Change Marketing

The other creativity

2010-01-07T09:36:00.008-05:00

I'm sitting here this morning putting together a puzzle. No, it's not a scene from Star Wars (I wish!). It's just a normal part of my job.

You see, yesterday we received a request to re-script a commercial that has already been shot and edited. For those of you who have not been involved in TV production, this is kind of a big deal. Weeks of planning and hard work, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, go into producing a 30-second spot based on an approved script. It's usually step one. (Luckily, there's nobody speaking on camera!)

So here I am, figuring out two options: re-edit existing footage to match the new script, or edit the supplied script to existing footage. Both require a fair bit of resourcefulness.

Resourcefulness is not always given due credit in creative circles. We thrive on inspiration, resourcefulness' celebrity older sister. But as exciting as inspiration is (what could be more scary thrilling than a blank page?), resourcefulness deserves its due.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 1:9

We have a joke among Copywriters, "I need a new word for 'new'". The desire for novelty is what keeps us fresh. At the same time, once you've been doing this for a few years, "Seen it!" becomes a more and more frequent reaction. That shouldn't mean we give up trying, but realizing that inspiration is just recombining — or building on — many other people's ideas is actually liberating. Knowing that inspiration is not magic, but rather natural evolution of ideas, removes the fear of that blank page. You just let the ideas happen. And if they don't, you start looking around for inspiration.

Understanding that you never really have a blank page also gives an insight into the nature of inspiration. It's really just unconscious resourcefulness.

On the other hand, when faced with challenges like today's puzzle, the unconscious just isn't enough. Instead of inspiring myself, I'm problem-solving.

We've all been there. The super-awesome, brilliant, earth-shattering idea that you had at the brainstorming pub lunch five Fridays ago has now been reviewed, approved with changes, focus tested, and generally altered. Some Creatives give up and bemoan the loss of their prodigal daughter. Professionals get resourceful.

Resourcefulness is about taking what you have, evaluating the situation calmly, and using every skill, tool and talent at your disposal to come up with the best possible solution for the situation.

It may not always be art. But resourcefulness is what let humans take over the world.

Now, back to work...

MADD takes a hard left towards denormalization

2010-01-06T09:20:00.009-05:00

Adrants yesterday posted some new ads for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, created by TBWA Toronto.

Here's one:

It's funny. It's thought-provoking. And it's a complete change of course for an organization that traditionally uses shock and guilt to hammer home the anti-drinking and driving message:

So, what happened? Obviously, someone at MADD has decided to give "Denormalization" a try.

A tactic in anti-smoking campaigns for decades, denormalization campaigns seek to make previously tolerated behaviours socically unacceptable by exposing them to ridicule or redefining them as just plain dumb.

Let's look at another of MADD's new approach:

The beauty of these ads is not just in the writing, but the casting. These guys look like lifelong drunkards, the dumbass who sits next to you at the bar, tells secondhand stories, then leaves you wondering how he's getting home.

(It's a shame they didn't use the URL, drivebackroads.ca, for some additional viral outreach. It's currently parked on godaddy.)

One of the principals behind denormalization is social shaming through satire. While it is embraced by many current social marketing campaigns, the practice is as old as western civilization. From Greek and Roman playwrights and poets, to Jonathan Swift, to The Onion, hilarious and often brutal satire has been a popular tactic for pushing social self-awareness — and ultimately change.

But will it get through the the thick heads of the hardcore drunk drivers? Probably not. But that's not the point.

According to our longtime client and office neighbour, The Traffic Injury Research Foundation, the repeat offenders need to be dealt with in a more scientific way, through well-informed policies and legislation. That's the other aspect of social change. (Think of how workplace smoking bans almost eliminated indoor social smoking in a very short time, after years of social marketing had had little impact on youth.)

The purpose of satire, or denormalization, isn't to make the offenders see the error of their ways. It's intended to emphasize the unacceptability of their behaviour to people who might otherwise be complacent about it. When we all join in to laugh at the buffoon, then the real power of social shaming comes into play. You might even report them, as the call-to-action asks.

Good campaign. I hope MADD keeps up this more sophisticated approach in their social marketing.

The Agency of the Future

2010-01-05T09:03:00.010-05:00

I've been daydreaming lately about what the future of my industry will look like.

Speculation is always laughable when you look back at it, but when you're looking forward it's still fun to imagine: What will the ad agency of 2020 be?

This is particularly interesting to me, because I think the seeds of the new species were planted more than 10 years ago, when stories started circulating about agencies abandoning the office structure for a virtual workplace of cell phones, laptops, and video conferencing. (My boss at the time, Bob Corrall at The Bytown Group, was seriously considering following suit.)

It didn't happen. But I don't think it's because the concept was wrong. Rather, the time was. Technology has a habit of outpacing people's ability to absorb change. People then (and to a large extent, now) still favoured face-to-face meetings over naked text or voice — or even the weird delays and wandering eyes of primitive Internet video conferencing.

Fast-forward to the new, and the fundamentals of the technology haven't changed – only improved. The real revolution has been a cultural one, as older people now cling to their PDAs as they once did to their cigarettes, and younger people live in a world where text messaging someone sitting next to you is not considered odd.

So, why do we still come to the office? Well, telecommuting is steadily rising where permitted. But once again cultural change moves slowly. Business owners like to see their workers at work. And I have to admit that there are some situations — like strategic or creative brainstorming — where you really need human interaction to be efficient.

So my vision of the agency of the future is less office, and more meeting place. It's where teams agree to get together to hash out ideas, and where the ideas get presented to clients. But deskwork? I think it will be for the home office.

And who will do this work? With the decline of massive mainstream media channels, traditional advertising is seen to be failing. I don't believe advertising is dead at all. It just needs to keep up.

For over 50 years, advertising has been driven by massive spending on mass media. The old rule of thumb for ad budgets is 20% for creative and production versus 80% for the media buy. You needed it if you were even going to be seen in primetime.

Well, it's time to think differently. Not only online and social media, but also the million-channel universe, video on demand and timeshifting, have made audiences much harder to find. To borrow a colleague's metaphor for attempted Facebook hookups, it's gone from machine-gunning a message to sharpshooting it.

Sure, there are still media placements to be bought, but they'll be way more targetted and economical — smart online ads and specialty media. What will be needed instead is a big investment in research, strategy, content and a good blend of paid/earned media planning... with maybe 20% left over for actually buying space.

Media departments will change. I see them becoming a hybrid of market research, media planning, and public/media relations. The emphasis will be on defining, finding, and reaching highly-targeted groups, rather than making massive buys. They do the intellectual legwork now. They just need to get paid what it's really worth, since commissions will dry up.

The good news for creatives is that when you have to earn people's attention (rather than buying it) great ideas will still win out. But rather than the old-school Copywriter/Art Director team, I see the next generation of Creatives being more like a sitcom writing team with the ability to design, lay out, and code their own work. Ad schools are already turning out multidisciplinarian graduates. Once we old folk can embrace a blurring of creative and executional roles, the world will be theirs.

I also see these future teams as independent units, maybe even contractors or hired guns. Right now, many teams specialize in specific brands or industries, as do agencies. I see these future teams specializing in target markets, able to speak to them credibly on any subject, and work for any agency or brand. They could be located anywhere, but would have to share a meta-culture with the audience. And agewise, probably a few years older than them so that they are insightful yet self-aware and capable of cultural leadership. (My anecdote on this is always that The Beatles were not technically Baby Boomers, but U2 are.)

