Most of you probably heard that the city officials in Fort Wayne hired a Chicago firm to provide them with a “social media” plan because they needed someone who had done it for city government before. They soon learned what the public thought of that decision. People aren’t happy and for a variety of reasons. Most notably, the lack of respect for keeping the work local.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I see the importance of hiring someone where the learning curve is nearly zero given a budget of $72,000. You don’t want to waste any of it on learning. The team has to hit the ground running. On the other hand, if anyone is in need of “fresh blood” and the resulting “fresh thinking,” the government is. Few of us would argue that they have it figured out.

I think that for whatever reason, Beth Malloy and team botched this one. Would it have been that hard to send out an RFP requesting specific qualifications? As a firm, if you don’t have the qualifications, you would blame yourself for not being considered — not the city.

I did take the time to look up the firm that was selected, Carolyn Grisko & Associates and was disappointed to find they didn’t really have anything too enlightening, to say or show, on their site regarding social media. They really don’t have the precise experience I understood the city was looking for. Hmmm.

You could look at this as an opportunity. In the next election, maybe we can vote for a mayor from another city to run ours. Kind of a two-for-one deal. Maybe local businesses here can get work from this other city. I hear there are some cities in Texas doing pretty well. You could even choose to pay your taxes to another city. If you do this, though, you may want to pick a city where you’d want to retire. At least that way, you could get something back for your tax dollars. The options are really pretty endless now that the rules have changed.

Okay, I’ve driven around this issue enough now to know how I feel. Sh*t happens and we all have to get over it. In the big scheme of things, it’s only a big deal if it continues. We all make mistakes now and again. Turn the other cheek and know the local government folks have a lot on their plate. They’re human. They screwed up and they know it. We all did our jobs by calling them out. And now it’s time to move on. Life’s short, people. Don’t lose another precious moment of your life dwelling on this.

Here’s to you, Beth. Shake it off and give us the best damn social media plan you can.

Whatever happened to people trying to do their bset, bust, best?

Man, a few things change (economy, high unemployment) and everything you knew that was right and good seems to go flying out the door. Funny thing is, we all appreciate the brands that exceed our expectations and go the extra mile to surprise us (in a good way). And research shows we are pretty darn loyal to those brands depending on the category. We also know how we hate it when someone shortchanges us or seems to go out of their way to deliver less and fool us into thinking we got what we expected. Frankly, that tics us off.

Yet in every down economy, we see manufacturers and service businesses do just that. Granted, some businesses that are already in the lifeboat may have to just live to fight another day, but for those that haven’t even grabbed a floatie, come on. This is your chance to pluck money from the proverbial tree. On low-hanging branches, no less. I’m not saying everyone shouldn’t scale it back a bit, but let’s be smart about what we do pull back.

Many of us who have prided ourselves on blowing past client expectations as a way of life need to look at where the client saw the value. At B&Y, it’s nothing for us to give a client 7 different concepts for a project. Now maybe you’d question the quality of those concepts but when you factor in the point that our thinking is our brand, you can be pretty damn sure we don’t take anything to a client we wouldn’t want them to choose. Having said that, we probably could cut back on 2-3 of those concepts and still meet our goal of exceeding client expectations. The truth is, those extra 2-3 concepts more often than not come at the agency’s expense. I would venture to say that 4 out of 7 probably come at our expense. Some of our best client relationships have gotten to the point that they ask us to do only 1 or 2 concepts.

The world has this habit of causing good, solid-thinking businesses to leave the game plan that got them to their current level — and replace it with all the things they used to sell against. Don’t give in unnecessarily. Think. If you truly know what you’re doing and you want to see your company come out on top when the great recession is nothing more than a memory, you should be able to explain to your boss well enough to have him assist you in knowing where to trim the fat.

Like all things, this downturn will end. Don’t put yourself in a hole now. The climb back to the surface can be a long one.

The world is changing. Don’t be lazy.

For 20 years B&Y has been crafting taglines, or positioning lines if you prefer, for clients. Yet, it wasn’t that long ago we added a tagline to our agency’s name. “We Think. You Win.” Funny how you sometimes ignore your own brand in your efforts to grow others’. Human nature I guess. Plus, they pay better than we do. (Smile goes here.)

Our tagline came about out of necessity. The advertising industry has changed dramatically with more options of how and where to spend your clients’ money than ever before, and this has contributed to confusion in the marketplace. Not to mention, so called “specialty agencies” have popped up so fast even Orville Redenbacher would be impressed. Layer on to that a healthy reduction in client budgets, internal hiring freezes at clients’ places of business, mass confusion on things like social media, internal pressure on marketing directors to “make something happen” and a bazillion other things and you’ve got yourself a whole new group of valium and Zoloft candidates.

