Success Always Starts With Permission To Act On Big Dreams

Although Michael Port will be among the first to tell you that a client's urgent needs almost always overshadow long-term goals, Book Yourself Solid Illustrated is an exercise in the opposite direction. He asks people who want to succeed to put aside their immediate needs and focus in on big dreams.

He's smart to do it too. For the better part of 20 years, I've seen a relatively consistent and reoccurring life cycle among successful startups. Many take a year or two to establish themselves, make huge gains during the next few, and then slowly wind down until they eventually die.

It's painful to watch, especially because companies that can succeed during the first year or so experience something that those who don't try can only wonder about. Much like their success, their original mission and vision were tied to big dreams.

It makes sense that they would be. A startup is nothing less than someone taking a shot to shine. It doesn't even matter what kind of business it might be. Most cite big dreams as a common ground.

The bulk of them were started by people who wanted to do one of two things. Either they wanted to launch a new product, service or outlet that they are passionate about or they want to launch a business as an extension of their career by being their own boss. And contrary to popular myth, the majority of them will succeed (for a while).

The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that seven out of ten business will succeed in the first two years before something unexpected happens. Only half them will survive a full five years.

Why do businesses that succeed in the first two years fail in the following three years? 

While there are many reasons that successful startups fail, almost all include a change in mindset. As business owners succeed, they are more likely to give up on big dreams and focus on urgent needs.

In other words, they give up on the very dreams that make them successful and start focusing on what they think they need with the operative word being "more": more revenue, more profits, more clients, more customers, more high profile accounts, more website visitors, more followers, more whatever.

As soon as "more" becomes the objective, these businesses start to shrink or sink as they take on the wrong kinds of customers or clients: those that take advantage of them (e.g., empty promises and slow payments), drain the life out of them (create frustration and negative relationships), or demand products and services that have little to do with the vision (diminish resources and reduce quality).

As the pressure mounts to maintain sales, problems materialize. Some owners might borrow to meet payroll while floating account debts. Others might waste time working for customers who will never be happy or refer any business. Some will substitute quality materials to push prices lower. Others will expand their offerings to appease an ever-increasing audience while watering down their uniqueness.

Worse, many successful startups won't see the root problem as they struggle to preserve these short-term gains. The fact is that they are much more likely to compound the problems as they trade in their permission to dream for protectionism — the fear of losing any revenue is so strong that they will defend their most detrimental clients rather then lose them.

Book Yourself Solid is a handbook for disciplined dreamers.

Although originally intended for advisers, consultants and speakers, Port's Book Yourself Solid works well enough for other kinds of startups too. And while some of the tools he and I use are different, the advice reads the same. It takes discipline to succeed. You have to commit yourself to looking for the "right" clients instead of "more," even if that means giving up some short-term gains.

He even goes one step further, starting with something many business owners will find startling. You have to dump "dud" clients, those who wear you down and take you further away from your dreams. As soon as you do, you can use the newly found time to pursue the clients you've always dreamed of working with or do more for the stars who are already part of your roster.

At the same time, Port dares business owners to stop giving others permission to punish them and start giving themselves permission to act on their dreams. Stick to the dreams that made your business work for you. Avoid the objectives that make you work for your business.

Any number of examples illustrate the point. An art gallery doesn't have to sell cheap prints just because some people complain about the price of the originals. A respected restaurateur won't serve out-of-season fish on the whim of a customer who doesn't know better. A reputable consultant won't rely on email spam or purchase back links to inflate junk traffic.

Instead, Port says it's much more important to be true to what you do than try to be true to what everybody wants you to you do. There are other people who might try to be all things to all people, but you don't have to follow their lead. If you really are a leader in the field, then not everyone is your customer. You know it. Your customers know it. And Port knows it too.

This may have even been one of the reasons that Port decided to make his system a little more manageable on his recently refreshed release. He teamed with Jocelyn Wallace to illustrate Book Yourself Solid. Although it is still hyped as the fastest, easiest and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle (even if you hate marketing and selling), there is something in this re-engineered book that will work for more businesses and independent consultants.

Whether you are starting a business, need to revisit and retrofit your vision or have recently noticed that you don't love your business anymore, Port provides enough tools to put you back on track. Perhaps more than anything else, he provides a series of exercises that are designed to remind business owners to stop chasing the daily chaff and start giving themselves permission to act on big dreams again.

So how do you know if you might need this kind of help? While I believe every business can benefit from an organization-defining communication plan, most people can start with two simple questions.

Has your happiness or employee morale faltered from the day you first started? And if so, are the challenges you face related to what you wanted to do, what you actually do, how you have to do it, or who you do it for? You might be surprised by the answers. And I'd love to know what you find.

Five Things I Wish Every Advertiser, Marketer, And PR Pro Knew

A few weeks ago, one of my recent students asked me if there is anything I wish I had taught but never got around to teaching. I thought the question was pretty funny. I told her I had ten years of material.

In truth, ten years of material is a pretty conservative estimate but not because of the quantity. The way I see it, there is never any shortage of material as long as the instructor continues to explore, learn and grow. Ideally, they will with one foot in academics and one in the real world but sometimes one or the other will suffice. No one ever wants to feel dusty or complacent unless they've given up.

Eventually, I settled on five things I wish every advertiser, marketer and PR pro knew because I think all of us, at one time or another, grows weary of watching people fail. That's the way marketing works. You can put in hard work or learn the hard way.

• A Content Strategy Is Not A Marketing Strategy. As content marketing has become a dominant digital marketing tactic, more businesses want to create elaborate content processes, build massive audiences, and become perceived as industry experts. But sometimes you have to ask to what end.

Dial back the meaning of a marketing strategy a few years ago and you might find a creative team tasked with expanding the dandruff shampoo market among men. You might remember how they did it too. The original advertisements showed men in dark suits with their shoulders dusted with flakes, creating a compelling reason to look for the problem and find a solution. Head & Shoulders.

• Breaking Through The Clutter Means More Than A Clever Message. Everywhere you look, marketers want to convince clients that brand visibility, original communication, and writing tips are all they need to succeed. But sometimes marketing means innovation at the product and service development level.

If you operate a lemonade stand on a block with five more lemonade stands, sometimes you have to stop pushing the pink and break open a box of sugar cookies. That is how Federal Express got its start. It started as a small Memphis-based package handler that won with the promise of delivering parcels overnight. So while everybody else talked a good game, they went out and did something.

• Following The Leader Will Make You A Follower. There are plenty of reasons that marketers and advertisers are always looking for best practices, case studies and trends to follow. Sometimes people are looking for new ideas. There is nothing wrong with that. But sometimes people waste time on easy.

If you have ever revisited the book In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies, you know what I mean. It used to be one of my favorite books. There are still some good ideas inside, many of those business aren't considered the best run companies anymore. While everyone was busy trying to follow their lead, someone else invented better operations and opened new markets.

• It's Not Who You Know, But Who Wants To Know You. Given some estimates attribute 60-80 percent of job placements to personal relationships, one might assume that the old adage that who you know really is more important than what you know. But that's not entirely true.

The key word in the compound phrase "personal relationships" is "personal" and not "relationships," which suggests the size of the network is less important than the depth of the connection. People who boast about being connected or treat their network like a commodity almost never come through. It's the people who don't talk about who they know that are more likely to surprise you.

