Gary Sheynkman dot com

For every business type, there are multiples models of how to make the f-er work. A recent post by Mike Arauz about new digital agency models inspired me to have a brainstorm about models that would work for a modern digital agency.

The typical agency has business development people and creative/execution people. The smaller the agency, the more multifunction each role becomes. Flatter structures have scalability issues so I tried to come up with a way for a model that could scale creatively without amassing huge overhead costs as far as development.

Verticals are nothing new. Certain people are better at marketing a beer can than medical services. The pool of the executing team, however, is where the cost and overhead creeps in very quickly.

I propose having a fully verticals-based agency that shares core but not creative resources.

A vertical champion (as we call them at KIT digital) would facilitate the function of business development, account management, and creative direction for a specific vertical. This champion would then, based on their sales forecast, employ the resources needed to services that vertical. If the vertical grows to the point where more account managers are needed, they can be added to the team.

In essence, the company is a set of micro agencies of different size that share administrative, finance, and hard development (CMS/backend capabilities) functions while scaling all the other teams based on the performance of that vertical.

Here is a proposed org chart:

The only major issue is that if the pipeline is mostly large clients once in a blue moon for a certain vertical, the champion will have to work with a lop of temps in order to complete a certain project while retaining only a small portion of the staff for ongoing support.

Thoughs? Ideas? Suggestions? Shoot me an email, tweet, or leave a comment!

Another day, another attack on a buzzword…

The big buzzword around the advertising community is “disruption”. Disruptive campaigns rule the day. They jolt the consumer out of their ordinary lives and make them love your product.

My life is not ordinary. If you try to disrupt my extraordinary life, I will tune you out. Really. I have an amazing ability to completely ignore commercial messages. For that matter… I am not alone, so do most people these days.

Actually… let me clarify. Ignore is the wrong word. Ignoring is an active action. I simply do not register commercial messages unless I have a specific interest. The branding game has changed. He who yells the loudest in the room doesn’t win when the consumer has headphones.

The goal for brand managers then, is to spark interest that makes me actively seek the product out or listen to your story. Here is how:

• Quality: Its 2009, no one likes shit products. Just about every product category is saturated enough to never having to dead with bad products
• Humanity: I like people. I like talking to people that love and stand behind their product. I like people that make me believe.
• Awesomeness: Newsflash! If you haven’t read the about section… I am Generation Y. I need now, cool, easy to use, and did I mention now? Mind you the lack of now with a service is bad while with a product it could be a potential stimulus (my obsession with limited edition Court Victory Reebok Pumps is an example)

With these 3 values in mind, you can convert consumers into fans. To learn more about fans I highly suggest reading Bud Caddell’s take on the “fan economy”. I’m 100% on board with the thought pattern there … not to mention I am hugely jealous of Bud’s slide-making mojo.

Whatever happened to space being cool? I am not talking about Trekkie space or Star Wards space or Vin Diesel assassin space. What I am talking about is big white spacesuit, moon rovers, rockets, and the quest to conquer the unknown. Back when the USSR and US were duking it out for world mojo, countries would unite behind their space programs.

We need to go to space again, and in a big way. Some world leader (perhaps someone charismatic, educated, outspoken, and loved by all (so far)) needs to pull a Kennedy and say we will colonize the moon within a decade. I am not talking a tiny pod either. Something with a low gravity foosball table and everything.

“But Gary, we are too focused on the financial blah blah blah…” OK, I get it, but get over it. This recession business is the official cop out for getting shit done now… cut it out.

Innovations in space exploration lead to creation of durable and lightweight materials, compact food storage, flight dynamics, miniaturization, advancements in muscle atrophy prevention, and etc etc you get the point: space is pretty cool.

I would like point out some interesting personal encounters of direct value of using 2 way communication channels for brand building. Remember, “social media” is just a buzzword. All media is inherently social (we want to share it!), and the tools that are labeled as “social media” tools are just the current methods of enabling 2 way communications between users and brands.

Lets get a few things out of the way first: this is not snake oil; it is an additional channel for brands to connect with consumers. It is unique because it allows personal connections. It is NOT, however, a replacement for your entire marketing strategy… sorry folks, that’s not how it works.

Here are some great examples that have resulted in spending money on services or a creation of brand evangelism:

