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Team DIGO | 06/26/2015 | in
Almost two years ago, we embarked on a journey to get to heart of what were the key ingredients to the successes we’ve had as an agency over the past decade-and-a-half. In that timespan, we’d created dozens memorable campaigns and even affected positive social change with some movements of our own. We wanted to know not only what separated these cases from our more ordinary opportunities, but how to fill our work and personal lives with the clients, coworkers and friends who would fuel our growth to a place where these situations the only situations we could accept.
At the end of this process, we discovered a lot about ourselves and most importantly, our core differentiator of “inspiring action.” We realized that inspiring without action is fluff, and action without inspiration is an interruption. It’s the filter we judged every new venture on moving forward.
With this new filter, we started to identify philosophies, techniques, case studies, success stories, processes, and most importantly, people who will eventually become an Inspiring Action book, and has become this Inspiring Action podcast.
We know from our friends and former client Netflix that one way to inspire action is to release a whole bunch of content at once, so people can “binge.” So if you find yourself inspired by Inspiring Action, we’re started you off with four new episodes hot off the presses with interviews with people we admire tremendously.
Eric Yaverbaum is a long-time friend, public relations legend and co-conspirator with Inspiring Action Podcast host Mark DiMassimo, whose successes include the Tappening and Offlining movements. With Tappening, Eric and Mark reversed the 20 year upward trend of bottled water sales by encouraging people to drink more tap water. In this episode, we’ll learn from this case and others, including Eric helping prevent a Major League Baseball strike, how defining an alternative future you exist to prevent can give you the lofty goal you need to inspire huge actions.
Ty Montague was the co-president of global ad agency JWT, where it was named Agency of the Year under his helm. Feeling like something was missing, Ty realized that every client came to an agency with the idea that advertising was the solution to their problems, and wanted to know how he could enter the process at a higher, more inspiring level. He and his partner Rosemarie Ryan co-founded Co-Collective, committed to solving the problem of an epidemic of solving and a dearth of doing through “StoryDoing.”
Anthony Butler is a lifelong technologist who took apart his first computer and wrote his first code when he was fourteen. He has founded three businesses and is the former CEO of one of the 100 largest IT services companies in the country. He is a professional speaker and as a combat veteran and graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In this podcast, Anthony teaches us about how one of the core issues around inspiring action in people through leadership is removing the obstacles they need to do brilliant work.
Ty Shay is the CMO of Lifelock, formerly of Squaretrade, FanIQ, Hotwire, Esurance and Procter & Gamble. In this riveting discussion, we learn from Ty how to inspire action in business by learning from sports, and how picking the best teams and situations are your key to success. If you want to be like this many-time NBA champion coach and current New York Knicks president, you need to learn what questions to ask before you enter a new situation. And how those questions should focus more on the “who” and not on the “what” or the “why.”
When you want to inspire action, you have to have a clear end in mind for what action you wish to inspire. For this podcast, it’s inspiring you to take action. So if you like what we’re doing, we hope the action you take is to share it with your friends and find a way to inspire the action you want to see in this world.
Are you Inspiring Action in the world? Do you want to tell the world about it on a future episode of Inspiring Action with Mark DiMassimo?
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Team DIGO | 06/25/2015 | in
Ah, Cannes. Big, bloated ad agency muckety-mucks breaking expense accounts (and the occasional magnum of Rosé) on the terrace at the Carlton as they celebrate ads that may not have done much for their clients’ bottom lines. “But that cinematography, though!”
At DiMassimo Goldstein, we prefer to celebrate Inspiring Action. And, while it may be fun to fly to the south of France and go to lunches and pool parties and beach parties and the occasional seminar, let’s face it: it doesn’t do much good for the world at large.
That’s why we started the Festival De Cans.
