Carolyn Hansen

on January 30, 2008

category: a look into agency life

Vice President/Marketing

I laughed till coffee came out of my nose.

This may be one of those "you had to be there" moments, but I'll share it anyway. Call it the danger of teleconferencing.

We were having an internal creative review meeting where the full team looks over everything the creative team put together — before it gets presented to the client. The Account Manager had to be out of town that day, so she phoned in.

We were all arranged around the table, with Suzanne (our AM) represented by the speakerphone equipment sitting in the middle.

Paul launched in on a description of the concept . . . then suddenly stopped mid-sentence, glared sternly at the speaker phone and said, "Suzanne! What are you looking at?" Long pause. Suzanne timidly asked, "What?"

Paul just wanted to know if she was viewing our work on a computer screen or if she'd been sent printed samples. Suzanne thought she had been caught on some (non-existent) web cam looking out the window instead of paying attention.

I wept, I laughed so hard.

Rule Number 27 of teleconferencing: Pretend you're being watched even if you aren't.
 

Comments:

1/16/2009 at 6:01 p.m.
Oh, how I miss you guys!
As someone who's seen Ms. Hansen actually laugh coffee through her nose, this was a true trip down memory lane. I'm so glad to know that despite your stellar success, The Hacker Group is still The Hacker Group I knew and loved.
>>Martha Wharton, Seattle WA

Tara Scot

on January 29, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Web Developer

Junk or spam?

If you have multiple email accounts, you know that some of them label unasked for mail as "junk" and others as "spam." In my Outlook email at work, I look in the junk email folder and a few of the dozens of items are tagged as SUSPECTED SPAM. In Hotmail, they give me a Junk folder too.

In Gmail, they just set up a Spam folder — no refinements. It's spam or it's in your inbox.

Then you have the legitimate email that comes to your inbox when you'd rather it hadn't. Here's what Return Path says in a DM News article last week:

56.4% of consumers say they receive high volumes of junk e-mail from marketers, when junk is defined as "e-mail from companies I know but that is just not interesting to me."

Great. Another definition of junk, i.e., all the mail that gets through the filters.

Wait a minute. That's the old, old definition of junk mail — "the crap in my mailbox that isn't interesting to me."

I think marketers can fix that. Let's make our email interesting.
 

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Carolyn Hansen

on January 16, 2008

category: direct marketing

Vice President/Marketing

Now we're cookin'.

I've recently taken up cooking as a way to relax on the weekend. My husband is the family chef, so the pressure is off. This has been an enjoyable way to spend Sunday afternoons. I take about half an hour to sort through recipes and find what looks appealing. I check our pantry and then go to the market for everything we don't already have on hand. I come home, pour myself a glass of wine, and start chopping, slicing and dicing.

Most of the time, this has culminated in a really terrific meal — if I do say so myself. But this Sunday was a disappointment. The great salmon fillet I started with ended up tasting pretty awful. What went wrong? Did I make a mistake? Were the ingredients wrong or in the wrong proportion?

I retraced my steps. I had followed directions exactly. The marinade ingredients were just what had been called for. I had to conclude that this particular recipe was terrible.

When we analyze our direct marketing programs, we also ask questions. What made this program successful (or not)? Did we choose the right media? Did the segmentation strategy precisely target the correct audience? Was it an irresistible offer? Was the creative work brilliant?

My a-ha moment with the fish got me to thinking. Like my ruined meal, sometimes it's just one overriding issue — not a dash of this and a tablespoon of that — that makes or breaks a program. My new rule of thumb is this: When everything goes right, you can spread the credit fairly evenly. When something goes wrong, there's often one major factor — often just one wrong strategic assumption — to blame.
 

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Spyro Kourtis

on January 15, 2008

category: integrated marketing

President and CEO

What demographic data really means

Here's a piece of news from a recent Wall Street Journal. In an article about television media data analysts, they report a brilliant insight:

One evolving theory: that advertisers should pay more attention to people's viewing patterns than to their demographics, such as whether they are a twentysomething or a male. Fans of the NBC Universal show "Heroes," for example, whether they are 18-year-old men or 54-year-old women, generally tend to watch the show the same way — often clicking through ads, she says. The same has been true so far for NBC's "The Biggest Loser." That's a shift from previous years, when TV networks and advertisers were focused on reaching coveted demographics like viewers aged 18 to 34.

