Brandworks Bits

One of the amazing things about working at LSB is the opportunity each year to attend Brandworks University and learn from some of the best minds in marketing.  The 2009 conference in June of this year was no exception.  The conference focused on jumpstarting sales and ROI in the Conversation Economy.  While there is no replacement for being at the conference itself, we will endeavor to share some of the learnings with you via this blog over the next few weeks as we do our best to summarize the remarks of the faculty.  In addition, a detailed whitepaper from the conference will be available shortly.

We’re looking forward to your comments, thoughts and input on the topic.  And be sure to mark you calendar for Lindsay, Stone & Briggs’ Brandworks University 2010, the 20^th Anniversary of the conference, May 25-26.

AR

Insights and Aspirations of a Chief Conversation Officer

John Hayes, CMO, American Express

John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer of American Express understands why marketers find the rise of social networking media scary. He told participants at LSB Brandworks University 2009 that his associates tell him they now work “in an environment where they don’t control the conversation, but they’re still 100 percent responsible for the outcome.”

Consumer-directed conversations via Twitter, Facebook and other social media present both a threat and an opportunity for marketers, Hayes admitted, but it’s important to face our fear of letting go of control over the message and the metrics.

“It’s human nature to overvalue the things we can measure and undervalue what we can’t,” Hayes said. “Yes, there are elements of the new media conversation that are not yet measurable. But we still need to value them.

“Think about a relationship you’re in. Before you got into that relationship, how did you know it was going to work?”

Hayes offered three principles for making social networking part of your marketing strategy.

1. Listen: “Listening may be your best selling device,” he said. Listening is more than hearing. “In a corporation, listening means hearing what is said and changing what we do in response. Listening means doing something different because of what someone said.”
2. Operationalize the conversation:  “Establish listening posts throughout the organization,” he said.  Engaging in a conversation with customers isn’t a task that only resides in marketing. You also need to engage the people in sales, product development, customer service and every other point of customer contact in the organization. You have to change the culture and make it a listening culture that wants to understand the world outside. Your job is to help guide conversation that’s already happening.
3. Experiment: Experimenting is the most important thing we can do, and failure is part of experimenting. American Express spends between 10 and 20 percent of its marketing budget on social media experiments. But Hayes cautioned that you must have a process in place to help you understand how and why you succeeded or failed and what you would do differently next time. “If you’re not learning, you’re making a big mistake.”

Marketers are living in a rapidly changing world, Hayes said. Conversation and collaboration will be at the heart of the new culture. In the new world, marketers will have to learn to be collaborators not authorities.

Given this new role for marketers, what activities do you think should be included in the job description for a “Chief Conversation Officer”?

Why getting lost in the creative forest is a good thing

When asked where they got an idea, most creative people will think for a minute and say, “It just came to me.” Which is exactly what happened, right after they’d spent some serious time lost in what I’ll call “The Creative Forest.”

Great creative follows a process but it isn’t and never will be a linear process. Why? Because the very definition of creativity is taking two unrelated things and putting them together in an unexpected way. Truth be told, for most creatives the process probably started several years before when their brain was cataloging experiences, making observations and developing a curiosity of the world.

The creative brief is a heroic attempt to put something linear in the process and to an extent, it works. And here at LSB we have a concepting process called the Naked 8 to help jumpstart the creative process. (It’s also a good way to add a bit of ISO 9000 to the process.) But then, like a guy in a car answering text messages, creativity weaves, misses the corner and then goes totally off the road. And just to keep this metaphor going, if it doesn’t hit a tree first, it careens into the Creative Forest (please read these last two words in a Rod Serling voice).

We normally think of careening as a bad thing. But actually this is the ideal situation because when you careen you don’t really know where the entry point is, and you don’t really know where you’re going to end up. Being a little out-of-control opens up possibilities that you can’t see when the process is linear. Don’t think straight lines here, think squiggly. Think random doodles. Think of the scribble that happens when you try to get a ball point pen to work.  After all, if you’re looking for an unexpected solution, you need a process that looks unconventional.

Okay, so, now we’re in the Creative Forest. What is it? This is the place where creative people just have to stumble around, get lost, digress, follow dead-ends, and generally be purposely lost. It’s chaotic, it’s wonderful–and when you’re trying to attach two unrelated things, one of them being the product you’re selling–completely necessary.

As a creative person, great things happen and awful things happen.  You’ll find a wonderful idea only to discover it was in Archive magazine last year. You’ll find ideas that look good until you discover they have nothing to do with the product or the consumer insight you are working with. You’ll stare at your partner for several hours without saying anything. You’ll laugh. You’ll wonder if there actually IS a solution. There are digressions and uncertainty. And, on occasion, the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz (or maybe that’s just my experience).

In any case, the only ticket out is a great idea. But, when you find that idea, the only way to describe it is “It just came to us.”

So next time you see a creative team staring out the window, call it “process.” And, if they appear to be diligently typing? They’re probably just screwing around.
BW