It used to be that every politician’s worst nightmare was to be caught in a lie. But now what is perhaps even more devastating is to be caught “faking it.” Nothing brought this to life more for me than Rick Perry’s now infamous debate gaffe where he couldn’t remember a key point in his campaign platform. On national television, and repeated millions of times on YouTube and through social media, Rick Perry was caught faking it. He might as well have said “I don’t really care about any of this stuff,” or “I can’t remember what my handlers told me to say.” It was cringe-worthy. Not because he was caught in a genuinely human moment, but rather because he was caught being disingenuous.

There used to be a time when a politician could get away with a lack of sincerity, but those days are over. We now live in a world of 24 hour news, “hot” microphones, social media, etc. Case in point: JFK’s first debate against Richard Nixon. Those who watched on TV believed JFK had won. Those who listened to the debate on the radio believed Nixon was the winner. It used to be easy to fake sincerity. Now it’s impossible.

So what does all this have to do with the world of advertising and marketing? Everything. As consumers become increasingly sophisticated, and immune to “spin,” brands caught “faking it” will pay a high price. Brands that stand for something and believe it to their core will win the day. And I’m not referring to lofty corporate social responsibility – I think a brand can stand for “value,” or “craftsmanship,” or pretty much anything it wants to – it just better genuinely believe in it. Because as consumers continue to force their way behind the curtain, the posers will be exposed. And it won’t be pretty.

If you don’t believe me, check out Rick Perry’s recent poll numbers.

Is it me, or does Groupon kinda Suck?

I first signed up for Groupon after reading an article about how it was the fastest growing company (in terms of valuation) in history. I may get the specifics wrong, but as I remember it,  Groupon was valued at something like $6 billion  - yes, billion – in just over two years of existence. At the time, the owners of Groupon had suitors toss billions at them for controlling interest in the company. The owners, in turn, spurned all bids.  Presumably $6B was seen as just the tip of the iceberg.

After reading this, I naturally signed up for Groupon’s daily emails – after all, the fastest growing company in the history of the world must be offering some pretty amazing deals, right? And so it began. 50% off a meal at some Italian restaurant 30 km from my house. Twenty dollars off a car wash at some distant location. On and on it went. Nothing compelled me. Not even close.

So what’s all the fuss about Groupon? Am I missing something? My inbox is already full of emails – from stores that I actually do shop at – offering weekly incentives and offers. And the brands that I choose to “like” on Facebook also offer me discounts. It’s not that I’m not open to a new brand, retail store or experience, but the odds of me being enticed by a random deal seem low – at best.

So, again, what am I missing?  All I know is that if I owned Groupon, I would’ve taken the $6B. Now that would have been an awesome deal.

Is Apple on the verge of becoming irrelevant? I know, it’s heresy to even express such a thought. First, let me be clear, this is not an anti-Apple post. I’m actually a huge Apple evangelist. I love my MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad, iPhone, etc. My wife loves her iPhone. My son loves his iPod Touch, which is full of songs downloaded from iTunes and apps bought from the app store. My five year-old daughter even has a hand-me-down iPod loaded up with Miley Cyrus songs. You get the idea.

Actually, this isn’t a blog post about Apple at all, it’s actually more about RIM. More to the point, it’s an article about the speed of change.

Let’s start with RIM. They’ve been in the press a lot lately for a lot of bad reasons – market share deteriorating, share price plummeting, massive layoffs. They’re a company in decline, trying badly to turn things around. They’re even being referred to as the next Palm (you’re excused if you have no idea who “Palm” is.) So while a struggling tech company doesn’t feel like new news, it’s noteworthy to recall that a few short years ago any suggestion that RIM wouldn’t last much longer would have been seen as lunacy. ”Crackberrys” were ubiquitous. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama was photographed with his trusty Blackberry hundreds of times, even stirring controversy with his reluctance to relinquish it upon being elected – national security be damned. RIM was the future. RIM was an unstoppable force and the darling of Wall Street. And now, some short time later, RIM isn’t.

How can this happen? We’re not talking about a slow decline over decades like auto magnate General Motors, but a span of months. It boggles the mind to realize that “the future” can be relegated to “the past” in a heartbeat. I’m sure RIM will make a great business school case study for years to come (whether they turn things around or not), and I’m sure within RIM’s lifespan there are dozens of lessons about rejecting complacency. But for me, RIM is a wake up call about the newly-paced speed of change: exhilarating, frightening and motivating as hell.

