How To Be A Good Agency

And now, the rest of the story…

Listen and learn. And do it on your own dime. Even if you profess to specialize in a particular industry, you should be spending time reading the trades, looking at clients’ competitors’ sites, talking to clients’ customers, asking questions…anything that further immerses you in their world. Clients really, really don’t like having to tell you things you ought to have known.

Don’t ever show something because it’s cool – you give agencies a bad name. I’d guess that a good third of concepts presented to clients lack the marketing principles that should be their foundation. Before you proclaim your idea as the Second Coming, ask yourselves the hard questions: Why will this appeal to the audience? How can it be extended and integrated it into other mediums? What are the consumers’ alternatives and are they better? Are we saying something that has meaning and relevance to the audience? You’re part of the client’s team because it’s assumed you know the marketing challenges and have insights into solving them. Make sure your work proves that.

Get over yourselves. Unless your collection of awards is based on a client’s enhanced business performance, improved audience penetration, greater market awareness or some other critical business measure, it’s a vacuous and self-indulgent claim to say you have award-winning creative.

Be honest about results. Don’t even start a project unless you believe doing it will in some way make the client’s business stronger. Even if they ask you to do it. It shows integrity, not fear, when you tell a client what they want to do is wrong or won’t produce results.

Spend the client’s money as if it were your own. You wouldn’t waste your own money on services that don’t add value or ideas that don’t work, so don’t do it with theirs. And don’t waste their time. If their business model isn't one that will benefit from Twitter, for instance, don’t tell them it’s “the latest thing.” Just because you’re enamored with a tool doesn’t mean it makes good business sense for your client to use it.

Find your own freakin' errors. Nothing – nothing – pisses off a client more than inane mistakes. They happen – after all, most of us are human. But unless it’s one of those projects that has an absurdly short deadline (I once had a client ask for a promotion idea and coordinating collateral concepts and PR plan in 45 minutes; worse, we did it) there’s not a good excuse for making a mistake.

Throw a little bathwater in with the baby. If it weren’t for clients you wouldn’t be in business. There should be things you do – call them gifts, gestures, a good business retention tactic – that you don’t charge for. We’re all looking very closely these days at profit per project and per client, but the value you get by giving the client an occasional free pass on something is worth the time and effort.

A word for both sides. It never ceases to amaze me how seldom people say "please," "thank you," "nice job," "appreciate the business"…small gestures that make us all a bit more civilized. Also: Clients, don’t kick your agency around just because you can. You come off as arrogant (or worse). Agencies, don’t complain about your clients; they pay the bills. If you don’t like them, resign them.

How To Be A Good Client

This is the first in a two-parter focused on the agency/client relationship. I’m going to start off with “How To Be A Good Client.” Don’t fret: tomorrow, in the interest of fairness and accountability, I will follow it with “How To Be A Good Agency.”

Treat your agency like a part of your team. Partner, any way you look at it, is an inclusive term. Agencies work best when they’re a part of – or least aware of – goals, performance, internal news, changes, initiatives, et al. Unless you have that kind of exchange you’ll be lucky to get any smart ideas. Ideas come from understanding challenges and opportunities, and if your agency doesn’t know what those are, they won’t spend much time thinking about you.

Don’t show your wife the creative. The process goes something like this: you do backgrounding stuff, you set objectives, you agree on strategies, and you set the agency’s creative team loose. They sweat over it, live it, breathe it in and out, and finally present concepts. You have an immediate reaction to one (I call it The Girl At The Bar Syndrome: there’s just one you really, really want to buy a drink for), and you all go off believing you’re headed in the right direction…until the agency hears “I’m just gonna show it to a few people…”

This rarely turns out well. If you need to parade it around the office, grab a drum and let’s go. But as often as someone integral to the team weighs in, someone in a client’s personal life will take a stab at it, too. That’s fine. If that person is in the target audience.

The point is not to doubt your own instincts. Ask 50 people for their opinion on a concept and you’ll get 67 different answers. Whose matters most?

