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

Idea first, engineering second.

By now everyone has seen or at least heard of Google’s Project Re-Brief. In order to showcase the potential of online advertising – after 18 years we ought to be able to do something better than the ubiquitous banner ad – Google had the brilliant idea of re-creating some of the advertising industry’s most famous ads and making them digital.

In typical Google fashion, they spared no expense or effort. To re-create Coke’s then epic 1971 Hilltop ad – it feels so small now – Google grabbed art director Harvey Gabor out of retirement, brought him to New York and taught him what the Internet – ad servers, HTML5, accelerometers, touch screens, and real-time video – can do.

If you watch the making of film you can see the reverence that Google shows for Harvey and the respect they convey for the “big idea.” They even let Harvey present using foam core.  (Anyone other than me, and Harvey, remember what that is?)  Granted part of that is the show — after all this is about demonstrating to ad agencies what they could do with Google and its cool tools and toys – but the real point is that a great ad idea is even better when executed to include user participation.

From ads to experiences

The finished experience, while not yet a scalable idea, is very much Nike Chalkbot-like; it connects the user, the web and the physical world in a seamless, magical way. Five Coke machines around the world are tied into Google servers. From a simple online ad that takes advantage of Google’s location services, a laptop video camera and YouTube, it lets a computer (or tablet or phone) user record a message, send the gift of a Coke to the machine of her choice, and include a video greeting. At the receiving end an unsuspecting passerby hears a machine singing the former hit, “I want to teach the world to sing…….I want to buy the world a Coke and keep it company,” as it dispenses the free Coca Cola and the video message from the sender. The recipient can then send a message back and the entire system creates a composite video of the event and uploads it to YouTube. Wow.

Once we had a message, controlled, produced, and delivered by Coke. Now we have an experience enabled by Coke, but created and controlled by consumers. Once Coke said “we’d like to buy the world a Coke.” Now users are actually doing it for each other.  Once we had an old fashioned ad.  Now we have a new kind of ad.

Creating experiences vs messages

Change the team, change the process

But of all the changes evident in the above example, the most important one is the composition of the team needed to create it. When Harvey made his TV spot he worked with Bill Backer and a director. But if you take a look at the team in the room to make something like the Re-Brief version of Hilltop, you have IA, UX, tech, engineering and production.  And you have more of those kinds of creatives than you have of the old fashioned kind.

Many advertising agencies still start the process with a team of writers and art directors who conceive TV like ideas then ask the digital team to come up with something digital to go with it. If an agency is descended from the likes of Harvey Gabor and Bill Backer it’s in their DNA to work that way. (Let’s face it, none of us would start the kind of agency today that we may currently work for.)

But it’s probably time to embrace a totally opposite approach. Put five technologists and one writer in the room. Or gather four developers and one art director.  Or change the qualifications for the title creative director. It’s the only way to create executions – or platforms, or behaviors – this innovative.

My favorite shot in the case study video is the one that says “Engineers build vending machines that connect to display ads,” suggesting that after the creative idea was conceived, the team then told engineering what it needed.

This is the antithesis of the way the world usually works. In the typical sequence R&D comes up with an idea based on what’s possible, engineering builds it, marketing learns what they have to sell, and the ad agency – despite being closer to the market and consumers than most anyone – finally gets handed the product and the story to be communicated. They’re at the end of the line virtually all the time.

Yes, Re-Brief teaches us that old ads can be re-created digitally. And yes, it recognizes the value of an idea. No doubt the traditional advertising holdouts can point their finger at this and say, “See you still need the concept.”  Yeah yeah.

But both of those lessons miss the real points.

If we want to build new, interesting, interactive experiences, we need to change the team dramatically.  Not simply add a token technologist to the traditional creative team, but perhaps take the opposite approach. Add one traditional creative to a full-blown technical team.

And two, we should put engineering at the end of the process, not the beginning. Rather than build something and then convince a consumer to buy it or use it, maybe should start with the ideal consumer experience then back up and build it.

What are your takeaways from Re-Brief?

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.

