Creative Music Video-ing

My friend Joey Ryan and his band, the Inks, have decided to record and upload a new video of them playing their songs at various, cool locations every week. Simple, creative and (I'm assuming) pretty cheap, this first video definitely shows a fun side of the band and their ability to make great music without the need for stages, amps and sound systems.

Love what they did here and I'm definitely looking forward to the next one.




P.S. - This first video took place in the North Tower of the historical Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.

Know Your Audience

I originally wrote this post for my work blog at ADwërks. Wanted to share it on here as well.

Yesterday, the graphically-talented Mike Hay and I were brainstorming and concepting for a client’s magazine ad we needed to create.

We spent about five minutes discussing cool ad concepts, fun design possibilities and creative, punchy copy that would stand out from the rest of the ads.

And then we came to a realization. We were creating an ad in a style we would like to see in a magazine. Unfortunately, we were not the magazine’s target audience. Once we realized that, our entire creative process shifted and we came up with an ad that was much more fitting for what we – and more importantly, what the client – wanted to accomplish.

As marketers, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking about what we do or don’t like to see. We watch commercials that annoy us and we vow never to make a commercial like those. We see billboards that appall us and we promise ourselves we’ll never make a billboard like that.

In short, we think of how we want to be marketed to rather than how the target audience should be marketed to.

Remember: As advertisers, we are not marketing to each other. We get paid to help our clients reach the customers that love (or will love) our clients’ products and services.

Personal opinions and viewpoints are essential to coming up with new and exciting ways to reach a target audience – just make sure you really are trying to reach the target audience and not your fellow marketers.

-Mike B.

How about you? Ever created the “perfect” ad only to discover it really wasn’t “perfect” for the intended audience? Can you think of any national campaign efforts that failed miserably at reaching the target market? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Photo ("our chunk of audience at the heretic") c/o Jhayne. Thanks!

My Brother, The Rapper

Sometimes you spend your whole life unintentionally influencing your little brother. Eventually you realize that he often likes the video games you like, he often likes the humor you like, he often likes the TV shows and movies you like...

And sometimes he even likes the music you like.

I'm not saying I helped create the legend that will someday be K. Billz...but I'm not saying I didn't either. Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I give you...

"Nugget Tuesday"

Why Sherlock Holmes Would Have Been A Great Marketer

This post originally appeared on my work blog at ADwërks, but I wanted to post it on here as well. Enjoy!

I watched Sherlock Holmes this past weekend and it led me to an eye-opening realization about marketing and advertising.For those of you who don’t know who Sherlock Holmes is, here’s Wikipedia to the rescue. Basically, he’s one of the world’s most widely recognized fictional detectives, he’s eccentric but brilliant, and he uses sound logic and deductive reasoning to solve seemingly-impossible to solve cases.

In the movie, they base Holmes’s ability to solve a case on the various “clues” he sees that most people would never notice. He recognizes a woman was previously engaged due to the small tan line around her finger. He deduces that a certain individual is a professor based on some chalk remnants near his collar.

The important thing to remember is this: NONE of the clues he finds are hidden. They certainly aren’t noticeable to the casual observer, but they aren’t hidden or invisible. The difference between Sherlock Holmes and the casual observer is that Holmes is always looking for clues.

So, as a marketer, are you Sherlock Holmes for your clients, or are you just a casual observer?

• A casually observing marketer runs a billboard for a client’s new product or service because “that’s just what we’ve always done.”
• A Sherlock Holmes marketer gathers clues by conducting marketing research which can lead to better, more informed decisions for the marketing campaign.

• A casually observing marketer simply reviews his or her client’s website analytics and sends a weekly report on Friday afternoon.
• A Sherlock Holmes marketer labors over each facet of a website’s analytics in order to best determine areas of improvement that could make the site even stronger.

• A casually observing marketer tells a client to “get on Twitter” so the client can send links to its website and keep its followers up to date on sales and promotions.
• A Sherlock Holmes marketer uses logic to help the client determine if social networking is the right path to take. Then the Sherlock Holmes marketer deduces how a client can best connect with customers to strengthen relationships, establish brand loyalty and inspire movements.

These are just a few examples of how digging a little deeper for your clients can produce great work and, more importantly, build a stronger relationship with your clients and their customers. Remember, the only way you can pick up on clues that will help you improve your work is by always looking for clues that will help you improve your work.

It truly is elementary, my dear Watson.

-Mike B.

Do you do work with the careful eye of Sherlock Holmes? Do you have any examples to share of a time when you went from casually observing to digging for clues and finding success like Sherlock Holmes? Do you think Robert Downey Jr. was as awesome in Sherlock Holmes as he was in Iron Man? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Photo ("Sherlock Holmes Statue") c/o shining.darkness. Thanks!