Yes, you can get it cheaper somewhere else. When your agency gives you a price, they are (or should be) basing it on experience knowing what it takes to do the job properly. When you Wal-Mart the project – when you make the choice to buy on price alone – you will get just what you pay for. That’s not to say good creative can’t be done inexpensively. Rather, it’s my way of saying that you should expect to pay a fair price for good work.

Understand there will be challenges. You can’t expect any relationship to go along swimmingly for years without an occasional challenge to the peace. The key is not to file it away and let it accumulate until you can bear no more. As soon as something happens that you don’t like – you get a confusing invoice, a link doesn’t work, someone screws up an insertion – pick up the phone and make your ire known. A good agency will fix things.

Understand an agency’s business model. Agencies make money, like attorneys and plumbers, by the hour or by the value of the work done. We charge when we’re working on your business. If we don’t charge for our service we don’t have a business. In tomorrow’s blog, “How To Be A Good Agency,” I’ll discuss how agencies need to “throw in a little free bathwater with the baby” occasionally, but if you’re getting value from something – an idea, plans, energy behind a challenge – an agency should get value from doing it.

Tune in tomorrow for the other half of this sordid story...

Be a Social Feedback Dynamo, Not Dinosaur

So how many strikes does Arnell get before PepsiCo cans their a**? First there was the lame new Pepsi logo, then the raving brand manifesto called “Breathtaking” linking the Pepsi brand to the gravitational pull of the sun and Di Vinci’s Vitruvian Man; next, the Sierra Mist labeling that can’t be read, and now, the about-face Pepsi has had to do on the Tropicana packaging because of the uproar by consumers. The rest of us can only dream of such forgiving clients.

In the good old days, these debacles would have meant a flood of calls to Pepsi’s customer service lines and “Breathtaking” would never have seen the light of day. Not so anymore. Today, we can blog, Twitter, chat, Digg, and post on whatever other social media forum at our fingertips - all with the hope of being heard and driving action.

The problem for many major brands, or not-so-major brands, is the overwhelming flood of feedback can actually threaten the opposite response. Advertisers may become so concerned with consumer testing everything and getting complete approval from all potential constituents that they can quickly become dinosaurs rather than the nimble, fast-paced dynamos they need to be. People will always resist change, always complain, and always share negative opinions more readily than positive ones – it’s just human nature.

The trick for companies today is to use the tools at their disposal with discretion and remember the foundation they’re trying to build. If it sounds like a load of crap, it probably is (i.e., Breathtaking). Should companies test their plans? Absolutely; sitting in a conference room amongst themselves is not the best way to get the right answer. Should every decision be driven by their targets? Absolutely not. Ask ten people a question and you’ll get ten different opinions.

PepsiCo trusted their agency to help guide them and unfortunately, they’ve been receiving terrible input from someone with an apparent God complex. I do give Pepsi kudos for working with their agency and trusting them to be the experts. I hope they return the Arnell team to mere mortal status and show marketers how to use social media and social research to their benefit in the future.

Consumers Speak, Brand Does About-Face

Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice, a brand owned by PepsiCo, today announced that though the company recently unveiled new packaging/branding for this product, it would soon be reverting back to the original packaging. Remarkable! Some thoughts:

1. It happened so quickly. The new look wasn't on the shelves for more than a few weeks. Remember when the much-maligned New Coke was unveiled? It took months before Coca-Cola reacted and went back to their original formula, though sales were suffering and consumers' reaction was unadulterated outrage.

2. The formula for Tropicana Pure Premium didn't change – just the packaging – and yet consumers were irate. Some brands have it, some don't.

3. Think of the money that was spent – undoubtedly, millions upon millions. And millions more to undo the damage.

4. What's really worth noting in this case is the reason for PepsiCo's reaction: consumers sharing their opinions not just with PepsiCo, but with each other and the world. Social media is becoming a powerful tool (some would call it a weapon) for consumers to voice their opinions, and more companies will be reticent to make changes that aren't first "approved" by their audience. Social media can, if done properly, function as a sort of world-wide focus group; unfortunately, there will also be some brands that put too much stock in it. There's a fine line, and brands need to know when to react, and when to ignore.

