ml haynes design

The new integrated campaign for Dickies launched via online video “tough tests” last week. This initial offering — the first round of work from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — shows 874 Work Pants taking a beating, literally, as they’re ripped apart by squealing choppers, torn and shredded by massive wrecking balls, and rolled down a meticulously groomed hillside.

Each black-and-white clip is a combination of the old “don’t try this at home” instructional film and “don’t try this with stuff you’ve paid decent money for” product demonstration. Taking what has been a staple of skaters, surfers, hirsute tradesmen, and wannabe rockers, the GSP team brings this brand to the hard core. You know those guys and gals: the ones with the biker chain clipped to their belt loop, the steel-toe boots, and the compostable lunch bag in their recycled rubber messenger bag.

Watching the series, I couldn’t help but think brand loyalists aren’t the type to be sold with old-school show-and-tell demos like these. They’ve been trained over a lifetime to be skeptical of these well-choreographed tests and product performances. Folks new to the brand are probably in the same place in regard to what influences their purchasing decisions. The rough characters who star in these films aren’t buying it either, and they certainly are not watching videos online. Hell, they’re still rocking classic rock radio in their pickup trucks for a good time.

What’s going on here? Choppers pulling a pair of pants apart. Levi’s denim tags sport a mule team doing the same and have been for decades. Product is attached to a swinging steel ball and aimed at a thick concrete wall. Check out classic commercials of the ’60s and ’70s, and you’ll see this has been a staple for more than half a century. It didn’t get more tough than a Timex watch attached to an arrowhead, shot through a pane of glass by a gentleman wearing a plaid flannel shirt.

What was that last “test” again?

That’s right. Those tough twill pants are worn by a gravity-loving, bearded hipster who simply cannot resist the urge to rock, roll, and bounce down a beautiful hillside obviously landscaped by a professional film crew and production team. Parkour, I think not. This guy likes a good tumble it would appear, and, well, it just isn’t that easy to get yourself a chopper at the last minute, let alone a wrecking ball without calling ahead. What better way to show the world that you — and your new pants — have earned the badass Dickies label?

I recently had a conversation with a new acquaintance that started with the old question “what do you do exactly?” My answer to her query was rather short, but the dialogue that followed stayed with me and has prompted me to ask myself (more than a few times), “Can I wear too many hats and is being a jack-of-all-trades a product of an insatiable curiousity or a lack of commitment, amounting to being nothing at all?”

This is typically how the script plays out in my head:

Me: “What do you do? Give me your elevator pitch.”

Myself: “Would you like the long or short answer? And how many floors are we going up?”

Me: “You teach clients and staff day in and day out on the merits of a simple, clear and concise message and you can’t manage to do it yourself?”

Myself: “Well, it’s different. At least I think it’s different. What’s the weight limit in this elevator again?!”

Me: “You’ve got 15 seconds. Go! Do it!”

Myself: “Look, I’m going to take the stairs. I’ll meet you up there.” And here’s where I’m shot down the rabbit hole — I’m thinking to myself (as I’m talking to myself, not something to do without proper training) “Damn, I really do need that elevator pitch.”

So, as of today I’m sticking to the do-it-all storyline — I’m unable to shake loose the belief that knowledge is valuable currency — and while taking the stairs would be great for my health I’m going to commit to the elevator and work up my new pitch in the next week.

Check back to see where I’ve taken this. Or, better yet, take an inventory of your arsenal and ask yourself if you’re prepared for the simple question: “What do you do?” Then come back and get on the lift with me. I’d love to know your answer, your approach, your apprehensions.

Hats off to you!

I recently attended a one-day working session at HP headquarters in Palo Alto. With nine presenters scheduled in just as many hours I came prepared to gain actionable insights on technology, strategy and the future of interactive advertising. Presenters showcased the agency, advertiser, supplier, VC and developer challenges each face today and hinted at how they planned to meet new challenges in the future. Here are some of the more interesting take-aways:

Gary Elliot of HP
Everything is a service.

Michael Theodore of IAB
Online brand building is ineffective. Sponsorships, search and digital video are most effective.
As the “most accountable medium” we are still tweaking and arguing over measurement models and methodolgy; we need cross-industry consensus on this.
To avoid FTC regulation, there is an immediate need to create a self-regulating framework and process for working within that framework.

Curt Hecht of VivaKi
After a spending a year and observing 25 million users, the efficacy of user-selected pre-roll ads on Hulu.com is confirmed. Users will choose which ads they watch in exchange for the video content they crave.

Chris Curtin of HP
“Searchandising” — make it easy for users to find the product that interests them.
Technology + behavior = Mobile at retail
Ideas don’t count until you do them.

John Coyne of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Bring your discipline, leave your department.
The fear of irrelevance should drive us all to change.
Change + Convergence + Collaboration

Emma Cookson of BBH USA
When looking for creative talent consider two key attributes: Diplomacy and Generosity.
“Getting it done” is the new heroism.
Moving beyond networking, working harmoniously and to each person’s mutual benefit, sharing expertise and disseminating information through the agency is key to an agency’s evolution.

George Gallate of Euro RSCG 4D
Put digital at the core of everything.
Technology does not equal ROI. But technology to the power of creativity does.