My favorite slide from Daniel Stein's #BUSCD presentation

Daniel Stein, CEO of EVB, shared that thought last night with #BUSCD, the class I teach at Boston University. Arguable, certainly. But as Daniel put it, “Give an agency $200,000 and they will come up with endless creative ideas. Give them $20 million and you get a TV campaign. Give them $200 million and you get really big TV campaign with celebrities and Superbowl spots.”

His lesson, of course, was that creative teams should welcome smaller budgets. The tighter financial reins won’t restrict your creativity.  On the contrary, they’ll liberate it. Take away that extra zero and you won’t have to satisfy expected solutions and media buys.

Of course Daniel told his now famous story of EVB’s Elf Yourself. The casting call for a dancer went out over Craig’s List. A repainted wall in the office served as the green screen. And the entire production cost well under $30,000. That’s a pretty good price for one of the more popular brand icons of the last five years.

There’s no shortage of examples that demonstrate how a tiny budget can yield both big ideas and real results. A few memorable favorites (particularly because they were among the first demonstrations of new social platforms) include Poke’s Baker’s Tweet, CP&B’s Shocking Barack, Fallon London’s Tate Tracks, Mullen’s Will it Blend, and the Milwaukee burger joint AJ Bomber’s Swarm Badge event.

In every case the budget was the advertising equivalent of pocket change. In most cases TV would have been the wrong solution. And as a result, creators were forced to use digital and social media in ways that invited users to be part of the story.

I should give Daniel a shout out for another reason. He kindly took the Red-Eye from San Francisco to Boston specifically to speak to 25 students eager to hear and learn from the best. It’s a wonderful example of someone who has succeeded and prospered taking time to give something back and help the next generation of advertising thinkers and creators.

Thanks, Daniel. Twenty-five students, and one instructor, are all smarter for your visit.

Note:  Will share Daniel’s #BUSCD deck once we get it online.

I’ve come around to agreeing that the best Super Bowl spot (above) only ran in Canada.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t run into anyone in the advertising or marketing business who wasn’t hugely disappointed with the commercials that ran last Sunday. It made all of advertising seem tired, old and in need of a serious makeover.

Even among the 25 students in the class I teach at Boston University, consensus seemed to be that all we got were recycled ideas (Honda), agencies struggling to extend past successes (VW, Chrysler), and sad attempts to replace humor with something more sophisticated (Bud Platinum).

Granted, it’s difficult to make great advertising of any kind. Add the pressure, money, judgment and expectations of the Super Bowl and the challenge is 10-fold. And today, with everyone having a microphone to express his opinion, in real time no less, it’s unlikely we could ever get consensus on what constitutes great.

At a Brand Bowl kickoff last Friday, held at the Boston Globe’s innovation lab, 60 people previewed half a dozen spots. They texted their reaction so we could quickly gauge a winner. Interestingly nearly all the spots split the audience. A slight majority disliked Ferris. A twinge more than half gave the VW dog the thumps up. But nothing stood out or made a lasting impression.

Granted come game day consumers and viewers pay attention to the spots. By adding their two cents, they elevate brand mentions and visibility across all of the social channels. And as Mullen’s Brand Bowl revealed, classic advertising humor still works at inspiring volumes of chatter. Doritos generated tens of thousands of tweets and M&Ms proved that a new female character can charm the pants off viewers.

But is that good enough?

There was a time when advertising helped define pop culture. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” or “Take it all off,” or “Wassup,” or “When I grow up,” were ideas that started with an ad and then migrated outwards. Today, however, most great ideas begin somewhere else. Hollywood. Silicon Valley. The app store.

That should bother anyone who still works in this business and be a challenge to the next generation ready to enter it. Maybe it’s too late. The new frontier has moved well beyond message based marketing to engagement, utility and collaboration.  But it appears that good old advertising still has some role to play. And if it’s going to show up for a competition as fierce as the Super Bowl, it better start bringing its A-game.