Understanding of the brands and industries will be the job of Client Services, as always. But I see them being much more in the role of a Producer in the TV broadcast world, setting the course, lining up the players, performing project management miracles, and internalizing the creative product that they can present it to clients and defend it as their own. (This is a big part of my virtual office, which would mean Client Services people could operate independently in major markets for face-to-face meetings, and deal remotely with far-flung Creative Teams.)

Will this all happen? And when? I have no idea. But things have to change. This isn't all about social media, either. Media come and go, and the ones that work just work. I was reminded of this as I walked to Acart this morning — rather than driving a flying car or being sucked through a pneumatic tube — and saw rows of one of the oldest ad media, hoarding posters, catching my attention the way they always will.

Technology doesn't change us. It just opens up opportunities. It's up to us to take advantages of the right ones — at the right time, and in the right place.

Ten concepts that will be redefined in the Twenteens

2010-01-04T09:17:00.004-05:00

Whether or not it is mathematically accurate, most of us consider 2010 to be the beginning of a new decade. And with such a break, naturally, come speculations as to what the next ten years are going to be all about.

I'm no futurist, but as a writer I'm interested in how words change their meanings over time. And more importantly, how the big ideas behind them catch up with social evolution.

Here are 10 terms that I think will mean something very different during this decade:

Shame

Even people of my generation are amazed at younger people's lack of what we would call "shame". Just yesterday, I was reading about how a brother, whose sister narced him out for keeping beer in his room, got his revenge by posting her "hookup list" on Facebook and tagging all the guys' names.

Sibling rivalry may be as old as the hills, but when you see this list and the reactions to it, you can see that we're dealing with a generation that doesn't blush. They get mad, sure. They get embarrassed. But I don't get the impression that this girl really felt shame at having written this list in the first place.

Is that wrong? Not necessarily. In fact, when these kids are running the world, I can't imagine what kind of sex scandal could unseat a political leader, since everyone will have done everything imaginable and shared it by then.

Old

Speaking of which, I'm getting old. Or at least, I should be. But one great thing about trailing the Baby Boomers is that they keep raising the bar. First 30 was the new 20. Then 40 was the new 30. 50 the new 40. 60 the new 50. Etc.

It's gotten to the point where I'm not really that concerned about turning 40 this year. As older friends and relatives have shown me, I never really need to grow old.

Here

I'd like to thank you, my dedicated reader, for being here. But where is "here"? I'm writing this in my office, and you could literally be anywhere in the world. This is nothing new, since telecommunication has always made some of this possible, but the ease and richness of it make us so much more present in each other's lives than ever before.

Online meetings, online games, online parties... people are getting together in places that don't actually exist. So at what point will we need a new word for "here" that means "no, like actually in the flesh (and actually paying attention rather than Blackberrying)".

Now

I think the concept of "Now" has also changed, and will continue to do so, in certain contexts. When I write an e-mail to an friend, and I ask "what are you doing now?" I might mean this year, or even since 1989. But when I see them on Facebook or Twitter, I see that they're trying to clean cat barf out of their carpet.

The immediacy in personal communication is risible, but in business it's downright infuriating. But I've already covered that one in another post.

Brand

Originally, a brand was an attempt to give human attributes to a company or product. Now it's gone full circle, and corporate branding techniques are being applied to people.

Way back in 2007, Fast Company said "Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."

So if a brand is a person, and a person is a brand, then... ?

Oh, forget it. My head hurts.

Conversation

Are we having a conversation right now? Not really. As far as I know I'm just talking at you (or nobody, for that matter). But we may get into one in the comments thread below.

What's interesting about online ideas exchange isn't just that we can have a little Twitter flamewar in almost real time — it's also that a conversation can play out over hours, days, or even weeks on a thread. And I can have several at a time without being rude.

I've actually caught myself recently stating that I had "had a conversation" with someone at over something important, when in fact we had just messaged each other a few times. Maybe that seems normal to you, but I'm still getting used to it.

Ownership

I was at a social media seminar last year where one participant raised concern about the idea of generating so much content for free: "How do I retain ownership of it, if it's out there for everyone to use as they see fit?"

The idea of ownership is changing — from collaborative authorship on Wikis, to hilarious copyright violations on YouTube.

This obviously bothers some owners of more valuable intellectual capital like U2's Bono, who actually went on record saying that ISPs should use Chinese-style policing of the Internet to stop illegal music sharing.

To some people, this might seem to make sense. But it goes against the ideals of Internet culture, and also seems petty coming from a millionaire rock star.

I'm not saying artists shouldn't have the right to protect, and profit from, their own work. I just don't know how they'll manage in a remixing, sharing online world.

Loyalty

This is more one I'd like to see change, rather than one that necessarily will. But the idea is that as people form more and varied connections with other people, they will stop being such all-or-nothing team players.

What I mean by that is that people will stop labelling themselves "liberal" or "conservative" or whatever, but will instead form loyal connections to the individual people and ideas that suit them best, while at the same time always be ready to change alliances if a person or thing lets them down. Think "cat loyalty" rather than "dog loyalty". I actually think that would make for a smarter, better world.

Responsibility

This is another of those old-school words that often gets misapplied in marketing and life. But I think you will see a new sort of responsibility continue to emerge in the next few years, where people can no longer feign ignorance about the impacts of their behaviours, and companies are answerable for their claims, practices, and supply chains.

At least I hope so.

Ad Agency

We've never really had ad agencies here in Ottawa. Because of the size of the market and the nature of the client base, most of us have evolved from design shops to a more integrated and strategic offering.

There have been times when I regretted not moving to a bigger market with "real" ad agencies, but not anymore. While I'm not ready to proclaim the post-advertising era quite yet, the long death of traditional mainstream media is brutalizing the old media commission model. At the same time, old ways of communicating are eroding as consumers just get their best tips from their extended network.

One of the great things about being at Acart is that we're constantly reinventing ourselves. Because we're always changing, we don't have to fear change.

So what will the Ad Agency of 2020 look like? Tune in for my next installment.

A Very Acart Christmas

2009-12-23T08:51:00.002-05:00

If you're a client or partner of Acart Communications, you probably received our official Christmas e-card.

This is not it:

I wanted to let Change Marketing readers meet some of the people I'm fortunate enough to work with every day. They're a varied group, hailing from the four corners of the world, and they all celebrate the holidays in distinctive ways. But what unites us all is our love of the Christmas season.

I wanted this vid to be as real as possible, so I just brought my camera in on Monday and started walking around the office asking people the first Christmas-related question that popped into my mind. The result is a mosaic of real personalities, from Craig's head shake to Al's homespun tales of childhood in Friuli. A little amateur editing, and it's ready to go.

The cast, in order of appearance are:

Me (Intro)
Cindy, Production Artist (First Acart Xmas)
Mike, Controller (Lots of Xmas Ties)
Kevin, Media Planner/Buyer (Musical Tie)
Marco, Developer (Stocking)
Kate, Developer (Xmas Sweater)
Kerry, Art Director (Carol)
Kevin again
Colin, Production Designer (Xmas in the UK)
Julia, Amanda and Christine, Account Executives (Bestest BFFs)
Craig, Account Supervisor
Lynn, Production Manager (Best Age)
Christopher, Copywriter (Letter to Santa)
Leslie, Designer (First Xmas Memories)
Russel, Proposal Coordinator (Best Xmas Gift)
Sarah, Designer (What The Kids Asked For)
Jason, Manager of Digital Media (I Dunno)
Bernie, Receptionist (Xmas for Teens)
Mimi, Account Executive (Engaged Xmas)
Lara, Account Executive (Xmas on the Beach)
Chris, Senior Accountant (Réveillon)
Nat, Media Planner/Buyer (Xmas in NB)
Josee, Senior Production Artist (Xmas in Mauritius)
Javier, Art Director (Mexican/Belgian Xmas)
John, Senior Creative Director (Meat)
Vernon, Associate Creative Director (Hot Pot)
Linda, Director Finance and Admin. (Someone Else Cooking)
Perry, Art Director (Taking it Easy)
John, VP Client Services (Beverage)
Al, President (Fill Your Boots)
James, PC Tech (True Meaning of Xmas)
Me again
Al again

I didn't get everyone, due to illness, vacation and (to be honest) camera shyness. Some notable absences are Gill (Account Director) and Sue (Director of Consumer Marketing). But you get the idea.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Change Marketing will return on January 4, 2010.