Tonight if you’re in New York, starting at 7pm, if you bring a can of food for the hungry to our offices at 220 E23rd Street, 2nd floor, you will get a can of beer, wine or soda in return. That’s it. Okay, you can have several cans of beer, wine or soda. Oh, and we’ll probably have some music. We could make it French music, if you like. And we made some sweet cans of air freshener that will totally have it smelling like the beach up in this joint. And there’ll be some pretty cool people to talk to. Just look at the list of attendees on our Facebook guest list. It’s a veritable who’s-who-of-whoever-isn’t-in-Cannes-right-now.
So come on by and join in our Inspiring Action. It’s what we do here at DiMassimo Goldstein. We get brands to do things that get people to do things that make the world a better place. Like donating food and drinking wine out of a can.
Oh, yes you will. And the world will be better for it. We promise.
And, hey, if you want to go skinny-dipping in the East River afterword, you totally can. Just don’t tell anyone where you were before you did that, because we will deny ever having met you.
Is your agency at Cannes?
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Team DIGO | 05/21/2015 | in
Something in me fell in love with the idea of the Philosopher King when I first learned the Platonic concept in an introductory philosophy course as a college freshman at the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Plato was an idealist. He thought ideas were more real than things. I don’t go that far, but I have a deep and educated respect for the power of ideas to change things.
Plato imagined the ideal kingdom, and saw the kingdoms of his time as poor reflections of this idea. He said that for the ideal kingdom to come into being, philosophers must become kings or “those now called kings must learn to genuinely and adequately philosophize.”
Marvin Kohl, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy. This one educational moment focused my restless search for constructive leadership down to a career-long quest to work with philosopher kings and queens, in the hope of perhaps one day growing into a philosopher king myself.
My childhood in the 60s and 70s gave me ample evidence of just how bad things could get when “kings” don’t genuinely and adequately philosophize, or to bring that down to Earth a bit, when the wrong ideas rule.
To me the brilliant change agents, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, social entrepreneurs and movement leaders were the philosopher kings of my time. These people simply thought better. They thought better of and about people. They thought better about business. The developed distinctive cultures based on distinct ideas. By force of their better thinking, they managed to become kings – true rulers of their domains – and while many of them did well financially, the primary thrust of their rule was generous and generative. They ruled not just for themselves and not just for market success, but in service to an inspiring idea above commercial intent.
My whole career, I have tried to sit at the table with these philosopher kings, and when not there, to read and study their approaches. This has been my own philosophy.
Within the context of democracy and a free market, businesses and organizations are the true kingdoms, and leaders with controlling authority are the modern kings and queens.
Their philosophies change the world.
I would rather work with an Elon Musk who says, “I see that the future might not look like the one I’ve imagined, and I get angry, and then I determine to do something about it.” Or Gabrielle Bernstein, founder of the Women’s Entrepreneurial Network who says, “My mission in this lifetime is to help guide my generation to shift their search for happiness from the outside to the inside.” In short, I’d rather serve with philosopher kings and queens than any of the thousands of also-rans who are just in it for the money, attention, respect, fame, toys or whatever.
I’ve noticed that these philosopher kings are both more idealist AND more practical. They abhor the inefficiency of doing things for no good reason – and, let’s face it, most organizations are full of just such things.
I’ve tried to put into practice everything I’ve learned from working along side world-changing philosopher kings and queens. That’s why no one has ever filled in a time-sheet at DiMassimo Goldstein – it’s simply a waste of time, and has nothing to do with our reason for existing, which is to add value and impact, not costs and busywork.
Our mission of Inspiring Action has come out of that. Our belief that we’re not in the advertising business – we’re in the behavior change business, and sometimes we use advertising – has come out of that too. And finally, the 10 Signs of an Organization That Is Inspiring Action is the distillation of decades of studying contemporary philosopher kings and queens. If you want to check it out, there’s a PDF you can download here.