Related posts:

All the spots: Ad Age

Non Brand Bowl analysis: Media Works

Charming to Smarmy: NY Times

Honda emailed all of its customers a link to their new spot

You’re probably thinking, oh great, another Superbowl blog post. I know that’s what I’m thinking whether I’m reading one or writing one. But there are some interesting developments worth noting. Given the cost of advertising on the game, the pressure to run a memorable spot and the vocal participation of viewers on Twitter, Facebook and online polls, advertisers have to pull out all the stops if they expect to win on both effectiveness and public reaction.

Here are some practices, if not possible trends, worth noting.

Super Bowl spots are getting longer

It ain’t cheap to run a commercial on the game in the first place — $3.5 million for a 30-second spot.  Nevertheless we’re seeing multiple brands running 60’s and Honda ponying up to produce a two-and-a-half minute spot for pre-game release, likely to be a sixty-second buy in the game itself. The cliché explanation, of course, is the need to break through the clutter. But the real reason is that no matter what you run, the pressure to do well – on polls, on Twitter, in the court of public opinion – is higher than it’s ever been. Twice as long may not mean twice as good, but it does leave more room for gags, humor and story-telling.  Some, like Toyota succeed.  Others, like Acura, don’t. Honda may or may not play as well in the on air :60 as it does in the online version.

Story telling gives frat humor a run for the money

I’m sure the latter isn’t extinct quite yet, but it does appear there may be a little more true story telling this year and maybe fewer formulaic reveals at the end. Honda’s Matthew Broderick spot is a miniature movie. It may not tell me anything I don’t know about the vehicle, but the length of the commercial alone will put it at the right end of the buzz meter and the charm of the performance will no doubt win plenty of votes on USA Today and Brandbowl. Granted that doesn’t necessarily turn into sales or even consideration – just because I like an ad doesn’t mean I’ll buy the car. Brand likeability may be a motivation to buy, but that remains different from liking a TV spot.

While Honda may have nothing to say other than it stands for playing hookie, Audi has some very specific features to share with us. Like the LED technology in its headlights.  The carmaker may have jumped on the overcrowded vampire bandwagon but at least there’s a relatable story in its 60-second execution. And as we all know, stories make things easier to remember and share with others.

User generated spots start to feel old

While I am a big fan of getting our customers involved, it comes with a huge problem: formulaic, highly derivative, re-cycled ad ideas. The Chevy spot in which a college grad thinks he’s getting a car is among the most expected. We’ve seen it done for everything from wallpaper to Pepsi in the famous Cindy Crawford ad. The Doritos dog trick spot is even worse.  Strategy: product looks, tastes, and is so good that customer can’t resist it. Seen it. Done it.  Plus I think Bud Light has used up all the jokes in that genre.

The use of social platforms grows

I am excited to see what Wieden does with the Coke polar bears. Given that they’re the guys who brought Old Spice to Twitter, I’ll guess that the execution of the bears’ reaction to the game, their respective teams (the bears are not rooting for the same team) and even the commercials will be fun, and ideally offer some genuine interactive features for the user. At least I hope so.  If it’s just more “pay attention to us,” but in different venues, that would not be very Wieden like. Will be yet another coup for Facebook.

We can also assume that everyone, or at least Bud Light, will have a hashtag, now that they know what they are.  A year ago, when Audi stuck one on the back end of an ad for a full half second, the press went nuts. “A hashtag!” What an innovative marketing technique.  Now, 12 months later, it’s practically mainstream and expected.  A reminder that it’s not about using the media, it’s about what you do with it. You still need a creative idea.

The “Mikey, he likes it,” metric matters more than ever

It started with USA Today’s Ad Meter. Then came Brandbowl. And now likes and +1s and embeds and views. It’s almost as if the only thing that matters is whether or not the ad and the execution win praise and thumbs ups. We may make believe that other numbers – reach, awareness, consideration, a bump in sales – really matter more. And, of course they should. But I wouldn’t want to be the agency whose work comes in the bottom third of the polls. Or doesn’t get a few million views on YouTube (even though many of those are paid for.)

