SXSW SUBMISSION

TALKING SXSW WITH REBECCA WEISER

TOM CHRISTMANN AT MIAMI AD SCHOOL

MARK DIMASSIMO: BRAND WIZARDS SPEECH

THE A-LIST PODCAST: EPIDSODE 002 WITH TY MONTAGUE

“I will bet on passion over genius every time.”

In this very special episode of “The A-List”, host Tom Christmann chats with  Ty Montague, the founder of co:collective, a growth and innovation accelerator that helps clients develop their business strategy and execute their brand story using the principles of Storydoing™. Over the course of 45 minutes, Tom and Ty relive their experience together at J. Walter Thompson, obsess over creative troublemakers, and ask the questions that really matter in life, like whether or not we are living in a computer simulation. Full episode and show notes below!

Show Notes

• [0:00 – 1:28] Intro
• [1:29 – 7:43] Ty’s background and the unique story of how he got into the industry
• [7:44 – 9:40] The importance of networking, passion, and motivation
• [9:41 – 13:50] Tom and Ty talk big agencies and their experience at JWT
• [13:51 – 17:22] Turning ideas into something real and working with others
• [17:23 – 21:30] Creative troublemakers and breaking barriers
• [21:31 – 26:30] How co:collective is different than an advertising agency
• [26:31 – 29:45] Millennials, creative opportunities, and making an impact in the world
• [29:46 – 32:30] The traditional agency model vs. internal creative teams
• [32:31 – 36:09] Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and innovation
• [36:23 – 42:50] The life and work of Howard Gossage and other recommended books for students
• [42:53 – 44:15] Are we living in a computer simulation?
• [44:30 – 45:10] Outro

To follow Ty Montague on Twitter, click here.

“The A-List” is brought to you by the Adhouse Advertising School, New York’s newest, smallest, and hippest ad school. You can subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or listen along on Soundcloud. For updates on upcoming episodes and guests, be sure to like the A-List Podcast on Facebook and follow host Tom Christmann on Twitter. If you want to be interviewed for an upcoming episode, contact us at AdhouseNYC.com.

THE A-LIST PODCAST: EPISODE 11 WITH KASH SREE

In this week’s episode of “The A-List” podcast, host and DiMassimo Goldstein Chief Creative Officer Tom Christmann chats with the brilliant Kash Sree, Group Creative Director at gyro New York. Kash has worked at many of the top agencies across the world, from SS&K to Perreira & O’Dell, JWT, BBH New York, and Wieden + Kennedy. Working on such global accounts as Vaseline, DeBeers, Axe, Nintendo and Nike, Kash has helped create some of the industry’s most iconic campaigns, including Nike’s “Hackeysack” spot with Tiger Woods. Kash was also the recipient of an Emmy and a Cannes Grand Prix for his inspiring work on two different Nike campaigns in the same year.

Tune in to hear Kash discuss his journey from martial arts teacher to art director to copywriter, what he looks for in creative talent today, and why kindness – to yourself and others – is key.  Full episode and show notes below!

Show Notes

• [0:00 – 1:55] Intro
• [1:56 – 7:42] Growing up in East London, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken every day, and trying not to be noticed at school.
• [7:43 – 10:20] Working as a kung fu instructor and trading in martial arts for design school
• [10:21 – 18:19] Beginning his journey into advertising and proving his professor wrong
• [18:20 – 20:52] The importance of research in being a great creative and making a great ad
• [20:53 – 30:05] Getting fired from Ogilvy after 5 months and moving to Singapore
• [30:06 – 34:22] Learning to stand up for his work and switching from art direction to copywriting
• [34:23 – 39:05] Getting a crash course in advertising
• [39:06 – 44:09] Seeking inspiration in culture and applying lessons from martial arts to advertising
• [44:10 – 50:12] “Staying stupid” to avoid bad briefs
• [50:13 – 61:43] Being motivated by fame, getting sued and winning an award
• [61:44 – 69:42] How today’s creatives can impress Kash
• [69:43 – 71:06] Outro

“The A-List” is a podcast produced by DiMassimo Goldstein, recorded at the Gramercy Post, and sponsored by the Adhouse Advertising School, New York’s newest, smallest, and hippest ad school. You can subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or listen along on SoundCloud. For updates on upcoming episodes and guests, be sure to like the A-List Podcast on Facebook and follow host Tom Christmann on Twitter. If you want to be interviewed for an upcoming episode, contact us at AdhouseNYC.com.

DIRECT MARKETING IS NEW SCHOOL

By: Mark DiMassimo

There, we said it.

It feels good. For so long, we lived a double life, whispering direct words to our business friends while curbing our language around our creative friends.

We weren’t being overcautious. We needed these people to deliver the creative work that would drive the direct revolution. And we knew our target audience. As one creative director memorably said, “Whenever I hear that word, I lose my erection.”

