design tends to get lost.

You see, design is not art. Art is subjective, based on an artist’s personal expression. Design is objective, based on well-organized performance criteria.

Good design is not influenced by the designer’s personal feelings and is only beautiful when it works beautifully — when it effectively achieves what it is designed to achieve.

My iPod is a work of art. But, it works because it can hold a thousand songs in a smooth, elegant case about the size of a book of matches. Same thing with my iPhone. It’s sleek and beautiful and it’s a working computer that’s thinner than my wallet! These things make me feel good about my purchases of them, good about the Apple brand and thus more likely to purchase the next new gizmo Apple puts in front of me.

I trust the company because they provided me with great products and services that have translated into positive memorable experiences, over time. They’ve elevated their brand for me, to the point where I not only use their products loyally, I’ll pay more to get them, because I recognize the value they extend over the long run through the quality of their design. So often, so many companies waste so much money throwing more media dollars after bad brands, when they could have dedicated their budgets to creating stronger brands that require less marketing across the life of their products!

This is not say that good design has to cost more. Just look at Target. They’ve created a design-driven company, whose entire business model is, “great design for less!” Same with IKEA. Their commitment to design runs throughout their products, retail spaces, marketing efforts and no doubt, their entire internal structure.

Meanwhile, American automakers seem confused. They don’t understand their customers and they’ve admitted it. They say they can’t figure out if we want better gas mileage and lower prices; or more room and greater safety for ourselves, and our families.

Hey, how about both?!

If Steve Jobs can cram 1,000 songs into a gorgeous matchbook; if Target can give us haute couture for $19.99, then we know it can be accomplished! And if you want to make sure your brands transcend the competition in lasting, meaningful ways by connecting with us on an emotional, human level —– then by all means, leave the jets parked on your day trips.

Ultimately, not every company has to be a BMW, UPS, Apple, Starbucks, Disney, Samsung or any other of the many organizations that understand “design culture” and employ it throughout every aspect of their businesses. You can choose to utilize design methodology to attack any individual problem and integrate it to whatever level your personal business philosophy begets – or your customers demand.

Regardless of how you use it, here are some handy tips to help keep you “thinking” like a designer:
1. Define the problem: Gather all the criteria by gathering all the stakeholders. Design is a collaborative process. The more brains you involve in problem-solving, the more effective your solutions can potentially be, though someone should always clearly lead.
2. Put yourself in the place of your customer: It seems so obvious, yet is so easy to forget. You’ve got to intently focus on the user, at all times.
3. Inquire: Ask these important questions: What’s in it for the customer? What are their desires / needs / fears? How can I address these wants / needs or anxieties and foster positive emotional connections with users by answering these concerns? How do my products and services make people feel? How can I connect with them on a human level? (Hint: Use your gut).
4. Anticipate and Innovate: As we are fond of saying at Renaissance, “Think forward”. Anticipate change. Study consumer, cultural, media and technological trends and consider how your product or service might intersect with these shifts down the road.
5. No idea is a bad idea: Everyone has a creative gene, from the Creative Director right down to the mail room. Never be overly critical or dismissive of a new approach. Consider all ideas thoughtfully and respectfully.
6. Never be satisfied: Test your ideas, measure their results and never stop refining.
7. When in doubt, consult a professional.

If you elect not to integrate the principles of design into your organizational culture, it doesn’t mean that you’ll end up sweating in front of a microphone, getting flogged by an elected official. But if you do, I promise that your customers (and your people), will notice. They’ll feel that you care. They’ll stick by your class-leading company in up or down economies. And when they shake their heads, it won’t be because you are so woefully disconnected, but because you are so consistently, astonishingly good.

Some people assume that the best paths to visibility are through such methods as listing your information in online business directories; using paid advertising strategies such as pay-per-click (PPC) and/or banner advertising on niche portals; or leveraging social media, by doing things like blogging and/or creating pages within sites like Facebook, MySpace or Linkedin.

It is my experience that while each of these elements has the potential to contribute to a well-rounded online marketing campaign, none, alone or in tandem are as important as focusing on the intrinsic content, structure and overall quality of your own website to achieve high page rank in “organic” (non-paid) search results.

