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Riggs Partners
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West Columbia, SC 29169
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Author Archives: cathy
The other day, I promised a strategic partner I’d write a post about the most important lessons we’ve learned in this Wild West world of digital and social media.
Let me say: I’ve never been a fan of “rules” in marketing (other than to give us a really good baseline from which we can divert). I mean, when every brand in the category is doing it one way, isn’t it our job to find another vastly more interesting alternative?
Well, of course. Just ask one of my style icons Andy Spade, who always does things in a most unexpected and delicious way.
But still I promised the post. So here it is.
Navigating the social media landscape: It's wild out there.
Rule #1 Accept that it is the Wild West out there.
We get requests every day for case studies to validate the recommendations we are making to our clients/prospective clients. I’m a big fan of the case study; there’s usually a really interesting story arc and beautiful creative presentation. But in this crazy new world of social media, the only way to have a real impact is to do something that is so custom, so true to the heart of your brand, it has never been done before. You have to blaze a new trail.
Rule #2 Think cross-platform.
Someone told me years ago: You know you’ve learned a foreign language when you catch yourself thinking in that language. That’s just what you have to do with all the emerging communication channels out there. Don’t start with a traditional media campaign and then try to figure a way to tack some Facebooking and Twittering on to the end of it. Instead, start with a big idea. Then find interesting ways to deploy it seamlessly across traditional and nontraditional media.
Rule #3 Develop the strategy first.
Seriously. Start the old-fashioned way, by determining not only what you are going to do, but why you are doing it, and with whom. Get clear on your objectives.
Rule #4 Be interesting.
Ever been to a cocktail party and gotten cornered by a “talker”? (Thank you, Tim Burke.) It’s painful, and all you want is escape. That’s how prospects feel when the only topic of conversation you have with them is YOU. Instead, initiate conversations on topics they find interesting and engaging.
Rule #5 Understand the difference between interruption and engagement.
Way back in October of 2009, Alex Bogusky wrote a post I’m getting out of this business again. The entire post is worth a read, but I’ve pulled the section that spoke so loudly to me:
“The market forces created by the rapid demise of mass media and traditional media models have made the real business we’re in clearer than ever. We’re in the business of . . .creating new ideas . . . so compelling and entertaining that the consumer searches them out. . . . Brilliance will be more powerful than ever, and yet everything from above average on down will become invisible. Produce ordinary ideas and nobody will ever see them.”
It’s daunting. It’s also true. And I guess that makes it the most important *rule* of all.
Brian, Teresa and Steve, just prior to Cakefest 2010
Brian Murrell and Steve Sperling of ADCO stopped by this afternoon with a sweet surprise—a big, beautiful, oh-so-chocolate “best cake in town” for the Riggers. It seems our own Teresa Coles acted as Referrer in sending some work (The Children’s Trust of South Carolina) to our pals at ADCO and they came by, cake in hand, to offer their thanks.
The sinful, chocolatey goodness of that cake reminds us how sweet an old fashioned “thank you” can be.
The partners spent the afternoon deeply touched and on a delightful sugar high! Thanks back to you, ADCO.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), is a fancy name for the acknowledgement that businesses, as well as individuals, have an important role to play in bettering the world around us. Our friends at the Hilton Head Island VCB have embraced the concept and are one of the first corporate destinations in the country to offer a customized CSR component to their Meetings and Groups packages.
It works like this. A company plans a meeting, or retreat, on Hilton Head Island. A community service project is incorporated as part of the event package, and the group is matched with a participating United Way of the Lowcountry organization. During their time on Hilton Head Island, the group of 10 to 100 people works together on the specified project, such as a Habitat build.
Our assignment was to package, and promote, The Hilton Head Difference.
The Hilton Head Difference direct mail, sent to meeting planners
spring flowers, from my yard to my table
Maybe it’s the four new business meetings we had last week (notably supported by reasonable budgets). Maybe it’s the Today Show news that the Dow “charged” above 11,000. Or maybe it’s just the huge arrangement of yard cuttings blooming in the milk bottle vase on my kitchen table.
There’s something sweet in the air, and it smells like ~ dare we say it ~ Recovery.
It feels good.
Not long ago, I was in a meeting with a longtime client. We were talking about the roller coaster that has been the last 18 months. And we were attempting to plan for the next six. We spent a good part of that session focused on small business owners and the exhaustion they (ahum. we.) feel. “I now understand what my Grandmother meant when she said she was spent,” he said.
It’s an apt description.
And Recovery, or not, I am glad Spring is here. Like a tiny sprout breaking through the soil, I feel the sunshine and am renewed.
And so we found the Partners at the 2010 Addy Awards, Cirque du ADDY. The ultimate costume ball of the season, we were there in all our costumed fabulousness.
Kudos to the ADDY committee for the Party-Part of the night. We had a blast.
