The Battle for Your Social Screen

Interesting that Twitter launched its Verified Accounts just one day before the start of the Facebook Username bonanza that's set to erupt tonight at midnight EST.

As Facebook moves more and more into the realms of both MySpace and Twitter it seems to be slowly losing relevance. Evolution in the social platforms is necessary to staying exciting and innovative, but it also risks making them overcluttered and obnoxious. That was the opposite of Facebook's appeal in the first place. It was about enhancing your real-life connections and making them easily available anywhere, at any moment. So why usernames? Hm. Good question.

I'm not calling Facebook dead by a long shot. If I were Zuckerberg I'd double check its life insurance policy.

Talking the Talk = Talking Out Your Ass

[Disclaimer: Views expressed here are just my own and absolutely no one else's, including my employer.]

A few weeks back I wrote a post about how people will soon be using Facebook to target jobs they want directly. Well, as I was YouTwitFacing today I came across another such ad. Although, this time is wasn't a hopefully young creative trying to break into a top agency. It was just this dude:


OK, fair, I thought. Let's see what Doug's got. Clicking his ad took me to a page that looked like this:


No, Doug. No. No thanks. No thank you. Somehow I don't think our styles would jive. (Also, make sure you use the agency's name correctly.)

If you want to check the page, it's right here. He's also got a post about this "campaign" on his website here.

Here's the issue I have with stuff like this. Doug's clearly gets that there are ways to reach consumers/people/your target/whatever with media in smart ways. The problem is that that's where the smarts end. Not to knock Doug—I'm sure he's a great guy—but this is what I keep seeing time and time again. Self-professed social media experts that promise to "provide vision and guidance needed to navigate the waters of social media, digital marketing and influence."

OK. a) That's just a lot of meaningless words you jumbled together. If that's the kind of masterful command of the social landscape I can expect from you, I'm better off without help. And 2) Anyone with a laptop and an internet connection, you should be their own social media expert. As advertisers it's our job to understand this sort of thing. I'm sick of hearing all this BS from people who's only goal is to follow as many people as they can on Twitter just so they'll get followed back. It's the same sort of people that sit in coffee shops yammering loudly about branding and the Starbucks model and how their start-up will leverage intelligent marketing. (Also an experience today.) Good people don't talk about how good they are. They just make kickass work and let that speak for them.

Marketing is empty without creative. Sure. You can talk at people with your entire ad budget or masterful "navigation of the waters of social media" until you're a deep, purpley blue. But if your breath still stinks, everyone's going to turn away. Media and marketing are not ideas in and of themselves. Surprising, creative work supported by great media ideas are. Just because you can tweet doesn't mean you always should.

I remember seeing an article recently about why advertising creatives are so antagonistic toward these social media experts. I can't find it now, but it's true obviously true that we are. I'll be 100% honest when I say I scoff at most. Not because I feel superior. I just don't see their necessity yet. Until I see one wildly successful campaign (or heck, even anything of note) created by a social media expert, I'm going to hold that opinion. And I loved to be proved wrong. Seriously. Maybe I'm being ignorant here. So please, if you know something I don't know, clue me in.

I'm not threatened or scared of them like the article said. Just annoyed. Like when I see a banner ad with George Washington booty shaking in front of a list of all 50 states telling me I can save on my car insurance.

Epilogue:
As I was navigating ole Dougy's page, another banner of his popped up.


Where's the third to make this thing a full-blown campaign?

UPDATE:
Ha. Just found the third.

What Website?

Agencies have gotten leaps and bounds more innovative over the last year or so with their websites. After all, doing work for yourself is sort of the dream. You're the client. If you like it, it's going to run. Guaranteed.

One of the biggest trends has been the move away from the labor-intensive and usability-crushing Flashturbation extravaganzas of past years. Instead we've seen the reemergence of HTML-based sites. Easier to navigate and update, they provide more function over form—which is really the model the web has embraced.

Still, agencies are coming up with some killer ways to make their sites engaging and really surprising. The best example is Modernista!'s overlay site, which recently won a Gold Pencil, along with a straight rip-off courtesy of the folks at Agency.com and Skittles.

Well, here's another brilliant stroke, the Boone Oakley website.

