If this post sucks, please let everyone know
Tweet about it. Leave a comment. Write your own blog post criticizing it.
What do you think, should every business – restaurant, online retailer, insurance agent, doctor’s office – make the same suggestion? Is it a good idea for all of them to post a sign on the way out inviting you to “Please tweet about our service even if it was terrible.” What would happen?
Well for starters, they’d have your attention. How many businesses are confident enough in their service, or care enough about their customers, to ask that you hold them accountable?
Second, chances are it would actually improve a business’s service. Since every employee would be well aware that bad service invites public criticism, they might be inclined to pay a little more attention.
Third, simply by asking you to share your reaction and impressing you with the courage it takes to face up to possible scorn, it would probably generate many more positive comments.
Finally, whether or not a business encourages its customers to share their experience, customers will do it anyway, won’t they? What do you think? Shouldn’t we acknowledge the power of our consumers, customers, and readers? Shouldn’t we let them know we welcome their reaction, good or bad?
Are you good enough if you don’t make everyone else better?
Two legends, Bill Russell and Red Auerbach
Basketball legend Bill Russell has a new book out, Red and Me. In it, Russell tells the story of his amazing partnership with Red Auerbach, one in which the coach learned as much from the player as vice versa. Russell unarguably holds claim to the greatest team player in all of sports, known especially for his ability to make everyone else around him better, including his coach.
In a review of the book in last Sunday’s NY Times, Bill Bradley (former All-American, New York Knick, and US Senator) related a memorable quote from Oscar Robertson, the former perennial All-Star guard for the Cincinnati Royals. When asked if Michael Jordan, after his third year in the NBA, was a great player, Robertson replied, “Not yet. He still hasn’t learned to make the worst player on his team look good.” Eventually MJ, like Russell, mastered that all-important, but sometimes elusive, leadership skill.
In a team sport, that is the definition of greatness.
Interestingly, it appears there’s a parallel to any creative business as well. We live and work in an era when creativity has become more the output of a group of people; writers, art directors, animators, flash developers, programmers, and UX specialists all have to work together seamlessly to create something remarkable. It’s no longer just an art director and a copywriter who own creativity, if in fact that were ever the case.
As a result, the ability to elevate everyone else’s idea or contribution is the new ultimate skill. It’s less about collaboration (working better with other people) and more about amplification (making the work of other people better.)
Here’s some of the things we’re doing at Mullen to try and turn collaboration into amplification.
1. We’ve redefined the definition of the creative team
It used to be a writer and art director, the typical advertising team. Now that team includes a developer, a UX specialist, a connection strategist, a social influencer, et. al. By working together from the outset of a project, there’s an increased respect and trust for everyone’s contribution.
2. We look at work in an unfinished state
There’s a tendency on the part of many creative people to conceal an idea until it’s fully baked. We don’t do that. There’s one big wall where early ideas and work in progress get posted. Everyone can see it and anyone can comment. The creative director gets to make the ultimate call, but everyone’s free to offer an opinion.
3. We focus on the idea, not the individual
Yes everyone wants credit for the ideas he or she generates, along with the pats on the back, accolades from peers and eventual awards. But if you put aside individual glory for a moment and focus on the idea, the work, and the details that matter (regardless of who else lends a hand or gets his name on the project) the better the outcome might be.
4. We encourage anyone to talk to anyone
Everyone claims to hate politics and hierarchy, but in a lot of companies people get pretty upset when others don’t go through proper channels. I say screw the proper channels. When anyone at any level can make a suggestion, share an idea, or express an opinion you have an environment that fosters amplification.
Collaboration is good. Amplification is better. Do you work in an environment that fosters and rewards it? Do the leaders and key contributors in your company simply collaborate, or do they amplify?
Mad Men, Trust Me, and now, Soul for Sale
The following guest post is from Jay Williams’ new novel, Soul for Sale, posted here with the permission of both Jay and his publisher, Inkwater Press.
If you feel like reading a book (rather than watching yet another TV show) about life inside an ad agency you might want to pick up a copy of Jay Williams’ Soul for Sale.
It’s the story of a Boston agency creative director responsible for the pitch to defend his agency’s biggest, toughest account. Funny as hell, more true than any agency or advertiser would care to admit, it’s got everything you might expect from the world of advertising: egos, politics, rivalries, new business, pitch dynamics, alcohol, sex, even the clever little button that wraps it all up. But more than anything, it has accurate descriptions of the business.
Here’s an excerpt. This is Terry’s take on the proverbial tissue session.
Very often, part of the protocol of the pitch process, is that at some point, the client offers to conduct a meeting or a conference call with the agency in the hopes of clarifying, re-directing, or otherwise guiding the agency toward the correct answer.
While I have no doubt that this offer is extended with the sincerest and most helpful of motives, I can assure you that all the agency ever gets out of this is either complete confusion or false hope.
This is due to several factors.
First, whatever the agency is sharing isn’t the finished, crafted idea. This is partly because it’s still the middle of the process – and in the advertising world, if it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done – and partly because, as desperately as they want guidance, the agency is even more desperate to protect the ‘wow!’ factor. Advance buy-in on an idea is nice. But presenting is theater – and you never get a standing ovation for a performance the audience has already seen.
