Don Draper exhibits a creative director’s worst qualities
Don leaves his copywriter's boards in the back of the cab and presents his own idea instead
Anyone who’s been watching MadMen Season 5 can’t help but notice the deterioration of Don Draper’s creative skills. He hasn’t had a good idea in a year. The brilliance once demonstrated in the Kodak Carousel pitch have blurred into distant memory. And as he sits in his office noting that the agency’s latest reprints (remember reprints, with varnished borders?) all prominently feature the name of the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s newest star, writer Michael Ginsberg, not even a stiff drink can ease his anxiety.
This week Don resorted to the all too common practice of expressing his fear, insecurity and jealousy by trying to compete with his very own staff. Sadly, most all of us who grew up in the ad business have seen this movie. Creative director can’t stand having the spotlight shine on someone else, even when it’s someone he hired and mentored. So he becomes not just the boss, but the rival as well.
First Don pathetically tries to beat the idea with one of his own, a practice that might be among the most demoralizing management tactics ever conceived, not to mention absurdly unfair. How can you be the contestant and the judge and ever expect a fair outcome? And who in his right mind would openly criticize the boss’s idea unless it came with a resignation letter? In this episode, the subordinates agree that the agency will present two ideas and the client will get to pick a winner. Of course when Don conveniently leaves Ginsberg’s work in the cab and presents only his own, there isn’t much of a choice. You can guess the outcome and the effect on morale.
In a business where the best idea – not the person who had it – is supposed to win, competition is essential. It keeps everyone sharp, pushes teams to put in the extra effort, and eventually weeds out the weaker players. But that’s when competition remains among peers and the creative director stays objective.
If you want to learn anything from MadMen this season, focus on Mathew Weiner’s story arcs, character development and attention to detail. All three features can make for great advertising. As for Don, the only lesson he’s sharing with us is how not to be a very good creative director.
Related Links: MadMen through the Boomer Lens
SxSW Panel: Harvesting Consumer Intent from the Social Web
To those of you who made it to our over-subscribed SxSW panel, thanks for showing up, for engaging and for expressing so much support. To those of you who got shut out, please accept our apologies. Apparently SxSW did not anticipate the demand for this topic and only gave us room for a few hundred attendees.
I thought I’d share a recap here, as there seems to be no shortage of interest in the interest graph.
We were lucky enough to have Venture Beat’s Jolie O’Dell moderate a group that included Springpad founder Jeff Janer; Vayner Media founder AJ Vaynerchuk; strategist Farrah Bostic, and myself.
Wanting to avoid the pitfall of too many panels – unfocused, rambling conversation — we actually determined our questions in advance, prepared answers and assigned roles. We even used an interest graph platform, Springpad, to share and exchange ideas.
Panel Thesis
We had point of view that we could all agree on,
- The interest graph is replacing the social graph as the new frontier.
- It offers a better opportunity for brands and marketers to connect and engage with prospects, customers and community.
- Learning to engage, add value, and both learn from and market to the data are the ingredients for success
We then answered eight questions.
How is the interest graph (and with it the expression of intent) going to change how both consumers and brands use social media?
I used a couple of simple examples to answer this. Take my Facebook friend Alison. We share some interests. But if I friend her on Facebook I might find my stream cluttered with updates on shopping trips or cat memes. Those are her interests. However, Alison knows Austin restaurants, business books and social media trends. What if I could follow just those topics? Then Alison would become a true source of knowledge. And I would have greater flexibility to filter and access the content that matters to me.
For my brand example I used the curious case of American Express. I’ve been a card member for 35 years. Yet on Facebook, they offer me coupons to the Cheesecake Factory and discounts on cruises. Look at my purchase history, American Express! I have never done either of those things. What are you thinking?
If AMEX could tap into my interests, rather than my friends, they would send me useful information on hotels and trips to the cycling capitals of the world. (Note, even after a 60 mile ride I don’t plan to eat cheesecake.)
What are the platforms and the difference among them?
We talked about Foursquare’s evolution from check-ins to recommendations, discussed how The Fancy can actually drive purchase, and showed how Polyvore adds value to online shoppers.