5. This is a great example of brand democratization: some brands are, in essence, owned by the consumers who love and are loyal to them, not the companies who sell the products. (Those that are, however, do well to realize it and act accordingly.)

6. I wouldn't want to have been on the creative team that worked on this at Arnell Group, the agency that did the redesign. Heads are gonna roll. Especially after the debacle with the Pepsi brand revamp (more on that tomorrow - stay tuned!)

7. To read today's New York Times article about this mess, go to http://tinyurl.com/bfekr5

Marketing cuts costly in the long run

Today's Green Bay Press-Gazette guest columnist David Yeghiaian made very
good points in his article Marketing Cuts Costly in the Long Run.

The 70% of companies decreasing marketing budgets during this recession will unfortunately realize the damage they've done when the recession recedes and they're faced with another uphill battle: re-building their marketing efforts; especially if competitors aren't cutting their marketing budgets. It's been proven that companies large and small that continue to market = and innovate during the recession gain ground against competitors once the recession is over. Customers remember your products/services instead of your layoffs; employees recognize your dedication to keeping the business afloat, resulting in a more productive staff to help you through tough times.

Possibly some of the best advice we can give when prioritizing musts and wants during tough times and get the most bang for your buck to engage in social networking. If you want to out-market your competition, do some research by getting to know your prospects and customers better. Decide what networks your customers are most likely to connect on. Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn groups? Youtube? Online news sites?

Next, have the most engaging, high-quality, and authentic conversations you can with them. Listen to their needs, wants, and suggestions for improvement. Find out what news sites they're reading, blogs they subscribe to, what they're doing online, and where they go when they need answers.

What you have now is a basis of customer feedback to decide how social networking can help market your business, if at all. Maybe your customers prefer face-to-face communication, or stick to the good ol’ newspaper instead of catching up with online news. You'll discover all this and more if you engage your audience, discover their needs, and strategically design
your marketing plan based on what you've learned.

Premium Brands Without The Premium Price

As I was reading through various headlines in the news last week, I came across articles on both Apple and Starbucks announcing their plans to introduce products with a more cost friendly price tag. With an economic climate not expected to warm up any time soon, this seems like the right thing for both of these premium brands to do in order to continue to gain new customers and keep the ones they already have. Lets face it; everyone is thinking twice these days before they run to Starbucks for their favorite $4 latte.

Apple announced they plan to introduce a $99 entry-level iPhone in June or early July. This version obviously won’t have all the bells and whistles of the 3G iPhone, but Apple’s tactic to make this popular smartphone more affordable for consumers on a tighter budget seems necessary. New smartphones continue to pop up in the market every month or two, and most are offering a lower price point than the iPhone. According to a report by RBC Capital Markets, the $99 iPhone could increase Apple’s overall iPhone unit sales by up to 69 percent and increase their share of the smartphone market from an estimated 12 percent to 19 percent. If these projections are accurate this seems like a no brainer decision for Apple.

Starbucks’ news is they plan to introduce a new soluble/instant coffee product called Via, which has been a long-term project of CEO Howard Schultz. Soluble coffee has traditionally been offered by the more economical coffee brands of the world (Folgers, Sanka and Brim), so won’t this lower the premium persona of the Starbucks brand? According to an article on AdAge.com (http://adage.com/article?article_id=134582), Starbucks’ Via is a “breakthrough in soluble coffee” and has been said to closely mimic the taste of their store bought coffee. This obviously won’t stop everyone from making the trip to Starbucks for their favorite brew, but for those loyal to the brand looking to save some dough Via could be a big hit.

Now I’m sure there will be Apple and Starbucks loyalists who will argue that the premium brand they’ve come to love and admire is selling out to the recession, but both companies are doing what’s necessary to survive and continue to grow in today’s market. There’s no shame in that. If anything these new product introductions will only further expose these brands to a wider group of consumers, and it may also further enhance their brand loyalty among current users who will appreciate the ability to still enjoy these brands but at a lower price. We all know we get what we pay for, but hopefully Apple and Starbucks prove you can still get premium products and quality without the premium price.

