From “thirtysomething” to Now

Last week, I attended a premier for the new “thirtysomething” Season One DVD. Guests were treated to the pilot episode of the show, and a Q&A with the producers, as well as two of the stars, Peter Horton and Timothy Busfield. If you watched the show, then you’ll remember that Busfield’s character was a partner in an ad agency with Michael Steadman (Ken Olin). Seeing the episode took me back to my early days as a twentysomething with dreams of landing a job as a copywriter at a San Francisco ad agency.

Those days have been on my mind ever since the premier as it got me thinking how much advertising, as well as the entire world of marketing, has changed. We didn’t have social media in 1987 when the pilot first aired, much less the World Wide Web. Think about it: Web 1.0 hadn’t even been invented.

I’ve been waiting for the release of this DVD for some time, not only because I was a fan of the show and was drawn in by the ad agency angle of two of the lead characters, but because I had a chance to see the special features sections of the new DVD release being produced first hand. My significant other, Greg Carson, was the Producer, so I vicariously became part of the production process, through him. One day when he was short-handed, I quickly volunteered to help out as an intern on the set. I got to meet a couple of the stars, and a writer, and was impressed with how smart everyone was. They all seemed imbued with charm and witty banter, just like their characters.

I went home that night thinking how much natural talent and real skill are both needed to make something great, anything great, whether it’s an ad concept, a TV show, heck, even a casserole. Okay, maybe not so much natural talent and skill are needed for a casserole, but it helps lift the ordinary (cheese and potatoes baked together) to the sublime—yukon gold potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms baked with smoked gouda make an entirely different dish.

As the DVD was nearing its release date, it was fascinating to see the marketing of it in action. Shout Factory, the distributers, has an ace publicity team that scored great media placement. Aside from the event I attended, there was a spread in the LA Times, close to the same in the NY Times, and a cast reunion on “Good Morning America” coming up this Tuesday, and that’s just to name a few of the big ones. They didn’t have to ask for a plug from Audacious Ink. I am inspired to do so because of what they show meant to me as a hopeful young copywriter.

What struck me about the show back then was the every day struggles that the ad guys went through, at the office and at home, but I’ll be honest: it was mainly the office scenes. Some of my pals bit their nails wondering what would happen to Nancy (Patricia Wettig) and Elliot’s marriage. I, on the other hand, shuddered whenever Michael and Elliot encountered the hopeless feeling of being blocked creatively, or the thrill of hitting a new concept out of the park, right down to the crazed boss they eventually had to deal with once they sold their agency.

During the panel discussion, it came up that Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, the creators/producers, had never even stepped into an ad agency when they first created the show. For guys who didn’t know what they were talking about, they fooled a youngster like me. I didn’t know ad agencies from medical school. I liked to believe, though, that when I would one day snare a job at one of San Francisco’s hottest agencies, I’d be working with good, earnest guys like Michael and Elliot who just wanted to create great material. They’d wear suspenders, and I’d be their female equivalent in shoulder pads. We’d create great ads featuring other people in suspenders and shoulder pads.

In the pilot episode of the show, Michael fires a client who wants them to do “sleazy” ads. There is little talk of the creative process in this episode, though they make it clear that they started the firm because they didn’t want to “sell out.” “Selling out” is a phrase that these days seem antiquated. We think more in terms of “being true to our vision,” or, perhaps more accurately, producing works that will endure. The bar has been raised so high in advertising and all things marketing, that we never think of selling out because often times our best is still not good enough. We celebrate the Genius and the Inspired. Schlock is for losers, or people with low budgets. Maybe it flies in the local market, but certainly not on the national level.

“thirtysomething” was groundbreaking television. It showed the good, the bad and the really ugly of domestic life. It didn’t glorify motherhood, but gave us a glimpse into how hard—and tiring—it can really be. It didn’t glorify the entrepreneur, but forced us to look at the realities of business ownership: the constant worries of staying afloat, paying bills, and the sad truth that you can’t always have it your way. I remember watching the show people would talk about how selfish the characters were. Maybe. But they rarely got the things they wanted. We saw their heartaches and disappointment. As for me and my advertising career, like a character on thirtysomething, my life changed course. I went in-house and did advertising, but under the umbrella of integrated marketing, where I did PR, communications, and anything touching the world of promotions. I worked with a few Eliot and Michael types, and along the way, someone would mention something about “selling out.” We’d roll our eyes and think of our credit card bills and wonder who had the luxury to worry about selling out. That doesn’t mean we were happy with mediocrity. We knew: Great marketers don’t sell out. They just fail to create great work.

