Seems Some Gurus, Ninjas, Evangelists and Superstars Need A Dose of Humility

One of the fascinating things I find about social media is that I am constantly learning from it, literally every day. It is an evolving, changing medium. I would like to think the foundation of knowledge I’ve gained about it is very good. More than the average individual? Sure, I can say that very confidently.

Yet, I am humble in what I see myself learning from so many people in this realm. Jay Baer. Jason Falls. Michael Stelzner. Mari Smith. And so many others. In fact, I doubt even those folks feel they’ve learned all they need to learn.

But to hear many self-professed know-it-alls, they really don’t know it all. Worse, they’re afraid to admit that, heaven forbid, they are learning more.

So let me practice what I preach: I am a person who considers himself a brand strategist with excellent expertise in social media. I know how to strategize, plan and recommend whether social media has a place at the table with the rest of your brand elements and how much of your budget social media should “eat.”

Yet I am smarter today than I was yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll learn more than I know today.

From the books I consume to the blogs and reports I read to the webinars I listen to, I find myself never doing a complete flip-flop but enhancing what I know. This is not a bad thing – in fact, I am quite sure it is to a client’s benefit to know of new methods of communicating and implementing them. I am getting smarter and smarter by the day on how to use it and measure it. But let’s embrace the fact that we can lead marketers down the right path while still understanding that the tools we recommend today may change tomorrow. This is not a mistake on our part but the symptom of a shifting media landscape (unless you still find yourself using MySpace and AltaVista).

In other words, a guide probably won’t say “I guarantee you with me that you’ll reach the top of Mt. Everest.” A lot of things could happen along the way, right? But you’d sure rather increase your chances by having someone who knows the lay of the land. Yet what I read from some experts is nothing less than promises of guaranteed success of reaching the audience at the top of the mountain with every single journey.

But the real detriment to a brand I see is when certain evangelists recommend social media above all else without even considering offline tactics in brand strategy. And because they’re often the loudest voices in the room shouting that “social media is king, everything else is dead,” they’re doing more harm than good. The balance of marketing budgets may be shifting, but to put every cent in ANY one media channel, let alone social media, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I know that in the era of TIVO, satellite radio, fewer newspapers read than ever, etc. that it’s challenging to get your message through via traditional media. But who said it was a piece of cake to get your voice heard on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

Getting people to know, like, trust, buy and refer you is hard. Period. You shouldn’t have to go the path alone (and if this sounds too self-promotional, I sincerely apologize). But do be wary of those who feel they know everything there is to know about social media or recommend that’s where you should put every last marketing dollar.

Especially if they promise to get you 50,000 Followers on Twitter tomorrow.

How financial advisors and social media can live on the same island

Whenever I speak with financial advisors about social media, I’m typically met with the response of “I’d love to get involved with that, but I can’t say anything that would be construed as providing investment advice.”

Sure, I get that (although there is plenty for them to speak about besides investment advice, but that’s another topic altogether).

What I’m excited about is the news that the largest retail brokerage, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, has decided to allow its brokers to use Twitter and LinkedIn, even on a limited basis.

Consider this: Six months from now, nearly 18,000 financial advisors at Morgan Stanley will be able to engage in social media.

Now, some in the industry may grumble and be skeptical with a “Yeah, we’ll see how that goes,” response. But before you judge, consider that Morgan Stanley is being smart about how they let their brokers use social media.

They’re not saying all bets are off and that brokers should tweet and post to their heart’s content. They’re saying that they’re going to capture communication on approved sites while enabling the distribution of research – which must be approved in advance by the firm.

Tweets must be approved. LinkedIn status updates must be approved.

I’ve heard this chain-of-approval structure before in financial firms regarding social media, but what the Morgan Stanley move means is a commitment to entering the arena above, frankly, most firms in the industry.

Think about it. If financial advisers aren’t blatantly being told, “Don’t do social media,” their firms certainly aren’t making it easy with the long line of approvals they’d have to go through. And by that point, is the post even timely or relevant? Questionable. So it’s easier to forget doing it altogether.

That’s the trap that Morgan Stanley must avoid falling into. It absolutely cannot let an approval process bog down timeliness, especially with such a public commitment to social media.

It comes down to this: Approvals of posts and tweets from management above must be timely. That’s the crux of it. It can be a “yay,” “nay” or “adjust this or that” but the feedback must be flowing and constant.