Essentially, what happened is that many marketing directors (all marketing directors?) have gone into “bunker” mode. They’ve put their heads down and hidden in their bunkers (aka cubicles, offices). The ones who didn’t began looking for the silver bullet and listening to any snake oil salesman (insert “social media only expert” here) who had a magic elixir to take away the pain. Obviously, this made things worse instead of better as social media is an art not a science and has to be part of an integrated strategic plan (we’ll vent on this in another blog, k?).

Long story a bit shorter is that we (B&Y) needed to really explain what set us apart from everyone else who was doing or trying to do what we do. Tougher than you might think. What we realized is, clients who love us learned to love us. You can look at our portfolio and see the work is of national quality, but what was it like getting there? Are we difficult prima donnas? Do we listen? Go the extra mile? Have your back? For the record, the answers to the above questions are: hell no, you bet, for sure and without question.

We also learned that we didn’t just do advertising. We helped solve basically any problem a client would share with us. What we came to realize is that none of it was possible without being good strategic, creative thinkers. After talking with some nonbiased, neutral parties (who knew us well) and getting enthusiastic confirmation on our epiphany, we moved forward with crafting the words.

I have to tell you, the response has been nothing short of remarkable. Those who know us said, “This phrase is you guys, exactly.” Those who don’t know us are asking us to explain what it means. Through these conversations we’re able to bring out all the positive surprises they’ll be privy to as they work with us. In other words, the longer you work with us the more you’ll come to appreciate us for who we really are. And those things will benefit you (and us, in that we’ll keep your account).

So what are the takeaways?

• Don’t ignore your own brand (ever).
• Don’t assume that just because you know who you are, others will get that too.
• If you’re really great to work with and always pushing the envelope, it’s going to take some explaining. So you need a tagline, campaign or something that will confirm for your existing clients they’ve made the right choice — and a conversation starter for those who don’t know you (silly people, get onboard). (Insert another smile here.)
• You know, there are many more takeaways but it’s past 8:00 and I’ve got things to do. Besides, you’re smart. You’ll figure them out. If you don’t, call me and I’ll tell you, or wait till my next rambling blog. Good lessons always repeat themselves. (Insert last smile here.)

I’m proud to say that I’m the first Millennial to begin a career at B&Y. I may be alone here, but I’m not the only lower-to-middle-twenty-something making her way into this business. There are millions of us, fresh out of college, just itching to create a new buzz.

Who are these Generation Y-ers? They’re a multi-tasking bunch with miniature attention spans. They are opinionated and always ready for the next big change. While they do take their careers seriously, these young adults are still more casual than Generation X and are sometimes known as the “Peter Pan” Generation for their reluctance toward growing up and getting serious.

I can probably count on one hand how many times in my life I’ve picked up a newspaper and flipped through the pages. What’s my favorite news source? My Twitter feed. I do watch the news on TV; however, thanks to my DVR, the only reason to watch commercials is for entertainment while my friend takes a restroom break during my favorite show.

Almost everything that is done physically can also be done virtually. If my day involves reading a book, going shopping and getting a bite to eat, it really means I read a virtual book on my Kindle, shopped on Amazon.com and checked into my favorite restaurant on Foursquare.

So what does this mean for the Marketing world? It means if you don’t show up on my Blackberry, then to me, you are old-fashioned, or worse, you don’t exist. Because I’m a multi-tasking Millennial whose attention span is about as big as my iPod, your message should be short, entertaining and at least 80 percent virtual.

For example, if you are a marketing professional and you choose to put up a billboard to advertise your totally cool new product, you better not forget to update your website, tweet about it and start a discussion on your company’s Facebook page.

This doesn’t seem so hard. Well, not until you think about the thousands of brands that are trying to reach me on my Blackberry every day. My generation is becoming more and more immune to marketing and advertising. If we’ve seen it or something like it, then many times we just ignore it.

The last thing to remember, even though Generation Y-ers seem to be lost in our Blackberrys, iPhones and Androids; there’s still one thing that will always serve as your best marketing tool: word of mouth. No matter how many times I see your really expensive ad on CNN.com and no matter how many of your tweets I read, the best way to make me notice you is to get my best friend talking about your brand or product.