BooneOakely.com
Don't be fooled. That's not a video about the website. That is the website. Contained all within a series of YouTube videos, it provides a showcase of work and navigation within the video itself. It screams all kinds of smart and has garnered over 100,000 views in just a few days, even cracking the Viral Video Chart around the 14 position. It's not a sustainable model or one that others should replicate, but it's something brand damn new that will surely work wonders for a little shop based out of Charlotte, NC. Cheers, guys.

Milking the Internet to Land a Job

There's been all kind of big news over using the internet to get job, get clients and get noticed. Recently my very own agency has gotten the twitterverse all a-twitter over our hiring of Chris Kahle from tweet spamming and now our current intern auction on eBay.

If you learn how to work the angles and have a fresh idea, the internet can be a very kind place to you. Here's another example of smart thinking.

I was just sitting here at work, doing something on Facebook when an ad on the page caught my eye:


Facebook owns a massive amount of data on its users, making it easy to target a very specific type of person. I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to do this. Kelly, kudos. You got my attention. You can check out Kelly's work here.

Reminds me of what Think Tank 3 did a little while back. Although I think this actually works a lot better for Kelly.

But always remember, pulling a publicity coup is one thing, but you've always got to have the work to back it up too. I had a long discussion about that with one of my CDs yesterday. I'm all for smart stunts. But if it's just a one-time stroke of luck and not a piece in a larger ouerve of smart work, no thanks. (That's not a comment on Kelly's work necessarily, just a general thought to remember.)

Maybe that'll spark some ideas in your noggin. Go get 'em.

News Headline Fail

Just caught this one on CNN.com:

An interview that's Nothing But Awesome

I've known Kent Sewell for a little while now. I think we actually met through this blog. Really smart guy, nice dude and a copywriter in NYC. A few days he approached me about doing a little interview for his own blog.

We covered the definition of success, 35-hours work days, the dying art of copywriting, making ballsy work and a bunch more stuff. In typical style, it's a little long, but if you're interesting, you can check it out the whole thing over on his blog Nothing But Awesome.

Thought for the Day

You can sleep when you're retired/after you've been up for three days straight and have finally turned in all your projects. For now, you have to prove yourself. Don't ever turn anything down, and be flattered to have too much on your plate.

That being said, I'm not sure when the next time I'll be sleeping will be. Ever.

So, I'm Up for an Award

Just found out that my CPB Shred School site is up for a People's Voice Webby Award.


Wanna help a brother out and cast a vote for it? Yeah you do.

Just click over to http://pv.webbyawards.com, register (yeah, bummer), choose Shred School from the drop down menu at the top and give us your vote. I'll split the prize money with you. Promise.

Thanks.

What Comes First? A few tips on ordering your portfolio

So, you've been working on your portfolio for the last 20 odd months. You've got countless late nights and long weekends-worth of work sitting in front of you, and you're thinking, Yes. I am done. Throw these puppies in a case and get me out the door.

Wrong-o.

There is one very key step you cannot skip here: ordering your book. For the most part I thought worrying about order was bull. I sat down, thought a few minutes on how everything should flow, decided on something that seemed satisfactory to me and off I went.

I took my portfolio on a trip around Manhattan a few days later. Generally speaking, it went really well; I got a lot of positive reviews. But it wasn't until I saw Creative Circus alum Cooper Smith and Dave Canning at Y&R that I really thought too much about the order. They dug my stuff but thought it could be presented better. They told me, when they were in the height of the job hunt, they would often sit in their apartment, spread their work all across the floor and spend hours ordering and reordering everything. (Or so they told me). We sat in their seventh floor office for a bit doing just that. Ultimately, I didn't use the order they thought was best, but their obsession with portfolio ordering showed me its importance.

What was the biggest problem with my book? It didn't have an easy in. My first campaign was a beautiful three-piece print that was based on ridiculously intricate illustrations and super heady headlines. I put it there because it was a personal favorite and seemed the most impressive to me. The problem was, it was so intense, it was like getting punched in the gut as soon as you opened my portfolio. In the end, I changed the pole position to my another campaign that starts off right away with a big, silly joke. Bold, stark and black and white on the page. They never suspected a thing, but they couldn't escape it. It was the best thing I did for my portfolio.

Right off the bat. If you can make someone laugh, they've already got a big smile on their face when they're turning to that next page. And if you've gotten them smiling, they're already on your side.

From there, it's really a matter of the different pieces you have. Generally speaking, you want to kick them in the teeth at the beginning and get a nut shot in at the end. That way they'll remember you. Big, fun, memorable campaigns. In between is where your dense stuff might go—non-profits, body copy, tech heavy.