Remember this for your own firm. If you are in a small-to-medium-sized brokerage, you have it even easier than a giant like Morgan Stanley. It’s a matter of structuring yourself internally to keep the information distribution consistent.

For example:
Identify the policies for proper social media engagement.
Like any company, it’s smart to define what is construed as the right and wrong behavior for online interaction and messages.

Identify the people who will make changes to the policy and enforce it.
More than just the social media police, these are the folks who can be go-to references if any gray area arises.

Identify who will be able to make approvals and modifications to the information to be distributed.
This person’s role is probably the MOST important to making social media effective in your firm. Who will be on hand to lend an eye to the outgoing information for approval? Who is their back-up? Accessibility to them by financial advisors is key.

Identify exactly who will be engaging in social media at your firm.
It’s important to stay on top of exactly who is doing the interacting and what that interaction looks like (again, the monitoring and approval process comes in here). If they already have a natural affinity for social media in their personal life, all the better.

What you’ve done at this point is set the table for information to flow out of your financial firm more fluidly and in a way that can be in accordance with the proper governing bodies of the industry. From here, ongoing social media training can keep the motivation and enthusiasm for participation going strong.

Let’s be real. Being a resource that is liked and trusted beyond the typical networking events and client word-of-mouth takes extra work and commitment. But if the largest brokerage in the country is getting the message that sitting on the sidelines of social media is not an option, maybe your firm should be considering that route strongly too. You might even be positioned better logistically speaking than they are to do it.

What’s your firm’s experience been up to this point in the online realm beyond your website and e-newsletters? Are you finding other inroads that are being appreciated by clients such as social media? How has the process of information distribution been for you – challenging or easy? Would love to hear it.

Traditional media isn’t dead. But we do need to demand more of it.

I’m a big believer in social media. So are many others. But does that mean traditional media is dead? I wouldn’t go that far. Some people, in my view, go to extremes in declaring the death of traditional media as having an effective role in building a brand. I don’t believe dollars shouldn’t be spent in the TV/radio/print spectrum when the strategy calls for it and it’s appropriate. But the rules have changed as to its place and role. Make no mistake.

What I’m talking about is this: I think we should demand traditional media do more than what it has generally been doing – namely, having 1-way conversations that go nowhere. Literally. Think about it. Most of the time, a TV spot will typically drive you to a website where the company can spout more information at you rather than have a conversation with you. A radio spot will give you a phone number where you can call for more information if you wish, because we all have the time to jot that info down when we’re going 65 mph.

See, the problem isn’t always that people aren’t paying attention (obviously, that does happen too). But we also have to ask ourselves if the ad is working hard enough. Is it driving people to a Facebook page where interactions can occur? Better yet, is there a specific event online where prospective customers can interact with the brand? Does the billboard just lie there on a wall in an airport in its own lonely way or does it have a QR code that opens an interactive microsite where people can take a survey as they’re waiting to catch a plane?

Giving people a website and phone number is expected. What’s not is giving people a place where continued conversation can occur well beyond the initial reason for visiting. If they come for more information or to get a question answered, that may be better than nothing, but the potential is there for something far greater. Are they receiving an incentive to sign up for a newsletter or contest in which you can capture their information? While it may take little effort to “Like” someone on Facebook, it nonetheless does enable consistent involvement in a person’s Facebook stream – is that person becoming a Fan as a result of the first interaction? Are you rewarding them by providing them a coupon? Are you making up for something you did wrong by providing a coupon?

See every customer interaction as the opportunity to build more than general “awareness.” Traditional media by itself that only serves to shovel more 1-way communication on the part of the company isn’t pushing it far enough. Linking it to paths of continued long-term conversation and loyalty (i.e. social media) helps keep traditional media more relevant and a more maximized investment.

There’s nothing wrong with where we’ve been before with traditional media in terms of what our past expectations were of it. Driving people to a website wasn’t a bad thing in the 90′s when the Internet was a relatively new frontier. But times have changed. Social media has seen to that. And what we expect from traditional media as a result have to be raised – if it’s to be considered to be part of the marketing mix at all.

Extreme? No. On both a financial and strategic marketing level, it’s what’s right for our times.

Lara Logan attack – Egypt feels the other side of social media

CBS’ Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted in an incident in Cairo’s Tahrir Square a few days ago. All she was trying to do was her job in covering the transition after Hosni Mubarak’s resignation when she was swarmed by an angry mob.