Notes from the right brain: Tips from our Creative Director

My head is cluttered with a few odds and ends it would like to get rid of:

One Space, Not Two. When I remind our staff that the days of typing two spaces after periods went out with the 27-lb. manual Smith-Corona, they probably suspect I should ask our Traffic Manager for more work to do. But if you haven’t adopted the habit of hitting the space bar just once, go to wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors and go to “spaces after period” to find out the reason.

You Can Quote Me. Unnecessary quote marks are a peculiarity I don’t quite understand. It’s so rampant an error, in fact, that there’s a website (pretty amusing lunchtime fun) dedicated to it: quotation-marks.blogspot.com. Generally speaking, if it’s not a quote, it doesn’t get quote marks. There are exceptions, of course, some of which you can read in the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.

Left To Right. I can’t think of an exception to this particular rule of mine: when you’re designing an ad, a sign, a flyer, a business card (well, really, anything with letters) never run type vertically. There are a couple business signs in our downtown that feature the company name running vertically. Both are highly unreadable. People don’t read that way. Don’t do it. Never make it harder for people to understand what you’re saying. Plus, it’s ugly.

No One Cares About You

Okay, the headline is shamelessly provocative (I am a copywriter, after all), but this mildly alarming statement is critical when trying to sell our expertise or product to a client. Put another way, people in business only care about your ability to make their lives easier, more successful or more enjoyable. They want you to solve a problem for them.

Imagine my surprise, then, when reviewing our prospective client presentation I realized that we, well, talk about ourselves a lot: our qualifications, examples of our work, agency history, backgrounds, philosophy -- frankly it's even boring as a list! It's hard not to when a prospective client asks us to come in and introduce ourselves.

So we recently restyled our presentation to reflect my "no one cares about you" theory and moved everything "Weidert" to the end of the presentation (where a person can read it at their leisure, or on those night when sleep eludes him or her). The presentation begins now by engaging in a discussion about the client's business and segues into talking about ways we can improve what clients do and how they do it.

The amount of discussion and level of engagement we see using the new presentation is much stronger and more productive. Instead of looking longingly off into the distance, suppressing a yawn and wondering if there's enough coffee on the planet that could get them through the next hour, clients are interacting from the moment they sit down.

Even when talking exclusively about your client, you're telling them something about yourself and your company – how you think and what you think is important. And in the end, that's why they're there.

Getting To Know Weidert Group

For our new feature, Getting to Know Weidert Group, we were lucky enough to convince our President, Greg Linnemanstons to be the first featured team member. Greg had no idea what he was getting into, or what kind of embarrassing questions he would be forced to answer, but in the end he bared it all. Even the team here at Weidert Group learned some new things about Greg, we hope you do too…

Getting To Know: Greg Linnemanstons

Where was the very first place you were employed and what did you do?
A: My first part-time job was frying chicken at KFC. It was pure awful. I was constantly burning myself with boiling oil.

Where did you begin your career in marketing?
A: I started as a marketing assistant on Heinz Pickles right out of graduate school. From there I moved to Heinz Ketchup before leaving to join Pillsbury.

Who would you say has made the biggest impact on your career?
A: My last corporate boss was Pete Chiericozzi, at Wisconsin Tissue. He was a great coach, a good listener, and one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever worked with.

Outside of being president of Weidert Group, how do you spend your free time?
A: I get to the YMCA three or four times a week – that’s non-negotiable. I love watching movies with Meg, with a pizza from Papa Murphy’s or Chinese takeout. We also have fairly regular dinner dates with our closest friends.

I’m also probably a little over-involved in volunteer activities. I’m on the board of ACES/Xavier and Monte Alverno Retreat House, an alumni advisor to the Delta house at Lawrence University (LU), also on the alumni board for LU, on the board for Babe Ruth World Series (in Appleton 2009!), and an active lector at St. Joe’s parish in Appleton.

