Three Exercises for Living a Commitment to Creativity

Each year, the organizers of the Sunday “Agency Only” program of the iMedia Agency Summit bring in an expert to focus on addressing on the most important challenges facing our industry. This year’s speaker was Tamara Birdsall, Chief Creative Officer of Real Girls Media and a veteran of both the buy and sells sides of the business.

For Tamara, the most important thing that we can do to create a more creative environment – whether we are in Creative or in another Agency discipline, is to make a commitment to walk the walk of making the time and practicing the art of creativity. And then actually walking that walk.

She demonstrated her long running belief that a series of exercises can help us:

• Break out of our linear “ruts”
• Improve our own individual creative thinking
• Drive richer and more valuable group creativity

To help attendees address these three challenges, Tamara engaged the group in three critical exercises.

1. Creative description. Tamara underscored the importance of switching gears – to break out of our day to day activities and busyness with a purely creative exercise. For the purpose of the session, she asked attendees to come up with innovative descriptions for a Granny Smith Apple. Now, obviously, this exercise was not directly applicable to a business challenge. But to Birdsall, that’s the point – that breaking free of our patterns of thought and behavior is a critical first step to being more creative more regularly. And it is the sort of exercise we should be making time for in our daily work life.

2. Mind Mapping: to help us unleash our own internal creative juices, Birdsall had each member of the Agency Day develop a Mind Map for a specific marketing challenge. The nonlinear nature of this exercise proved tremendously valuable to expanding our horizons. Birdsall asked the group to consider a fictitious financial institution considering opening a bank especially for women. By asking each of us to riff individually on the idea of “women and money,” we were each asked to create our own mind maps on the topic. When it came time to review peoples’ maps, it became clear that taking the time to stretch our own thinking can help create more truly innovative concepts.

3. Brain Writing: Her third exercise focused on the technique of brain writing, which asks people to do some initial ideation on paper, and then passing their ideas to the next person for them to build upon. For many people in the room, this written method of ideation was cathartic in that it offered so many advantages over the sort of freeform “brainstorms” that are core to the way most agencies operate, and yet don’t always yield great results.

Tamara was quick to point out that these exercises are only a starting point set of examples of things we can do – that we should explore online resources that further explain these and other tactics so we can find tools that work for us.

What made the session so powerful was the tremendous number of innovative ideas the group was able to generate in only a few moments using the exercises. For those of us who have sat in a tremendous numbers of ineffective freeform brainstorms, Tamara’s suggestions and her passion for trying to find new and more disciplined techniques were a refreshing call to rethink the tactics that aren’t unlocking our full potential.

I know I speak for dozens of attendees when I extend a personal thanks to Tamara for her passion, ideas, and participation.

Special thanks to iMediaConnection for running this first.

iMedia Summit Monday Recap

I am not a gloom and doom person and frankly am weary of conventional wisdom overshoot in our industry. I mean, if growth rates fall below 50% per quarter people get all jittery. It’s gonna be alright, people.  Take it from someone who’s been in advertising through three recessions and the dot bomb. And 37 rounds of layoffs in his life. Really! It’ll be OK, guys and gals!

As reassurance, I wanted to combat some of the black veils and eulogies being put forth of late to provide a list of nine things that made me more optimistic about the industry. All coming out of today’s iMedia Summit sessions, in the order they occurred at the show:

9. 24-7 Real Media gave a thought provoking presentation on how technology continues to drive a revolution in the ability of digital media to meet the precise needs of brands. Their perspective on what is happening in the ad network space was interesting and gave me pause. What’s more, their message and tone was realistically optimistic – that there will be fallout from the downturn but that there is no reason why the smart leaders of our industry cannot continue to grow and prosper – and grow stronger BECAUSE of the scarcity of resources and the weaning of weaker concepts and opportunities. 24-7 is a frequent sponsor of iMedia, so special props for that as well.