No conversation about the interest graph is complete without a nod to Pinterest, which makes it super easy to collect, curate and post inspirational images, so we gave them a pretty good shout out, too. But what remains missing from all of the platforms but Springpad,* are the enhancements and alerts that help convert interest to action.
There’s more, too. Specialised platforms like Get Glue, along with established players like Facebook, all have something to offer. Right now the field is crowded and getting more crowded, so you have to pay attention not only to what’s hot now but also to what might catch on over the next year.
Consumers are jumping on platforms like Pinterest, but do marketers yet understand the opportunity?
Not really. As they tend to do with most new platforms, marketers treat them as another broadcast medium, injecting their content and hoping for traffic. True, brands fit more seamlessly into the interest graph than the social graph. The former is about what we like while the latter is about whom we know. But based on the brand behavior we see on Pinterest marketers have yet to realize that these new digital playgrounds are ideal for engagement and adding value, not simply showing off our wares.
Interestingly, Mullen’s recent Social CMO Research reveals that only 13.6 percent of marketers capture preferences or interests in their social media efforts. So there is a huge opportunity.
How can brands and marketers leverage these platforms?
One of the best lines came from Farrah Bostic. “If all you do is show, all consumers will do is look.” That’s a suggestion that we need to do more than post products and links. At Mullen, we recommend that clients foster discovery, learn to engage, and leverage the data. I won’t elaborate here as all the bullet points are on slides 30, 31 and 32. You may want to check them out.
Are any brands getting it right?
It’s really too soon to say. We don’t have much to go on. But a quick search of brands on Pinterest shows that very few do anything beyond self-promotion. One shout out goes to San Francisco’s ModCloth. Willing to share and post far more than their own catalog, they’re inevitably learning what catches on with their community and offering more reasons to return, pay attention and interact with content.
What could brands be doing?
A lot more. Why not show your expertise in a subject other than what you sell (Burberry on London, Clif Bar on nutrition, Tommee Tippee on baby care) and become a trusted resource. One of the clear takeaways from SxSW is that all brands have to move beyond branded content and become content brands, starting conversations, producing entertainment, and earning attention. Interest graph platforms are the ideal place to do that. After all, people aren’t there to see their friends but to explore and act on the things that matter to them.
What does success look like?
This is not about likes, followers and RT’s. Most of which mean little or nothing. This is about significant traffic and inbound links. All of which are measurable and can be traced back to your content. It’s about deeper engagement that leads to better understanding of your customers. Imagine being able to market to an individual rather than a segment or demographic. And finally, ultimate success consists of outcomes in the form of purchases and other actions. If you become a trusted source of relevant content, engagement and interaction will certainly yield higher conversion.
How do brands get started?
The list is clear. Explore the sites, establish a presence, don’t commit to just one site, learn conversation strategy, measure and track everything, understand the data, create APIs. And something that I’ve learned from all the startups with whom I’ve worked: get to know the product visionaries behind the new services. While they’re still young and small, they’ll be hungry to please, to teach and to co-create with you.
If you have any other thoughts or ideas, please share. And help yourself to the deck.
* Note that in addition to working at Mullen, I am the CMO at Springpad.
The interest graph and marketing to consumer aspirations
“I strongly believe that consumption is less about reflecting who we are–even though that’s clearly a fundamental dimension of it–as much as it’s about who we wish to be.”
That quote comes from Paul Mullins, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University and president of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Professor Mullins new book, The Archaeology of Consumer Culture, proposes that the study of remnants from our past may offer us the best insights about who we, as consumers, are today.
In the book, Mullins explores how trends in product purchases – plates and silverware in the late 18th century, or expensive running shoes today – reveal over and over that we buy stuff not just for the utility but for the message it sends about us.
While that’s not new – driving a BMW, drinking Heineken, wearing Burberry – all project something about us. But what Mullins argues is that we are sometimes portraying a persona that we’ve yet to realize, instead declaring that it’s who we want to be.
So what does this have to do with marketing, advertising or social media? Quite a bit if you think about it. We have this new phenomenon going on called the interest graph. Pinterest, The Fancy, Fab, Springpad are all letting us declare our wishes, not necessarily by making a purchase but by displaying how we’d like to be perceived in other ways.