1. I was looking for an agency to do web development for our firm in Dubai. I was new in town and was on the lookout of a local team I could work closely with to finish a project in a tight deadline. I facebooked, tweeted, and googled. I contacted many agencies but found Baher from Cloud Appers to be really helpful in the process. He was also really helpful when I asked the Dubai twitter community about the local living situation before I moved. Result? 5 figure USD contract + continuing service.
2. I needed to print roll-up stands for a conference. This was a rush jobs and I did not have the time to shop around all the local printers (Google wasn’t helpful in this region for easily locating a vendor).  I got a reference from twitter and based on that evangelism for the brand on behalf of other users, it resulted in a 4 figure USD order.
3. MIPTV, a content conference in Cannes in April, is an important part of our company’s lead generation. I needed to quickly book apartments for our team. Based on previous successes with using Twitter and Facebook, I updated my statuses on both services. The response was overwhelming. I was contacted by email, facebook, and twitter messages. The vendor that took the extra step to go on my personal site, look up my email, and get in touch got a 4 figure USD booking.
4. I am in charge of our global sales pipeline and the analytics that go with it. I create the reports that our President and CMO use to determine the performance of our sales team. When I was researching the best system to use, Pipeline Deals contacted me directly to set up a product demo and a phone call to address my needs.  Unfortunately we came to the conclusion that their system, at this stage of their development, was not the best fit. However, I am now very familiar with their offering and recommend the service wholeheartedly to those who need an easy to use web-based sales tracking system. I am sure that I will be a customer at some point in time. I love their team’s dedication to personalized service, the only kind that matters.
5. I was reading Lenovo’s Design Matters blog. The post was about a design study device that was of particular interest to me. Unfortunately the team used Flickr to host the pictures. Flickr is blocked in the UAE. I commented on the blog voicing my frustration. A representative went on my personal site from my comment link, found my Twitter ID, and replied to me on Twitter asking me if he could send me the pictures by email. I was pleasantly surprised! Next time I need a rugged windows based computer to take to conferences with me, which brand has caught my attention and made themselves worthy of my 2-3K USD? (hint: rhetorical question).

I will not mention the countless advice I got for venues, directions, and general pointers on a multitude of subjects.

So…. Is social media worth the investment? You tell me… engaging me directly has netted companies who utilized social media over 50K USD and a loyal fan and evangelist for their products and services.
If you would like some “pay it forward” advice on how you can engage your customers using this new communication channel, drop me a note. I would love to talk to you about it.

Finds like these usually reside in my Tumblr, the RSS feed for which is to the right of this post. This, however, is too good not to give some additional light to.

Just about everything about this video is amazing. From the quality of video itself to the fact that this brand gets the value of producing videos that make me want the product. As with my BMW Films post, I applaud Asics for coming out with a creative way to make consumers sit down and learn more about the brand and its values.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

I dislike news. It’s always bad. It seems that every day I see another ad agency close up shop or lay off employees. That only means one thing: companies are cutting marketing costs, hard.

I understand. You make widgets. You sell widgets. You can’t stop making them, nor can you stop selling them… so you stop advertising them.

Hi. Hello? Anyone there? If no one knows that you make and sell widgets, who is going to buy them!?

If you are overleveraged and are going into bunker-mode, ok… I get it. But companies that have money to spend on marketing, now is the time!

THIS is the opportunity you have been waiting for. Your competitors are not advertising. You need to push HARD and grab market share, because it is there for the taking. Don’t want to spend money on that costly online re-imaging of your company? Think community advertising is a waste of time? Think your website can limp on for a year or two?

What … people are spending less time online? This reactionary trend is silly if you sit back and look at what your customers are doing.

… Just a thought

I touched on this in my Commenting 2.0 article a bit, but felt I needed to elaborate on the topic a bit.

Large successful networks today are quickly becoming platforms. Applications are a fine and great example, but the next step? in my very humble yet loud opinion, is networks built on other networks. Essentially, any network with an API (application programming interface) becomes the cloud service layer for niche networks on top to use.

How it works

In Facebook terms (though this is certainly not limited to FB), imagine creating whole community sites around groups. Love that San Pellegrino? How about a site with all those group members that google maps restaurants that serve San Pellegrino over Perrier mineral water?

Lets take it one step further. I like to travel and would like to create a tight community of travelers where people can plan and share trips together, connect, and discuss. No need to create a new profile, Facebook Connect has me covered. I?ll need a trip logging and mapping engine. Dopplr has an API that I can use. I want my users to have cool spaces to upload their photos. Flikr will do that. Vimeo can handle the video. You need to send some uncompressed TIFF image files to a member who asked for a print of that vista? Drop.io allows you to build on top of their platform as well. A simple threaded forum system, a blog upfront interviewing members about their trips? and you have a pretty rocking community powered online destination.

The point I am trying to drive is that this if Twitter is built on Rails and Facebook is really a massive mySQL database (lets keep it simple ? ), then the community sites of tomorrow (in, again, simple terms) are going to be built on Facebook and Twitter as their service layers.

Click “Read More” to see hows this benefits us users and most importantly brand managers seeking to harness this social internet thing.

[Read more]

Video advertising creates an opportunity for companies to build an emotional connection between consumers and brands. My favorite example of this concept in action is BMW films. Sure, BMW could have made a video walkthrough of their cars. They could have had mechanics open the hood and tell you about their fantastic engines. They could have had beautiful models sit inside and tell you about the body hugging seats that are upholstered in the finest leather available. What did they do instead? They made me want to own a BMW because secret agent-like drivers use BMWs to escape danger situations and deliver precious cargo. Watching a Clive Owen smirk in the face of danger while behind the wheel of his trusty BMW made me love the idea of owning one…. and I do.

Sure, not everyone can hire John Woo or Guy Ritchie to direct mini films to inspire love for their brand, but it is a lesson for all to follow. If you can make customers fall in love with you brand… if your brand makes people feel fulfilled, cool, or happy, the dollars follow.