Paying for visibility on niche portals (think, Realtor.com, for Realtors), offer the value of targeted marketing, but nowhere near the power of simply being found via organic search on major search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo or AOL. And while I hesitate to confer even more importance on these internet moguls- the fact is that most consumers today conduct searches by going straight to their homepages and using their browser bars to look for, well… everything!

Understanding this, one might mistakenly assume that utilizing PPC programs offered by the major Search Engines themselves (such as Google Adwords), might well be the Holy Grail for search visibility. But, not so fast– there are other factors to consider: 1) Once again, you’re paying for search results. When you quit paying, you quit getting results. 2) Despite the fact that you’re paying to appear on the first page of results, you are also clearly identified as an advertiser, separated physically (via position on the page), from organic search results. Organic results are universally perceived as more credible, thus making them more likely to be clicked on. 3) Paid results through one search engine won’t necessarily help you with another, whereas a well-built, optimized site will provide increased visibility across all search engines; and oh, by the way—cost you less in the long run.

Finally, social networking is terrific if you’ve got all day to blog and upload videos, but most do not. And while blogging can be a powerful tool to increase search visibility, beware: If you start a blog and let it go stagnant, it can hurt your search rankings, as search engines will ultimately treat your site the way you treat your blog— by ignoring it, based on the assumption that it just isn’t as relevant as it once was. And advertising on social sites? Hey, you might as well interrupt my neighborhood pool party to show me your ad and risk getting pelted with onion dip. Get out of my social space, already! (Think Facebook’s recent revolt).

So, what’s a website to do, to get a look? Focus on “organics”!

1. The most important elements to consider when building a site are that it be well-organized, easy-to-absorb and simple-to-navigate. You want to establish a unique selling point, call to action and focused conversion path. A visitor landing on your home page should know within 3-5 seconds where to go next to purchase your product, register for information, or perform a desired action. Last year, Google announced that their Page Rank system was beginning to factor in landing pages’ load times. People want information quickly and Google was responding to this. So should you. If your conversion path has multiple steps, such as adding products to a shopping cart then checking out, make sure each step is clear and intuitive.
2. Focus on quality content! Provide valuable information relevant to your business that references specific terms and concepts unique to your site with text on as many pages as possible, weaving keywords into compelling copy. Often, it’s not the broad keywords you might have imagined that people are using to find you, but very specific ones. Search engines typically index the first 500 words of copy on each page.
3. Pay CLOSE attention to title tags! Nothing is more important than these single lines of code that define page titles, seen at the top of your browser window. These are the link text for search engine results. Ideally, they succinctly describe what your business sells and where you are located.
4. Avoid tags with too much competition and be geographically specific (i.e. instead of “Doctors”, “Florida Doctors” or “Jacksonville Doctors”, think, “Jacksonville Beach Pediatricians”).
5. Keep content fresh and updated. New content to existing sites is automatically indexed when added. If new information is added frequently, it indicates that your site is current and relevant!
6. Avoid 100% Flash websites. While search engines are getting better at it, they can still parse very little content from Flash-based sites. Balance usability with creativity by combining HTML and CSS with some Flash in contained areas, or transitions.
7. Try to cultivate as many relevant incoming links into your site as possible. These is a powerful strategy for achieving great search results, but manipulation can lead to penalization. For more on this topic, refer to the, “Link Your Way to Better Search Results…” entry in this blog.
8. Add a “site index” (an “outline” of your site). This can help search engines, as well.
9. Make sure your web address is present and highly visible on all other marketing materials.
10. Understand that search optimization is a process. Search algorithms and methodologies are constantly being refined by Search Engines to suit public demand. If you don’t have time to deal with it, find someone who does. Think of your website as one of your most valuable employees and dedicate the same time, effort and resources to keeping them “happy”.

By just following these few simple rules, you’ll have your website well on its way to “going green” and visitors flocking to your online environment!