Which takes us back to Apple, now the leader and darling of Wall Street. Apple can’t possibly be the next RIM. Apple can’t possibly be the next Palm. Can it?

The Cannes Lions advertising festival is back. And while most people think of the festival as a celebration of world-class creative, schmoozing, and expense accounts, I always associate the festival with my friend James Lee. I would suggest the same of you – especially if you are Canadian.
In 1999, James was the first Canadian to win a Gold Lion in the Film category in twenty years. Twenty years! Think about that for a moment. His TV spot for Finesse shampoo (a packaged good no less) won Gold and ended Canada’s drought. And just to prove it was no fluke, James won another Gold in the film category a couple years later for Bud Light. That is to say, James took home the Gold in the single toughest category against such global beer heavyweights as Guinness and Stella Artois. He was a giant. A pioneer.
It’s no surprise that James went on to win countless more Lions in several different categories. And I’m not using the term “countless” lightly – I lost count.
If not for his untimely death in 2007 at the age of 37, I have no doubt he’d have many more Lions collecting dust in his closet.
So as Cannes continues to roll around from this year to the next, I’d suggest that we in the Canadian advertising industry give James – and his spectacular work – at least a moment of thought. I’m not suggesting that Canada couldn’t have won a Gold Lion following that first one for Finesse. But someone had to be the first. Someone had to raise the bar just a little higher for all of us.  And that person was James Lee.
So this year, as Canadians stand on the podium collecting their Gold Lions, look real close. You may notice that they’re standing on James’ shoulders.

I was in the car the other morning listening to the radio – as I always do on my way into work – when two familiar radio ads ran back-to-back.  One was for a local audio equipment store (Bay Bloor Radio) and the other for a local men’s shop (Korry’s).  Both of these spots were familiar because they’ve used the exact same format for years. Frankly, perhaps even for decades. In both cases, the simple format involves a tried-and-true model: owners of the shop talking passionately about their store’s products and/or service.

I’m not going to argue that these are “creative” ads. Far from it. If, on the supremely unlikely chance the owners had a mind to enter them into an ad awards show, they’d likely not make it past the first round. Assuming they weren’t laughed out of Cannes or Santa Clara first.

But here’s the rub: these spots are effective.  Really, really effective.

Needless to say, this got me questioning why.  What do they accomplish that so few of us have been able to achieve? Why do they stand the test of time, seemingly never get old, and still manage to be mind-bogglingly effective? Is it because they are localized to one location and hence have the ability to talk personally about their product in a way a large advertiser can’t credibly do? Have the rest of us just stuck to the same message for so long that we believe it?  Is it something else?

To be honest, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that it works.  At the end of the day, any good advertiser would rather increase profits than their award show haul. Which also gets me to thinking that if award shows aren’t judging long-term, sustained effectiveness,  what are they judging?

I suspect that’s the subject for another post.

I heard the most depressing radio commercial on my way into work this morning. Perhaps the most depressing commercial I’ve ever heard. And no, it wasn’t a PSA for breast cancer, or animal welfare, or anything of the like. It wasn’t even for a “serious” issue like life insurance. In fact, the product being advertised wasn’t serious at all. It was for a lottery. Yeah, a lottery.

What I found so unsetting was the premise. To be clear, I’m not complaining about the creative (it caught my attention after all), but rather the premise behind the creative. The idea of the spot was that someone had given up on their dreams because they stopped buying lottery tickets. To be more precise, the person’s “dreams” were actually speaking to them, wondering why they’ve given up on them… because, yes, this person had stopped buying lottery tickets.

Really? Lottery tickets? That’s how you achieve your dreams? The thought makes me sick. The fact that it’s a government agency behind the message just adds insult to injury. “Hey Kids, if working hard or getting an education feels like too much work, you can always fall back on THE LOTTERY!”

Ugh.

Now, I have no illusions as to what we do. I don’t personally believe that we as advertisers are here to make the world a better, kinder, more virtuous place. I have no issues with a deodorant suggesting that if you use their brand, you’ll instantly become more attractive – especially to six-foot tall supermodels. They have every right to suggest that, and the consumer has every right to believe it – or not.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint why this radio spot depresses me so. Maybe it’s because I suspect that a core group of the target market actually believes the message. Or maybe I’m just disappointed that they couldn’t find another way (or a less overt way) to remind me to buy lottery tickets. Whatever the reason, it bummed me out.