What are your 5 must-haves of the moment?
A: My new BlackBerry is my favorite toy! I’m addicted to LinkedIn, I can’t go more than a day or two without doing a Sudoku puzzle, I love Power Shakes for breakfast, and I’m depressed if I miss an episode of The Office.

Who was your childhood hero?
A: Ray Nitschke. Tough as nails, and never a showboat. I met him when I was 12, and thought I was going to faint.

What hobby have you always wanted to pick up?
A: Woodworking. I wish I could make furniture. And I would like to learn to play the guitar, because I really like to sing.

What book would you suggest for everyone to read?
A: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. It’s a classic that influenced me profoundly as a teenager. See what happens if you Google Ayn Rand.

If you could choose to posses a superhuman power what would it be?
A: That’s easy: fly like Superman.

What have you done for the environment lately; do you have any “Go Green” advice?
A: I recycle like a maniac, and rip on anyone who throws recyclables into general trash. I also never drink bottled water. Plus, my wife has turned the heat down to a constant 60 degrees. That’s right: 60.

Trendwatch: Generation Generosity

Written by: Meg Hoppe

Well, it had to happen. With the economy in the s***hole and our financial titans bending the rules like a fat lady sitting on a cheap lawnchair, there’s a backlash societal trend afoot they’re calling “Generation G” – G for generosity, as opposed to the Greed of the past.

The economy has consumers disgusted and we’re responding by avoiding those brands/products/companies that smack of elitism and excess, and gravitating toward those that show responsibility. Consumers will be making their point by using their money to make sure they send a strong message to the brands they don’t like. Good news? They’ll be spending with brands they admire. Here’s what you have to do to fall into that category:

Be socially responsible. Your marketing plan should include specific efforts to aid the common good. While you’re helping your community (global or local) you’re helping yourself with positive word of mouth.

An example: Whole Foods rolled out a program to help local charities; when customers brought in their own bags (as opposed to using a Whole Foods paper or plastic bag) they were rewarded with wooden nickels that could be deposited in boxes assigned for donation to one of a many local charities. Everyone wins: Whole Foods is seen as a positive change agent, customers become more loyal (and they feel good about giving, even though they haven’t directly given), and the charities get the help they need.

Be green. Really, truly green. If you’re not part of the solution you’re seen as part of the problem, and telling people you’re using those squiggly lightbulbs isn’t gonna cut it. Do more in the way of reducing emissions or exacting less of a toll on the environment.

An example: Ecocho (ecocho.com) is the first free green search engine; their tagline is “You search. We grow trees.” The company will plant up to 2 trees for every 1,000 searches via its search engine and in turn remove a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. So far, 6,734 trees have been funded, which will remove 3,367,201 kilos of CO2 from the atmosphere (as of 2/4/09).

Do more. Give more. Just when you thought you couldn’t do much more for your customers, you have to. In a bad or, in this case, really bad, economy, people are being incredibly value-conscious. They’ll still buy, but they’ll base their purchase decision on what brands offer the most for that money.

You don’t have to look any further than Denny’s. On February 3 the chain gave away free Grand Slam breakfasts to anyone in the U.S.; Krispy Kreme UK gave out free Americano coffees the entire week before the inauguration. This got both companies great press, got people in their doors and will likely produce some brand converts. You don’t have to do anything quite that elaborate (read: costly). Adding a free service, increasing portion size, relieving late fees, eliminating sign-up fees…all these types of perks do essentially the same thing: show customers that you’re doing more for them.

Traditional Marketing Goes The Way of Paper Books

The story of Amazon’s Kindle includes a message for every marketer over 30.

Amazon sold an estimated 500,000 Kindles in 2008 – 32% more than the number of iPods Apple sold in the first year. At an average price of $360 that’s $180 million for a new product launch that had many analysts scoffing. I guess only Amazon is laughing now. And with the introduction of 2.0 just days ago, momentum continues building.

