So how do advertisers reach the 71 million “Millennials” in GenY that spend over 200 billion dollars annually and will soon replace the baby boomer generation as the largest percentage of the workforce?  The answer: Advertising can no longer be a group of old men deciding what is best for consumers.

According to the book, Trust Us, We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber attack the 20^th Century model of marketing and public relations for misusing their power as “experts” in the eyes of the consumer.

Products and services used to be validated using this “third-party technique”, where an industry would purchase the services of so-called independent experts (a.k.a. advertising agencies) to promote a message that would monetarily benefit a specific industry.  The advertising spin-doctors would then shape a message to flatter the product or service, while simultaneously discrediting or attacking the competition.  Sometimes they would even go so far as to suppress or manipulate problematic data about the product or service to make it “sell-able”.

But advertising has taken a turn – consumers no longer rely on the experts.  Not only do they not want to be told what to buy, they don’t want to be pushed into what to think, who to vote for and how to raise their children.

Today’s advertising is about the consumer deciding what they want to see and buy.  For example, according to a national survey from Arbitron and Edison Research, 48 percent of Americans 12 years and older have a profile on one or more social networking sites.  On Facebook, the most visited website, consumers can “like” a note or post a page. Advertisers code the site to recognize those favorites and use this information to target the needs of consumers.  All of the sudden on your Facebook page there is an ad for your favorite band on tour in your area or a new restaurant to try on your street. No more pop-up ads flashing shiny letters and “experts” selling you catchy phrases and manipulated data.

Advertisers finally realize that it’s not about how much spin they can put on a product or service to increase sales – it’s now all about YOU.

British Petroleum’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an example of how a strong company brand can be destroyed instantly. It’s costing the company a heap in terms of human resources and dollars to salvage their brand. We can all learn from BP’s misfortune by not losing control of our company brand.

It’s a good idea to periodically refresh employees as to what your mission is and how your brand is defined. Is service or price number one?  How about integrity or quality? There are no “right answers” but everyone needs to understand and effectively communicate the company’s differentiators and core strengths. Those key messages have to be consistent in all forms of communication, marketing and social media.

The brand’s content needs to be consistent with how it visually appeals to its customers. West End is a good example of how a brand can totally remake the image of a company by fine tuning it’s product line.  But this can not be done on a whim. You need to understand the needs of  your current and potential customers. The trick is not alienating current customers in the process of trying to expand. Check out Fuel Your Branding for more on the visual aspects of branding.

Brands can emulate a rollercoaster ride. Take Apple as an example. They release the new iPhone 4; brand value goes way up. But the phones are difficult to order due to technical glitches; brand value goes down.  Then they are unable to fulfill the large quantity of orders; brand value goes down further.  Unfortunately, these setbacks happen, but how you handle these situations can positively or adversely affect your brand. Apple addressed the iPhone 4 delays head on with an apology and explanation (they were totally unprepared for the volume because it was way more than previous iPhones); brand value goes back up. Then there is the problem with the antenna; brand goes back down. The goal is to not have these types of hiccups, but life is unpredictable and therefore all companies need to be prepared to handle these bumps in the road effectively.

Maintaining a brand is more than having a pretty new logo every year. It’s about knowing what your brand is and communicating that both internally and externally. It’s vital to avoid actions which degrade your brand and when necessary, doing damage control. Remember, it takes years to create a positive brand, but one wrong move and it can be destroyed overnight.

Mobile advertising is catching up to the fast growing mobile market.  In the Mobile State of the Industry Survey conducted by DM2Pro, agencies reported that mobile advertising average spending increased a substantial 80 percent in 2010 from $143,000 in 2009 to $260,000.  This advertising allotment may not appear significant.  However, with the rapid increase of new mobile technologies coming to market and the flexibility and possibilities these devices enable consumers, mobile advertising is at the forefront of the advertising world.

As the mobile market continues to grow, consider incorporating mobile advertising into your brand’s marketing campaigns.  Here are a few effective types of mobile advertising that can be implemented:

Mobile Web Banners – Similar to banner advertisements you see on Internet websites, mobile web banners (located at the top of a page) or mobile web posters (located at the bottom of a page) are advertisements created specifically for website interfaces developed for mobile devices.

SMS Messages – SMS ads are short messages sent as text only messages to mobile phones and can be distributed to a purchased list of phone numbers.  According to the Mobile Marketing Association, SMS advertising accounts for a staggering 90 percent of mobile advertising revenue worldwide.

MMS Messages – With mobile devices now featuring large, color displays, multimedia messages (MMS) are becoming increasingly popular in mobile advertising.  Engaging graphic advertisements are replacing plain SMS text messages.

Sponsorships – Mobile games, apps and videos are viable sources for advertising opportunities. Advertisements can be placed within these mediums, before the applications or web pages load.

Augmented Reality Apps – Applications, like the Layar Reality Browser, use one’s current surroundings to highlight businesses and places of interest in the immediate area. This is a great opportunity for business to consumer companies to list places of business within augmented reality applications. Consumers can gain access to business information, including real-time directions taking consumers directly to a business from their current location.

These are just a few examples of how advertising is penetrating the mobile market. When planning your next marketing campaign, extend your advertising reach by adding a mobile advertising element into the mix.

Tip: To learn more information on mobile advertising, mobile marketing guidelines, or mobile marketing case studies, visit the Mobile Marketing Association website.

Determining who are the best prospects to sell your service to and reaching out to them in a way that makes them perceive you as the perfect match for them.

Today’s opportunity:

Bill Builder has a list of architects whom he wants to get work from.

Old School Solution:

Bill goes on each architect’s website, finds out what kinds of projects each architect does, sends out a customized email or direct mail to each one and follows up with a phone call.