We believe in this principle with such conviction at Renaissance Creative that we use the phrase, “Think Forward” in conjunction with our logo and brand identity. It’s how we help our clients think about their own products and services and the mindset that we apply to all of our creative work. Because failing to do so can have serious consequences, as Kendrick and Orthlip’s history lesson shows:

“Colonel Mastalerz was one of the most prestigious men in all of Europe- a decorated soldier and leader of the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade. As head of the 18th Lancer division, he was in charge of defending the Pomeranian Corridor. Built around the strength of its 84 infantry regiments, the Polish military had reigned supreme for two decades, turning back numerous assaults and defending their borders victoriously.

Tactically, they were superior. Their training and horsemanship were unsurpassed. Their determination and bravery had earned them an international reputation as one of the fiercest fighting units the world over. But on the morning of September 1, 1939, even Col. Mastalerz knew that Poland’s string of victories was about to end.

The horses of the Polish calvary grew skittish and reared up restlessly. A deep rumbling sound shook the earth, growing louder by the minute. In the distance, Mastalerz could hear the sound of trees cracking and falling to the ground. Through the morning mist, the 2nd and 20th Motorized Divisions of the Third Reich made their way toward Masterlerz and the small hamlet of Krojanty. The invasion of Poland had begun.

In the hours that followed, Polish soldiers on horseback fought a war of attrition against a German unit of tanks and armored cars. It was one of history’s great juxtapositions. The unthinkable was happening. It was a contrast equal to the Wright Brothers observing a space shuttle launch, or Alexander Graham Bell witnessing an Internet Videoconference. Residents from two different worlds met in an iconic exchange of ideologies, as one bygone era surrendered indefensibly to the next. Time and technology had marched by unnoticed. And that changed everything”.

Just like the Polish army, we as marketers must continue our push to evolve. Enduring success will be enjoyed not by those looking to leverage the tried and true, nor those satisfied with remaining in lockstep with their peers; but rather, by those willing and committed to thinking forward and considering: What’s next? How can I do this differently? How can it be improved? What changes can I anticipate (cultural, media, technological)? How can I leverage these trends?

Our industry today (integrated marketing, advertising, public relations and brand communications) is characterized by profound change– extreme shifts in technology and fragmentation of media, all occurring at unbelievable speed. Is there really any question that the ways we deliver messages must always continue to evolve?

As the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade proved, if you’re not committed to the process and looking far enough ahead; you’ll one day find yourself at the unwelcome crossroads of time and technology; of the past and the future; of foresight and hindsight. And you’ll have no choice but to surrender to those who eyes were fixed on a point on the horizon, much farther than your own.

As Kendrick and Ortlip so eloquently put it, “the advance of time has a great way of correcting nearsightedness”.

Note: The Blueprint for Life Study from which the story of the Pomeranian Calvary is referenced, is a truly enlightening (and exceptionally well-developed and designed), multi-media resource that takes valuable, secular-styled lessons for intentional living and goal-setting and applies them to Christian principles. I highly recommend this $59 study for groups or individuals. You’ll find many more brilliant illustrations you can apply to every area of your life. www.blueprintforlife.com.

Back fat wasn’t the only thing occupying enquiring minds.

People also clicked to find out:
• How to tie a tie
• How to avoid tan lines
• How to save money
• How to write a resume
• How to lose weight
• How to make money
• How to improve your marriage
• How to save on home heating bills
• How to cook a turkey
• How to brine a turkey
• How to argue with your spouse
• How to choose a pediatrician
• How to reduce stress in your life
• How to be happy at work
• How to make gravy
• How to recycle cell phones
• How to pronounce “Palahniuk”
And to answer your question, it’s “Paula Nick”, and he’s the guy who wrote Fight Club, which was turned into a Brad Pitt movie about a brawl-picking sociopath.

And I found all that out by doing a Quick Search.

One of the fascinating things about this list—and a great lesson for marketing types—is how very personal and sweetly neurotic it is. Look behind the questions asked and you’ll see a host of concerns:
• “Am I doing this right?”
• “Am I pronouncing this correctly?”
• “Will I be warm enough?”
• “Am I loved?
• “Will I be successful?”
and
• “Why are you staring at my back?”

