BRAND NEW DAY

Prognostications & Propaganda: The Interview

2009-05-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

In his own words: David Branby of David Branby Advertising, Inc.
Northern Nevada Business Weekly Staff, 4/27/2009

Northern Nevada Business Weekly: How did you get started in the advertising business?

David Branby: In college, my mom gave me the book “Ogilvy On Advertising.” I read it twice, cover to cover, and knew it was my calling.

NNBW: What natural talents did you bring to the business? What did you have to learn?

Branby: I have always been a writer, so I brought that to it. What I had to learn was how to speak up and present my work. That was the greatest challenge for me, because I was a shy kid. Now I probably talk too much, but I work on being a good listener, too.

NNBW: How has the industry changed since you started?

Branby: Desktop publishing and the Internet were both game-changers, but for different reasons. In the early 1990s, we saw the rise of the “technicians” who knew how the software worked, but didn’t know anything about design. But, they were cheap and fast and got the work out the door. As their perceived value rose, a lot of art directors and designers I knew left the business, so writing ads (which is what I do) became less fun because there were fewer gifted art directors to work with. On the flipside, those of us who stayed saw these amazing campaigns coming out of Minneapolis, San Francisco, L.A., New York, and London, so we knew it could still be done. It inspired us, and we kept working at doing the good stuff. With the rise of Internet search and pay-per-click, people self-select their information, so there are opportunities for anyone, anywhere to market successfully for pennies. That’s hurt both media and agencies. On the upside, people only buy what they comfortably understand, so there will still be a need for writers and designers to create lucid messages. On the flipside, everything’s changing incredibly fast. There’s already a huge shakeout happening in the business. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next.

NNBW: When we come back to visit with you in five years, what changes will we see in your firm?

Branby: I imagine the way this and many agencies will work will resemble the way Hollywood movies are made: Ad hoc collaborations of talented people who come together for a project, do it, split up, and reassemble in slightly different form for the next project down the road. In that scenario, the agency takes the role of the producer, putting it all together. It’s already happening in this and other markets across the country, because the economics are driving it. It’s a paradigm shift, and sad in a way, because the “tribal” nature of ad agencies — or maybe it’s the romantic view we know from “30 Something” and “Mad Men” — is changing, so there’s a loss with that.

NNBW: What are the challenges you’ll need to overcome to reach your goals?

Branby: Attracting and keeping super-smart, creative marketing people. As the old saying goes, “An ad agency’s assets walk out the door every night.”

NNBW: If you could have a "do-over" in your career, what would you do differently?

Branby: I was desperate to make a change earlier in my career and went to work for a company I knew in my gut wouldn’t be a good cultural fit for me. I stayed longer than I should have, even though my health, relationship, and career suffered. I learned to never do that again.

NNBW: What do you find most satisfying in your professional life?

Branby: Seeing clients’ faces light up when they like the work.

NNBW: In your personal life?

Branby: Having a wonderful wife to come home to who accepts me and inspires me.

NNBW: How do you spend time away from the office?

Branby: Working on two 1950s office buildings my wife and I bought a few years ago. It’s an investment in our future, and it’s a point of pride: It’s where we both also have our businesses

NNBW: What’s best advice anyone gave you?

Branby: Do the best you can with what you’ve got.

NNBW: Any final thoughts?

Branby: One of the consequences of the switch from traditional media to online marketing is that businesses are cutting back on “the people side” of marketing management, which is frightening. I see these ads on CraigsList looking for corporate marketing managers

, and I just gasp. They look like they’re hiring six different positions for one person’s salary. It’s unbelievable. Marketing is about having the ability to assimilate tons of data, distill it into something meaningful to your customers and then being able to communicate that in a highly engaging way. I don’t know any one person with that kind of talent, energy, focus, or bandwidth; at least, no one you’d want to talk to at the company picnic. And I can’t imagine great work coming out of it. Creativity is inherently collaborative. Good ideas can and do come from anywhere ... but rarely all from one person. James Surowiecki’s best-selling book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,”is all about this, and smart CEOs know it, but evidently, HR departments don’t.

