10 reasons why every CEO has to get on Twitter now

Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh gets it with 236,000 followers. If you are a CEO, it’s time to get on Twitter. If you know a CEO, do him or her a favor and tell him to get on Twitter. If you are the PR counsel to a CEO, make him get on Twitter. America has about had it with our business leaders: from Enron’s deceit, to the auto industry’s incompetency, to AIG’s bonuses. Trust and confidence is at an all time low. Even Steve Jobs is no longer immune given the lack of openness about his illness. There’s a sense that you’re insular, selfish, focused on the short term and don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself and maybe the board that protects you. But if you get on Twitter, here’s what will happen.

1. You’ll personally get to hear and feel what people think about your company, about your industry and about you.

2. You’ll discover that you don’t have to be so damn scared of the public. They’re not trying to bring you down. They just want you to be accountable.

3. You’ll find that there are hundreds, if not thousands of smart people with good ideas that can actually help you lead and make decisions.

4. You’ll be surprised to find that the return on being honest and open and generous is as high as virtually any other investment you can make.

5. You’ll encounter a community of people willing to give you credit just for being there and trying.

6. You’ll get a chance to test and improve your ideas, your communication skills and your knowledge of popular culture.

7. You’ll be taking the first step toward building a customer-centric organization.

8. You’ll have the chance to turn prospects into customers, customers into loyalists, and loyalists into advocates.

9. You’ll be a significant step ahead of your competitors unless they get there before you.

10. You’ll conclude that you never again want to be so isolated from the people who buy, and will buy, your products and services.

The holy grail has just been handed to you. What in God’s name are you waiting for?

Don Draper VS Powerpoint: Guess who wins?

The ubiquity of PowerPoint has become unavoidable. You can’t attend a meeting without sitting through a “deck.” There are websites that preserve forever the presentations we’d rather forget. And now they actually teach it in grade school. No doubt my eight-year-old will soon be making his plea for a new video game using charts, graphs and images downloaded from the web.

It’s not that I have anything against PowerPoint. I just hate boring presentations. And sometimes I fear that the crutch of PowerPoint has made it too easy for the person holding the clicker to limp through his 40 or so slides instead of dazzling me with eloquence, dramatic pauses, or memorable story telling.

So in the spirit of bringing back more presentations we’ll actually remember, let’s revisit Don Draper’s pitch to Kodak. Yeah, he used slides. They just didn’t have pie charts. And he didn’t repeat the same thing we were already looking at.

(Note: Sterling Cooper is pitching Kodak. They have a new product, a slide projector with a “wheel” that sits on top. The wheel goes around in a circle dropping 35 millimeter slides in front of the bulb, which projects them on the screen. The assignment is to come up with an ad campaign to sell the “wheel.” )

Don Draper seals the deal — repositioning the “wheel” as a “carousel” — as he advances through slides of his family.

“Technology is a glittering lure, but there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job I was in-house at a fur company. There was this old pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond to a product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent.

Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means, ‘the pain from an old wound.

It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.

This device isn’t a space ship, it’s a time machine.

It goes backwards and forwards.

And it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.

It’s not called ‘The Wheel.’ It’s called ‘The Carousel.

It lets us travel the way a child travels.

Around and around.

And back home again.

To a place where we know we are loved.”

And then Roger says to the client who’s on his way to the next agency,

“Good luck at your next meeting.”

Don’t you wish the next PowerPoint presentation you sit through is this good?

A free idea for Kenneth Cole: Create the Muntadhar Shoe

Dear Kenneth Cole:

Here’s a free idea for you in the name of democracy and freedom of speech. Come out with a new shoe called the Muntadhar, named after the heroic Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi who was just sentenced to three years in prison for throwing his shoes at former President George W. Bush. Take all profits from the shoe and divide them up over two not-for-profit organizations: The Release Muntadhar Fund (if it hasn’t been formed yet perhaps you can charter it) and perhaps something like the the Free Speech Coalition or the ACLU.  This is a huge opportunity for Kenneth Cole. You can create a new branded shoe. You can build on the imminent celebrity of Muntadhar. You can get behind a worthy cause. You can stand for something.

Please note that Creativity_Unbound asks for no direct compensation in return for this idea,  as long as your profits from the Muntahdar go to worthy causes promoting freedom of speech.  You can, however, feel free to credit us for the idea.

Bob Marley: the next really big brand

Unanimous Bourgeois Liberalism. That’s how Professor Murray Levinson described American culture when I took his political science class at Boston University in the 1970s. He argued that eventually, everything becomes mainstream. It may start on the fringe — rock and roll then, hip hop today – but it’s only a matter of time before it gets absorbed by the masses.

So it’s no surprise that Bob Marley’s heirs just sold 50 percent of Marley LLC to Hilco Consumer Capital for $20 million. A price that is probably too low for a brand with a predicted potential of $1 billion a year in revenues.

Nevertheless, it still strikes me as somewhat ironic given that Marley considered himself a revolutionary, stating, “Me see myself as a revolutionary. Who don’t have no help and take no bribe from no one and fight it single-handed with music.”

The marketers are talking towels, skateboards, tee-shirts and candles. I won’t be surprised if there’s a line of “spices” in there, too.

If the current economic situation can’t make you feel good maybe a TV spot can

It’s hard to be cool. Harder to be funny. But nothing is as hard as doing something really emotional without slipping into Hallmark country. So it’s commendable that one of our sister agencies in the IPG network, McCann Madrid just did this TV commercial for Coke. The idea alone is ambitious and original, “Let’s bring together the oldest person in the country and the youngest person in the country and make a spot about happiness.” It has everything a commercial should have. A memorable story. Great casting. The right music. Sure the ending may be a little too in your face, but by then you’re sucked in and can forgive the agency and client for wanting to see the product. My thanks to Ernie Schenck for sending it along and reminding us that advertising can be topical and lift our spirits at the same time.