So how do you get me and the other Millennials interested in your brand without getting completely lost in cyberspace? Don’t feel like you need to give up on the older and slightly aged ways of marketing. Use entertaining TV spots, radio spots and outdoor advertising to get me thinking about your brand. Draw on Twitter to get me talking about your brand and then maybe throw in a Foursquare badge or discount to make sure I’m hooked. The next thing you know, I’m telling all of my friends about how awesome you are.

As customers, Generation Y can be a little intimidating. We’re suspicious of advertising and we get bored easily. However, if you can win us over in our virtual realms, you might just get us buzzing about you.

Not long ago, we faced a recurring issue with an underperforming vendor. Let’s just say, they needed to get their act together, and speedy-like. We’d been through months of banging our heads against the wall and were at our wit’s end. In this case, the simple solution of firing the vendor and finding a replacement wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

Finally, the revelation came when (surprise!) I was explaining it to someone who hadn’t been involved in the details. They weren’t scarred by the experience. They were refreshingly green. Their perspective was pure. And apparently, that’s exactly the clarity we needed to resolve this issue.

Now, could I have come up with the solution if I’d cleared my mind? Yes.

That is, if I’d allowed myself to ask the simple questions. If I had stepped out of the trees. If I hadn’t been so busy dodging the road kill, complaining about the stench, and hoping that someone else would clean up the mess. Yes, I too could have been the wise sage of the day.

Lesson learned?

We deal with distractions and minutiae all day long. (Yeah – 20 emails in the time it took to write this.) But, it’s during these times of craziness that it’s even more important to find that source of clarity. I’ll bet you have it inside. Or, you know someone who could help. The key is to recognize that feeling desperate is a big red flag. Those gut feelings mean something. Take the time to listen to them.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I love to be on the forefront of new technology. That doesn’t mean I go out and buy the latest tech gadget or rush foolishly into recommending new technologies to my clients. But it does mean I like to delve in and know as much about a potential technology as possible. After several years of this, I’ve finally learned to form my own opinions as opposed to just believing what others are saying. It has served me well, and I’d urge you to do the same.

Case in point. Twitter. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been a big fan. I reluctantly entered the space a few months after it hit the webwaves, jumped out, and then got back in many months later. Do I have an account now? Yes. Do I use it? Rarely. Why? I think it’s because I’ve personally not found value there. I’ve either been followed by someone who wants to sell me something or by some “young thing” who has nothing to do with anything related to the communications business. Now, I’m reading that roughly only 7% of Internet users go to Twitter with any regularity. If I were to have believed all the hype over the last couple of years, I would have made a huge mistake on behalf of the agency and our clientele by recommending we spend our money there.

Now, along comes mobile. This is a completely different story. The only thing I wonder about in regards to mobile marketing is the timing. We’ve heard for four years that it was “the year of mobile.” During that time, a quick survey of friends and family made it very clear to me that mobile hadn’t reached a point of engagement. The infrastructure simply wasn’t in place to make it easy or affordable for the average user. But now, smart phones are becoming commonplace, data plans are becoming required, and new devices (think ipad) are a reality. Mobile is finally here.

If you’re old enough to remember the beginning of the “www” or worldwide web, you probably remember a lot of folks saying it was a fad. It would never last. That they didn’t see value in having a website. To some degree, that’s been the case with mobile. Only 8% of websites have a mobile version. Even less than that percentage are actually proactively utilizing it to engage with customers. Like a webpage, mobile is just one more tool in the marketers’ communication kit. However, keep this in mind. Mobile has had the luxury of having learned how NOT to do it from the web’s stumbles. For example, laws and strategies have been put in place for mobile to deter spamming.

Mobile has a real chance of setting the communications world on fire. The barriers to entry are negligible. The competition is almost non-existent. All the parts and pieces are in place to make it easy for the consumer to want to use it. And with mobile being an opt-in vehicle, you’re getting an audience that’s interested in what you have to say and share. It’s up to you to manage that relationship so they don’t ever want to leave.

Two cautions. One, don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s the marketing “silver bullet” you’ve been looking for. It’s simply one more way to integrate your messaging. And two, don’t wait too long to jump in and miss the advantages of being an early adopter. Good luck.

Being an early adopter of the web, I’ve been in awe of the advancements that have come along. Back in the day, you really had to want to surf to put up with the speed issues, among other things. Then, everything seemed to click. I’d hop on Yahoo or Google and really be very productive in a short time. Most of my searching had to do with business research or prospecting. I was happy because I could stay informed quickly and easily.

