Ageless Cool by Helayne Spivak

Helayne Spivak is one of the coolest people I know. She writes today about staying cool in an industry that requires it. She should know. Hope this finds you well -- Jim.

Take it away Ms. Spivak:

I had lunch the other day with a 28 year old art director who works at TBWA/Chiat Day. He was talking about how cool their head creative guy is. The cool guy he was talking about is Lee Clow.

Lee Clow, for those of you who are not ad geeks, is the creative genius behind the Apple launch and all current Apple work, the original Nike work, and hundreds of other outstanding and landmark advertising campaigns.

Lee is a laid back, long haired, bearded ex-surfer dude who happens to be about 65 years old. Not exactly the “cool” sweet spot. So how has he kept his cool when so many others his age have let theirs go tepid? The same way we all should.

Instead of rejecting new ideas, he embraced them. He never became a dinosaur because he wasn’t slow to catch on to the changing environment. He saw every new media channel as an exciting opportunity instead of bemoaning “Advertising as we knew it is dead…” He may not party every night with 20 somethings, but I guarantee he knows their mindset, what they’re reading, who they’re listening to, where they’re watching it and where to find them.

Because he needs to. Because he sells to them. And because he’s still interested. The point is what keeps anyone cool, no matter what their age, is staying current, which is to say relevant.

Way back when cable TV first began to give the networks a run for their money and people were trying to understand how it would pan out, advertising legend David Oglivy said, …"I’m too old to learn about cable, so the hell with it”. Retired to his chateau in France he could afford to take that attitude.

We can’t.

- Helayne Spivak, Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

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Michael Jackson and Advertising

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm in a little bit of Michael Jackson overload. So I'll apologize in advance for a post about Michael Jackson.

But with all the hype over his sudden death, his (again) soaring record sales, and of course his legendary music, many of us have forgotten his career in advertising.


That may be because his advertising days were very short lived. Not exactly sure why, although I'd bet a little hair gel and an open flame may have contributed.

Anyone in touch with the music scene in the 80's surely remembers his Pepsi commercials -- and the instantly infamous "hair on fire" shot heard round the world.

Phil Dusenberry even wrote a book about his own experiences in advertising titled "Then We Set His Hair on Fire". It's a good read, actually, particularly the time on set with Michael.

Just for fun, take a quick look back at Michael Jackson advertising in this AdAge article: http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=137600. Always fun to see another side to an incredibly talented man.

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.

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Agencies on Twitter

There has been a lot written just in the last two weeks about agencies on Twitter. As an active agency ourselves, we have something to say. William Martino is just the guy to say it. Hope this finds you well -- Jim.

Take it away, William:

Would you hire a plumber who has a leaky faucet in his own home?

This is essentially the question that Rupal Parekh asks in her recent AdAge article, where she is quite critical of several agencies (big and small, traditional and digital) for their presence (or lack thereof) on Twitter (and by extension, other social media like social networks and blogs).

Her main argument is simple: how can these agencies rightfully preach the value and advantages of social media when they can't successfully "master" the spaces themselves?

It's a question that sparked a tremendous amount of debate in the accompanying comments with opinions from both sides of the aisle. I find myself agreeing with 2 comments in particular.

The first, by robbywells, argues that you wouldn't judge the advertising work from these same shops based on their own self promotion ads (could you imagine if THAT was how Cannes lions were awarded?), so why would you judge them by their Twitter accounts?

The other comment, from carlenlea, rightfully asks the most important question that both the author and most of the commenters overlook: what were these examples trying to achieve and how are they measuring success?

All too often, the lure of engaging in social media has the unfortunate side effect of performing a "marketing lobotomy," where the fundamentals of what we do go right out the window.

Business objective? What's that? Who cares.

Strategy? What strategy? Twitter is HOT right now!

For our agency, social media is another way (in addition to places like PR, conferences, and trade press) to "own wellness marketing."

One of our strategies, "have a dynamic voice," lent itself perfectly to a blog and places like Twitter and Facebook. And we're monitoring things like web analytics to see if the content we're creating is really raising our voice in the marketplace (having clients call to share their enthusiasm over the blog doesn't hurt either).

As I've said before, there is no "one way" to participate in social media—what works for one person (or brand) doesn't necessarily work for another. But our approach as marketers should always be the same: tie your efforts to clear business objectives, identify a strategy that will help you succeed, and determine early on what success looks like and how you will measure it.

That's what we should be evaluated on, not page views and followers.

- William Martino, Digital Strategist at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

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Doctors Talking About DTC Advertising

Here's another post from the Planning Group here at Saatchi Wellness. Jacob Braude comments on how direct-to-consumer advertising isn't just for consumers anymore.







Hope this finds you well -- Jim.






Take it away, Jacob:


An interesting finding from Verilogue came through my email recently.




For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, Verilogue offers the unique service of letting you listen to the actual conversations (blinded to preserve privacy of course) that happen between doctors and patients – discovering the common language they use, who does most of the talking, and what they are actually talking about.


They recently took a look through their database of conversations to try and understand how DTC TV ads effected (if they did) the patient-physician dialogue – and they discovered something surprising.


Out of all of the conversations where DTC was mentioned, 54% of the time it was physicians who brought up the advertising – not patients.


