Ms. Adverthinker

This spot gave me goosebumps, so I couldn’t resist sharing.

The best compliment I could have received at the conference I attended this week was in the question above (and my new friend that asked the question endeared himself to me forever). This was a compliment in the context of this conference because I had just come off a presentation about my takeaways from SXSWi, an interactive and creative conference and not something one would expect account people to attend. Account Management (account managers, account executives, etc.) gets a bad rap in the ad agency business; there is an assumption in many agencies that they are order-takers and simply a go-between. However, the truth is that they are saddled with a lot of responsibility (at least, in our agency): communications strategy development, budget management, revenue management, deadline management, scheduling/traffic, relationship building both inside and outside, ensuring integration across the agency in the strategies we recommend for the agency, meeting leaders, proof-reading, research, maintaining knowledge of industry trends, maintaining knowledge of their clients’ business trends, and the list goes on. But they get none of the “glory” when a creative project is deemed successful, although without a good account person on the team, the project likely would not have come to its fruitful results.

Because I was the only account person at a conference of creative directors, digital strategists and media directors, I heard much complaining about the roles account people play in agencies. Some of the complaints were legitimate, some were blame-shifting (perhaps), but regardless, these conversations have inspired me to think about how to improve account management in agencies. I should be proud to be an “AE,” not flattered by a question that implies I am “better than” an AE.

I have been thinking on this challenge for several days and know that more concentrated training is in order, both for the account team and for their agency partners.

Starting in May, we will begin weekly training and sharing sessions with our account teams to not only improve their skills, but also their confidence in the roles they each play in the agency.  I am interested in any thoughts readers here have for what kind of training is needed for account people, or examples of how account people are trained in your own agencies.  I plan on sharing our training methods here in a weekly series and look forward to your feedback.

For our agency partners (creative, media, interactive, PR, production): what would be the best way to earn respect and understanding for the work that we do and the contribution that we make?

Sure, the Darth Vader spot is cute if you like “Star Wars” and you like kids.  I thought the spot was cute, for sure; it made me smile.  But since advertising is my job, I look for more than likability (although this is very important, too) in commercials: what was the strategy?  Did it deliver the message?  What is the take away for the brand?  What is the take away for the product being promoted?

This morning as I watched actual “news” coverage of the spot and an interview with the child actor that was in the Darth Vader costume, I hit my tipping point of curiosity and started searching for some explanation for the strategy of the spot.  The majority of the talk online, much like that “new” segment I saw this morning, talks about how “cute” the spot is and how much everybody liked it; there was little, if any, mention of the brand or the product.  While I can accept that it is a brand ad and they are not necessarily trying to sell Passats, can it be considered successful if no one remembers/talks about/notices the VW brand itself?

It was on AdAge that I finally found a real review of the spot:

“But if we were VW, we wouldn’t be too triumphal too quickly. Another name for the Relationship Era is the Listenomics Age, and if you listen to what was being said, you’d notice that the vast majority of the Twitter traffic mentions the ad, and not the car. Not even the model — which happens to be a Passat. Certainly nobody mentioned the ad was nominally promoting keyless ignition, and no wonder: that’s all but a generic feature.

“So, yeah, VW got some positive attention, and that’s good. But the attention wasn’t on automobiles. That’s bad. This could have just as well been a McDonald’s commercial. Which just goes to show: If you’re peddling entertainment instead of products, cultivating smiles not constituents, the Brave New World will be just as easy to squander resources in as the cowardly old one.”

Right on.

While catching up on missed television programs, I caught a new Google Chrome commercial that I found to be quite engaging.  The spots encourage you to participate in the spots, while communicating the benefits of Chrome. Simple, fun and engaging. Here is one of the spots:

Toyota has been running a series of commercials lately for their minivan, the Sienna, that are obviously targeting Gen Xers who are at that point in their lives where they are toting around young children.  And the spots are really funny.  They make fun of the minivan life and are so true.  I think these spots resonate with me because I have so many friends that are at this point in their lives and are excited and proud of their minivans now.