If we’re going to herald the role that social media played in Egypt’s days of change, Egyptians and others like them will need to remember that social media can tell all angles to the story. Not just the flattering ones. You can’t just claim the typical “Western world bias” when the social media universe is not owned by the United States. It is a global phenomenon and as cultures are adapting to it more readily, those people should realize that their actions will be more under the microscope than ever. It will be YouTubed. Tweeted. Posted. And above all else, shared and spread.

You don’t get to pick and choose the stories you want to be released about your society in the social media world. If you practice violence against journalists, particularly women, you will not be able to hide it. The more outlets for communication ensures that. Yet if you think you can block social media forever? Let’s just say the people in your society wanting change are going to raise their voices louder than ever. No wonder some dictators are nervous.

Let’s wish Lara Logan a speedy recovery and that the cowards who attacked her are held accountable. The changes in Egypt are exciting but make no mistake -people are finding that social media delivers a setting where the story of your country’s changes are told without a filter. The good is shown with the bad. That’s part of meaningful reform too.

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t change Egypt. Wael Ghonim did.

You need to follow Wael Ghonim on Twitter. His handle is @ghoneim. Why? So much has been said about Facebook and Twitter being responsible for positive change in Egypt in the days since, but when you follow Ghonim’s Twitter feed, you’ll get a fascinating inside look at how the events of the 18-day revolution transpired from someone who transitioned from demonstrator to reluctant but key voice during Egypt’s most monumental days of change.

Social media tools are important. But tools only mean so much without passionate human beings driving those tools.
I’m giving a lot of attention to Ghonim in this post, but he is only a representative of many others who were surprisingly accessible to journalists – I’m not talking about the angry mobs that aspired to beat journalists, but the peaceful groups who let in the media at times to show them their apartments/war rooms for planning and communicating with others in order to mobilize protests on a consistent basis.

Social media tools were important and I don’t mean to discredit them in any way. But they are the tools of the day. There are a whole lot of revolutions throughout history that did not literally involve posting or tweeting. George Washington and company did just fine in this regard. It begins with a motivated and organized group that keeps the flow of information steady that often provides these revolutions with a foundation. In this case, social media was the weapon of choice. But someone has to make the choice to step up, put their very life on the line by risking torture/death at the hands of the establishment and never let up until their goals are achieved. Wael Ghonim and others like him did just that.

When you retrace the steps, you can see Ghonim’s transitional role taking shape right within his own feed. It seems to have started out pretty normal for him, with innocent enough tweets:

Two days later on January 13th, the events in Tunisia result in a colleague’s arrest:

Still, Ghonim looks like most other tweeters up to this point – commenting on some political issues, but not entirely yet. Until he makes the decision that changes his visibility in the world for good.:

Then on January 25th, all hell breaks loose:

I’ll let you visit his page and you’ll see the events that took place in Egypt through an entirely differently angle. What struck me about Ghonim’s tweeting (reporting, really) is that amidst all the chaos unfolding around him, he fires off nearly 30 tweets a day at the height of the uprising. Meanwhile, CNN and other news sources could mostly report on the events from a safe distance, i.e. a balcony high above the crowd. And even when they tried to get close, they couldn’t really get close enough due to safety concerns.

It shows us that if we want our news as real as possible, it’s going to sometimes come to us in an unvarnished, rapid-fire form rather than slickly polished and packaged later on. And that’s OK. We still need the CNNs of the world to keep our information organized. But we need tweeters and posters with passion to keep the momentum of real-time news coming to both followers and outside observers.

It was an important shift we witnessed on 2 fronts: 1) In the age of social media, we can find real context in the commentary of someone’s streams and feeds. 2) We are entering a new age of where social media tools + focused passion by people who know how to use those tools = Potential Revolution.

In other words, you can be sure that the State Department is thinking about how our government can get certain nations doing a lot more tweeting, posting and blogging. Because the passion for reform in these nations? It’s already there. And as Wael Ghonim and other brave Egyptians showed us, that’s where it all has to start.

Do Super Bowl ads still matter?

It’s inevitable that the day after the Super Bowl, people like me talk about the ads we loved, liked and just plain didn’t understand.

I’m not going to do that here. Instead, over the last week I had an even larger, burning question in my mind: Do Super Bowl ads still matter?

