The difference between loving what you do and being stuck in a dreary work situation is taking a hard look at the things around us that we accept and take for granted. The enthusiasm that drives those leaps to greatness starts with questioning why we’re even doing what we’re doing in the first place. We have to ask, “is this working?” for everything. Yet when we become complacent and accept things without thought, we head first into lazy-minded traps that make us fall out of love with what originally drove us.

Maybe there are too many “yes” people around. Perhaps the fear of questioning what is “working” or “good enough” is overwhelming the love it takes to push to the next level.

This attitude manifests itself regularly in marketing departments and ad agencies. Mediocre results and incremental gains are sometimes the only success people know. If they’re not inspired by what a leap to greatness can do for their brand, they will continue to accept the pedestrian–the “just good enough.” But that’s, well, just not good enough.

There’s a joke about five monkeys in a cage. A bunch of bananas is hung high in the cage out of the reach with some boxes placed at the bottom. The monkeys pile the boxes, climb up, get the bananas, and are sprayed with cold water. One monkey is removed from the cage as he figures out the boxes and the rest of the monkeys beat him up. Eventually, no monkey in the cage is sprayed with cold water for reaching the bananas, but any time a new one enters, he is beaten for trying. Why? Because that’s how we always do things around here.

If you and your team–your agency, partners, and loved ones–are not constantly questioning, then there’s no opportunity to evolve, to reflect, and to learn.

With the average tenure of a CMO at just 18 months, the pressure to show short-term success has never been greater. Unfortunately, this puts the liaison between an agency and upper management in the awkward and unwieldy position of delivering results to the client that often look good on paper but are, in fact, worthless.

We had a large client that was a division of an international concern. It had a diverse product line and needed to create a digital campaign that not only raised awareness of the products individually in the US, but also cross-pollinated them across different social media channels. We developed an integrated campaign that included both events and social media.

A lower-level client soon intervened. “We need to put a URL on our homepage in every single post,” he demanded. We immediately questioned this request, explaining it was not the best practice–certainly not in line with any of the goals initially agreed to upon. Social posts are meant to be informative and conversational, not a channel to spam fans with advertisements. When we asked about the purpose of a URL in the posts, he replied, “because hits to our website is the only metric by which I am judged at the home office.”

We dug deeper. At dinner one night, we asked, “Why would the home office demand hits to the website as a metric to success? Your brand sells through retail channels. There’s no e-commerce on the site.”

He replied, “When I started the job, increasing hits to the website was the easiest metric to improve. I told my bosses this was how they should judge me; but now it’s harder and harder for to increase traffic. I was hoping this campaign would do it.”

Unfortunately, this is the case with many brands. There’s a disconnect between what upper management views as successful and what actually works. The short-term pressure to show “hockey stick growth” charts trumps anything that builds a valuable brand down the road while ringing the register right now. If this person truly loved the brand he represented, and loved what he did, he would have questioned the futility of wasting resources driving a data point that only contributed to an infinite loop of dysfunction.

Just like eating junk food can give you immediate satisfaction, these metrics can be a short-term feel good for an internal marketing department. However, just like junk food gives us long-term health issues such as obesity and diabetes, vanity metrics will eat away at marketing health.

There are some metrics that are easy to increase, but are rather meaningless:

Likes on Facebook: It’s ridiculously easy to fake success here – from blackhat techniques of outright buying thousands of fans for pennies, to procuring ads on Facebook—that is, doing anything but narrowly focusing efforts on the most passionate and engaged brand advocates. Techniques like contests and coupons tend to attract low-quality fans who only want the opportunity to get something for nothing, not because they love your brand. Simply put: they got into the relationship for the wrong reason.

There’s also no real benchmark of what constitutes true success in this area. It’s easier for brand managers to say “we increased our likes by 20%!” when it means a bump from 1,000 to 1,200 fans. From a brand perspective, this is negligible. With Facebook charging to amplify brand posts beyond a fraction of their audience, the more “dead weight fans”, the less effective a budget is. Now brands are forced to pay 90% of their budget to show 10% of its fans something that interests them.

Number of comments: While more meaningful than “likes” on Facebook, many comments are the result of spammers, trolls, and people with agendas other then amplifying your brand. Increasing comments should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, one retailer who closed dozens of stores received an overall bump engagement of 50% based on negative comments. Looking at numbers alone will not tell a true story of one’s digital footprint and success. Number of comments is also easy to increase based on basic social media tactics such as asking users questions.

E-mail open rate: Just because someone has opened an e-mail doesn’t give you an indication of how they responded. Simply looking at open rate without conversions does not tell the complete story.