Well, today we have a message for that creative director, his attitude, and every other vestige of the 20th century:

We’re direct. We’re erect. Deal with it.

There aren’t many creative agencies showing up on Inc.’s list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. We’ve been on the list three years in a row and running. We would have been on it for each of the previous ten years, at least, if only we’d had time to submit our audited financial statements.

Are we having trouble keeping it up? Absolutely not.

We’ve been a thriving, growing independent for two decades because we chose the right wave to ride, and because we kept paddling. That wave was the direct revolution. The direct revolution that is replacing middlemen with platforms, obliterating the hard distinction between consumers and marketers, and threatening traditional players in every marketing category.

Back then, people saw direct marketing as the Thighmaster and the Juiceman, but we knew direct would be Netflix, Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, Airbnb, Uber, Casper, and Betterment. We knew it would also be companies like Weight Watchers and American Express that were founded in another era but are finding ways to leverage the new platforms to modern-day marketing success.

Today, people want to deal directly with other people, and they’ve come to expect transparency and seamless connectivity. They want a direct experience. And today, creative people want to create direct experiences. They love designing actions that connect and deliver the brand experience through technology. They love building the brand in the interaction. Today, their biggest ideas are mobile, social, and responsive.

Today, we’re helping the pioneers of the direct economy in cultures dominated by technologists and financiers by connecting them with the people who can build their strategies and technologies into brands. Today, more strategies are becoming category-disrupting brands because of the creative people they rub up against.

And today, we’re at the table, redefining modern marketing and building the world’s leading brand response agency.

Today, we’re driving brand value up and cost-per-acquisition down.

Today, we’re inspiring action, and proudly direct.

ON BUILDING A MARKETING BLAZE

Many people have learned to start a fire from the bottom, with kindling and firestarters underneath, then small twigs, and larger wood on top.

Expert firestarters will tell you to reverse that method – for more certain results, start with the top.

Brands built around a powerful emotional match – a single emotional strike zone ignited by a powerful emotional idea that sits above and informs every brand touchpoint – tend to grow faster and burn hotter.

Many marketers try to build a cohesive brand and a self-perpetuating business through offers, promotions, personalization and other performance marketing techniques. Starting from the bottom creates an unruly fire that needs constant tending and that often fails to achieve the integrity and heat of a self-perpetuating blaze.

Starting from the bottom leads to a common marketing malady –the balkanization of target.

Today personalization and micro-segmentation are all the rage. Performance marketers have built a multi-billion dollar industry, but much of the value they capture in the short-term is at the cost of the long-term brand and enterprise value of their clients.

Make no mistake, igniting action is essential to the creation of value, but action at the cost of brand is unsustainable and irresponsible.

Often the process of building a sustainable and growing blaze starts with putting the brand back together again.

Starting with key segments and personas, the successful marketer looks for a singular “emotional strike zone” – a common emotional target that is shared.

The “emotional match” is the key idea or purpose that strikes that target and ignites passion.

The process looks like this:

 Segments and personas -> Emotional Strike Zone -> Emotional Match

 Once the team understands the emotional strike zone and the emotional match, attention is turned to accelerating the actions that create value and growth for the brand and business.

When you start from the top, you build a marketing blaze that becomes self-perpetuating. You set it and feed it and the heat does more and more of your work for you. Does it really work? Check out some of our clients’ recent public results.

ESCAPE FROM SPLITSVILLE

Agencies are split. They are bifurcated, balkanized.

Advertising from sales promotion. Creative from media. TV from digital. Brand from business. Consumer from B2B. Social from experiential. Strategy from execution. Content from Identity from Innovation.

Each responsible for their deliverable. None accountable for the client’s success.

And paid to treat decision makers as if they’re split too.

Rational vs. emotional. Buyers vs. brand users. E-mail responders vs. mobile app users.

But decision makers aren’t split. They’re whole human beings. Hearts and minds together. Real people who think for themselves and are susceptible to social influence as well.

Whole people who respond to whole brand experiences. Amazing, coherent, inspiring brand experiences that move them to engage, to hope, to trust, to desire, to share, to dream, to buy and to bond.

The experiences you create, and the purpose and meaning behind them, are what people talk about. They share, rate, report and buy experiences, and as they do, reputations are formed.

We have lived on the split side, worked in those agencies, large and small, every one of us as experts in our own silos, cut off from the whole.

We each chose the whole brand experience. The integrated, cross-trained team. The challenge of collaborating with the client to create the whole solution.

Here we are gladly accountable for the deliverables, but equally we are anxious to share accountability for your reputation, your brand and your growth.

We help our clients inspire people to make more inspiring decisions and form more empowering habits, connections and partnerships.

We work to be worthy of that whole partnership, and we’re as proud of our results as we are of our work.

Because today, your brand isn’t what you tell people it is.  Your brand is what people tell people it is.