I wondered this because the idea of an ad that, for the most part, runs one time and is never heard from again (or is run on a limited basis afterward), is usually counter to my way of thinking. I favor frequency and versatility. It’s not that I dislike television advertising either. I just like exploring if it’s the only and best way to tell the story at hand.

Then you consider that we have so many new tools to “play” with in our media toolbox like never before. So part of me always asks if $3 million spent on a 30 second TV spot is the best way to go.

I deliberated. I scratched my head. Until I came to a conclusion that I didn’t expect:
I believe the answer is yes. Yes, it still matters. But not because it’s the best possible arena out there, no matter what. In fact, the Super Bowl is the exception to the rule. For a vast many, many companies, it makes zero sense strategically, not merely from a financial standpoint. But for an incredibly tiny segment of the business world, it still does.

It matters if you’re a macro brand.
Budweiser. Pepsi. Ford. Microsoft. Any blockbuster movie coming soon. These brands aren’t aiming for one kind of person to buy their product. They’re aiming for all walks of life. They really are trying to be something for everybody, at least by appearances anyway. That isn’t logical for most brands, but for these select brands, it is. When you slice and dice your audiences down to all the possibilities of those who could buy your product and help spread the word about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to run a Super Bowl ad if the number of different audiences you have to appeal to at once – not just the overall size of the audience itself — isn’t massive.

It matters if you’ve had a small but consistently building level of awareness on a nationwide level.
For Groupon, it was the right place and the right time to take its awareness to a new level. They weren’t introducing a new concept that people had never heard about before. Most people by now have at least heard of Groupon, if they don’t have an understanding for how it works. If not and you have to educate your audience that much, you shouldn’t be in the Super Bowl. The groundwork here was already laid. Now, as far as the ads themselves, there’s no question that all 3 have generated controversy. The ads may have backfired to some extent, but I question how hurt from it all that Groupon is going to be. There will be some immediate unsubscribers, but I don’t see long-term damage and I think if Groupon wanted some robust chatter going on about them the day after the big game, well, mission accomplished.

It should matter to everyone in advertising, whether they have an ad or not.
The advertising business needs the spectacle and attention of the Super Bowl because it’s the one time of the entire year that people look upon our industry with anticipation and excitement. Any other time of year, we have to fight against technology that fast forwards through our messages and the stigma that we are an unwelcome guest in the middle of the true content people really want to get to. But for a few hours, none of that is present. The ads matter almost as much as the game itself. No other time, no other event comes even remotely close to the Super Bowl in this way. Oh, there will always be ads that don’t measure up in the consumer’s mind. Yet, next year, all will be forgiven and the same set of eyeballs will be watching and hoping to witness truly great advertising.

So yes, Super Bowl ads still matter. But they aren’t the end-all, be-all, Holy Grail that they once were in a TV-radio-print world. What I see now is a strong option for a sliver of the corporate world that needs mass appeal toward a wide range of audiences. And how many brands can truly say that several Super Bowl ads are just one component of their overall media mix?

Not many. Yet for those select few, it matters. Blow the whole marketing budget on a Super Bowl spot? I wouldn’t. But then, these advertisers aren’t doing that. It’s one item among many, many initiatives. It’s never going to make or break their company. Not by a longshot. If you had that kind of risk going in, you probably shouldn’t be advertising during the Super Bowl.

At their very best, Super Bowl ads are great entertainment that spur conversations between the great entertainment. And I think that’s something still worth striving for.

Learn from Netflix. If your audience doesn’t approve, it’s not innovation.

Netflix is getting a world of heat by removing its “Add To DVD Queue” option from streaming devices and it’s easy to see why. You can still manage your DVD Queue on the Netflix website, but it’s still puzzling nonetheless that the company is making a move like this and without the full functionality of instant watching in place.

It’s bad enough to turn off customers who have been used to the convenience of adding titles from the device they’re comfortable with. But in my view, Netflix has an incredibly poor selection of titles available for viewing at the moment. The image quality is so-so and if you want to watch that recently released movie available for rental, you’re probably out of luck.

I have no doubt that Netflix is going to reverse itself from the backlash it’s getting. I also have no doubt that it’s also going to have many more titles available for instant watching. Or that the image quality will eventually be better. Or that the price for instant watching of any title in the Netflix will be more affordable. Or that they’re going to evolve to do streaming exclusively rather than being a “mail in your DVD” kind of company.