Christmas Spirited

2009-12-21T09:08:00.005-05:00

Christmas is a deeply spiritual time for many. Religious or not, they see it as a time to feel closer to other people — family, friends and strangers — and perhaps even to their chosen deity.

But Christmas has a dark side, which anyone who was in a mall last weekend can see. Anxiety, stress, and depression drive some to commit random acts of rudeness that are truly shocking.

It was in this atmosphere of pre-holiday high feelings that a church in Auckland, New Zealand, decided to weigh in on the true meaning of Christmas with the billboard above.

According to Glynn Cardy, admittedly progressive priest at St Matthew in the City Anglican Church, the ad was intended to “lampoon literalism and invite people to think again about what a miracle is.”

“Progressive Christianity is distinctive in that not only does it articulate a clear view, it is also interested in engaging with those who differ. Its vision is one of robust engagement.”

St. Matthew's is known for its cheeky approach to advertising its mission, from an Easter billboard that said "This billboard will rise again. (Next Easter probably.)" to promoting their podcast sermons as "iGod".

The Christmas ad was designed by M&C Saatchi "with the brief that it had to be sufficiently provocative to keep most other churches from allowing it."

And provoke it did.

From Bob McCoskrie, Director of the group Family First New Zealand:

“The church can have its debate on the Virgin birth and its spiritual significance inside the church building, but to confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary”

From the The Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland, the Right Reverend John Paterson:

“Discussion of theological perspectives and diversity is encouraged in a respectful way, but this approach is insensitive to communities across the Anglican Church as well as other denominations.”

And Lyndsay Freer, Spokeswoman for the Auckland Catholic Diocese:

"Our Christian tradition of 2000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph. Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful." (Mrs. Freer also called the billboard "non-Christian".)

As often happens, unfortunately, in matters of faith, the controversy soon erupted into violence as the ad was painted over, stolen, and slashed by angry Aucklanders. The final assault ended in the arrest of an elderly woman, but St Matthew in the City refused to press charges.

Glynn Cardy remained unapologetic over the incident, though, and was proud of his aspproach:

“No doubt on Christmas Eve when papers print the messages of Church leaders most of them will serve up ‘middle mush’. Jesus will be born in a palatial sanitised barn and every king and crook, religious and irreligious, will be surrounding him saying ‘Merry Christmas my friends!’ No reader will be asked to do or think anything risky, no reader will be offended, and no reader will write a critical response. They’ll just yawn and turn the page.”

Regardless, the church says they ran out of money to replace the billboard yet again, and are concerned that things could get even more out of hand. Cardy added that they'd made their point anyway:

"The topic is ... something the church has talked about for centuries, but what is new is that we have the audacity to laugh at something quite so ridiculous as a male god sending sperm down to impregnate Mary. Obviously we can't keep replacing it and there may come a time when we will have to take it down if the vandalism continues. But by then people would have known about it, laughed at it or even be offended by it and the billboard would have served its purpose."

The final destruction of the Mary and Joseph billboard exposed the church's previous billboard, which advertises something a bit less controversial: A Noah's Ark scene encouraging gay couples to come to church.

The Five Times When You Need to Go Offline

2009-12-18T11:33:00.010-05:00

Yesterday's Blackberry outage was a real panic for some professionals, who have grown to depend on their PDAs as an extension of themselves. But in my opinion these glitches are useful reminders of how much business and life have really changed in the past 10-15 years.

I still remember the boom-boom high tech '90s, when many of my clients were excited by the idea of transforming the way people do business, share, and communicate. Songs like Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" were co-opted by companies like AT&T to express the revolution that was going on. But the classic bit of '90s optimism and foresight was AT&T's 1993 "You Will" campaign:

So here we are in 2009. I'm blogging at you using a late '90s medium, but you may be reading this on a hand-held device in an elevator, a netbook in a coffee shop, on your HD TV, or a laptop on the bus. You can comment on it, share it, even subscribe to it (hint, hint) so you get notified the second I hit "publish post". Awesome, isn't it?

Isn't it?

I love the convenience of our current communication technology. Don't get me wrong. But new opportunities to collaborate and connect have their downsides too. So allow me to present...

The five times when you need to go offline:

1) When multitasking gets just plain rude

I run a lot of meetings, but I hate meetings as much as everyone else. I want them to be organized, focussed, and productive. But somehow, we have allowed it to be okay for people to read e-mails, text message, and instant message while other people are talking. What the hell?

Whether you're a client or a colleague, I can't pretend that I'm not annoyed by this kind of behaviour. I wish that we could post a sign in our boardroom saying "one conversation at a time, please". While you may think you're being efficient by splitting your attention in the meeting to get other things done, it actually slows down everyone else because you are not keeping up. Stop it please. It's as rude as taking a phone call mid-meeting.

2) When project management turns into buck-passing

One of the other problems with our ubiquitous access to e-mail is the temptation to do everything on that medium. In an ordinary conversation, people have to think about what they're saying. But when you receive an e-mail with a problem, it's easier to forward it to someone else to interpret and resolve than to actually participate intellectually in the resolution. Bad.

3) When you end up making a mountain out of an e-mail trail

Many people suck at expressing themselves in writing. e-mail is especially bad because it lacks nuance or the context of tone or body language. It's not an emotive medium, and yet people make the mistake of committing emotions to the permanent record by ranting and raving via e-mail. Big mistake. Especially if many CCs are involved. You may want to "take it back", but it's out there forever.

4) When you contribute to the death of prose

I'm old enough to have had pen pals. I loved writing letters. That probably helped me develop as a writer.

I'm not one of these people who thinks that texting and online jargon are killing the English language. It has to evolve to serve the needs of the day. But what I do find is that fewer and fewer people coming out of university have the ability to organize their thoughts in a format of more than 50 words.

When I put out an open call for entry-level Copywriters a couple of years ago, I insisted on them writing me an original cover letter. The ones I interviewed had to write a 700-word advertorial as a test. I found my worthy candidates, but I also found that many others who wanted to write for a living were incapable of structuring their thoughts, even in an e-mail. Add to that some truly pathetic spelling, grammar, and general sloppiness. Won't someone please think of the next generation of writers?

I agree that e-mail should be written differently than traditional business correspondence. But I also believe that it takes more thought to compose a concise message than a long-winded one. The smaller the screens (and the shorter the attention spans) that your readers have, the more you need to polish your writing style. This, sadly, is not happening. Even among my generation and older.

5) When work follows you everywhere

Everyone needs a break from being on-call. I know. When I was a kid, my uncle was a family doctor. Being accessible all the time can easily burn you out.

And yet people are afraid to disconnect from their work and social networks, even for eating, sleeping and having personal time. This just isn't right.

