A new client asked me to give feedbck on a brochure they were about to print. I looked it over and my first question was “who is the audience?” (potential customers) second question: “what is your goal?” (piqué their interest so they follow up with Sales). Fair enough. So my third question was: “Do you think the info in this brochure is prioritized to capture a customers attention and raise their curiosity to find out more?”

It’s a competitive environment out there for consumer attention and even moreso in settings like trade shows. Are you prioritizing information for your customer in a way that is easy to absorb?

For inspiration, check out the table of contents for this travel book. The number assigned to the property correlates to the page number. Simple enough. But how many travel book TOCs have made navigation this easy?

How can you make comprehension of your collateral easier?

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Russ Mann has written a terrific essay on what the advertising “agency of the future” will look like. He uses the term “Marketing Solutions Company” and it’s a good start.

At the heart of his conjecture is this seemingly simple concept: Creative is going to have to quantify ROI in order to justify itself.

I’ve been working with a client, Education Systems, to quantify the ROI on a video we produced for the launch of their new product, RetentionPRO.

Anecdotal plaudits aside, it’s important for us to track who the video was shown to, how it was seen, and if after viewing the video that person was converted to a warm lead. Beyond that, what role did the video play in creating speaking points for the sales person who picks up that lead?

We’ve already heard that the use of humor in the video created a sense of empathy and understanding with the viewers. In some cases, it even created an awareness of a problem/solution scenario that they had not previously acknowledged. But if we can get hard numbers on conversions to warm leads and eventual sales, then we can quantify in dollars the impact the video has for the client.

RetentionPRO launches this spring. I’ll post the ROI on this project when we get the results.

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Watch this video on entrepreneurs provided by the folks at Grasshopper.com.

Pretty inspiring, isn’t it? And it’s really nothing more than a string of words empowered by Keynote or PowerPoint and narrated with a fantastic musical score. [way to go, Sonja Jacob and Carly Comando!] You can do that too. You can create a message that inspires your audience and connects your brand to something that feels good. Something that feels right. That’s what I love about video as a tool for marketers. It’s so much easier to create feeling when you combine words, pictures and sounds.

The folks at Grasshopper.com chose to tell their story by inspiring potential customers rather than literally translating their value proposition into a demo. Nice work guys. Watching this video has me thinking – how can I help clients like Shorthand Mobile, UCSD or PETCO tell stories or create causes that in ways that aren’t obvious. How can I build a cause around these brands?

Time to stop blogging and put on my creative hat…

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I saw this excellent post by Doug Akin in MediaPost’s Engage: Teens and wanted to share it.

Success In The Eyes Of Teens Today

I’m intrigued by how media are transforming today’s teens to be tomorrow’s innovators and revolutionaries. What will fuel them to do great things as they enter adulthood? How will brands, causes and celebrities inspire their dreams and help make them reality?
But first, let’s take a quick flash back to a decade ago. Jackass gave hope to class clowns across the country and Napster founder Sean Fanning was giving the record industry the proverbial middle finger. It was cool to be a badass. Today, it has become cool to do good.

How today’s teens are different:

They will defy conformity and reshape the vision of success and career
They will rethink how companies are built and how they profit
They believe they can change the world (and ultimately will)
Their idea of success isn’t a 9-5 with a six-figure salary
A great pop culture nugget that shows just how much teens have transformed: “The Buried Life,” an MTV show following the epic cross-country journey of four friends as they accomplish 100 dreams before they die. From paying off their parents’ mortgage to playing ball with President Obama, their adventures undoubtedly provide a new perspective on what it means to achieve.

What am I getting at here? Teens see the real world through a different lens. The cast members of “The Buried Life” believe they can do anything, from going into space to delivering a baby. What’s more, they’re actually giving back to communities. From the small (giving a random person $100) to the huge (buying computers for an L.A. school), they tie every crazy dream they accomplish back to helping total strangers.

Assuming they stay on course (and remain entertaining), these guys will become role models for teens and reshape how they view success. For many of today’s teens, becoming a millionaire will become less important over the years. Money is still important, but today’s teens will see role models like Blake from Toms Shoes and Charity Water founder Scott Harrison achieve success through cause and community. They will also be inspired by how entrepreneurs are using their voices and influence to spotlight key causes.

Recently, Twitter co-founders Ev & Biz leveraged their rock-star social-media status to start up a new wine venture, Fledgling, designed to fund literacy programs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are millions of teens who aspire to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, but the next kid to step out and become an Internet legend/ accidental billionaire will probably build something with a strong give-back component.

I’m excited to think of how far today’s teens will take us in 10 years. I imagine a world where they will create products with a purpose. Imagine creating a granola brand and using profits to end a war in Africa, or building the next Facebook platform to donate 20% of their advertising revenue to crisis relief? Now that’s a dream to cross off my own bucket list.

These phrases stand out to me in particular and get me excited about the potential of cause marketing with the teen segment: “it has become cool to do good;” “tie every crazy dream…to helping total strangers,” “products with a purpose,” and “reshape how they view success.”

What brands are owning these sentiments? American Express has taken the lead on aligning themselves with the entrepreneurs and SMBs leading our economic recovery. Who’s going to empower and align with the Do Good Youth segment?  Better yet, how can we harness the work we do (or our clients do) to make a greater social impact?

I’ve already got an idea for one of my clients…

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This is Ashley Mays from CrossFit Memphis.

I don’t know Ashley or her story but I love this image.  It is ready to be turned into a great piece of marketing collateral for the CrossFit brand.

For those of you not familiar with CrossFit, this is a fitness company that has become one of the hottest fitness trends in the world.  It combines a variety of disciplines including Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics and endurance training.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s results are indisputable.  Can you tell that I am a devotee?

The challenge CrossFit encounters as it grows as a movement is the perception that it is so hardcore that it’s only for elite athletes.  The truth, however, is that anyone can develop into an athlete and CrossFit is an effective way to coax out that inner warrior.  Thus, my love for this image.  The woman in her wedding dress doing pull-ups.  This tells the story that “everyone is an athlete if they want to be.”

CrossFit most likely doesn’t need too much help in terms of marketing communications right now. Their empire seems to be growing on word-of-mouth.  Which is just fine since there is no channel more effective than that.

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