Twitter Followers: Having many Twitter followers is fine. Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to pay to engage with your fans- it doesn’t matter as much as you think. What matters is how many followers behave like true brand advocates. Buying bulk followers or simply following thousands of people in the hopes that they’ll follow back does not delivering meaningful results.

If love is blind, meaningless middle manager metrics has pulled the wool over our eyes. It takes inspired people to move beyond their comfort zone to a place where enthusiasm, courage, love, and understanding can’t be measured. But at the very least, you have our support. Are you with us?

iBeacon, Apple’s tiny Bluetooth-enabled device, is a disruptive technology set to allow brands to intercept shoppers at the exact point of intent. It’s bringing us even closer to an “internet of things” and will give us creative and opportunistic ways to engage the retail consumer. While our phones are currently smart enough to know how to run complex apps or contact servers across the globe, until now, the device doesn’t know if you’re in your kitchen, bedroom, frozen foods section or milk aisle.

With a range of 50 meters, inexpensive iBeacons can cover 2,500 square meters.  This means that even an average Macy’s store at 16,258 square meters would only need 7 of them. Instead of simply knowing you’re near a store (as today’s location-based services do), iBeacons will know precisely which section you’re in, enabling retailers to send contextual messages accordingly.

Why would consumers want to accept such messages? Although it may be seen as intrusive, receiving a subtle text that you can choose to view or not is much easier than dealing with aggressive salespeople. Furthermore, people are likely to opt in if receiving a good value such as an instant deal. For a retailer, it can mean the difference between someone browsing and making a purchasing decision in real time.

The potential of this technology really starts to shine when you mash it together with a loyalty program enabling far more personalized offers. If someone were looking at a particular item for a long period of time, they might be prompted with videos and information of interest. There are rumors that Apple will offer an integrated payment system so consumers can purchase items as they walk through the store rather than bothering with lines and checkouts.

Jakub Krzych, CEO of Estimote, the startup behind iBeacon technology, estimates that reducing the friction at retail will have an economic impact “in the trillions.” With startups such as Uber allowing consumers to pay for cabs without cash or credit cards, it’s just a matter of time before this ability is implemented everywhere.

iBeacons is not just limited to retail. MLB just completed fitting Dodger Stadium and Petco Park with the devices, the first two of 20 that will use the technology by opening day of 2014. By using MLB Advanced Media’s At The Ballpark app, everything from preloading tickets at the gate to providing relevant in-game content will soon be possible.

At DiGo, we love discovering and learning new technologies for our clients, and we’re inspired to push the possibilities to the edge. Left unattended, an iBeacon’s with low energy use can emit data for up to three years. We believe it’s just a matter of time before “guerrilla” iBeacons pop up in dense urban locations, cleverly hidden in rival stores. Imagine the havoc competing car dealerships could have.

We see the possibility of adding the technology to outdoor billboards and pop up experiential events as a must-have of any integrated campaign. Forget about janky, ugly QR codes or convoluted “text to win” messaging. Now communications will pop up on phones automatically.

With the ability to cheaply cover the world in devices that emit location-oriented communications, the new marketing is about to shift from something a few consumers actively participate in to a state where messages are received passively with greater context than ever before. As always, it will be the smartest brands and growth leaders who leverage this technology—the faster and better.

Chris Erickson, Brand Supervisor

I moved to NYC from Minnesota 3 1/2 years ago on a whim. The only thing I was sure of at the time was that I wanted to work in marketing, and what better place to start than Manhattan? My desperate job hunt landed me at some random social media tech startup with two other people in a shared office space. On day one I received a call on my lunch break from DiMassimo Goldstein offering me an internship, and by 6pm on my first day as a full-time employee EVER I had quit my job to take a chance at a real NY ad agency.

The very next morning I was headed to yet another internship, but this one felt different. This was going to be the one that turns me into a real member of society…the type that has health insurance but can’t afford it. Starting out I did all the glorious and wonderful things that interns get to do, like use the company’s Flip Cam (R.I.P.) to record our Art Director and Designers’…..ping-pong matches.

After a couple months of filming and learning some actual Client Service skills I was hired full-time at an agency that declares themselves as a “Growth Agency Network” for their clients. In just 3 years, 7 desk changes, 1 TV show cameo, 214 late-night Seamless orders, mixed with a little bit of good timing, I’ve found myself in a position that would typically take someone at an “ordinary agency” twice as long to attain. That’s when I started to realize that this place is far from ordinary.

I really have to credit my rapid success to the names on the door and the people inside. It’s a testament to their 18-year-old Growth Agency Network and “Brand. Driven. Growth.” motto which doesn’t just pertain to their clients, but to their team that makes it all happen.

…Now We’re Here!

