It's Very Easy To Get Lost

It’s very easy to get lost.

While the three martini lunch that the Madison Avenue ad agency and media maven craze made famous is long-gone, it’s not difficult to get lost in the pages of Town & Country Magazine and think that everyone, everywhere lives the fashion life.

Madison Avenue and the corporate boardrooms still promote that the fashion live is all alive and well.

This past week, I sipped coffee and read the Wall Street Journal at a local Virginia-Highland coffee house. Two Emory University MBA students at the table next to mine.

The two guys were very professionally outfitted in their blazers, button-downs and ties. 

They chatted about their expectations of their first management job touting the great cities they were aiming to move to like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Boston. 

They spoke about their ideal career that as far as they were concerned was going to be their first job out of school. 

They spoke about their ideal home and cars, again, things that they would gain access to shortly.

They spoke about the marketplace. 

Not surprisingly, a dialogue filled with perceptions of people and cultures they imagine to exist... at least, the culture painted in their MBA case discussions.

It took a lot out of me to stay focused on the Wall Street Journal. 

I wanted to put them in my car and go on a journey into what really makes up America.

It’s very easy to get lost.

So far, the best part of my Thanksgiving break was going to a McDonald’s on Black Friday. 

I got there early… Just after 7:00am.

Next to where I sat was a table filled with women.  They were using their iPhones to check just what was going on sale, where and when.

I started up a conversation with them. 

I asked them if they were just beginning their shopping spree or had already been to stores.

They replied that they had been shopping since 7pm on Thanksgiving Day … all night … all over the place.

They went on to tell me about the deals they found and how they found some online and some instore.

They were planning to head about 30 miles west toward the “Big City” and then on from there back to their home town. 

As I listened to them share their stories, I could not help but quickly put them into target group “buckets” I am in the process of building for two new clients. 

Both of my clients have businesses located in smaller town America. 

There is a target group I coin as “Blue Sky Homesteaders” and another one termed “Heartland Seniors.”  These two groups make up about three out of every ten U.S. Households.

After I had breakfast, I went to a couple stores myself -- more to watch people than to shop. Later in the afternoon, I was back in the city of Atlanta and had a chance to chat with some folks shopping in the city.

I know what many of you are thinking. 

There are masses out there shopping the Wal-Marts of the America that might represent a share of our population, but really only a small share.  All the rest of the population is much more educated, professional and aspiring. 

Last week, I conducted a discussion group with homeowners who reside in a relatively nice, fashionable, Atlanta neighborhood.  One of my clients is going to be opening up a home design store in first quarter of 2014 and we are putting together their marketing program.

Going into the group, I was convinced that I was going to sit in on a group of women who truly lived in House Beautiful set-designed homes.

No question that the group was upscale. 

Most of the attendees were in their late 30s or 40s. 

When I asked the group to visualize their ideal home space, I was surprised.  The words, “Simple,” “Warm.” and “Clean” were used a bunch to describe the space.  “Fashionable,” “Trendy,” “Luxurious” and “Designer” were not used at all.

In fact, the group voiced how they used HGTV and Home Depot to get ideas more and custom interior designers less.

My client was surprised. 

The high-brow ‘hoods of the past are becoming “more commonplace.”

Lastly, there was an article this past week in the Wall Street Journal that I found very intriguing. 

I actually read the article during that morning coffee in which the MBAs were sitting next to my table.

The article talks about what is driving the new teenage shopping market.

The article has a sub-title that reads, “It’s Goodbye to Big Brand Names, Hello to Cheap Fast Fashion.”

Forever 21, H&M, Target and Wal-Mart are in and Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Aeropostale and designer labels are out. 

Going into 2014, I encourage my clients and marketers alike to take time out.  Get a breakfast at a McDonald’s and forego the Starbucks. Go to the nearby Wal-Mart and Forever 21.  Spend the afternoon in a Home Depot and chain grocery store.

Do it before your corporate marketing team meets or the ad agency comes in with a presentation.

Its very easy to get lost. 

Oh Canada...Keep Innovating And Carry On!

I am writing this blog post from the Toronto airport.  In a couple of hours I will be bound back to Atlanta… and the U.S. 

