Marketers constantly ask their customers what they want/need from their products and services. They run focus groups, do usability studies, hire design experts, scour data for product-use trends, etc., etc.

So why don’t they ever ask customers what they want/need from marketing communications? (and I don’t mean the standard “how can we communicate with you more effectively?” kind of thing. I mean straight up, as in “what do you want from us which can be delivered to you online, in the mail, on TV or via some other medium”??)

We are always going to promote good/services with some form of marketing communications or another. In the past this was largely an interruptive process, now the best markers offer their customers communications that are inherently valuable/useful (e.g., OfficeMax’s “Elf Yourself”).

Why not just ask them what they need (e.g., content, digital utilities or peer-networking utilities) and offer it, along with some non-obtrusive indication that your brand is the one supplying the goods?

I’m happy to announce a new initiative called PHD Sustain that I and the Green Team at PHD have been working for the last ten months. The project has finally taken off so I can now share it with all of you.

PHD Sustain is our agency’s commitment to our people, our clients and our planet in becoming more environmentally friendly, and thereby more sustainable. This commitment will be lived out in two main ways: where we work and how we work.

Where We Work – Greening Our Offices
We’ve started making a few changes to green our offices, such as printing on recycled paper, reducing our energy usage, etc. However, our big push starts in April, when we will have a consultant come in to help us measure our environmental footprint, set goals and an action plan to reduce that footprint, and educate and inspire our employees to partake in fully greening our offices. We hope that these efforts will allow us to get ISO 14001 certified later this year.

How We Work – Developing and Using the Environmental Media Sustainability Index
After the release of An Inconvenient Truth and when it seemed like every company was coming out with some sort of green message in their advertising, we began to think about green media. What could green media be? How could we help our clients not only say they are green, but act green as well?

With the help of our Green Team we researched and brainstormed all of the different green media options out there, such as magazines printed on recycled paper, low energy billboards, etc. However, we still couldn’t tell which options were better for the environment than others. Luckily, during our research we stumbled upon Yale’s Environmental Sustainability Index, which numerically quantifies the impact of every country on the environment. This inspired us to create our own index for different media channels and vehicles called the Environmental Media Sustainability Index or EMSI. This online system will not only help us measure the impact of our media plans on the environment, it will also help our media planners source and use green media options for our clients.

So far we’ve hired and had a great kick off meeting with Dr. Horvath of UC Berkley, an expert in the study of environmental lifecycles. Together we mapped out the life cycle of each media channel, such as TV, magazines, newspapers, billboards, radio, cinema, online, mobile phones, bus shelters, and direct mail, from post-production to disposal. Right now he is helping us by researching and measuring the impact of each media channel and will report back to us in late April. We’ll use this data to develop the EMSI.

Overall, we are very excited to rollout PHD Sustain and the EMSI over the next year. Please continue to check back here for updates.

One role the Strategic Planning Group @ PHD is happy to play in the life of the agency is to provoke critical thought (media-based or otherwise). When such attempts resonate, they can inspire news ways of looking at targeting, behavior, communications, etc. To this end, we’ve been offering a monthly respite from the rigors of daily work called “Inspiration Sessions”; an opportunity to quit Excel, turn the Blackberry off, and think about something explicitly provocative (and implicitly relevant).

A recent session featured Jill Botway, Omnicom’s President of US Strategic Business Units and first female member of the prestigious Explores Club. Jill discussed what she had learned about teamwork while exploring previously uncharted regions of Indonesia with a room filled with media planning/buying professionals.

In another approach to inspiration, we have conducted “White Sessions.” White Sessions, like white papers, are intended to offer up deep dives into issues otherwise considered too technical for casual consumption. Unlike white papers, however, White Sessions harness the power of video to present content that is actually inspiring, as presented by people who are actual experts in their field.

Last Friday we had a White Session based on a TED presentation by Wade Davis (A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence). Wade’s mind-boggling talk covers his experiences with cultures radically different than our own, encountered in his anthropological and ethno-botanical studies.

As media professionals, we are often required to profile/segment groups of people by their attitudes and behaviors. Wade’s talk certainly explodes the idea that the variables we use to define/describe groups of consumer are fixed, or necessary properties. My belief is that we can become better observers of culture by realizing just how arbitrary culture actually is…

After years of experience and time spent collecting input from his friends and colleagues, filmmaker Peter Gruber shares what he has identified as the four truths of being a good storyteller. What he presents is very applicable to our work at PHD. Afterall, we have ‘audiences’ just as businessmen have customers and filmmaker’s have ticket buyers. Our interaction and relationship with consumers, established through messaging and communications campaigns is, in essence, storytelling.

