The Running Superfans campaign tells the story of Karl and Carl Underwood, Running’s #1 Superfans, metaphors for the lengths that Brooks will go to support runners and to champion the running experience. Using a carefully orchestrated mix of traditional and untraditional media to advance and provide depth to the transmedia narrative, the Superfans effort was a huge viral hit for Brooks among runners, the running blogoshere and the running press, with the videos alone amassing more than 3 million views. For a taste, go to runningsuperfans.com.

“We’re from Portland, Oregon and we help good clients build powerful brands.”

Three Simple Principles

1. The most powerful brands are leaders not followers.

This is a difficult thing to do. Challenging the status quo is a mind set. What we have to remember as marketers is that new and novel things make an impression.

2. Emotion, Not more rationality.

Have a take on the world. Neuroscientists tell us that if you want a memory to stick it has to have emotion attached to it.

3. Peer-Peer, NOT Corporation-to-consumer

Humanity is important. Strip away corporate marketing speak. Have a human over the hedge conversational tone

The Great Society motto is: THINK DIFFERENT, ACT DIFFERENT, BE DIFFERENT

Being authentically different and achieving irrational loyalty pays off:

These brands more likely to be profitable

These brands more likely to charge more for products

These brands are harder to compete with

These brands are more likely to grow their category

“The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them and, sometimes, it’s an ad.” Howard Luck Gossage

Great marketing is great storytelling. More and more we are using a transmedia approach to storytelling.

We’re going to share a recent campaign for Brooks as a single case study to illustrate this approach.

Strategic context: Brooks running is a high end running shoe with eight years of continuous growth. Market research revealed that people know of Brooks Running Shoes but they don’t know them well. They have rationality but no emotion. We need love in the equation. Our job is to make people fall in love with Brooks.

Three familiar advertising conventions:

#1 Big Sweat

#2 Big Shoe

#3 Hybrid = Big Shoe + Big Sweat

There has been an enormous sea change in the running category. It is more diverse, democratic and multi-faceted. But this is being ignored.

Brooks has identified the old two-dimensional approach to running as their enemy.

The Brooks Point of View on Running: Run Happy

From                                          To

Runners are Machines           Runners Are People

Pain                                            Pleasure

Chore                                          Reward

Physical                                      Metaphysical

Rational                                     Emotional

Reductive                                  Complex

Performance!                           Experience!

Brooks exists to be a supporter. Championing the Hell out of Running.

RunHappy is a tagline that also guides Brooks’ communication efforts as a metaphor.
In creating a campaign, they set to work on a creative brief. The kernel of the Creative Brief is that runners, unlike many sports don’t have fans, the Great Society team sought to create fans.

They created Carl Underwood, a singular super fan. As the idea evolved, Carl started to feel a little creepy. They began casting for a video and their concerns grew until the Sklar Brothers arrived. They are a comedy duo and they brought an epiphany: having two men is better than one.

All of the GS concepts were given greater dimension and playfulness by casting Carl and Karl for execution.

Examples
YouTube Videos: Nipple Stand Ultramarathon
Website
Blog
Facebook Page
Real World Interactions at Boston Marathon

• Developers of Media for Culture
• A Collaborative Multi-Disciplinary Study
• Always focused on inspiring Wonder

Past Projects

AIGA Design Archives

Challenge: bring to life design archives and empower access.

415 Beach Stories: A project in Santa Monica is the Annenburg community beach house.

Challenge: convey the home’s history in a playful way for visitors to connect to the history.

Infinite Line In a collaborative effort with Adobe, Second Story created a project titled Infinite Line for technology museum.

The team created a digital painting tablet that allowed visitors to participate in groups with each other. They then ported this experience for digital and mobile experiences.

The New York Botanical Gardens: Plant Hunters

Challenge: capture the experience for online visitors.

For this project Second Story worked to create an online immersive experience that allowed visitors to have a virtual scavenger hunt.