What’s really interesting is that, according to AdAge, the number of e-books purchased by Kindle users is 2.7 times the number of books they usually bought before buying the e-reader. Clearly, Kindle is something as behavior-changing as the IPod was in 2001.

But as a marketer what’s most impressive is how success was achieved – almost entirely through social media and Amazon’s website. Kindle’s launch – and now the launch of a second edition – was done largely without traditional mass marketing: no big advertising campaign, no bricks and mortar distribution, nothing but a single-location press conference.

Okay, Jeff Bezos had author Stephen King on stage with him yesterday…and Oprah endorsed the original Kindle late last year on her show (her audience represents the ideal demographics for this type of product), giving it another boost in awareness and sales.

A quick check today shows hundreds and probably thousands of Tweets about Kindle – people talking about its features, the anticipation to get one, competitors and their deficiencies, books and newspapers available for upload, etc. I stopped after skimming through more than 500 related Tweets, when it was clear there were more references to it than I had time to read.

While it’s true Kindle was the ideal product to market exclusively via social media, that doesn’t mean more pedestrian products couldn’t learn from Amazon’s success. Look at how people were buzzing two weeks ago about Denny’s, and all they did was buy America breakfast.

It was on Twitter that someone wrote “You can’t find new land with an old map.” Amen.

Big Wellness for Small Companies

Today I'm taking the opportunity to ... shamelessly promote our client... and spread the word about a new employee wellness plan for small businesses.

Today's business section of The Post-Crescent featured McClone Insurance Group in a story called "Leading Healthier Work Lives". The article reveals how they've teamed up with other small businesses to provide wellness programs for their employees. Weidert Group has become involved in the program - along with over 30 other businesses who can't provide programs on their own, but are dedicated to providing wellness to their employees.

For companies looking to cut costs "during these tough economic times", corporate wellness may help the situation. According to the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, Employers who invest in worksite health promotion programs can see a return of $3 to $6 for every $1 invested over a two- to five-year period. Savings have been documented in medical costs, absenteeism, worker's compensation claims, short-term disability and lower on-the-job efficiency. How's that for saving some cash?

And to close this up, another shameless plug....Local businesses interested in joining the program or attending a McClone Wellness Luncheon can contact Barbara Van Gorp at 920-725-3232 x3402.

The Power of An Apology

In the last week or so we've seen two public figures make mistakes and
try to recover from them, with very different outcomes.

The first blunder belongs to President Obama. His nomination of Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary caused outrage from Americans shocked to find that someone described as one of the most brilliant financial minds on the planet wasn't smart enough to know he owed back taxes. Or maybe that he was so sly that he knew, but just didn't feel like it.

Then news broke that Obama's pick for Secretary of Health & Human Services, former Senator Tom Daschle, had an even bigger tax problem that he only took care of after Obama tapped him for the job. Daschle withdrew from the confirmation process, despite Obama's pledge to stick by him, probably due to behind-the-scenes White House pressure. Obama immediately got in front of the cameras to admit "I screwed up." Say what? By quickly taking responsibility, he enhanced his standing. Way to go.

Compare that to Michael Phelps. After getting caught with a bong in his mouth, he issued a formal apology that acknowledged the mistake. But instead of telling his fans via live interview that he'd use this experience to motivate him to work even harder, he got petulant and suggested the incident made him wonder if he would even compete in the next Olympics. Compared to Obama's reaction, this one smacks of an entitlement attitude all too common in celebrities. Whatever happened to humility?

What's the lesson? People make mistakes, and our capacity for forgiveness is pretty impressive if we think learning occurred and the apology was sincere. You're not going to make a bad situation go away simply by denying its impact. Admit it, be honest about it, and move on quickly to the things you're admired for, and don't give us any reasons to be happy you got caught.

Why Aren’t You Blogging? No, Really – Why?

If customers or clients work with you because of your knowledge, experience, singular skill, or understanding of matters of importance to them (things like finance, health, law, technology, taxes, etc.) – or if you WANT them to work with you for these reasons – you should be blogging.

