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The Plug: A Marketing Blog

Marketing analysis from Hollywood, CA.

I Don't Have Time For That. But I Can't Wait!June 25

I want it all. I just need more time!
Image via Wikipedia

Many of my friends and I have had similar conversations of late as we catch up via Twitter or IM.

The gist of it is that we are all overwhelmed with our RSS Feeds, our emails, and the amount of information that--while we love its availability--we cannot realistically process in a manner consistent with that of a sane person.

FriendFeed and SocialThing! seek to streamline our digital "lifestreams," but to me, both just enhance the anxiety I feel when I see so much information coming at me at once.

I feel obligated to delve deeply into every article, every email, every blog post that seems interesting from someone I follow on Twitter.

But more and more, I feel as if I have developed ADD. I cannot concentrate on anything long enough online to peak my interest, and although I feel guilty about leaving so much "unfinished," if I were to try and consume all of this information, I would NEVER get up from my chair.

Here's an example: I just got the new Coldplay. But I also just got the new Weezer,

Deconstruct/Whatever: The Truth About Bat-SqueezeJune 23

Oh my god. Like, really?!? You're so smart!

Image by violet.blue via Flickr

The notion that many smaller agencies have about emulating the bigger shops with regard to their overarching, value-added, brand philosophies as a way to get noticed in the vast ocean of small agencies is totally bogus.

It has to do with the simple economics of supply and demand, and the fact that they're already paying product managers on their staff to figure out how to market their products.

There are 80-something-thousand agencies out there, all vying to be an Agency of Record (AOR) for some big corporation, so they can beat their chests about their huge billings, their amazing creative, their  stellar account planning.

The problem? Most of the talent is so thinly dispersed that no agency can hope to have a concentrated advantage, and most agencies B.S. their way to work, even though they couldn't hope to successfully execute a campaign worth talking about.

And marketers know this, if for no other reason than because many of the folks who make up the "client side" staffs have worked in agencies at one point in their careers.

So what do they do? They hire agencies

Made Official by President Nixon: Family Values Indeed.June 16

Yesterday was Father's Day. I can't say that it was my first, as my daughter is now approaching her second birthday. But as any parent knows, the first year with a child involves adoration that moves just one way.

This year, I spent the whole day with my daughter. Unfortunately, my wife got sick and so kept a pretty low profile all day; but what I got because of that was one of the most unique and wonderful days I have had yet as a father. I spent the entire day playing with my daughter.

Anyone who has or has had an almost-two-year-old knows that kids that age are not likely to turn their attention toward anything for more than 30-seconds at a time. And at first, that was jarring for me. The reason is because in my day-to-day at work (and even through the weekends), I impose structure around everything I do. And while this helps me to move forward with my many projects and tasks, it was actually a setback for me yesterday, at first.

But by the time I re-oriented myself, and let her lead the day, I found that I was enjoying myself in a way that I can't remember having done for some time.

I could brag about the words she knows, or the way she is so adep

Nike: Corporate CitizenJune 13

Nike has been under fire for many years and to varying degrees for its alleged participation in exploiting labor in the 3rd World. But the homogenized notion that "Corporations Are Evil" is akin to developing a 2-dimensional character for a Hollywood Blockbuster. It's never that simple.

In The Girl Effect campaign, the Nike Foundation shows its commitment to creating opportunity in impoverished nations not by building shoe factories there, but by committing funds to the people of these nations and giving them a chance to make a go of things, and build up their own economies.

It's very powerful, and really well executed. Have a look.

Social Media: The Great EqualizerJune 10

UPDATE: Since this writing, Barack Obama's Campaign has once again proven its understanding of the power of digital marketing. They have launched a website that does what Snopes.com does, only it's all Obama, all the time, with links that prove the smears which will likely mount in the coming months. See it here.

What better way to analyze the impact that the social media now plays in our society than by evaluating the controlled chaos of the General Election campaign for the Presidency?

Though Barack Obama's campaign theme is Change, and a departure from "politics as usual" (e.g., partisan smearing tactics), the campaign still must do an effective job of working the openness of the digital platform to its own advantage; lest it will suffer defeat.

A couple of examples have surfaced which I think do an excellent job of illustrating the power of using social media to your advantage as a brand. I'm sure there will be many more to come over the next few months, but these two make a powerful case study for how to build your brand online leveraging social media and messaging platforms.

It should be patently clear by now to anyone involved in digital marketing that unlike the "traditional" forms of media--print and TV--the destination isn't the thing.

The message needs to be mobile, and it needs to embrace the nature of the medium, which is essentially "on demand."