Because business is competitive, both client and agency people want to outdo each other in being available and responsive. If you don't answer this e-mail or take this call, right freaking NOW, then someone else will. Right?

Call me naive, but I think we need to change this situation. In my line of work, few crises are as immediate as people sometimes make them out to be. It's just that the opportunity for instant communication has created an expectation of immediate action — even on things that could easily have waited until tomorrow to address.

To me, the obsession with connectivity is a combination of novelty, inflated self-importance, and fear. We need to get over all three.

Anyway, if you'd like to comment on this blog, please do so below. I'll respond when I get around to it.

The rumours of marketing's death have been greatly exaggerated

2009-12-17T08:57:00.008-05:00

Social media people seem to take great glee in pronouncing the doom of advertising as we know it. Blogs like Post Advertising are built around the idea, and Guy Kawasaki was grimly checking for advertising's pulse over three years ago.

Today I received the latest obituary from Jason, our digital chief, via socialmediatoday:

2010: The Year Marketing Dies...

But inflammatory headline and "obvious death of mainstream media is obvious" statistics aside, the effing article actually gets around to something I can use:

"Of course, if marketing burns to the ground in 2010, a new and more powerful marketing will rise from the ashes."

Thank you. Not just for telling me that I have a future, but also for giving credit to human nature.

As long as we have somewhat of a market economy, there will be marketing. "Advertising", "Integrated Marketing Communications", "Branding", "Social Media"... call it what you will. If someone has something to sell on a large scale — whether it's goods, services, or ideas — then someone needs to figure out how to reach, inform, and persuade their target audiences.

For that reason, the socialmediatoday article made some good sense. And since they are heralding the new era of interaction, I'll interact with the part I like:

The role of the new marketer:

• Won't be simply to focus on outbound messaging but to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint,

QFT. As consumers become emboldened by their powers of mass communication, they expect their brands to be there with them. The days of one-way advertising are over. Today it's a nonstop, realtime focus group that everyone gets to observe, moderate and attend.

• Won't be merely to imagine creative messages but to fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience,

Not sure about this one. Do consumers always experience products, or do they sometimes really experience brands? When you get into consumer products, I would argue that people are still swayed by status symbols that do not represent true value for money or even decent performance. It's all about membership, and a strong brand can actually shape that identity — especially if a celebrity is involved.

• Won't be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,

This. Things happen too fast for the traditional approach. We see this now with big TV productions, where the need for advance planning and commitment to production details clashes with the need to react to today's headlines. Everything needs to get more agile.

• Won't be to count friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, or viewers but to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent,

This is the big ROI question, and it's one we haven't been able to adequately answer yet. Fortunately, most of our clients are looking for just such attitude and behaviour changes rather than sales. Perhaps that's why we're not as scared as some others. When we can manage expectations honestly, social media works for our clients.

• Won't be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one,

This is the biggest change in the way people consume media. It has become more and more personal. However, I would argue that smart advertisers have always listened to consumers, through market research, and have used their intuitive abilities of empathy and persuasion to create engaging ads. The media may change, but what goes behind the messages stays the same. It's just more immediate, and in some ways more exact. When you see someone starting a 10-member Facebook Group about how much you suck, though, it can also trick you into making a mountain out of a molehill.

• Won't be to build campaigns but relationships,

This has always been the point of branding, even in analogue days.

• Won't be to create impressions but experiences

10 BRANDING
20 GOTO 10

• Won't be buy media but to earn it.

This is the biggest change of all. When I started this blog last spring, one of the first issues I addressed was the idea that social media should "brand, not sell". I still believe that, and have been testifying this gospel to clients at every opportunity.

One of the toughest hurdles we face, with our clients as well as our own processes, is the fuzzy convergence of advertising, PR, and media in the new Internet. When you create a great viral, for example, you are practicing advertising. But your engagement strategy is more like PR or Media Relations (except that you're talking to unpredictable bloggers like me rather than news editors). And then there are ways to buy your way in as well.

But the bottom line is that great insights, and great ideas, are still as influential as ever. The barriers to entry may have been lowered in terms of access to readers and viewers, but the more choices people have to ignore you, the more the power of breakthrough creative remains key.

In other words, "I'm not quite dead yet..."

Jumping on the flu bandwagon

2009-12-15T11:31:00.006-05:00

It seems nobody is above opportunistic marketing to a germ-frightened population.

Clorox and Lysol clearly had a lot to gain from their products' germophobic appeal. From Google Adwords to cheesy commercials, they were right on it:

The biggest concern for consumers, though, is fake flu cures that promise miracles and yet often do more harm than good.

With that in mind, I was a little shocked to see the following ad on my bus yesterday:

(Sorry for the poor quality — I didn't want to use flash in a bus full of commuters. Click for larger versions.)

I understand that faith is a powerful thing, but is it really appropriate for a religious group to promise unscientific medical benefits from prayer? I don't want to sound bigoted, but I think a line has been crossed. IMHO, religious freedom shouldn't allow anyone to sucker the easily-influenced into giving up medical treatment in the name of faith, any more than a free market should allow snake oil salesmen to sell fake "cures" in mainstream ad venues.

I know I run a lot of ads on this blog that offend people. But now I've finally been offended. Good job, Christian Science!

What do you think?

Behind the scenes at the flu shot shoot

2009-12-14T13:07:00.006-05:00

Last Friday, I posted our latest TV campaign for the Public Health Agency of Canada.

For those of you who aren't in the advertising or production world, it would be quite an eye-opener to see what actually goes into making those 30 seconds.

This ad was shot over three separate days in two cities — Ottawa and Montreal. The main reason for this is that Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, is himself extremely busy managing Canada's response to H1N1. So we had to shoot him in his Ottawa office on Saturday morning, just as he was about to catch yet another flight.

A funny 6 degrees of separation thing happened to me at the shoot. The night before, I was talking to my Mom on the phone and mentioned we were shooting Dr. David Butler-Jones. She said, "there can't be two of them — ask him if he ever lived in Kingston." So I did, and it turned out he was a friend of the family when I was just a kid, attending my parents' church and even visiting us at our cottage. Small world.

The balance of the commercial was cast, shot, and produced in Montreal, where the production house SOMA is located. We do a lot of shooting in Montreal because it's handier to Ottawa than Toronto, and its homegrown movie industry means that it's brimming with talent and resources.

Shoot day two was the following Monday, in a house in the north end of Montreal, for the scene between the man and his pregnant wife. This was an important human touch for the ad, since all the other scenes were in a more clinical context. It was also the one where the interplay between the actors was most crucial.

This is why it might be kind of surprising that the husband-wife scene is the only one in which there is a different actor in the French and English versions.

Most of our government ads are silent shoots, since the verbal information is dubbed in voiceover. But this one had actors speaking on camera. Usually, that would require double casting of each speaking role. But Montreal is different. All of our roles but one were filled by fluently bilingual actors. The sole exception was the husband.

See if you can see a difference in the way the actors play the scene together:

Day three was the "clinic" scenes of a doctor's office, and a public immunization clinic, both shot in a vacant office building in downtown Montreal. I wasn't present for this day of shooting, but it looks like the team was getting pretty tired by that point.

Following the actual shoot, the offline edit was done on Wednesday. This is the point at which the commercial actually comes together in recognizable (if rough) form. Acart people are both on-site at the studio, and watching cuts remotely, to approve the edit for client consumption.

Following the offline, new edits had to be made before the commercial went to final colour correction and online (broadcast-ready) approval. We also had to brief a composer for original music, and get every aspect of production approved.

It's great to have this ad on the air in time for the Christmas season, which is a particular concern for public health officials during a pandemic.