I recommend reading the entire article to see how each of the four truths identified below lives within all great stories, but here are a few quick thoughts on how to apply the four truths of storytelling to advertising and media.

True to the Teller: Be true to yourself and your audience, making them feel what you feel. It allows them to identify with you. This involves being human and relatable. Gruber states. “Although the mind may be part of your target, the heart is the bull’s eye.” Think about this when identifying target audiences and developing consumer profiles.

True to the Audience: Relate to what’s important to the audience. Make them see themselves as the hero. Again, important for contexts, consumer profiles and messaging.

True to the Moment: Tailor your message delivery to each moment/situation.

True to the Mission: Stick to your guns. Audiences appreciate the storyteller’s honesty and conviction more than hearing what we think the want to hear (we’ve seen this work in new business pitches). Advertisers need to be as true on the inside as they are on the out. Practice what you preach.

In the past, marketing communications have largely interrupted otherwise valuable media-based experiences (e.g., that Chia Pet ad in the 80’s which interrupted your enjoyment of Jack Tripper’s comedic fumblings).

The emerging media paradigm, however, casts marketing communications AS valuable experiences in their own right (think Office Max’s ‘Elf Yourself’).

Add to this the idea that we’ve clearly moved from passivity to activity in our interactions with media over the last two decades (i.e., from passive receivers in a 3-4 network world, to active RSS-feed-establishing/YouTube-content-creating mavens).

(This move, incidentally, is consistent with my generation’s fascination with technology. TiVo, instant messaging, iPods; while fascinating to children of the 80’s and earlier, are largely unremarkable to younger consumers, who see technology as a given [the way we see toasters]…They seem only to ‘notice’ technlogy when it fails them.)

The upshot? I believe that we are headed for a NEW PASSIVITY in media; with the Googles/iLikes of the world anticipating what we want to consume (based, clearly, on our searches and tech-facilitated interactions with people, places and things) and serving it up for us in easy, non-intrusive, easily-configured contexts.

In the future, we’ll turn it on (whatever ‘it’ is) and it will just deliver loads of customized content (plus contextual ads and/or sponsorships, of course).

From passivity, to activity…to the ‘new passivity’.

By Emily Smith

America’s youth is more ambitious, over committed, and competitive (both with themselves and their peers) than ever. It is getting increasingly impossible for a high school senior with a 4.0 and perfect SAT score to get into one of America’s top colleges or universities unless he or she also single handedly founded an orphanage and helped run it on the side. (That’s not even a hypothetical situation—I actually have a friend who did that). In my college dorm common room this year, underneath the typical mess of old pizza boxes, beer cans, play-station controls, and cable bills were also my friends’ subscriptions to The Economist, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. The point being, many college students are regularly investing in both booze and business tips with the same fervor.

A recent New York Times article sites a study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor that found an unusually high business start-up rate among its 18-24 year olds (more than ages 35-40) in the United States compared to other developed nations. “American children play a much more influential role in society and enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy. Teenagers receive higher allowances, have greater access to credit cards, and have more money to spend on culture, or, in some cases, to spend on starting a business.” In fact, just seconds ago, my friend emailed me a link to a belt company she started when she was fifteen that is now extremely developed and successful.

Today, the college student’s hero is more likely to be Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard sophomore/creator of the popular website Facebook.com than Will Ferrell’s character in Old School. In other words, it’s cool to have a brilliant idea, and the cool kids with the brilliant ideas are getting younger and younger and want you to notice. As a generation, they feel slightly entitled to non-entry level positions, raises before they are necessarily deserved, and an elaborate social life all at the same time.¹ What I feel is important to learn from this is that America’s over zealous teens are serious about wanting to be taken seriously. Advertisers could use this to their advantage by playing to their egos, treating them as sophisticated consumers, and being aware that, yes, eighteen year olds are reading The Economist, but still playing Grand Theft Auto.

 ¹ Source: CNNMoney.com “Gen Y at Work” May 15, 2007

The May ‘07 issue of Creativity opens with a POV from Brian Collins - former head of Ogilvy’s Brand Integration Group - in which he criticizes a common metaphor in the development of communications; the rampant use of ‘us vs. them’ heuristics in the development of marketing communications.