National Archives: Docs Teach

Challenge: bridge the gap of working with very old documents Created Docs Teach pull on National Artifacts

MOMA Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century

Challenge: Construct an interactive experience that revealed a narrative

Oregon TimeWeb Long term project funded by the Oregon Historical Society

Challenge: Develop front end for Oregon historical documents digitized all in a database

Developed a website experience with a dynamic timeline with a tagging structure built via folksonomy

Takeaway: One of the ongoing challenges is to create entry points for a diverse audience. This is a common challenge as marketing and communications professionals. Thinking about audience hooks is paramount.

International Quilt Studies Center and Museum

Challenge: create an engaging site for quilters that also represents their vast collection of quilts.

Designed a projected exhibit for the IQSC Quiltmaker’s Gallery: allows visitors to create and share digital quilts in a website gallery.

Vogel 50 x 50 Dorothy and Herb Vogel are an amazing couple A Brooklyn librarian and postal worker have amassed a prestigious collection of contemporary art. They decided to give this art as a gift to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. but the museum didn’t have capacity for all of their works. Dorothy decided to give works to every museum in the country and  share the unified collection on a website. They gave a museum in every state 50 works.

Challenge: telling this phenomenal story

Website allows curators across 50 states access to its Content Management System.

Bank of America Market Data Mirrors

Challenge: Create an installation that visualizes market data in a second floor elevator lobby that is meaningful for traders

Created a display with 3-D renderings of data feeds using a mirrored surface which catches people’s attention.

Kansas City Royals: Design Your Own Ballpark

Challenge: how to create a simple, interactive tool for visitors designing their own ballpark?

Portland Art Museum: Body Collective

Challenge: create tattoo exhibition relevant to Portland Digital installation allowed patrons to share and view tattoos.

History of the Armory Challenge: create a way to tell the story of the Portland Armory, an iconic historical building. Created two apertures with movable peep show.

Takeaway: no matter what it is you are working on focus on the heart of the story.

Being flexible and adaptable is very important. It’s always finding adaptability as you move through. Clients are an ingredient but we are focused on the visitors. Our ability to enlighten clients that this is the appropriate focal point is also necessary.

Jason has been at W + K for over seven years, he was nervous as hell and Jim Riswold did not help matters. The first work Jason ever presented at w + k was promptly stamped with Jim’s STUPID marker.

Breaking down the F.R.I.E.N.D. strategy

Frighten them

Reassure them. Scared people look for leadership

Invent things out of thin air that sound smart

Even if someone makes fun of you…

Never forget the acronym F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Don’t make up last minute acronyms

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like Set-UP

A set with Isaiah Mustafa in his towel and shower, a team of Jason and three other writers took turns directing. Nothing was pre-written. Nothing was promoted in advance. Their prop table included money, a fake monocle, fake fish and other artifacts that they suspected would come in handy.

Their process was completely collaborative. One writer would write jokes, the others would review, delete some, build on others.

This advertising effort was more similar to a stage performance than advertising. As the responses came in it was completely exhilarating.

In 2.5 days there were 185 commercials produced. Early on, while they were still writing scripts they were already reading press coverage on the Huffington Post and fielding calls from the Today Show.

Day 1: 5.9 million YouTube views

Day 2: 8 out of the top 11 YouTube videos

Day 3: 20 million views and beyond…the stats keep coming. This level of success was not anticipated however the YouTube response videos were believed to be a great idea.

What Made This Possible?

Two traditional TV commercials with a large media buy made this possible.

The lesson here: Great traditional advertising is interactive. And great interactive advertising is traditional. There were already a number of response videos  to the the television spots. This became interactive because people loved the spots so much. Whether you do traditional or interactive it just has to be great.

The Work Comes First

The future is an integrated future. Whatever mass forms of entertainment we have, whatever the vehicle, there will be collective entertainment sources. There will never be a day when we don’t relish shared cultural experiences such as Lost. The Future Is Everything. Embrace It.