Erin Clift of AOL
Build platforms to scale, allowing for smart growth.
Even with perishable content, the portal can flex to deliver relevant content to a built-up “fan base” user group.

Nancy Hill of AAAA
Work to extinguish outdated compensation models and tensions between agency and client

Calvin Lui of Tumri
Chic versus Geek — we need to marry art and science, knowing how to inspire consumers.
Consider “interest-based advertising” versus behavioral targeting

Checking in with a progress report for my work with Taproot. Our team of six has completed the discovery phase and delivered findings to our client, Marin Agricultural Land Trust. We have also prepared, presented and await approval on the Requirements Brief AKA the Creative Brief. So, after weeks of preparation and presentation we now stand poised to begin the “real” creative work.

MALT, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, began work as a non-profit thirty years ago. At the time there was a concern that family farms in West Marin could cease to thrive if developers were able to buy up the fertile land and forever change the landscape with buildings and pavement. Preserving the farmland was and is their mission and our team has been charged with reinvigorating the brand, redesigning the visual identity and enabling this passionate group to tell their story in new and meaningful ways.

And that is one of the most challenging aspects of this project — making farmland meaningful to folks who take their food very seriously, shop at local farmers markets, believe in sustainable living but have never stepped foot on a working farm. Creating a mark that will telegraph the import of that land to their quality of life, and directly impact their thoughts and actions AKA making donations to a cause they believe in. And to do this in such a way that this message passes the “bumper sticker test” from twenty feet.

Bring it on! I am thrilled to be starting up this phase and cannot wait to dive into what promises to be a very rewarding project.

More as we progress.

“I’m a Mechanic.” A simple statement of fact, a powerful declaration of affinity and a message of belonging in a time of insecurity. It also happens to be a small, but hard-working microsite developed by my team at the nine-to-five.

We are about to develop and deploy the next phase of content and interactivity —with a side of social — for this brand portal. And as we kick-off this next round I’m thinking a lot about the creation/celebration of culture — the culture we identify with, the culture we gravitate toward, the culture we establish and define against previously mandated boundaries and borders. Experiencing the power of this brand in people’s professional and personal lives, it is no inconsequential task to steward the culture of both consumers and clients, people who have built this brand over generations. To authentically represent the brand and the people who have created culture around it continues to be our challenge.

Makes me think about the brands in my life. The brands that I would stand up for, declare an unwavering believe in, that encourage a feeling of “insider” for having stayed true and loyal. Not too many these days; how about you?

One of the more interesting, and creative, areas of work for me is in naming — products, services, events or companies. The challenge is to conjure something never-before-heard-of yet comfortably familiar and resonant. Add to that the fact that any and all of these “things” must survive and thrive on the Internet and the project takes on more complication.

Being around long enough to have survived the time when clients insisted on names that began with the ubiquitous lowercase “e” and later the lowercase “i,” I remember (and not fondly) the painful twist the web put us all through. Thank goodness folks came to their senses — persuaded by the likes of me, another interesting aspect of this work — and adopted a more long-term view of the import and influence the process and outcome of naming has upon both brand and business vitality and longevity.

I’ll come around to visit this topic again, as I’m certainly keen on this type of work and the process required. That said, I had a good chuckle when I came upon this decade-in-review article from MarketingProfs and thought I’d share. Knowing your history — the good, bad and ugly — and taking the lessons learned is invaluable as I continue to find myself in this game of “name that company.”

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27 jan 2010 2pm

As if to prove my point, Apple announces what will be one of the most talked about — and laughed about — names yet. Kudos to MadTV for having conjured this years ago.

Started the week (didn’t we all?) watching Avatar in a 3D IMAX theater. Ended the week watching Aurélia’s Oratorio (we all should!) in a small rep theater. Probably the closest I could get to two extremes of storytelling. Made for a lot of thought on how we do this as producers of stories and how much we bring as consumers of stories.

I’d heard the hype on James Cameron’s new movie and was struck by the harsh critique of the storyline. I was more interested in the technology and effects, but found myself paying more attention to the storytelling than I might have had I not heard the criticism. Bottom line: The story is a simple one, and one that we’ve been telling each other for a long, long time. I believe that anything more complicated would have weighed down the story, pulling us away from some of the most telling truths of the film. Using just one visual metaphor — that of light and illumination — the film-maker has captured so much, and tells us so much, about life and truth.

I had not heard one word about the live theater piece I saw nearly one week later. Reading the program as the venue filled to capacity it became clear that I was about to see the latest in a long line of performance pieces spawned from cirque and ancestral to so much modern-day big-top entertainment. And while there were words uttered during the 70-minute show I found those sounds so unnecessary. The colors of the spare set, the simple props told so much of the story. The movements of the performers — just two for the vast majority of the piece — did more to communicate than any dialogue could. The producer of this story certainly had a point-of-view and a story to tell, but the space that was allowed for each of us in the audience to bring our own experience and expectations was such a counterpoint to the tightly scripted and structured tale I’d taken in just days before.

As storytellers we could all take a minute to consider the silent spaces between lines and the import of the audience in filling those spaces for themselves. If what we’re truly trying to accomplish is an experience — a positive and memorable one at that — shouldn’t we be inviting the collaboration of our consumers (the listeners, viewers, users, guests) and creating authentic and available space for them?