• Stating The Obvious Is One Step From Redundant. Everybody loves to talk about elevator speeches and how to fix them. That might be reason enough to toss your elevator speech out the window. You can say something a million times and even lace all those SEO links with all the right terms, but so what?

Every time you introduce yourself as a noun, the person you're speaking to asks themselves if they need one. Do I need a plumber? Do I need a social media expert? Do I need an advertising agency? Maybe it would be more worthwhile to conjure up a different question inside their heads. Or, better yet, keep your mouth shut and let them tell you what they need.

Incidentally, Michael Port recently reinforced this last point in his book Book Yourself Solid Illustrated. He sent me a digital version a few weeks ago, but I felt it was too weird to publish my review while I was being swept away by life. The review is mostly written. I'll probably add it next week unless someone wants me to write about something else. Maybe I'll have time to make a new masthead too.

Rethinking Print: And How To Leap Beyond It

Now that most people are attempting to master the digital space, it's clearly time to think beyond it. That was the primary impression left by Dale Sprague, president of Canyon Creative in Las Vegas, while speaking to my Writing For Public Relations class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, last Thursday.

When Sprague, a designer and creative director who invested the majority of his career in print, product design, and packaging, said that print had largely become a support medium for digital marketing, the reaction was immediate and dramatic. Not only had everything advertising agencies been cautioned about for by people like me for a decade come to fruition, but it was time time to rethink what's next.

Everything you think you know about marketing is about to change. 

The changes ahead won't be confined to a medium, but message delivery in entirety. Much like Patrick Collings recently wrote, brands that fail to innovate will fill graveyards. Their names won't be remembered either. Instead, their tombstones will be decorated with the cliches that killed them.

You can see these changes taking place all around you. Signage has lost ground to environmental graphics. Branded giftware and novelty items are being supplanted with branded product innovation (actual products designed for marketing purposes, some of which are produced by 3-D printers). Glass is quietly becoming a new marketing canvas (projected holograms along with it). And print?

Print isn't as dead as people think. Much like public relations professionals always had to find new ways to reach journalists as news releases transitioned from mail to fax to email to social, marketers are best served when they start to ask themselves the right question.

Specifically, the right question isn't "where is everybody spending their marketing dollars?" The right question is "where aren't people spending their marketing dollars so my organization doesn't have to compete?" Ergo, the social-digital space has to be part of the marketing mix but it's also a very competitive, crowded, and cluttered place. It creates a market where a handwritten thank you counts.

Even online, people are finding that it's not enough to be everywhere because you put your content everywhere. Marketers need to be everywhere because they are part of what a public considers relevant. Ergo, real marketers aren't content trying to infuse their presence into a trending topic. They are the trending topics because they do things. They are top of mind because they made an impression.

Where does print stack up in a world that seems digital?

Print works were it always worked best. It is a high-touch medium that was temporarily downgraded because of the economics of junk mail with blow-in scrap paper and cluttered messages.

Before mail was loaded down with mainstream marketing, it primarily consisted of individual notes and invitations, niche newsletters that felt exclusive, and something thoughtfully sent through the mail because it might actually have value and you might keep it. It will in the future too, with specialty papers that capitalize on the one sense that consumers miss in digital — touch — and a message more memorable than a business card, even those that don't already have chips embedded in them.

Print won't be alone, of course. All of it will change and some of it for the better as marketers buy up space not because they want to fill it with 8-point bullet points and 140 characters of gratuitous interruption but clearly defined messaging with plenty of white/negative/neutral space to frame it.

What does that mean? Every year, when I teach any class, I make note of how the number of impressions has continued to increase before a message even has a chance to penetrate the consciousness of someone who is already receiving a novel-sized amount of information every day. What used to be three impressions now exceeds 300 — that means you need 300 impressions before something sticks.

But, you see, that isn't always the case. We've crossed a clutter threshold that makes some messages stick the one time, the first time. Ergo, if you show someone a Mona Lisa (the real one, not a facsimile),  they will never forget it. And maybe that is how we should see print and advertising going forward.

Print doesn't haven't to be a support piece to digital. Like any message delivery system, it only needs to break through the clutter of a message saturated world. Or, in other words, a message that feels immediate (purpose driven), individual (personal), and important (value driven) delivered by the most appropriate means given the context.

That is what print will look like. And marketing will too. You can wait for it to happen or you can leap ahead and start implementing these ideas today.

Smoking Guns: Why Anti-Smoking Campaigns Fail

The best guess by Gallup in determining the number of people who smoke in the United States is 20-22 percent. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), this estimate fits. The CDC frequently cites that one in five people smokes cigarettes.

The number has mostly plateaued since 2000; slightly down depending on how it is sliced. But tracking the percentage can be a bit misleading as the population has grown too. In other words, the number of smokers in the U.S. is relatively constant (or may be increasing), which means it's time to face facts.

The four-decade long barrage of anti-smoking campaigns is no longer effective. 

The reason seems pretty clear. Most anti-smoking campaigns do not target smokers. They target non-smokers in an attempt to vilify people who smoke instead. And that's fine, as long as policymakers and nonprofit organizations want to spend millions or more on ineffective advertising campaigns or pass anti-smoking legislation and sin taxes to make themselves look like heroes.

I think we can do better, but it will take better campaigns. They have to be targeted and they can't all be negative. After all, there is psychological evidence that suggests negative messages produce negative results. That might be especially true for smoking — the ages most exposed to anti-smoking campaigns are overwhelming under the age of 18. Coincidentally, the majority of smokers start before they turn 18.

For many of them, it was never about smoking being cool as advertising censors claimed. It is about being defiant to authority, demonstrating a foolhardy sense of immortality, tempting fate by flirting with something potentially addictive, or being accepted by peers and adults (e.g., parents who smoke) like it was a private club. The campaigns all play into this notion.

Afterward, once someone becomes a smoker, anti-smoking campaigns take on a different feel. They either make smokers feel bad about smoking or convince them to light up in defiance. The messages aren't much different from individual abuse smokers receive on a daily basis — which is impossibly ironic, given how many states are passing anti-smoking laws but legalizing marijuana.

Creating a better anti-smoking campaign means a bigger focus on benefits. 

Many campaigns that are designed to help people quit aren't properly constructed. Most of them reinforce negative messages — how hard it will be to quit smoking, the impossibly low success rate (and significantly high relapse rate), and additional consequences commonly associated with quitting cold turkey or attempting to step down using gum, patches, e-smokes, or other nicotine replacements.

If you are are a non-smoker, think of any habit you have. If someone told you half of what they tell smokers, would you want to try to kick the habit? Probably not, especially if stress is a trigger.

A much more effective campaign would have a two-fold approach. First, it would help smokers stop smoking as opposed to quitting outright. Second, it would focus on the benefits and not the curse.

Don't quit. Just stop. 

Stopping could mean any number of things, all of which would eventually help any smoker stop completely. It could mean they stop smoking in certain locations (cars, houses, etc.), at certain times (immediately after meals, while drinking, etc.), in front of certain people (co-workers, clients, kids), etc.

With each successful 'stop,' smokers tend to become vigilant in controlling the addiction. Each 'stop' leads to another until the act of smoking becomes more annoying than pleasurable. Some people might be surprised how often they might put off smoking if it feels like a chore. At minimum, it will make them more aware of how often they smoke and what triggers (prompt to smoke) they might have.

