Have you ever watched an hour or so of TV bloopers, animated shorts or funny and clever advertisements? Some of the most fun I've had watching a film has been when I've had a chance to view the most creative and compelling work by advertising creatives. Luckily, on May 2nd, Saint Louis will have a chance to see the best television ads from last year, as awarded at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
This annual festival is held annually in France for the top advertisers and agencies around the world, and the most memorable one yet wrapped up last summer. This year, only one organization is bringing you an hour and a half of the winning TV ads. Everything from Google Chrome's clever science experiment ads to Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", and all the hilarious ones you've never seen in between. BMA is hosting "Cannes Do", an special viewing at the Sheldon Concert Hall, on Wednesday, May 2nd from 6:00 to 8:30. Join us!
More About Cannes International Festival of Creativity
*It is considered the largest gathering of worldwide advertising professionals, designers, digital innovators and marketers.
* It was inspired by the famous, international film festival in Cannes and uses the same cinema screens.
Why 2011 was Special
* 2011’s Cannes Lions festival included talks from will.i.am, James Murdoch, Facebook's Carolyn Everson, Piers Morgan,Aaron Sorkin, David Simon and Eric Schmidt. In 2011, a record 28,282 entries were received.
* The seminars this year compromised of a mixture of established advertising agencies (Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, R/GA, Grey, Leo Burnett), super brands (Coca Cola, Ford, Time Warner) and tech giants (Google, Adobe, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft).
* In its 58th year, the International Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity rewarded agencies and marketers from around the world for excellence in creativity on many levels. Over 28,000 entries were judged by thirteen juries during the course of two weeks in June.
Who
should attend?
* Marketing and brand managers who want to learn what makes video go viral.
* Creatives who want to be
inspired.
* International marketers who want to see winning strategies from around the
world, for products ranging from insurance to plastic.
Last night, BMA Saint Louis held an informative and thought-provoking event at Maritz, hosted by Director of Brand Strategy Paula Godar (@paulagodar), and featuring a presentation by Mary Beth McEuen, VP and Executive Director of the Maritz Institute (@marybethmceuen). Here are my notes from our session:
The topic was The Game Has Changed - A New Paradigm for Brand Engagement from the Inside-Out. Paula introduced Mary Beth, and McEuen began her presentation by telling us a little bit about what the Maritz Institute is all about. She said that the Institute is focused on advancing understanding of people through the sciences, through neuroscience in particular. It's about figuring out what makes people tick. And isn't that what marketing is all about as well? I know that at least, as we better understand what drives and motivates people, we can become better marketers.
When McEuen was over marketing and brand strategy at Maritz 10 years ago, she said they started down the path of "Brand Alignment" - This is what captured her attention and the attention of other senior marketers and leaders at that time. The leaders at Maritz began to have a conversation about authenticity. They began to understand that marketing needed to move beyond a place of simply communicating messages but to a place where you engage with people in an authentic way. Today this need is understood generally throughout the marketing community, says McEuen, "but it doesn't mean we're doing it just yet."
Her work at Maritz evolved into a fascination with the concept of a brand, what is a brand. McEuen gave us the metaphor of a bucket. "Our memories are not very good," she said. " We don't actually remember all facets of an experience." In fact, she went on to explain, many don't even enter our interpretation. We kind of filter through it.
"Even in this room tonight, everyone will have a different experience. But, everyone will walk away really remembering the emotion and feelings they hold surrounding that experience."
She explained that as the bucket fills with water, every time we have an experience with Maritz (or any given brand), it's like a drop in the bucket. The bucket might be crystal clear and beautiful or it may be kind of cloudy if you haven't had the greatest of experiences, but another drop will enter into the bucket. "Every single drop matters," she said.
"Every once in a while there's something that knocks you into the experience of truly positive, or truly negative, and those really shape things."
And so, as they continued their analysis of what it truly means to monitor experiences and engagement as they influence the brand impression, the team at Maritz developed a tag line.
Tag line of Maritz Institute: The Science and Art of People and Potential
"From the beginning, Maritz based client solutions on science," said McEuen. She mentioned B.F. Skinner and the "behavioralism" movement in psychology as having shaped our early thinking. Now Maslow has had an influence as well. But Skinner and Maslow have pretty different perspectives on things.