But they’re not there yet. Not by a longshot from what I can tell. So making sudden and unexpected shifts away from the technology your customers use for the benefit of accessing your product makes little sense.

The lesson here for marketers is that technological change isn’t good change if the feedback you’re receiving is lukewarm or worse. You can’t force customers into change they’re not ready for in an abrupt way. You can gently transition them into a method of using your product or service by incentivizing them, giving them a trial period, demonstrating the new method through online tutorials and more.

Netflix could have prepared its customers better for the transition by involving them and getting feedback. “What titles would you like to see more of in our instant watching library?” “If we were to take away the “Add To DVD Queue” from your streaming device, would you have a problem with that?” That sort of thing.

On the other hand, look at a company like 37 Signals. This is a company that offers project management and collaboration tools based on the web like Basecamp and Backpack. Implementing change at your company to use these tools at first might be met with the usual skepticism/pessimism over anything new, but the one thing you can’t say about 37 Signals is that they don’t make it easy to learn about how to use their products. They offer short, simple video tutorials that a monkey could understand. Before long, skepticism gives way to comfort and comfort gives way to advocacy for the brand. Yes, consider me a fan.

And when they make changes to their product line? 37 Signals doesn’t toss a bucket of cold water on their customers by changing them overnight. They make improvements that still live within the customer’s comfort zone so that the customer isn’t saying, “what the heck happened to Basecamp? I don’t recognize it any more!” If they did stumble on an enhancement, I’d wager they could easily make a change back without doing too much damage to customer goodwill because they already have a strong product line and solid customer service (I always get in-depth answers to questions within a couple hours).

I’m not saying to think small in your potential improvements and upgrades. I’m saying be smart about it by involving your fans early on in the process. Be transparent. Use online polls and ask questions. Provide special passwords to select customers to get them to try a Beta version of your product. Ask yourself what services can be packaged together, old and new, to encourage customers to try the new service and make them feel as though they’re getting a value while doing it. Reward those who test out the new service with special discounts or other offers.

Audience involvement like this starts to generate awareness of the transition, shows them you value their input in the development phase and makes it easier when your “soft launch” becomes an official launch. Done well, you may even get some help in the form of positive word-of-mouth about the new product/service.

Sure, change is always going to be hard for some. But the more information you can gather now in advance of that change, you won’t alienate your very best resource that’s keeping your business alive and hopefully thriving.

Relax. Apple’s brand and business will be just fine.

The news that Steve Jobs is taking another leave of absence due to health reasons will certainly come as a shock and it’s no surprise that the stock took a hit today. But after I absorbed the news, I realized that while Steve Jobs is a Visionary with a capital V, if the strength of your brand equates that strongly to one person, even Steve Jobs, you had major issues well before the event.

An extraordinary brand that has a history of innovative products, above-and-beyond service and truly remarkable attributes over a long period of time can weather many storms. It can overcome minor service hiccups, CEO resignations, a few store closings, a failed product launch and more.

Apple is such a brand. It is safe to say this company has intelligent people who have a track record of creating products that are impacting life for the better. They may not have had a succession plan as visible as others but I believe Mr. Jobs planned well for the idea that a day like today was going to happen. It’s a company with such diversity in product line that some of us even forget this company makes laptops and desktops anymore. Does it stumble occasionally? Sure (hello, iPhone 4). Yet, even in this adversity, most of us reacted with little more than annoyance because, after all, this was unusual for Apple. We weren’t throwing out our iPhones in disgust.

Great brands enjoy such a pattern in being bigger than any one person. Nike didn’t disappear when Phil Knight resigned as CEO (still retaining his position as Chairman). Disney didn’t disappear when Walt Disney passed away. Why? Because they had a wealth of goodwill built up in the fact that they had lived up to their brand promise time and time and time again. Because they had identified people who could maintain a continuity of culture and innovation – if you agree with Jim Collins of “Good to Great” fame, you believe that most of the time, that leader is found from within, not outside. And who did Apple name to take the reins for Jobs? That’s right. Tim Cook, the COO who had taken responsibility for the day-to-day operations the last time Jobs had taken a leave.

Oh, that brand equity I speak of can evaporate if the company’s leadership decides to coast on their laurels for a prolonged period of time. But Nike didn’t, Disney didn’t and Apple won’t either. They’ll still innovate, they’ll still release great products and they’ll still have packed Apple Stores with Geniuses rescuing one frantic customer after another.