As you may recall, 2008 was an election year. So how come questions like, “How to pick a presidential candidate” or “How to understand Electoral College Votes? or “How to spell “Wasilla?” didn’t make it to the top?

You see, human concerns are vitally personal. That’s why marketing messages, however rational and well-thought out, have to connect with deeper emotions. They need to touch the brain stem, not just the brain cells. The personal is primal.

As we search for ways to engage the people who are our target markets, we have to keep in mind that what they’re searching for comes from the heart and make sure that we speak to those deeply-felt desires.

Now, I have to go. I’ve got to work on my Lats.

You probably thought, as I did, “Oh my God, you have got to be kidding me! Is this a joke? They’ll be lucky if they sell even one of those ridiculous things…”

The goofy garment — basically a blanket with sleeves and a hole for your head —and its surreal commercials spawned an organic, positive viral response including a couple of hundred YouTube parodies, SNL skits, Facebook Fan Clubs and celebrity comic monologue jokes.

But, the joke is squarely upon all of us cynics.

According to the Ad Age article, Scott Boilen, president of Allstar Marketing Group of New York, the man behind The Snuggie, says they can’t process orders fast enough. Online orders continue to pour in; The Snuggies have sold out at Walgreens and Bed, Bath & Beyond; and they’re now headed for the big time: Walmart.

So I, as a marketer, I ask: What gives?

Boilen claims it’s a combination of price and timing, that in this economy, with people stuck at home, looking to save money on things such as heating bills, etc., that The Snuggie at $19.95 (plus a free booklight!) is simply a bargain too good to pass up!

Boilen says the DRTV model (think Ronco products), usually involves breaking even on the initial television/online launch, then moving into profitability with the introduction of the product onto retail shelves. But The Snuggie didn’t wait, enjoying almost instant success. So again, what’s going on?

I’m sure that (thanks to the recession), Boilen and his infomercial pals enjoy fire sale media pricing that allows them to come in from the cold, wee hours of programming to bask in prime time hot spots at reduced rates. But still…

Is it truly a viral joke that turned remunerative? Or just a classic example of behavioral marketing, where the “chronology of purchase intent” lines up in perfect harmony for sales conversion?; (i.e. near-broke consumer, shivering at home, longs for immediate, fleecy security; sees the commercial and instantly buys into Snuggie’s irresistible value proposition).

My two cents: This is a “girly thing”. It’s a “mom thing”… and a “kid thing”… But, before you start sending me nasty e-mails, please let me qualify. I’m not a sexist. I’ll even own up publicly that I love to take baths (albeit, with a beer); I saw Titanic at least three times; and have Norah Jones on my Ipod. So back off.

Proof of my theory: When I first saw the commercial, I turned to my wife and said , incredulously, “Can you believe this?!!” She giggled, but said, “Shoot, I bet both of your daughters (ages 6 and 10), would LOVE one of those things! They’re always wrapped up under a blanket, on the couch reading, just like that!”

Next, for fun I posted the Ad Age Snuggies article on my Facebook profile, labeling my post and link to the article with the same cynical title of this blog: “Tim is convinced the end is near: adage.com/article…”

Within minutes, I received a response from a friend and former Account Exec at RC, now a stay-at-home mom: “OMG! This is so funny! My 7 year-old-daughter has been BEGGING me for this blanket! She walks around with her blankets acting like she has one…”

I then recalled my wife’s comments and started putting it all together: The ridiculous name–– Snuggie… Rhymes with Huggies… Snuggle® (you know, the fabric softener with the teddy bear); the simple commercial with the mom and the little girl at home… It all started making sense. My marketing brain kicked in and I thought, “Oh, how I’d love to take a look at their tracking sheets and demographics. This is all about moms and daughters!”

Finally, it occurred to me that I had recently seen an even more surreal version of the Snuggie commercial, one noticeably showing more men in these things– large groups of people, wearing them outdoors at football game and on camping trips. Yep, a classic product extension effort– trying to get the guys to buy in!