Along with these 'stops,' many smokers have an easier time stopping after they switch to a natural/organic cigarette. While natural/organic cigarettes are not considered healthier alternatives, there may be truth to the idea that commercial cigarettes have more addictive ingredients. They most certainly have more additives, as many as 600. Nicotine is hard enough to give up. Don't risk other additive addictions.

The benefits of stopping.

The benefits of not smoking are easily undersold. When most campaigns talk about the benefits, they talk about long-term ailments (e.g., cancer) or use them to paint all smokers as an unhealthy, smelly group of vile people. That doesn't help smokers stop. What might are the immediate short-term benefits.

Stopping for even 20 minutes can lower your pulse rate and blood pressure. Stopping for eight hours will remove more than 90 percent of the nicotine from your body. Stopping for 12 hours will drop carbon monoxide levels to normal and raise blood oxygen to normal.

It only takes two days for smell and taste receptors to begin to heal. It only takes three days for the lungs to begin to heal. It only takes ten days before teeth and gums to begin to heal. Within a few weeks, the circulatory system and heart begin to heal. Even insulin returns to normal in about two months. Eventually, most damage can be reversed until even some risks return to non-smoker or even never-smoker levels.

The changes and benefits are dramatic. And while such benefits timetable lists vary (a few are paired with disturbing images), talking about them could significantly help a smoker find a short-term health benefit that means something to them — from their teeth and gums to shortness of breath after exercise.

The two times I stopped smoking. 

Even when I smoked, most people didn't know it. I seldom smoked in public and would mostly hide myself away if I did. Conversely, despite the habit, I exercised regularly, ate well, and established an aggressive teeth maintenance program. I never smoked in my house, car or in my office — always outside, rain or shine.

I stopped smoking last month. And unlike the other time I tried to stop, this time was relatively easy.

The difference was all in the approach. The first time, maybe eight years ago, I did it the way campaigns tell you to do it. I tossed out everything related to smoking. And much like they warned, I was irritable and miserable. And then I felt even worse, like I was letting everyone down. I lost.

This time was different because I had already stopped smoking 90 percent of the time. Then one day last January, I caught a cold and just stopped. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't throw anything away. I still have seven packs in the cupboard. They empower me more than tempt me. It's my choice to not smoke.

I initially made a choice that going outside in the cold was less desirable than just going to bed. When I woke in the morning, I decided to see how long I could wait. That wait never ended. Sure, there were some cravings here and there, but I already had a list of things that always made me not want to smoke — carrots, apples, cashews, sugar-free Jelly Bellies, gum, etc. (everyone has their own things). So, I would have one or two of those things instead. I was never irritable either. It felt easy.

While I would never suggest anyone take as long as I did to stop outright, I had to develop a plan that didn't exist — one that worked for me. Sure, seven years is too long, but my future self wasn't around to create a better campaign. A better campaign could have helped me stop sooner and possibly helped me avoid having surgery this year.

Unfortunately, I don't see many effective campaigns in the cards. Very few people in the medical profession want to embrace a step-down program without relying on prescription medication (all of which have higher relapse rates). Most anti-smoking advocates stress lifelong victimhood over willpower (because it helps funding). Most advertising agencies would rather have 80 percent of the population notice an ad than a fraction of 20 percent (because awareness is more valued than results). And the general negativity toward smokers is ingrained by a majority; it's as depressing as it is hypocritical (considering obesity rates and the recent legalization of marijuana).

Even some of the communication from trusted sources is off. The CDC, for example, estimates that 1 in 5 Americans dies from cigarette-related causes. Since they also say only 1 in 5 Americans smoke, the figure is either fudged or the government is suggesting that all people who smoke die from cigarette-related causes. Meanwhile, many cancer rates continue to rise anyway. Let smokers stop, guilt free.

Failing Forward: Debbie Millman At AIGA Las Vegas

Debbie Millman knows something about failure. Most people would never guess it nowadays.

Today, she is a writer, educator, artist, brand consultant, and radio show host. Specifically, she worked in design for over 25 years and currently serves as president of the design division at Sterling Brands, a leading brand consultancy formed in 1992 with offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Cincinnati. She's held the position for 17 years. You know her work.

The consultancy’s client roster includes many international brands such as Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Disney, Bayer, Google, and Visa. She has been personally responsible for working on the redesign of over 200 global brands.

While her position alone would be enough to scream success, she is also a contributing editor at Print Magazine, a design writer at FastCompany.com, chair of the Masters In Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and hosts the award-winning weekly radio talk show “Design Matters With Debbie Millman.”

And yet, with all sincerity and despite the twinkle in her eye, Millman is among the first to say that her career never really took off until her 30s. Before that, she chalked up one failure after the next.

What does Millman think made all the difference? 

While Millman shared a top ten list of things she wish she knew before she started her career (a list that will be published on a transitionary AIGA Las Vegas site later this week), it took a question from the audience to pin it all down. When asked what was the catalyst for change, she settled on a single word after a long and thoughtful 30-second pause.

"Therapy."

The single word answer almost fell flat on the 200 or so attendees at the Jan. 25 event hosted by AIGA Las Vegas, Las Vegas - Clark County Library District and Library Foundation. Enough so, that as a speaker and instructor, I wanted to jump in and provide a greater context for what she meant. I got it, even if not everyone did.

Millman didn't mean that everyone needed to find a psychologist or therapist to find success. But what most people need to do, especially students on the eve of graduating who can't see a clear vision into their future, is to change their thinking. The greatest road block for success begins with giving ourselves permission to succeed, something Millman had admitted that she never really did until later.

"I started to choose a path that was failure proof," Millman said. "If there is such a thing."

Over the next half-hour of her presentation, she outlined a career path that chronicled one failure after the next. The worst of it included becoming the object of ridicule on one of the first design blogs ever created. The blog, Speak Up, attracted dozens of comments from designers she admired in the field.

Her revision of the Burger King logo was met with considerable scorn. But it was the blog's comments that drove the discussion away from a single logo design and defining Millman as a talentless hack.

Millman might have been able to weather the criticism had she not just recently been more or less shackled by the leadership of AIGA as not being progressive enough as a designer to hold a position on their board. (This was also despite finally finding her dream position at Sterling Brands.) Basically, it meant to her that neither AIGA designers nor anti-AIGA designers would accept her or her work.

But that was a long time ago. What really changed it for Millman was her ability to stop avoiding failures and start embracing them. In fact, Millman says that if you don't make mistakes, you aren't taking enough risks. And taking risks — not avoiding failure — is a critical step toward finding success.

You can't be successful by trying to avoid failure.

Many of Millman's life lessons are much like that. While some people might chalk it up to common sense, the truth of it is that most people are afraid to take risks, find excuses not to make them, tend to quit too soon in order to prove success is elusive, and never give themselves permission to live the remarkable lives that they dream of, assuming they ever open themselves up to dream them. I couldn't agree more.

Therapy is the right answer, but it doesn't necessarily mean hiring a a therapist. It means accepting who you are and changing your outlook about what's possible, especially if you have built a lifetime of resistance. Most people need help to do it. And it just doesn't matter whether that help comes from a teacher, mentor, friend, colleague, ideology, faith, or whatever because it sounds simpler than it will be.

