marginally subversive

a new chapter...: a personal post

In October 2007, I left Universal McCann - which has since rebranded itself as UMWW - to join Microsoft Southeast Asia. 

After 9 months, I returned to UM because I missed the frenetic, frantic pace of the advertising world - the late nights, the emails that need to be responded to within 24hours, the 'fire-fighting', the business pitches, the ideation and the interesting research projects which made a difference to clients.

I wrote about my departure in October 2007 in this entry.

My departure back then was somehow a bittersweet event: I was leaving a job that I loved, a team that I was impressed with, a network that was truly great and "genius and visionary".  I was leaving a job where I was entrusted a piece of an experimental business unit that proved to be ahead of its time - and was, in spite of its being experimental, delivered significant contributions to the company, financially and reputation-wise.

In my farewell letter to the company then (which a colleague of mine unearthed from his inbox):

Anyway, I would like to thank you for the support that you have given me in the past, for believing in the value that my team and I could create and bring to your teams and to your clients, and simply, for the opportunity of working with you in seeking only the best for our clients and the brands they have entrusted unto us.

Thanks to the in-market teams across APAC, across EMEA, across the Americas for helping me and my team in our most challenging times – I cannot ask for a better network of planners, researchers, and insights-seekers.  Thank you very much.  Your genius will continue to amaze me - and I can only be thankful for the greatness that you are and have.

After another 18 months, I am leaving UM/mediabrands.  Again.

People (including potential employers) will ask "You've been a 'job-hopper' - where is your commitment?"

I say, commitment is not measured in terms of the number of years or months or weeks or days - it is not measured by tenure. 

Commitment is measured by how much one has contributed - or has desired to contribute - to the company.  It is measured by how much one has gone beyond the call of duty to take on things that are new and scary - and emerge a better person for the organization.

Commitment is trudging on to deliver remarkable, great, and inspiring results to clients, to the company, to teams.  Commitment is about looking for ways and means to help the company survive in the short- and mid-term, and secure its place for the future, whether that future included me or not.

Commitment is about protecting my team - my people - as budgets and overheads are cut, whilst at the same time working overtime - pedal to the metal - to create new revenue streams to save as many as we could.

***

I end this chapter of my life a better person - both professionally and personally.

I end this entry with Seth Godin's words -

And yet when we ask you to look people in the eye, be creative, brainstorm, be generous, find a way to satisfy an angry customer, work with a bully, learn a new skill or bring joy to work, suddenly the excuses pile up. Is this a different sort of work? Is raising your hand in class too much to ask of you?

The jobs most of us would like to have are jobs like this. And yet we put up a fight when given the chance to do them well.

Just for the record:

I was never asked.

Anyway...

Photo from Darwin Bell @ Flickr.Com

the cluetrain manifesto - a decade on...

[ These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked. ]

The Cluetrain Manifesto was one of the first things that I read when I was trying to grasp the new realities that the internet and the web were ushering into the world of advertising and marketing communications.

Back then, we looked at the web as "merely another channel - like TV, presses, magazines, and direct mailers - only that it accelerates the purchase cycle being much closer to the purchase occasion".

But we now know of course (I hope that all of us now know that!) that the internet and the web turned out to be more than that.

From my viewpoint, the web has dramatically changed not just the marketing and information landscape: it has changed the way we look at the world, the way we participate in it, the way we feel towards concepts such as privacy, hierarchies, and 'social order'.

And the Cluetrain Manifesto captured the new realities in marketing and in conducting business way before we knew where we were headed. 

Cluetrain

View more presentations from Toscana Enterprises Corporation.

So where are we now?

Here is a video from YouTube on where we are at.

 

One of the most beautiful things that was written in the Cluetrain Manifesto is this last paragraph in the introduction:

[ Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in. ]

From the Cluetrain Website

to grow, share...

I wanted to embed some music videos from YouTube on my Posterous site and write about how I really loved the song and the artist.  (Yes, I am still one of those old-fashioned ones who want to get a "physical CD" in their collections.)

There is that "ominous" advice: "Embedding disabled".

I checked the video source: some music company.

Now that got me thinking:

[ In this age of social media where audiences are no longer just passive receivers of messages but are part of the 'media and communication plan', shouldn't music companies be 'liberating' their videos and their music so users can "promote" them in their own sites - on twitter, on blogs, on facebook? ]

And much deeper than that is the question:

[ Why are these companies so protective of their properties on the web? ]

Sure, there is piracy.  But that is entirely a different issue, I believe.  Disabling video- and audio-embeds (say, from imeem.com) is counterintuitive from my perspective: 

[ Why put it on the web in the first place if it's going to be "unshareable"? ]

Seth Godin apparently is thinking of a similar thing.  In this blog entry he writes:

"So, how to protect your ideas in a world where ideas spread?