Laura Mueller, Jr. Digital Producer at DiMassimo Goldstein

Flash, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. These are just a few of the things that come up in my conversations every day. When I was hired as a Jr. Digital Producer, I had no idea that I had the ability in me to enable some crazy awesome developers to make magic.

With the extraordinary guidance of Cait DeAngelis, I learned, made mistakes, and re-learned. I quickly realized that this job was something you can only learn how to do by actually doing it. The nitty-gritty of it all- you just don’t learn that in ad school.

In my quest to absorb as much knowledge about the digital world as possible, I’ve enabled what I like to call “digital artists” who work with code to create some stellar products. Working closely with and watching these developers turn a layered PSD into a fully functioning website is beyond amazing.

Proudest moment: Sitting bleary-eyed in a coffee shop at 7am, navigating to the website we spent countless hours and sleepless nights on to see it in all it’s glory – LIVE and visible to 2.4 billion people around the globe.

Brands want their customers to love them—such is the challenge of digital marketing. Yet companies lack the ability to run fingers through their hair or use other seduction techniques traditionally reserved for human interaction.

Haptic Technology adds the sense of touch to the digital experience by supplying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. This extra dimension of feedback is a trend worth examining cat close range as the new technology becomes more widespread and consumers need more than a clever slogan to feel adored.

You may already know Haptic feedback from the vibrations of video game controllers or your phone. However, the additional ability to deliver very specific experiences to wearable devices will add immersive opportunities to books and magazines. Sensory Fiction, as invented by the MIT Media Lab, is just such a wearable book that uses networked sensors and actuators to mimic the characters’ emotions and physical states through discrete tangible feedback.

Readers perceive the sci-fi tale through programmable glowing LEDs that create ambient light based on the specific page.  A personal heating device, secured at the collarbone that changes skin temperature, vibrates to influence heart rate and has a compression system to convey tightness or loosening through pressurized airbags.

““Into the Frame’ on display at Red Gallery in London allows visitors to virtually “hear” and “feel” the painting. The futuristic installation allows viewers (or rather, experiencers) to immerse themselves through touch and sound, extending well past the typical visual art experience.

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It won’t be long before the adult industry catches on to the groundbreaking technology and we start giving each other virtual hugs.  More importantly, the high production value of commercials will allow us to experiment with the ability to touch and feel.  Soon, we’ll be able to experience the sensation a puppy’s lick in a dog food commercial!

Many people are falling for hunting with a fishing pole. Let’s say you’ve gotten this far in life with your average fishing skills. But now the waters are all fished out and hunters are bringing home the big dinners. Do you get advice, read all you can about hunting, find a guide or partner to lead you? Or do you just head off into the woods with your fishing pole and tackle?

Of course not. If you are with me at this point, you recognize the absurdity here. And yet we all do this in some aspects of our lives. It’s so hard to keep track of what we know and impossible to learn the names and categories of all the things we don’t know.

Knowing is just the first step: accepting is another thing entirely. Deciding what to do about it is a third. A fatal flaw could be the inability to judge character and quality in people. This will dog you no matter what you do. You are going to want to address this problem directly as quickly and energetically as you can. Getting the best help is vital; otherwise it is like driving with the emergency break on – it not only slows you down, but it also stinks.

Work as hard as you can to learn what you don’t know. If it’s marketing, find someone you can trust. Of course, you can check with other advisors, but you will want to develop trust and a good relationship with a key individual. Look for proof and measures of success that make sense, and then delegate real responsibility and authority. Create a true partnership and let it flower.

Jeff Kastin, Business Development Manager at DiMassimo Goldstein

I’ve been with DiMassimo Goldstein for three years now and it all started when Lee Goldstein approached me. How many Presidents do you know that are personally reaching out for you to come into the office for a possible gig? He wanted a new business guy that could “run the machine” and keep a foot on the pedal at all times. After a few interviews and a burger, I was hired. Within the first two weeks we had a new client to add to our roster. We started hot and haven’t cooled off yet! Mark DiMassimo in his own words said, “I don’t even want Kastin to change his underwear.” To be clear — my underwear is clean and the agency is growing everyday!

From being in my own closet office to now working on top of co-workers, seeing new hires monthly, creating new departments and brands, expanding office space — being part of the AGENCY GROWTH is what I’m most proud of. We recently expanded our office and took over the rest of the floor. I’m looking forward to a little breathing room for the time being, but I will make sure that we take over another floor in the near future.

I’m a family man with a beautiful wife and the coolest son ever (shout out to Ryder). DiMassimo Goldstein treats me like family and I’m proud to be part of an agency growth network like them. It’s extremely rewarding to wake up every morning knowing that you can effect so many people in a positive way. It’s not just growing an agency, but growing peoples lives.