Learn to give a speech without a podium, without a script, without a teleprompter.

Two nights ago I had the privilege of listening to General Colin Powell address 1600 people in a packed hall at Boston’s Convention Center.   Granted Powell has become a professional speech giver.  He’s got a talk that’s he probably given dozens of times and to justify a fee in excess of $100,000 an hour you’d better be good.  Still, there’s a lot any of us who have to stand up in front of a crowd can learn from watching masters like Colin Powell.  Here’s my take on listening to and watching the General help Boston’s Chamber of Commerce celebrate its 100th anniversary.

1.    Get rid of the script
Easier said than done for some, but incredibly liberating.  No one wants to hear you read, they want to hear you talk to them.  The difference between Powell and the other presenters was significant.

2.    Come out from behind the podium
Even those thin-legged podiums with nothing but a platform create a barrier between you and the audience.  They say, “I am up here speaking and you are down there listening.”  The simple elimination of a physical structure between you and an audience brings you closer together.

3.    Tell stories (they’re easy to remember)
This is how you lose the script.  Plot out a series of stories to tell.  If they’re your stories they’re easy to remember.  Powell told the following stories:  what it felt like to go from being Secretary of State to an ordinary citizen; how his many meetings with world leaders reinforced his belief that the world still looks to the United States for leadership; how an immigrant hotdog vendor on Fifth Avenue in New York City refused payment for a hotdog, claiming “America has given me enough already.”

4.    Be self-deprecating

Show a little vulnerability.  It makes you feel human and guarantees to make you more likeable. Powell talked about meeting his wife and the unlikelihood of her falling for a soldier.

5.    Ad-lib
Everyone knows your speech is canned, even if you don’t have a teleprompter.  But pick up something from the evening, the event, or other guests.  Modify or customize one of your stories or examples to make it feel localized and of the moment.  It shows you’re listening and paying attention to those around you.

6.    Know the points you want to make
Powell’s story of Gorbachev telling him he’d have to get used to Russia no longer being an enemy was a way to talk about embracing change.  His story about the hotdog vendor made the point that even if we criticize our own country and its policies, America remains the last great hope for much of the world.

I listened to everything Colin Powell had to say.  And I was impressed with his message of hope, charity and the ability to come together to support one another.  But I was equally impressed with how he delivered it.  It’s stuff that works whether you’re doing a new business pitch, making a speech at an industry convention, or simply selling yourself to three clients across the table.

Heard any good speeches lately?  Learned anything from them?

User generated content makes it to the big time: The Cannes Lions Advertising Festival

Presenting the latest twist in the still emerging trend of consumer-generated advertising.  This one has a little more cache than when the trend started a few years ago with Converse’s gallery or when Current TV and partner Sony helped unveiled a new Playstation spot from the unknown 18-year old Tyson Ibele.

By comparison, Mofilm’s You to the Power of 12, a competition at this year’s Cannes Lions Advertising Festival next month in the South of France, promises to be bigger.  Twelve of the world’s top brands – including Best Buy, Doritos (which had success with consumer generated spots in last year’s Superbowl) Hewlett Packard, Kodak, Nokia, Philips, Telstra Australia, Unilever, and Visa to name a few—have signed up.  They’ve posted briefs, provide background and guidelines, and have offered $120,000 in prize money.

According to Ann Mukherjee group vice president, marketing, Frito-Lay North America (Doritos), “This is the first time a group of brands this strong have come together with such an exciting opportunity to assist in empowering the consumer.”   That’s an interesting way to look at soliciting ideas for next to nothing, but no doubt consumers want a voice in their brands and a chance to “become famous,” as Mofilm promises.

None other than Spike Lee has signed on to host the contest, so given the venue (Cannes), the prize money and a big name filmmaker, the contest is bound to generate significant participation and perhaps once again raise marketer’s hopes for brand building ideas that come cheap.

Prediction:   Within the next couple of years every major advertising award show will have a consumer generated content category.  More and more consumers, from talented animators like Tyson Ibele, to fearless college students with Flipcams will create truly worthwhile content, and the rules and landscape of marketing and advertising will change even more.

Does this make you worried?  Or excited?  Share your thoughts.

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Do we still need the two-way mirror when we have tools like Twitter?

“We give them $50.00 and a ham sandwich, and that makes them qualified to advise a brand on its marketing?”  That’s how a former colleague of mine once challenged focus groups.  I always loved the sentiment; half agreeing that there was something absurd about the practice.