I was utterly satisfied that I had so quickly and shrewdly dissected and analyzed the fundamental forces associated with The Snuggie’s surprising success –– that is, until Ed (one of the Partners here), weighed in and blew things up:

“I really don’t know what the big mystery is. Why are you making a big deal out of this? They’re functional. They’re cheap. They’re warm. It’s good design. I’d buy one”.

Hey–– I wonder if they make those things in Florida Gator colors?

“Pretty?” Sorry, but we don’t do “pretty.” Or, “good-looking”. Or, “kinda cute”. We do design. Criteria-based design.


Form does not follow, “pretty”.
Form does not follow, “cool”.
Form follows FUNCTION.

In professions like architecture or industrial design, there seems to be little confusion over this. But in advertising, marketing and graphic design, sometimes even those in the profession don’t know the difference between art and design. Thus, titles like “the art department” and “graphic artist” instead of “design department” and “graphic designer”.

Art and design are not just different. They are basically opposites.

Art, in the traditional sense of the word, is subjective, based on the artist’s personal expression. Design is objective, based on well-organized performance criteria. Good design is not influenced by the designer’s personal feelings and is only beautiful when it works beautifully—when it effectively achieves what it is designed to achieve.

Good design is performed by designers who know the difference between self-indulgent art and criteria-based solutions. Sure, visual beauty, poetic copy and artistic imagery are often a part of what works in marketing. But not because they’re pretty. Rather, because project criteria may call for it.

At Renaissance, we believe knowledge, talent and problem-solving design ability are beautiful things.

So please- feel free to call us “pretty.” Just smile when you do it.

“Link popularity” is a measure of the quantity (and quality) of other web sites that link to a specific site on the World Wide Web. It’s one prominent way that Google and other search engines determine your “page rank” or the position your website appears on search results. As you know, it is the mission of all websites within their respective business categories to come up on that coveted first page of search results- the closer to the top, the better. After providing quality content and utilizing proper engineering including the development of optimized title tags and meta-descriptions, this is considered one of the more reliable ways to the top.

The philosophy behind link popularity is that important sites will attract many links. When search engines see a site with multiple links into it, they assume that the site must be an important, trusted source of relevant content and thus, rank it higher, as those are the kinds of sites they want their users to find when they conduct searches through their portals (so their users will be happy and conduct even more searches- Cha-ching!).

By contrast, content-poor sites will have difficulty attracting any links. So naturally, people hoping to improve their page rank in search results typically want to have as many incoming links to their sites as possible.

But be careful: not all links are considered equal!

While sheer numbers may help, inbound links from reputable directories and other relevant www. sites are weighted more heavily than an inbound link from say, a friend’s personal webpage, or two websites that you own whose content has nothing to do with each other. Obvious attempts to manipulate search results through any variety of questionable link tactics may be considered “BlackHatSEO” and using them can backfire, as search engines will penalize you if they discover you’re using them.

When you create your company’s website, you should indeed encourage as many relevant people as you can to link into your site. This can include strategic “partners” or affilliates; satellite offices or business divisions; customers; chamber-of-commerces; subs/vendors, etc. One-way links are considered to be the most natural, credible and thus, desirable to have. But, if you don’t have these, you may consider utilizing “reciprocal links” or “link exchanges”.

Link exchanges are a strategy wherein you offer to link your website to another, in return for them linking theirs back to yours. There are reciprocal link exchange directories that you can submit your website to, to help facilitate potential connections. You may even consider paying people for links. But in ALL cases, be discerning and make sure incoming links are from quality sites, that are also relevant to the content of your site. You may say, “You already said that”. We’ll, you’re right and I’m doing it again (purposefully), because it cannot be overstated! And remember, the latest search algorithms for Google and Yahoo have evolved to maintain higher favor towards one-way (non-reciprocated) links.

Beware of tactics like “link farming”. This is the practice of trying to create excessive reciprocal link exchanges for a site. A “link farm” is a page set up to do nothing more than to secure outside links into your website. This is definitely a “no-no”, and search engines see right through it.

An effective way to build good one-way linking is by distributing articles through content sites or article directories. These types of articles usually contain one-way links back to the author’s website. Every time a new person uses one of the articles for content in their own site, they are providing the author a new incoming link and subsequently, increased page rank.