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Team DIGO | 05/21/2015 | in
At DiMassimo Goldstein, we believe in Inspiring Action. An Inspiring Action brand does things that get people to do things that change their lives. So, when it came time to plan our agency’s 18th birthday, we didn’t just want to have a party. We wanted to inspire some action. This was our chance to change some lives with our own brand.
So, obviously, we offered everyone who came to the party free tattoos. (Yes, the permanent kind.)
I know what you’re thinking: that’s stupid. And that was sort of the point. We were 18. It was time to do something stupid. And sometimes the most inspiring action for a brand is the one that makes everyone say, “We can’t do that.” So we called a tattoo artist and asked him if he could give people tattoos in our offices during our party.
To our utter astonishment, he agreed.
“It’s the perfect metaphor for Inspiring Action!” we said. “It will help us demonstrate that Inspiring Action brands leave a mark on their customers!” we said. “Nobody will do it!” we said.
But here’s the crazy part: people actually did it. In fact, 20 people got permanent tattoos. At our party. In my office. Lips. Peace signs. Soaring eagles. 50% of the people getting tattoos had never had a tattoo before. We had made our mark on 20 people’s lives (and one person’s butt) forever.
We put together a little video to mark the year anniversary of our little experiment. And to thank everyone who was inspired to take action with us. We couldn’t have done it without you. You will always be part of our Inspiring Action family.
This year, to mark our 19th birthday, we’re going on a cruise around Manhattan. Not as stupid, but maybe more appropriate for the grown-up agency with ambition we are becoming. Sailing out into the future to Inspire Action on new shores.
But now that you mention it, sailors are known to have tattoos. Maybe I should make a call…
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Team DIGO | 05/15/2015 | in
Key #3 of 10 to Inspiring Action: 10 Keys to the Future of Marketing. Check out Follow The Money for Key #2 and download our summary poster of the 10 Keys here.
A marketer I know has himself twisted up like a pretzel inside.
He’s following the rules of marketing as best he knows them, and what they all add up to is making less and less sense.
The membership service he is charged with marketing spends just less than half its paid media money on digital advertising. In this realm, my Tums-popping friend remains an extremely disciplined direct marketer of the old school. He believes each tactic and channel must pay for itself in sales. The search advertising must pay for itself with memberships brought in through search advertising. Mobile sign-ups are mobile sign-ups,and nothing more. Retargeting returns are calculated based on retargeting conversions only, and so on.
Attribution across multiple digital programs, which he allows might generate a higher return on his marketing spend, would fuzz his perfect accounting. He could no longer be sure of anything, and he feels that knowledge is power.
For example, he and his team have tested display advertising several times. The search sign-ups increased during these modest tests, but when he measured the display on display sign-ups alone, it didn’t reach the allowable. So, no display!
Sounds like a tidy, orderly world, doesn’t it?
Well, it’s a false order at best. This system doesn’t account for the influence of one channel on the results of another. We all know that ignoring a reality doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Worse, it isn’t working. The greater portion of this marketer’s budget is spent on TV. You’ve seen it. Anyone who knows anyone with a TV has seen it. He’s tried everything to figure out how to attribute sales to his television spend, but he just can’t. He’s tried pulling the TV, but then his volumes plummet. On the other hand, no change in schedule, and no other form of testing, has ever been able to demonstrate a lift in memberships.
So, this marketer lives in two worlds, one with an insane level of order and accountability, and the other with absolutely none.
Somehow the business got to this level with this system, but the efficiency of the marketing is decreasing, new memberships are more expensive every day, and higher levels of television seem to have no effect on sales.
It’s a serious Growth Block. He’s stuck and they’re stuck. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Attribution is, no doubt, one of the biggest challenges in modern marketing. Direct marketers want to test and learn, but the interactions among multiple channels create noise in their tests. Some are better at tolerating the noise than others. Some orchestrate that noise into a symphony of sales and brand building.