We have to be open to the possibilities, work hard in actively pursuing them, and never give up in the face of failure. As Millman eventually learned, it was her failures that often opened doors for success and not the other way around. Or, as she so eloquently put it, she failed her way to a successful life.

Advertising Obesity: Coca-Cola Has The Skinny

Imagine how ridiculous it would have been for cigarette companies to run advertisements in the 1990s attempting to offset smoking with a few quick hits on an oxygen tank. And then consider the impenitence of the latest Coca-Cola advertisement that attempts to cure obesity by suggesting you can still have a Coke and smile, provided you take a few quick laps around the block.
 
The two-minute commercial created by Coca-Cola is a nightmare. At best, it's a two-minute segment that highlights how Coca-Cola has worked diligently to undo the damage that drove its profit margin.

The spot touts how the company has reduced the average calories per serving of its beverage by 22 percent (mostly by divesting into non-soft drinks like juice and water), shrunk serving sizes, placed calorie counts on the front of containers, reduced beverage calories in schools by 90 percent (mostly by dropping soft drinks from the offering), developed a strategic philanthropy plan that helps fund physical fitness programs for young people, and invested in innovative sciences to create new sweeteners.

The commercial wraps this all up by reminding everyone they get calories from other places beyond their favorite fizzy elixirs — which means that you should feel guilt about those extra inches around your waistline. Or, in other words, if overweight people would just work out, then companies like Coca-Cola wouldn't be thrown under the bus by New York nanny Bloomberg. Here it is...


This commercial is one of the biggest anti-brand statements ever put out by Coca-Cola. It literally strips away any ounce of happiness that once made its flagship product an undisputed brand champ and replaces it with a public relations spin that doesn't work. It admits guilt and attempts to share some of it.

The nine rules of advertising needs another rule. Be the real thing, only.

There is something seriously wrong with this country, and corporate marketers aren't making it better. Too many companies fall prey to the nation's escalating overindulgence in national guilt and actually feed it with apologetic advertising. Coca-Cola isn't the only one, but it does represent a trend.

If you have looked at messaging trends today, you will discover that people ought to feel guilty if they cannot sustain themselves OR become too successful. People ought to feel guilty if they are too skinny OR too heavy. People ought to feel guilty if they aren't willing to help people in need by raising taxes OR if they vote for spending that increases the national debt. People ought to feel guilty if they are too pious to pop a can of Coke OR if they drink more than a thumbnail of the bubbly caramel substance.

There is no win. This is a country that not only feels guilty about everything but makes demands that everyone who doesn't feel equally miserable receive punishments. This weird guilt sickness has become so prevalent in our society, people don't even feel guilty for what they do, they feel guilty about what other people do. National obesity is but one example, and it's a shame to see one of the few holdout companies fall for it.

The new two-minute spot marks the end of an era.

Coca-Cola doesn't have anything to apologize for. Its flagship product is a surgary fizzy drink that many people enjoy. Almost all of them received the memo that too much of a good thing is bad thing, which is why drinking a 12-pack isn't such a good idea. And yet, more and more people feel so incredibly guilty about those who are weak willed that they demand we legislate how much soft drink everyone can purchase and consume regardless of their own ability to moderate.

Coca-Cola isn't the problem. The lack of willpower of some and guilt of many is the problem. 

And apparently, this lack of willpower and inflated sense of guilt is beginning to rub off on advertisers too. They sell products of indulgence and then feel guilty about it when the public falls out of love with them because somebody overindulged. At the same time, they don't want to accept responsibility for it so the consumer has to share in it.

All of this misses the point. The real magic of Coca-Cola as a product is that for five to 30 seconds a swig, whomever is drinking it can forget about their troubles and briefly enjoy a taste bud tickle followed up by a caffeine buzz. What's wrong with that? Product promise. Product delivered.

This new spot, on the other hand, is nothing more than a buzz kill because it reminds the consumer that every 5- to 30-second swig carries consequences not only for them, but also for the nation. Worse, they cannot even save themselves or anybody else from this indulgence because anything else they enjoy with calories is evil too, along with a lifestyle that includes watching too much television news that is so depressing that they can't possibly motivate themselves off the couch. I dunno about you, but this realization kind of kills any warm and fuzzy feeling I might had about a brand and that's ironic.

It's ironic because I don't drink Coca-Cola unless it is mixed up in the occasional stiff drink, but I have always felt good about the brand. It's very American, representative of a small indulgence that is within easy reach of anyone. How dour life would be without it. How dour it's becoming with all this guilt.

Wing nut advocacy campaigns aren't the only communication programs that can shape the nation. Companies can help shape them too. Their primary responsibility is to deliver a brand promise and, assuming they do that well, then enjoy financial success and make contributions to communities in the form of taxes, employment, investment returns, and charitable contributions (maybe even to curb obesity) so that other people don't have to pay as much in taxes. Anything else could fall flat.

Advertising: It's An Invitation To Imagine

Expect to see plenty of communication foreshadows for the year ahead in January, but be wary of the ones that attempt to redefine terms. Advertising has an especially big target on its back this year, with some people calling it content, some people calling it mobile, and some people calling it a total failure. None of this is really new.

Advertising is an industry that has been driven by persuasion, awareness, branding, sales, and few dozen other terms since the 1950s. None of these starting points are wrong, per se. Advertising can be driven by all of these things, but ideally considers everything at once, within the context of a conversation.

“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer." — Shirley Polykoff

Shirley Polykoff, who was the first woman copywriter for Foote, Cone & Belding, called it right in the 1950s and she is still right today. She based her career on it, with Clairol being her biggest success.

Did her advertisements sell too? Yes. She moved the hair color category from $25 million to $200 million. Did her advertisements persuade? Yes. She expanded the market from 7 percent of all women to 50 percent of all women in six years. Did she help the Clairol brand? Yes. It captured 50 percent of the market share, making it the clear leader in cosmetics for decades. She also told a story that sparked conversations, originally among housewives who wanted more glamour and independence.

Advertising was (and still is) a conversation, one that presents the possibilities. 

What some people squabble about today is what form that conversation should take, with most people leaning toward content marketing as a means to deliver it. I agree to a degree, meaning that I agree content marketing is where many people will set their sights. But I also temper the conclusion because if Polykoff wasn't engaged in content marketing, then what was she engaged in? Exactly.

Advertising isn't moving forward, it's moving backward with a few bright bulbs positioning themselves as the frontrunners of an old idea, repackaged. There is nothing really wrong with that. The circular nature of culture demands a certain degree repetition. And I can't fault people for claiming it's new.

But what I can do is help even smarter people understand why we moved away from conversation in the first place. Mostly, it had to do with the rapid advancements in visual communication — special effects and unrestrained cleverness — that became the conversation and made the brand promise and product possibilities secondary to the packaging.

The only problem with that stylish but less substantive trend, of course, was that social media amplified buyer's remorse by giving it a potential reach that could eclipse a media buy. Ergo, if a story leads someone to a conclusion that differs from the one they expect, then they tend to get pissed off.

Content marketing merely rolls the story telling back where it belongs. In today's world, Polykoff would still be revered a shining star in advertising because the content would remain the same while taking advantage of a better delivery system. Blondes, as her advertisements suggested, would still have more fun.

The only difference is that in today's communication environment, she could have had a platform to tell their stories along with the one that sparked their imaginations in the first place. Does that make sense?

