Passion for Education

Live and Learn

I was a terrible student in high school. I got by with very little effort. I was bored and didn’t concentrate. By grade 12, I started skipping classes. No surprise, my marks went down.

Then I found my passion for media and marketing. I scored my first gig in the first semester of my second year in college.

Grind and Grow

I have spent twenty-six years climbing a steep hill and taking on new challenges has been a way of life. The route hasn’t always been smooth but I can’t imagine not getting up every day to learn and apply new ideas to my company and help my clients.

I have a colleague who has been running her own production and interactive company with her business partner for seven years. They are doing well. She has worked tirelessly every day for the past twenty years to make it happen. She is a teacher and a student of her industry and learns new things all the time.

School is For Life

It doesn’t matter if you run a software company, a classroom, a production facility or a marketing firm, you must continue to learn. Going to school or taking an online course is a good idea but it’s more than that these days. Education only helps if the information sticks and it will only stick if you are passionate about it.

My best friend started a consulting company in the mid-80s with a business partner and one desktop computer. When the company sold twenty years later, there were almost 50 employees and they were top of their industry. He then launched his next company and they are doing well. He never stops learning.

Teach and Learn

Two or three generations ago, you would go to school and get a job and climb the corporate ladder and perhaps stay with the same company for your entire career. Today, we are not only changing companies to match our skill set or ambition but changing careers is commonplace as well.

Another good friend has been a high school teacher for twenty-seven years. In his current role, he prepares elite athletes with the necessary education to get into post secondary schools while they juggle a busy schedule in their sport discipline. He is not just a teacher; he is a student as well.

Lead and Share

Many CEOs enjoy seven figure salaries and seemingly endless perks but without passion, the experience for those around them can become quite empty.

Whether you run a music store or build rocket ships, if you can find enjoyment in what you do, you will spend a lifetime honing your trade and learning how to do it better. That is education. That is passion.

The Adage Rings True

If you love what you do, you have just gained five days of time each week. And if an hour feels like five minutes, you’re on the right route and educating yourself is nonstop.

Now the guy who skated through high school helps managers and business owners - who want to learn - how to build better companies through strategy, marketing and social media.

His education and passion continues. How about yours?

knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

photo credit: suretybonds

Size Doesn’t Matter

The chatter over Super Bowl commercials today is deafening. It has become a marketing campaign on to itself. There were good spots, bad spots, okay spots and horrible spots. It was like every other day on television.

Feel free to watch again if you want - click here.

Cost is Irrelevant

The size of your budget has nothing to do with the strength of your message. In fact, one could argue that some rely on big budgets to rest bad ideas in hopes they will become good.

ROI

Even if you had no experience in advertising, production, writing, creative, or marketing, you can still waste $2+ Million on a Super Bowl ad placement. That’s the easy part.

Eye on the Prize

The difficult part is to create recall, action and move consumers to actually purchase what you’re shilling once the confetti has landed.

Whether you have a dollar or several million, if the idea sucks – the idea sucks. Conversely, well crafted sharp campaigns that deliver results don't necessarily break the bank.

It's Not How You Play The Game

Super Bowl XLIII was a pretty good game. It appeared that Arizona woke up just at the right time and had a chance to steal it until Ben’s big rush to seal the victory with seconds to go.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are Champions. Time will quickly tell how many advertisers can make the same claim.

km

Marketing: Time To Change Our Ways

I’ve been chatting with some ad agency colleagues lately and it’s been an eye-opening experience. It's tough for a lot of them. But others are angry because of news reports are causing more fear. No one has their head in the sand, but the negative news certainly isn't helping.

There are plenty of clients who still want to promote and market their goods and services. Clients are more cautious but slashing marketing and promotional budgets is the wrong tact. It is tough ‘out there’ but if you focus on that, you will get what you wish.

We need to cut costs
If you replaced the word “marketing” with “coffee cups” how long would Starbucks or Tim Horton’s stay in business? If you replaced the word “promotion” with “steering wheel” how long would you be able to keep your car on the road? If you want to see your company decline, stop telling people you have a company.

