Tune In Saturdays: Oranger

Oranger sounds like Spoon with some weird thrown in.  They're a California quintet, playing excitable, straight forward pop tunes that you would expect to hear on the beach. 

After touring with the likes of Pavement, Elliot Smith, Wilco, and Apples in Stereo, they've matured into rock powerhouse, with all the hooks and psychedelia you can muster. 

MySpace.
Eenie Meenie Records.
Home.

PS. Could this be the shortest Tune In Saturdays ever? Answer. Yes.  Forgive me, I feel like crap.

Trust them and They Will Trust You

We all want to be fulfilled, and we love to surround ourselves with things that make us feel whole.  So, why do we, as marketers strive to steal time, rather than supply our fellow humans with the things that make us human.

Today, we are safe and boring, but fragmentation will make tomorrow blossom.

Today, we treat consumers as solitary, homogenized masses.

Tomorrow, we will let them be as they are; lovers, conversators, teachers, learners, discussers, developers, growers, neighbors, communicators, entertainers, and on and on.  Consumers are social beings, and soon, they will be treated as such.

Today, consumers are not only not allowed to be smart, but despised and degraded for this "affliction."

Tomorrow, we will empower and inspire.  We will encourage curiosity and exploration.

Today, we make bland and unappealing products, messages, and touchpoints because it's easier, faster, and safe.

Tomorrow, we will be interesting and surprising.  We will demand experiences that empower their sensibilities and appreciation for beauty.

 

Today, we treat the marketplace like a series of numbers, of potential sales, not potential partners.

Tomorrow, we will show how each customer adds to our ideal.  We will destroy the fallacies of reach and frequency, and praise one on one conversations and the establishment of trust.

This post is obviously somewhat in reverence to Chartreuse, but that's alright, I think. It's time we start not just working for the clients we represent, but understanding our delicate relationship with the larger marketplace, and realizing that our jobs cannot be controlled by short term gains at all cost, but should be enhanced by relationships built on the trust that we've earned and inspired.

It's the Links I Love, My Friend

Brand Aura - Pink Air
Jeffre discusses the advantage commercial brands have in creating an aura.  The blog is all about the art of interesting, and chocked full of great reads.

Influence Ripples 2.0 - Logic + Emotion
DA's been on a quest to graphically describe influence in the blogosphere, and along the way has gotten a bunch of help from a few of his blogger friends.  It's been just as interesting watching the evolution of the idea as it is seeing the final product. Check it out (1, 2, 3).  Be sure to read the comments. (See the visual)

Better Advice For Young Planners - Adliterate
Here's a great thought starter for any planner, not just the young ones,  My favorite:

2)Try to be interesting first and right second
I think planners spend too much time trying to be right – to come up with the right answer regardless of whether it is interesting to them, the creative team or the consumer. I think it’s a much better plan to try and find the most interesting thing you could possibly say about the brand or category and then work out whether it is right or could be made right with a little tinkering. Markets are conversations and so brands need something to say that people find interesting. Above all fight cliché in any form.

An Open Letter To Those Born After 1982 (Or The One Thing Your Parents Got Right) - Chartreuse Beta
This is pure poetry in blog form, my friends.  Chartreuse has a certain rhythm to his writing that sort of mesmerizes you into shaking your head.  Plus, his visuals always amplify his words, which is an artform in itself.

Branding Redux - 3 New Rules - Marketing Nirvana
Mario expands on three new rules of branding.  My favorite example was the Junior Bush, using polarization of the country to further his brand.  Increasing his haters also, conversely, solidified his flock, so, you know, he's got that going for him, I guess.  Seriously, Mario's always got great insights, check it.

Voice-In: Give a Girl 5 Minutes and 2 Cents - CK's Blog
Blogging Beauty Christina Kerley offers up a great question, and, as often happens when you ask the right questions, she gets great responses.  Be sure to hit the comment section and enjoy the many reasons why we blog.

Your Sand is Shit

You can't take incremental steps and expect an exponential result.
-Joseph Jaffe

I've been listening to the Jaffe since around episode 15, and reading his blog for years, which of course, in blog time, is just a few months.  But this statement struck a chord with me more than anything else he's said.  It's the thing I whisper to myself any time I feel like taking the easy way out, or just taking a break. It so simply and powerfully explains the difference between winning and losing.

Which brings me to my point.  So often the easy way out is to just do the things that have already been done, to play in someone else's sandbox, and by someone else's rules, when the thing you should have been doing all along is playing a different game. 

So, thanks, Joe. You're keeping my head straight at the times when the safe move is easy, and I appreciate that more than you can know.

(The quote is from American Copywriter #41 - which is one of my favorite single podcasts of all time.  Go listen.  If you don't, four angels will cry.)

photo from katmere via flickr.

Tune In Saturdays: The Channel

The Channel would fit nicely with the Sub Pop label on their record.  They have a smooth sensibility marked by bands like The Shins and Rogue Wave, but with a quirky, Pavement-esque after-taste and some nice harmonies that would make the Beach Boys proud.

Another great find from gorilla vs. bear, A great indoctrination into The Channel, Sneaks or Skates, can be found here.

Or you can hear more over at the obligatory MySpace page.

The Death of the Common Experience

Who would have thought Stephen Colbert would have me up thinking about shared experience? Last night's episode (link - click on "cable") was a knowing nod towards netizens everywhere, and left me thinking of cultural and marketing repercussions of our loss of commonality.