The second reason is that the client, as much as they’re trying to help, is also trying to maintain impartiality. There are, after all, other agencies involved, each of whom is going to have their own meeting or call, and the client has to make sure that no one is given an unfair advantage.
So the agency is sharing incomplete information and asking cryptic questions, the client is sharing incomplete impressions and giving cryptic answers. And by the time all the fencing is over, the agency either believes they’ve absolutely cracked it, or that they don’t have a clue and should practically start over.
In both cases, they’re wrong.
Jay’s book is filled with truths like the one above, along with numerous scenes anyone who has worked in the business will find too familiar. And, as an added bonus, if you’ve paid your dues in a Boston shop, you’ll recognize more than a few characters. Ooops. What am I saying? This is a work of fiction.
What do you think? Sound like anything you’ve lived through?
So, you want to make a viral video?
Why not? It’s cheap. Easy. You can put it on YouTube and not have to pay for any media. Wishful thinking. Guess what? We don’t determine what becomes viral. The consumer does.
Creators, marketers, even YouTube itself are often surprised at what goes viral and what doesn’t. There’s no real formula or blueprint, and certainly no guarantee. Nevertheless, there are three things you can do to increase your chances. One of the teams at Mullen recently applied two of them to our Boston Bruins videos, which managed to generate 300,000 views on the first morning they hit the web, and over a million views during the next week of playoffs. Here they are.
1. Make it as funny and entertaining as possible.
Why? There are two fundamental reasons. For starters, in the opt-in world of YouTube, Vimeo or other similar sites, no one watches anything they don’t want to watch. Furthermore, no one’s going to pass something on unless they think it’s so good that it will earn them credit from friends and family for being the one who sent it. Given that the next interesting video is but a click away, no one has any patience. So capture their attention and capture it fast. Being outrageous, unexpected, provocative or hysterical are always good places to start.
2. Have a distribution plan.
If you think viral happens by itself, think again. The best efforts – from Elf Yourself to Cadbury’s gorilla – had smart, well thought out plans for how to seed the idea. In the case of the Boston Bruins film it started by finding people with lots of followers to post the spots on YouTube, Break.com and eBaum’s World. We targeted influencers — bloggers, Twitterati and online media – who we could generate lots of attention. Deadspin.com, the reigning king of sports blogs, Barstoolsports.com, and Hubhockey.com all jumped on the opportunity to turn their readers onto the campaign. The next thing we knew, word was out and spreading like wildfire.
3. Build in a meme
OK, admittedly, the team neglected to do this. But we should have. A meme is simply a way by which the consumer can add to, customize, or incorporate him or herself into a modified version of the original concept and pass it on. No matter how successful your viral video might be, if you leave room for the consumer to co-create with you, it becomes even more effective. We should have made it possible for fans to do their own victory dance and combine it with the bear doing it’s shuffle. No doubt that would have generated plenty of participation. Oh well, maybe we’ll add that next time.
What’s the best example of viral video you’ve seen recently? Did it take advantage of all three of these tactics?
Shouldn’t all brands improve their service in the age of Twitter and social media?
The Avis brand was built on service
Yesterday some colleagues and I picked up an Avis rental car at O’Hare in Chicago. The line was short, yet it took forever. There was only one associate there to serve customers and no sense that it was Avis’s responsibility to speed the process along.
Since I had nothing to do, seemed a good time to pull out the iPhone and send a message via Twitter to the 5000 or so people who might be paying attention. Why not? It takes all of five seconds to create and distribute a message — whether criticism or praise — about a company or product. It’s an easy way to do others a favor, either saving them from, or turning them onto, a similar experience.
OK, obviously my one little message wasn’t going to make much of a difference to a big company like Avis. But what if 1000 people, or even 100 people, had a similar experience and decided to let their followers know? What if some of those hundred folks each had thousands of followers? Wouldn’t that be a problem? Or at least, wouldn’t it be a missed opportunity, a lost chance to inspire the opposite reaction and message?
That evening I had dinner at a little restaurant called Nonno (the newest restaurant in the growing Bartolotta empire) in Terminal D of Milwaukee’s General Mitchell airport. The receptionist was welcoming and eager to accommodate my request for quick service so I could make my plane. The waitress who showed up within moments of my arrival offered to watch my bags while I ran to the restroom. The service was attentive. And my meal — penne with asparagus, shrimp, tomatoes and garlic — was prepared perfectly. When I asked about the restaurant, surprised that a place so good sat in the middle of an airport, I was provided with knowledgeable answers about ingredients and the owner’s philosophy, along with a helpful pamphlet about their other restaurants, “just in case I want to try something different next time I’m in Milwaukee.”
Time to get out the iPhone and share with anyone who’s interested a sound bite or two about the “best airport restaurant in America.” When I let my waitress know I had “broadcast” a compliment, she was genuinely appreciative of the gesture.
Was it timing, coincidence, or chance that made the two experiences so different? Might it have been the other way around on another day? Or was it the difference between two distinct company cultures?
Either way, in this day and age, when consumers are the medium, the distribution channel, the evangelists or the critics, shouldn’t every brand go out of its way to do everything it can to prevent negative word of mouth and encourage the positive?
Maybe a business should go so far as to post a sign suggesting all customers feel free to tweet their reactions, positive or negative. Now that might get a business to remember to pay attention to its service. What are your thoughts?
