Be Interesting

Darren Stevens of “Bewitched” creating “campaigns” in his den.

When I was ten years old, it looked to me like Darren Stevens had the best job in the world. Watching “Bewitched,” Darren would head to his den and draw with markers on big sketchpads, coming up with “campaigns.” The next day he’d present these to “clients.” Much praise would be heaped, and Larry Tate, the hovering, clueless, always-antsy-before-the-presentation agency owner would smile and offer bonuses. It looked good in contrast to my dad’s job at a junior high school which daily brought him face-to-face with smart-lipped teens and boxes-full of their lousy papers. Pardon me for not wanting to be a teacher. I always asked for markers and sketchpads for my birthday (and got them, too).

There’s something about advertising that’s beguiling to outsiders. When I was in my twenties I was an associate art director at the state’s largest ad agency. There were about ten or fifteen guys who worked as designers, and the company offered $300 to any of us who would grow a ponytail. The idea was that clients would come through the agency and they’d be shown “the creative department.” What we did—creativity—was mysterious and elusive to these check-writing people who kept our company in business. When clients hesitated at entering a room with beponytailed-designers at work, the AE would whisper reassuringly that these weird ones “are not like you or me, but thank goodness someone in management has figured out how to corral the wild spark and harness it to produce ‘campaigns.’” Even back then, when we had begun doing most of our work on computers, markers and sketchpads were everywhere.

The technology has changed. It’s gotten more complicated. No client thought Darren Stevens was good because he knew how to operate a sketchpad. But today, a few clients think that quality marketing means finding someone who can Twitter, who can Facebook, who can YouTube, who can blog. Wrong. Great marketing has always been about finding someone who can create things that connect with people on an emotional level—whatever the medium. As John Bell, the head of Oglivy PR’s digital influence team recently wrote: “training a great marketer in planning and using social media is easier than training a social media pundit to be a great marketer.”

The first rule of marketing still is, and always has been—“be interesting.” The people who, through their creativity, know how to make clients interesting and relevant to their customers still deserve respect, admiration, and lots of work.

STEPHEN HALES

Extreme Customer Satisfaction

This morning I attended a presentation by Rudy Vidal, and had a moment to chat with him afterwards. Rudy is a respected “Customer Satisfaction” consultant, and he described some of the research he did when he worked at a large consumer electronics company. That company, like so many others, is dealing with the problem of “commoditization”—the products and services from one company aren’t much different from what’s offered by its competitors. To discover strategies for competing in this environment he surveyed 20,000 customers and asked two questions. 1—How satisfied were you with your recent purchase (response options were Dissatisfied, Satisfied, and Extremely Satisfied), and 2—Would you recommend our product or buy it again? Among those who were “Satisfied,” 13 percent would buy again and 17 percent would recommend. However, among those who were “Extremely Satisfied,” 64 percent would buy again and 73 percent would recommend to others. The “Extremely Satisfieds” were five times as likely to recommend the product as those who were simply “Satisfied.”

With that insight, he went back to those who described themselves as “Extremely Satisfied” and asked them why they chose that designation. He’d given no standard for the survey participants to use—he let them choose for themselves. 87 percent of those who were most happy said they were so satisfied because “I received more than I expected.” He then noted that the “more” didn’t need to be a big thing—it just needed to be a pleasant surprise. It may not be logical that a very small extra would cause such a jump in loyalty, but, he noted, “Loyalty is not a logical human reaction. Loyalty is an emotional reaction. We’re loyal to people because of how they make us feel.” Whenever customers leave saying “Hey—that was nice,” the environment is right to build loyalty.

A couple of days ago in my post on “Ten Lessons,” I wrote “Clients work with people they like even more than people who are competent.” That’s indicative of this same idea—even more than good products or good services, people are looking today for good experiences. We’ll work harder on giving each of our clients a great experience in addition to great work. And we’ll do our best to remind clients that branding is basically all about the experience their customers have with them on many levels.

STEPHEN HALES

Ten Lessons

We’re almost through with another semester at Brigham Young University, and I just gave my design students the final project for their class. This is my twenty-second year as a part-time faculty member at BYU. Not long ago a student asked me about things he should know before getting into the field—what experience has taught me rather than what I’ve learned from school or books. Even though I’ve had some thoughts on that topic, I’ve never yet articulated them. In no particular order, here’s my first attempt:

1. People who are truly good at what they do make almost no effort to let everyone else know about it.

2. Marketing people are each at different levels. On the bottom are those who know how to use the tools (design software, good grammar, research resources). One step up are those who can identify and create quality (great concepts, good typography for designers, engaging copy, an insightful marketing plan). The rare people at the top possess a sense of appropriateness—an accurate gut feeling about what will work and what won’t. It’s the most valuable skill of all, and it’s possessed only by those with talent, native intelligence and experience.

3. Clients work with people they like even more than people who are competent.

4. There are more poor designers/good business people that succeed than there are good designers/poor business people that succeed.

5. Putting your craft as the most important thing is your life is a sure way to screw up your life.

6. There’s no danger in having to learn “too much.”

7. Spending for things that are good quality saves money in the long run. (This is especially true when it comes to branding and marketing.)

8. Clients who know what they’re doing come to an advertising agency for expertise. Clients who don’t know what they’re doing come to an advertising agency for the personal satisfaction of ordering around a group of not-as-smart-as-they-are people.

9. You’re wasting your time if you’re just taking orders from clients. Instead, you should be bringing something of thoughtfulness, beauty and insight into the world that—unless you had created it—would never have existed. If you do that, you’re increasing humanity’s value as well as solving your client’s problem, and your career and life will be satisfying.

10. Being successful doesn’t make you happy, but finding happiness makes you successful.

STEPHEN HALES

Fire Creek Movie Poster

We’ve just completed some promotional pieces for BYU’s first theatrically-released motion picture—Fire Creek. The work included the poster for movie theaters, the 2-minute trailer that will be shown in theaters, and some television ads. Kelly Nield, one of our senior designers, worked on this project.

New Payson Fruit Growers Identity

Thirty four years ago I completed one of my first commercial projects as a designer. I was 16 years old, and the Rowley family of Santaquin—a neighbor of ours and owner of Utah's largest cherry-producing farm—commissioned me to paint a sign on the side of their barn. Now, just this week, we’ve completed another project for Chad Rowley, who is currently the general manager of Payson Fruit Growers. The farmers co-op which he runs and which has been doing business since 1964 asked us to create a new brand identity and apply it to stationery and signage. We’re also working on a couple of packaging assignments from Chad. One of the great rewards of a business like ours is working with clients over many years. Thanks, Chad, for the projects and friendship.

STEPHEN HALES