So let’s wish Mr. Jobs the very best toward a speedy recovery and re-entering the picture at Apple soon. But let’s also recognize that no matter what the doom-and-gloom pundits may say about what one person’s exit bodes for one of the most recognizable brands in the world, it is a speed bump. I believe Steve Jobs on many levels has laid the groundwork for Apple to thrive for years to come by making the brand even bigger than himself. Take a lesson from one of the masters in Steve Jobs and remember that the brand equity you build today can overcome extraordinary events tomorrow.

Why can’t students have a greater hand in branding their own University?

Not long ago, my fine alma mater, Drake University, decided to hire an outside advertising agency to brand itself. The campaign was called “The Drake Advantage” and officials from the school wanted the campaign to be edgy, out-of-the-box, you get the picture…different. The University and the agency put a “D+” on direct mail pieces to illustrate the relationship between the university and its opportunities. There were phrases such as “Your Passion + Our Experience” and “Your Potential + Our Opportunities.” But the logo to capture it all was a “D+.”

In retrospect, choosing a D+ to brand an institution of higher learning probably wasn’t the best idea ever. Which Drake officials quickly realized and modified.

The point is not to make my school look dumb. The point is that if trained professionals hired from the outside can make blunders — and we ALL do — then we can gain by letting marketing students have a greater role than classroom exercises on fake client accounts. Let’s allow these students to have a true voice in creating brand strategy while their agency counterparts act in a more mentoring role. If I can assume that the class is divided into small agency-like account teams to work on the school’s brand, I think we can get better results everyone will be happy with. Here are some suggestions.

Step 1: Agencies, stop being judges and get in there with the students in the trenches.

This isn’t Project Runway, Top Chef or another reality show. I think we can do better than have three agency staffers sit there at the end of a classroom project, judge which campaign is the finest and throw comments at a fresh-faced student in between sips of our Starbucks coffee. Instead, if you’re going to help kids develop a brand that’s reflective of their University, they need your help from the very beginning. Whether in an Instructor role or simply being accessible throughout the week, your time and input is needed to kick off the brand development of the University in the best possible way. You have the expertise. You have the resources in-house. Guide them as you would your own team. In doing so, you will give them a tiny taste of what agency life is like when small teams collaborate to create a brand that not only “looks cool,” but is strategically sound. These students need to appreciate the concept of the target audience(s) they are speaking to. What drives these audiences? What shapes their behaviors? One of the major audiences they will speak to is a potential incoming student, not unlike they once were. Other audiences will be alumni. The faculty. Parents of existing students. Parents of potential students. How will each of these audiences be addressed under one brand umbrella and which distinctive media will be used to address them? There’s nothing more rewarding to me than mentoring someone who can’t wait to be a part of our industry for real. So don’t just be a judge on the sidelines at the end. Be a mentor at the beginning and all the way through.

Step 2: Students, you’re about to step up to the plate and have some awesome responsibility. Understand what you’re being entrusted with.

Namely, the brand development of your own school. Obviously I believe you deserve this opportunity. Understand that with that responsibility comes dedication. This is a real, living brand with many vested interests in it. The agency mentors will guide you as will your professors. But remember, before you think about clever headlines and compelling visuals, you need an insight of what makes your school different. You won’t find it overnight. You may have to speak with those audiences I mentioned above to get their input and look for common patterns. You’ll have to think about what makes your school great while being honest about what its most glaring weaknesses are. Because if you’re not being truthful with a target audience that looks a lot like you, they’ll cut through the you-know-what faster than you can blink. And don’t forget to listen to the other members of your team. Don’t shoot them down in your brainstorms with “no, that won’t work.” Finally, if the agency members are involved more intensively the way I suggest, see it for the opportunity that it is. Take advantage of their knowledge and don’t be intimidated to ask questions. They aren’t rock stars. They’re people just like you and me. Like you, they were students once. Students who might not have even thought to go into this field at the time.

Step 3: Professors, you’re the glue.