The pre-release strategy goes mainstream

It was only a few years ago when Superbowl spots were kept under wraps and guarded at all costs until the day of the game. Now, we’re likely to be tired of the commercials before they ever actually run. After the whopping success of VW’s The Force in 2011, pre-releasing one’s Super Bowl spot appears to be the new normal. They’re on Hulu, on YouTube, on blogs and all over Twitter and Facebook. Not everyone welcomes the loss of surprise; there’s something culturally communal about having 100 million plus fans sees the same spot for the first time all together.  But the web has changed that. And certainly a marketer could argue that every view counts so extending them from before the game to after stretches the media budget. In fact the Honda spot went from no views to 4 million in the first 36 hours.

Borrowed interest still reigns

This year we have inspiration from Twilight, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Seinfeld. No doubt there will be more. Some will be clever. Some might border on brilliant. They’ll probably make us laugh or smile as they cover us in the warm glow of familiarity. But something in me wishes that advertising would work the other way around. That we would create the cultural icons worth borrowing or stealing from.

That would be worth even more than an extra 10 million views on YouTube.

Would love to hear your thoughts, and hope to see you in the stream on Brandbowl2012.com. The pre-game site is up now. But we’ll be rocking come game time. Remember: #brandbowl.

Below, one of my favorite spots so far.

Related posts:

Why Shazam won’t work, by @mrahmey

Coke’s Polar Bowl

Welcome to Strategic Creative Development

Thought I’d share a deck I recently used to kick off Strategic Creative Development, a class I’m teaching this semester at Boston University’s College of Communication.

The premise behind the syllabus is simple: advertising is no longer about making ads. At least not all of the time.

Now it’s as much about digital experiences, gaming dynamics, mobile utility, Facebook apps, and creatively leveraging the interest graph as it is about crafting a message. Of course you know that.

Nevertheless, it was fun to create a journey just by looking at the automotive category. It telegraphs the change brilliantly.

In the beginning – presuming we all believe that Bernbach ignited advertising’s Big Bang – there was Volkswagen. Picture of the car, usually. Clever headline that juxtaposed with the image produced a “concept,” often telegraphing as much about the user as the car. “Do you have the right kind of wife for it?”

Twenty years later Amirati and Puris filled the awards annuals with iconic work for BMW. Picture of the car, usually. Clever headline that juxtaposed with the image produced a “concept,”  often telegraphing as much about the user as the car. “You’re judged by performance. Why drive a car that lives by a lesser code?”

No much changed in 20 years. Art and copy and bought attention.

But fast-forward 16 years and all hell breaks loose. BMW films in in 2001. The first big campaign to acknowledge consumer’s use of the web, the idea that advertising could actually be sought out, and that “commercials” need not be limited to 30 seconds. Mini-Cooper in 2002, a forerunner of imitators to come, so to speak, as a CB&B makes a brand social before there’s Facebook or Twitter to help it along.

A few years later we see Art of the Heist, and some of the very first trans-media story-telling. And finally the Ford Fiesta Movement, crowdsourced content that offered both insights about the customer and content to populate the web.
The evolution?

• VW and BMW: ads that buy our attention
• BMW Films: ads that we seek out and find online
• Mini-Cooper: ads that leverage community and membership
• Audi A3: ads that invite our participation and let us play along
• Ford Fiesta: ads that hand the brand and the content over to us

#BUSCD students will get to work on digital platforms, apps and experiences to introduce the VW Bulli

I used some non-automotive examples to demonstrate the dramatic change,too, including a comparison of the infamous Mr. Whipple with the Charmin’s most recent effort: the Sit or Squat iPhone app, a crowdsourced utility helping us locate clean, accessible public restrooms when we’re on the go. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Take a look at the deck if you’re so inclined. It includes some discussion guide and questions that might help anyone who teaches advertising and social media. It offers some thoughts and suggestions for aspiring industry employees to think about. And it has a few nice little sound bites borrowed from the like of Clay Shirky and Contagious.

Plus it includes a fun assignment at the end. The re-launch of the VW microbus, coming again as the Bulli in 2014.