Maslow believed "Organizations designed right are vehicles for human potential," said McEuen. Steve Maritz realized that we were missing a link to the more recent sciences which is why he created the Maritz institute.
The "Art" is really important in this tag line, she explained. "Science for science sake is really not all that interesting."
Artful design of marketing and business practices means that "you know when you've done it well when it really connects with people."
"The Maritz Institute is really a network of people," said McEuen. It is made up of four people officially, but the network includes folks at Harvard, across academia, and about 300 people across Maritz.
The next stage of her presentation focused on: How do we need to think differently about engaging the key stakeholders within businesses.
"Ultimately our goal is to have a positive impact on stakeholders. It should be good for business and good for the individuals -- a win/win, enrichment midset," said McEuen.
This really gets us to "Why and How The Game Has Changed."
She said of Kotler's work that he shows us how Marketing 1.0 was product-centric, one to one. Marketing 2.0 is consumer-oriented, one to many. And Marketing 3.0 is values-driven, many to many (a network, collaboration). Hines believed that we are entering into the age of a more creative society and of human spirit, the rise of the cultural creatives, the knowledge worker.
McEuen discussed Maslow, revisited: When we hit the great recession, we saw that people in general reverted, as we expected, down the Maslow hierarchy toward basic needs such as security, but during this recent recession, it seems to be categorizing people up, toward expression.
McEuen said, "There are rapid changes going on in societal values, and business is going to have to keep up."
Regarding consumerism and "stuff", McEuen said "We've been living among the values of challenge, achievement, competition, materialism, prestige. Now we're hitting a stage of "when is there enough?" When we have less resources, some folks are saying, "This is enough. I have enough..." and then they move up the pyramid into trying to find meaning: collaboration, thrill-seeking, community, freedom, novelty, self-expression, experimentation, passion, authenticity.
Individual success starts to morph into collaborative expression.
When you think about consumers trying to find these values, what brands come to mind that are currently tapping into this? The audience replied with "Apple", "Target" and similar brands.
McEuen then said that it's going to be important that as marketers and brand managers, we understand how important it is the ways in which these shifts are impacting employees. And more importantly, how engaging employees properly due to these shifts will have an impact on your ability to engage your customers and/or prospects and drive the business forward. Thus, the importance of employee engagement, especially considering these recent developments in values.
Employees are most engaged at companies that seem to highly value: Stimulation, Self-direction, Universalism and Benevolence.
McEuen displayed a slide with the following quote: "Businesses are social systems. All social systems are underpinned with assumptions about human behavior. The problem is many of our current assumptions are wrong or out-of-date."
- Peter Drucker
Our new goal as marketers and as leaders is going to be:
Delivering on the brand promise from the inside-out so that it's authentic. We need to create places of "engagement."
Leverage reward and recognition, said McEuen. This has an impact on engagement, and ultimately on customer satisfaction.
Southwest Airlines is known for being a place of engagement for its employees. Think of companies, websites, group meetings, that are places of engagement.
Everything has to be participatory now. It can't be static or else it's missing the mark.
McEuen shared with us the Three People Principles That Guide Business Practices.
1. Humans are both emotional and rational in their decision-making. McEuen referenced the metaphor of the Elephant, the Rider, and the Path they follow:
Adapted from psychologist Jonathan Haidt), the Elephant represents emotion, the Rider is rationality, and the Path indicates the focus or direction. The Rider is analytical. She directs the Elephant, but the Elephant must be emotionally engaged in order to respond to the Rider (an Elephant is too big to move if it’s resisting). Once the Rider and Elephant are ready to go–once you’ve gotten your team, class, or self convinced and motivated– you need to give them directions down a Path.In order to create successful change in any context, leaders and teachers need to engage their employees, peers, students, or selves both emotionally and rationally while also providing a clear direction.
"If you think about the rider as reason, elephant as emotion," said McEuen, "when the two disagree, who's going to win?" The audience laughed. >
2. People are both emotional and rational in their decision-making. They are driven by multiple motivators.
3. People are both individual and social.
Lastly, McEuen gave us the four key motivational areas of individuals and explained their significance in our ability to engage and tap these motivators in our marketing initiatives. This is based on the work of Professor Paul Lawrence and Dean Nitin Nohria of Harvard Business School.