Check out more production pics here.

One of our more in-flu-ential campaigns

2009-12-11T10:45:00.012-05:00

While press coverage of the H1N1 pandemic makes it sound as if it has made slow progress so far, with almost 10,000 deaths worldwide the need for personal prevention and public vigilance remains as strong as ever. The holiday season is a particular concern, with people moving all over the country (and all over the world) to spend time in close quarters with loved ones.

Acart has been working with the Public Health Agency of Canada on pandemic advertising plans since before H1N1 hit last spring. Because of the changing nature of the global situation, most of our outreach has been in the more agile media, such as online, radio, and print.

But the need for vaccination was something that could be anticipated far enough in advance to plan a TV shoot. So in November, we filmed these spots in Ottawa and Montreal with Soma and Director Claude Brie.

The result, launched yesterday, was a confident and empathetic — yet urgent — call to action on behalf of Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones (as well as actors portraying a variety of health professionals and everyday people).

Of course, there was also a French version:

Note how all the actors are the same but one.

We're proud to help spread the word about stopping the spread of H1N1. Want to know more about how a commercial like this comes together? Tune in Monday for a "making of" blog post with behind-the-scenes photos, footage and tales from the set.

Stay healthy.

Climate Change Marketing

2009-12-10T12:04:00.006-05:00

You may or may not be aware of Greenpeace's "tck tck tck" international campaign aimed to shame world leaders at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, but if you work in downtown Ottawa you've seen the Harper version.

Here's a close-up:

(Strangely, unlike the other leaders, he doesn't seem to have aged a day.)

I loved this campaign's basic concept of looking back from the future with regret. I think that the anticipation of regret is a great emotional trigger.

If there's anything about this campaign that bugs me a little, it's the simplification of the issue. But that's a challenge with any cause marketing campaign. Scientific and social issues like climate change are complex ones that require a lot of mental work to even try to understand beyond the black-and-white thinking that activists and deniers alike exhibit when trying to rally supporters.

But imagine this ad with the headline:

"I'm sorry. We could have tried to agree to make painful efforts to reduce human-influenced greenhouse gas emissions that are affecting natural cycles of global climate change in measurable (yet ultimately unpredictable) ways, but I had to admit to myself that politics simply don't work like that — especially in this economy — and China won't have any of it anyway."

Of course it doesn't work. tl;dnr. Plus, the climate change deniers must love seeing these outdoor ads surrounded by the leavings of the season's first blizzard. (A completely irrelevant but unfortunate anecdotal position that enters every climate change argument.)

Trying to address complex issues in a way that people can understand is actually very hard. Especially in advertising, which is often described as "though-provoking" but which usually aims at the gut. I have heard and communicated many perspectives on climate change through my corporate responsibility and social marketing work with clients as diverse as Environment Canada, Canadian Urban Transit Association, AECL, CAA and the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute. As I recently said to an ad student, "Everyone wants a better world. The eternal problem is getting them to agree on what that is, and how to get there."

Will this campaign shame the leaders into action? Probably not. But it got Greenpeace some new exposure and got people talking, which is all that any client can really ask for.

Let's keep the conversation going.

Lingua franca

2009-12-08T14:21:00.008-05:00

Most of the work we do at Acart is either for governments, national associations, or regional audiences. So we are very much used to both the rules and the sensitivities around Canada's bilingualism.

For example, with creative copy you never use the word "translate". If a concept is developed in English, then a francophone Copywriter or Creative Director needs to be involved at early stages to ensure that the message can work in a different but equal French language version.

Unlike large consumer clients, ours are either not allowed or can't afford to do unique creative for French and English Canada. So we do our best to go beyond specifics of wordplay and cultural in-jokes to reach more universal Canadian touchpoints.

It's not ideal, but at least we try. And after all these years of trying to reconcile the two solitudes in advertising, it was a little shocking to see the Government of Quebec dismissing other French Canadians.

This was in today's Globe and Mail:

French-speaking residents of Ontario said they were insulted and angry when they received English-only advertising brochures promoting snowmobiling in Quebec. The brochures, sent to 145,000 households in Ontario, vaunt Quebec's snowy trails as "A Ride Worth the Drive."

Some francophones in Ontario, home to the largest community of French Canadians outside Quebec, say they would rather stay home instead.

They said they were incredulous that the government of a province whose official language is French would mail out English-only advertising to the more than half-million francophones who live next door.

"What were they thinking?" asked Mariette Carrier-Fraser, president of the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario. "We would have thought that a province that's a majority francophone would want to maintain links with other francophones in the country."

What were they thinking indeed? This little language flap gives an interesting insight into Canadian language politics, and one which I'm sure is familiar to my Franco Ontarian friends and neighbours.

Everyone's told and re-told stories of French Canadians getting a hard time in France, but I grew up also hearing stories of Les Ontariens who were as French as toast being berated and snubbed for their dialect when they wandered too far away from the other side of the Ottawa River. I've witnessed situations where a Quebecker "corrected" the French of an Ontario francophone — to their face.

On the other side, during the last referendum I still recall a spokesperson for Maritime Acadians talking about what a raw deal Quebec separation would be for them, but that Quebec didn't care about francophone communities in the rest of Canada.

The CBC coverage quoted Tourisme Québec citing "budgetary constraints" as the reason for the snub:

"We made the choice to produce this ad campaign for markets in New England and Ontario, where the majority of people are anglophone," said Michel-André Roy, communications director for the Ministry of Tourism in Quebec.

If this is a common attitude, then it's sad. Since the Trudeau years, Canada has made bilingualism a national agenda. Not everyone has been happy with it, but regardless the Federal Government and many national advertisers have been ignoring the kind of "budgetary constraint" that Tourisme Québec finds so important, instead going along with laws and programs that support minority language rights on the national stage.

Again from the Globe:

Jean-Marie Leduc, a retired federal civil servant, complained to the Quebec government after he received the English-only pamphlets last week.

"I get advertising in French from Canadian Tire and Loblaws, why can't the Quebec government do the same thing?" Mr. Leduc asked in an interview from his home in Ottawa. "They're not respecting my language."

"This is an insult. To not recognize there are francophones outside Quebec is just an insult," Mr. Leduc said.

I'd love to hear from francophone readers — Quebec and otherwise — about their thoughts on this issue. Are Quebec's fights for language rights only for Quebeckers? Has it all really been about protecting the culture of an island of French in a sea of English — or myopic nationalism?

Dirty minds...?

2009-12-04T06:50:00.009-05:00

Did you see the "shiny suds" ad? It was pretty effective at both telling consumers something they didn't know, and going full viral on YouTube.

But according to AdAge, for a few viewers the image of scrubbing bubbles leering at the showering women wasn't really about chemical residue, but something even nastier:

"Little did attendees at the ANA [Association of National Advertisers conference] or most commenters on YouTube and Twitter know, however, that the Shiny Suds were really about degrading women and promoting rape, at least in the opinion of commenters on one blog, Shakesville, which posted the video in its "Today in Rape Culture" section."

Here's one of them:

"I have issues with being seen naked. I even have to turn over books or magazines that have pictures of people looking out on them when I'm undressed because I feel like they are staring at me. So, reading the transcript for that last commercial? Freaks me the fuck out. My skin starts crawling again even thinking about it."

In response to "the sensitive nature of [concerned viewers'] concerns", the advertiser, Method home care and personal care products pulled the official online placement of the ad. But, of course, copies live on forever.

