Well, GCI Canada’s first widget, on behalf of the Elections Ontario referendum public education campaign, has been viewed an amazing 47,000 times since it launched and we still have just over a week to go until the October 10 provincial election and referendum date.
You may notice in the right hand corner of a my blog a new graphic “Plan to Vote”. It is actually a widget, the newest tool in GCI’s viral communications chest. I could, but I won’t, go into what the technical definition of a widget is, but simply put a widget is an interactive viral device that allows engagement and can be passed along online.
To engage with the “Plan to Vote” widget on my blog, simply click on the “Plan to Vote” button and it will indicate how many others plan to vote in the October 10th Ontario referendum that have tapped the widget so far. It will define the “First-Past-the-Post” and “Mixed-Member-Proportional” electoral systems, the two choices in the referendum, and also features a clock that counts down to the October 10 provincial referendum and general election date. You can place the “Plan to Vote” widget on your website, blog, Facebook page by clicking the “Get & Share” button at the bottom of the widget and following the directions. You can also forward to friends. It is a great way to encourage citizenship and participation in the referendum.
In the spirit of open disclosure, Elections Ontario is a GCI client and with our sister company, Grey Canada, we are working to assist them with the October 10, Ontario Referendum public education campaign.
On a personal note, democracy is important. Participation in democracy is even more important.
I spent the past long weekend with my family in Cape Breton. One of our rituals is watching old movies so on a rainy Friday afternoon I was enjoying “Key Largo” circa 1948 directed by legendary John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall. It is a classic that I hadn’t seen before and like a classic,while the film is almost 60 years old, the story still resonates. Disillusioned war veteran (Bogart) battles evil (Robinson) and in the process restores his faith in humanity and finds love (Bacall). Great content is great content and timeless.
It was reinforced to me this week when NewsCanada came to GCI to present to us some of their new offerings. As they updated us on the new NewsCanada channels available to tell our clients’ stories I kept thinking “content is king”. There now exists a myriad of channels. All are hungary for content and must be fed. At the same time, the majority of content ain’t that great (pit bull tricks on Youtube). Whoever or whatever can create great content, particularly on a consistent basis, will win the war for “hearts and minds” and client loyalty and enthusiam.
With Sarbanes-Oxley and the growing embrace of social media, “transparency” is bandied about as the watchword for organizations. Are we transparent? Are we transparent enough?
This morning a group of us at GCI discussed “transparency” in regard to organizational communications. What started out as a pretty straightforward conversation interestingly became a rabid debate. The conclusion in the room was adequate ” transparency” was hugely subjective depending on the issue at hand, the organization’s culture and of course the regulatory and governnance framework they were part of…but even more than that was the absolutely individual defintions of what appropriate transparency is. We then moved on to how corporate reputation and brand equity can impact what is deemed appropriate transparency for an organization particularly in a crisis. The team this morning agreed that the well-regarded companies and iconic brands enjoyed greater trust from consumers and therefore consumers assumed already that these organizations and brands executed a high degree of transparency in their communications. Interesting coffee chatter first thing in the morning.
The GCI Canada summer party was this past Friday and while there was alot of yawning due to a busy week working on the Mattel recall and the Belkin Streetcar media event, it was great fun. Because we try to be a continuous learning organization, rather than directly heading to a bar of going for a boat cruise we all trooped to Second City for an afternoon class on driving creativity and innnovation by improved improvisation skills. Second City Communications is an offshoot of the well known Second City comedy troupe.
Kudos to our staff training and development committee for proposing this initiative. It was a great afternoon. Nothing like learning how to hone your improvisation skills in front of all your co-workers to promote fellowship.
Aside from the pure hysterical laughter that ensued there were also some points made by the facilatators that cause reflection. All of us run from risk when risk is really how we grow and challenge ourselves. And, most of the time there really is very little risk as everyone wants us to succeed - our co-workers and most of all our clients.