Two years ago Wieden + Kennedy was not on the map for digital. They were known as a great ad agency. Around this time, Dan Wieden made the announcement that w + k WOULD be one of the top digital agencies in the world. They were one of the most awarded agencies at Cannes this year. They are now viewed more and more as a digital agency. How did they make the transition?

The process is the same: the Work Comes First. It’s all about a great idea. The way to judge the work is essentially the same. Great conceptual, traditional creatives only need the desire to become great Interactive creatives. It’s not any harder.

How We Do It (?)

This is a very incomplete list:

1. Determine your strategy and message –The Man began with Manly Body Wash campaign that talked to Women buying lady scented body wash

Hire some nerds. Digital Strategist Dean McBeth aka Robot is amazing, he knows everything or can find it on his computer immediately. He is completely attuned to the Old Spice community. Josh Milrod is another Digital Strategist and interactive producer Ann-Marie Harbour got a custom made application that filtered comments and allowed the Old Spice team to be extremely responsive. The digital team was combing the comments, pulling out the key influencers and moving them to the top of the queue then seeding them to the web.

At w+k their integrated teams include interactive creative director, communication manager, strategic planner, digital strategist, creative director, account director, media director

2. The smaller your budgets, the better your ideas have to be–Example www.residueisevil.com

-You must also leverage free media– Example giving nods to 4chan and other influencers in the guise of anonymous contributors, perez hilton, etc; Dante’s Inferno campaign box came with a hammer and a loud speaker rickrolled them. They had to break through two layers of wood, plastic, to smash the box to find the note that condemned them to a circle of wrath. These were sent to key gaming influencers.

-Leverage controversy and do something newsworthy–Example Mass: We Pray the Video Game a stunt for Dante’s Inferno.

3. Take advantage of existing digital behavior-don’t try to change it. Asking people to change their behavior almost never works. Example: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like was garnering many comments. w + k noticed this and prepared for the social media response videos

4. Keep the conversation going. Example: Alyssa Milano response videos.

5. Be Nimble. Example: Old Spice Tweets are turned around very quickly

6. Experiment. Example: Fail Harder motto embraced by w + k

.

7. Stay Foolish

Final thoughts: The Future is Canceled. Actually…

Big brands need integrated branding more than they ever have in history. Every Old Spice touchpoint is handled by w + k. The voice is consistent everywhere. It all feels like the quirky Old Spice voice.

Only the agencies that can truly involve all forms of media are the ones that will survive.

How does an old-school brand in a low-involvement category approach new media opportunities? How are the marketers at WD-40 Company changing their approach and reshaping their communication tactics by relinquishing control?

From a fear of YouTube to a brave new brand, WD-40 Company has made major strides in the digital space in partnership with their agency, Geary Interactive. Come learn how business needs translate to Internet strategies, momentum and a whole new world of customer activation. Come also learn the secrets of a productive and energizing relationship between an iconic brand and their agency, including tips, tricks and some dirty laundry.

****

Background

WD 40 the product is in 8 out of 10 households in the U.S. WD-40 the company has a brand portfolio that includes Blue Works, 2000 flushes, Carpet Fresh, Spot Shot.

Paige Perdue has been with the company for 14 years and was recently named the Director of Digital Marketing at WD-40. Three years ago Paige was asked to revamp the website and enlisted the help of Sarah Kotlova (VP of Strategy & Client Services) at Geary Interactive.

Their job requires them to make many people happy.

Their key audiences are customers and end users. They must also satisfy the Brand Managers, Agency Partners and Sales Force. Ultimately, they are focused on prioritizing the end user.