So, what do you think? In my opinion, there was no ill intent in the spot. It fit within Method's cheeky brand, which speaks to "people against dirty", and the perverted bubbles were obviously meant to make people think about the nasty stuff they share their showers with — after using mainstream competitors' cleaning products. It's over the top, for sure, and the woman does look victimized. But this is cause marketing (in support of the Household Product Labeling Act of 2009) — and while self-serving for Method, touches on an important issue of home health.

Maybe the lesson here for advertisers is just to realize that everything out there will be deconstructed to the Nth degree. The shakespearessister online community's reaction to this ad was oddly paralleled by a post on Brand Freak where a poorly-executed Swiss Chalet Xmas commercial that concluded: "The girl seems depressed, and it's heart-wrenching to contemplate what kept them apart so long and why they're so tentative around each other. Did he molest her? Was it divorce? Did the mother die? This is a lot to consider in a 30-second ad."

Some ads just bring out people's inner demons, I guess. But this is a lot to consider in a Friday blog.

"Legalize it... and I will advertise it"

2009-12-03T09:12:00.008-05:00

Back in the '70s, when Peter Tosh wrote that lyric, it was literally a pipe dream. But today, as the medical benefits of marijuana for cancer and other patients are becoming increasingly recognized by authorities, ads for legal pot are actually starting to appear.

In Colorado, for example, KUNC reports that ads for medical marijuana clinics are elevating the mood of a struggling advertising and media industry:

"Colorado voters approved the use of marijuana in 2000 for debilitating medical conditions such as HIV/AIDS and cancer. The industry is now blooming with more than 14,000 people statewide approved to use the drug, and that's a 70 percent jump from last year...

Colorado's booming medical marijuana industry is doing more than just benefiting dispensaries that sell the drug for a profit. Some media outlets hit hard by the recession are cashing in on the so called gold rush, collecting thousands of dollars in advertising. Others are taking a wait and see approach to the somewhat controversial revenue stream."

However, the article also quotes a legal expert who states that pot advertisers are still in danger from prosecution because they are breaking federal law.

In Sacramento, California, apparently advertisers are getting around this problem by using vague copy:

"There's no need to suffer in silence, Canna Care is here to help...If you're coping with chronic pain, arthritis, nausea, glaucoma or side effects from chemo, there are reliable alternatives."

Of course, this is just mainstream media. Online communities like "vendormaps.com" actively promotes itself as "a place where medical marijuana vendors and medical marijuana co-ops can legally connect to exchange overgrow."

Then again, there was a time when today's illegal drugs were common medications:

I'm curious to know if anyone can find me an example of a modern Canadian ad. I'm doubtful, though. Medical marijuana here has been mostly decriminalized since 2000, but the dope itself seems to be sold either quietly by the government or through speakeasy "compassion clubs". I doubt either of these sources is eager to advertise.

"Yellowtail: For when your mother-in-law drives you to drink"

2009-12-02T11:30:00.005-05:00

Saw this billboard on my way to work yesterday, just around the corner from Acart. At first, it gave me a snicker (even though I unstereotypically like my in-laws) but then my inner adman kicked in and asked "can they do that?"

Don't get me wrong. I'm an unapologetic social drinker, and I would like to see Canadian society have less bipolar attitudes about alcohol. But I also do corporate social responsibility work for clients in the intoxicant industry, and I know the rules:

Specific brands or types of alcohol can be promoted, but not drinking in general. Advertisements cannot imply that drinking is important for social or business success, athletic prowess, sexuality or sexual opportunity, having fun or achieving a goal. Drinking cannot solve problems. Alcohol advertising must not appeal to people under the drinking age or be placed in media that are targeted at them. Songs that attract minors are not allowed and well-known personalities that appeal to young people are prohibited unless the person is not promoted in the advertisement. Alcohol advertising cannot associate drinking with any activity involving care, skill or physical danger. Links between alcohol and driving motor vehicles or playing some sports fall within this regulation. Finally, advertising cannot suggest illegal activity involving alcohol.

Now, maybe I watch too much old TV, but I'm pretty sure that half of the intent of this ad was to joke about how one's inlaws saty for the holidays can drive one to drink. (The other half being how their leaving is a celebratory occasion.)

Hopefully other people, less beaten down by super-sensitive advertising regulations and policies, will not overthink it this way — they'll just smile knowingly and perhaps remember to stock up. And even if some hall monitor does lodge a complaint, the advertiser can always make a "who me?" face and say that the ad is really saying "Yellowtail is great for entertaining family over the holidays, and great for sipping when it's just the two of you".

But I'm on to you, Yellowtail. Don't worry, though — it's not something a case of Pinot Noir couldn't fix ;)

Mo Bro No Mo

2009-12-01T09:05:00.013-05:00

It's been a good month. Thanks to generous donations from friends and family, my moustache and I were able to raise $437.24 for Prostate Cancer Canada as part of Movember.

Along with me, Mike, James and Christopher sported dashing 'staches for the month.

Moustaches have a long and proud history at Acart Communications. For most of the company's history, Al Albania's Italian classic was as much a part of our brand as the Pegasus. (He shaved it last year, just for a change.)

Today, facial hair still abounds across the generations, championed by our bearded VP Client Serices, John Westbrook, and our moustached Senior Creative Director, John Staresinic.

But it's just not me. I had fun, to be sure, rocking the 'stache around town and seeing how people reacted differently to me. Teenagers were more likely to call me "sir". Store clerks treated me with a little more deference. My neighbours in Vanier treated me like one of their own. I even got some bona fide compliments from a few men and women alike.

But enough's enough. I promised my wife the whiskers would go, so off they went early this morning.

There are more pics at my MoSpace page: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/348858

Thanks to all my supporters from Canada, as well as the United States, Spain and Australia: Marylil Megginson (you can always count on Mom!), Mary Jo Megginson, Lyle Fairfield, Jill Relyea, Rachel Playfair, Paul Notman, Bonnie Robinson, Raf Khan, Paul Megginson, Doug Robinson, Jason Hamilton, Kerry Cavlovic, Chantal Vallerand, David Megginson, Luther Caverly, Richard Lefroy, Ann Lefroy, Art Brion, Mary Beth Wolicky, Daryn Wantuck, Tim Wantuck, Meeta Chawla and Jesse Perrin.

And a big Mo Bro shout out to the competition at McMillan, where their 13-man "Stachinistas" team cranked out $2,660 in donations.

When we gang up to kick cancer's ass, everyone wins.

"What does a Creative Director do?"

2009-11-27T10:48:00.007-05:00

A few months ago, I was getting ready for a meeting while an A/V guy was setting up our new system. We got to chatting, and immediately recognized each other as fellow smartasses. He was asking me about my job, and it came down to "so you just sit around and tell everyone else what to do, eh?"

Turned out he had to keep working through our meeting, which was a large creative brainstorm on a new brand for a government program. I ran the meeting, solicited ideas, gave direction, pushed people for more thought, and bent, spindled and mutilated the results until we had three strong conceptual approaches.

The meeting ended and I asked the guy, "now do you get what I do?" He did.

I know there are a lot of advertising students reading this blog now, so this post is for them. I get a lot of people calling me and telling me they're interested in Creative Direction. I often get the impression that they think it's just like this:

Besides the fact that there's a lot less smoking, infidelity and on-the-job drinking in the real world than on TV (well, less smoking and infidelity anyway...) Creative Direction in a 45-person Ottawa agency bears little resemblance to the glamour of the golden age.