On Engagements

After not-quite-five months of dating Lindsie Page, I decided I needed to marry her.

The truth is that, after not-quite-two months of dating Lindsie Page, I was pretty sure I was going to marry her. So waiting three more months was tough. Worthwhile and wonderful, but tough.

So this past Sunday, I did what any disgustingly-in-love man would do in my situation: I proposed to this lindsie girl (she prefers her name in lower-case, by the way). The proposal involved a love poem/letter, a walk through a gorgeous park, that love poem/letter hidden on a bridge (lindsie’s favorite), a beautiful sapphire and diamond ring and a tear-filled head nod of “Yes” in response to a very important question.

It was perfect.

Now the beautiful @lindsielynette and I have basically 3 months to plan and flawlessly execute a fun, exciting, and unique wedding. No problem, right?

Well, we’ll be grinding away on it (and enjoying each other’s company throughout the process), but it will be hard and it will be time consuming. And it will be completely, completely worth it.

Now, as a writer and as a blogger, I should be writing this in-depth, poetic description of my feelings and emotions as the leaves of my life change color yet again (kind of like I referred to in my last post). But I’m going to save that for later. For now I’ve got a wedding to help plan and a woman to be in love with while I help plan it.

I’ll be back with more soon, so for now I would just ask that you say some prayers that we are able to pull this wedding off in a way that fulfills both lindsie’s and my hopes and dreams. I have plenty of faith that God will get us there exactly how he wants to, but a prayer or two from you guys probably wouldn’t hurt.

Thanks for everyone who has congratulated me so far and I look forward to updating you all as we go. For now, happy Monday, and I hope you all have a great week.

-Mike

Changing Times

I thought about starting this post with a super cheesy intro. Something along the lines of “As the seasons change, so changes life…”

Then I realized that was dumb, so I decided to just write the post instead.

Recently, my life has changed. I have left my former place of employment (Deep Bench) and have taken on a role at a different Sioux Falls marketing and advertising shop called ADwërks. My Deep Bench departure is on completely amicable terms and there’s no bad blood or anything, but I needed a change and ADwërks came to the rescue.

I’m excited for what I will be doing here, which is continuing on my path of writing (traditional copy, web copy, blog posts, notes that I think are funny but the rest of the office probably finds idiotic, etc.), social media and content strategy, and perhaps even a little bit of account coordinating while I’m at it. Although the work is temporary as of now, I think it will be a great test for me to see if I really know what I’m doing in this wonderful industry we call marketing.

Lately, between my relationship with my girlfriend and some rediscovery (or maybe just regular discovery) of my faith, I’ve really felt more compelled than ever to treat every day as a gift from God and an opportunity to work hard and show that I have some value to offer this world.

Where it goes from here is still uncertain, but the feeling I have right now certainly feels right. With my feet back on solid ground again (for now), I intend to get myself refocused in lots of areas. One of them will be in writing consistently. It’s possible I will be publishing a book of poetry/short stories, which should be extremely exciting. And if it doesn’t happen, I’ll keep writing anyway and probably try to share more of it here on the blog. I hope you are looking forward to it as much as I am.

Hope you are all are doing well, and I’ll be back with more soon.

Expecting Seuss...

I’m not going to lie. I was really excited when I heard it was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. I was all ready to head over to Google and see what Seussian shenanigans they used to incorporate the Cat in the Hat and Cindy Lou Who into the Google logo (I mean, Cindy Lou Who Goo…gle. It’s too perfect…).

So imagine my excitement when, upon my arrival, I saw this:




Oh wait. Did I say “my excitement” up there? I meant to say my disappointment.

I guess the question is this: Is my expectation that Google will celebrate fun birthdays and holidays with clever logo designs merited? Is it fair that what once started as a fun (and usually rare) switch for Google has now become an expectation in my mind?

That’s pretty much all I want to know from you. I’m interested in the concept of something going from a pleasant surprise to an expectation that leads to letdowns.

It’s nice when you give your significant other backrubs. But when you give them every night and then decide to stop, is it fair for your significant other to be let down by the change? If your boss is nice enough to let you leave work every Friday at 4:00 instead of 5:00 and you come to expect that, is it fair to be upset when he asks you to stay until 5:00 a few months down the road?

When does a bonus become an expectation? Is there a solution for avoiding this scenario besides “don’t do something enough to let it become an expectation?”

I think it’s an interesting question. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments. Or, if you’d prefer it, tell me your favorite Dr. Seuss story instead. Both or either is fine with me. I’ll make sure not to “expect” anything either way.