Pacing is important as you don't want someone to feel fatigued as they trudge through your book, so it's great to throw a fast, fun campaign in between two heavier ones. (Read: This does not mean do a visual solutions campaign. I am and will always be against that. Worthwhile visual solutions are dead. Just like "viral videos." Just not impressive for a student book. You can do better.)

When you actually sit down to do this, I'd start with taking all your campaigns and putting them in piles on the floor. Decide on your bookends—what's going to kick it off and then what's going to close the deal. From there, you'll likely see what should come second. If you've won any awards, I'd probably throw those campaigns in first or second, maybe last. One of my campaigns that won something wasn't the most exciting campaign so I didn't want it first. But the name dropping alone helps, so it made a great second piece. It gets people thinking early, Hey, this kid won something, I should pay attention.

And don't get too attached to your order. I hate self-editing. Once I decided on how my book would read, I didn't feel like changing it. But I'm very glad I did. It made a huge difference. So don't be afraid to get in there and mess it all up and look at it with fresh eyes.

Really, it's just like telling a good story. You've got to have a hook, development and then a big climax. Now, go make a best-seller.

Really? Really, Internet? Really?

I just realized I had never looked at what the all-time top videos on YouTube are. Have you? I just did. Guess what's number one. Go ahead, just guess.

Nope.

Try: Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend. Really. It's right here. You can watch it for yourself and add to the 118,740,546 other views that is has at the moment I write this. (And that's with embedding disabled!)

Avril's barely edging out that stupid Evolution of Dance video everyone went crazy over. Chris Brown's got two in there as do the Jonas Brothers, albeit a little lower in the ranks. Also, Charlie Bit My Finger comes in at a mind-blowing fourth place. And then there's Jeff Dunham's Achmed the Dead Terrorist skit which is pretty unfunny and will likely get us bombed sometime soon.

Here's a screen grab of the whole thing, or you can just click here to see it for yourself.

Really, this is a pretty interesting look into our internet zeitgeist. (Seriously, how trendy is that word right now?) If I'm reading this correctly we're a mixture of good-natured, cheesy saps plus 13-year old, top 40 consuming addicts. Probably not far off.

Wow. I just checked Most Popular Today, and it's basically all Britain's Got Talent Clips. That makes me a little sad. Then again, most surveys of pop culture do.

Got any other good ones for me?

A bit of advice on what you NEED to put in your portfolio

Nothing.

When you're in school and obsessed with the all-important book you'll here a lot of stuff about what you have to include in there (implying if you don't, you won't get a job) and what you can't include in there (which will, of course, preclude you from a job). You hear you have to have something tech, a financial, travel, a package good, a service, long copy, headlines, a visual solution. I'm here to tell you all of that is bull.

I think in the book I graduated Creative Circus with I had a service, an automotive, two packaged good, two food (both candies, no less), one video game. Overall, it lean pretty heavy on the fun. I'm not sure I have a single thing super serious or hard-hitting. All of them are pretty absurd campaigns.

It's a great idea to challenge yourself in school. You should take on clients you wouldn't normally think to do. Do women's products, financial, furniture, get out of your comfort zone. It's good practice.

But ultimately, when it comes to putting your book together, don't murder yourself trying to fill this hole and that hole. Your book should reflect the kind of work you do. Some people are very serious, dramatic screenwriter-like writers. There are plenty of places out there that you will fit in perfectly. If you're an art director with a seriously artistic bent, there are places that need and want someone just like you.

Sure, you need to show some range in your book. But ultimately, your book will determine the type of job you get. So, logic leads us to say, if your book is a reflection of you, you'll get hired somewhere that's a good fit for you, and you'll be much, much happier and do better. I'm a bit of the mindset that if you have a generic, check-all-the-boxes-off book, you'll get a generic, check-all-the-copy-points-off job.

Some things will never change though. Writers need to show you can write. That means having some great headlines in there plus some sort of body copy. Art directors, show you can kill a page. That means beautiful design, attention to type. (My one complaint on student books is that they all feel dimensionally flat. It's amazing what a drop shadow here and there can do.)

The two things your book should do are: prove you're smart and prove who you are. If it does that, you'll be just fine. Don't fret on the details of how you do it. Everyone will have a different way.

(And the great irony of this all is, two of the major clients I work on are a women's fashion brand and a financial. But the best part is, I'm doing it at an agency that aligns with who I am as a creative, so it's a perfect fit.)