Web marketing goals

• create a valuable portfolio of products with unique personality and positioning.
• service multiple audiences through relevant content
• bring products top of mind
• cross-promote and sell products
• support global infrastructure
• support and expand in-store and other media efforts

Approach

• The digital case requires constant conversation, measurement and evaluation.
• Research reflects online interest in researching products and searching for bargains
• Understanding consumer behavioral hooks and influencers is critical as is meeting customers where they are online
• Balancing brand values with consumer interest

Work

Creation of portfolio web properties supporting brand-specific personalities

Enhanced site architecture for transitions between brand and persona groups

Website

• Persona development: content is crafted for unique personas who engage with WD-40 company and its brands.
• Cross Promotion: Brand-specific websites feature a similar structure, but prominently feature each bran.
• Calls To Action: Emphasis was placed on call-to-actions, so consumers and retailers alike can turn to the web properties for promotional and product information.

Traffic has surged on the www.wd40.com site.

Inclusion of Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) downloads which used to be handled on an individual basis is a popular feature saving resources.

Reviewing failed search terms to assist consumers has helped them refine their strategy.

A site was also created for the company www.wd40company.com to address corporate questions.

Promotions & Sweepstakes

2000 Flushes-Best Seat In The House

The toilets in the U.S. are flushed more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year. Yes, even more than Thanksgiving. This stat informed this campaign aimed at women. Sweepstakes results showed a 944% increase in same day traffic. There were 235,000 contest submissions. This promotion also helps the brand sell-in with retailers.

For the 2000 Flushes program, Geary promotes an annual sweeptstakes that opts subscribers into email from wd40 Brand

Results: 65% CTR 21%open rate

Social Media

With 100k Fan Club members offline and a history of support and fun, WD-40 was well poised to embrace social media.

WD-40 began under the radar with ‘The Last Straw Tour’ starting a Ning community during this campaign which later reached 10,000 members. Brandweek covered this campaign.

Sarah attributes their success to the brand’s honest and authentic approach.

Goals

• Gain targeted awareness & affinity
• involve users in brands and culture
• original and personal content
• increase outreach activity
• Offer most valuable consumers access to social capital

They began by listening and learning setting up monitoring services

They planned their contribution creating a conversation calendar

Their social media foundation was also informed by WOM Code of Ethics, Guidelines for Participation (using some of IBM’s Best Practices), Training and use the United States Air Force Base Assessment Tool

They then launched Twitter, Facebook and Online Fan Club Web Site

Twitter Page tactics include: daily topical tweets, retweeting relevant content that connects with audience interests

Facebook Page tactics include engagement tools

WD40 Fan Club online membership is still being built. This serves as a testing ground for some of their social media topical areas.

Can Hand video campaign

Success for WD40 is defined as

• Engaged Fans
• Active community members
• Increasing Share of Voice

Examples:

10k+ Facebook friends (average 150+/week)

Average 11.8 interactions per post

Since participation in Social Media, WD40 brand mentions online have increased 72% in 12 months

Average 175-250/day

10x nearest MPL competitor

Journey

Theirs includes wins and fails. Paige has to champion her role within the organization and is always cognizant that these are all unfunded mandates.

Lessons learned:

• Phase your projects
• Watch expecatations ( and adjust when needed)
• Be your own PR
• Listen
• Be agile and flexible
• Never stop learning

Finally…

• be patient
• share/borrow best practices
• pimp yourself
• surrender
• remember the journey never ends
• enjoy the ride!

More about the agency: Wexley School For Girls are no strangers to doing whatever it takes to create fans and money for their clients. Agency capabilities run the gamut including design, packaging, video games, pr-generating ideas, branded entertainment, short films and events. ESPN, Microsoft, Seattle Sounders and Nike are a few of the clients who have benefited from their innovative, multi(un)disciplinary ways.

Wexley history of advertising: It began with smoke signals. People took to the streets > Newspaper > Magazines > Radio  > Television > Internet > Mobile and so it evolves. At Wexley it doesn’t matter what comes next, it’s about ideas that advertise, not advertising ideas.

