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Seven Years
After year six, I didn’t think much would change. I figured it would feel that way forever. But, year seven was a bit different. Year seven brought a defining moment.
Admittedly, the sound of sirens still makes me jump, especially in the morning. Lavender hasn’t entered my house yet, but every so often I’ll test out smelling a candle. Memories continue to fade. But, I like to think the broken heart has mended itself. Now, there is just a scar. It is a beautiful one.
But, the most important thing that Year Seven brought? It brought the realization that I want to do it again. In previous years, I was so scared that I told myself I would never put myself in that situation. But, this last week, I realized that it’s what I want with all my heart. And one day, when the time is right, it will happen- I will be the great mom I was always meant to be.
In loving memory… today and always.
Posted in Event
3six5
Today was supposed to be my day to be part of the3six5 project – 365 days, 365 views. Unfortunately, wires got crossed and they posted someone else’s post. It’s a great project and one I was really excited about. It was one project that I had been waiting over a year to write for, even though I had no idea what the day would be like 🙂
Below is the post that never got published 🙁
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I’ve thought about this day for almost a year now. Excited, nervous, anxious. What would I write? What city would I be in? What would my life look like? When I picked the date, I was unsure. From a career perspective, we had just been acquired and I knew it was an opportunity for change.
Today’s National Dice Day, apropos for someone working with Las Vegas casinos. Today is also the Great Santa Run, where 10,000 marathoners dress in Santa costumes and run The Strip. It’s the adult version of Disney, where everything is magical & surreal. Nevertheless, for me, the lights have faded. Today, the wind of Chicago is my version of Vegas lights.
The other thing today is? 361 days of what could be called unrequited like. Foolish? Romantic? You decide. All I know is he’s the one I’d take along for my ride around the sun.
Oh yes, I’ve dated others. I love the thrill of meeting someone new as much as the next person, maybe more. In fact, I even started this project, 10 Guys, 10 Drinks. The premise was to go on ten dates and on each date have a different drink, so even if the date was a bust, at least I got to try a new drink. Long story short, I stopped just shy of #10. I wanted to save that one for someone special.
Despite the men I’ve dated, when I think about the person I want to confide in, curl up next to or come home to, it’s him. It’s funny; I used to say he’s not my type. I’d take one look at his picture and wouldn’t think twice. He’d probably say the same about me. Yet, he’s said it himself – we fit well together.
It may not be the “perfect” moment, but today I’m using this post to tell you what I didn’t say well before. I want more. I think us can work. I want a chance. I want you to be #10. How about it? How about a “real” date?
I’m pretending that I am brave. That I do not care if you react to this. It is only pretend.
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The writer is a 28-year-old interactive marketer, who believes in the impossible, playing by rule #76 & is looking for love.
Posted in Marketing, Personal, Social Media, Thoughts
Found at Sea
For some reason, this poem hit me tonight, particularly the last line. For the past four months, I’ve been searching for something, albeit I wasn’t sure what. Maybe what I’ve been searching for all long is myself.
Maggie and Milly and Molly and May
went down to the beach (to play one day)and Maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, andMilly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;and Molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: andMay came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.
– E. E. Cummings, “Maggie and Milly and Molly and May”
Posted in Thoughts
Gap’s Questionable Social Strategy
In the past few months, I’ve started to give major kudos to Gap, only to say, “wait…” and scratch my head.
I won’t even mention their logo debacle. But, if you want, you can make your own here.
Then, I stumbled on the below Gap commercial. For Gap, it’s different, yet fits its brand and previous holiday commercials. Then, the genius sets in. If you “like” the commercial on Facebook, Gap will donate a $1 to one of the charities mentioned. Sure, it might sound silly or simple, but it’s still impressive for a big brand. They are marrying the two things people are really into lately – social networks and doing something easy through a social network for charity. And, they are doing it through a traditional medium, TV.
So where’s the failure? The failure is sadly on multiple levels, all that should have been, “duh’s”:
- As far as I can tell, they don’t promote the video on their own Facebook wall. Okay, after double checking, they do promote it on the main tab, but you have to click on a banner (with no call to action to the charity component) that doesn’t give you any insight that you’ll watch a video
- The YouTube video doesn’t click to their Facebook page at the end. Sure, back in the day, this was difficult or near impossible, but now it’s easy cheesy. Why wouldn’t you revise the video slightly to be clickable to your Facebook page. You’ve either lost people to thinking that they need to “like” the video on YouTube itself, or they have no idea to find the video on Facebook.