What Not To Do

2009-04-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

My wife received a postcard from this Portland, OR-based logoed sportwear shop this morning. Their tag line, "If you can't swim with the big boys, get out of the way!" is as pointless and ill-considered as their name and logo. I can't imagine what the poor sod who had to stand in line at the business licensing bureau went through. It's also hard to imagine asking your 23-year old admin to "get ahold of Spermies" without some repercussions...

In 2009, It's Trade Show A Go-Go

2009-04-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

I went to a sales talk this morning and the speaker said, "People don't buy what you're selling; they buy what they buy." So, we looked to see what our clients are buying this year. The answer? Branded trade show displays, trade show videos, trade show gifts/giveaways, trade show sales sheets and collateral materials, even trade show spokesmodels. Is there a movement here?

The Face of Advertising Excellence

2009-03-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Proud and happy. It's the inimitable look of a hard-working creative person who's just won a Gold ADDY Award. Here, it's Joey Vestal celebrating with girlfriend Amy Mager after winning his first professional ADDY in the B2B Web Site category for the new International Lining Technology web site. See it in all its glory at www.intlining.com.

It's Simple, But It Isn't Easy. Or Is It?

2009-02-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

I've admired the simple elegance and effectiveness of this sign since the first time I set eyes on it. To me, it epitomizes the notion that it's not the size of your wallet, it's the size of your ideas. Namaste, whoever created this.

Bending The Rules Of Good Taste

2009-02-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm not the first, and I won't be the last...but did you ever notice how, once people point something out to you, you can never look at it in the same way? I think about those B&W prints from high school psychology class: Is it two women in profile, facing each other, or is it a vase? I feel the same way about a certain soft drink maker's recent rollout of a tweaked mark. I had a plumber named Mark who pops into my mind every time I see one of these new logos. Truth be told, I've always favored Coke, and this is yet another reason to keep on keepin' on. :-)

Muscular Color In Times Square

2009-01-21T23:37:00.000-08:00

I just love the color-branding done by Target agency Peterson Milla Hooks of Minneapolis. I shot this from the Gray Line bus tour in Times Square, June 2008.

Marketing On A Shoestring In This — Or Any — Economy.

2009-01-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

Start with your brand. Tap someone in the design field to help you with your brand. Don’t do it yourself — people will think you’re a hobbyist, a dabbler, a jack of all trades and master of none. The fact is, people hire people they believe can help them with very specific problems. Present yourself as a qualified, professional "resource person" by conveying what you do with a strong brand.
Carry and use real business cards. Because of recent efficiencies in printing, you can have full-color business cards printed up on nice stock for less than ever before. (We've seen deals for 1000 cards for free (with a "sponsor" logo) to less than $50!) Hire someone to design great cards, and get a bunch of them. You have a lot of work to do, and a great business card is the way to start.
Get a web site. If you have a brand, you have the basis of a professional web site. Today, it’s faster and easier than ever to get a web site built. You can even build a nice-looking "templated" web site yourself with one of the many free or low-cost tools on the Internet. A web site is today’s brochure — without the printing or distribution problems. Just make sure it’s written intelligently, designed to compliment your brand, and easy for people to contact you by phone or email. Putting contact info right on your home page is fine, because people use the web today the way they used to use the phone book.
Register yourself. Take advantage of LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and free search engine tools (like Google Maps!) to get out there, get connected, and get business. You’ll be surprised what comes your way when people A) know what you’re up to, and B) know how to get ahold of you.
Get connected. Northern Nevada has dozens of business groups whose purpose is to help business people get together and find out what they can do for each other; in other words, to do business! Rotary, WIN, the chambers of commerce, networking groups, professional associations, you name it: they’re all about helping people network and do business. Not a joiner? Not everyone is. That’s why some groups, like Alice Heiman’s BizTalk Blenders or NCET’s Wi-Fi Wednesdays, have “speed networking” events where you learn how to network efficiently and effectively. Bottom line, people do business with people they like…so give people a chance to like you by getting connected in as many ways as possible.
Be consistent. Remember that brand thing we talked about earlier? Use it everywhere. Letterhead, envelopes, fax cover sheets, email signatures, proposal covers — everything you can think of. It’s been said that people remember something after they’ve seen it 21 times. Increase your odds by being consistent.
Put a blog in your web site. Why? Because the search engines like it! That’s right. Search engines like web sites that aren’t just sitting there. They like action. And nothing puts action into your web site like a blog that’s getting updated daily or weekly or even monthly. More and more web sites are becoming more and more blog-like, because updated, current, relevant information is what people — and therefore search engines — value.
Do a speech. You must be pretty good at something or you wouldn’t have gone into business. Chances are, there are groups that would love to know more about what you do. So, if you go talk to them, guess what happens? They get excited. They believe you’re an expert. They tell their friends. And your business grows. People will attribute magical powers to you if you prepare well, present well, and leave them feeling good about you and your company. Can’t (or won’t) speak publicly? That’s what Toastmasters® is for. Find a group, learn the tools, and get out there, for business’ sake!
Campaign. Anything worth doing in life is worth doing over and over until it gets results (with the exception of a frontal lobotomy.) When you’re 94, you’ll relish the hard-fought struggles, the times you wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. So plan your work and work your plan. You’ll accomplish a heck of a lot more than if you just sat and stewed and thought “I coulda been a contender!”
Collect customers. Collect as much contact information as possible about your customers and ask them for permission to market to them. That way, you can stay in touch (another word for market!) with postcards, direct mail, or low-cost permission-based email marketing products like Constant Contact, Campaigner, or EMMA. Talk to your customers about once a month, and they’ll thank you for it…with purchases. (More than that, and they’ll run away…to your competitors!)
It’s the size of your ideas. (Not the size of your wallet.) We like HSP’s “Painter For A Day” program. We like the mom ‘n’ pop pizza place whose coupon said, “tear out any [insert a major U.S. pizza chain] phone book ad, and get 2-for-1 pizzas!” We like The Cheese Board’s “Credit-Crunch Lunch” menu. We like it when any marketer gets clever and makes compelling, fun offers to drum up business…and so should you, in this — or any — economy.

