How To Be Creative by Hugh MacLeod
An interesting list of suggestions on how to be “creative.” Favorites would include: #2, #5, #9, #16, #22, #29.
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Seth Godin’s What Every Good Marketer Knows List
My favorite one is: “Good marketers tell a story.” Second: “You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.”
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Advertising Age’s Small Agency Diary: A Brief Analysis of How Agencies are Selling Themselves
Take A good look at the “About Us” and “Capabilities” sections of your book/website. Compare yours against the article, if you find yourself giggling, it may be time for a re-write.
“The amount of repetition and same-speak reminded me of all the “World’s Best Coffee†signs posted in diners and cafes around nation. Eventually you’ve seen and read so many that you stop believing it could actually be true.”
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To be honest, the only thing on this post is the following, which I found very interesting to know, and better off having learned it:
“Imported from Italy” only has to have been bottled there, usually using olives from Greece, Spain or Turkey.
“100 pure olive oil” is the lowest grade available.
“Made from refined olive oils” means taste and acidity were chemically produced.
“From hand-picked olives” suggests that it’s been done with care - tree shaking machines actually do a better job.
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How Do You Thank Your Loyal Users?
A good example of the power of customer service.
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Advertising Age’s Small Agency Diary: Are You Cross-Training Your Agency Staffers?
By better understanding how the other departments operate, you’ll find yourself better equipped to deal with them.
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No Man’s Blog: Who Wants To Be A Planner?
“Think creative, act creative, live creative.”
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The Economist: Internet Advertising - The Ultimate Marketing Machine
From online branding to viral marketing to what they call “the power of search,” this is definitely an interesting read.
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Ohh where to start with this one. How about:
“6. You can tell from the work if people enjoyed making it
This seems more true to me every time I walk in another agency. The places that are miserable make lack-lustre work (is it chicken or is it egg?). The places with energy make energetic, fulsome, toothsome work, bursting with ideas. If the process is depressing, the work will be flat, if the process has life, the work will connect.”
Then(I know it is out of order) but:
“4. Do good work, the money will follow” - I can only hope.
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What Big Brands Could Learn From A Local Indian Restaurant
Not only is this a good article on the power of strong customer service, but the comments alone make for a good read(I even added one myself).
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IBM - The End of TV As We Know It: A Future Industry Perspective
IBM suggests six recommendations to help usher your company into the next few years of global economy:
Segment, Innovate, Experiment, Mobilize, Open, and Re-organize.
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Why YouTube Imitators Will Fail
The article written by Joseph Jaffe was nicely done, however the best part was a comment left by Ryan Hoercher:
“YouTube is totally rhizomal and dynamic. This allows it to include everything, including network television and amatuer hour. The nature of peer developed content is responsiveness. It is alot easier for one kid to log and capture an episode of Arrested Development and post it on the internet than for a corporation to file all the paperwork, get it to production, etc. Individuals are playing a faster game. Corporate responses to these peer fueled sites have invariably been reactionary and based on heirarchical modes of development that take too much time and cannot respond fast enough. This always makes them look old fashioned, which is a pariah in internet terms.”
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Eight Tips for Better Brainstorming
“Use brainstorming to combine and extend ideas, not just to harvest ideas.”
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Working With Suits and Working With Creatives.
Northern Planners’ take on how to effectively be an account planner that can build a bridge between account management + the creative team. Good reads!
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The Sevent Deadly Sins of Advertising Via Viral Video from Will Video for Food
I would have to add:
8. If you have to tell people it is viral, it isn’t viral
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Writing better creative briefs from the Leo Burnett Toronto blog.
Interesting read regarding problems affecting briefs, with my favorite being about how briefs should not be telling the creative team what to say/think, but rather should challenge them to find a solution(with a side note of working together).