The Multiple Motivators
1. Acquire: driven to acquire stuff, status, resources
Emotions: competitive, powerful, superior
2. Defend: driven to defend status, stuff, ideas, relationships
Emotions: Angry, frightened, anxious
* We really "get" the first two as marketers.
3. Bond: drive to engage, cooperate, "fit in" to the community
Emotions: Cooperative, protective, grateful
4. Create: driven to create better self, team, organization, world
Emotions: Awe, curiosity, wonder
Emotions are highly contagious - we don't keep them to ourselves.
The brain is a meaning-making device, it's always trying to make sense of things.
It's much harder to understand and tap into the last two, but it's possible.
Caroline Lorusso, Display and YouTube Account Manager at Google, presented to BMA's St. Louis chapter at our November luncheon today. Caroline gave the group some actionable tips on how to leverage YouTube for B-to-B video marketing purposes during her presentation, and we captured them quickly on video with Caroline after her presentation.
Below the videos, you'll find my notes from her presentation, including stats on YouTube growth and usage, examples of great B-to-B marketers with compelling YouTube channels, key takeaways, and some fascinating news about YouTube Original Channels (coming soon) and Google+ for Business. We hope you enjoyed the luncheon as much as we did, and if you missed it, be sure to check out all the details in this post!
YouTube is a valuable marketing tool and presents a huge opportunity you can’t afford to miss out on
1.Snapshot of the online video landscape & its incredible growth
a.1/3 of all time spent online is watching online
video
b.YouTube has 3 billion video views per day, 15% increase in
daily view over last year
c.48 hours of video content is uploaded to youtube
every minute around the world
d.B2B customers are using YouTube – branded
searches have doubled in the past year
e.YouTube ranked 2nd largest search
engine, only behind Google.com
f.Over 660,000 Internet users are referred from YouTube to
a B2B branded site each month
g.Has direct response advantages – referrals from
YouTube are converting
h.YouTub connects: 54% of B2B executives share
work related videos daily or weekly with colleagues or prospects
i. "Brands don’t sell brands. People sell brands." Good content or a good experience is inherently social, as always.
k.46% have said something good about a brand or
company on social sites
l.20% of tweets are free brand advertising
m.Social media has become the center of brand
conversations and feedback
n.Turns passive viewers into active brand
advocates.
o.Gives users and brands a stage to express
themselves and share with others.
p.70% of viewers watch a YouTube video because a
friend/colleague recommended it.
q.600 YouTube videos are shared via Twitter every minute.
r.100 million videos are commented on, shared or liked every minute
2.Playbook for business marketers to develop an
effective strategy
a.Establish
> Build > Sustain > Own (your audience)
b.Establish
your audience -- Brand Channels:
i.Create a home base of video content for your
brand
ii.No cost
iii.You can pull in real-time Twitter updates to
your YouTube channel
iv.Good examples: 3M, FedEx and ExxonMobil
v.Check out 3M’s intro video that plays
automatically when you arrive at their brand channel – great way
to introduce
the brand’s capabilities
vi.Generate traffic and video views to your channel
via paid media
vii.A common misconception is “If you build it, they
will come”
viii.ExxonMobil used promoted video on YouTube – you
can set up a simple account at a $5/day limit through AdWords
ix.Sharpie launched a homepage takeover ad during
back to school shopping season
x.Takeaways
1.Create engaging content that ignites passion for
your brand
2.Add social gadgets on your channel that promote
engagement
c.Build
Your Audience:
i.Ecomagination line dance challenge. For every
donation GE donated
1.1.5 million channel views and 1,000 submissions,
92% lift in channel engagement
2.Used TV, online display ads and video ads to
3.They modified their channel to allow users to
submit their own videos to GE’s channel – and had someone reviewing the videos
first
ii.You can re-engage your audience on YT at each
new initiative
iii.52% of users follow or fan companies or brands.