Yes we all want to get closer to our customers, know what they’re thinking, and unearth the insight that might make us, as marketers, more responsive to their needs and wishes.

But with all the alternatives available to us today, the question becomes even more relevant.  Are focus groups necessary at all?

Think about it.  A bunch of folks from a marketing firm and its client fly to some distant city (usually Cincinnati or Minneapolis), drive to an innocuous suburban park and hunker down in a dark room behind a two-way mirror to observe prospective customer subjects who’ve been recruited for this exercise by a third party company.

On the other side of the glass, in the “laboratory”, a professional moderator probes the recruited subjects for their opinions using a series of exercises that include creating collages or writing imaginary obituaries for the brand in question.  In the dark, so to speak, the marketing team eats M&Ms, makes jokes, and hopes desperately to be illuminated.

A typical three-day trip, comprised of perhaps six groups and 18 hours of requisite video, at a cost approaching $30,000, gets consolidated into four minutes of tape and an executive report for presentation to the ultimate decision makers, who are usually too busy to actually attend the groups.  Like a Safari tourist thrilled to see wild animals up close in their natural habitat, the decision makers lean in, watch the video intently, and believe they’re actually seeing their customers.

Seems like a few too many intermediaries, wouldn’t you say?

In this day and age could we make our interaction with customers and prospects any more contrived?  Compare the above to what we, as marketers, can get on Twitter:  24/7 access to what real customers are thinking, feeling, saying and wishing for.   We can listen, ask questions, seek advice, and solicit reactions.   Want a dialog?  Just start one.  Prefer to eavesdrop on positive or negative things being said about your brand?  Simply employ the power of search.twitter.com.  Need to create a group conversation?  Invite followers to a hashtag and take advantage of Tweetchat.

All right, so maybe you have an idea or product or initiative that you don’t want public.  There are plenty of other tools available, from Communispace (at a cost) to Ning (for free).  With the latter, courtesy of Netscape founder Marc Andreessen you can gather customers and prospects in your own social network, take advantage of a wide range of functionality that includes blogs, discussion groups and media, even get customers to keep journals of how they do or don’t use your products.

Today there are more ways than ever to get close to your customers.  And there are more customers than ever willing to share their thoughts and reactions with you.   Even if you don’t pay them $50.00 and offer them a sandwich.  You just have to do one thing.   Get rid of the two-way mirror.

What do you think?  Are focus groups dead?  Share your thoughts, especially if you disagree.

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Gary Vaynerchuk VS Lee Clow: the match of the century

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to one of the great match-ups in marketing history.  It’s the past versus the future, the big budget TV spot against the do-it-yourself video, paid media taking on social media.

In one corner we have the indisputable champion of creativity, from the sun-bathed beaches of Santa Monica, Leeeeeee Clow. And in the other corner, the challenger and self-made brand, hailing from Springfield, New Jersey, Gary Vaaaaaaaaynerchuk.

At stake?  Nothing less then the future of marketing.  So let’s get this match underway.

Round One:  Best Title
Lee Clow:  Chairman and Chief Creative Officer for TBWA/Chiat Day, one of the most highly regarded and visible advertising agencies in the world.  It’s a big title, a huge job and filled with perks.  Gary Vaynerchuyck:  Director of Operations at The Wine Library. Doesn’t sound quite as impressive.    Round One goes to Lee.

Round Two:  Claim to Fame
Lee Clow:  Considered by almost everyone in advertising to be the industry’s art director guru.  Helped build one of the world’s great agencies and has his name on some of the most memorable advertising every created.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  Inherited a New Jersey liquor store.  Bought a cheap video camera.  Made some videos about wine.  Put them on YouTube.  Round two goes to Lee.

Round Three:  Classic Video
Lee Clow:  1984 for Apple Computer.  The ultimate Super Bowl commercial, still admired for its disruptive power 25 years later.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  Appearance on Ellen DeGeneres where he got her to lick a rock and munch a potato skin.   Round three goes to Lee.

Round Four:  Brands Built
Lee Clow:  Apple, Nissan, California Cooler, Gatorade, VISA, Pedigree and dozens of others.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  Gary Vaynerchuk.  Round four goes to Lee.

Round Five:  Approach to Marketing
Lee Clow:  For $10 or $20 or maybe $100 million in fees and media his agency will create work that helps build your brand.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  For free you can watch his videos and he’ll teach you how to build your brand yourself.  Round five goes to Gary.