Yesterday, I participated in a conference of Canadian marketing leadership that crafts business, marketing and interactive strategy around neighborhood lifestyle groups.

Environics Analytics was the conference host and is the top Canadian provider of market segmentation modeling tools including Canada PRIZM.  Environics Analytics celebrated their 10^th anniversary yesterday, something that I could identify with since EXPERIENCE celebrated its 10^th anniversary last month.

I know that many of you are probably wondering if a conference built around segmentation modeling was boring “with a bunch of numbers and stats.” 

I applaud the Environics Analytics team.  Their corporate “mascot” is actually a real live tech nerd that has a very interesting… even engaging… personality.

To answer what some might be thinking … was this a boring event?… the answer is a flat out… NO.

Not only was the day not boring… it was actually very inspirational.  Yes… I said inspirational.

There were more than 400 people at the event.  There were around a dozen different presentations made available to attendees during the day.  The individuals presenting shared hands-on experience using the Environics tools in their marketing programs.

I was one of the presenters. 

No question that a share of the individuals presenting matched up against the statistical nerd stereotype.  Their presentation charts had lots of tables, graphs and numbers.

My presentation did not have many detailed tables, numbers and charts. Some folks said I might have been the most animated up on stage.

I enjoyed interacting with the group and I heard more people laugh and less people snore.  When you make a presentation, that’s good feedback.

What struck me about half way through the day was that this group of marketing leadership truly placed value on understanding the human dynamics of the marketplace. 

They talked about the emotional character of their markets versus rational attributes and benefit deliverables.

Those human dynamics provided deep insight on how the product service experience needs to connect and reinforce brand relationships, dialogue and exchange.

While my presentation was in part about my history of working with neighborhood lifestyle groups over the last 30 years; the main focus of my presentation highlighted how its currently being used by my client, Shaw Floors and affiliated retailers.

One of the Shaw Canadian retailers came up and presented part of the story with me.

Carl French, part owner of a flooring store called Speers Road Broadloom is a peer I continue to learn from and admire.

He is passionate about his business.  He is passionate about adopting new ways to drive sales. 

He is innovative in how he uses marketing insight like lifestyle-crafted target groups to craft his marketing and sales strategy.

Any one who has read a number of these blog posts knows well that I have not found too many corporate leadership groups that are brave enough to reach beyond the drone of conventional marketing practices. 

It’s unfortunate when a business gets absorbed with stats and numbers to the point that innovation ceases and even the most basic understanding of human behavior gets tabled.

I found it very interesting how other presentations at this conference addressed interactive and social media and how they spoke more about the human relationship dynamics and less about how many “friends” were part of the groups.

SEO mechanics were downplayed and more dialogue focused around the character of the interactive relationship.

Times have changed radically since I first started working with neighborhood lifestyle groups… and it’s not just the advent of the Internet.

As I sit at the airport and soon will be back in Atlanta, I leave with a much stronger sense that what I post on this blog and what I share with clients and partners is right on track. 

Perhaps what I enjoyed most during the time with the group yesterday is that I can count on one hand how many times I heard the word, “research” used by attendees and presenters.

Perhaps what I found most entertaining was a presentation on comparative political mindset found in Canada versus those in the U.S.

The Canadians found it very amusing that they were much more focused on a shared vision of better good than the Americans… who, in turn, were much more focused on this essence of what is the right thing to do and a government of rules.

They also found it amusing that the Canadians post higher incomes than the Americans.

As I board the plane back to Atlanta, I look forward to hosting the Canadians some time soon in the ATL and get a chance to show them a glimpse into our country of nearly 300 million folks compared to their just less than 30 million.

Onward into 2014… Keep Innovating and Carry On!

For A Good Lesson On Business Management Go To healthcare.gov

Right up front I have to admit that I am often perceived as a supporter of the Health Reform Act… at least among my business peers that are married to voting Red.

My commentary that the healthcare industry lacks coordination of costs, organization and accountability that are common in other comparative industries is what makes many think I am a supporter.  

Part of my commentary is driven by years working with hospitals, providers, physicians and insurance groups; the other part driven from a patient perspective following my wreck in the MINI five years ago.