Direct marketers have been saying for, I don't know, forever, that behavior is really all that counts and demographics don't matter much at all, except as an interesting side note. In the beginning of things like Nielsen ratings and Starch scores, advertisers cared about demographics because age and gender were all they really could know about their audience. And even that was an inferred generalization. Because purchase behavior couldn't be directly measured in their mediated world, they quantified what they could quantify, not what really mattered.

If you ask someone in the creative department of an advertising agency why they care so much about demographics, they'd probably say it gives them a better mental picture of who they're trying to reach. With that image in mind, they can create more relevant messaging. I think that's probably a legitimate use of the relatively squishy data.

But if you ask someone in media, I bet they'd say they're looking for viewers aged 18 to 34 because that's who buys the product. These media folks honestly believe they're going through a targeting exercise that will generate less advertising waste.

It's all about behavior, baby. And the general advertising world is only beginning to figure out what that means.
 

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Spyro Kourtis

on January 10, 2008

category: direct marketing

President and CEO

Another reason not to advertise on the Oscars.

Last year I got some press for my contrarian views on media buys that focus on the Super Bowl and Academy Awards.

My view is that this is almost always a vanity play — often on the part of both advertiser and agency. I guess ego is as good a reason as any to follow a particular strategy . . . unless you have a good faith responsibility to do your best to bring in a profit for your company. Stakeholders like your employees might prefer that you put that wasted ad spend toward salaries and bonuses. Stockholders might like a growing bottom line better than viewing thirty seconds of glory on Oscar night.

Here's another reason. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, they stated the obvious. The Oscars might not happen at all this year due to Hollywood's writers' strike. Many agencies create special commercials just for the Academy Awards, in order to make a big splash.

You may argue that stuff like this happens rarely and it's certainly not predictable. True enough. But, while a specific disaster can't be predicted, Murphy's Law says something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. Hurricanes come each spring. Summer brings tornadoes. Winter has its blizzards. And — possibly worst of all — 2008 is a presidential election year. I guarantee that people will get distracted.

That's why putting all of your eggs (or even most of them) in one fragile basket is usually a bad idea.

When we create marketing campaigns, we always spread the risk as much as possible. Every program involves tests, in case our control campaign doesn't work for some reason. We spread out the campaign over time so that if the whole country is completely focused on Britney Spears' custody issues for a day, it only makes a small dent in our ROI.

Mitigating risk is just one of the many things we consider when we're strategizing — and why we won't be buying any time for Oscar night.
 

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Carolyn Hansen

on January 9, 2008

category: a look into agency life

Vice President/Marketing

Post-holiday rush.

A new year is like the grown-up version of going back to school. I don't think I'm the only one finding it difficult to get back into the routine after taking time off during the holidays. (Tell me again . . . what is it that I do for a living?)

Just like the first week of classes, I've discovered I'm already behind -- and it's only January 9. I have reading to catch up on, assignments coming due, and pop quizzes in meetings where I thought I was just there to listen to the lecture.

Fortunately, I'm studying what I enjoy. And all the busy-ness means business is good.

Hey! I'd better get back to work!
 

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Jill Kaufman

on January 8, 2008

category: direct marketing

Vice President/Account Services

Question everything.

There was a popular bumper sticker a long while back that said "Question Authority." Of course, the correct response to that is, "Who says?"

Around here, we question everything. It can get a little annoying. But in the long run it's the best thing for our clients. Here are some of the questions I've heard in the last week:

• What would it take to get that creative out to the client for approval sooner?
• Is that the best headline we could come up with?
• Should the background be blue or white?
• Are we targeting families with children at home?
• What's the most relevant benefit of the product for this target group?
• If we move some budget from mail to online, what would the results be?
• If we put more budget into mail, what would the net be?

I love questions. It shows that people are thinking. Even if the answers are only opinions, you learn something. And, as direct marketers, we're in the unique position of getting some factual, real-world, quantitative answers to the perennial question "What do consumers really want?"

