Marketing Pop Culture

"Charlie Wilson's War" and How to Get Things Done

Truth is, I've got over 100 feeds in my RSS reader.  One of them is the feed from Tom Peters' site because, well, he's Tom Peters.

Tom recently distilled some lessons from Charlie Wilson's War (the book, not the movie) on how to be an effective change agent.  Really good stuff about how to navigate organizations, networking and overall excellent reinforcement of the value of relationships.

Read on.

How Not To Do New Media

Funny how the “old media” industries rush to absorb new upstarts.  Case in point is an article in today’s NY Times on David Lehre, who achieved success by directing his own comedy spots that were posted to YouTube.  Fox has signed him to a development deal.  Of course, the question on everyone’s mind is: Will this work?  Will he be able to make the transition from down-and-dirty YouTube videos to the high production values (not to mention the pressure!) of the 30-minute television sketch comedy format?

But this is less about David Lehre.  Rather, it’s about old media’s approach to new media.  It seems to be the entirely wrong approach to think that by simply putting more money behind David that his success on the Web will translate to success on the Fox TV network. 

Seems to me that a smarter move would be to house him under the Fox Interactive banner.  This way, he’s not being taken out of his element.  His audience isn’t used to seeing him on TV.  They find him on the Web.  What about new audiences?  They’ll find him on the Web, too.

Note to the TV people: You’re not really doing anyone any favors just because you can throw money at them.  People like David have created content and amassed their own audiences long before you showed up.  They’re doing you a favor by being in business with you. 

Content is not king.  Attention is.

Can Not Knowing About Contemporary Culture Be A Career Liability?

Grant McCracken presents a provocative take on the Sumner Redstone’s (right) firing of Tom Freston (left), which kicked off an intense discussion.  He read the situation like this:

Freston got his job as a CEO of Viacom because he was deeply informed about contemporary culture and lost it because he was not informed enough.

Whether this is true or not (I think there’s some truth here) remains to be seen.  But the fact is, most corporations ARE disconnected from contemporary culture.  Try and get them to jump on an emerging trend before a competitor does is like trying to get a Texas governor to pardon a man on death row.  And when you finally get to a decision-maker, they get apoplectic.  As with other initiatives—Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM) or Integrated Marketing--the leadership to ensure that a company is plugged into popular culture comes from the example set at the top. 

What I’m interested in is a complete reframing of the skill sets needed to be in marketing.  Yes, it’s important to know strategy and how to traffic work through a system.  But it’s equally important to ensure that your marketing efforts don’t happen in isolation, since changes in the culture impact how brands and marketing efforts are perceived.  A new idea?  Hardly.  But the real metric is the number of companies that do this well.  Since this number is small, there seems to be some room for improvement.

That’s all for now.  Check back for a more in-depth discussion of McCracken’s latest book Flock & Flow, where he discusses ways that corporations can solve this problem.  Suffice it to say that it won’t be easy.

Read his full post here.

The Next Chapter in Agency Compensation

Crispin Porter & Bogusky (CP+B) made the news again this week. It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill news business story. Rather, Haggar Clothing not only hired the Miami agency, but gave it a minority stake. This is newsworthy because it's one of those rare instances where an agency takes a stake in its client’s company. It’s much more expected that if a discussion of equity arises, it would be expected that both agency and client would be comfortable discussing equity in relation to the intellectual property that's created as a result of the agency’s work on the client’s behalf.

Questions: Will such a move become de rigueur for agencies competing for a brand’s business? Will companies begin offering equity positions as a reward for work that creates value in the business? To what extent is this just an exception versus the start of a trend? It’s certainly one way an agency could demonstrate both its belief in it’s own strategy for the client and that it wants to fully align its incentive structure with that of the client. The next question, of course, is how many brands want their agencies so tied to them and vice versa? Expect companies to tread carefully, since there’s a limited amount of equity to go around (barring stock splits).

However, an equity stake can certainly benefit an agency in a number of ways. First, it evens out an their cash flow, particularly if the projected return meets a minimum hurdle rate. Second, in the case of a company the size of Haggar Clothing, it guarantees that the agency will have access to the highest levels of the company. What this means is that Crispin will have input and impact on areas other than just advertising. They will be at the table when Haggar’s senior management wrestles with strategic issues about new product development, innovation and value creation. It’s a powerful position to be in, no doubt. Most agencies talk endlessly about having a seat at the strategy table. Based on this move by CP+B, perhaps they’ve been focused on the wrong table. . . ?

More coverage here.

Technorati tags:

Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Haggar Clothing Co., agency compensation, fashion

No Tears for HR, Please--Part 2

My thanks to George Lenard for picking up on something I wrote earlier and continuing the exploration of the HR debate:

The Spark (A marketer's view of Pop Culture. Insight. Connection. Solutions.) is abruptly negative: "No Tears for HR, Please."

[I]n business, one tends to be judged on outcomes, and the outcome and the bottom line is HR sucks.

My response is as follows:

George,

You’re right.  My post was abruptly negative, and it’s because I have a dim view of HR.  However, your highlighting of my post made me think further: My issue with HR is largely around hiring efficacy.  Having spent the last eleven months on a job search, my view of HR is formed by people who call you in for an interview, but check out during the course of the conversation; people who take your CV forward for positions for which you clearly don’t have the skillset (i.e., its an advertising job, but my background is marketing and promotions); or, worse, people who tell you that there’s an opportunity, that they’ll set up a meeting for you, but never do (and, by the way, you never hear from them again).  My experience leads me to believe it when Fast Company makes the “not the sharpest knife in the drawer analogy”.

From looking at your blog, I’m reminded that HR does do a lot of important work around compliance, benefits, etc.  These are not minor issues.

However, I would ask you to keep in mind that the FC article and the debate it’s engendered speaks to a real frustration with the HR function.  There is a genuine sense, particularly as it relates to hiring, that HR people are only reactive, that they’re only filling requisitions.   In a knowledge economy, all a company really has to stand on is its ability to attract and retain talent.  This is where, in the case of most companies, I’d say that HR not only stumbles, but falls flat.  I’d like to see a more developed approach that says, Here’s someone who’s talented and would add value to our company.  How can we get them here? 

On the other hand, maybe it’s just a numbers game, i.e., in an industry like advertising or marketing, companies know that there are many more talented folks than there are available openings, so they’ll never have to worry about talent.  Somebody will fill a slot.

No Tears for HR, Please.

This month’s issue of Fast Company throws the spotlight on human resources.  Unfortunately, the title of the story is not misplaced: “Why We Hate HR”.  It would be an extremely short article if it were reduced to a simplistic answer.  The author Keith Hammonds offers multiple perspectives that explain HR’s current challenges.  However, in business, one tends to be judged on outcomes, and the outcome and the bottom line is HR sucks. 

Earlier, I said this is unfortunate.  That's because acquiring and retaining talent should be the number one priority for any organization.  But that can't happen if those charged with doing so are completely disconnected from the businesses they supposedly serve.  And in my experience, the disconnect is HUGE.

Apparently, pulling the covers off of this well-known, but often unspoken fact has generated a lot of controversy and discussion.

A good starting point for following the thread is here.