As many of you know, I produce and co-host a roundtable radio show every week on health and wellness.   So to stay on top of the news stories and to be relevant on the shows, I have been attempting to … and finally this past Sunday morning… get a first-hand experience with the October 1 premiere of healthcare.gov.

(For those of you who have no idea… healthcare.gov is Uncle Sam’s website where folks can go and purchase health insurance.)

We all have heard in the news about how the vast majority including the then-Speaker of the House did not read the health reform bill before casting a vote.

I contend the same thing is true about the same crew… and add to it the vast lot of news journalists … who have not actually seen nor trafficked through healthcare.gov.

Putting politics aside for a minute…

My expectation would be that the website is pretty similar to the travel sites like Expedia and Priceline where you can quickly key in what you want to do, click on the best options and then click to pay for the ticket and book the trip.

When I go to Expedia to book a hotel or to Delta.com to book an airline ticket, the average time it takes me start-to-finish is about 5 minutes.

After more than two-dozen attempts before Sunday morning to get into healthcare.gov, I thought it would be a breeze to see what my options would be under what the healthcare reform advocates claim is the greatest thing launched in the U.S. since we landed on the moon.

When I finally got into the website, I was quickly greeted with a screen of text. 

Lot’s of text.

Multiple syllable text.

I clicked on what appeared to be the button to press… but I have to admit I had to ponder first if it really was the “click” button.

Next came up a series of questions about me.

I filled them out.

Click to the next page.

Read the text.

Click to the next page.

Yet more text.

Click… and then a host of questions that I had to put in answers so that the system knew it was really me when I came back to the site again.

Okay… I downloaded in my favorite color… and my mother’s maiden name… and my first pet’s name… and my favorite clothes to wear… and my favorite television show… and the best dessert I ever made.

Click.

More questions.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Then the system asked me if I wanted to see if I might be eligible for health insurance credits.

Six clicks and lines of text later I got to a point where I would finally see what plan options were available and the cost...

Nope.

I was told that the system was still “processing.”

I looked at my watch.  I had been on healthcare.gov now for more than 45 minutes.

I got up and grabbed a can of Red Bull from my refrigerator.

When I sat down in front of my MacBook Pro, the screen still posted that it was “processing.”

10 minutes later after taking my dog out for a quick walk, the screen still said,  “processing.”

I picked up my iPhone and called the 1-800-number posted on the page for the help desk.

A nice older woman answered the call.  She was like that grandmother sitting on the front porch of that older house in the farm fields of South Georgia.

I told her what I was trying to do.

She responded by saying… 

“Now darlin’ all I can tell you is that there are lot’s of glitches in this website right now and they have a bunch of repairs to make. My suggestion is you go and enjoy this nice Sunday morning and take a walk and come back to healthcare.gov a couple weeks from now and, the good Lord willing, it will be a bunch quicker.”

I could not have staged this experience nor scripted her response any better.

While many of my friends think that I am this big supporter of healthcare reform, I hope that they take a moment and read this blog post.

Most anything that the government touches is not likely to function efficiently… nor is the government going to be accountable for it if its not working.

Observation.

Those who are party loyalists actually believe that their politico can do no wrong.

Happens with those on the left.  Happens with those on the right.

No question that moving forward I will promote the heck out of Obama and his team and showcasing what was created and launched under the banner of healthcare.gov.

I want both supporters and critics to experience it first-hand.

I would not be surprised if much of anyone on the outside of Obama loyalists actually came in and were asked for counsel and perspective.

Probably never considered actually “beta testing” the product.

Sure that any thought of having those who were most critical should be invited into a focus group and exposed to the system and the way it was designed to work to hear commentary and suggestions. 

Oh there is no question that who ever got the contract to do the site design, pick out the pictures to post and the fonts to use delivered on their end of the deal. 

The pictures are pretty and nice.

The fonts are also pretty and nice. 

Function?

Well shoot… I can hear it now… that’s not in my job description.

If the website healthcare.gov is a clue as to what awaits us all with the operational mechanics of the Health Reform Act, I will borrow the Obama campaign tagline… Forward!

