How to make the boring desirable

All you need is Catherine Zeta-Jones and a wonderful imagination. That's what Unilever had when they created a Hollywood style promotion called "Alchemist"for Lux Shampoo. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but how boring is shampoo? Now, I like clean hair as much as the next person, but when it comes to something as mundane as all this, you're looking at a major marketing challenge. I mean, how do you get their attention? That's why I like what Unilever's Asian arm decided to do, which was make an everyday brand adventuresome, exotic and simply wonderful. Which the filmmakers accomplished in spades with their seven-minute commercial. Who says shorter is better? And another thing about it, as the story unfolds, you are wowed and let in on the joke at the same time, which makes it all even better. Just another great example of what can be accomplished when you allow yourself to re-examine the same old, same old.

The Guy's Manual

Being a guy, I was delighted to learn about the Guy's Manual -- powered, as they say, by Grape Nuts. I've always wanted a manual to help me with the finer points of being a guy and now finally there's a manual is full of helpful tips, like how to take your fiancee's poodle for a morning jog, how to install your own home entertainment center, or how to cram a whole nights work into four hours because you just got playoff tickets. You get the idea. All very droll, this Guy's manual. Full of Larry Losers and Hapless Harrys who learn to do the tough stuff with the help of good old Grape Nuts, all told in funny little video vignettes.
I should warn you though, just like Doritos, you can't just do one. And there are dozens of videos out there, dealing with sports, work, family, relationships and cars, all ready to grab your funny bone.

Lessons From a Turnaround Artist

Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, has made a career out of breathing new life into arts organizations once on life support. He recently wrote a how-to book about his experiences, "The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations" and just this month started an online hotline for troubled arts groups.

I think some of the issues facing struggling arts organizations are similar to issues facing some of our clients, so I read his interview in the WSJ with great interest. Here's what caught my attention:

"When there are economic challenges, the first things that staffs and boards cut are programming and marketing, and that's the worst thing you can do. You're guaranteeing yourself you'll have less revenue next year, and that's how sick organizations get really sick." He went on, "If you start by cutting the programming, rather than everything in the back of the house, you're signing a warrant that everything will just get worse, worse, worse."

His solution is "great art well-marketed."

I think what he's focusing on makes sense, namely that programming and marketing are really the beating heart of the organization. They're what make it vital and without it, how will people see the work?

Since we often find ourselves creating programs to help our clients market ideas and information, I'd like to offer three questions to consider before launching the next video project: How can we re-purpose the work to reach a broader audience? How can we reach new arenas and viewers? How can we insure a longer shelf life for the material?

We recently completed a video to introduce an alternative energy process that could have enormous potential in our battle to protect the enviroment. But the process is complicated and not everything could be adequately covered in the short overview video we created. Knowing this upfront, our initial proposal included re-purposing the material to create short video packages for the web, each one exploring in greater depth an issue raised in the video. Not only is it a good way to do more with less, it also opens up the possibility for greater outreach as well.

This is a more effective and cost-efficient way of working. And I think the key to all this is to spend some time thinking about programming and marketing from the very beginning. Planning for it ahead of time can really pay off.