So, for all those keeners who have asked me what being a CD is like, here are my "to do" lists from this week:

Monday

- Studio Managers' meeting: planning for the week's expected workload. By noon, everything will have been changed, delayed or have had its deadlines greatly accelerated.
- TV concept presentation to federal clients.
- Brief on client Xmas e-card.
- Blog about our foster parenting campaign

Tuesday

- Internal meeting on new transit campaign.
- Prepare pitch materials on another campaign.
- Review updated banner ads.
- Meet again on Xmas card.
- Write partnership prospecting letter for client.
- Secure freelance francophone Creative partner for another project.
- Review brochure copy.
- Review super treatment for TV ad.
- Review more banner revisions.
- Review voices for TV voiceover re-record.
- Blog about Facebook ads.

Wednesday

- Get interviewed by Ryerson Student Radio on Social Marketing
- Brief on new social media opportunity
- Re-present TV concepts to federal clients' boss. Major changes required.
- Direct voiceover re-record for another TV ad, over-the-phone, to Montreal studio

.
Thursday

- Provide last-minute creative direction for Xmas card
- Check in with French creative partner
- Drive to Kingston for campaign wrap-up-lunch with St. Lawrence College (note: if you're ever in Kingston, I highly recommend Chez Piggy.)
- Drive back to Ottawa.
- Deal with several major crises that developed while I was away.
- Review and approve new voiceover for one TV offline, and new music for that one and another.
- Overnight: review and rewrite presentation for Friday pitch.

Friday

- Review, direct French creative.
- Direct English adaptation of same.
- Develop social media plan for new prospect.
- Finalize pitch deck.
- Blog about this. (How meta!)
- Rehearse pitch.
- Do pitch.
- Present new French creative (and English adaptation) to client.
- Present Xmas card to client.
- Go home for pizza & wine with the fam.

I've barely touched on evening and weekend work, or the fact that last week included four 12-hour TV shoot and post-production days in Montreal.

So, my keen young CD wannabes, I present to you the awesome reality of the job:

By the way, the moustache will be gone by next Tuesday. So if you want to help me kick cancer's ass, please donate to my Movember page at http://ca.movember.com/mospace/348858

Messing with social ads

2009-11-24T11:00:00.004-05:00

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Facebook hijacking personal photos for their ads. Wasn't that big a deal to me, because it's just a matter of updating privacy settings. That's the least of my problems with social advertising.

I'm not a big fan of most of the social ads I get on Facebook. They tend to be rather stupid. But what really bothers me is what it says about how I'm being profiled.

For example, I don't post a lot of demographic information, but my profile does say that I am married. And yet it seems to get me more "singles" ads:

And then there's my age, which isn't public info but is (I assume) read by the advertising apps. So I get this:

I just hope it wasn't targeting using using biometrics :(

And then there's the content of my posts, often about the advertising industry. Which generated this unintentionally hilarious ad:

But, as an adman, I just hate being pidgeonholed by my own people. That's why I've set out to mess with Facebook ads in any way possible.

The first thing I did was become a fan of a bunch of random things, in a number of foreign languages. But all that got me was a bunch of travel ads.

So now what I'm doing is using the "feedback" function on social ads. If you click the little "X" at the top right of an ad, it asks you why you want to baleet it:

- Misleading
- Offensive
- Uninteresting
- Irrelevant
- Repetitive
- Other

"Annoying", "Trollicious" and "Makes me feel like a creepy old man" are not on the list, but you have the option to add those in.

So, I've started marking up every Facebook ad I hate. Online games, get-rich-quick schemes, fad diets, anything I think is stupid.

And what did it get me?

I give up.

Foster Rollout

2009-11-23T12:28:00.010-05:00

Last Friday, National Child Day, Children's Aid Societies across Eastern Ontario launched their new foster family recruitment campaign.

Conceived and produced by your favourite Change Marketeers here at Acart, "Winning Kids" includes a TV PSA/Web video series, posters, and print and internet ads.

Those of you who follow the blog have already had a sneak peek at the videos, but fairweather friends can see them here (click through to YouTube and follow the playlist):

What you may not have seen yet is the print part. Here it is:

The ads were all presented at a gala launch in the Museum of Nature. I was gutted that I couldn't be there, but according to other team members who attended, it was a moving sight. Apparently the ads had some people in tears (in the good way).

The one that hits me where I live, though, is this one:

When we were brainstorming the campaign, we wanted everything to look user-generated. So to give the client an idea of the snapshot-style photos we were envisioning, we raided our own Facebook pages for family and friend photos.

All of the ads were professionally re-shot with volunteer models except this last one. That's my own son, on a Saturday fishing trip to neighbouring New Edinburgh last spring. Nobody could figure out how to re-create the scenario believably, so we just made due with my 5 megapix personal shots. (It was strictly catch-and-release, BTW.)

Thanks to Chris at Photolux Studio for a great job. And thanks to our team and all the volunteers.

I'll blog the rest of the campaign later this week.

The Ultimate Creative Director Shirt

2009-11-18T07:16:00.014-05:00

Not everyone knows this about me, but I actually started my career writing some fashion. I was never really in the industry, but when I used to spend time in Milan and was looking for freelance opportunities, it was only natural.

So, with that in mind, I present Change Marketing: Fashion Edition.

This is my favourite shirt, made by Icebreaker of New Zealand. What's that, you ask? Check out their pitch:

Your Icebreaker garments can be worn solo or layered with other Icebreaker pure merino pieces to create a fine, breathable system that moves effortlessly between the mountains and the city, or wherever your travels lead you

We’ve translated this miracle all-weather fibre into a clothing system that gives people the same freedom to push their limits in the outdoors.

Icebreaker merino forms a buffer zone around your body, keeping you at an ideal temperature in all climates and conditions. It’s also lightweight, odour- resistant and soft against the skin – all qualities that will help you to perform at your peak.

These clothes are seriously addictive. My cousin John, an avid adventure racer, has worn Icebeaker over mountains and through deserts around the world. Julia, my wife, finds it stands up to the rigours of teaching primary public school.

In my world, I have come to love this shirt because:

- It is the optimal non-colour for a modern Creative pro: black
- It never fades (I bought it last March)
- No ironing
- Feels great
- Looks sharp

Yesterday, however, I gave my Icebreaker polo its harshest workout yet. Sure, they've been to the top of Everest and back, but can one of these merino miracle shirts stand up to a 12-hour TV shoot at an 80-year-old steel mill? Let's see.

Agency Call, 5:30 a.m. at the Mariott in downtown Montreal. Out of the bag and fresh as a daisy, as always. (The shirt was ready to go as well...)

BTW, the moustache is a temporary feature for Movember. Hit my donation page at http://ca.movember.com/mospace/348858 to find out more.

6:30 a.m., Les Forges Sorel. We get our security briefing, and get our safety gear. My black shirt, jeans and boots pass the test for toughness and fire/melt resistance. Plus, it looks cool with the orange flameproof coats.

First shoot was an exterior. Beautiful day, but it was about -10 degrees. Everyone around me was freaking out about the cold, but the combo of a windproof shell and a wool base layer was pretty effective. They all thought I was crazy, but only my bare hands got really cold.

By mid-morning, we were ready to shoot inside, near the actual forge. White-hot metal and sparks all around us. But once again, I was quite comfy in my breathable base.

Here is our Director, Jacques, and some of the team having lunch. They feed you non-stop at a shoot, and by the end of the day everyone is wearing coffee and grease stains. But you'd never know with the black Icebreaker polo. Black wool hides many, many sins.

I wish my eyes, ears, nose and throat were as rugged as this shirt. The smoke and dust of the ancient industrial site have been harder on my lungs than Don Draper pitching American Tobacco. (*hack, hack, hack*) The shirt didn't show the slightest bit of soot.