And now to the awards. We did A-OK, walking out with both Best of Print and Best of Broadcast. We also racked up three gold ADDYs and four silvers, and while we shouldn’t, we will steal a tad bit of the spotlight of the two silvers bestowed upon our friend Ryan Cockrell for his amazing Riggs Partners CreateAthon video. (Ryan rocks.) Glory!
Honored work included:
- Best of Print for Vaughn’s BBQ, poster and sales collateral
- Best of Broadcast for Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, Breast Health Center, television campaign
- Gold ADDY for Preservation Trust of Spartanburg, logo
- Gold ADDY for Vaughn’s BBQ, poster and sales collateral
- Gold ADDY for Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, Breast Health Center, television campaign
- Silver ADDY for Central Carolina Community Foundation, annual report
- Silver ADDY for Hilton Head Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, direct mail
- Silver ADDY for Girl Scouts of South Carolina – Mountains to Midlands, website
- Silver ADDY for PAALS/Heartworm Project, event poster
We want to shine a little light upon our Riggs Partners apprentices, who contributed mightily to our big haul. And thanks to our good, good friends Mad Monkey, as our creative partners in the Spartanburg Regional “Who’s Your Plus One” television. (We believe in the cause–find a woman you care about and MAKE SURE she gets a mammogram!)
It has never been more true: a fine time was had by all!
There are so many reasons to register to be a part of the first Virtual March in support of responsible reproductive health policy in South Carolina:
- South Carolina is considered an HIV “hot spot” by the CDC
- STIs and STDs are spreading at alarming rates, with half of all new cases affecting young people between the ages of 15 and 24;
- Teen pregnancy rates are on the rise (three in 10 girls will become pregnant at least once before the age of 20);
- Woefully inadequate female representation in our state government (SC ranks dead last)
Here’s the kicker. We know how to solve this! And 80 percent of South Carolinians agree on the solution: policies that provide for comprehensive sex education and prevention programs. We just have to let our legislators know.
If you want to be a part of the solution and are willing to send an email to your state representatives (it’s that easy), register for the Virtual March.
Riggs Partners is honored and excited to be working with TellThemSC.org in getting the word out. We think there’s no greater issue facing our state today.
I read a blog entry this morning written by Alex Bogusky that I just can’t get out of my mind. While the perspective he offered was smart from beginning to end, one section continues to whirl around in my head—so much so that I simply have to address it here before I can get on to the “the deadline is approaching” projects on my desk today.
“The market forces created by the rapid demise of mass media and traditional media models have made the real business we’re in clearer than ever. We’re in the business of . . .creating new ideas . . . so compelling and entertaining that the consumer searches them out. . . . Brilliance will be more powerful than ever, and yet everything from above average on down will become invisible. Produce ordinary ideas and nobody will ever see them.”
This is a very real and incredibly powerful shift in the business of marketing. In years past, if we produced work that was average (or God forbid, below average), we could still produce some modicum of impact because it could be forced on unsuspecting consumers via mass media interruption. Some sort of intellectual or emotional exchange would still take place. But today, the penalty for generic is this: It goes completely unnoticed.
I spend a lot of time these days talking with clients about the need to develop content so irresistible consumers are attracted to it. It is our goal on every project to produce something magnetic; an idea or execution so educational, or funny, or emotionally powerful they seek it out, rather than the other way around. This is a tall order. And it is made even more difficult—make that impossible—when the idea is compromised as it makes its journey from concept to marketplace. The result is often just what Bogusky warned—invisibility.
It is a core value at RP to listen generously as suggestions are offered along any creative path, and I believe many a good idea was made better through collaborative input. But it is our professional responsibility to stand tall for ideas worth protecting. And that is a truth worth remembering.
I read, with great interest, an article in the August 3 edition of Brandweek in which David Kenny, managing partner of Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi, stated:
“People are going to emerge from the current recession forever changed. The global recession has changed them. Environmental realities have changed them. New global leadership has changed them.”
In the next paragraph, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says just the opposite, arguing that those who think consumer frugality is here to stay “don’t understand the American psyche.” Quoted from an interview at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival this summer, Dr. Schmidt went on to say “the moment people feel more comfortable, they’ll go back to spending large amounts of money—which is the American pastime.”
When Schmidt speaks, you gotta listen. (He does have a vested interest in consumer credit card debt, it must be noted.) And yet I believe we are changed. The most recent data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the U.S. personal saving rate has climbed by 3.7 percentage points since the recession began, from 1.5 percent in fourth quarter of 2007 to 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2009, a relative increase of almost 350 percent.
Perhaps the change will come simply because credit has become so expensive, and cash is in short supply. But as difficult as this recession has been, it does feel as if a bit of the Jones-chasing has lessened. Like many Americans, I am spending more time at home, more time with my family, and I am more focused on enjoying the experience, rather than rushing off for the next acquisition.
And that is a change for the better.
It’s the old triple play: Nice piece on the art of presenting well, authored by Peter Coughter, posted on Heidi Ehlers’ Black Bag blog, now brought to you via RP:
Great Ideas Must Live. Here’s How to Make Sure They Do.
Devour, and practice. Practice. Practice.