A little more background: Cal and Ian left bigger agencies and begat Wexley without clients but trusting their focus on ideas would work. Fast forward a few years. Wexley is now 25 people strong with core capabilities in planning, strategy, creative, and production.

Creating a short film  for Nike was a golden ticket to other places for Wexley. This led to work for T-Mobile.

Working with Microsoft began a few years back. Getting listed as an Agency of Record took some time. They reached a milestone when they were finally added to the shipping & receiving list.  They are now the Agency of Record for a few Microsoft internal marketing efforts including their annual conference, the pushpin project and college recruitment.

Copper Mountain Resorts was the first client who approached Wexley asking for an non-traditional idea. Wexley created a movement for a national snow day, seeded the movement using youtube, created a website nationalsnowday.com, where thousands of people signed up to support the cause. Creation of a swingers pass helped Copper Mtn. achieve their desired goal of bringing tourists to destination sites. Twitter campaigns have also targeted their Texan audience with contextual messages.

Seattle Sounders brought Wexley the task of igniting a fan base for a new Major League Soccer team. Wexley created a green scarf that served as a team icon. It later became the ticket to the first Sounders soccer match. Seattle is still breaking MLS attendance records. With over 100k fans, the Seattle Sounders Facebook page is also setting a high standard for professional teams.

Their creative successes come when they are given freedom to focus on ideas informed by their target’s behavior.

Three Wexley considerations:

• Everything is Advertising
• Everyone is exhausted including your clients (busy is how it’s going to be)
• Everything is measurable (keep this mind while developing creative)

More Wexley Words of Wisdom:

First, solve the problem.

Brands, Clients and Campaigns must Live in Authenticity. (Cal points out that this works in relationships too!)

Everything is an Opportunity. Ensuring that every brand interaction counts is exhausting but worth it.

Q + A

What is the agency process?

Ian: An early focus on the client, their goals and their budget is important.

Cal: We started out more like a production company. 92% of business is repeat business. Being truthful + upfront about budget and its ability to accomplish the clients goals is key.

Q: How do you ensure compensation for your wild successes?

Ian: Well we win new business, like the Seahawks (Vulcan)

Cal: Why try different payment/compensation models. We do our best to get paid fair for the work. When it explodes we use those results to get new business. We also have colossal failures. Not too many of them. But it happens.

Q: How did you first get Seattle fans involved in Sounders efforts?

Ian: Engaging the bloggers and fans that were most active and enthused about the Sounders.

Q: What do you have in-house?

Cal: We have a small core staff but with almost every project, we tend to try and find people externally who are excellent producers.

Ian: We’re looking for SEO.

Q: How did you come up with your name?

*Video explains that they are named after an English nunnery devoted to farming cantaloupes.

Further explanation reveals that the name is the result of dumb luck and the phone book.

KEYNOTE:  The Best of Both Worlds – Goodby’s Transformation to an Integrated Agency
Long known as a creative and strategic powerhouse for culture-penetrating TV and print work, Goodby called on Mike to reinvent itself as a potent force for the digital age. In short order, it was named Interactive Agency of the Year at Cannes in 2009 and ultimately was honored as Adweek’s Agency of the Decade.

Off we go.

Mike gives us his bio rundown: Born in Munich –> BA + MBA –> Digital Production –> Goodby, Silverstein & Partners!

Goodby has grown to 850 people, including 150 recruited for Detroit. p.s. there are still jobs

After 2 years into Mike’s Goodby gig, they were named  2004 Interactive Agency of the Year at the One Show.

Early work for hp, Specialized and other clients got the digital reel. But there was room for more. better.

Gladwell encapsulates the agency dilemma: would you rather be interesting or right?

Goodby’s #1 objective: Be Relevant

In order to keep pace with a changing landscape, Goodby proceeded with an External Audit.

Their learning: Goodby perceived as the shop that

“makes the best hires”

“makes good reals”

“best at consumer insight”

“best at strategic planning”

However external perceptions of the agency revealed that they were associated with the old world but not the new world.