8. NBCU always has great things to say and says them in a clear and powerful way. Some of their new offerings – including customized audiences across the various NBC properties – offer interesting new opps for advertisers to seriously consider. Also, they have a new roadblock offering that offers an alternative to portal front page takeovers. Having more roadblocking and massive reach opps like these, across leading web properties, bodes well for the future of our medium because it helps us deliver greater value and present credible alternatives to clients.

7. Today’s keynote from Don Epperson, CEO of Havas Digital, offered a compelling vision for the future of agencies as – in a very real sense – data driven brand networks. For years agencies have been talking about creating data warehouses for brands – Havas’s vision is to layer on an auction based ad valuation model for its clients that places the focus on the consumer reached rather than the gif blinked. A focus on individual consumers has always been a cornerstone of digital, so this massive initiative offers a vision for the future you should definitely check out. You can agree or disagree with their approach, but you cannot doubt how strategically driven his message really is.

6. One Minute MatchUps: Some attendees groan about this part of the program, but I love it. The idea of one minute matchups is to give agencies and pubs/nets the opportunity to meet about 60 people in a single hour – to talk about what they are doing and get a Reader’s Digest version of what’s on offer. I absolutely love hearing a good salesperson do their pitch, even more so when they can effectively distill a massive offering of content, creative options and targeting technologies into an 18 second sentence. At the end of the show I am going to send out special shouts to the people I thought were rocking sellers, but overall I was impressed by the messages this year – both in their succinctness and in the attempt by many to make a 1 minute pitch a consultative sell. Dat takes mad skilz.

5. Microsoft Advertising’s al fresco cocktail hour offered another great opp for networking. And it makes me happy to be around so many people who are optimistic about the future of the business. I always appreciate companies that sponsor events like this because they are really the engine to collaboration in the industry.

4. Weatherbug’s beach themed dinner offered opps to meet and talk with more (optimistic) people, and to hear a really good band play a plethora of songs I actually knew the words to. Those in the industry should take (positive) note that the fact that the third song they performed was Brick House indicates that this is no longer just an industry of wide eyed 23 year olds. Welcome to wrinkles, iMedia. Just think of them as nooks and crannies to hold the wisdom.

When I know all the songs, you know you’re getting old, people. But remember the motto of my personal blog, “Old is the new black.”

3. The Hoover’s after hours reception was (I am told, 9:30PM is my bedtime) a rocking good time. Hoovers has really increased their prominence in the planning and buying arena with sponsorships of iMedia and other events. It’s not right for every brand but there’s nothing like Hoovers for the brands it clicks with.

2. I got to talk with about a dozen people starting new companies, which I think is a great sign that our future is bright. Over the next several months I’ll be doing little Q&As with some of these people and running them here at iMedia Connection.

1. Infectious optimism really made me feel great all day. And made me, for a time, forget about missing my little pup, Sleepy, who is, even as you read this, stamping his foot and wearing a little disgusted grimace. See, he’s at doggie day care back in O-Town wondering when I am going to come home and throw his ball.

Soon, Sleepers, Soon!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

iMedia Summit: BrightRoll

BrightRoll presented a really engaging and entertaining program around real, actionable solutions to taking online video to another level. Their presentaiton was centered around "Mad Men", or, actually "Vid Men", and focused on the five most common questions buyers ask them, and their solutions for each.

My favorite thing about the BrightRoll people (disclosure: they are a Catalyst:SF client) is that they are direct, honest, and genuinely driven to find solutions that will help brands make more of online video. They addressed key questions that planners and buyers face every day -- the sort of questions for which the answers can drive more strategic and effective brand solutions using online video.

The company also introduced two new products that I think have real potential to be game changers: a "channel" consisting entirely of broadcast websites that encompass the super premium video assets available online, and BrightRoll Reach, a solution designed to meet the needs of value oriented advertisers looking for TV sized reach online.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

iMedia Summit: BrightRoll

BrightRoll presented a really engaging and entertaining program around real, actionable solutions to taking online video to another level. Their presentaiton was centered around "Mad Men", or, actually "Vid Men", and focused on the five most common questions buyers ask them, and their solutions for each.

