Triumph of the City, maybe even Detroit
My friend Erik Proulx is in the midst of his second Lemonade film, this one telling the story of what we all hope might be Detroit’s resurrection. As with his first film, the original Lemonade, it’s not government policy or unemployment checks, or even the bailout of the automobile industry – don’t get me wrong I was in favor of a better stimulus package than the one we actually got – that restores an economy, it’s personal and collective optimism, achievement and creativity.
And so it will be with Detroit. The often ill-fated attempts at urban renewal and the erection of shiny glass buildings are never what make a city great – it’s the people who live there. Erik’s film focuses on such people and as an exploration into the spirit and passion of Detroit residents intent on bringing the city back it paints a picture of hope and possibility.
Erik released the extended trailer of Lemonade Detroit right as I happen to be reading Edward Glaeser’sTriumph of the City. Erik’s premise is that with enough will power and motivation (the latter often comes from having got kicked pretty good) people have the ability to turn lemons into Lemonade. Glaeser’s hypothesis is that cities magnify those qualities. They attract innovators and entrepreneurs, place them in proximity to one another and encourage interaction, collisions and social mobility.
In the late 1800’s right before Detroit became the center of the automotive universe, the city looked a lot like Silicon Valley in the very early days of the computer industry. Dozens of small, innovative firms and an army of entrepreneurs – Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, David Buick – fueled each other’s ideas, created a community of competition and attracted investors.
A culture of learning and experimentation, and communication among and between industry pioneers, led to the growth of both a city and an industry. Detroit was a center of knowledge. If you were in the car business you needed to be there.
But unlike Silicon Valley, where constant learning, education, and ideas continue to attract thinkers, Detroit’s industrial model led to the opposite: a culture and a massive scale production process which, according to Glaeser, turned out to be “antithetical to the urban virtues of competition and connection.”
Instead, because the assembly line made it possible to be highly productive without knowing that much, it killed the need for learning and attracted the kind of worker for whom learning didn’t matter. According to Glaeser’s thesis, as soon as that happened Detroit was destined to die. “When a city creates a powerful enough knowledge-destroying idea, it sets itself up for self-destruction,” the author writes.
In the end the same industry that made Detroit great ended up destroying it. The vertical integration of the automobile companies crowded out new ideas, spinoffs and alternative industries.
Erik’s film suggests that if urban re-invention is possible it will emanate from a diverse mix with of human capital. Entrepreneurs, artists, educators and other creative people are the ones who’ll make it happen. They’ll make new connections, riff off of each other, and maybe turn Detroit into the kind of city that Glaeser writes about: one that attracts smart people and enables them to work collaboratively to build something lasting.
Kudos to Erik for celebrating the human spirit and making us all more hopeful.
We’re mobilizing Mobile with our friends at Google
I’m on a bit of a mobile kick as you might have noticed. That’s in part because Mullen has been hard at work getting our own mobile capabilities into high gear and also because we’re in the midst of a really cool project with Google to launch Go Mo, an initiative to get small businesses across America (and eventually the world) to optimize their sites for mobile.
It’s hard to think of anything that isn’t mobile anymore. Search is mobile. It’s pretty frustrating when you’re looking for something from a smartphone and it comes up like this.
Entertainment is mobile. In many cases it provides more options than the alternative. (Note how HBO GO actually trumps HBO On Demand for depth of content and choice.)
Travel is mobile, from booking flights and hotels to checking in. And the list goes on: shopping from mobile sites, making digital payments, executing stock sales and bank transfers, connecting with friends via social media.
More importantly, it’s evident we all have to stop thinking of mobile as its own medium or category. It’s part of everything – in-store, print advertising, physical experiences, customer service, data and analytics. Yet there’s a tendency to treat mobile as an afterthought or at least to develop mobile apps and utility off to the side.
Our program with Google is an attempt to change that. We both believe that given the proliferation of smart phones that everything – from strategy to content — has to start with mobile.
One of the more fun things we’re doing is mobilizing Mobile, Alabama. We thought that helping optimize sites for an entire town’s local businesses would be a great way to demonstrate the value of having a mobile site and the alliteration was too good to pass up. Google will help up to 500 local businesses get optimized for mobile, even hosting the sites free of charge for a full year.