And I hope that smart businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs-alike… and especially the clients I work with now and at least in the next ten years… watch and jot down key insights about what to avoid doing and what to ensure is done.

What I’ve learned over the years is that if my clients are facing a lack of cost control, organization and accountability that are common in other comparative industries… I should start generating some leads because that client will not be my roster long.  

History Repeats Itself

Over the weekend, I got a chance to have coffee with a guy I got to know back in my High School days. 

For those of you who are reading this, that was more than 35 years ago… for me.  My friend, Steven is a couple of years older.

When we met up for coffee, he gave me a gift.  He said he found it in one of the antique stores down in what is now his “hometown,” Jackson, Mississippi.

The name of the book is Advertising published by The Alexander Hamilton Institute in New York back 1914.  That’s now 100 years ago.

The author is a Mr. Harry Tipper who was the advertising manager of the Texas Company, president of the Association of National Advertisers and a lecturer of the Men’s League of New York.

The first chapter gives a recount of the history of advertising.  It’s eleven pages long.  Back then, there was no television, no radio, limited outdoor and Lord only knows… no Internet or social media.

What I find fascinating about the book is its length…430 pages. 

There are very intriguing chapters. 

The first chapter of a section titled “Planning The Campaign” is named “Preliminary Investigation” and it talks about things like “important considerations” and the “consumption capacity of territory.”

Sounds a lot like what I do now 100 years later. 

My bet is here in the midst of the information age, it’s just as important for businesses to read that chapter as it was back in 1914.

Times might change, but the human element does not. 

There’s also a chapter titled “Advertising Agencies” with part of the chapter dedicated to “where the agency sometimes error” and the “weaknesses of agency services.”

As the author writes… “Although the advertising agency is generally able to furnish the manufacturer with valuable ideas, it will not as a rule afford much help with regard to marketing methods.”

Sounds like something I often relay to clients.

The author concludes the chapter with this… “Nor must it be forgotten that the interests of the advertising agent as advertising counsel, on the one hand, and commission man, on the other, are always diametrically opposed to each other.”

As I share with many clients, you can call it retainer fee or project fee, but if you don’t think that agency is working with 15% commission on the media and 20% mark-up on the production, run those numbers and see how close they are to what that annual retainer totals at the end of 12 months.

There’s a chapter on “Reason-Why Copy” followed by “Human-Interest Copy” as well as a chapter on “Copy As Affected By Display: and “Copy As Affected By Mediums.”

I share with clients something similar to the latter when I say, “the medium is the message and the message is the medium.”

There’s even a chapter on Advertising Research and the tracking of results including keeping a tally on who responds to the advertising and where they are residing. 

Back in those high school days, I had no idea that I would one day end up doing what I am doing today from a business perspective, but I was very much centered around understanding creativity and how it could be generated and developed.

I know what many of you are thinking.

When you think of your high school days, I would wager few share that common ground of remembrance.

Update time.

This past couple weeks, my very first client that I landed, an academic healthcare medical center, is breaking with a new campaign created by a New York ad agency.

Over the course of the five years in which we worked together, we moved their brand forward with a super brand platform that was anchored around the emotional experience of medical advancement and innovative options that patients had who came to their centers for disease treatment.

Just like the Advertising book addresses in what it terms “Human-Interest Copy,” the brand platform raised the mechanics of research and academic perspectives into a context that the “man-on-the-street” got excited about and desired to learn more.

Perhaps its because my second home is now a country get-away located adjacent to a town that is totally driven by a university campus, I can say what I next will say… or, its because I have taken the time to teach a few courses myself…

…But academics live in a very separate world than the rest of us.

Its one where ad agencies seem to intrigue many, and there are limited control points in place to avoid agencies coming in with limited perspectives of the dynamics of the market and “selling in the sizzle.”

I can see it now. 

The posh, well-scripted ad agency flew down from their New York City digs and spoke with a few of the academics and became intrigued with the academic perspective of the impending changes of the Health Reform Act.

Those New York ad slicks probably also were very much taken back by some patient perspectives that the Medical Center team might even be perceived as aloft… even arrogant… in their personality and bedside manor.

Something they concluded as bad for the brand image.