If Mullins is right, and if this same insight informs the kinds of things we see people pin, then there are even more opportunities for marketers. It’s not just about posting content that drives a link, or trying to sell a product or service to someone who has raised her hand. There’s an opportunity for brands to find new ways – content, product, service, imagery, interactions, advice, utility – to actually help consumers and users become what they dream of becoming.
And if a brand can do that, well then, the opportunity for attention, sales and loyalty gets even bigger.
The paper clip: a creative exercise
Ingredients
One paper clip, 25 minutes, your imagination.
Assignment
Generate at least 25 great creative ideas to promote the utility and versatility of the paper clip. (After all, it is an under appreciated occupant of supply closets everywhere.)
Process
Work in teams of five, but for the first five minutes no talking allowed. Each team member writes non-stop any ideas that come into his head. After five minutes teams work together, sharing ideas, building off of each other’s kernels, augmenting the initial body of work, making them better, and finally agreeing on five or 10 really good ones.
Criteria for deciding
- Do you like it, really like it?
- Is the idea guaranteed to get attention?
- Is it something you’d remember?
- If it’s not pure, raw entertainment does it offer genuine utility?
- Would you tell a friend about it?
Hints and stimulae
What if the paper clip were huge?
What if Marcel the Shell used it?
What if it were a metaphor?
What if the world were attacked by Origami?
What if Banksy created graffiti with it?
What if it were a Guinness record?
What if it starred in the SI bathing suit issue?
What if it came in a little blue box?
What if it were a political statement?
What if it had an arch rival?
What if Lady Gaga’s incorporated it into her shoe collection?
What if it were an amusement park ride?
I tried this exercise yesterday as a way to inspire students in my Strategic Creative Development class to think more creatively. It worked pretty well. It got people to break out of traditional routines, come up with crazier ideas than usual (we had everything from epic battles between paper clips and staples, a means to world peace, even famous one page documents – think Declaration of Independence — that upon close inspection had a slight indentation in the shape of a paper clip in their upper left hand corners, suggesting that maybe there should have been a second or third page that we’ll never know about.)
Anyway, thought I’d share it, If your class or company or marketing department needs a little brain lubrication, this exercise works pretty well.
Got any others you can share? I need more.
David Armano and I talk about innovation
Last October, David Armano, SVP/Innovation Chief at Edelman and I spoke at MIMA’s annual summit, a pretty terrific annual conference in Minneapolis. We agreed that we would not use decks, and instead that we would simply talk about our experiences trying to inspire others to embrace new ideas and technologies.
Our premise was that you don’t need to be a chief innovation officer to know that pushing boundaries in business environments can be both rewarding and often times frustrating. Advances in society, technology and the way we work have paved the way for innovation to happen in virtually every field.
But it can be hard. Muscle memory, organizational structure, physical space and a fear of change all present formidable challenges.
Yet for agencies to be more innovative — creating utility not just messages, practicing prototyping instead of demanding perfection, launching new businesses — we need to change. We need to change ourselves, our processes, our teams, even how we conduct performance reviews.
There were some good questions and topics for conversation. We talked about how innovation can be small; it doesn’t have to be big. How it’s hard to find funding for projects when agencies are in the service business not the software business. How important it is for our industry to become builders rather than message makers. How the next generation of creators wants to build things out of technology and code and APIs, not out of words and pictures. How simple tactics like “shut up and write” can inspire new thinking. How different teams comprised of the new creative person – digital, social, able to write code – can yield unexpected results. How it might be worth launching new sustainable businesses within existing companies.
MIMA’s Annual Summit is one of the better events I attended last year. Executive Director Tim Brunelle does an amazing job organizing an agenda and attracting speakers. And the opportunity to connect, network and discover sources of new ideas makes attendance well worth it even you’re from another part of the country.
Keynoters included Avinash Kaushik and Chris Anderson, two of the smartest guys you’ll ever hear talk about what’s happening in our and related industries, inspired everyone in attendance.
David and I played a small role. But if you’re interested in what we do and how we think, and you have an hour with nothing more important to do, here you go.
Note: This video only became available recently. Hence this post four months after the actual event.