If you’re a student, feel free to download. If you’re a teacher, take whatever you want to and use it for yourself and your students. Got thoughts to share? Leave them below.  And as always, thanks for reading.

(Special thanks to CP&B for sharing all its Mini Cooper work.)

With a little help from my friends. Getting guest appearances from John Winsor, Sheena Matheiken, Helen Klein Ross and Daniel Stein

I’m a huge believer that we should constantly challenge ourselves by trying new things and starting from scratch sometimes. So my newest project is to teach a full semester at Boston University. Wish me luck.

The College of Communication has offered me the chance to develop a syllabus for a course titled Strategic Creative Development. Granted I’ve taught and run workshops, lectured at numerous colleges and even done a week long executive in residence at the University of Oregon. But all of that pales compared to what it takes to prepare for a full semester. I have a newfound respect for anyone who teaches.

There’s still a month to go before the semester starts, but here’s what I’ve got so far. Thought I’d share it in hopes that you might have suggestions for how to make it even better.

Course Description (what it will say in the syllabus)

Advertising strategy is no longer only about inspiring the creation of an ad. Today it has to inform how brands generate content, engage in the social stream, encourage participation, and create cohesion across all media. Likewise, creative concepts are no longer limited to the art and copy-based executions that defined creativity in the traditional media of TV, print and outdoor. They now include digital experiences, gaming dynamics, mobile utility, Facebook apps, crowdsourcing and experiences that connect the digital world and the real world.

In this course you will study, dissect, analyze and conceive creative ideas that include traditional advertising, but that emphasize social media, digital platforms, mobile apps and gaming dynamics to understand how brands connect with consumers in the new age of participation.

By the end of the semester you should have a broader definition of “creative” and some experience in generating ideas that take into consideration consumer participation, the role of influencers, the value in branded utility, and the importance of emerging social platforms.

Objectives for the course or why you are here

·     Learn to think, solve, create

·     Expand your definition of advertising creativity and possibilities

·     Understand the new roles and teams in the modern creative process

·     Practice generating creative ideas, working as teams

·     Get better at evaluating yours and others’ work

·     Push beyond the basics of traditional art/copy advertising ideas

What you’ll be asked to do

Attend class

We meet but once a week, so attendance is mandatory. Missed classes will lower grades by half a grade per class. Three missed classes lead to an F.

Actively participate

A teacher can’t really teach creativity, students have to learn it by exercising their thinking and doing muscles. We can only be successful if you play an active role in class, engaging, debating, asking questions, contributing to the conversation.

Write (to help you think and analyze)

Creatives and strategists have to express their ideas well. As part of our learning you’ll maintain a blog and post a minimum of 13 weekly blog posts (approx 400 words) with links and appropriate embedded content in fulfillment of assignments. Example: find an innovative transmedia campaign, identify objective, back out audience/community, determine strategy, assess creative.

Present

Over the course of the semester each of you will make three or four stand up presentations of that week’s blog post content and findings.

Maintain an Idea Book and generate creative solutions

I haven’t totally figured this out yet, but am inspired by Professor Deb Morrison at U of O and her book on the creative process.

Develop campaign(s)

Work over the course of the semester will include individual assignments and a semester long team project.  The latter will consist of developing insight, strategy, driving brand idea, and campaign elements that include social media, mobile, experiential, utility and advertising.

Work/think/create all the time

Creating and thinking doesn’t happen in an allocated three-hour time slot once a week. Nor does it occur during the hours you schedule to do “homework.” It is a way of being and living. You want to learn to observe, discover, capture and develop creative ideas all the time. Inspiration is in the books you read, the movies you see, the museums you visit, the subways you ride. Learn to be open to it.

The Semester (presuming things go as planned)

Every class will include a brief lecture from me, student presentations, a full hour of workshop and creative development and in many cases guest speakers. Some pretty good ones I might add, presuming client presentations and new business pitches don’t get in the way.  (Don’t worry, Matt Britton: I will find a place for you.)

January 23:  The End of Us and Them

The transition from Bernbach to Zuckerberg

Creating in an age when readers and viewers want to create, too

January 30: Strategy in the age of participation

What is the brief, what does it look like, what does it inspire?