I've got more thoughts on perfecting your portfolio if you guy want to hear. Just let me know.

I got NSAC'd in the face

This weekend I had the pleasure/honor of being at judge at the AAF District XI NSAC in Spokane, Washington. (If you're not one for acronyms, that's the American Advertising Federation's Northwest National Student Advertising Competition.) Normally it'd be an rad event to take part in, but it was particular cool for me because I actually competed in the NSAC back during my senior year at the UGA (University of Georgia). So, being back three years later, sitting on the other side of the table, it was a strange experience. (And to make things even more bizarre, one of the other judges was Lori Hicks from the Traffic Agency in LA. She was from the University of Tennessee team that we competed against our district, but we had never met until Friday morning.)

To particiapte in NSAC, teams of college seniors (mostly) spend one or two semesters preparing an entire advertising campaign for the same brief. Research, media plans, creative, PR, everything. It's the first time that most students get a taste of what it's really like to put a full campaign together. As I was doing it, I remember thinking, "Wait, you mean I can just focus on creative and other people can worry about making a budget and putting all that other crap together?" That was the first time I started to understand what it might be like to actual be a "real-life creative."

This year the brief was for an anti-binge drinking campaign for students 18-24, sponsored by The Century Council. In the past it's ranged from Yahoo! to Coca-Cola to Toyota Matrix to Postal Vault. (Postal Vault was my year. Look it up. Ugh.)

Definitely a tough assignment for anyone, and it was great to see the students really tear into it. There were some issues here and there, but for most, it's the first time out of the gate. Overall the other judges and myself were really impressed by the all work and especially the presentations. One thing I particularly enjoyed was when teams built an identifiable brand around their campaign, rather than just makig a pile of advertising. If you look at any of the really good non-profit work nowadays, most of it is centered around a great brand—truth, The Tap Project, Project (RED), all brilliant. It's easier and more powerful for us to associate an idea was a logo, name, design and tone of voice. So, it was great to see some of the teams nod to that. There are some very smart kids out there in the Pacific Northwest.

Congrats to all the students and sponsors that threw away sleep, sanity and in some cases boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses to crank out some great work. I know Lori and I especially appreciated it because we've been in the exact same spot and know exactly what it's like. I also know how much it sucks to do all that work and then get anything but first place. (My team got sixth. Lori got first.) It makes it seem like the entire thing was all a waste of time. But it's not. To be honest, it was just the start of one crazy career ahead. There will be many more nights, weeks, months like that. And each time you do it, you'll get smarter, better, faster.

Congrats to the top teams too: Portland State, Boise State, BYU and Washington State. Nicely done, folks. And best of luck to everyone.

Don't celebrate too hard. OK, maybe just once or twice. You've earned it.

The Lion, The Future and the Young

I've been meaning to write in here for a while, but I've been insanely busy (hey, what else is new?). Insanely busy, as in sleeping a max of four hours a night if I lucky. But life (in general) is good.

In fact, recently three friends and I were asked to shoot and edit together a video for this year's Future Lions competition. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. But really, I'm more pleased with reliving the entirely experience every time I watch it. It really makes me want to go back to Cannes again.

Future Lions Winners: Where Are They Now?

Speaking of going back to Cannes again . . . Miss Liza "F'ing" Behles just won a Young Lions award and is going back to Cannes in June! She's the first person to win a Future Lion and a Young Lion. Insane. What a badass. Congrat her.

And if you're a student, DO FUTURE LIONS. It can change your life. Seriously. Do it. Now. Right now. Go. Go do it right now.

Bye.

Mr. Internet, Episode 4

Here is one badass television program produced in-house, here at CP+B. This episode is by far the best one. Enjoy.

You can peep of them here.

The Late, Late, Late, Late Night

So, it's 4:28, and I think I'm about to leave work. Big presentation tomorrow, an all-nighter here and there, but it's been fun.

Mostly because of my new show on Ustream. If you have heard, it's ANDYVISION. It's been a fun experiment so far, and it's taken off at the office (and beyond). For the record, I'm not the creepy one. You are. You're watching me. I'm doing nothing creepy except sitting at my desk, working and occasionally eating Quizno's Torpedos in inappropriate fashion. Stay tuned for more.

Oh yeah, and look for a new blog coming soon. It's gonna be huge. Literally.