This steel mill began life as an arms factory in WWII, making barrels for heavy artillery. By mid-afternoon, we were shooting in the millwright shop, where some of the machines seemed to be original equipment.

They sure don't make 'em like they used to... except for this shirt. After 8 months of weekly wear, it still looks like new. But if I ever do get sick of it, Icebreaker recommends burying it in the garden - merino wool is both renewable and biodegradable.

All shoots have unexpected stresses, and this one was no exception. At this point, we were all tired, and the actors were having a hard time nailing the scene. But in cases like this, you can't let 'em see you sweat, and I was as cool and dry as bactrian camel in the Icebreaker.

Just an idea of the environment I was working in. Evening shift at the blast furnaces, and the shirt is still bringing it. I wish I was made of merino.

11 p.m., back in Montreal. About 3 pints into the day one wrap party. Note my glassy eyes, haggard appearance, and absolutely immaculate shirt. I could have slept in this sucker, but I needed to rid myself of the smell of burning steel.

Hell, I could've just kept rocking the black Icebreaker for the entire week. But there's no need. I also have this shirt in brown and blue.

Foster a new perception

2009-11-13T09:04:00.006-05:00

Next week, the Children's Aid Societies of Eastern Ontario will launch their latest "Winning Kids" campaign. But to get the ball rolling, they're allowing me to give Change Marketing readers a sneak peek:

We've been working with CAS since last June, and shot these over the summer. It was a very different kind of campaign for us: shoestring budget, volunteer actors, and generous partners working at or below cost.

The overall objective was to raise awareness about the need for foster parents, but CAS also wanted to change perceptions about foster families from the idea of "rescuing" kids to one of shared, mutually-rewarding experience. Our whole approach, and one that helped us secure the contract, was to make the campaign feel "real". But there was one problem: we can't show real foster kids. Their privacy is sacrosanct.

So instead, we adopted "user-generated" as a style, creating 30 second PSAs that look like home movies. We were honest about it, with clear branding of the campaign, but at the same time we were able to make our low production values work. In other words, we OWNED it.

I realize that there are both good and bad news stories out there about foster parenting, but our choice to accentuate the positive is true to the types of stories I've seen and heard among foster families I've known personally.

And the need for new fosters is definitely there. Currently, 1,100 foster families in Eastern Ontario open their doors to some of the 3,200 children and youth in care. As of last year, more than 29,000 children and youth in Ontario were victims of abuse or neglect — many of whom are in need of new homes.

We felt strongly about getting this message out, and so did everyone involved. It's an honour to work with CAS. Thanks to all our volunteers, and to everyone at Acart, GAPC, and Photolux who gave so generously of their time.

And thanks to the Ladman who — although not a foster child — provided inspiration for the gentle spirit of the campaign. You'll see more of him when we reveal the print ads next week:

Please share.

Thinking of you

2009-11-11T10:32:00.002-05:00

Today's the day that we stop for a minute to forget deadlines and office politics, and think about something real. So we step out of our comfortable cublicles and living rooms to remind ourselves that war is not a movie, a video game, or even a memory. It is about real soldiers killing each other, real civilians dying, and real families left behind — generation after generation.

There are several things you can do to help:

Join the conversation at Canada Remembers on Facebook

Help children affected by war at War Child

Find out what you can do for our military people at Canadian Forces Personnel and Family Support Services

And to those who have served, thank you.

A better man than I

2009-11-10T08:55:00.009-05:00

Yesterday, I just happened to catch wind of Mike Lush' 3rd Annual 320 km Rideau Trail end to end hike to end cancer on a friend's Facebook page.

Wow. In his own words:

All set to go, mid-October and this year I'm more motivated than ever !!! This horrid disease just took my Mom after a short battle on September 4th. 2 out of 3 of us can expect a cancer diagnosis sometime during our lifetime so you now have a far greater chance of getting this disease than not. So for the sake of yourself, your friends and family support the fight in any way you can.....remember, if you don't help fight this disease....who will?

So here I am, growing whiskers and wearing bras to work to support cancer awareness and research, and this guy's out there slogging it up the Rideau Trail.

Only 90 kms. to go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cold/flu waining......left leg, just a mild nuisance...all is well.

I can't believe this has been going on for three years without me noticing it. Mike's odyssey is very close to my heart for several reasons:

• I lost three grandparents to cancer (two far too young, one who gave thyroid cancer a damn good fight to almost 100!);
• I grew up on the portion of the trail just south of the Little Cataraqui Conservation Area, in Kingston, on which my Dad was among the volunteers who cut the paths through the woods where I take Ladman salamander hunting even today; and
• I love hiking (although I'm just a day tripper).

So, Mike, my moustache and my bra salute you.

Mike's almost done his trek, but you can still sponsor his 3rd Annual 320 km Rideau Trail end to end hike to end cancer at http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/Mike_Lush and follow his progress on his Facebook Group or Blog.

Is this really the city that fun forgot?

2009-11-09T11:13:00.011-05:00

Recently, I've been seeing lots of transit ads for an interesting new user-generated content site: "picture it. downtown."

My first thought was that this is a great idea for helping define Ottawa's brand. Let's celebrate the people who are trying to make urban Ottawa just a little cooler.

Having lived in Ottawa for since 1995, I've always been frustrated by our lack of self-confidence as a city. We allow ourselves to be perceived as a cold, grey, bureaucratic wastelend — "the city that fun forgot".

When outsiders say "Ottawa", they really mean "Government". Just look at today's headlines:

Ottawa's mind closed on carbon (Toronto Star)

Native tribe will petition Ottawa to remove its Indian status (Globe and Mail)

Anyone who knows our city's history, or who has visited the Bytown Museum, knows that we have not always been seen this way. In the days before we were the capital (or even "Ottawa"), Bytown was known as the roughest town in British North America — home to thugs, hookers, and corrupt leaders who could put contemporary New York's Five Points neighbourhood to shame.

So, what happened? How did we become so boring?

Ottawa certainly has lots of life in its core. The Byward Market is a great place to hang out, day or night. We have a fun and exciting independent film community (did you know that pornstar Sasha Grey was in town for a "safe for work" shoot?). We have edgy artists and laid-back galleries. We are a centre of excellence for animation. We have a good music scene. Saucy happenings. A unique ad industry. We even have a few world-class cultural institutions — or so I've heard.

So, as you can imagine, I saw this "picture it" contest and eagerly Googled it in the hopes that Ottawa downtowners were finally going to let the world know how many interesting people, places and scenes this city has in its core.

Or so I thought. Despite the contest's tagline "Grab a friend. Go downtown. "Snap a picture. Share it." the vast majority of pictures I've seen on their online showcase lack something very important: people.

I see pictures of nature, of architecture, of objects. And very few of the people and who bring this city to life. Where's the Parking Angel? Weird paranoid bike guy? The Shawarma Nazi? Digeridude? Last call at the Elgin St. Diner?

If I were to go on the user-generated picture on that site, I would get the impression that Ottawa is a cold, empty place, halfway between museum and nature preserve. And that makes me sad, because that's not the downtown Ottawa I've lived and worked in for 14 years.

But I'm not bashing the contest — or 76 Design, who put together a nice site. It's still a great idea, and user-generated content just is what it is. But I'm going to submit some better pictures to that site. I hope you will too.

Oh, and for those of you following Movember, the 'stache is coming in nicely. Visit my page at ca.movember.com/mospace/348858 to watch it grow and/or donate to end prostate cancer.