They hired a PR agency.

Goodby developed an efficiency formula to overcome their previous “We Work Dumb” approach.

The Creative Department evolved to reflect the growth of interactive. Increasing the flexibility in their creative resources was their goal. This included a mix of hiring generalists and specialists. Instead of recycling creative resources from other agencies they began hiring from a variety of cultures. Think streetartists, hip-hop performers and geek squad alumni.

Today’s teams include players from two distinct creative camps: traditional and interactive.

Account and Media Planning also changed. The Strategist Department includes Brand Strategist and Media Strategist pairings (including the brilliant Gareth Kay!)

Goodby is now at 60 Digital Producers.

Producers are the key role and the qualities Mike looks for include: cultural fit, good project manager, technologist, creative & innovative, thirst for knowledge & experience

Goodby Digital Production Team work as educators spreading digital knowledge throughout the agency including: 5 x 5 x 5 sessions, Innovations Blog, 101s, Online Tutorials

Digital Production Models

• In-house Production (agency example: RGA/AKQA)
• In-house & External Production (agency example: Crispin)
• External / Partnerships (agency example: Goodby) Everything done in house except for production

Benefits of Model:

• Scalability
• Using Best In Class
• Easy Adjustment to digital landscape
• Fixed Budget – no markup

Got Milk? Website process included a very tight timeline (2-3 weeks). Their Swedish production team built a real model of Milkatraz in one week. It  was implemented on the site. The results? Awesome. Aside: Got Milk production costs were less than 300k.

While Goodby’s new approach took time to take effect, they had their best year yet in 2009! Cue kickass agency reel: Sprint integrated campaign, Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast Campaign, Doritos (AR campaign ), NBA, Got Milk, Hyundai Assurance Campaign (return program), HP Printing Payback Guarantee, eBay celebrity hosts, Comcast Town (TV, Website) and it goes on. 2009 New Business Wins included: Dickies, Frito’s, Lipton, Yahoo, eBay and more.

An award-winning diverse digital portfolio is another positive outcome of Goodby’s changed process.

The FUTURE?

Geiger predicts industry convergence and a looming turf war that has implications for talent retention, organic growth and new buisness.

Top 4 important elements for an ad agency

1. Understand market
2. Creative
3. Understand Company Direction
4. Strategy and thinking

Top 4 important elements for a digital agency

1. ROI
2. Analyses of Web behavior
3. Search
4. CRM

There’s a need for fluency from “the work” to how the work works; from the “what” to the” why”.

Finally, agencies of the future will look different from agencies of today.

Your follow-up questions may be directed to Mike via email: mike_geiger@gspsf.com, twitter: @tastytruth or at his blog: tastytruth.com

Your Bend WebCAM participation is encouraged. Please use the hashtag #bwc10 to share and follow in social spaces. Check out our twitter stream @bndwebcam, Facebook Fan page and be sure to tag your photos with the #bwc10.

About the blogger: Cassondra Schindler lives in Bend, Oregon and considers herself a community instigator.

Central Oregon boasts an impressive network of creative talent that has been recognized globally as having merit comparable to that of a much larger metropolitan area. We saw the AdFed website as an opportunity to showcase that talent while providing an easily navigated hub for creative resources.

Websites are increasingly the first interaction a potential new member or customer has with a company or organization. Grand assumptions about service and quality are made based on the design and ease of navigation throughout the site. If it’s a painful experience online, the visitor forms a subconscious impression that your service or product quality is equally lacking.

The crisp, clean, editorial approach to the new AdFed website delivers on the true value that AdFed of Central Oregon provides its members. It is professional, credible, and a worthwhile investment of time and membership dollars.

Thanks, AdFed for the opportunity to design the new website and for your on-going commitment to the advertising community!

Cheryl McIntosh
Principal + Brand Strategist
Studio Absolute
www.studioabsolute.com

Welcome!

- AdFedCO web team