What I mean by that is that you’re not only the teachers in this process but the coordinators between students and agency. Like the agency folks, you have to be abundantly accessible outside of classroom hours. If you spent any time in an agency, you know that this isn’t a 9-to-5 industry. If you want to simulate it for your students, you have to be a constant advisor to the agency “mini-teams.” All the while, you have to make sure the agency people who are co-advisors do their job and maintain their involvement. This may not be their primary job but it does require a commitment. No matter what pitches they have to put together in their own world, they need to spend time in yours as well. The more they do, the more they can help prepare your students for the potential requirements they’re about to encounter when they graduate. There was a time when I was a student that I couldn’t fathom writing an ad in just one day. Now, of course, I know better. But your students can’t comprehend that yet. The more “real” to the real world you can make the brand development experience in tandem with the people who are still in that world (the agency people), the more your students will benefit in their preparation. And after all, isn’t that what you want for them?

When students can have a greater role in their own institution’s brand development and agency people can have greater involvement from the beginning and professors live in a very real world beyond textbooks teaching advertising history, the results are wonderful all around for everyone who is a part of it. I see collaborations that benefit advertising and marketing programs, which in turn helps the institution live up to the promise of being very much in touch with the times. These closer relationships make it all the more likely that the brand being developed is one that is more reflective of everyone who comes into contact with it — not a brand that is primarily created in an agency conference room far away from campus.

The difference between a print vendor and a print partner.

I’m the kind of person that has a thousand different things going on at once. Maybe you are too. And I find it helpful to leave certain things I can’t do to the experts. In our business, one such group of experts are printers. And while I’m going to specifically reference printers in this post, I think what I’m saying has applications for other potential relationships.

When our company started a few years ago, we took the tour of a big printer’s facilities. The President was there, but it was clear that he didn’t have much to want to do with us other than shake our hands and be on his way as he passed off the tour responsibilities to an associate. It was a good way to make a small firm like ours feel even smaller. Sort of felt like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” before she met Richard Gere. You give me that attitude? Big mistake. BIG mistake.

But then we came across another printer. He too had great printing facilities. But he brought something else to the table that other people wouldn’t. He believed in our company. He got to know us, our talents, our mission and our goals. He didn’t just say “we have this and that piece of equipment.” He said, “What do you guys want in a print partner?” and “Here’s how I can make your jobs easier.” He even believed in us to the point of where he stuck his neck out for us on numerous occasions in the early years of our agency when perhaps he didn’t have to. If I have a complex project that can’t be explained over the phone, I can have him in my office the next day.

I’ve been working with this particular printer ever since.

Unlike that very first tour I took of another printing company, I can get the President of the printer we work with on the phone immediately and we can talk about a project. I get a quote from him within 48 hours. His company understands that his accounting department has to match up with my client’s accounting department.

Some printers may or may not say this relationship is unusual for their business. But then, these are the same people who come up to me at the end of the year and say, “Hey, why haven’t we done anything with you lately?”

Well, here’s why:
Because you weren’t willing to offer creative solutions to my client’s budget challenges.

Because you weren’t willing to be in my office tomorrow to talk about a project with a complex format.

Because you couldn’t keep the same person representing my account in the same role for long and I like consistency.

Because the person you had handling our account is an order taker and not a person with suggestions.

Because more business for both of us is a good thing and considering the business I throw your way, a referral or two in return wouldn’t hurt.

Because you made me sweat like a maniac when you really didn’t have to on a few important deadlines.

Because you weren’t a resource for me on a printing question due to the fact that I hadn’t officially given you my business yet.

Because you didn’t consistently educate me on new technologies and formats related to printing that I could incorporate into solutions for my clients.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with you as a vendor. You do your job just fine. The print quality is great. But as a partner? Not quite there yet.

Because the hard truth many don’t want to face is that machines are a commodity and people are not. While I expect the highest quality product each and every time, I come back due to the highest quality service.

Of course, I also understand that it’s inevitable that things happen. Machines break down. Edges get cut poorly. Inks aren’t quite at the level they should be on a recent run. It’s not a perfect business in printing and often the mishaps are corrected. But here again, the difference of vendor and partner appear. A vendor says, “This happened. We’re trying to fix it. I’ll keep you posted.” A partner says, “This happened. But if we don’t get it corrected shortly, here’s what we’re going to do to make sure we make our client’s deadline.” The key word being OUR. The print partner takes ownership and sees my client very much as their own client too. Which they really are.

More than one printer can occupy the role of partner. It’s just that I’ve found from my experience that there are many good potential print vendors and only a very, very, very select group of print partners. However, if you can land on the side of partner, be consultative and gain an understanding for what my client wants to achieve rather than just asking me what the specs of a given piece are, we can do a lot of business together.