Advertising is an invitation to consider an imaginary spark that allows people to explore the possibilities of something better, ideally defined as the product or service that can deliver it. Whether that means visual, audio, copy, online, offline,  or any combination is merely a matter of what best showcases the product (in the medium it is being presented in) and budgetary constraint. And everything else?

You are probably better suited to fill in the blank, especially as you review any campaigns this year.

Making Messages: Negative Means Negative Results

When you think of the most memorable anti-drug commercials of all times, the analogy that likened our brains to eggs usually comes out on top (or at least in the top five). It was straightforward and powerful.

This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.

Unfortunately, for as memorable as this classic campaign is, it doesn't do the job. According to researchers at Indiana University and Wayne University, negatively framed messages are not the most effective way to reach the people in need of persuasion.

The following advertisement or even the entire "just say no" campaign has very little impact on people who are substance-dependent. In fact, the study found that the substance-dependent group showed little brain activity in response to negatively framed messages.

In some cases, the negative messaging led to worse or riskier behaviors. It makes sense that they would. Most substance-dependent people have already accepted the risks. Intellect doesn't rule addiction.


The real takeaway here is how negative messaging doesn't work on intended audiences. As the researchers have shown using neuroimaging, the negatively charged messages didn't stimulate the brain in substance-dependent people.

One possible explanation might be that substance-dependent people have not only accepted the risks but also developed a resistance to risk-aversion based messages. (The phenomenon might even be likened to how stuntmen, soldiers and others can perform in life-threatening situations.)

Being clever isn't enough. Being positive might not be either.

In lieu of negative messages, one suggestion was to promote the benefits of staying clean as opposed to telling people what not to do or why something might be bad for them. While this might be on the right track, it still neglects the dynamic relationship between substance and abuse.

In order to work, the long-term benefits of staying clean would have to outweigh the perceived and immediate benefits of the drug (from the perspective of the substance-dependent people). Unfortunately, there is a point when substance-dependent people cannot comprehend the possibility. Many of them elevate the immediate rewards that the substance provides until it eclipses everything, including their lives.

From a broader advertising perspective, risk-aversion messaging and negative messaging rarely have as much impact on the intended audience as creatives think. Instead, such messages tend to bolster a deeper reaction in people who see such ads as a clever or emotional affirmation of their own beliefs. In this case, people who would never do drugs. So you have to ask yourself. What's the objective?

Building Spaces: Environments Impact Minds

Fast Company recently covered a story in the Pacific Standard that explores how certain types of spaces affect our behaviors and ultimately our brains. Designers and programmers might take note of it.

Architecture isn't the only design that ties into neuroscience. When people click on a link and land on a page, design and organizational function create a cascade of immediate reactions, sometimes before anyone has the chance to read the first word. It dictates how we feel when we visit a platform.

The reason is simple. Our brains can't always distinguish the difference between stories, pictures, programs, and real-life experiences. This is the reason horror flicks can trigger our "fight or flee" mechanism. It's also why some photos, like the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, have an immediate calming affect on our mood. In at least one case, as Fast Company noted, it inspires clarity.

Thinking spatially, contextually and visually will become a dominant design driver. 

In fact, neuroscience studies in this fascinating field use virtual renderings of architectural models to test their theories. One of their many findings concluded that design is often responsible for making people feel lost or providing enough guidance to create a confident, intuitive sense of where they are going.



There is a dual edge to this kind of design theory, both architecturally and online. While our brains may have some design preferences that may be universal (something along the lines of feng shui), some of our preferences are built upon other environmental factors that help set our expectations.

Ergo, there is a reason that architectural movements tend to occur in waves or that Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ all create similar streams of content. Advertising design sometimes does the same (the dark and edgy advertisements that dominated much of the 1990s have fallen off, for example). But that doesn't mean designers and programmers ought to be concerned with trends alone.

There do seem to be universal design elements and structures that touch our subconscious, which is why certain natural and classical architecture immediately appeal to our senses and feel timeless. Such consideration could make the design-build stage of everything — advertisements, websites and social networks — much more effective in delivering a memorable, automatically comfortable experience.

Perhaps there is a Pinterest connection to intuitive design.

This could even be why Pinterest took off as its own unique niche network. While there were several sites that were launched (and relaunched) around the same time, Pinterest propelled itself forward because it stumbled upon an interesting, universally appealing platform design that felt natural.

Sure, some people believe that Pinterest took off because it was all about visuals. But it seems to me to be much more than that. While the structural layout wasn't necessarily original or new, it did take advantage of a more universally appealing design — one that "feels" cleaner than other networks but not overtly sparse as Google+ looked when it was originally rolled out.

In other words, it seems a few answers to why some platforms succeed and others do not might be more linked to design and neuroscience than we think. And if it is, better design-program integration will eventually become a priority.

Persuading Publics: Who Are You Talking To?

The Ad Council recently launched a new PSA campaign in support of education. The campaign, which promotes BoostUp.org, attempts to reach parents and reaffirm the importance of consistent attendance in class because of a startling but not surprising fact: nearly 7.5 million students (K-12) chronically miss school.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10 percent of school days in a given year, which is about 18 days. The hope of the Ad Council and U.S. Army is to bolster awareness that absenteeism and performance goes hand in hand. But one wonders whether the message will reach the right people — it's the same message they've been promoting for years.

Why good ideas sometimes miss the mark. 

It's an important message and a well-meant campaign. But there is some psychology missing from the creative strategy. Their own research alludes to it — students who attend school regularly in their early years are more likely than chronic absentees to read well, obtain higher test scores and graduate.

The key words, "early years," tell part of the missing story. Parents or other role models play a critical role in defining the importance of education well before children make a conscious decision to skip school. The first spot attempts to convey this point directly, despite taking a slightly cavalier approach.



The other factor, unaddressed in this spot or the other one that simply attempts to cleverly quantify the problem, is whether or not the children in question have developed a love for learning. And if they do love to learn, we probably need to understand what interferes with their desire to go to school.

It could be any number of factors: peer pressure (friends that don't value education), family pressure (parents who equate kids that care about education as an attempt to be "better" than them) or economics that require students who would be in school to either work or babysit for younger siblings.

There are also psychological pressures, ranging from the belief that they aren't smart enough or that education won't make a difference other than fostering dreams that won't come true. There are more stories and Boostup.org chronicles a few of them outside of the campaign.

Unfortunately, none of the new ads really address the problem. They only address the symptom, a frightening statistic that people feel powerless to change. Except, we can help change it — even if the organization seems to mostly drive volunteerism and donations. Here is a list of ideas.

What education really needs is more engagement.

As an instructor and also someone with an expressed interest in our education system, engagement is the key. In fact, one of the best programs created by BoostUp.org is the mentoring program because it truly addresses the need. According to the organization, kids with mentors are 52 percent less likely to skip school. That's a powerful number with the potential to cut 7.5 million absentee students in half.

It's also challenging in its scalability. Anyone who has school-aged children might already feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they help their children with, making mentorship less obtainable. However, it does provide a direction to think about. There are three primary factors.

1. Students have to develop a love for learning. This is teacher driven, but some homes can reinforce the idea. If they don't have a love for learning, it's ten times harder to instill the value of education.

2. Students cannot have their education derailed outside of school. It isn't fair for parents to pit school needs versus home needs. This is parent driven, and probably the best place to think about a campaign — one that still attracts volunteers and donations but shows the consequence of parental decisions.