So… out of their New York offices, they produced the new campaign that replaced “Advancing The Possibilities” with “We’re All In This Together.”

A campaign that is driven by “Fixing Healthcare,” “Family” and “Big City Healthcare.”  All nice, warm scenes of extended families, smiling doctors and pretty pictures of the countryside. 

Be still my heart.

Be still the market too. 

Be still that person diagnosed with cancer and told that conventional avenues are not likely going to work.

Be still that person diagnosed with advanced heart disease in which future activity will be severely limited.

And be still that physician that after 20 hours of surgery has found a way to get a person put back together again.

Ahhhh… but those new ads are all anchored is the Shangri-La of feel-good… the beautiful filming and the thrill of the New York ad agency.

They say that age does breed wisdom. 

While I might want to scream when I see clients do really, really dumb stupid things, it seldom means much to the business with the bucks… at least for now.

When I read the pages of a book written 100 years ago, I quickly realize that I am not alone in the observations.

Sometimes, looking back in time and re-connecting… like I was lucky to do with my friend Steven… helps to anchor us in our trials of surviving the here and now. 

I will elect to stay positive. 

Another good friend of mine who is a psychologist said to me one night... trust me, they will come back.

Ad Agencies? Where's The Midol? Mix It With Their Martini!

I am writing this while sipping a morning coffee in Atlanta’s Virginia Highland neighborhood. 

I come here most mornings for some causal time to browse through the Wall Street Journal and catch up on my Emails.

In the last blog-logue, I made note of some interesting numbers tracking the volume of retail sales on the world-wide-web.

Three articles in this morning’s WSJ struck me. 

One of the articles is about Nielsen and its challenges of working with ad agencies. The second article is about Google and the confrontational threat it faces voiced by ad agencies.

Ad agencies are going through interesting times.  And to be honest, I am really tired of holding their hands. 

Any time you hang with an ad agency you quickly see that…

(1)  Commission payment still drives their business model… no matter how much they say they don’t work that way anymore…

(2) The greater the reach, the better the buy… no matter how much they say they can “rifle-target” media buys… the more warm bodies they can secure, the better they believe is the deliverable

(3) Wheeling and dealing drives price… they remain insistent on stressing what is the “gross, non-negotiated” cost… and then making sure clients understand just how great a deal they were able to secure on their behalf

One of my clients has invested in securing market information that they can, in turn, provide to their retailer distribution network. 

Once the retailers are presented with the market information, they then bring in an ad agency media-buying firm to develop a marketing plan.

Yesterday, I participated in a call in which the media firm made a presentation. 

They had included radio in the buy.  When asked why, the rationale was simple… “it provides the broadest reach.”

And then when asked, well how do you know?  “Because they net the highest ratings” is the answer.

Who they reach, the match of the media channel with the message, the time of the day the spots run, the links to interactive media is all second tier consideration.

The more warm bodies the better!

I sometimes wonder if the entrepreneurs who tell me that everybody, everywhere is their target group are the champion ideal clients of the media maven.

The third WSJ article showcases how AOL is linking up its online advertising with television media. 

Interesting outcome birthed through the past merger of AOL with Time-Warner. 

The article goes on to talk about how the web will be married in terms of reach and the new, merged dynamics of broadcast ratings. 

Essentially, the article talks about how AOL is going to circumvent the media mavens and make the buying all automated online.

The interesting perspective shared in the article is how prospective advertisers will be able to select a “genre character” of websites and be able to place a brand on all of those aligned sites.

Almost a duplicate of what I am doing right now with COX Interactive for a number of our clients.

That part of what AOL is doing is positive news and certainly something that I will investigate and learn more about for our partners.

Lastly, I just hired a new college intern this week. 

She is a junior in the PR program at the University of Georgia.

When I asked her what courses she was taking this semester, she told me that one of the courses was “New Media.”

Curious to see how many others reading this wonder the same things I do…

(1) Calling the Internet “new media” when it is more than 15 years old is a bit of a misnomer… When I was taking classes back in the 1970s at University of Georgia, I don’t recall a class on cable television being referred to as “new media”… but it is analogous

(2) If the Internet, interactive, social and mobile are being taught in a separate class from “old media,” how are the students coming out of universities today viewing the planning process?  Is the Internet, interactive, social and mobile being viewed essentially as add-on channel options?