I’m heading to Mobile next Monday to speak at an event encouraging ad agencies to learn, think and create in the mobile space. Jason Spero, Google’s head of Mobile Advertising, will join me. He obviously knows a hell of a lot more than I do about mobile proliferation and consumer trends, but I can share at least a few thoughts on how ad agencies can ready themselves for the biggest shift ever in marketing and engagement.
If you’re down there, stop by. You can register for our Mobile for Advertising Agencies and start to Go Mo yourself.
Oh, and the video below, on how Lulu’s optimized for mobile, was shot by my filmmaker friend Max Esposito.
Inspiration from Google Zeitgeist 11
It's actually your brain that gets blown open at Zeitgeist 11. Art work by the Brick Artist, Nathan Sawaya
Imagine being hooked up to an IV bag. Only instead of saline it’s filled with a high concentration of inspiration. And instead of the bag being set on a slow drip, it’s turned all the way to the right, to “fire hose.” That was Google Zeitgeist 11. Themed Each of us, all of us, it was brilliantly choreographed by the fine folks at Google who assembled an amazing cast of characters, all of whom managed to thread the theme through their presentations.
Robert Reich crystallized all of America’s problems and solutions into the simple need for creating communities that build empathy and interdependence. (Is this the potential of social media?) Will write a post on that later.
Ariana Huffington and Ted Koppel presented opposing views (sort of) on the state of journalism. Koppel arguing that the news media only gives people what they want rather than what they need. Ariana’s position is that truth (objectivity doesn’t really exist in journalism) is better achieved by crowdsourcing, curating and greater participation rather than through the filtering that Koppel calls for. Especially when foreign governments and one reporter’s sources can game the system.
Jean Phillippe-Vergne brilliantly compared similarities among The Dutch East India Company, the BBC, AT&T, and National Institute of Health to show how new categories initially operating as state sanctioned monopolies become much better when the “pirates” influence and change them. Think back to the days when the British government had the BBC presenting (almost exclusively) religion and classical music. Supposedly it was good for you. Every one of those categories and organizations initially thought it was best served by aligning with government protection. But was it?
There were stories of success from moguls like Ted Branson and Eike Batista; examples of innovation from technology enthusiasts like Dr. Jay Parkinson (brilliant idea to be a digital doctor); and amazing demonstrations of passion and purpose from the likes of Dave Eggers (826 Valencia) and Robert Hammond and Joshua David who co-founded Friends of the High Line.
Over two days, presentation after presentation by young artists, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs filled attendees’ heads with all kinds of possibilities.
Through many of the presentations I detected a similar formula working again and again, both for its creators and for those of us in the business of marketing them. Here they are:
Listen to your dreams
Every presenter who had a success story to share, from Dave Eggers to Nathan Sawaya, had a nagging urge to do something that would make a difference. Granted Zeitgeist 11 featured only those who succeeded, but many did so against huge odds and despite skepticism.
Avoid the naysayers
This ran through almost every great story. So many people, from young entrepreneurs (Scooter Braun) to successful artists (Miral Kotb) had to free themselves from people who told them they were insane or that their idea would never work. You can’t have that negative energy around you and accomplish anything of significance.
Include the community
You would expect this at a session whose theme is Each of us, all of us. But in case after case – crowdsourcing designs for The High Line, for example – ideas got better when multiple constituents were involved and communities gathered behind a purpose.
Tell a story
We still need marketing. Whether you launch an idea on Kickstarter, sell your vision to one other person, or put up a website, the story you start and re-write as you go becomes a powerful magnet, attracting attention and inviting others to share it.
Iterate
No one among the presenters knew exactly how they’d accomplish their goals when they got started. They just knew that they had a goal. They figured out how to navigate there way there as they went. Early failures simply turned into lessons that that helped build the strength needed to persevere.
GTS
Google that shit. At least that made Adam Braun’s list. To me it’s simply a reminder that we have a multi-billion dollar infrastructure that connects and enables almost anyone with an idea. Answers, resources, community are all there for our using and sharing. Master the tools and platforms and you have new ways of creating a business. Just look at what Dr. Jay Parkinson did.
When you come home from something like Zeitgeist 11 one of two things happens. You instantly get caught up in the reality and demands of your day job and your new found jolt of energy dissipates . Or you actually rethink what’s possible and actually do something. In which case the energy builds. I’m definitely going for the latter.
Great questions for the advertising industry: part two
I was recently asked eight good questions for an upcoming advertising and innovation conference. I shared the first four in a previous post covering upcoming trends, creating value, organizational dynamics and future sources of revenue. Here are the second four questions and some thoughts regarding agency differentiation, leadership, winning and anticipating the future. Note that the first and last answers, due to the questions, are somewhat specific to Mullen.
