Youth Rising…

Yesterday I sat in one of Dr. Neal Burns’ graduate advertising classes to share a few case studies and stories on how we’ve been integrating social media tools with “live” experiential (events) campaigns.  Every time I present the same to an ad agency or prospective client, I am met with surprise and delight that GamePlan has “figured it out.”  Not so much with the audience today.

I’ll admit this isn’t the first time I’ve walked into a classroom, beaming with pride and confidence that our mousetraps will awe the crowd.  However, I have learned over time by coaching (to victory 3 out of 5 years…ahem) a team each summer in the McCombs Future Executive Academy that I am often not the brightest bulb in the room.  Those 15-17 year-olds teach me a thing or two about mobile and social media, obliterating any rhyme or reason we previously saw in the “4 P’s of Marketing.”

Let it be a warning to all of us who “matured” in a structured, creative, CPM-measured world of advertising that we will automatically ascend to the role of the authority on effective marketing communications tomorrow because we grew up here.  I have learned more from the generation behind me about engaging audiences in meaningful dialogue than any brand manager or CMO has shared over a Panini-2XMartini snack.

Austin’s population as a whole has a median age that is among the youngest in the country…to be expected with the sometimes largest university in the US being UT-Austin.  The hills, the lakes, the music and a let’s-roll-with-sandals-or-boots attitude make this fair city a magnet for sharp young minds from all over the world to arrive one day and chase a grand vision the next hour.  Dare I say that this is a trend that will merely grow and explode through another startup revolution putting Austin in the pole position of innovative engagement.  Stand your guard, friend.

What happened to listening?

On a flight from Austin to Denver this morning, a more and more common trait in our society was evident: people just don’t pay attention and listen anymore.

I’m as guilty as anyone. As I boarded the plane, I put on my headphones, turned up the volume just enough that it would drown out the screams of the kids, the conversations on the phone, and chatter between passengers. I observed at least 20 other people as they passed my seat doing the same thing. Then during the flight, no less than 5 people had to be told, for at least the second time today, that they could not gather near the front lavatory. Each person’s expression appeared to be one of dismay. Obviously, these people were not listening either today or during every other flight they have taken for the past 6 years.

Point here being that listening and not paying attention has bled into our work culture. Actually listening to the customer or client, not paying attention to all of the warning sounds around us, will cost dearly in the end. And in today’s ever increasing world of distractions, the problem isn’t going to get better anytime soon. Do you think this is a problem? If so, what can we do about it?

Do not let anyone else define you or your brand…

Flipping through the TV channels late Monday night, I came across an interview on the PBS show “Charlie Rose” with Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew.  If you are not familiar with Mr. Drexler, he was CEO of The Gap and Old Navy during their insane growth in the 90’s.  He was fired during a downturn in the business and now has been the CEO of J. Crew since 2003.  To view the entire interview, click the play button below.

There was a particular part of the interview that intrigued me most.  It was a revelation Mr. Drexler had following his firing from The Gap – “you can’t put yourself in a position where people who judge you are always right.”  After taking The Gap from $400M market cap to, at its peak, $14B, he found himself unemployed.  He wasn’t, however, going to let the people that judged him and his most recent performance at The Gap keep him down.  He moved on to J. Crew, took the company public, and has doubling the stock price since the IPO.

Mr. Rose expanded on Mr. Drexler’s revelation saying you cannot let anyone else define you in life.  It is your responsibility to set your course and embark on the journey.  How true this is not only individually, but for businesses and brands.  Too often CEOs and brand managers are influenced by what others say about how they should run their business.  Instead of using their own thoughts and instincts, they listen to analysts, accountants, and even their competitors to influence their decisions.

I believe to be truly great in life YOU have to live YOUR OWN life and make decisions based on YOUR own experiences.  To be truly great in business, YOU have to live your BRAND, using YOUR KNOWLEDGE and YOUR EXPERIENCE to make decisions based on what is best for YOUR BRAND.  Accomplished men and women, including Mr. Drexler and Steve Jobs (mentioned in the interview) live this mantra in business and in life every day.  We all can take a page from their book to live a more fulfilling and successful personal and business life.

Online adventure

Lush farmlands, prideful country men and women, a quaint town and lots of roaming cows: All relatively normal for a small community in Bavaria, Germany.  Except for the 454 meter tall wooden ramp, standing alone and hovering over the old men piling cow poo. That is not exactly normal.

This is about Rampenfest, a festival centered on the absurd launch of a car, planned to skyrocket all the way from Oberpfaffelbachen, Bavaria to America.

Let me back up: A month ago, I received a link to a blog of a young American filmmaker, Jeff Schultz, who was filming a documentary on this awe-inspiring story of a small town and their big secret: The Ramp.  Schultz logged all his travels on his blog with photos of his amazing finds. As he slowly uncovered the story of this town and the map, I quickly got hooked to the bizarre and fictitious tale.

It was similar to a scavenger hunt. Schultz’ blog led me to his Facebook group which led to various videos displayed about the town of Oberpfaffelbachen and its ramp. A Google search for Oberpfaffelbachen led me to the home page of the town with a welcoming video from the mayor, the town’s historical background, Rampenfest information, a guestbook, online postcards, and a contest for Miss Rampenfest (the festival’s beauty pageant).  It took a small virtual shovel to dig around and figure out what this truly was….but I dug away and so did many others.