Those of us who view the experience from the customer’s point of view realize it’s the mix that matters. Those who believe that only the last click counts, that impressions are meaningless after ninety minutes, and that advertising in one medium has no effect on results in another, are most definitely running the wrong advertising.
Get smart about attribution while getting the creative you need to build your brand and sell too. That’s how successful modern marketers scale.
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Team DIGO | 05/12/2015 | in
Do they take responsibility for your results? Or just for deliverables?
No wonder so many marketers try to build their agencies in house, or go directly to production companies, or try to patch together a mesh of agencies.
How lonely so many marketers tell me they are with the sole responsibility for generating results. How difficult it is to be the only one in the room who knows what an allowable is – for my agency readers, an “allowable” is the amount of money a marketer can spend to acquire a customer profitably; it’s the limit of spending per customer acquired – how challenging to bring to the table so many competing agendas, to deal with competition and beg for cooperation, to seek clarity, cohesion and synergy and find it ever elusive.
Big agencies suffer even greater confusion. With purchasing departments dictating the internal management of agencies, agency leaders are left wondering what they can possibly take responsibility for. Growth stage clients wait in line behind the lumbering behemoths, and get the scraps. The holding companies get their profits. And the game starts again next quarter.
Alignment. Integration. Shared KPIs. These are not new things, nor are they trendy things. But there’s nothing about content, social, mobile, local, programmatic or any fact of the contemporary marketing mix that has made them any less essential to winning the game of growth with something like certainty.
Your power number is the cost of acquiring incremental revenue, whether through new customers or existing. This is your ticket to the big table. Any agency that can’t take responsibility for helping you get there isn’t an agency at all but a production house.
If we agree to take your business, we agree to get you there. That’s what we mean by Inspiring Action.
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Team DIGO | 05/05/2015 | in
Weight Watchers isn’t a diet. It’s a feeling. It’s Empowerment. It’s Control. And it’s a confidence you keep for the rest of your life. The hardest part? Getting started. In these promotional spots, we highlighted two very real insights: 1. Excuses are like so many bowling pins. 2. Every pound is a victory. View more work
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Team DIGO | 04/23/2015 | in
Key #2 of 10 to Inspiring Action: 10 Keys to the Future of Marketing. Check out Measure the Runway for Key #1 and download our summary poster of the 10 Keys here.
Is it possible to beat your numbers and still fail?
Sadly, in this game called marketing it happens all the time. Boards speak one language, the CEO speaks another and marketing speaks yet another.
All of this tends to collide in discussions about key performance indicators, causing marketing budgets and chief marketer tenure to suffer while companies fail to achieve their full potential.
Bottom line is, if you don’t speak the language of money, you can never be sure and you can never be secure.
So, how do you learn to speak the language of value that your CFO, CEO and Board do?
How do you come to understand how they measure value? And how can you get to a crystal-clear understanding to guide your marketing?
First off, know that you’re in the business of accelerating value creation. When you deliver twice the new business value on every dollar you spend, marketing rises above the level of finance as a tool for growing business value, and you rise with it.
But how do you determine how your particular business builds value? After years of iterative experimentation, the experts on my marketing strategy team have discovered a proprietary process for uncovering the true value accelerators for any business model:
Ask.
Alright, it’s not very scientific… but the important thing, and the most neglected thing in the area of money, is to ask.
How do we create value? Is one dollar of revenue more valuable than another dollar? Is more revenue from a customer more valuable than more customers generating revenue? Is subscription revenue more valuable than single-purchase revenue? How does the enterprise really intend to grow? How does the organization measure the value it delivers?
If you don’t know the answers, then you don’t really know what the advertising and marketing communications are for. Not really. Yet most agencies won’t ask and they won’t help you find out. These key facts are too often missing from briefs.
Is it any wonder there are persistent disconnects between marketing and other senior management? And between agencies and clients?
Money can stitch us all together, and it should.
Next up: Key #3, Mine for the Growth Blocks
Treasure map photo by Steven Johnson