3. Students need to be engaged in more ways than school. It's patently proven that schools that introduce music programs see an uptick in school performance. It doesn't have to be music. It could be any special interest activity. It works for two reasons. It instills self-confidence (something they can do) and keeps them too busy to engage in activities that put them at risk. This is organization driven. If not part of the school, then offered through any number of after-school organizations.

People tend to cut all the statistics along socio-economic status, but I've never fully believed it. There are no socio-economic boundaries in kindergarten. Almost all children are excited to go. Almost all parents are proud of their child's first day. Maybe what people need to start focusing on is what changes in the dynamic between first grade and fourth grade, which lays the foundation for the rest of their education.

But more to the point. I'm bullish on the good work of BoostUp.org, but found the latest round of ads one off for effective. Laying a problem bare isn't enough to be effective. It has to change behavior. A different concept, such as one student taking two different paths in life, might better drive the message if the primary drivers are parents. The spot above, while clever, shows the problem without a solution that overrides parental denial. And even then, the real problem is a combination of all three outlined above.

Exhibiting Symptoms: Why American Apparel Was Singled Out

Last week, American Apparel was singled out for creating a controversial advertising campaign designed to capitalize on Hurricane Sandy. It wasn't the only one to run ads or sales tied to the storm. Urban Outfitters, Even Singer22, Owner Operator, and others all had Sandy ads.

But American Apparel was the only one that really received public pushback. Its creative was singled out out as being especially insensitive and even repugnant. Why? CEO Dov Charney blames the blogosphere. Specifically, he said, "about 25 of them" that decided to blow it up.

"Each blogger or Twitterer eggs on the other, and it becomes a big deal," he told Bloomberg. "The media is also interested in getting a rise out of readers."

Right or wrong, Charney misses the point. American Apparel wasn't singled out because the bloggers and media have it in for the company that frequently creates its own controversy. American Apparel was singled out because it has afflicted itself with an increasingly chronic case of brand weakness.

The advertisement on its own is a non-entity.

American Apparel targeted nine stricken states with an advertisement featuring the headline: "In case you're bored during the storm, just Enter SANDYSALE at Checkout." The copy line isn't very avant-garde or even that creative. It's hardly as offensive as advocacy channels pretended last week. Charney is right he shouldn't lose sleep over the ad backlash.

What Charney ought to lose sleep over is over the long-term brand damage the company's publicity stunts and near-porn ad campaigns have done to the brand over the years. While people still buy the clothes, few respect the business. And this increasing lack of respect is starting to manifest itself into aversion.

If you want an analogy, think back to grade school. When the model student made an untimely joke, everybody still laughed. They might have even called it clever or cute. The class clown, on the other hand, was promptly sent to the dean's office. Nobody had to hear what they said because everything the class clown ever did or said was little more than another distraction. Just make it stop, classmates said.

Brands that are starved for attention flail about.

Companies with strong brands seldom struggle for it. They never need to rely on publicity stunts. Everyone gives them attention anyway. They don't even have to make news. They are the news.

Weak brands don't have that luxury. They try too hard and then become poster children for bad taste instead. It's a mistake that a manufacturer like American Apparel can't afford either. The ad that was intended to help boost sales in order to offset East Coast store closures did not help sales at all. If anything, it is likely the sales made them worse and could carry consequences for several months ahead.

Ironically, this is especially bad news for American Apparel because it had been enjoying a sales resurgence of sorts while being less controversial for the last few months. When American Apparel is quieter, people tend to remember one of its primary selling points: The manufacturer's clothing line is made in America. Made in America means something. "Sandy Sale" means something else.

Branding Loyalty: Big Brand Vs. Store Label

According to a study by the Integer Group® and M/A/R/C Research, 77 percent of general shoppers compare store brands to brand names. The downside? Most of them (90 percent) won't risk the change.

"Certain categories appear to be immune to the store-brand swap," said Craig Elston, senior vice president, IntegerTM.
"Categories that offer shoppers frequent innovations such as performance or variety, and categories where personal stakes are higher, are more difficult areas for private [store] label products to compete."

The study noted several exceptions across various demographics. About 76 percent of African-American shoppers (and 69 percent of shoppers, in general) will not swap laundry detergent. The brand is too important to them.

Health and beauty is also a category where shoppers prefer a brand name to a store label. Seventy-four percent of Hispanic shoppers (and 65 percent of general shoppers) will stick with their brand.

Trust and the perception of quality dominate decision making.

Part of the reason is associated with the perception of quality. As long as a brand can keep its brand promise, store labels will have a difficult time finding any leverage. In fact, trust accounts for 51 percent of a purchase decision, much higher than influencers, online reviews, or any other factor.

Store labels have an additional challenge too. Lower quality store labeled products have led to fewer store label shoppers than two years ago. And to compensate, retailers haven't done much more than building better brand identities (e.g., nicer packaging). They ought to focus on better products.

Case in point: When customers were asked if they thought the packaging had improved, 14 percent said that the labels do look better. However, even with better packaging, they prefer the brand they trust.

There is one exception highlighted by the study.

Sixty-eight percent of the shoppers prefer store label brands (generic) in the over-the-counter medicine category. But this unique outcome has much less to do with the identity and more to do with a cultural phenomenon tied to an external directive — insurance companies, health care providers, and some doctors have convinced consumers to look for generic first. Consumers have adopted this mindset across the board.

Without any external directive, implied or mandated, customers rely on brands that deliver on their brand promise. You can find the study here (which includes the common lead generation form).

While the study is interesting, it does miss some deeper issues related to consumer psychology as well as a holistic definition of brand loyalty in that it is much more than an identity. Ergo, the trust factor is directly tied to the relationship between the brand and the consumer. Identity only reinforces familiarity.

Where supermarkets and retailers attempting to introduce store labels frequently make a mistake is they try to entice consumers based on price points. With the exception of price point shoppers, most consumers are only motivated when their preferred brands break a promise (quality failure), do not meet a specific need, the product is temporarily unavailable and there urgency in finding a replacement, or there is an external driver (like health care policies).

If you focus too much on true price point consumers, marketers have to appreciate that they are only their customers for as long as the low price can be maintained. (Price point shoppers have no brand loyalty.)

Likewise, free samples aren't enough either. While customers will sometimes be receptive to a free sample, their purchase decision in the future will only be swayed when their preferred brand has been compromised by one of the four points mentioned above. In fact, many consumers accept free samples strictly to reinforce their brand loyalty to the preferred brand.

Marketing Madness: How Stereotypes Hurt Campaigns

I've always believed companies need to be culturally sensitive, but I've never been a fan of most "cultural" marketing campaigns. A new study by Columbia Business School underscores the reason.

Columbia Business School's Michael Morris, the Chavkin-Chang professor of leadership, and Aurelia Mok, assistant professor, City University of Hong Kong (she received her Ph.D. from Columbia Business School in 2010) set out to better understand bicultural identities and how marketing cues might influence their response. It turns out that culturally-skewed campaigns may not resonate.

Cultural campaigns ignore the integration of cultural identities. 

The researchers do an excellent job setting up the myth. When a Japanese-American woman strolls through a food court at the mall, is she more likely to opt for sushi or a hamburger? It depends on the woman. It depends to which degree she has integrated her cultural identity.