Also, we tend to communicate in sentences that begin with “No, but…..” rather than “Yes, and….”. We did two exercises, breaking into groups where we did conversations that were built on “No, but” the first time around and “Yes, and” the second time around. The difference was profound. The first conversations really didn’t go anywhere except in some cases they became increasingly antagonistic. The second conversations caused excitement as the participants began building off of each other’s statements and ideas and collaboration took hold.
Over the weekend I have been experimenting with answering “Yes, and…” rather than “No, but…” even in circumstances where I would normally respond “No, but…” the difference in response has been very interesting. I am looking forward to experimenting with “Yes, and..” more this week.
After several months the GCI book club has now completed “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. It is an extremely interesting book and though the original edition is now four to five years old it remains completely relevant. Friedman discusses in length China’s rise as a manufacturing power and based on recent news events and company announcements China’s manufacturing practices are indeed a hot topic. Risk management and oversight of an organization’s supply chain, or all external points of contact, take on a profound new meaning in the new world order of a truly global economy coupled with consumers’ expectations of transparency and ability to “shout” their concerns or rage with the click of a key.
It’s no accident then that the “hot pick” for the next GCI Book Club selection is “The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media” by Paul Gillin. The foreward promises that “this book isn’t a book about blogging. It is a book about transformation in media that is handing influence to people who have never before had the tools or platform to express themselves…Blogs and podcasts happen to be a way to exercise this influence, but they are just tools. Fundementally, this is a book about people….” Personally, I do not believe that a blog is the answer to every problem but just that, a tool, hopefully this will be a “good read” and like, “The World is Flat”, lead to a great deal of active discussion and debate within the GCI office.
This posting is not about angry guys. “Mad Men” is a new summer series on US Cable Channel AMC. Because I have Rogers’ super cable I have AMC. This first episode was last Thursday and I watched the second episode last night. Quietly simply it is great TV.
In the age of blogs, podcasting and social networking groups, “Mad Man” proves that content is always king regardless of the medium. And yes, television is not dead it just needs great content. Plus, the executives behind “Mad Man” are smart. You can buy and download each episode on ITunes the day after they premiere on television.
What is “Mad Men”? Set in 1960’s New York ad agency Sterling Cooper, the series follows the lives of various agency employees but focuses mostly on Creative Director Don Draper. “Mad Men” is apparently a term coined by the 1960s’ ad men themselves, at that time, when America (and likely Canada) was obsessed by advertising and glamourized the lives of these ad men/mad men. North Americans were still heady consumers coming off the post-Second World War, 1950s’ buying binge.
The series captures the feel of 1960 perfectly. The American Civil rights movement had not started in earnest, all women were “the girl” regardless of her age and the IBM Selectric was breakthrough technology. In every board meeting, party or bedroom scene the characters are smoking like chimneys. I almost felt myself choking in sympathy.
But the real star of the show is advertising. In the first episode the client crisis is a recent Reader’s Digest report that smoking may be bad for your health. Don Drapper is tasked how to respond on behalf of his client “Lucky Strike”. Last night, the advertising challenge was how to pitch the Gillette Right Guard business - first aersol deteorant can. In a scene alot of time was spent debating the merits of promoting this new “space age” technology to the American male.
Those that planned the actual advertising program for “Mad Men” were pretty smart themselves. During the advertising breaks for the program they link the product being advertised to a fun fact about that category’s advertising or about that specific company’s advertising history. For example, Maytag is an advertiser and prior to showing the Maytag ad they flashed a fun fact about the “Maytag Man” and when he was first introduced to the public before becoming an advertising icon.
“Mad Men” is great TV. It is very clever, extremely well written and works on a variety of levels. As a flashback into the not so past (I worked on an IBM Selectric) we have a come along way baby. Some of the scenes with the Africian American characters make you gasp - they’re not violent - what is more striking is the absolute power of racism that is delivered through mundate, every day human interactions.