“War is the wrong metaphor for marketing. How can we think we’ll inspire hearts and minds when we drive “penetration” by launching “campaigns” against “target demographics”? When I go around agencies and see conference rooms rebranded as War Rooms, it makes my teeth hurt.”

While Brian makes this statement in defense of a larger observation about changes taking place in the agency world, I feel that he’s made a very important point here. One that we - as communications professionals - should take to heart.

“Disruption,” “The Promise to the Viewer,” “roadblocking”…why do we feel that we must be so forceful and contentious in our efforts to persuade? When’s the last time you distrupted or roadblocked when trying to get a friend to join you at a concert, or when asking someone out?? When we engage in acts of interpersonal persuasion in our own lives, we typically use subtle, gentle overatures. We are gracious, thankful, complementary and seductive. More likely to tempt, tickle or tease…not beat someone over the head with it!

Just think of the door-to-door salesman who changes his tone of voice, language and body language when attempting to make a connection with a potential customer. Why should we be any different? And while we have typically used the blunt tools of mass marketing in the past, the Internet is changing this everyday.

The point is this: If you want to affect someone positively (as 99.9% of marketing communications are intended to do), then speak to them with respect and choose your words with the kind of nuance that comes from knowing something about them. If your approach to marketing communications is wildly different (in principle) than your approach to everyday interpersonal persuasion, than you should probably re-examine your assumptions.

In the spirit of Discovery Communications announcing the launch of a Green Channel, I decided to scour the web for examples for brilliant tactical executions, raising the awareness of our planet’s health through greener lifestyles. My friend Ramsey sent me the following image:

I’m not sure if it gets much better than the WWF Black Cloud Balloon campaign launched in China. Though the Chinese economy has gone gangbusters, the sky itself is turning black. The culprit? Industrialization has lead to unprecedented growth in the number of cars and exhaust emissions. The Black Cloud balloon was used to kick off their “20 tips for sustainable development” campaign and drive people to their 20to20.org mini-site. WWF expressed one tip in dramatic fashion by inflating a huge black cloud shaped balloon behind a car to illustrate the pollution produced by car emissions.

Along with an increase in new volunteers, WWF recieved international coverage across multiple continents.

The Washington Post conducted an intriguing social experiment in April; they had the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize winning violinist Joshua Bell play his gazillion-dollar Strad in a D.C. Metro station during the morning rush in order to assess commuter reactions to live, world-class musicianship in their train station.

Would people stop and listen?

Only 7 (!) of the 1,070 people who passed Bell that morning made any conspicuous attempt to listen to the virtuoso; someone who routinely commands $100+ a ticket for scheduled performances.

The moral: People in D.C. don’t like classical music? Joshua Bell shouldn’t quit his day job??

Actually, the experiment highlights the crucial role of context when assessing the impact of any communication (after all, ‘music-from-a-violin’ is just as much a communication as, say, ‘:30 Jeep ad during an NFL game’).

The Post invoked Kant in their analysis: “…In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant argued that one’s ability to appreciate beauty is related to one’s ability to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat. Paul Guyer of the University of Pennsylvania, one of America’s most prominent Kantian scholars, says the 18th-century German philosopher felt that to properly appreciate beauty, the viewing conditions must be optimal.

“Optimal,” Guyer said, “doesn’t mean heading to work, focusing on your report to the boss, maybe your shoes don’t fit right.” (emphasis added)

As connections-engineers, we need to be mindful of the conditions that may affect our targets’ reception of our clients’ messages. As the Bell experiment demonstrates, even the most compelling ‘creative’ can fall on deaf ears if not placed strategically.

Wireless users will go to serious lengths to avoid having to type in a URL on their WAP capable mobile devices as we all would agree, it’s a cumbersome process. With multiple keys per digit, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes while cursing the T9 Gods for spelling the first four letters of epson instead of ESPN.

Enter the Shotcode, a circular barcode originally used for the purposes of location based tracking. ShotCodes are designed to be read with a regular camera (including those found on mobile phones and webcams) without the need to purchase other specialised hardware. After installing the software needed to read shotcodes on your java enabled phone, you can “read” Shotcodes. Check out the following example below:

So a Shotcode essentially automates the process of pushing a URL and its content to your mobile device. Brilliant! Marketers have begun taking advantage of them - appending them to print and web campaigns.

But the coolest/most disturbing (depending on which side of the fence you sit on) application I’ve seen YET for shotcodes has to be this:

If anyone downloads the Shotcode reader for their mobile phone, please let me know if it scans!