New Media Downside

I usually look at the glass half full, but something about new media’s potential effect on American society leaves me feeling more empty.

I find myself seeking out the NBC network news at 7 with Brian Williams, or the BBC or national public television …looking for that feeling of belonging that I had watching Walter Cronkite when I was a kid. He was speaking to all of us as a united nation with common interests and desires for our common good. While I love the creativity that new media unleashes, and the opportunity it gives for expression of all kinds from anyone, anywhere, I hope that some avenues of professional journalistic reporting remain to bring us together for messages we may not want to hear but need to hear. Where will the objective reporting coming from?

Paul Saffo said it best in a recent Economist.com article…. a futurologist described as “one of the world’s most enthusiastic technophiles,” said that on the downside, “Each of us can create our own personal-media walled garden that surrounds us with comforting,
confirming information and utterly shuts out anything that conflicts with our world view,” he says. “This is social dynamite” and could lead to “the erosion of the intellectual commons holding society together…We risk huddling into tribes defined by shared prejudices.”

Aren’t we doing this already? What do you think?

November 14, 2007 | Filed Under New Media | Leave a Comment 

5 Time Tested Advertising Tips for Success

Growing up I had the pleasure of dining with a successful advertising executive almost every evening. He entertained our family with his original jokes. What he really wanted to do was write jokes for comedians. And, he was good. That same creative spirit enabled my dad to succeed during more than 35 rewarding years of managing his own agency and producing award-winning campaigns for major banks, shopping centers, insurance agencies, politicians and a myriad of other organizations.

What I learned at the dinner table was subliminal, because I really wasn’t paying close attention when he talked about client concerns or issues that come up in his line of work.

However, today I can draw on knowledge I must have gained over more than a decade or so of dinners with dad.

Today as the owner of a public relations agency I find that we are integrating advertising tactics with public relations. Our clients want an integrated campaign built around common themes and powerful messages. I counsel clients to apply many of the things I learned from the advertising pro—my dad. Here are 5 tips that still apply:

1. Campaigns need to run consistently over time; short-term placements are a waste of money unless they are designed to advertise a single event.
2. Great purchased space or time whether on signs or within media is wasted if the professional and creative development is not there.
3. The message has to be simplified—ideally to three meaningful words or two to three short and powerful phrases, accompanied by images that evoke the right emotion.
4. Advertise when business is going well, not just when it slows.
5. If you want to distinguish your product or brand, consider the more creative concepts; the ones you initially favor are likely to be the ones you recognize; they are probably spin-offs of concepts you’ve seen many times before.

Today my dad’s agency is specializing in billboards, and the concepts work well online.

We’re moving into a new era together. I still have much more to learn from Dad!

November 7, 2007 | Filed Under Advertising | Leave a Comment