Guest:  Kelsey Hodgkins, digital strategist/planner, Mullen

February 6:  Is the big idea dead or alive?

Do we need them? Integration vs cohesion

Guest:  Dave Weist, Tim Vaccarino, ECDs Mullen (VW, Cadillac, Jet Blue, Google)

February 13: Social from within

Being social vs using social

Guest: Daniel Stein, CEO and Founder of EVB, creator of Elf Yourself and Facebook Studio

February 22 (Tuesday make up)

Surprise visit from young creatives who’ll work with the class on their projects while I am away for the week.

Week 27:  Transmedia story telling

Complex narratives that inspire participation

Guest:  Helen Klein Ross, Founder Brand Fiction Factory, Betty Draper on Twitter

March 5:  Strategic and creative in the mobile space

Where on the funnel?  Adding value through utility

Guests:  Mike Schneider, author of LBS for Dummies, Chief Innovator at Allen and Gerritson; Brenna Hanly, mobile catalyst and strategist at Mullen

March 19: Learning from the individual

What we learn from Gary Vaynerchuk, Sheena Matheiken, Dan Savage, et.al.

Guest:  Sheena Matheiken, founder/creator The Uniform Project

March 26: Creating experiences and owning the media

Go Mo, Shocking Barack, Chalkbot and more

April 2:  Crowdsourcing

A new marketing and creative tool/strategy

Guest:  John Winsor, Founder/CEO of Victors and Spoils

April 9: Inventing things

The importance of technology, innovation and APIs

Guest:  Matthew Ray, Creative Technologist

April 16: Thinking Small

Make great stuff with small budgets

Guests:  Michael Bourne, SVP Social Media and Michael Ancevic, SVP/CD on Olympus Camera’s Will it Blend, Pen Ready and Tough

April 23:  Do brands need a soul?

Having a purpose. Richard Branson, Alex Bogusky, Simon Mainwaring

Guest:  Scott Henderson, Founder of Rally the Cause

April 23:  Bringing it all together

Presentations from semester long projects

If I don’t suck, it will in part be due to the generous advice from the likes of Professors Tom Fauls, Deb Morrison, William Ward, Tracy Tuten and Scott Sherman. And insightful suggestions from some of the smart young professionals I work with, including Brenna Hanly, Angela Ruffino, Elena Romeu and Eli Perez de Gracia.

What do you think?  Got any suggestions that might help me out?

A lot of crowdsourced or co-created projects yield questionable results. But there seems to be a new formula that works pretty well. Short snippets of film edited into something wonderful by a talented curator/editor. We saw the first big example of this with Ridley Scott’s Life in a Day.  And this week we see another great effort from Mont Blanc to celebrate its 190th anniversary.

To honor Nicolas Rieussac’s invention of the chronograph – he recorded time to a fifth of a second in 1821 – Mont Blanc has challenged image makers to capture beauty in a single second of a film. Participants choose their favorite 60, each of which becomes part of a short film and qualifies to be chosen as the single best one-second video by director Wim Wenders. Hard to imagine that one one-second film can be the best, but someone’s got to win.

There’s also an opportunity to craft your own playlist of other people’s videos and be recognized for your visual prowess even if you choose not to submit.

Is this a good idea? I think so for a host of reasons.

• It’s a perfectly relevant idea. The beauty of a second. What better way to call attention to the chronograph?
• It’s remarkable easy to enter. Simply upload a film from a computer or mobile device.
• The prize is great: a trip to Berlin and a new Mont Blanc chronograph.
• The finished films that feature the top 60 seconds become something you can send to your friends with appropriate bragging rights.
• Mont Blanc generates a piece of content they probably couldn’t create themselves.
• And finally, the participants become a bit of a media channel, sharing and passing the videos around the web.
• Best of all, when you take a look at the first film, it lives up to the idea that a single second is plenty long enough to convey beauty.

Now if only the website weren’t, as Boing Boing called it, an obnoxious blob of flash.

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.