When Was The Last Time An Ad Made You Buy?

2007-12-29T19:21:00.000-08:00

I have to ask myself that question from time to time, just to remind myself what business I'm in. When was the last time an ad made me buy? The first time I saw an ad for the new iPhone, I knew I wanted one. It was a TV ad; simple, elegant, beautiful, informative, and dazzling. I determined that day, five months ago, that I would buy one...just because the ad did such a great job communicating to me. The rub here, of course, is that it took me five months after first seeing the ad to actually shell out the cash to buy. In that time, the iPhone hype was huge. Friends bought iPhones. The price dropped. My own Motorola Razr was starting to falter, and I never really liked its counter-intuitive interface and lousy software anyway, so that part was easy. But it always bugged me that the darn thing was so pricy. Then, last week, I was out doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, and my wife said, "You've worked hard this year. You've earned it. Go for it." I did, and I've been thrilled ever since. Now, did I help Apple get to 10 million iPhones sold this year? Uh-huh. Did my purchase have anything to do with Apple stock hitting $200 a share? You bet. But ultimately, my purchase only confirmed what I've believed for the latter part of my 20 years in advertising: that people only buy what they comfortably understand. And that a lot of the "excitement" in advertising doesn't come from clever concepts or special effects. It comes from the simple act of communicating a product's benefits in a way that gets people excited about the possibilities.

Best wishes for a happy, meaningful, and prosperous New Year.

Ramblings From The Ad Trail

2007-07-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

We've picked up a fun new account, The Riverwalk Merchants Association, a group of 44 independent businesses along the Truckee River in downtown Reno. Suzanne and I have put together a marketing framework for them consisting of a new brand identity, signage, district banners, and a comprehensive web site built in CSS so each of the members can glean more from organic search than previous efforts. Once that's established, we're planning on launching a permission-based email campaign, to reach out and touch those customers and friends who've visited and enjoyed The Riverwalk District in the past.

To update an earlier post, the spec campaign we created for Big Apple Pizza never got off the ground. The owners were ambivalent about staying in business and so were not ready to begin marketing for that reason. We still love the work; I think we'll just repurpose it and pitch it to Suzanne's in-laws, who have a similarly-themed restaurant in another part of town. C'est la guerre.