1.Target your audience: attributes are
demographics geographic, language. Behavior includes interest category,
third-party audience data, data type
2.Re-engage fan base by continuing video content
promotion and production across YouTube prior to each new initiative
d.Sustain your
audience
i.Capitalize on your unique value proposition on
YT
1.Leverage your brand’s ownable personalities and
offerings. The Marines are doing this well. (It’s the Marine Corps’ birthday
today)
a.Invitation to potential
recruits to ask a marine a question through an interactive question. The
community ranks the video up or down and then an actual marine answers the
question on video
b.One video had over 12,000 views in four weeks
2.Update your channel regularly with fresh content
to encourage repeat viewership – a new video every 3 or 4 weeks is ideal
e.Own
Your Audience
i.How American Express strengthened their brand
connection with small business owners. Nov 25th, the day after black
Friday, they called “Small business day”
ii.My Business Story on their site. Offers small
businesses a tool to create and post free videos about their businesses
iii.Top 36 featured on the YouTube homepage on
Saturday, the 25th
iv.“My business may be small, but my story isn’t.”
New innovation from Google:
YouTube + for business, original channels
1.YouTube Original Channels
a.TV quality content across 100 new channels, 18
content genres
b.As social as the web
c.Will slowly un-roll at very end of this year and
really announce in Q1 2012. Interested advertisers should give 1.5 months lead
time.
d.Verticals are broad and narrow – in each one,
you’ll see a portfolio of channels with their own unique point of view
e.Power of celebrity and largest media brands in
the world, men’s health, wall street journal, etc.
f.TV’s proven programmers such as CBS, NBC, Fox,
ABC, VH1, MTV former heads of networks.
g.Producers of some of the most popular TV shows
h.3 advertising options
i.Brand
Platforms – buy out a category and become sole advertiser in a specific
category – allows you to get in early and make a big investment
ii.Channel
sponsorships – more selective investment to own 100% of the content on a
channel and potentially within the programming
iii.Featured media packs – how you’re used to buying
on youtube today. You buy one of the existing targeted media packs. Will
include some existing content with new content too.
2.Google + Your Business
a.Collection of tools and products to help you get
closer to your customers
b.Your business’ identity on Google Plus
c.Pages are profiles but specifically built for
businesses, designed to grow and evolve to fit the needs of a business.
d.Basics: Get your page up and ready
e.Your page includes a +1 count and button – it’s not
just the total number of people who plus’d this page. It’s a total count of #
of people who plus’d the brand - - on the website and on the plus page
f.Circles allow you to group your followers and
who you’re following
g.Hangouts – let your imagination run wild about
how to use hangouts.
i.Politicians host town hall meetings
ii.Celebrities hang out with fans
iii.Michael Dell has been hanging out with customers
iv.“Hangouts On Air” allows Google to broadcast
popular, public hangouts
v.A unique opportunity to engage with your
customers
vi.Can add a layer of personality and personal
approachability to businesses
vii.Limited to 10 people in one video room – this
will increase soon to 15, then 20, and potentially eventually a mass reach
audience
viii.Imagine you have a new product launching
ix.Possibly launching in the future: Ability to
record a hangout meeting for upload to YouTube
x.ConEducation is a good example of using YouTube
for continuing education
xi.The +1 button appears over 5 billion times on the
web daily, making it the fastest growing social sharing button ever
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This annual festival is held annually in France for the top advertisers and agencies around the world, and the most memorable one yet wrapped up last summer. This year, only one organization is bringing you an hour and a half of the winning TV ads. Everything from Google Chrome's clever science experiment ads to Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", and all the hilarious ones you've never seen in between. BMA is hosting "Cannes Do", an special viewing at the Sheldon Concert Hall, on Wednesday, May 2nd from 6:00 to 8:30. Join us! 
The topic was The Game Has Changed - A New Paradigm for Brand Engagement from the Inside-Out. Paula introduced Mary Beth, and McEuen began her presentation by telling us a little bit about what the Maritz Institute is all about. She said that the Institute is focused on advancing understanding of people through the sciences, through neuroscience in particular. It's about figuring out what makes people tick. And isn't that what marketing is all about as well? I know that at least, as we better understand what drives and motivates people, we can become better marketers. 
Her work at Maritz evolved into a fascination with the concept of a brand, what is a brand. McEuen gave us the metaphor of a bucket. "Our memories are not very good," she said. " We don't actually remember all facets of an experience." In fact, she went on to explain, many don't even enter our interpretation. We kind of filter through it. 
Tag line of Maritz Institute: The Science and Art of People and Potential