My favorite thing about the BrightRoll people (disclosure: they are a Catalyst:SF client) is that they are direct, honest, and genuinely driven to find solutions that will help brands make more of online video. They addressed key questions that planners and buyers face every day -- the sort of questions for which the answers can drive more strategic and effective brand solutions using online video.

The company also introduced two new products that I think have real potential to be game changers: a "channel" consisting entirely of broadcast websites that encompass the super premium video assets available online, and BrightRoll Reach, a solution designed to meet the needs of value oriented advertisers looking for TV sized reach online.

iMedia Summit: DoubleClick

DoubleClick offered an insightful presentation of their new initiatives and programs that will have profound impacts on what we can do and how we can account for it online. I always enjoy DoubleClick presentations because perhaps no company is more at the vortex of digital today, owing to their critical role in serving, reporting, and unearthing findings that drive real agency insights.

The keystone of their preso was a piece of research outlining what works in ad units. The study, which is available for free on their site, without registration, offers up data from a plethora DoubleClick clients pointing out how ad size, video, and other creative elements impact click and engagement rates.

Check out their study!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

iMedia Summit: Casale Media

Casale Media presented their developments in the area of brand safety online. I confess that I always look forward to Casale presentations because the spirit of these presentations is so consistent and specific.

A Casale presentation focuses on real tangible ideas and programs – no vapor from these fellas ever. It’s that strong solutions orientation that makes such a refreshing change from so many media presentations today.

Their brand for me is about being a strong, upfront, dotted is and crossed ts network, with the necessary technologies but also the recognition that the devil is in the details. Or would be if they weren’t so meticuolous. It’s great to hear from a company that unabashedly is exactly what it is, especially when the is is a very good thing.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

iMedia Summit: Susan Bratton

Susan Bratton led a program designed to help people identify how they can achieve work life balance and help the people on their teams achieve balance in THEIR lives.

The program was absolutely in the spirit of her exciting new podcast centric initiative, Personal Life Media. In case you mised my earlier post about Personal Life Media, well, shame on you. But the site is a really innovative and intriguing web destination for life enrishmnet.My understanding is that they are also connecting with and closing ad buys, so that's encouraging to hear.

What most struck me about her program was how she wove a positive, proactive, solutions oriented life seminar in just 45 or so minutes. The amount of prep SUsan had to do to create this powerful and truly unqiue program was tremendous, and I want to extend my personal thanks for all of her efforts.

I came away from that program with a new appreciation for not only how my own days (read:life) have areas for improvement, coupled with the beginnings of a toolset to do it.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

iMedia Summit: Gordon Paddison

Gordon Paddison gave a lively on stage interview about the issues and opportunities facing clients and agencies. For most of you, Gordon needs little or no introduction, as he has led well over 200 major digital campaigns in the entertainment arena, and is widely credited as one of the people who brought entertainment marketing online. He is also coauthor of a book entitled Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy published by McGraw-Hill and adopted by over 200 Universities worldwide.

Gordon was interviewed by Catalyst:SF’s own Cory Treffiletti. Gordon tells it like it is, and you gotta appreciate him for that. But I was most struck by how constructive were his suggestions, and how he paired his trademark honesty with direct suggestions about ways to address the issues facing all of us in our client relationships.

A key focus of his message, at least in my view, was related to systemic issues that need to be overcome to improve relationships between agencies and brands. On his hit list were agencies that can’t or won’t hold onto their people who thereby add to the cost and complexity of working with that agency because of the need to constantly train new people. Another was the “bait and switch” phenom of pitching with the A team and serving with the B.

Thank you for your insights, Gordon.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.

iMedia Summit: Gordon Paddison

Gordon Paddison gave a lively on stage interview about the issues and opportunities facing clients and agencies. For most of you, Gordon needs little or no introduction, as he has led well over 200 major digital campaigns in the entertainment arena, and is widely credited as one of the people who brought entertainment marketing online. He is also coauthor of a book entitled Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy published by McGraw-Hill and adopted by over 200 Universities worldwide.

