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.

However, just as Doug Pray conveyed in his documentary film, Art & Copy (which premiered in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was funded by the non-profit advertising organization, One Club) – “Hate advertising? Make better ads”.  Pray bases his documentary on the idea that advertising may actually be a unique and rebellious accomplishment, similar to what most of us know as “art”, rather than the manipulative “Devil’s workshop” with which the industry is typically associated.

“Sure, [advertising agencies] were just selling us stuff, but along the way, their ads actually inspired us, entertained us, or might have even been socially redeeming,” wrote Pray in his film synopsis.

Art & Copy details some of the greatest advertising since the 1960s and unearths the creative mavericks behind these ad campaigns and innovations that have literally defined mainstream culture.  The cast includes the real “Mad Men” of today’s industry, including: Dan Wieden and David Kennedy of Wieden+Kennedy, who helped turn a then little-known athletic shoe company into a trend for decades with the slogan, “Just Do It”; Lee Clow, the man behind Apple’s  “Think Different” ads; Mary Wells, with the help of Creative Director Charlie Moss, who fashioned the “I (Heart) New York” campaign; and George Lois, whose “I Want My MTV” campaign elevated the booming channel into the mainstream (and into a song by Dire Straits).

These are examples of the commercials and campaigns we can never seem to get out of our heads.  We may not appreciate advertising that treats us as needy, unintelligent or easily manipulated, but we do appreciate when advertising is clever, brilliant, funny, or emotionally charged, as these creative and innovative campaigns have been.  Advertising is the daily language of our entire system of commerce, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

As one of the top creative minds in advertising says in this inspiring film about creativity, art and innovation, “That’s advertising, baby!” –George Lois.  Art & Copy was released on DVD in May 2010, so I suggest you buy a copy in order to be introduced to the real “Mad Men” of advertising.

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.