In one online video, Schultz asks the stunt driver of the ramp launch, “what drives someone to do this?” The stunt driver responds with a grin, “300 horsepower,” and then reveals a beautiful BMW Series 1. The brand was eloquently hidden throughout the unraveling adventure. Was this a marketing stunt? Absolutely.

Though the concept of launching a BMW across the world seemed just a bit crazy, the full-circle connectivity of the   story made it almost possible to believe, get hooked and stay up to date with the “clues” to what would happen next.

So why do we take time out of our incredibly fast moving and busy worlds to follow absurd stories, whether it is a movie, video game, book or viral marketing campaign?

People take the time for the adventure. Human instinct wants to put pieces together and uncover the answers. We want to be a part of a process, part of a “team.” In life, sometimes it is simply more fun to forget reality, jump all aboard and enter yourself into a fabricated Rampenfest Beauty Pageant in a fake town called Oberfaffelbachen from an illogical story of a BMW being launched across the world.  A clever viral campaign should do just that: capture the audience and take them on a journey they don’t expect, continuously dangle new pieces of the “puzzle,” and provide ammunition to spread the tale…to everyone.

THE BIG HANDSHAKE

If you have ever been to Austin, TX, you may have stumbled on to the home of the ‘Don Juan’, Juan Meza, and his ‘big handshake’. I had the pleasure to enjoy all three of these before heading out of town to the Sundance Film Festival. Being a soldier in the experiential army, I am always looking for and noting truly unique experiences and the way brands, both big and small, create memorable impressions in their customers’ mind. Brands spend millions upon millions of dollars trying to make a connection with their products and services, and often they flat out fail.

What does the ‘handshake’ represent? Webster’s defines the handshake as “the grasping of hands by two people, as in greeting or leave-taking.” But of course, a handshake is so much more than the physical action of “grasping of hands”. In American culture (and many other cultures around the world), a firm handshake represents a number of character traits including assurance and trust, confidence, and openness. Likewise, limp handshake represents the opposite: timid and weak, unsure and shy.

It is the job of all marketers, especially experiential and customer experience marketers to not only build an ongoing ‘conversation’ with your customers but an ongoing ‘handshake’. A conversation is just that: a dialogue that informs but does not necessarily compel action. A handshake delivers so much more: the welcome to the brand and brand experience, the sense of security and trust in the brand, and the call to action for your brand as delivered in the message. But probably most importantly, the handshake represents a ‘thank you’ – thank you for supporting the brand and the brand experience. What better way to sustain and ultimately increase profitability of the business than building a ‘big handshake’ relationship between a brand and its customers.

Realizing that every brand cannot physically shake hands with every customer as Juan Meza is fortunate enough to do every day, it is our job to find creative ways for brands to engage their customers in a manner that gives them the sensation of a personal relationship symbolized by a ‘big handshake’. A successful campaign takes a customer through the entire purchase process, capped by a ‘thank you’, and starts the process over again. For this truly is the only way to successfully recruit and retain customers. By the way, make sure you order two additional tortillas with your ‘Don Juan’, I guarantee you’re gonna need them!

AN EXPERIENCE IS NOT ALWAYS AN EVENT!

Howdy, and welcome to GamePlan LaunchPad:

“It is official…the World Advertising League announced today that team owners from its West Coast, East Coast and Third Coast (hey, Chicago, Dallas and Austin, y’all) divisions are battling the increased absence of season ticket holders from the monolithic media arenas around Planet Earth. Allegations run high that high-tech vehicles are responsible for carting passengers away from each arena, but evidence has been presented that it may simply be the result of innovation collaborating and colliding with ideas bound by no specific media whatsoever.”

Huh?

Just as Chris Berman reports to me the big hits and fresh moves Marion Barber uses to “matriculate” down the field, I often feel like I’m sitting at the SportsCenter desk alongside Stuart Scott going through everything from little league baseball to jai-alai to women’s college hockey when explaining what we do in “experiential marketing.” The approach has been historically described as the promotional sampling of a product in a taste-test capacity (see The Pepsi Challenge), and just last week the Austin Business Journal stated that “GamePlan focuses on experiential marketing, which includes everything from live events to guerilla marketing.” While the latter is not an entirely untrue statement, “experiential” is far from being limited to these live experiences or events.

Every new day on the marketing field presents a new challenge and a new medium through which a brand or product experience may be delivered…often having little to do with an event or promotion. To be clear, the “experiential approach” we practice integrates traditional broadcast and social media with branded content and a dash of events and promotions. Every day we are shown again that only the brand that hosts a meaningful dialogue with its desired audience will keep that audience in the seats and asking for more. The metrics (all kinds of technology used: the web, SMS, RFID, Bluetooth…does the phone ring?) we set against this dialogue are unique to each client and situation, and we’ve only succeeded by measuring positive lift and ROI. (frankly, we’re only positive-productive 93.4% of the time). Whatever you do, however, don’t relegate Experiential Marketing to simply events and guerilla tactics; it is so much more.

To stir it up more, remember this: An experience is not always an event, yet every event must be an experience. Touché!

And there you have it, my first rant and our first post in the LaunchPad. Every two days or so, from here we will report observations on innovation, creativity and the 432 ways to measure marketing success. We will even shine a spotlight on the experiential success of others…occasionally even revealing our own shortcomings in building that meaningful dialogue.