Prior research found that bicultural individuals switch between their two sets of cultural habits in response to cues in their current setting. Morris and Mok show that these responses differ between two kinds of bicultural individuals: "integrated-self" individuals exhibit chameleon-like behavior, expressing Asian tastes after exposure to Asian symbols, while "divided-self" individuals behave like cultural contrarians, expressing American tastes even after exposure to Asian symbols.

This holds true even when cues are presented subliminally, suggesting that unconscious motives are at work. It's these unconscious responses that can add the most weight, but it's also the hardest to measure.

So the researchers devised a subliminal priming technique in which participants were repeatedly flashed "Asian" or "American" while reading words in a word recognition test. The cues could not be seen, but were flashed long enough to be caught by their subconscious minds. The subjects were then shown different products that they could click on for more information.

These Asian-Americans did not skew toward Asian presets. Instead, subjects responded based on their degree of bicultural integration. In some cases, integrated individuals experienced a self-defense response that caused them to respond with less interest to marketing messages that skewed Asian because they felt (consciously or subconsciously) the ads were exclusionary and even caused them anxiety in losing their self-identity versus a cultural one.

The brilliance in understanding people and not stereotypes.

Modern marketers place considerable effort on lacing campaigns with cultural markers in the hopes of reaching a specific segment of the population. The idea might show cultural awareness, but it is equally likely to prey on stereotypes and cause some members of that segment to become disinterested or even disassociated with the brand, depending on how integrated the individual's identity might be.

It is especially prevalent in Hispanic marketing efforts, which often attempt to reach a Hispanic public based on the pre-conceived belief that they fit certain stereotypes. They do not.

Not only does Hispanic marketing run the risk of alienating diversity within a broad definition (e.g., Cuban vs. Mexican vs. Dominican Republican, etc.) but each generation removed from their cultural identity becomes less motivated by Hispanic messaging and more likely to identify with being American. In such cases, much like Asian groups, they may even have an aversion to the message.

Likewise, although not part of the study, there are other differences as well. Hispanic and Latino publics in California, Florida and Texas are all very likely to have different regional identities unique to their geographical region. But despite this, marketers frequently insist on developing campaigns to the broader base.

Certainly, some cultures seem to be more resistant to assimilation than others. But at the same time, given cultural identity is strongly associated with individual preferences and not groups, marketers need to start asking themselves if attempting to capitalize on cultural identity is worth the long-term risk of alienation. And, perhaps even more importantly, if attempting to base marketing campaigns on stereotypes is the exact opposite of what they are trying to accomplish.

People are more likely bound and identifiable based on specific interests and experiences. Marketers need to give more cadence to those identifiers than cultural bias, especially in a country like the U.S.

Organizing Business: The MarComm Office And Beyond

When you work with startups that aspire to be corporations, you would be surprised how often it happens. One of the executives starts developing an organizational chart. The first thing they do is develop silos — disconnected departments that report to managers who report to the head.

If you mention how startups need to be more fluid (and all companies for that matter), they rebuff the notion by harkening back to the days when they worked at some company where they made up titles like guru and ninja. "Like that?"

Expect them to smile as they assign absurdity to the redefined suggestion. No, not like that.

Put processes before positions. I learned this at 16. 

It applies to every department, but communication tends to be among the most confused. It's the reason so many companies report that their communication feels disconnected within the organization. The reason is that they fill positions without much thought for the process.

Many organizational charts end up with: marketing manager, designers, copywriters, public relations manager, public relations specialists, social media manager, social media specialists, web developers, web designers, programmers, app specialists, internal communication manager, international communicator, trade show specialists, and so on and so forth.

Given that this is just the communication department, there isn't any surprise many startups run out of money. They staff positions. Even if they don't, they eventually will because once an organizational chart is established, they will continually hire based on reactionary needs — we need more of this or that, as if people are produce and never mind that one of those team members doesn't do enough.

My first job was working at Wendy's. And while some people might take exception to idea that communication departments can be likened to quick service, they knew what they were doing. I've applied to it many permanent teams and ad hoc teams all my life. It's not the position, but the process.

How Wendy's organizes your lunch. The variables don't matter. 

In a perfect world, Wendy's will staff one person on the register, one person on drinks, one person to make sandwiches, one person on order assembly. They duplicate this for the front and back (drive-thru). In the middle, serving both sections, one person staffs the grill (they are designed to have two grills if they are extremely busy) and one person staffs the fries. There are also support people, at least one in the back room and management in a pinch.

That might sound like a lot of people and it is a lot of people. But these are not hard positions. There is a fluidity to the operation based on what needs to be done. The person on the register can also manage drinks and order assembly. The grill person can manage fries or even sandwich making in a pinch.

In some cases and depending on the skills sets of the team available, every process can be covered by one or two people. There were some days that I worked every back register team position, along with fries, and assisted grill. It wasn't easy (or what corporate would have wanted), but I managed. Unexpected slams happen. It's also why I became a crew manager before moving onto a different job.

I'm not suggesting that one person do it all in a communication department, although some companies require it. But what I am suggesting is that you establish and prioritize the processes you need and cross train anybody who doesn't have the necessary skill sets much like Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich came close to suggesting in their book Marketing In The Round.

If the future of business is integrated, then companies need fluidity.

This isn't a 1950s economy. We don't need 1950s organizational charts. We need fluidity.

Writers need to learn multiple writing styles to communicate across different mediums, including some programming language skills. Designers ought to be comfortable with some programming language skills. Everybody needs to be presentable and professional, both online and off. And depending on the reason for contact, public relations can be adjusted up the scale.

Sure, there are some specialties that are always worthwhile (like database management), but that is the point. If you can prioritize which specialists you really need around the processes you expect to utilize the most, then the positions and job descriptions will make more sense. And everybody will know more about what is supposed to be done, even when someone calls in sick.

It's not limited to communication either. Many marketing professionals I've worked with are also exceptional product developers and are especially adept at designing user interfaces on paper if not in code. Some of them become good at these skill sets because of their interaction with customers online or during marketing research sessions. Some of them are also good with sales teams. Others have intuitive ideas about operations, budget priorities, media buys, etc.

It really just depends. And that is the point. How do you create an organizational chart based on positions when you don't understand the processes or the people who might fill the jobs? Even if you could, you might never maximize your proficiencies or replace people when they move on.

Or, like many companies, you may jeopardize the morale of the entire organization by trimming the fat you allowed to come on in the first place just because somebody needed a specific title and nobody else bothered to learn their job. Isn't that why companies can sometimes lay off hundreds? I think we might be smarter or more sensible by now. Think about processes first and then fill your organizational chart and outsource when you really do need a specialty.

Writing Tip: John Irving Starts At The End

While teaching editing and proofreading at UNLV, one of my students asked for tips on inspiration. Since inspiring yourself was fresh in my mind, I started with that (even though there are plenty more).

Most of those tips are more creative than strategic. However, there are some strategic elements to writing that anyone can apply. One of them is simple enough. It's something copywriters learn (often indirectly), but the technique is also employed by others — including John Irving, author of the World According To Garp, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany (among others).

Author John Irving starts at the end. How about you?

Irving never writes a novel or a screenplay without knowing the ending first. He doesn't only need to know what happens at the end. He has to know the exact sentences themselves. He needs to know the atmosphere and tone. He considers all of it an "end note" to whatever he works on and toward.