If you think simply having a web presence is enough, you’re wrong. Think of your website this way: unless you’re regularly (and that means frequently) changing and adding to its content via a blog, your website is essentially a static brochure. No one reads a brochure more than once (and, unfortunately, not always that many times). People today want multiple sources of fresh, relevant, valuable content that helps them do their jobs more effectively (B2B) or adds value to their lifestyle (B2C). If you’re not providing insights, information – even entertainment – you won’t get traffic, you won’t be top-of-mind and you’ll fall behind competitors who are blogging. Oh, and you’ll be seen as behind the times. That’s dangerous.

Find a person in your organization who can write, preferably one with the ability to see situations from a number of vantage points, compile a list of topics your audience wants to know about (versus those you alone find interesting), and start writing. It also helps if this person has a sense of humor.

If you’re not sure what your long-term message should be, talk to your marketing firm. Working with their marketing and PR people you’ll find how to create a message strategy (it’s easier to follow than you may think) and how to integrate your blog into the bigger social media network (make sure they have a serious plan, not just “fun ideas.”)

The end result?
• You develop a stronger, more meaningful brand personality
• You generate better rankings on search engines
• Most importantly, you become the go-to source for information and, eventually, the organization your target audience wants to work with.

Maybe I’m Just A Cynic, But…

I read somewhere yesterday that “Giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.” Huh? Corporations will ditch greed for generosity?

We’ll see how long that lasts.

I’d love to think we’re in for a real lesson learnin’, but I doubt that Americans are made of the right stuff to take stock in ourselves, revert to simpler times, and do without all our junk. When your kid tells you he needs an iPod, show him how you can turn an ordinary comb and a piece of waxed paper into a harmonica and see how that goes.

As soon as the numbers start creeping back on the Dow, I suspect all the plastic useless wonders we have available to us today will be right back on the retail shelf, with a little added enthusiasm.

For what it’s worth, I’m going to start a mental list of ridiculous indulgences that we and our landfills could do without in the future. It will start with plug-in air fresheners with that little fan.

Anyone have something they’d like to throw on the pile?

Offline WOM? OMG!

There’s no doubt that technology has come a long way in the last decade, even the last year. But I’m not sure we’ve equipped our society to handle the social changes that have come along with those advances. Uncomfortable situations that used to require a face-to-face meeting, or at the very least a phone call, can now be avoided by an after-hours voicemail, firing off an e-mail, a quick text, IM, Facebook posting, or any of a multitude of other electronic choices. We’ve lost the skills to face one another. When we interact on a personal level, we tend to show greater respect because we can see, hear and sometimes even feel the consequences if we don’t. Now, we say whatever we want to, however we want to say it, without another thought.

Take texting, for example. Because of the nature of texting, there are no pleasantries, no discussions, no “fluff” that helps us better understand a person or situation, and a sort of abrupt and cursory style of communication that dissuades collaboration. Unfortunately, I think this scenario is repeated on some level for all of us every day.

I just read a synopsis of a study published by the Keller Fay Group titled “Offline Word-of-Mouth More Positive and Credible than Online Buzz” which indicated face-to-face communication is seen as more positive in tone, more likely to be judged highly credible and more likely to lead to strong purchase intent than online talk. In fact, a comparison between face-to-face communication and content in online blogs and chatrooms shows a gap of almost 10% of content viewed as mostly favorable.

The challenge is to blend the convenience and efficiency of our technology with the respect, compassion and society-building personal interactions. There’s no doubt that digital communications play a huge role in sales, marketing and PR. But, these should support and extend our more personal forms of communication, not replace them.

What’s Hanging In Your Office?

Look around your workspace – what’s the one thing you just couldn’t give up?

Mine is hanging on the wall, a copy of a classified ad placed by Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922), the Antarctic explorer, looking for men to join his expedition to the South Pole. It’s the same ad that got most of us into this business, I think:

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”

Leave a comment and let us know what your favorite office object is and we’ll post the best!