Link campaigns, in all of their forms (and there are many different strategies, limited almost only by creativity), require careful consideration. Professional guidance as part of a comprehensive SEO strategy is recommended, but if you don’t have the budget for professional help or are a committed “do-it-yourselfer”, then try to reflect upon whether the tactic you are utilizing “feels right” ethically, and in consideration of the ultimate “real value” such a strategy will provide the end users of your website; for this is what search engines care about and focus on.

As I noted earlier, we recently had an experience that illustrated the increasing popularity of using link campaigns as an SEO strategy and the types of issues that can arise and need to be considered before implementing them.

Our agency is a partner in another outside venture: Americas Education Guides (www.americaseducationguide.com), founded by Jacksonville publisher, Michael Clements. These comprehensive specialty publications cover accredited public and private schools; colleges and universities; and other educational facilities for several major metropolitan areas in the United States, including Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Palm Beach, Miami and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our guides and AEG website provide valuable information to families inquiring about local educational options including test scores; school ratings; private school data; demographics; state requirements and more. They are also endorsed by the district superintendents and state Governors in their respective markets. (Shameless plug: We’ve recently begun selling marketing licenses for nationwide territories, partnering with both independent publishers and major newspapers in a business model where we provide the content/production; our partners provide ad sales and we share revenue. It’s a terriffic opportunity in a “recession-proof” field- education. One sales pro can make significant income very easily in the first year, so if you or someone you know might be interested, just e-mail us. We are already talking to potential partners in Charlotte, Baltimore, Boston and Dallas. But, back to the point…)

To generate income from our AEG website, we are currently utilizing a combination of Ad-sense, a Google program that allows Google to place contextual ads on our site in exchange for a (small) share of the profits; along with banner/text ads that we are selling, ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago, we received and inquiry from a digital ad agency based in the United Kingdom seeking to place advertising on the AEG website. The agency specializes in instigating “bespoke campaigns” for their clients. That is, they actively seek out high-quality specialized, informational websites and place targeted, “well-optimized text links” for their customers on websites that fit the desired targeted demographics of their clients. The agency claims that their research shows that these types of ads have a 17% higher CTR (Click Through Rate) than graphical banners. They also indicated that they had two clients who wanted to place ads on our website, including a telecommunications company and a financial institution.

When I responded to the inquiry to provide rates/terms and get more information about exactly what kind of ads they were looking to place, they explained that they were not seeking to place “text ads” per se, but to imbed text links within articles that are posted on our site dealing with educational issues. (i.e. inserting one- or two-word text-based “adverts”, using words such as “loans”, “savings”, etc., into our existing articles, perhaps adding a short sentence or two of related copy to make it blend well with the nature of the article and theme of our site.

While if not overused or misused, this kind of tactic can potentially be a sound strategy for an advertiser looking to increase their website’s link popularity, as owners of the site they were looking to imbed within, we had to ask ourselves if this was good for our own business and users.

Providing hyperlinks from certain words/phrases within your content to allow users to explore certain subjects further; gain clarification on issues; etc., is not a bad thing. But, to do it gratuitously or alter content to force in language that makes the link seem more “natural” for the sake of paid advertising- well, that begins to negatively impact the quality and integrity of your site.

Finally, the fact that the agency indicated a desire to use words like “loans” and “savings” instead of the advertisers name in the imbedded link was a red flag and a nail in the coffin on our end. Those are what are called “blind links”, which are links created to intentionally hide the ultimate destination of a link until the user has clicked on it.

Blind links are usually used for deceptive or advertising reasons. People assume they’re going to click to find more information on a subject, when instead they are led to an advertiser. Search engines frown on them and more importantly, as owner of a website, I’m really not inclined to use them (even when offered payment), because I know that in the end if I mislead my users and betray their trust, well that will ultimately end up costing me much more than I ever could have hope to make by allowing them in the first place.