Here's to more smart questions (and answers) in 2008!
 

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Jürgen Stephan

on January 3, 2008

category: direct marketing

Executive Director, New Business Development

An energizing start to the New Year.

This morning we started with a strategy session that really inspired me. About twice a week the company's executives get together for a Strategy Council meeting that focuses on one of our clients or prospects.

This time we got a number of other account people involved to share what's working with their clients — so that we could use that information on behalf of a specific client who's looking for high-performance ideas. Not just based on a hunch, but based on market test data.

The room was packed and the energy level was high as account managers and executives talked about current best practices and new marketing ideas that have promise. Ideas for data segmentation strategies flew. New media opportunities captured the spotlight. It's really amazing how much is going on in the world of direct response marketing, and how having many clients, can add to a larger aggregated knowledge base of best practices. Both for consumer and business markets.

This is what makes working for an agency so great. We learn what works (and what doesn't) and see how our best practices apply in new situations. It gave me new ideas that I'm hoping to present soon.
 

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Carolyn Hansen

on January 2, 2008

category: miscellaneous

Vice President/Marketing

Work resolutions

Do you make work-related resolutions for the New Year? I asked my co-workers about theirs and Maria responded with an article quoting a survey that says 55 percent of professionals never make a career-focused New Year's resolution and 85 percent said they did not make one last year.

Does that surprise you as much as it does me? I don't think I'm career-obsessed and I know I'm no workaholic, but I spend about a third of my life at work and I'm proud of what I do here. I always want to improve. Early last year I read Getting Things Done, by David Allen and it made an enormous difference for me — and my formerly haphazard (okay, nonexistent) filing system.

Continuous improvement is something of a mantra around here, so I'm not surprised that lots of us have work-related resolutions. Some are more serious than others. And some that aren't precisely work-related come from the most dedicated folks. In no particular order, here's what people were willing to go public with...

"More kick ass creative." (Kimberly Cobban, Designer)

"To try and stay caught up!!" (Debbie Stockham, Accounts Payable)

"Take up yoga, as a stress reliever as well as exercise." (Susan Wall, Account Manager)

"To finally write that one great Hacker blog post which will gain me literary immortality." (Maria Niskishyna, Project Manager in Training)

"I definitely want to create a Hacker MSA (Marketing Services Agreement) to replace the T&C’s added to each contract." (Dick Summerhays, VP/Chief Financial Officer)

"Get organized.
Purge my old files and junk ancient papers, magazines, samples.
Network with colleagues.
Keep my desk clean.
Manage my email inbox better.
Hit all my deadlines.
Maybe best summarized by DO IT NOW!" (Brian Gilbert, VP/Integrated Marketing)

"Dan says it should be 'stay current on eTime,' but I say that’s unrealistic. So let’s go with 'kick ass all year long.'" (Tara Scot, Web Developer)

"Develop managers into leaders. And, using the Team Approach, craft the most competitive employment value proposition for our candidates." (David Nova, Director of Human Resources)

"To finally defeat the unrelenting and fierce Dust Bunnies, which have plagued my home away from home for far too long. I shall end this battle once and for all using my secret weapon, which can’t be named (so as to avoid tipping off my enemies, and thus, possibly continuing this battle even longer)." (Paul Jenulis, Proofreader)

"To master...........timing." (Donna Tschantz, Project Manager)

"Get more done in fewer hours spent." (Jürgen Stephan, Executive Director/New Business Development)

"Keep track of the number of miles I walk per day at the office." (Ben van Avermaete, Traffic Coordinator)

"Ensure management is engaged and prepared." (Tom Reid, Account Director)

"Finally visit the gym in our building." (Matt Witter, Executive Director/Account Management)

"To take it to the next level." (Michelle Schmoelzer, Account Manager)

Does any of this strike a chord with you? Let us know.
 

Comments:

1/2/2008 at 10:01 p.m.
Resolutions
It's great to see others thinking about this, as I set out my goals! Web coach James Ray says "Energy flows where attention goes," so it just makes sense to pay attention to some resolutions/goals. Love the dustbunny one . . . ya gotta have whole life goals.
>>Laraine Crampton, Santa Monica CA