What makes your agency different? Do you have unique strengths or ways of creating value for clients that are difficult for competitors to duplicate? How do you capitalize on those differences?
Ask any new business consultant and most clients who’ve been through a pitch process and they’ll tell you that most agencies appear more similar than distinct. They all claim uniqueness but then present capabilities and demonstrate thinking that is pretty cookie cutter. We believe that if something differentiates us (talking about Mullen) it’s culture. In our case that would be collective entrepreneurialism and unbound thinking that gets delivered via a hyper-bundled model that we believe is essential to building a client’s business.
Back up a few years and our industry decoupled all of its capabilities believing that clients wanted to retain numerous agencies, each allegedly offering best of breed capabilities.They wanted a brand agency, digital agency, media agency, social agency. Well guess what? Today you can’t have best of breed without brand teams that combine all the essential capabilities working together. Everything is connected to everything else. We never followed that trend, instead preferring integrated brand teams that brought all the skills in the room simultaneously. Today many clients are coming back to the realization that this model works better than fragmentation. Even Forrester has identified that all those separate agencies aren’t working for brands. It’s easy for us to position this as a strength when it has always been how we work.
How does any agency win in an intensely competitive environment? Given such competition, how do you develop strategies for growth regarding clients, brands, markets and services?
By being better than the competition is the obvious answer. But since best is in the eyes of the buyer it’s impossible to even know what that means. I like to think you win by selecting and focusing on brands that best align with your vision. In our case we want to work with brands that are culturally relevant and that want the same kind of work – creative, digital social, experimental – that we aspire to create. It’s also easier to win if you don’t have to fake it.
Having been in this business a long time, I’ve made lots of mistakes. One of the biggest was taking on clients because of their size or budget. I won’t name names but in too many cases it perpetuated doing work that didn’t really support our long-term aspirations. And we produced stuff that didn’t help our reputation or our ability to attract talent.
As far as strategy goes, then, you have to focus on the circle above. To win takes talent. Talent only comes if there are opportunities for great work. Opportunities come from clients. Attracting them calls for visibility and evidence of what you can do. That only results from work itself. Which, of course, requires talent. This is the circle of momentum. It needs jolts of energy at all five key points. Our strategy is to focus on things like culture, environment (space), briefs (let’s identify problems to solve not just messages to craft) and the kind of teams that can solve those problems. Get that right and the circle spins.
The once common trait of leaders was followers. What do you look for in leaders today? How do you develop a leadership team? What do you see in those who do a good job inspiring others?
It’s pretty easy to be a boss. You simple tell people what to do and if necessary show them how. It’s a lot harder to be a leader. Leaders somehow inspire people to be greater than they themselves even imagined was possible. That means encouraging experimentation, inspiring confidence rather than doubt, and creating the conditions that reinforce both. Culture is essential. Space helps. But once you have that, nothing matters more than casting. Hire the right people, assemble a compatible team and get out of the way so people can do their jobs.
We all know the bosses. They meddle and second guess. They induce fear instead of confidence. They take credit when things go well but issue blame when it doesn’t.
Leaders on the other hand do a great job of spotting talent, pointing them in the right direction, and giving them all the support they need to succeed.
What’s your view of Mullen five years from now? How different will you be?
This is too easy a question to ask. Perhaps people actually think there’s an answer from which they can glean an insight that might insure their own surivival or even success. But only a fool would predict that far out. Look what’s happened in our own and related industries. Cliff Freeman gone. Newspapers gone. Magazines gone. Blockbuster almost gone. Five years from now we could be an advertising agency, a content company, a consulting company, or even a software company. I wouldn’t dare to predict with any certainty. But I do know four things.
Creativity will still be our core business.
Talent will be our most valuable asset.
Our culture of collective entrepreneurialism, and unbound thinking (even if we change that word) will have enabled us to be there.
I’ll be long gone.
Got better answers? Different ones? As always, feel free to share.
Great questions for the advertising industry: part one
The upper right: new services for new clients is where innovation and growth occur
I was recently asked eight pretty good questions for an upcoming conference on advertising and innovation. They cover everything from ad industry trends, to innovation, to new sources of revenue – all topics that agency leaders have to be thinking about given the relentless change that continues to challenge if not confound us.