Here we sit in 2013 with all of our business partners knee-deep in 2014 strategy planning.

Maybe its time to wipe the slate clean. 

Don’t even bring the media mavens to the table.

Scrap the links with the recent college degree graduates.

Chuck the ad agency account execs.

Instead, bring in some Generation ZOOMers (see the AT&T commercials to learn who they are), inventive creative folks, gamers and anthropologists and have them to put together the brand plans. 

Let the folks like Nielsen, Google and AOL keep the conventional ad agencies, research statisticians and media mavens happy living in the past with the martini afternoons.

Maybe then, we will see some innovative strategy emerge in 2014.  

Percent Of Retail Sales Selling Online? Bet You Don't Know The Answer!

Before you read any further in this blog, take a guess at what the answer is to the question below…

What percentage of total U.S. retail sales takes place on the Internet?

While you are figuring out that number, I will share with you some observations.

I remember attending a marketing conference and listening to a young lady from one of the large New York ad agencies talk about the work she does with a large Consumer Package Goods (CPG) client.

Her specialty is online and social media marketing. She was the VP of a group of more than two-dozen folks at the ad agency.

She talked about the great targeting message strategy she developed based on both content and online behavior of the CPG online consumers.

Her team was proud of the “very cool” predictive models they built.

I asked how those models could then translate to more conventional marketing and promotional sales programs.

She smiled and said, “well, not much… they are based on detailed online behaviors and are constantly being updated and remodeled.” 

She went on and said… “And conventional media channeling is really useless for marketers because soon everything will be done online.”

Those attending the marketing conference very quickly shook their heads in confirming agreement.

I then asked her, “How many customers are in your online audience base?”

She put up a slide and said, “just over 22,000.”

“Wow” was my reply.

I remembered how a fast food franchise had just told me the day before that they rejected a retail site because it only was drawing a daytime working base of 40,000 folks vs. another one that was drawing in double the number.

I preach a bunch about rifle-targeting in the blog posts and often harp on how media folks are programmed around “the bigger the reach – no matter who is being reached – the better the media option.”

The answer to the question that I posted in the second line of this blog post?

Here is the quote from the article in this week’s WSJ article…

“Online purchases account for just 5.8% of total U.S. retail sales in the second quarter of 2013, up from 5.1% a year earlier.”

Wow.  That’s phenomenal growth!

The reason why I took time out to write this blog is that there is an overwhelming belief among some of the most educated and trend sportscasters that the web is dominating everything, everyone, every where.

Social media and website marketing dominate the seminar subject agendas.

The 20-something Millennials streaming into the ad agencies believe that newspapers are just rotting on the vine and that everyone gets their news onine.

Retail store marketing?  Well shoot, that’s easy, get cracking on your Facebook storefront.

Even the by-products of the incest ad agency mega-mergers, the Madison Avenue Ayatollah preach that it’s the web firms that are the money makers and that conventional media buying can be automated online.

All for that 5.8% of the retail revenue sales volume and those 22,000 CPG consumers!

I guess that other 94.2% of sales must be dwelling in the Stone Age!

Maybe its because I am a Baby Boomer that I did not rule out the day that the travel agencies would be back.

Or that the retail store fronts still had a place and a role that probably would become even more important as the Millennials enter the home ownership phase.

Or that those community newspapers were not likely to fade away.

Maybe the most fascinating part of the WSJ article covering these new statistics is the significant amount of the article dedicated to sharing just how difficult it is to secure online sales figures.

Just as it cites in the article, reporters would call the online sales divisions and they would either (a) change the topic and show the reporters some new website tools… (b) play stupid and say that they did not track that information in their department … or (c) talk about how difficult it is to measure online sales.

Reminds me of my niece with the chocolate covered hands and when I ask if she got into the candy jar and she replies… “I don’t know.”

My prediction?

Board members and shareholders are not smiling right now when they read the article and figure out the ROI of all those investments and staff hires they approved to fund the generation of 5.8% of sales. 