Our largest client, an Inc. 500 company based in Incline Village, reported sales growth of 100 percent in the 11 months we've been working with them...and 99% of it has been pure, unadulterated B2B advertising in national trade publications. Results like that is what gets us out of bed in the morning. It's the "I-want-instant-results-but-I-don't-want-to-actually-commit-to-advertising" crowd that makes us, as strategic thinkers and creatives, feel rode hard and put up wet. Heck, I want to go to heaven, but I don't want to have to die to do it...:-)

That's the God's-honest truth, as best as I can tell it. Looking forward to sharing more work and thoughts about advertising in a one-horse town. Thanks for riding along! DB

Confessions Of A Copywriter

2007-03-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this some years ago as a speech for Toastmasters, but it pretty much sums up how I, as a copywriter and agency owner, feel about advertising in today's world. Enjoy!

I am a copywriter; a wordsmith; a scribe. Working with words is how I survive. I craft, I sculpt, I make pictures with words (though I must admit, sometimes it’s just blurbs) with one goal in mind: To gently urge that reader of mine...

...to take action (usually in the vicinity of a cash register); in short, to purchase, to procure, to buy my client’s wares or embrace their ideas, to know their stance or acknowledge their presence. I am a crafter of dreams and a deliverer of details. I am an advertising man. I turn words into gold.

I am neither a poet nor a prophet, and yet I deftly weave both into my potent potion so the prospect (in this case, you!) can savor the sizzle and salivate for the steak.

My purpose is simple, my task is complex: Distill my client’s ninety-six copy points (so painstakingly writ) into three or four paragraphs that’re sure to make a hit; and give them a headline that’s snappy and fun; and deliver a benefit to the reader (just one) in a way that’s sexy and creative and pops; so as he or she meanders through NEWSWEEK, she stops! And reads what I’ve written and writes down the name, and writes down the phone, fax, e-mail, and then...she hops in her Audi, her Bimmer, or Geo, heads for the mall and with nothing but brio, walks into the store and with hardly a thought, whips out her VISA just as she ought, and BUYS the one item I’ve told her about, just as the merchant says, “Wow! Now, we’re sold out!”

I am an advertising man. I turn words into gold.

Now, let me illustrate the power of words in my chosen profession, which is advertising. I’m going to write a part of a phrase, and I want you to chime in—to yourself, or out loud, depending on who’s around) if you know the rest of it. Let’s try a few:

Winston tastes good...(like a cigarette should.)

You’re in good hands...(with Allstate.)

M&M’s melt in your mouth...(not in your hand.)

Nothing beats a great pair of (Legg’s.)

And one of my favorites, which I wrote for Port of Subs in 1996 (they’ve since changed it): “Fast. Fresh. And On A Roll.”

Now, some people may call these slogans, but in my line of work, they’re known as tag lines. And most companies should have a tag line, which is kind of like a mission statement for what a company does, and the way that they do it that makes them unique.

A powerful tag line melds all the marketing objectives into one cohesive thought, from positioning to brand image and personality. To put it more succinctly, in the words of my colleague Jim Jordan, “the heart and the power of advertising is...a few words so skillfully targeted, so clear in their positioning, so vivid in their articulation, and so memorable in their identification with a given brand...that they become people’s principal reason for buying the brand.”

In fact, we ad writers spend an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with the perfect tag line for a company – because once you find it, you can use it forever. To give you an example, the copywriter who came up with “Everything you always wanted in a beer. And less.” took a brand that nobody liked — Miller Lite — and sold $95 million worth a year to sports fans over the next decade and a half.

The point is, the tag line should always remind the consumer of the key benefit – what’s in it for them. For example, Silver Legacy Resort Casino originally used the tag line “Lucky For You” to market Sam Fairchild’s mythical silver mine in downtown Reno. When my former agency pitched that account, my team and I came up with the tag line, “Share The Wealth,” because frankly, I’d rather be rich than lucky any day. At the heart of it, though, is my steadfast sense that good copy always offers a promise or benefit to the consumer, and lucre out-lusters luck in my book.