Of course, it’s nothing that $46,000,000 won’t fix.
Which I believe is the prize in this week’s draw.

You never know when or where you’ll be inspired.

A couple of weeks ago I was in synagogue for the high holidays (and actually paying attention) when a story in the supplemental reading book really struck me.  It made me think about our “consumer” – the mysterious and enigmatic profile of a person we’re always targeting  in our advertising.  The story served as a reminder for me to always be mindful of what’s really important to them, as opposed to what they may say is important or what, heaven forbid, we assume about them. Hint: it’s not the products and services we’re advertising.

The reading was a story/fable about a young girl who spent a great deal of time and effort decorating a box with very expensive wrapping paper.  Upon seeing his daughter using up the expensive wrapping, the father chastised her, as money was tight in the household.  The next morning, the daughter presented the beautifully-wrapped box to her father urging him to open it. The father, somewhat ashamed of having scolded his daughter the day before, excitedly opened the box – only to discover that the box was empty. As the father once again began to angrily chide his daughter for being so wasteful, she began to cry. “But Daddy,” she said “the box isn’t empty, I filled it with my kisses.”

Yeah, it’s a nice story.  But what really hit home for me was how important it is to continually ask ourselves what it is that our consumers really want.  Somehow, I don’t think the story would have been as touching if the daughter had given her father an iPad.  And the truth is, any father (even an “early adopter”) would trade just one kiss from his daughter for a hundred iPads.

We spend so much time trying to sell our clients’ products (granted, that’s what we’re paid to do) that we sometimes forget to dig a little deeper and really understand what our consumer is longing for. What do they really want?  If we can figure that out, and then figure out how the products that we are selling can help the consumer achieve that, we’ll win every time.

At Grip, we believe in “values based” advertising. The essential premise being that by laddering up a product or service to a specific human value, we can make advertising more meaningful, relevant and effective.  After almost 9 years of taking this “values based” approach at Grip, it’s incredibly comforting to be reminded every now and again of its power.

A snapshot from Grip’s IT department – allaying fears that our Mac-based environment may be flirting with the dark side.

So, what are your customers saying about your brand?

So, the 2010 Winter Olympics are over and Canada’s performance was lackluster to say the least. This isn’t just my opinion, pretty much everyone I talk to agrees.

No, I’m not talking about the performance of our athletes. I’m talking about Canada’s batch of Olympic advertising. It wasn’t great. In fact, in summarizing the Olympic advertising we’ve been inundated with these past couple of weeks, my initial plan was to award Gold, Silver and Bronze to those ads worthy of the podium. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a Gold to be seen. Not sure there was even a Silver.

I initially suspected that I was just being too tough a judge, so I asked around. I asked everyone I could. And mostly people outside of the industry. When asked to name a commercial that stood out to them, most people couldn’t. Or they named a commercial or campaign that stood out because it was annoying.

If there was a “winner”, it seems it’s the Coca-Cola “hockey” spot – which I agree is a great one. Hard to award it Gold, however, as it turns out that spot is eight years old (and created by our very own Bob Goulart and Dave Hamilton) and originally created for the 2002 Winter Games. Is an eight-year-old spot really the best we can do?

And while I didn’t think any one spot was worthy of Gold, I did think there were a few flashes of brilliance.

HBC’s tagline “We Were Made For This” was outstanding. Leveraging their heritage, they told us that their rich Canadian history has led them to this moment – the moment where they can design and sell the outfits for our home Olympic Games. I loved the line and the emotion it stirred. It almost made me forget they’re owned by an American. Nonetheless, the strategy and the line “We Were Made For This” stood out for me.

There were a few very nice spots for VISA (don’t love that the iconic voiceover is Morgan Freeman – an American), but nice Olympic stories, very well told.

And McDonald’s had some nice moments. Not quite the glory years when they used to leverage the wonderful line “Anything’s Possible When You Have a Dream,” but some nice moments, nonetheless.

All in all, maybe the big win was just being associated with these games. Regardless of the creative. It’ll be interesting to see how much “post-sell” the major sponsors of the games do. Because if those brands can somehow – even slightly – attach themselves to Sidney Crosby’s golden goal, or Joannie Rochette’s triumph in the face of adversity, or any of the countless stories that made us all feel so proud to be Canadian these past two weeks, maybe that’s the victory. Maybe just being attached to these games was Golden. Of course, some more memorable creative wouldn’t have hurt either.