On Digital Strategy, Powerpoint

I work at an agency that loves its "decks," which is a really dumb way of saying Power Point. I find deck writing very frustrating - mostly because the people you'll inevitably present the deck to have no desire to sit through 20 to 50 slides of what you're already telling them anyway.



Sure, strategy is really important, and I'm of the opinion you shouldn't even bother creating concept creative without it, but there is a point where you just need to tell a client what the hell you're going to do for them.

I learned this first hand during a recent presentation to a group of people that I would classify as "light-tech" clients. I believe you can classify people in the modern business environment into three tech categories:

*Non-Tech Adopters
*Telecom Adopters
*All Tech Adopters


I, unfortunately, was presenting a very long, strategically sound deck for an "all tech" audience that was very clearly a group of Telecom adopters. How do I know? They were all furiously typing away on their Blackberries, as I presented on some very cool Web 2.0 applications we planned to use to build their brand. Not to mention, when I asked how many of them knew what a "blog" was, only two of the 10 in the room raised their hand.

So, we ditched the deck after five slides and proceeded to wing it on the strategy. In the long run, it went very well. Maybe I need to ditch the deck more often.

On corporate transparancy

Recently, I've been reading about a lot of havoc and drama that has been created over a video that Draftfcb shared that eventually made its' way over to George Parker (love him or hate him, he's totally transparent and isn't afraid to share his opinion)over at AdScam.

It got me to thinking about an article I read a while back on how more corporations need to be more transparent. Bottom line, I believe corporations need to not only be transparent, but they need to be brutally honest. The audiences we're pushing this marketing and PR content to (it all comes back to content doesn't it? ) has a pretty good nose for bullshit.

So when I read the threads and responses from leadership weaving a web of lies and twisting the facts, it's more than a little troublesome. Being in the ad and marketing business, I understand the need to spin a message, but I also see that when someone already has the information, it only makes things infinitely worse when you get called out by your own employees for trying to cover it.

Maybe it's time for more companies to start being a bit more transparent.

Case in point for Draft... if they'd just leave this video issue alone, or take the lump from George's critique of it - the discomfort would eventually pass. Whether the blog was supposed to have the video or not, it was clearly a PR produced video intended for broad distribution eventually anyway. ... It's out there, some people aren't going to like it. Deal with it.

On Firefox 3

I HATE that Campbell-Ewald won't allow me to run Firefox 3 and hate it even more that I'm not allowed to update my iTunes to 7.7, largely because both releases of these applications are just that good.



Here's my rundown on why Firefox 3 is "the balls."

1. It's Fast, Fast, Fast

Did I mention it's fast. It's light years away from Firefox 2 in my opinion. Thanks to the Gekko 1.9 engine, the browser renders pages so much faster faster and uses fewer system resources overall.

2. Changes to the location bar

I know a LOT of people find this feature annoying. I however have found it to be incredibly useful. Previously known as Smart Location Bar searches through your history as you type in a URL. This bar searches through your history and bookmarks simultaneously and presents a drop-down list of recently accessed pages with that same keyword. It works even if you already know the URL.

Best of all, if you hate it and you have even a moderate amount of coding background so there is a way to disable it requiring a small tweak to the about:config file. An Add-On further allows you to learn which of the search results you want to always be on top.

3. OPEN SOURCE!

As a former add-on (i always preferred "extensions") and theme developer, I love how accessible the browser is. I really dig that there are so many adopters of a browser I've been using as long as I remember it being out there. Firefox 3 is Acid 2 Browser Test compliant , which makes it standardized alongside Opera 9 and Safari 3. Read, get with the fucking program already IE . Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a stickler to adhering to web standards in both page design, coding and programming.

4. Security updates

As said in the CNet review "There are also numerous security features such as Malware and Phishing protection, Instant Web site ID, support for the Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer (EV SSL), enhancements to the Password manager, and greater security for Add-Ons."

Nuff said there.

5. Web developer specific tools!

For developers there are new Web-based content handlers, greater search engine keyword support, a new password manager, the Firefox 3 Extension Manager (EM) and oodles more.

My favorites are the beginnings of the Firefox intentity network, better integration with Mac OS X's look and feel and site specific preferences that are now integrated directly into the browser sans extensions. With Firefox 3 you also get an early look at FUEL (Firefox User Extension Library), a JavaScript library designed to make it easier for extension developers by minimizing XPCOM formality and using more "modern" JavaScript ideas.

Go download it. Immediately.

Who loves working on automotive accounts...

Things keep getting worse for the general and keep getting worse for the big D.

Scary time to work on an American automotive account.

On Broadcast Advertising

I won't pretend to be an expert in Broadcast Advertising. I've never worked with the medium, and to be honest, TV is really starting to bore me. Therefore, I don't get into commercials in the same way I used to get into them. But as someone who works primarily on automotive accounts, I do tend to pay some attention to the auto industry ads. I'm also a big, big fan of vintage auto ads, like this little gem below.



What I love about vintage ads is that they always seem to pack in music in a very fun way. I look at the commercials they're producing today and they just don't have the same kitsch value. Auto advertising is really an art, because it doesn't do anything anymore. If you look at the research that's out there, a lot of consumers don't even pay attention to broadcast car commercials anymore. What primarily influences their choices are Internet sites and word of mouth from friends. Sure styling plays into it, and there is a lot of weight based on name recognition etc. But to be perfectly honest, I'm VERY glad I don't have to market cars using broadcast.

Check out Jalopnik's votes for the Top 10 Best Car Commercials of the 1960s. They're great.