In conclusion, to improve your SEO and page rank via link popularity, by all means– get out there and start looking for meaningful inbound links from quality sites. Remember that one-way links are better than reciprocal links. But know that link exchanges and even paid links are fine, as long as they are relevant and you are not engaging in practices that could be considered deceptive, manipulative or otherwise of disservice to your users. If you’re unsure about whether what you’re doing is right or wrong– as with all things in life, always take the high road and you’ll never go wrong.

Hey, I didn’t say it! Jonathan Baskin did in his book, Branding Only Works on Cattle.

In it, Baskin challenges the relevance of traditional branding and its effectiveness in today’s digital world of fragmented media and connected consumers who “aren’t paying attention, don’t believe or can’t remember stuff, anyway.” If you are a marketing professional, or anyone involved in advertising or brand development, with an agency or in-house—go buy this book!

Tony Fortunato, interior designer and thinker here at RC, checked Baskin’s book out from the Downtown library, and passed it along to me just before Thanksgiving. A few days on a farm in South Carolina gave me plenty of time to absorb it, but it’s not going back to the library anytime soon. We snagged it for another 3 weeks and now Ed Bondi (one of the partners here), has it! So, save yourself some time and just click on the title link above and order it from Amazon. No—they aren’t commissioning me, but you might want to! Heck, Ed read about three pages, came back to my office and said he had been “liberated”! That’s the effect that this book will likely have on anyone who has made a career of developing and promoting brands, who are honest and willing to ask themselves tough, introspective questions. And while I don’t agree with every point that Baskin makes, his core ideas are fundamentally, undeniably valid.

These include the fact that there exists a dichotomy between branding and business reality that is becoming ever more noticeable. That branding over the years has mutated into a big, vague, esoteric “idea.” That somewhere along the line, branding separated itself from marketing (and hard sales absolutes) and in doing so, absolved itself from corporate culpability. That branding is qualitative, not quantitative, but there exists a “multi-billion dollar Creative Media Industrial Complex, dedicated to maintaining its status quo.”

Baskin points out that traditional branding emerged from a time when there just 3 major networks and a handful of daily newspapers. Today, there are 500 cable channels, 1,500 newspapers, nearly 18 million satellite radio subscribers and oh yeah—the world wide web, GOOGLE and social networks! So, simply telling people what you want them to think about your company and repeating it over and over through a limited number information outlets no longer works.

Most of us are really not influenced to purchase things as much because of slogans, logos or clever ads, but rather because of our experiences with products and companies.

If, for example there were no more hipster commercials with “MacGuy”, Justin Long, would that stop you from buying Apple products? Of course not, because Apple’s products and services are innovative, well-designed and consumer-friendly! Your real life experience tells you this, not Apple ads.

Baskin points out that, “we (consumers) determine what brands are”; and our experiences are based on real-time behaviors—how companies interact with us—and the experience we take from those interactions. Baskin uses a great example—Starbucks. Ever notice that they hardly even do any advertising? Instead, they simply concentrate on making the customer experience great. What this all means is that businesses need to worry more about how they behave and how we behave.

To this end, Baskin suggests that traditional branding exercises, like putting big money into silly messages that only serve to “raise awareness” or “plant a seed” in hopes that consumers might remember a brand when they are ready to purchase, might better be spent on making the reality of your product better, faster, more convenient and satisfying. Then, marketing to consumers based on a behavioral model he calls, “The Chronology of Purchase Intent”.

This references a sequence of behaviors that we all go through when making a purchase decision, including an initial information search (obviously most often via the web or friends); evaluation; alternatives consideration; purchase decision; and least we not forget, post-purchase evaluation. (You want that repeat business, don’t you?)!

So, as a marketer, Baskin says you must think about: Who your targets are; What you want them to do; Where you expect them to buy things; When you think things happen; Why the current step will lead to the next one; and How the steps will ultimately link into an expression of brand. Baskin states that you have to ask these questions, then find ways to intersect consumer behavior with your brand, in ways that compel the customer from step-to-step with the end result being the purchase of your company or product (and a genuinely satisfying experience along the way!).