Even more surprising, four out of the top five reasons they introduced DTC into the conversation were positive:


Top 5 ways doctors use DTC:
1. Activate the patient’s prior knowledge about medications before a treatment decision has been made
2. Express overt negative sentiment about DTC
3. Increase patient buy-in after a treatment decision has been made
4. Use a DTC advertisement to start the side effect discussion
5. Encourage patients to pay attention to DTC and/or seek information outside the visit


In today’s world of hyper-focus on measurement and accountability, it serves us well to remember that we often don’t understand all of the mysterious and powerful ways that marketing affects our audiences – or even which audiences we may be affecting.






- Jacob Braude, Planner at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

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Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet

Several members of the Executive Team here at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness went to a special screening of le Monsieur de la Pub last week. The film is a documentary about the life of Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, the founder of The Publicis Groupe, our parent company. Marcel is often credited as the father of advertising, certainly in France. The director of the film, Olivier Mille, was at the screening and held a q&a session right after.

Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet had an incredible life, publically and privately. He endured many ups and downs in his career, but always remained steadfast in his pursuit of creativity. He made Publicis a force to be reckoned with, to this very day.

I had not realized that Marcel's advertising career started in health: one of his first clients was an aspirin. And then he opened a drugstore that sits in the lobby of the company headquarters. How cool is that (!?!), especially for those of us dedicated to the pursuit of wellness.

When the film was over, I walked away with one very important lesson learned: enjoy your life. Live it to the fullest. Marcel certainly did, through all the trials and tribulations he enjoyed his life and he made every moment count. And he was incredibly successful doing it, leaving a legacy behind for all of us to be inspired by.

The pictures are there to prove it!

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.

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NYU's New Marketer's Boot Camp

Johanna Skilling, the head of our planning group, teaches a marketing boot camp at NYU. Pretty impressive, huh? I asked her to share her thoughts from last week's session.

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.

Take it away, Johanna:

I spent part of last Thursday at Boot Camp – no, not that kind of boot camp! Trust me, I seriously don’t have the chops or potential for all those push-ups.

No, I was a guest lecturer at NYU’s New Marketers’ Boot Camp, a one week intensive for new (and even some experienced) marketers interested in improving their game.

There were folks there from as far away as Brazil and Nepal, and from organizations as diverse as Human Rights Watch, Centro Universitario de Communicación in Mexico City, Coopers & Lybrand, Avaya, and Unilever in El Salvador. The group included students majoring in a wide array of fields, including Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, Psychology at Union College, International Studies at the American University, Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College, Fine Arts at the New York Academy of Art, even Theology at the University of Bristol.

So what was powerful enough to bring together this group of talented, smart, internationally-savvy students and business people? Two words: integrated marketing.

Because what these folks all get, is that silo’d marketing is a thing of the past. That marketers need to rise above media, and understand how all their efforts work together to serve customers, no matter where they are.

I was there to talk to them about what happens before an integrated marketing campaign (IMC, in boot-camp lingo) ever happens: that is, creating a brand. We talked about the 5 steps to creating a strategically smart brand, and how that brand creates a firm foundation for their integrated campaigns.

I was struck, as always, by how deeply the students responded to the need for a solid brand that personifies the company and its mission (or as Tom Peters famously observed, the brand called “you”).

The conversation ranged from motorcycles to micro-fashion brands, from J&J baby products to Team Obama, from Dove to Dunkin’ – and even touched on our agency’s own re-branding, to Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness.

When I asked them the single most important thing they’d gotten from our time together, many of them focused on all the things I would have hoped: the importance of listening to stakeholders, of defining a clear mission, of understanding how the brand lives across the time-space continuum.

But as always, I was struck by the quality of the discussion with my students, and how ideas and observations built off each other, so that collectively, we all left the room feeling smarter and more invigorated than when we came in (me included). And to me, that’s the real lesson of integrated marketing …Boot Camp, too. We’re all so much more powerful when we join forces and work together.

- Johanna Skilling, Director of Strategic Planning at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

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Tylenol and Drug Safety

Once again, Tylenol is under scrutiny for its safety. Ironic because the brand was built on a heritage of safety.

As it periodically does, the FDA is taking a look at specific dosing levels of acetaminophen, the drug found in Tylenol, to make sure that consumers are safely taking the drug.

As well they should.

I think there's a larger issue at play here, however. It's one thing to make sure that the dosing instructions call for a safe use of the drug. An absolute must. But it's another thing to have consumers follow the dosing instructions. Also an absolute must.

I'm afraid that the larger issue is that consumers don't follow the label instructions. They often take more than prescribed (often take more than prescribed!) and often mix in other drugs that they are taking at the same time. Which can result in an unsafe level of an otherwise safe drug.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case with Tylenol, but a more general issue about prescription and non-prescription drugs and how consumers take them. There's an over-riding sense that these products are safe, regardless of how they are taken. That is simply not the case.

The FDA regulates labelling and dosing for a reason. To keep these drugs safe. Consumers need to understand that just because the FDA deems a drug to be safe, it may not be safe when taken incorrectly.

I admire Tylenol for always standing for safety. Consumers need to do their part too and take their drugs safely. Tylenol or otherwise.

Follow this link to read a bit about the current situation with Tylenol: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/story?id=7955370&page=1

Hope this finds you well -- Jim

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