I’m giving this presentation today at a lunch-and-learn at Hoffman York’s Chicago office. I do a lot of talking about the internet, usually in a really unstructured way (which suits me), and I’m looking forward to seeing how I do with some guidelines. Also, my presentations usually get stuffed into the middle of someone else’s presentation, which won’t be the case today. All web, all the time.
You’ll note that there are plenty of:
- Stolen ideas (thanks, web-friends Paul, Noah and Faris, for much of this. Not sure where to attribute your thinking, but I think there’s a lot of Russell and Iain in there, too, and a bit of Aaron)
- Screen grabs
- Big fonts (I am loving DIN right now)
- Real words
And I have avoided the use of:
- Jargony words (I think I say user once but “people” sounded funny)
- TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)
- Exclamation points
- Numbers (60% of the time, it works every time)
Let me know what you think. Thanks to Kevin, Eric and Jen for talking to me about this in advance.
13 Comments
Thanks for the shout-out, Clay. This is some really smart and brilliantly basic thinking - if only everyone could get it big picture-style like this. You should record voice and put on Vimeo, perhaps?
That’s it.
Hope you liked it.
Jen -
No prob. Thanks for poking media holes in it. I do appreciate it, given that I know only a smidge about media. And about most things, really.
Will be recording the whole presentation and putting it online. And also, go get yourself a damn gravatar.
- Clay
even a “62” year old mother has an avatar.
“62” year old mother - can you show me how to make a gravatar?
let me guess - let me google that for you.
i’m on it.
Who knew Donna was older. I’ve been living a lie.
Yes. It worked, Jen.
Dad, that’s quite a nice one. I’m impressed.
Lots of good feedback from today!
Hey Clay - Jen sent the pressie to me and I got a chance to look at it this morning (damn time difference) Hope it went well though, definitely some great stuff in there. I might have to pass it on to a couple people here who go pale and have to sit down just hearing the word social media.
Also, props to your mom. Mine can barely check email, although since I’ve been in Australia she has even been googling the weather here.
Good stuff.
I can’t remember how I stumbled across your blog but I’m glad I did!
It warms the cockles of my heart when I see presentations like this. Our business isn’t complicated - all we’re doing is selling stuff - but it seems to be getting more and more complicated and I spend half my time learning the meaning of new words that are replacing words did a good job in the first place!
Anyway, rant over, I’d like to suggest that agencies go into meetings looking at the products through the eyes of the prospect & customer and what the prospect/customer values. In the customer economy that we are in, mass economy tactics won’t work. What brands need to do is to develop an economic, emotional and experiential relationship with customers. The internet and in particular web 2.0, gives us the opportunity to do this. But we can’t use mass economy tactics because each customer is different and must be treated differently. And prospects are different to customers and should also be treated differently. In fact, to succeed, brands need to view customers as collaborators not customers (did I make that up or did I read it somewhere? Either way, it’s good!)
Hmmm…Internet you say? Social media you say? This presentation was relevant to my interests.
no props for him. I made the avatar, vince took the picture
Christy - Thanks for the kind words. Glad to have one of Australia’s next advertising luminaries in my comments.
Marcus - The funny thing is that I feel like even old-line advertising greats were saying things that make sense for the web today, and maybe even make more sense than they did then.
For instance, Howard Gossage:
Thanks for stopping by.
Joe - Yeah. It’s interesting. And a bit scary for some. Glad you liked.
CPJ
Nothing wrong with what Gossage said. And I agree that much of what worked then works today. But is it as effective? You can still use TV’s, golf clubs, tennis racquets, cars etc from 50 years ago when he was in his prime but would they be as effective? When the first TV commercials came out, they consisted of a guy reading from a script (probably with a cigarette in one hand) in front of a mike. Why? Because that’s how they did it on radio. It took a while for them to realise the power of TV but then they did, TVC’s were born. The TV is a great platform but there are 6 majors and 500 cable or sat channels in the US. Unless you’ve got really deep pockets, you simply cannot communicate with enough of the right consumers, whatever your product. Much of Obama’s success was a result of his TVC’s being aired on small regional cable channels. Each TVC was designed to engage that particular segment.
The internet is a great platform, if used correctly. As an example, for the automotive industry, running slick generic TVC’s that aim to reach as many people as possilbe and hope that some will be interested is simply a waste of money. The whole process must be based on segmented strategies that engage specific targetted audiences with an appealing message to that segment only.
My mom (58) just added me as a friend on Facebook last week and a few weeks ago I found out that an uncle (72) runs 2 blogs on a regular basis. I should mention that I am from Romania and we the use of internet was not very common until 10 years ago. The web is in fact the greatest thing that ever existed.
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