Friday Fix

If there is nothing else that you do to improve your marketing program, I’d like to beg for three simple things. These are things I witness daily, and they are such easy fixes. Here goes:

No need to appear desperate or pushy: Increasingly, I go to a new blog and before I can read beyond the headline a pop-up window appears, imploring me to subscribe. I’m not going to subscribe to a blog I haven’t read. Of late, I’ve taken to closing the pop-out window and clicking away from those sites. If you are going to be pushy, I don’t want to hang around and read what you have to say.

A Few Tweets Daily Will Suffice: I want to know about your new products, and see photos, and I want to hear your news. If you have a truly original pearl of wisdom to share, please do. I could use all the wisdom you have. I even want to hear that Junior won the baseball game, or that you liked the new episode of “True Blood” because, geez, I didn’t know that you liked “True Blood,” too, and now I know we have that in common and I want to do business with people I have stuff in common with. Having said that, I don’t want to open my Twitter page and see you cluttering up the stream with tweet after tweet. Like seasoning, you don’t need to overpower us. I tend to unfollow people who tweet too much. I’m not alone in that habit.

Listen to Your Clients: I’m bringing this up out of the blue, because I was just watching an old “Madmen” episode and I was cringing at how the handsome Don Draper was telling a client basically, “Shut-up, you don’t know what you are talking about and that’s why you hired us, so you better like our pitch.” It makes great TV, but in real life, your client just ends up either resenting you, making fun of you behind your back, or firing you. You are a strategic partner. Not a creative dictator.

There used to be this great saying (that seems to have lost its way): “The client is always right.” Granted, it’s not always true, but listen to what they have to say when they tell you why they don’t like your idea. Work with them to uncover what will really help you achieve the goals at hand. I should not have to write this. Yet I heard a story just today of how it happened to a friend. I’ve witnessed it on the client side, and I’ve been tempted to do it on the agency side. It’s tempting to turn into Don Draper, but if you are watching the show, being Don Draper isn’t exactly working out for him. So why bother?

Finding the Muse on a Partly-Cloudy Sunday

(www.roibal.net)

It’s Sunday. Are you sitting on the couch ruminating on how best to spend the day? Are you pondering a new ad campaign or a publicity event? Or, like me, are you working on a creative passion outside your job? I write fiction, which is no surprise, as a lot of marketing writers are closeted (or not so closeted) fiction writers. Come the weekend, I often find it hard to turn off work and decompress from the weekly routines by stepping into a new world where I play God, creating people and landscapes.

Whether you are contemplating a novel or trying to figure out a catchy slogan, we all get blocked creatively. If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be a multi-million dollar market for the hundreds of books on writers block.

I had an advertising professor at UC Berkeley who once gave us some often-repeated advice on what to do if we were creatively blocked. Take a shower. Not that the act of cleaning necessarily stimulates the creative neurons, it’s just that changing your situation, doing another activity, frees your mind and by freeing the mind, you give yourself some distance from whatever is blocking you.

I have plans to write today, but I have a sore tooth from a temporary crown that popped off, and my trigger thumb is not yet healed from a steroid shot the doctor gave me this week (who says that writers and athletes have nothing in common. We both have injuries from our careers that require steroids.) To say that I’m not inspired to write is an understatement. Give me a few more shots of coffee and that may change, in the meantime, here are some things I’m going to consider doing in order to stimulate my creativity on this partly-cloud day:

1) Read a short story by Flannery O’Conner or Eudora Welty.

Eudora Welty (www.Columbia.edu)

We all have our muses, and I have several; these two great writers are among them. All I have to do to get inspired to write is read “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” or “Why I live at the P.O.” Jesus, sometimes when I’m reading these writers, I think, “Why bother, who can do it as well as they did?” Imagine if they had applied that wonderful creativity and skill at nailing the truth in the marketing world. It would be a different field.

2) Take some photos.

Many artists have more than one talent. Look at all the musicians who are also painters or photographers. I find that when I want to write, I sometimes need to articulate what I’m feeling through a visual means. A shot of a tree’s shadow may express a sense of alienation, or a red flower caught in the sunlight might mirror an unnamed joy bubbling beneath my skin. After an hour of shooting, I can put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and the words start to flow.

3) Do what Natalie would do. Natalie Goldberg, that is. “Writing Down the Bones” is one of my bibles. I reread it at least once a year. Here’s a great writer and teacher who has made a career out of overcoming creative blocks. By the way, everything I just suggested above is something she has suggested, so big surprise, I have not written anything original, other than to put it in my own words, which I think will therefore enable her to forgive me. Natalie is a proponent of writing exercises. One of my favorites is writing about a “first.” The first time you saw a car wreck, or snow, or got kissed. Any first. The idea is that it gets you focused on a topic, and from there, see where you mind leads you.

4) Listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen (www.theocarsite.com)

No, do not listen to REM, or U2, or anyone else. Listen to Bruce. If you are a not a fan, well, I just don’t understand that, but what I’m getting at is this artist is a storyteller and he puts it to music more affectively than anyone I have ever heard. He does it with heart and soul and chords and beats. Listen to the words from any song on “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and try to imagine the characters, what they look like, how they feel, their daily lives. Chances are their lives are vastly different from yours, but yet, the hopes and fears may be familiar. Think about the story you want to tell, then turn down the stereo and go write.

5) Talk it out. Sit down with a friend and say, “I have an idea,” then springboard your thoughts off this person. Listen to them. Their advice might be horrible, but is there any glint of brilliance or originality that you might want to consider. Think of this as creative therapy.

If none of these work for you, go to Amazon and search on Writers Block. As I said earlier, the topic has given many writers an added element to their career as counselor for those of us who get blocked. Even in the best of time, it’s easy to get distracted and find your muse or inspiration. Fortunately, there are tried and true remedies to the chronically blocked. Write on.

Celebrate Julia Child’s Birthday August 15, and Win a Classic

Audacious Ink just loves a good contest, and Champagne Taste is providing a real page turner, literally. They are giving away a copy of Julia Child’s masterpiece, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” in celebration of her birthday.

Check out their blog for details. NOTE: the deadline is August 13, so time is running out—I just discovered this contest myself. Champagne Taste is also asking participants to cook a recipe from one of Julia’s books and post about it on the site. It’s a great example of smart marketing, as contestants are encouraged to do more than just fill in their name on a form, but actually be part of something. It makes for a more memorable experience, and help builds customer (or in this case, reader) loyalty. By the way, this isn’t a “best recipe wins” type of contest. The winner is picked at random. Making one of Julia’s recipes is merely encouraged, out of a passion for fine food and fine cooking.

If you haven’t read the Audacious Ink post on “Julie and Julia” yet, check it out.

Okay, Audacious readers, good luck!

Can Jazz be Saved?

The Wall Street Journal ran a story today about the diminishing audience for jazz. The story cited a Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, conducted by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) in participation with the U.S. Census Bureau. It was the fourth survey of its kind since 1982. The predominant findings in the latest report showed:

1. Since the last survey in 2002, Jazz audiences shrank from 10.8% to 7.8%.
2. In 1982, the median age of a jazz fan was 29. Today? Jazz fans have a median age of 46. The audience is shrinking and aging.
3. They aren’t getting that old, though: Older people are also less likely to attend jazz performances today than they were just six years ago. The percentage of Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 dropped 30% in 2008 from 2002.
4. College-educated adults are seeing less jazz: the audience for live jazz has shrunk to 14.9% in 2008 from 19.4% in 1982.

Why is jazz losing its audience? I asked a good friend, someone I think has great taste in music. I read him the stats and when I finished, he chuckled and said that he was not surprised.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because Jazz is boring.”

So I asked him why he thought it was boring.

He gave me two words. “No energy.”

Anyone who ever listened to any Louis Armstrong, without whom I think Rock-n-Roll owes some thanks, would disagree. Sure, much of jazz has a different kind of energy. I’m thinking Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker. Its an energy not unlike like the strange, pasty girl in your 9th grade social studies class who had a nose ring and jet black hair, and wore a Ramones t-shirt over a plaid Catholic school girl scort. You don’t think she’s pretty, but you can’t help but stare.

According to the author of the WSJ article, the problem seems to be that Americans think Jazz is a high art. Evidently this is a bad thing. In the thirties, however, and up through the fifties, jazz was an everyman’s type of music. My own parents never made it beyond a high school education and they loved jazz. It was the music of their courtship in the forties. Around the mid-sixties, with the “Bitches Brew” period, jazz became music for elite intelectuals, as the WSJ article states, it now appeals to the same high-brow audience previously reserved for opera and classical music.