Round Six:  Book (as in real book)
Lee Clow:  Chiat Day:  The first 20 years. Out of print and unavailable at Amazon.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  New seven figure contract for Crush It: Turn Your Passion Into Profits in a Digital World. Round six goes to Gary.

Round Seven:  Awards
Lee Clow:  One Club Hall of Fame, New York Art Directors Hall of Fame and every advertising creative award known to man.  Gary Vaynerchuk:  American Wine Blog  Awards, Best Wine Podcast of Video Blog.  Round seven goes to Lee.

Round Eight:  Google Results
Lee Clow:  Lee + Clow yields 60,000.  Does anyone outside of advertising even know who he is?  Gary Vaynerchuk:  Gary + Vaynerchuk yields 540,000.  Appearances on Today Show, Conan, Mad Money, Nightline and Ellen give him more than 15 seconds of fame.  Round eight goes to Gary.

Round Nine:  Twitter Followers
Lee Clow:  Zero.  Lee Clow’s Beard, 19.   He’s a legend; he doesn’t need Twitter.  Gary Vaynerchuk: 540,000.  You can argue who cares, but round nine goes to Gary.

Round Ten:  Quote
Lee Clow: “We’re not in the advertising business, we’re in the media arts business. We’re using all forms of media to tell a brand story-and the media is everything a brand does.”  Huh? Gary Vaynerchuk: “People are always talking about what you’re doing now… To me, it’s not what you’re doing now, it’s about where you’re going.”  Round ten goes to Gary.

And the decision goes to…
Huh, it appears to be a draw.  Looks like you’ll have to decide.  Who wins?  Lee or Gary?  The past or the future?  The traditional approach that calls for you to spend huge dollars on paid media, or the new way that encourages you to develop a presence in social media? Whose arm gets lifted into the air when it’s the bell goes off?  OK, you’re the referee.  What do you say?

Want to succeed at social media? Strive to create evangelists.

This is a guest post by author and blogger Jonathan Fields.  You can read more of his writing at Career Renegade

Create evangelists, says Fields. Image by Dieter Drescher.

Yes, social media calls for “SEO, PR and content worth remembering,” as Edward wrote here yesterday.  But in social media, content worth remembering may only get you to second base.  And clients aren’t paying for doubles.  Instead, if you really want effective marketing and ROI, social media content needs to be worthy of evangelizing.  And that’s a whole different threshold.

To achieve that, you need the following.

1.    Proof and evidence that you’re in it for more than a quick hit.  There’s no way to accelerate this.  It takes time and commitment.

2.    A willingness to create good karma by giving more than you take.

3.    The ability to listen.  It’s an effort, but worth it.  Social media is astonishingly powerful at “telling” marketers and advertisers exactly what they need to do to create content/services/products worthy of evangelism.

4.    A way to be remarkable.  This is achievable if you and your clients work to find the intersection between what you want to offer and what people desperately want not only to buy, but to share.

5.    Transparency.  You’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating. Try to game the system and you will get burned every time in a big, public way.

6.    Trust.  It’s impossible to unleash a viral or social-worthy idea and simultaneously control the means of evangelism and the nature and expression of the message. The more you try, the faster you fail.  Learn to let go.

None of these are easy pills for clients – or SEO, PR or advertising agencies — to swallow if they’ve grown dependent on interruption-driven efforts.   It’s why we’ve seen a whole lot of attempts at end runs produce results that range from duds to all-out PR disasters.

The Holy Grail in push media is exposure and saturation that simply requires a bank account. The Holy Grail in SM is viral distribution and, for that, you need to grab the hearts and souls of a core group of people who will push a message to critical mass. You can’t buy that; you need to build it with the six elements above.

The companies and communications firms who “get it” will invest not in domination, but in bona fide conversation.  The companies that turn 50 percent of their ad budget back to their R&D in a quest to create astonishing solutions to inspire evangelizing are the companies that will find themselves in a vastly superior position.  They will rise above the noise, while those who continue to throw money at SM the way they did at TV, radio and print will remain largely insignificant in the world of SM.

Does that mean SEO, PR, direct response and exposure media are done. Not at all. But, it does mean they need to learn a new approach.  The question remains whether the tactics with which those agencies are familiar and comfortable will yield maximum results in social media.

What do you think?