Where’s the map?
Imagine you are driving in a snow storm. It’s 3am and the gas meter has been on empty for the last fifteen minutes. You are lost. All you see is the odd light on the side of the road, no signs to indicate what is there. How many gas stations could you possibly drive by without knowing it? And how long will that gas station stay in business without a sign out front?

It worked yesterday
Years ago I worked with a guy in radio who didn’t see the need for us to tell people the name of the station. I’m serious! He said: “Everyone knows who we are.” Really? He saw little need to do marketing or outside promotion because the brand was that strong. No brand, product, or service is immune to softening markets or competition. No company has survived on their past successes.

The community is much too fickle.

Spam scam and scram
It gives none of us solace to watch major household brands crack under the pressure. But the companies that will continue to thrive – yes thrive – will sharpen their proverbial pencils and find out how they will do it. Those “hows” include: more targeted marketing, paying attention to the marketplace and needs of consumers, customers, audience, community, and staying aware of all technology available to them. And most importantly – have something worthwhile that others want to buy or use!

The best marketing campaign in the world, conceived by the brightest in the field will have a very difficult time convincing people to buy-in if the product or service fails to deliver on its promise.

Now what?
One agency veep told me last week that their goal for next year is to increase their client base by 20% and billing by 30% by “offering clients a soft place to land”. His plan is to give fearful business owners realistic solutions to their marketing and promotion issues rather jamming people in to the same old tired ideas. He said: "The lemmings and laggards can stayed scared while I build my business."

The U.S. auto industry is teetering. GM, Ford and Chrysler have been doing things the same way for far too long. If you are unwilling to be nimble and change with your environment, you can expect diminishing results. No mandated production levels will increase consumer demand no matter how much you want it.

What’s in it for we?
Of course I have a vested interest in all this – I am a producer. But I am also a marketer, a writer, a creative guy and I enjoy when something well-made is well-marketed and sees a healthy profit.

What are your thoughts?

km

The Plot Is In The Story

In a world of content, product placement, infomercials, advertorials, and other integrated models,
perhaps it's time to get back to simply telling stories.

Every year, one of the big stories surrounding the Super Bowl is how much it costs to buy a 30 commercial during the game. Last year, the price was $2.7 Million. Think about that. Think about your company. Can you or your company afford over two and a half million dollars for a 30-second event? That doesn’t include production costs so lob a few extra bucks on the tab.

Glorida Goodale writes in a recent blog post that we need to “forget product placement – that's so 20th century. Even product integration is passé. Advertisers these days want to do far more than just place BMWs, Manolo Blahnik shoes, and other luxury items within reach of favorite TV and movie characters. They want to create entire worlds of consumption.”

You may remember receiving a copy of the “banned” 90 second X-Box commercial a few years ago. I received it seven times in a two day period. It was shocking how broadcasters had refused to air this and the community seemed outraged. They were so outraged that the “banned” commercial was shared amongst millions of people. These people watched the “banned” commercial on their computers and portable devices instead of their television screens.

How dare those broadcasters ban such a thing and we all rallied around the floundering Seattle software firm to “fight the man”. It was not a staged or calculated event, nah.

YouTube is consistently in the top five most visited websites on the face of the earth. This space is jammed with material that doesn’t see the traditional light of day. Shocking.

BMW has been the sole underwriter of one of the most wonderful visits in cyberspace – TED.com – and they do it through wickedly cool visuals (not “commercials”) that compliment the content, not interrupt it.

Goodale talks about product plots – another concept that has been going on for years but only now starting to gain traction amongst content providers, producers and companies like BMW, TED, and Microsoft.

What’s important is you must have a story before you dive in the deep end of storytelling. This is not about plunking your product into some backdrop and calling it a plot. Go back to making commercials or another traditional concept route until you can utilize this wonderful integrated option.

Goodale cites this as; “the heady days of brand integration and immersive commercial environments.”

When you are embracing what seems like a new idea, you can’t expect everyone to nod their heads and join in. But that is not enough of a reason to stop.

Mass traditional media has its place and there is audience for it. But we are building swiftly, evolving rapidly, consuming wildly, and multi-platforming constantly. And this is not a specific demographic issue.

Anyone toiling in content generation, marketing, production, advertising or promotion who thinks the “we’ll be right back after this” model will not continue to erode should be prepared to one day utter the phrase;

“What happened!?!”

km