Another example of the copywriter’s art is the use of word play or puns to make a point. The best one I’ve ever seen was an ad for Oakley Sunglasses that showed a pair of the glasses with the headline “A Shade Under $35. The copy went on to explain that the glasses retailed for $34.95. I should note that puns have fallen out of fashion among copywriters, particularly for headlines, but you’ll still see them in use for tag lines. Sometimes, a great play on words can become the principal reason for buying the brand — and some become classics. Think "When it rains, it pours." (1914) for Morton’s salt and "A diamond is forever." (1947) for DeBeers, the diamond giant.

Now, as you may have noticed, I used a bit of rhyme in the beginning of my article, because people tend to remember rhymes, and in fact, great literary masterpieces (such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey) were passed down from generation to generation orally, and one of the reasons they survived was because they rhymed. And so it is with the great literary traditions of our time. Who can forget:

The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup?

Timex takes a licking and keeps on ticking?

For all you do, this Bud’s for you?

And so, gentle reader, if you’ll permit me one last time, I will leave you with a rhyme:

If advertising’s my passion, then words are my mistress; and lest this malady cause you much distress, let me assure you as sure as I’m here, the words that I craft for your reading come dear; a hundred an hour give or take a few syllables, a bit more for those who insist on the parable that “nothing well is written once”; and so for those insufferable dunces I raise my take to one-fifty an hour, and write so slowly our relations soon sour; until, that is, they take pen in hand, and decide for themselves (and this, to a man) that writing’s for fools and nitwits and pros, and so their notebooks they quickly close, pick up the phone and ring me and plead, “How in the world do you ever write a lead?”

I am an advertising man. I turn words into gold.

Friday Night Blues

2007-03-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

Suzanne and Courtney just left for the weekend; I've turned down the blinds, dimmed the studio lights, and powered down the computers for a well-deserved rest. Even after nearly 20 years in the business, I still hate it when weekends come. Not that I'm a workaholic. I like rest and rejuvenation as much as anyone. But the thing that stimulates me about this business is the interplay between bright, talented minds and the challenging real-world situations where some entrepreneur's hopes, dreams, and livelihood is on the line. That's when you're either a champ...or a chump. I've been both in my career, and you can guess which position I prefer to be in. This week, we experimented with full html e-mail marketing for a couple of our smaller clients. I like it because it's quick, inexpensive, permission-based, and wonderfully measurable. It also allows us to target messages and market like the "big boys" for our dozen or so smaller clients who don't have the budgets to get out there in traditional media. What I like best, though, is that we still get to write great headlines, design beautiful layouts, and execute on strategy as if we were advertising in a fabulous magazine, a major newspaper, or on a cool website. But about this time on Friday evenings, I get a bit of the blues, because the talent's all gone home, the accounting, office-organizing, and client contact reports still need attending to, and the energy of the week has slipped out the door with the staff. While I'll probably write some this weekend, I still look forward to the happy chatter and catching-up that happens Monday morning to kick-start the week ahead. DB

We're Burnin' Daylight!

2007-03-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

I've always loved that line from "The Cowboys," one of my favorite John Wayne westerns. That's how it feels sometimes, running a small, creative ad agency. How quickly can you come up with really great stuff and get it out there? The short answer is, it depends. Last week, for example, Suzanne, Courtney and I whipped out a complete multi-media campaign for a local mom-and-pop pizza parlor, and the stuff was so good, so fun to look at, so funny and compelling, it made me fall in love with this business all over again. We pitched it to the owner of the pizza parlor — a huge, mean, former NHL hockey player, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was covered in flour from head to toe, schlepping dough and yelling at customers, and he was just blown away as I made the pitch in the middle of his pizza kitchen. But we'd done our homework and ripped out a campaign from branding to billboards, bumper stickers to banners, e-mail marketing to web presence, and we loved every minute of it. This pizza guy — trained at the knee of New York's Lydia Bastianich — is a rare gem in these parts, and we felt a kinship to what he was doing, so we created a campaign to celebrate it. That's the thing, though: if an agency likes you, you'll get more great ideas and work out of them than you ever thought possible. So, as I'm writing this, the pizza guy's wife calls (though she be but small, she is fierce — she's from Philly), with this message: "I'm runnin' around here with my hair on fire, it's tax season, the kids are a handful, but I wanna see this ad campaign you guys did that my husband can't stop talkin' about..."

I'll keep you posted.