When putting your “traditional” commercials online, stop and do the “easy” things that make sense for the medium/channel you’re posting within. These days, it’s kinda like buying paid search for your Superbowl ad or the url for your company name before announcing publicly 🙂
Posted in Advertising, Social Media, Video
Settling
I’ve written about refusing to settle in the past. As I search for something and especially this past week, it seems to be an appropriate topic and inspired by this one.
Again, refusing to settle doesn’t mean always waiting for perfect nor does it mean being “difficult” or refusing to compromise. What it does mean is never having to give up what you fundamentally believe in.
One of my friends believes that you should marry the person that’s, “good enough.” She explains it as the guy you’re dating that makes you feel okay, but not great. Her thought is, why wait, he (and your life together) will be average or okay. Every time she explains this theory I think, “WHAT?!? WHY?” I don’t get thinking like this, I guess I fundamentally don’t believe in “good enough” 🙂
Another example of this is the friend that after growing up and going to Catholic school converted to Judaism for her kids and marriage. Neither one a bad thing, but later in life, she stopped believing in Judaism… it wasn’t something she fundamentally believed in. Not only did she stop believing, but she started to resent her life and her husband for making her compromise a fundamental belief.
The moral? Be careful when you decide to settle, especially when it involves one of your fundamental beliefs. You might end up more miserable and resentful than if you had refused to settle in the first place.
Posted in Thoughts
Advice for Agencies
Thanks to a friend, I stumbled on this post. I liked it so much, I’m reposting it here:
It hasn’t been very long but already the world looks very different being on the corporate side here at PepsiCo partnering with many different agencies. Here are some perspectives that maybe valuable for digital (and traditional) agencies working with organizations the size of PepsiCo.
- Digital Marketing complicates life for a marketer: There is no question life was much simpler before digital marketing entered the picture. Marketers have an immense amount to worry about. And with all the facets of digital marketing thrown into the mix – a complex space only gets more complex.
What does this mean – the way marketing organizations are structured is probably going to have to change at some point in the future. No more is it possible for a brand marketer to be able to grasp and own every facet of his or her brand. The world has changed. And anyone who keeps telling a brand marketer that it is about 360 degree marketing with paid, owned and earned media integration is over simplifying. As an agency person, recognize what we’re going through and be a positive part of the complexity.
- The current structure of the advertising ecosystem is not perfect. There are a lot of people in the business who complain that the structural dynamics of advertising are flawed – brands to agency to publisher to consumer (notice how far the consumer is from the brand?). I believe that too. But we haven’t nailed the replacement for this structure given the number of players in the ecosystem. And until we do, we’ll be forced to stay with something like this.
In the digital space, digital agencies don’t like that the fact that they’re at a significant relationship disadvantage. Brands don’t like the fact that they’re sometimes kept at arms length from consumers (agencies and publishers are in the middle). Digital agencies feel traditional agencies don’t get it and traditional agencies can’t understand why brands don’t completely appreciate their digital chops. In a sense, everyone is unhappy. That’s not good. It has to change and probably only will when truly a new form of an agency rises (yes, I know there have been lots of false starts!).
- Brand Marketing is indeed in a crisis. You know all the hype about social media and how it is changing the fundamentals of marketing? Well, it may not be the complete picture but it is certainly having its impact. Traditional marketing tactics aren’t as powerful as they once were. It is just the way it is. But the problem is that everyone in the ecosystem (or nearly everyone) don’t think about changing this space.
Here’s what I mean. It is easier for an agency or a media company to sell TV advertisements or digital media impressions or traditional PR tactics than it is to sell social influence marketing or deep consumer engagement. That stuff is much harder to design, price, guarantee and market efficiently. And from a buyer perspective, it is the type of thing you can lose your job over too. No one likes it but it is the future if you want your brand to survive. Please help us get there. Take the risks and force us to.