The reason he does it is most stories have already happened before they can be told. It's often the conclusion that helps writers determine whether or not the story is worth telling. If you are late for a meeting, for example, you might tell why you are late if the cause was traffic, road construction, an accident, or some other event worth telling. You might not tell the story if the ending is unwritten — your struggle to always be on time, absentmindedness, or the inability to allot enough time.

You can take this step a bit further. Knowing the end is also what drives the inspiration. If you know the ending is exhilarating or interesting or educational, deciding how to begin tends to be more engaging for you as well as any future readers. There is an excitement.

Applying the end to advertising, journalism, and public relations.

Advertising. For advertising copywriters and marketers, the end can be determined in something as simple as a tagline (not the call to action, which is something else). The more timeliness the tagline — Just Do It, Drivers Wanted, We Try Harder, A Diamond Is Forever, and Got Milk? all establish the end of a story.

When the end of the story is strong, the rest of it will fall readily into place: It gives weight to Nike showing us extraordinary athletics applied to ordinary people. It gives meaning to the right Volkswagen being found by the owner/driver. It shows what Avis needs to do in order to overcome not being the biggest. So on and so forth.

As for the campaigns you don't remember, many of them have weak taglines or none at all. The campaign probably doesn't have any resonance to tie its individual pieces together. Maybe the story becomes so overinflated with creative that it's difficult to remember the point of the piece.

Journalism. New stories aren't much different. The end frequently gives away where the writer's head was at while they were writing the piece (even if they didn't know it themselves). It's always in the last few paragraphs where they button up their stories, conveying their own bias toward atmosphere, tone and foreshadow.

Sure, they might not always know the ending as verbatim as Irving might, but the ending almost always shapes the story: who they interview, how facts are prioritized. It's how they decide what story slant to tell, with the only difference being how heavily they allude to the end. And if they are any good, they are willing to change that end if their research, sources, and compilation of facts don't bear it out.

Public Relations. When you look at news releases, you'll likely find that the best of them have some semblance of an end while the worst of them (and most of them) do not. Or more specifically, the best of them sound like news stories. The worst of them do not (and many sound like weak marketing).

Part of the problem is how it is taught. So much emphasis is place on the first graph in the inverted pyramid that many press releases become vanilla. The same can be said about pitches. The best of them lead with two thoughts — the tease and the end — telling journalists exactly why they might care. The worst pitches are facts, without even a hint at why it was written beyond some client telling them to burp something out. It's not all the practitioner's fault. Many businesses don't have an end in mind.

How the end means more than how you get there.

It doesn't matter who you talk too. Listen for the end. Great leaders, great communicators, great speakers, and great writers alway know the end before they begin. It's the end that resonates.

I was in a business meeting the other day and I left feeling uninspired. It didn't take long to figure out why. The executive who called the meeting didn't have an end. He talked about problems, organizational charts, and push back from investors. But he didn't have an end. There was no win.

If he did have an end, it was grounded in uncertainty. It reminded me of a job applicant I met a few months ago when I was helping another client screen for talent. All he talked about was how much he hated his job and could not wait to leave. His story had an end, but not for the company he wanted to move to — unless that end was simply going to mirror the one he told.

Contrast this with anyone successful and you might notice they always have an end. It might be conveyed in a vision. While that vision might be subject to change from time to time, you can still wrap your head around. It's the end that inspires people to listen just as it inspires what someone might write.

Making It Personal: From Education To Marketing

While most people see the 1960s as the "Golden Age of Advertising," its birth can be traced bak to the 1950s. Along with the booming post-war prosperity and adoption of television as a means of mass communication, it was the ideal time for agencies to capture the imagination of a semi-captive audience. 

Some people find the old commercials produced from the 1950s through the 1970s a bit campy with relatively poor production techniques. But if you take a closer look, you'll understand why people responded to the messages — those commercials connected to their era on a personal and sometimes intimate level. 

Unless it's being used as a 1980s and 1990s broadcast channel (when advertising sought to out clever itself instead of appealing to anyone), social media (and social business to some degree) makes the same promise. It provides people the opportunity to get to know the people behind the company, the musicians behind a band, the authors behind the books, so on and so forth. Making it personal works. 

Where advertising and education meet is a matter of perspective. 

While that might seem an odd way to start a post touching on education, some might propose the two are related more than most people think. When it comes to delivering an effective, memorable message that sticks, there really isn't much difference. Personal perspective can solidify and shape how we view history or even current events much more effectively than statistics and bullet points. Stories work. 

One groundbreaking independent documentary series, POV (Point of View) on PBS, has been doing exactly that for almost 25 years. As it aimed to widen the nation's discussion of the most important social issues of the day, it has become its own historic archive of personal perspective by putting a human face on current affairs and now history. Here are a few examples. 

I'm Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful by Jonathan Demme conducts character analyses of fearless matriarch Carolyn Parker, who struggled to rebuild her house in New Orleans after it was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Depending on the class, POV suggests watching film clips and then organizing the information into essays (with outside sources too, I imagine) that can be applied to civics, geography, social studies, and history. 

The City Dark by Ian Cheney studies the nesting process of the endangered loggerhead turtle species. The video illustrates how artificial lighting along beaches disorients turtle hatchlings and hinders their ability to reach the ocean successfully. The film provides cross-over content for biology, environmental studies, geography, and current events. 

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement by Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday follows civil rights veteran and barber James Armstrong and where the movement fits within the context of U.S. history. Integrated into a lesson plan, it provides a perspective for civics, social studies, world history, and current events. 

There are other films too. And while teachers must always be mindful to provide contrasting viewpoints or lead students toward appreciating the "why" behind the "what happened," all of them make for memorable communication, reinforced by a personal connection between the subject and viewer. 

Interestingly enough, POV has been developing a better connection between the films too. Its Community Engagement and Education Department partners with middle schools, high schools, colleges, and community organizations to provide more resources than the films themselves. 

Educators are invited to the join a growing community network where they can borrow more than 70 films for free download, along with 125 free standards-based lesson plans. There are also more than 217 streaming video clips and access to 130 film-based discussion guides for a variety of subject areas and grade levels.

"We have found that the personal storytelling in our films is a wonderful learning tool; it becomes a springboard for discussion that not only helps students understand the issues, but often helps them learn about themselves," said Eliza Licht, vice president, POV Community Engagement and Education. "The goal of our interactive education campaigns is to use film as a tool to support students in becoming thoughtfully engaged citizens." 

While the films sometimes don't necessarily provide a broad view of all subjects (because that's the point of perspective), all of them demonstrate how communication is most effective when someone can relate to the subject. For consideration, educators might want to visit the POV's Lesson Plan section.

How educational instruction can help professional communicators.

For marketers, advertisers and communication professionals, there might be something else to consider.  When was the last time your company produced anything that connected to the people you want to reach? Or perhaps, if you want to think about it another way, what was the real reason Blendtec became one of the most referenced YouTube success stories?

Some advertising students and professionals immediately think it's the gimmick that gave the series a lift.  Sure, that was part of it. But the foundation doesn't have as much to do with one well-thought out gimmick as everything else in the segments — the personality and empathy of the spokesperson and the viewer's connection to the products they decide to blend — have equal weight.

They make it personal, much in the same way it advertisers did several decades ago. And that's the point. You might ask how you can make your company's message just as personal too, but without the blender.