The Discovery Of Insight And Brands Embracing It

There’s an article on the front page of today’s WSJ Marketplace titled, “Subaru’s Got A Big Problem: Its Selling Too Many Cars.”

Not sure how many of the readers have seen any recent Subaru advertising, but the ads might be some of the very best that capture the emotional context of the brand experience.

There are no spokespeople, no cars driving in an unrealistic environment, no cars speeding at 100 mph, no gimmicks, no animation, no flashing rebate numbers.

The ads are snapshots of the common life of their brand equity target customers.

The picture of the Subaru in this morning’s WSJ displays the Subaru SUV up against a backdrop of a forest of trees.

The name of the model showcased is “Crosstrek.”

Some of my friends say that I watch way too much television.

And I am the first to say that television is really no longer the premiere medium of advertising. 

Broadcast today spans the spectrum across everything from the laptop to the smartphone to the iPad… anything that connects to the Cloud.

One of the reasons why I watch television is to watch the commercials.

Sometimes, I actually watch commercials, see how bad and off target they are and then pick up the phone and connect with the CEO of the brand being advertised and actually net new business.

I don’t make that up.

There are a lot of brands out there today in which the ad is nothing more than the CMO speaking from a podium about the physical make-up of the physical brand. 

Nothing about the brand experience and interaction with the brand.  Nothing about the person using it. Nothing emotional.

As I have shared in this blog before, in order for the human brain to store something encountered in long-term memory, the right side – the emotional side – of the brain has to be stimulated.

Now back to Subaru. 

If you Google Subaru, there is a set of links that appear on the first page about how Subaru has become the top brand purchased by Lesbians.

I can see how Subaru might be favored by Lesbians.  Go back up a few lines and read about the picture of the Subaru Crosstrek in this morning’s WSJ.

Whatever the case, the ads that are running right now on TV capture the experience and not taut how the vehicle physically is built nor place the car racing on an imaginary, high-speed track.

Subaru is cashing in on how insight can drive their car sales. Literally. 

There’s another set of ads that I applaud.

They feature the brand experience and interaction with one of the P&G brands… Swiffer. 

When I first saw one of the ads, I immediately thought there had to have been one fabulous account planner working with the P&G creative team.

The ads feature an older retired couple interacting with the product.

Part of me thinks that the couple might just be the grandparents of the account planner and he took the camera guy over to their house on a Saturday morning unannounced and gave them a Swiffer and said try it out.

I don’t really think that P&G is running the ads to target seniors.

I think that the ads actually target the Millennials.

The Millennials likely perceive the senior couple in some ways like their “helicopter parents,” and the commercial as a YouTube video.

All of that is much more trustworthy to a Millennial as they watch “TV” on their iPad.

I know that for some of the MBA marketing folks and agency A/Es, I might be speaking in a foreign language they don’t understand.

There is actually a series of these Swiffer ads and they are all smack on target as far as I am concerned.

Lastly, there was an article about 10 days ago in the WSJ about KIA and the success of their KIA Soul ads.

These are the ads with the hamsters driving the KIA Soul and dancing to funky street music.

KIA developed the Soul and launched the campaign to target Millennials.

The article cites KIA Soul 2013 sales exceeding projected goals.

Fascinating however, is that the folks buying KIA Souls are not the Millennials. 

But, instead, the Boomers.  The Aging Boomers.

Turns out that the jiving Hamsters reach deep into the Boomer headset and bring back the nostalgia of their youth.

Left-brain MBAs and A/Es will understand this… the KIA Soul is also a quasi-SUV that is very easy to get into vs. the conventional SUV.

There’s a bunch of hype this week about how media buying is being automated.

Some of the writers go so far as to speculate that advertising, as we know it, will be automated soon too.

Some folks… especially the ad agency A/Es like to tell clients that what I do is research… data analytics.

Actually computers can do data analytics far faster than I can.

That’s why I type these blogs on my MacBook Pro.

My title is Discovery Chief.

Computers… and left-brain MBA execudites… often fail at discovering insight.

Folks like me and the observant, grass-roots creatives working on brands like Subaru, Swifter and KIA Soul indeed glean insights and bring brands to life by embracing the insight!