Don't.

Instead, spread them. Build a reputation as someone who creates great ideas, sometimes on demand. Or as someone who can manipulate or build on your ideas better than a copycat can. Or use your ideas to earn a permission asset so you can build a relationship with people who are interested. Focus on being the best tailor with the sharpest scissors, not the litigant who sues any tailor who deigns to use a pair of scissors."

... which makes sense to me.

One can copyright ideas.  One can patent ideas.  One can use the power of the law - and it sure is getting powerful every day - and the power of lawyers to litigate people who "steal" your ideas - and songs and videos.

But if one puts it on the web, one no longer owns it fully. 

Audiences who watch the video, listen to the music, read the article are no co-owners of the content - whether audiences know it or not, whether the companies want it or not.

I am going to venture a guess and say that this certain music company (and perhaps most of them) thinks that "well, the internet is good - the web is good - a lot of people go online - so let's use it to promote our song and get them to like it". 

But that is no longer the purpose of the web - or of all things digital, for that matter:

[ We are now in the age of interactivity, of two-way communication, of co-ownership, of co-creation, of empowered audiences.]

Sure, companies spent lots of money to nurture talent that will come up with the right words and music and ideas, and produce the music and the ideas.  And their businesses are largely based on how many CDs are sold.

Perhaps it's about time that they start thinking about changing their business model.

Whilst I am at it, let me relate this back to brands.

Brand managers and marketing directors believe that they own their brands.

I say: No.

They solely own the trademarks and the copyrights and whatever else that their legal departments tell them they own.

But consumers co-own their brands.

In fact, there are no brands unless there are audiences and consumers who believe in a certain brand.  A brand will not exist unless there is a group of people who believe that "This is my brand".

Brand managers, marketing directors, agencies, brand consultants, and companies are there to enhance the consumers' experience of the brand. 

[ But ultimately, the future and the essence of the brand rest on those who actually use, regard the brand positively, build a strong relationship with it, clamor for it, stand by it, love it. ]

know the rules by heart - and know when to break them

In the decade and a half that I have been working as a corporate man, I have come to realize several things:

1.  One has to know the rules by heart - whether they are rules for setting media weights, for conducting statistical tests, for creating statistical models, for running research.

2.  At the same time, one has to know when those rules can be bent, circumvented, pushed to the limit, or even broken.

Knowing the rules is easy - one just has to open a textbook on media planning and advertising, or attend seminars on the latest research techniques, or recall one's college stats classes.  (Or use Wikipedia!)

Knowing when to bend, to push, to break the rules?  That's an entirely different thing.  And that is the more difficult thing.  It takes experience, wisdom, and courage.

Why would you want to break the rules in the first place?

Because, as Seth Godin writes:

Going with the flow is a euphemism for failing.

[Just to be clear: I don't have anything against rules.  Going by the rulebook is good - to a certain point.  Remember point (1) above: Know the rules by heart.  You have to study the rules and know them.  So you know when and how you can break them.]

Photo from Liber at Flickr.Com

being a great client...

... doesn't take much effort, really.

Seth Godin sums it all up in the first paragraph in his blog entry:  

As a [marketing] client, your job isn’t to be innovative. Your job is to foster innovation.

The goal of marketing clients should be to inspire its marketing teams to create innovative solutions, to be catalysts of innovative thinking, to be midwives to the birthing of an idea - and ultimately to reward the innovators.

I have worked with a number of clients and I can say now that I have encountered clients that have been great at inspiring their partners to create innovative, creative solutions to business problems.  I have also encountered clients that somehow missed the mark.

Based on my experience, what differentiated those who were great marketing clients from those who missed the market completely was this: 

Those who were great marketing clients were inspiring.

And it was not only in the 'briefing documents' that this "inspiringness" was communicated:

From the way they talk about the issues the brand faces and the opportunities it has
From the way they deal with their marketing "suppliers" in meetings
From the way they speak on the phone
From the way they ask clarifying questions
From the way they remunerate their agencies
From the way they create ecosystems of collaborations
From the way they empower their partners with information
From the way they share data and updated information
From the way they talk on the phone
From the way they reward both the company and the team that worked

Those who missed the mark were more concerned about their "missing spots", "paginations" on today's newspaper, the "missing" row in their media plans containing the discounts and bonuses and freebies negotiated by the company, their "PR write-up with photo please" on this week's society pages, their CPCs and CPAs and CPMs...