- Agencies are fabulous but they aren’t that fabulous. Probably the most humbling fact about moving over to the client side was the realization that agencies don’t look that different from each other from afar. When you’re on the agency side, you invariably drink your own cool aid. I certainly did a fair bit of drinking and I do feel that the agency I came from (Razorfish) is special. But differentiation between agencies is not always that clear. Everyone is reading the same trade publications, attending the same marketing conferences and seeing each other’s pitches. Yes, there’s a lot of group think.
So what does that mean for an agency? Put extra effort into figuring out what makes you special. And don’t think in terms of just having a special story but also tangible, proof points that make that story real. You’re not that special otherwise. In fairness to the agencies, the brands may not be that special either. We may think we are the most important thing in a consumer’s life but we probably aren’t!
- Biases drive a lot of marketing decisions.. We have always known that marketing is an imperfect science. It is as much art as it is science. The reality is that biases – at every point in the ecosystem heavily influence marketing decisions. Accept it and use that to your advantage but always keep the brand’s objectives in focus. Here are a few examples of how it plays out.
A digital production shop that has grown into a digital agency will probably always emphasize content creation versus conversation management online. A marketer who has had great successes with TV advertising in the Super Bowl will always privilege that over other forms of marketing. An agency that hit a home run with one idea will be called in to do the same thing again and again even though the world may have moved on. The biases will always exist as we’re human. There is no perfect company and no perfect agency either.
- Ideas matter an incredible amount but help us think beyond ideas. Every marketer suffers from the candy store syndrome at some point. We get so many great ideas from so many different agencies every day (I certainly do here at PepsiCo) that we can’t help want more and more. More ideas to salivate over, provide feedback on and then be able to choose from. It’s just irresistible.
But in the long run that’s a bad thing. Ideas do matter of course but they need a strong strategic frame. Without the strategic frame they are meaningless. My challenge to my agency partners is to always think about that strategic frame. What does it mean – on the marketing side we have to do a better job of explaining our strategic priorities and our long term digital strategies. Please help us stay focused. We can’t get too caught up in the candy store syndrome.
What do you think? Am I missing anything important? Life on the corporate side is very different but it is fascinating being in a different place in the ecosystem. And as the agency landscape evolves with new types of agencies cropping up, it is only going to get more interesting.
Posted in Advertising, Interactive Media, Marketing
Day 72
On day 72, I told my mom. Every day it gets more real. Every day, I get closer to breaking down this wall entirely.
Posted in Event
Movies
I doubt this is a new concept. I’m sure others have had the same idea. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it for the last year and figured I’d finally put it to “paper”. I hope the movie studios have pondered it. So here it is…
When will we be able to watch movies at home as they debut in the theater?
To me, the idea is a home run and one that could generate incremental revenue.
- These days, most people have home theaters so the quality would be decent
- Similar to DVD releases, you could release it at the theaters first and then release it “On Demand” a few days later. As a stepping stone, maybe you release it On Demand right after it leaves theaters, but before it goes to DVD. This would help keep the buzz about a movie going longer
- I’m going to guess that during the Winter movie attendance drops in really cold cities. What if on a Snow Day you could stay at home watching the movies you wish you could catch at a theater?
- You could charge a premium that I think people who don’t want to go to a theater would be willing to pay. These days, tickets are about $12-$13. To watch at home, you could charge upwards of $30-$50 with barely a blink of an eye. I’m sure the concern here is how many people are watching the same TV? That might be a tough one to control.
Going to the movies is an experience. Experiences are things you seek out and pay extra for. Watching a movie at home is not the same experience. It would target and reach a different segment of the population. In addition, it would reach the same movie going population at a different time – when they weren’t looking for the full movie theater experience, but still wanted to see a movie.
There’s a few movies that are currently out at theaters. I have no desire to head all the way to the theater to see them, so they’re currently sitting in my Netflix saved queue. However, I’d totally pay to watch them from home right now.
Movie studios, are you listening? In this semi-new – on demand, always on society, you are missing a revenue opportunity!
Posted in Marketing
28
Here’s to another ride around the sun… may this one be better than the last.
For posterity, 27 brought:
- A cat
- Two weddings of my dearest friends
- More travel than ever before, including my first time in Europe!
- A new job and promotion (again and 2.5 years faster than imagined)
- Not one, not two, but three times my heart broken into a million pieces. You’d think it would get easier after each time, but it only seems to get harder and more painful with each break
- The continued search to obtain my birthday wish…
Posted in Event