Thought I’d share my answers here and am hoping you might do the same. Would be interesting to see if we agree or differ and if we can learn from each other.
What’s on the horizon – are there two or three future trends, issues or opportunities you believe will significantly change or impact our business?
This is obviously the richest area. I see three areas where we can expect significant effects on our business.
The changing audience and consumer
Peer to peer information exchange: This will become an even more important means of influence. Witness things like Google+ circles, the recently introduced Trippy (app to help travelers get info from friends) and Springpad’s new social service. (Note I’m on the board.) All of these will let us better source our friends’ likes as we seek reliable sources of content and information from people we trust.
Collaborative consumption: What we are seeing with Hubway, AirBNB and Zip Car will not only continue to change how we consume, but also how we create and sell our own services (to employers) as well. Crowdsourcing and expert sourcing will be of value to both buyers and sellers.
As a result, the influence of the individual, everything from Klout scores to Quora status will increase. This might change how brands think about distributing messages and getting the word out.
In short we will see an even greater increase in the power of the consumer.
Recruitment, hiring and talent
We now compete with software companies and startups, not just agencies. This will have a huge impact on how we recruit, where we find talent and how we re-structure environments and teams.
A new generation of recent grads with tech experience will want more responsibility faster and have a better understanding of how the market works from a tech and utility perspective than their older counterparts. This will be disruptive. We’ll have to learn to manage it.
What we make
As agencies make more and more utility (AR, SoMe, engagement, apps, etc.) they will have to learn more about how to be agile and embrace lean startup techniques. Linear processes will slowly give way to newer, faster means of creative and production.
There’s a lot of talk recently about leveraging agency talent to invent products and services using a new approach to R&D that starts with the consumer, moves to an idea and prototype, and ends with a brand solution. That, too, will require a new way of thinking.
In today’s economy we constantly hear about the role of “creating value” and “delivering innovation” as strategic brand necessities – are agencies contributing to this equation. If so, how and how can we do more?
One, start with identifying problems to be solved, not messages to be conveyed. Example: Timberland’s customers can’t buy boots if they are out of work. So create a service to help them find jobs. Zappos customers can’t shop off of a print ad, so create an app that interacts with print (still a fashion influence) and lets them shop off of a print ad via a smart phone.
Two, concentrate on the bottom of the funnel (inverted), not the top. What are we doing to turn customers into advocates, make them part of the brand and involve them in the creation of communications? What kinds of tools are we giving them to do that? How are we making them feel vested in the brand and its community. Think Burberry’s Art of the Trench, Uniqlo’s Twitter campaigns and Garmin’s Connect.
Organizational dynamics is a rich arena for communications firms – our industry is evolving, but are our institutions moving forward with the marketplace requirements? How is your agency organized? Is it working and what needs to change?
First, you have to live in beta, constantly evolving and staying flexible enough to solve whatever challenges are front and center. But beyond that you need new teams of T-shaped people: folks who have a deep expertise but can think and interact across disciplines. Getting developers, CT, UX, creative, social, strategy to work together is essential. Finally, on that front, we also have to re-organize ourselves into much flatter organizations with smaller, autonomous, integrated teams that have the authority to make decisions.
Where is the wellspring of future profits and what are the current service areas that are diminishing…where are the stars and cash cows? Where are you investing and where are you harvesting?
Great agencies will always know how to make brands relevant, if not with messages then with utility. They will also know how to conceive and execute creative ideas. Once we made campaigns, in the future it will be platforms. If we are great at that we will always demand a premium. Today, my own agency, Mullen, is developing services in the social space, generating new kinds of content, pioneering mobile services and introducing clients to responsive web design and more. You have to be doing that.
Secondly, there is no shortage of content, but there’s an awful lot of bad content. If an agency creates the right environment and attracts the most talented people, its content, be it TV, web, social, video, games, apps or even blogs, will be better, more effective and worth paying for.
And finally more and more agencies are experimenting with their own IP. At Mullen, for example, that includes a crowdsourced Gen Y online magazine TNGG, now appearing in Boston.com, to a soon-to-be-launched The Pulse – a new integrated content, social, analytics platform that we are building to gather sports fans and news junkies around specific topics.
How would you answer these questions? What are you doing different or better that you’d like to share?
Next: Part Two: Questions about agency differentiation, the new leaders, winning in the new age of competition and what happens five years from now. Not that anyone has a good answer to the last one. Thanks for reading.