Gordon was interviewed by Catalyst:SF’s own Cory Treffiletti. Gordon tells it like it is, and you gotta appreciate him for that. But I was most struck by how constructive were his suggestions, and how he paired his trademark honesty with direct suggestions about ways to address the issues facing all of us in our client relationships.

A key focus of his message, at least in mw, was related to systemic issues that need to be overcome to improve relationships between agencies and brands. On his hit list were agencies that can’t or won’t hold onto their people who thereby add to the cost and complexity of working with that agency because of the need to constantly train new people. Another was the “bairt and switch” phenom of pitching ith the A team and serving with the B.
Thank you for your insights, Gordon.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.

iMedia Summitabulous! Agency Day Highlights!

For those who couldn’t come to agency day this year, I thought I would provide a synopsis of some of the play by play of what was by all accounts a great day and a wonderful beginning to the Agency Summit. So here are my nine key highlights, in the order that they came throughout the day.

9. People Came Together. The core activity of agency day was AgencyRX, the launch of a year-long project to remake the agency model by defining real actionable solutions for issues and opportunities to enrich the value that agencies provide clients. There were five key areas of focus:

- Agency Value: How can we materially enhance the value that clients realize from their agency relationships?
- Reporting Revolution: How can we improve the reporting process that we can focus more time on strategic insights and optimization and less on the mechanics of producing reports?
- Collaboration: How can we make different discipline areas come together to make truly remarkable marketing programs, and how can we foster real, accountable collaboration between agencies that serve a client?
- Emerging Media: How can we improve how emerging media opportunities are evaluated, tested and implemented on our businesses?
- Training for Excellence: How can we develop cross agency solutions to improve expertise in our people?

Each area was addressed by a core team that outlined the key issues, an action plan, and a timeline to make our ideas come to fruition. Thanks in particular to those attendees who were asked to lead and facilitate each group!

At the end of the main session Dave Smith updated the group on the activities of The Aspen Group and launched the voting for the "Aspies" Awards.

What I was most struck by was how enthusiastic was every attendee in finding the solutions our business so needs to achieve its potential -- to be the business we want it to be! It really was a continuation of the spirit begun many years ago by The Aspen Group, and a demonstration that people are just as committed now to working together as they were when the tradition of an agency day began!

I am particularly grateful to iMedia itself for making this agency day possible.

8. AOL Platform A gave a comprehensive presentation on the many opportunities and developments as this company makes strides in providing that “Everything you want, in one place” solution that truly defines the vision behind the company. My key takeaway from the presentation is the strength of their many online site brands – they really do offer leadership presences in many of the key verticals that consumers are interested in today. As they constantly add new properties to their quiver of assets, they also offer the cutting edge targeting and other technologies that can make a difference – and indeed are making a difference – for so many brands today. Also, lemme give you a reminder that AOL Platform A is one of the biggest sponsors of iMedia event after event, year after year. So special props for that, folks!

7. Gordon Paddison gave a lively on stage interview about the issues and opportunities facing clients and agencies. Gordon was interviewed by Catalyst:SF’s own Cory Treffiletti. Gordon tells it like it is, and you gotta appreciate him for that. But I was most struck by how constructive were his suggestions, and how he paired his trademark honesty with direct suggestions about ways to address the issues facing all of us in our client relationships.

6. Susan Bratton led a program designed to help people identify how they can achieve work life balance and help the people on their teams achieve balance in THEIR lives. The program was absolutely in the spirit of her exciting new podcast centric initiative, Personal Life Media. What most struck me about her program was how she wove a positive, proactive, solutions oriented life seminar in just 45 or so minutes. I came away from that program with a new appreciation for not only how my own days (read:life) have areas for improvement, coupled with the beginnings of a toolset to do it.

5. Casale Media presented their developments in the area of brand safety online. I confess that I always look forward to Casale presentations because the spirit of these presentations is so consistent and specific. A Casale presentation focuses on real tangible ideas and programs – no vapor from these fellas ever. It’s that strong solutions orientation that makes such a refreshing change from so many media presentations today.