Then came social media. People began to connect on levels they had never connected on before. They got to know one another, one another’s friends, vacation spots, and on and on. I liked it okay and was an early adopter of it, too. Then as social media began to reach critical mass, the foundation of my perfect (search) world began to shake apart.

In recent months, I’ve noticed that finding good business data has been more difficult. I’m several pages into a search before I find anything usable. What’s taken its place? A ton of social media links. Links that may appeal to me as a casual person but get in my way as a businessperson. It’s beginning to feel like 1995 all over again. You have to really want that info to sift through everything you don’t want.

As a marketer, I value social media and the power it wields. But as a businessman, I’d like a little more balance in my search engine. Is this an opportunity for Bing or Yahoo? Maybe. Or am I alone on this? Maybe. Could be time to start my own www, I guess.

Yeah, 3D chess.

A quick Google search or a Wikipedia read, and you’re in the know. In fact, you can see 3D chess being played on YouTube. Captain Kirk and Spock aboard the USS Enterprise played it to pass the time in the 23rd century. The 3D chess game can be seen in many Star Trek TV episodes. The game board consists of seven levels, three fixed levels and four movable “attack board” levels. (By the 24th century, a variant using six “attack board” levels was used.)

Now, let’s tie that to 21st century advertising. It’s easy. The first two sentences give it away. We’ve gone digital. Digital non-traditional advertising. Multiple levels of marketing playing out at the same time. It’s a real game changer for traditional agencies locked in the past. But for B&Y, this is an exciting time — a new way to apply what makes us different. Boiled down — it’s thinking, planning, and a focus on plenty of in-the-trenches service, plus a habit of over-delivering.

Pure digital shops have a hard time getting the warm fuzzy part of it down. Relating the consumer marketing part to the coding part. But for us, that’s the way B&Y has rolled for the last 20 years. Is there a lot to learn in a digital world? You bet. Take social media for starters. For those with time, see below.* And that’s just a couple levels of the game.

Is it a brave new world where we boldly go where no one has gone before? Sure. Is it new? Yes. Have we been through it before? Heck yeah.

Think about it. The 40s and 50s were all about print — words and pictures. The 60s — TV. The last 30 years, commercial television has reigned. Then about 15 years ago, websites started to crawl out of the digital evolutionary ooze. And now, for all practical purposes, we’re walking upright — but slowly and hunched over compared to what’s going to happen in the next 10 years.

So the new game we’re playing in the digital world is just beginning. That still leaves us with brands to protect and products to sell. The quicker you can view the marketing playing field in 3D, the better chance you can grow and outwit the competition.

Which brings us back to what they’ll be using in the 23rd century — thinking. That hasn’t changed. Warp speed, Scotty…

We think. You win.

Over the last few years, advertisers/agencies have been stuck figuring out whether online media should merge with traditional media (TV, Radio, Print, and Outdoor), rely on traditional media, or be completely separate from traditional media. I must admit that I was a firm believer in online and traditional media having separate budgets, separate planning teams and hell, occupying separate ends of the building. After working in more of a traditional position this past year (and having a background in online media), my thinking has changed.

The industry has proven that online media can have its own campaigns and work completely independently of traditional media. But have these campaigns reached their maximum potential for their advertisers? Recent studies from Nielsen have found that combining online video placements with on-air TV spots can increase ad recall by 65%. Even the likeability of the spot is up 26%. Can this be true? Can online media actually complement traditional media?

Absolutely! By using the same TV spot, whether it’s a :30 on-air spot or an edited :15 online spot, viewers are recalling the exact message 18% more than if one of these media was used alone. If that’s not enough proof that this works, the amount saved on creative costs will get your attention.

So, the next time you’re planning a TV campaign, make sure online video placements are a good size portion of your budget.

It’s 2010, the iPad hysteria is ramping up, and the iPhone is undoubtedly a game changer. So, what could Apple have possibly missed? An Apple Store application.

Stories abound that suggest that an iPhone app saved a company or turned some 16-year-old kid into a millionaire. Apple fully understands how the iPhone provides convenience and accessibility that wasn’t ever there for businesses. But what is so shocking is that Apple isn’t catering to their customers on all levels.

Let’s think about what an Apple Store app could be like. You can obviously purchase Apple hardware and software, but you could also get access to the Genius Bar, as well as special “app owner events” and “app owner discounts.” There is a ton of potential, but Apple is seemingly missing it.

I hope, as Apple continues to grow and increase its market share, that they don’t forget what drives those numbers: consumers. And using its own products to sell its own hardware and software just feels like good business.