Colbert made the point that Jaffe made in Life After the 30 Second Spot; our television hits are not the pop-culture phenomena they once were.  In the 50's, 62% of the nation could be found snuggled in front of their television sets for Lucy; in the 80's, still 51% saw the Cosby Show; but today, only 25% sit to watch a top-rated show like CSI, and those numbers will continue to dwindle, probably faster than ever.

Obviously, advertising's reach and cultural place has diminished, as well.  It's not as easy to find a plop, plop, fizz, fizz these days. 

Our homes and our nationality are less and less defined by the experiences we share en masse, but resemble more of a loose affiliation of geographical boundaries.  Of course, the boundary has always been there, but we defined ourselves based on more than that.  Our cities', states', country's personalities blurred the lines, or at least, made them less necessary.

While this does open us up to an explosion of choice and a celebration of individuality, our fragmented media could point to a fractured nation.  Now that it's easier to find like-minded people all over the world, and build communities based on our interests, not necessarily by location, there is a much greater risk in the trap of the confirmation bias.  Instead of challenging ourselves, we, by human nature, seek to confirm our own ideas, and gravitate towards those that help us towards that end.

Unless we actively invite opposition, it could be likely that we further dig in our heels when we're wrong, and fail to develop our ideas when we're right.  It's incumbent upon ourselves to connect and learn, not just from our congratulators, but from the detractors and naysayers, because they may be the ones that push us to greater things that we may not have accomplished otherwise.  Our affiliations will then be measured by our willingness to share and debate, not the similarity of our thoughts. 

Luckily, we live in a country that celebrates these freedoms, even if they may be under attack right now.

photo from kitsh via flickr

Agency.com Pulls Out!

...leaves blogosphere mostly unsatisfied.

David Armano alerts us to Agency.com pulling out of the Subway pitch before they even really got started.

A representative of the Omnicom Group agency here said it withdrew from consideration when it reached the finals of a pitch for a conflicting account, which he declined to name. Subway's account selection process was taking longer than anticipated, and Agency.com decided to take itself out of the running, he said.

So, here's my advice for agency.com.  Pull the ballsiest of all ballsy moves and do the same damn thing again, but this time follow Karl's rules, don't act like dicks (leave the fist bumps for the frat boys), and make your blog a conversation, not a link receptacle.

If they do this, I will forever bow in submission.

Across the Sound turns 50. No date set for move to the Senior Center.

It's a party people.  Sunday morning, I scraped myself out of bed at the crack of 11 to celebrate the 50th birthday (that is to say 50 episodes, not 50 years)  of Joe Jaffe's Across the Sound.  The party was a Skypecast moderated by the birthday boy himself featuring some notable webrities from the communications blog universe.

Some of the attendees:
Shel Hotz, of For Immediate Release
Bryan Pearson, of New Comm Road
John Keehler, a fellow Dallasite of Chaos Scenario, Random Culture, and Lostcasts
Mitch Joel, of Six Pixels of Separation
Jill Pyle, of Less than 3, who I found out shortly after the show actually interviewed Jason Calacanis on her second podcast.  Not bad!
Terry Fallis, of Inside PR

Download here.
ITunes here.

You're Dead to Me, Pop-up

Pop-ups, Interstitials, and any ads that start screaming their message without my a-ok, earn a spot on BLACKLIST.COM.  These companies will never again gain a dollar from my pocket, and are dead and buried until these evil, selfish practices have been stopped, and an apology has been made.

This weeks additions:
American Express
apartmentguide.com
ITT Technical Institute
classmates.com

These are added to last week's list of:
Jack in the Box
Jamster.com
questionmarket.com

If you guys see any ads that generally piss you off, send them my way at paul.mcenany@gmail.com, and I'll give them the axe.

Advertising: The Industry of Consumer Advocacy

Somewhere along the way, advertising stopped just being about alerting or reminding consumers about our client's existence, or letting them know about some new product offering. It became about ruthlessly fighting and scratching for any dollar that's in the marketplace that has chance to be ours.  Competitiveness, responsibility to shareholders, and shear greed has since replaced our simple duty, and demanded ruthlessness in a world that didn't know any better.

But, now we do, and now the consumer does as well.  They know our client's flaws, sometimes better than the competitors do.  They know when the goal is only the sale, at the cost of good or decency.  So, our job now has to become advocation for our client's customers, to be protectors of the marketplace.  It's only us who can purge the selfishness so pervasive in the industry today.

How do we become advocates for the consumer?

1) Follow the Golden Rule, as in, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  We are an industry full of shame and abhorrence for what we do.  We are the tax collectors.  Why do we do the things that we, ourselves, hate?  If we fucking hate a mailbox full of spam, sales calls during dinner, or holding for an hour to talk to some inept dumbass of a "customer service" rep, why do we feel that it's somehow okay to treat someone else in such a manner?  Who gave us this free pass to be assholes?

2) Walk a mile in their shows.  Experience the product in every way possible.  Recognize and track these experiences, and how they make you feel.  Were you ever surprised?  Get mad, and see how they react.

3) Show some color, and make the color something other than gray.  Being a consumer advocate doesn't mean making product experiences that are palatable to everyone, but making those that are meaningful to someone.  Give consumers something to rally around.

4) Be trustworthy, and someone who not only lives up to, but exceeds consumer expectations.  And, no, you can't do that with just a magazine ad or a billboard.  Make consistent experiences that bleed off the page and radiate through every store, every employee, every interaction.

5) Involve the customers in the big decisions.  Let them be on your team, and help to guide you in directions that are meaningful to both of you.  Who could know better what the consumer wants most?  And there's no better way to keep the best customers happy than to just simply ask them what they need.

6) Go beyond the Google motto. Don't be just not evil, be good.

photo from mjutabor via flickr

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