“Where Blood Tasted of Blood and Honey of Honey”

Successful creative work is about bursts of ideas and also very much about brutal editing of the ideas—at every stage—so that the ideas that survive are simple, powerful, and make the point required of them. I’ve written here about editing once before. Yesterday I visited Portlligat, where Salvador Dali lived and worked in an amazingly beautiful house right on a little cove.

I found a quote there that struck me… it was about editing—-though he didn’t use this word. This is what the Dali the surrealist (and very realist promoter, no?) said about his house/studio in Portlligat: “It is where I learnt to become poor, to limit and file down my thoughts so that they would acquire the sharpness of an axe, where blood tasted of blood and honey of honey”

The pool at Dali (and Gala’s) house in Portlligat.
Photo by robin.elaine (AKA Robin Taylor) via Creative Commons and flickr.

New York Times Online Features Rassak Work

Very nice piece about our work in the New York Times online this week. Advertising columnist Stuart Elliott leads his ¬In Advertising¬ column with a ¬campaign spotlight¬ story on some of our latest efforts.

I met Stuart a long time ago — when I was working hard to (try to) spread the gospel about interactive television for Wink Communications—sometime in the last century.  We reconnected recently through — of all places —- Facebook.

Anyway… here«s Stuart«s story.

Creative Therapy

So-called "creatives"
sit in offices full of action figures and art books and are paid to
chew on pens and think. Sitting in the accounts department at my first
ad agency, staring at my daunting accumulation of invoices and
estimates to be dealt with, I realized how jealous I was of the
pen-chewers.

Procrastination,
envy, and impulse led me to google (is it capitalized it in its verb
form?) any information on how I could become Òa creativeÓ, or just
creative, which led me to blogger Hugh McLeodÕs cynical advice on just
how he thought I could do it.

Laid
out neatly on his often-ad/marketing-focused blog, The Gapingvoid, are
31 tips on being more creative- in advertising, in business, or
whateverÉ

Now
that I find myself in a position to benefit from some of his
suggestions, I looked him back up and chose some my favorites of his
morsels of wisdom to share hereÉ

• The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.
• Put the hours in.
• If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
• You are responsible for your own experience.
• Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
• Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
• The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
• Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
• If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
• Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
• Dying young is overrated. (donÕt do drugs)
• The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
• The world is changing.
• Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
• The choice of media is irrelevant.
• Selling out is harder than it looks.
• Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
• DonÕt worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
• Write from the heart.
• The best way to get approval is not to need it.
• The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

Hugh is well known for his cartoons on the backs of business cards. HereÕs one that goes with this great list.

Like
I said, you can find Hugh and a full list of his tips along with
detailed explanations and cartoons of each of these points at www.gapingvoid.com,
and you really ought to. Even if you arenÕt interested in being more
creative, heÕll make you feel better about pretty much anything youÕve ever felt
sort of bad about.

Cut-to-Black: Sopranos’ Ending or Clinton Communications Strategy?

"Everybody" (yes, I mean everybody in quotes) is talking about the Sopranos cut-to-black ending. In case you (like most Americans, and that’s my point) didn’t see it, here’ are the CliffsNotes: The family (Tony, Carmela and kids)  gather in a diner… they trickle in… Meadow is outside trying/failing to parallel park so is running late … they order …   shifty looking guy is eying them… shifty guy goes to bathroom… walks past family.. cut-to-black! Was Tony shot? Or did the cable cut out? This question generated tremendous buzz for HBO. It also generated many parodies (see YouTube.)

One prominent place you’ll find a parody is in the top, upper left corner of the Hillary Clinton campaign website.

The parody stars the candidate, President Clinton and a cutaway to Chelsea Clinton trying to parallel park. And yes, it cuts to black at the end.

I’m sure this was fun to make, but where are the communications strategists at the Clinton campaign? Where are the people whose job it is to think about the target audience? And what messages will resonate with them?

The Sopranos was brilliant… But here’s a stat to remember. A mere 28 million US households actually receive the network that aired it. It’s a network that takes pride in it’s exclusivity (its east coast liberal elitism, actually). After all, it’s not TV, It’s HBO.

And that’s why I love it (even if I’m a west coast liberal elitist).

But when you’re running for president and you are fighting against the most elite communications pros on the planet—-people who carefully say "car or truck" in their communications because they know that some of the best selling "cars" in the US are trucks—then don’t fuck around making parodies of a show that a teeny sliver of the country actually can see. Especially when you’re enemies are out to paint you as an elitist.

It’s not a game. It’s an election.

Rassak’s (almost) 10 Rules of Viral Engagement

“Viral” or “Social Media” marketing can be a really smart part of a company’s marketing mix — a meaningful way to get people talking about your business and sharing your ideas and messages for you. And that’s very good…  especially when it’s harder and harder to reach customers at all.

Viral marketing might be a (relatively) new buzz world… but it’s an ancient concept. Before the printing press, mass distribution systems and mass media were invented… if an idea or concept wasn’t viral it didn’t exist.

Which leads into rule #1 of Rassak’s (almost) 10 Rules of Engagement.

#1 Start with a good idea! An idea that people will actually think about, sit with, talk about and share. This is the hardest part of all… and the most rewarding. Spend time on this.

#2 Make sure the idea connects a core differentiated aspect of your business with a need and desire of your customer. In traditional advertising this connection is usually more overt than in viral advertising — but great viral advertising ideas don’t lose this connection. It’s more subtle in viral advertising.

#3 Make sure you like the people doing viral marketing for you. And make sure they like you. If you truly click the odds of the marketing clicking with your customer base is higher.

#4 Involve the people doing your viral marketing in your business. Let some “out-there”, non-linear creative/strategy people ask you questions, play with your products, talk to your customers and get a real sense of your personality. Don’t rush this step.

#5 Let ‘em go off and come up with loads of ideas. Some will be crap. Some will be brilliant. Be open. Don’t rush this process either.

#6 Think a bit like a venture capitalist thinks. Invest in the process and the idea generation. Don’t go insane with incredibly expensive production on any one idea — because there is some luck with viral marketing. Don’t put all your eggs in producing just one idea. Save your eggs to try again.

#7 Support your viral marketing with smart paid media. Viral marketing is about percentages. It’s up to your creative and strategy firm to  create marketing that a a high percentage of people who know about it will share… and paid media (done right*) ensures that more people know about it. That means more sharing.

#8 So-called “super-connectors” are only a part of a viral campaign. It’s certainly nice when a very popular blogger like Ze Frank makes you his top link (as he did with a recent campaign we did) because a super-connector like Ze brings a lot of traffic. But the reality is that most people who come in contact with your campaign are simply super-individuals, regular people who aren’t famous but who will share your campaign with one or two of their friends or colleagues…and that’s actually the secret. It’s the silent majority that matters just as much as the Ze’s.

#9 Patience is a virtue. Viral campaigns take time to seed. Sit tight… and watch the analytics software.

#10 That’s it. I said almost 10.

*don’t miss the upcoming blog post on “paid media for viral marketing done right” add our RSS feed to your reader and never miss a post.