4. DoubleClick offered an insightful presentation of their new initiatives and programs that will have profound impacts on what we can do and how we can account for it online. I always enjoy DoubleClick presentations because perhaps no company is more at the vortex of digital today, owing to their critical role in serving, reporting, and unearthing findings that drive real agency insights.

3. BrightRoll presented a really engaging and entertaining program around real, actionable solutions to taking online video to another level. My favorite thing about the BrightRoll people (disclosure: they are a Catalyst:SF client) is that they are direct, honest, and genuinely driven to find solutions that will help brands make more of online video. They addressed key questions that planners and buyers face every day -- the sort of questions for which the answers can drive more strategic and effective brand solutions using online video. The company also introduced two new products that I think have real potential to be game changers: BrightRoll Broadcast, a "channel" consisting entirely of broadcast websites that encompass the super premium video assets available online, and BrightRoll Reach, a solution designed to meet the needs of value oriented advertisers looking for TV sized reach online.

2. Sportgenic threw a wonderful games oriented reception in the spirit of both their sports heritage and engagement. One thing you NEVER get from this team (disclosure: they are a Catalyst:SF client) is a cookie cutter approach. Because they operate within the sports marketing arena, and because of who they are, you can always expect something different and involving from them.

1. Specific Media threw a great after hours reception that helped further build the connections and spirit of the agency leaders assembled here. Collaboration has been a watchword at Specific for some time, so their choice of this sponsorship seems particularly fitting. Their people are always a heckuva lot of fun as well.

I’d like to close this post by reiterating my personal thanks to the sponsors of iMedia Summits, because their dollars and commitment to the agency sector make all of this teamwork, learning, and energizing possible.

Hey, no one needs a reminder of how time these days are a bit tough – and I am so very grateful that the people who lead these forward thinking companies cough up the bucks to get us all together. It’s good business for you, I get that part, but it’s also a demonstration of commitment to others – indeed to relationships – that I am sure every attendee of this conference appreciates as much as I do.

So thanks ladies and gents!

Gentle reader, please excuse my run-on sentences in this post. It's kinda late as I type this.

iMedia Summit: AOL Platform A

AOL Platform A gave a comprehensive presentation on the many opportunities and developments as this company makes strides in providing that “Everything you want, in one place” solution that truly defines the vision behind the company. My key takeaway from the presentation is the strength of their many online site brands – they really do offer leadership presences in many of the key verticals that consumers are interested in today.

As they constantly add new properties to their quiver of assets, they also offer the cutting edge targeting and other technologies that can make a difference – and indeed are making a difference – for so many brands today. Also, lemme give you a reminder that AOL Platform A is one of the biggest sponsors of iMedia, event after event, year after year. So special props for that, folks!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

iMedia Summit: Agency Day’s Agency RX

The core activity of agency day was AgencyRX, the launch of a year-long project to remake the agency model by defining real actionable solutions for issues and opportunities to enrich the value that agencies provide clients. There were five key areas of focus:

- Agency Value: How can we materially enhance the value that clients realize from their agency relationships?
- Reporting Revolution: How can we improve the reporting process that we can focus more time on strategic insights and optimization and less on the mechanics of producing reports?
- Collaboration: How can we make different discipline areas come together to make truly remarkable marketing programs, and how can we foster real, accountable collaboration between agencies that serve a client?
- Emerging Media: How can we improve how emerging media opportunities are evaluated, tested and implemented on our businesses?
- Training for Excellence: How can we develop cross agency solutions to improve expertise in our people?

Each area was addressed by a core team that outlined the key issues, an action plan, and a timeline to make our ideas come to fruition. Thanks in particular to those attendees who were asked to lead and facilitate each group!

At the end of the main session Dave Smith updated the group on the activities of The Aspen Group and launched the voting for the "Aspies" Awards.

What I was most struck by was how enthusiastic was every attendee in finding the solutions our business so needs to achieve its potential -- to be the business we want it to be! It really was a continuation of the spirit begun many years ago by The Aspen Group, and a demonstration that people are just as committed now to working together as they were when the tradition of an agency day began!

You’ll be reading more about Agency RX both here and on iMediaConnection.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.