Check out the Sienna Family YouTube channel for all the spots.  Here is the music video that I just saw today and laughed out loud:

Enjoy.

This has been online for a while and posted to this site before, but since it always makes me smile I thought it was worth dusting off again today.  Enjoy.

Just a quick thought.  A few days ago, we were all patting Pepsi on the back for being different and for recognizing the power of social media when it was announced that they were abstaining from the Super Bowl advertising orgy this year and instead launching a socially conscious social media campaign.

Today, when the ratings for the Super Bowl were released we find that with 106 million viewers, it was the most watch telecast EVER.  So, was Pepsi smart to sit this one out?

There was a Super Bowl gathering at my abode, and in between cooking, conversation and conviviality around the Saints, we Googled, blogged and surfed the social networks.  Because we work in the business, our web use centered around the Super Bowl advertising.  And while most commercials were disappointing, there were some stood out from the overdone guy humor that was abundant this year.  I am not going to get into my opinion of what advertising was good, bad or ugly – you can find more than enough commentary about that here, here and here.  I want to talk about is the morphing of the event into an online social experience.

Watching the Super Bowl has always been a social event: friends gather, eat, drink, boo and cheer. The advent of social media made our parties grow exponentially over the last couple of years as we interacted with those we knew online in addition to those watching the game with us in person. Last year, 12% of Super Bowl viewers were online during the game, according to Mashable. But this year, rather than having to search out the pertinent discussions on Twitter and Facebook separately, communities have developed around areas of interest, be it sports, food or advertising.  Hashtags are now used more consistently, making search for relevant commentary outside those communities easier, too.  With these community hubs and hashtag prevalence, our online interactions have gone from just the people we know (and the people they know) to introductions to people, content and views we might never have stumbled upon before.  And just when we thought we couldn’t be more connected to the world.

I didn’t want the Super Bowl fun to end last night. In years past, I have only watched the Super Bowl for the commercials, and even then become bored by the second half. Last night was different, it was bigger and it felt like my world expanded just a little bit more.  And that is always a good thing for the curious being that is me.

For fun, here is my favorite commercial of the night.  Although, as it turns out, it has been around for a few months, last night was my first viewing.

It seems like this commercial comes on every morning during MSNBC’s Morning Joe and it just makes me smile. Music can have such a huge impact on commercial likability. Enjoy.

There is something about this Geico “Pothole” commercial that transcends social, political and gender boundaries: everyone likes it.  Does it work to help sell insurance for Geico?  I have no idea.  But it makes me giggle every time I hear it and I think more favorably of Geico for creating it (and almost forget they are responsible for the Cave Men spots).

This week, Twitter released a new feature that allows for the creation of “lists.”  This makes perfect sense: with the rapid growth of Twitter, it is becoming harder to figure out which people to follow. The amount of data out there is getting overwhelming; according to a CNN article:

“Approximately 25 million Tweets are posted every day; more than 5 billion have been created since Twitter’s launch.

“Facebook users are even more prolific in aggregate: Forty-five million updates are posted there daily. In May, the last date for which we have data, YouTube announced that 20 hours of video is uploaded to its servers every minute. That’s more than three years of content being uploaded to YouTube daily.

“As the barriers to media production fall — cameras in virtually every cell phone, video cameras in iPods, text messaging as a publishing platform — this content tsunami is growing ever taller”

Lists allow for those you trust to create a filter of all this data, by category, for you.

And, for those that follow Twitter through desktop apps like Seesmic and Tweetdeck, they are working to integrate list following into their applications (Seesmic actually already has; Tweetdeck is still working on it).

Check out the Stone Ward Staff Twitter list.

Love this “Know Your Girls” video. Thank you, Yoplait.

In an unbelievably quick turnaround, Nike has a new spot with great athletes congratulating Federer.  Impressive.