But the people behind “Mad Men” obviously love advertising and love the process of developing great advertising. As the Don Draper character says to his team of copywriters, “Gentlemen, what is advertising? Advertising is happiness”.
Based on today’s integrated marketing and communications approach Don would now likely say, “Gentlemen, what is great communications? Great communications is happiness”.
We have tried to embrace our “Change Rules” mantra to heart. Whether it is about promoting condoms use or the latest in computer technology we want to push our clients. Better us pushing them than them saying, “You guys really aren’t challenging us”.
I have been back at GCI now for pretty close to two years and one of the real differences I see this time versus before is that the client is really looking for agency partners that push them and also play well in the sandbox with other agencies be they traditional advertising firms, interactive groups or promotions houses.
Our best client relationships (collaborative, results-driven, respectful, fun) come from working as part of a great team of people. We have been on some interesting journeys over the past year as part of multidisciplinary agency teams. It strikes me that it is alot life a successful marriage or friendship. There are good days and bad days but you hang in and work through the tough stuff and celebrate and savour the great stuff. Luckily for us, we are fortunate to work with some great cross disciplinary agency teams and some of them are really hitting their stride (ie “your idea is better than ours, you do your’s”)
Recently I attended a brand summit with one of our great clients. All the usual suspects were there. As I sat through the meeting it struck me that we were working in the old way. All the agency partners were working in silos and we meet once a year at the summit. For the most part we had little understanding of what was going on with the other agencies on behalf of their client. Conversely, they had no idea what we were doing. This meant that the client was loosing opportunities, possible synergies and truthfully possible budget efficiences.
I spoke to the client afterwards and gave him my two cents on the subject, namely why don’t we work as one integrated team. Easier to manage and a way better outcome. I think he was a little surprised that I would raise it. His response, “Wow”. “Let’s do it”.
Could it mean that GCI might possible loose some portion of its budget to another agency partner in the future? Sure. Conversely, it could also mean more multidimensional, enriching work and a longer term client relationship.
Recently while surfing I stumbled across a great site www.poptech.com. This is the site for Pop!Tech! a “thinkers” conference that happens every September in Camden, Maine. Apparently it is an eclectic (and electric) gathering of technologists, innovators, industry leaders, scientists, artists and educators. A Fortune 500 CEO can be found chatting about solar energy to an artist and according to the site “while an African blogger is deep in conversation with a polar explorer”.
I have now put attending Pop!Tech! on my “life list of musts”.
In the meantime, Pop!Tech! provides aptly named Pop!Casts! on its site. Through Creative Commons, the conference podcasts are available and the list of speakers is amazing - Malcolm Gladwell (”Blink”), Chris Anderson (”The Long Tail”).
For our last GCI book club session, we downloaded Thomas Friedman (”The World is Flat) sharing is argument with Pop!Tech! delegates on the inverse relationship between the price of oil and human rights. Compelling and provocative.
Check out Pop!Tech!. It’s great brain food.
Best wishes all for a Happy Canada.
Recently I took part in a two-day kayaking course at the Toronto Harbourfront. As I paddled furiously, battling sunstroke, I looked up at one point and saw two Muslim teenage girls laughing and gliding smoothly by in a canoe. I was reminded of Canadian historian Pierre Berton’s quote; “A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.” An amusing and trifle uncomfortable image.
But as I saw them pass, enjoying themselves and dressed in head scarves and jibabs, I was also reminded of a recent conversation I had had with a nonCanadian business colleague of mine. He was asking me about Canada generally and Toronto specifically. He was surprised at the city’s degree of diversity and asked me what impact that had on society, how well people worked and lived together etc…. At the time, I told him Canada was like being in a lifeboat. It wasn’t perfect but at the same time everyone was doing their best to figure it out and paddle in the same direction. Instead of lifeboat maybe I should have said canoe. Pierre Burton would have and likely the two teenagers in jibabs would have too.