The article points out, rightly, that marketing is what jazz needs in order to be saved. It has to reach out to a younger audience, but I think it also needs to bring back some of the faithful. The NEA, in my opinion, should target ads at saving jazz. Imagine a commercial (radio or TV) with snippets of songs from some of the more venerable jazz standards. The music itself can sell. Of course, the NEA is unendingly strapped for money, so it’s a bit like my fashion diva pals telling me I should wear more Prada. Local arts organizations and cities themselves could join in, sponsoring more Jazz concerts in civic parks, and cajoling local corporations and TV stations to pitch in. Finding the funding to save jazz is not an easy task, but raising public awareness is essential in any marketing campaign. Rebrand jazz, not for the elite, but as music for the everyman. After all, in 1987, Congress deemed jazz a national treasure. Raising awareness of American jazz classics—and substantial new artist in the genre—seems like a worthy cause for the charitable arms of savvy corporations wishing to appeal not only to a niche upper-end market, but to make a name for themselves to the masses as a company helping the arts.

Saving jazz goes back to a marketing fundamental: Great things without publicity don’t have a reputation for being great, just obscure. I’ve said it before. It’s all marketing, always, and nothing seems to escape from this reality. Not even underappreciated national treasures.

Feeling the Love

There has been much written on the subject of excellence and exceeding expectations, whether it is your company’s expectations, or your client’s, or your own. As I was preparing to write a press release today, I had an epiphany. Isn’t the key to an excellent performance summed up in one word? Love.

Before you navigate off this page, do not be alarmed. Stay calm. I am not trying to take a hard-boiled subject like success in business and turn it into a Kumbaya lesson on love. No sir, no way. It simply struck me that people who are excellent at what they do are probably excellent because they love what they are doing. I know it’s an epiphany that other people have already had; it just really struck me full throttle how it seems that everyone I know who loves what they do are good at it.

Take me, for example. I love to goof off. Seriously, I think I could win an award for it. A Nobel-type of award. I like to wake up late, sit in front of the TV dazed while I drink my coffee, then lose myself for two, even three hours reading blogs, tweeting, reading my pals updates on Facebook , and doing other things that won’t make money. You would think, during these periods of goofing off, that I am under the impression that I’m a teen-ager, living off Mom and Dad. Quite the contrary: I have had genuine Alzheimer’s moments on the Internet. I look at the clock and it says 9:00. I look at it again a little later and two hours have passed, I don’t know where the time has gone or much less what I’ve been doing. I look at my screen and see that I am on mashable.com, after having clicked on one link after the other on the website until I’m buried so deep in the site’s bowels I’m finding antiques that have been stored away.

Then I go make an ice tea, watch some TV, look at my dog who is dying for a walk, walk him, come back, look at some more TV, then get back on the computer and the next thing I know, it’s time to call it a day and make dinner.

Thankfully, I manage to (usually) avoid these days, but if it hadn’t happened to me in the past, I would not be able to write about it with such detail. Which brings me back to my point: love.

In the midst of the recession, with millions jobless, it’s not only a treat to find someone employed, it’s a treat to find someone who loves their job. I love all things social media, which explains why it is so easy for me to spend hours on the Internet. I’ve turned it into an active part of my career, so bully for me. I took a passion and made some diniro at it. My boyfriend, on the other hand, loves Robert De Niro. He also loves Martin Scorsese and Bob Rafelson and all sorts of Hollywood directors, writers, producers and actors. He’s made a career out of that producing DVD bonus features. Ask anyone in his field: he’s the best at his job. In fact, dare I say it? He’s excellent.

Julia Child loved food. She loved French food and she turned it into a career. Julie Powell loved writing and she loved Julia Child and she turned that love into a lucrative writing career. The other day, I saw “Julie and Julia” and I blogged about it, because I love movies and I love food and to have a movie about food and Julia Child is my idea of time well spent. That one blog post on “Julie and Julia” had an overwhelming response, which means I have somehow, momentarily, joined the ranks of Julia Child and Julie Powell, and tapped into something that America loves. Eating great food.

But back to that press release that I was working on: I was feeling a little nervous about getting started because, frankly, I write a lot of press releases in my career, and the challenge is always how to make the news I’m announcing exciting. I had sent the client a list of questions about the announcement and she wrote back answering me. As I was rereading her response, I saw what I needed: her excitement. This is a woman who is a passionate about what she does, and it showed in her answers to my question. I could almost hear a Billy Mays style hawker reading her words to me, punctuating syllables with emphasis to show the enthusiasm.

Love.

If you love your product, your service, your company, your job, it shows in ways you don’t even realize. It shows in the simple answers to mundane questions. It shows when a member of your team or strategic partner has to take your words, your ideas, your strategies and translate it as part of their own job. If you are lucky, this person, too, loves what he or she is doing and you have a win/win situation.

Come on. Hug it out. Kumbaya, y’all. Feel the love.