Problems with this solution:

• Slow
• Labor intensive
• Information is only as current and complete as the prospect’s website. Bill needs to know what the architect is working on right now and what projects are in the pipeline because those are the jobs that Bill wants to get.

New School Solution:

Bill sends out an automated email campaign once a month with a link to his website (which shows all of the kinds of projects Bill has built.) Bill has a tracker on his computer desktop that notifies him when Art, one of the target architects, opens the email. The tracker shows that Art has now clicked to go to Bill’s site. A chat window opens on Art’s computer with a message,  “Hi Art, let me know if you have any questions…”  The tracker now shows Art exploring the restaurant renovation pages on Bill’s site and then he leaves the site. Soon thereafter, Bill picks up the phone, calls Art, and says, “Just wanted to follow up on the email I sent. I just finished renovating Chez Suzanne on Geary Street. How about meeting me there for lunch so you can see the quality of my work and we can discuss what you’re working on.”

Advantages:

• Automated monthly email campaign prevents “I’m too busy” syndrome.
• Know which of your prospects is interested in your service in real time via the tracker.
• Be able know what specific service your prospect is interested in right now.
• Use chat to initiate a relationship immediately. If you are not viewing your tracker when the prospect is looking at your site, there is a button that opens a form to ask a question which can be answered when you have time.
• Since you do not tell your prospect that you are watching their activity on your web site, they do not feel their privacy is invaded. Instead they think that you just happen to do exactly what they need done.
• Minimum time required with maximum results.

Summary:

Spend your time doing your business. Use your marketing firm to set up an automatic periodic marketing system and only spend your time on pursuing true prospects.

It was just over a decade ago, when armed with your office phone and Rolodex you thought you could conquer the world.  When your lines of communication were limited to just two: phone or in-person.  Now we can email a client twenty times a day, or interrupt a co-worker with an IM, all without ever getting up from our desk.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is we are missing the handshake.  We are missing the opportunity to say “I like your new hair cut” or “ have you lost weight?”.  We are missing the way we’ve interacted with our friends and associates for centuries.  We are missing the face-to-face communication.

As an account executive with Belding, it is imperative that I keep in touch with clients and associates.  However, sometimes email is simply not enough.  Being able to visit clients in person has enabled me to better communicate our services and more importantly, listen to my clients and better understand their goals and challenges.   Things you just can’t get in an email.

A funny thing happened last week that highlights what happens when we rely solely on electronic communications.  I had recently attended my twentieth high school reunion and a friend had posted some photos from the event on Facebook.  An old classmate who wasn’t able to attend the event was viewing the photos and happened across my friend list.  She noticed that one my friends on Facebook was a co-worker of hers.  She immediately posted a message on my wall, asking how I knew her co-worker.  After looking through some old emails, it turns out we (my classmate and I) had been emailing each other for over three years and never made the connection that we were once classmates and dear friends.   After a few “OMG’s” and some weak excuses about married names, we both agreed that had we not discovered this connection, we would have gone on for at least another three years emailing each other – never knowing who the other person was.

What’s the moral of the story?  Next time you are about to click “send”, think about how you would have communicated this information a decade ago.  When possible, get up, walk down the hall, or down the street, and knock on the door.  Don’t fear face-to-face interactions.  Dust off the Rolodex and call or visit an old contact.  You may be surprised to learn who they really are.

This phenomenon happens frequently in the design world. For many reasons, designers don’t get all the toys at once and we end up “rearranging” over and over again. Frequently, there are good reasons for this. Usually, there is an assumption that the job will get done more quickly if the designer is given ten percent of the information to “get him/her started.” As the example above illustrates, most of the time, that is not a correct assumption.

Years of experience in the design world have taught me one important truth: if I start a project with the content and information in an organized package, the result is better, the cost is lower and the project is completed more quickly.

What does an organized creative project look like?

• A concise description of intent
• A description of the target audience
• A listing of historic considerations
• A clear definition of the scope of the project.

What does an organized production project look like?

• A clear, detailed description of the project including deliverables, deliverable sizes, and all deliverable attributes.
• A hierarchy of what is the most important down to least important
• All the assets (images, graphics, required fonts, text content) or clear descriptions of stock images to be searched for.
• Any existing corporate brand standards

If the above is presented in an organized package, here is what is gained:

• Time and money savings: The project can be completed much more quickly with less time spent on endless email threads
• A better product: The design does not need to be patched up to squeeze in those last minute items.
• A more creative project: Designers can focus on designing rather than sorting through emails looking for content, etc.
• Happy clients: Clients can move on to other projects, confident that their project will be well designed, on time, on budget.

All this sounds great, right? So why is it not done more?

• MULTIPLE PLAYERS within the client’s company – all contributing on different schedules
• WORKING STYLES – some people like to see a framework so that they can then fill in the “blanks”
• HABITS – some people just get in the habit of handing off one element at a time.

How to move toward a more perfect world?

• The MULTIPLE PLAYER situation – Clients can identify all players in a project and their roles up front and define one leader. Then the leader can partner with the agency account executive to organize, drive and manage the project.
• The WORKING STYLE situation -  Agency account executives can paint picture of how different requests can add unnecessary hours. They can make recommendations on how to organize the gathering of information to minimize costs. Personality traits or insights of all parties should be shared with the account executive so he or she can better manage communications.
• The HABIT situation – Not gathering all information early on is costly because the designer ends up spending a lot of time organizing and reorganizing the content, keeping track of what is still missing, and reading through multiple emails looking for content. By working closely with the agency account executive at the planning stage, this can be easily avoided. He or she will organize the job with a systematic approach to save time and money.

Most important take-aways?

• Gather all content up front
• Spend time with your agency account executive up front, as you would with an architect to streamline the work flow of a project and optimize the  timeline, budget and deliverable quality.