He believes that integrated campaigns that use gaming as a model (where one clue or piece of useful information leads to another, with each step providing a valuable takeaway, useful towards claiming some ultimate prize—the sale), is a good one to consider when planning brand campaigns in today’s democratized world of abundant choices and information channels.

Baskin’s book is full of clear thought about the modern meaning and delivery of brand. In the very few places where you believe he might sail off into the fluffy world of theory and academia that he himself is railing against when it comes to traditional branding; he yanks you back to reality and compels you to consider brand in a tangible, quantifiable and valuable new context—one infinitely more rewarding for all of us than its current status as a underwhelming means towards “glorified name recognition.”

Check out Jonathan Baskin’s own feisty brand marketing blog at: dimbulb.typepad.com

Apparently, our ad, which featured an interesting crop of a beautiful young woman sipping tea and the headline, “I Dare You. Make a Move.”, was deemed “too sexy” for the publication. They specifically noted a policy that prohibited them from running any ad that might result in a potential complaint from any reader who might find it objectionable.

Before we proceed with our discussion, you might want to take a peek at our ad, yourself.

What do you think: Does it suffer from over-“exposure”?

Pretty hot, huh?!!

I’ll admit it. I let the job folder sit on my desk a couple of days longer than usual. I really, really loved it, ummm… creatively speaking! BUT, before you call me sexist and send me to the corner—allow me to make a couple of observations.

First, interestingly, the Designer, Copywriter, Account Manager and (client) Marketing Director for this ad were/are all exceptionally talented, intelligent, empowered women. So rest assured, there was no “Mad Men” foul play in the background here! (Side note: Check out more of lead designer Emily Rawitsch’s award-winning work in the latest Communication Arts Design Annual and Black Book AR100 Competition. Emily is neither a feminist nor a prude—simply a supremely talented designer!).

Second, as far as the “exposure” factor goes, I’m a father of 5 and 9 year-old daughters and very sensitive as to what their innocent, impressionable eyes see. In fact, the original image used in this ad showed the woman in it wearing a ring on her left “wedding” finger, which I specifically asked Emily to remove (it’s now on her right hand). Additionally, unless my daughters will be perusing apartment communities in the rental guides any time soon, I doubt they’d ever even stumble upon this ad. Heck—I see worse every single day in the checkout line at the grocery store, on the covers of People, US Magazine and… Health and Fitness!

Last—and this brings us to the point—the ad is reflective of everything good design should be! Targeted and compelling; Clean and sophisticated; An eye-catching image with a beautiful graphic quality. The copy is smart, edgy and succinct. It ultimately does exactly what you want great creative to do, which is to stand out, be memorable and provoke an emotional response.

I’m not talking about promotional items (though we occasionally give those away, too), but practical tools and information you can use, in language you can understand. Whether you are a design, marketing, advertising or public relations professional; business owner; student; client; employee or digital junkie, we want the RC blog to be a place you bookmark, learn from and when you feel like it- contribute to.

You’ll likely see some recurring themes here.

We’re partial to the changing trends in web design and technology that aim to enhance creativity, communications and business. We’re big on branding, but recognize that it is evolving and understand those who challenge its relevance and effectiveness in today’s digitally-savvy, data-driven, bottom-line world of connected consumers. We love great design and recognize its enduring power in all its forms and various channels of delivery.

And finally, honesty is a theme that is inescapable to me, both personally and professionally.

I believe honesty is the genesis of good design; a requirement of a successful brand; and in my opinion– a fundamental quality for living a truly satisfying life. And on this straightforward note, I’ll leave you with both an admission and a request:

We created our blog not only as a free resource and entertainment venue for our clients and the global-community-at-large, but also as a business tool for Renaissance Creative. So, if you happen to find yourself regularly informed, inspired, enlightened or amused by the information we provide, we ask that you please consider sharing us with a friend, co-worker or others who might also find it valuable.

Better still, if you’re a business-owner, marketing professional or company that desires an energetic, forward-thinking marketing partner– one well-equipped to work in our creatively, strategically and technologically evolving world, then by all means, please contact us. You’ll never get any less than our most sincere best effort. You’ve got my word on that.

Tim Hamby