Activate Social Audiences On All Media Ecosystems

Friends, I have good news.

I read a PR release from a company named Unified that says it has a new product that can "activate social audiences on all media ecosystems simultaneously." It's a freakin' dream come true.

"Unified's enterprise marketing technology allows global brands and agencies to easily activate social audiences and impact consumer actions on all major social media ecosystems simultaneously."

You know, if there's one thing I love to do, it's activate a social audience. To be honest here, I've unwittingly activated a few anti-social audiences. That's no fun at all. Those people are dangerous.

One more thing. I'm used to activating my social audiences one at a time. Usually over a Ketel One martini, very dry, with an olive. Who'd believe I could activate them simultaneously on all media ecosystems ? It's a doggone miracle.

Not only that, but...

"The SOP is an enterprise-architected multi-tenant environment..."

Now this one's got me a little worried. You see, I grew up in multi-tenant environment in New York City. We called it a project. And I got my ass kicked fairly regularly in my multi-tenant environment.

I don't know if it was enterprise-architected or just architected by, you know, architects. But either way, I'll take a nice uni-tenant environment any day.

Overcooking The Set-Up

My so-called  advertising career has included about 1 billion creative presentations to clients. I have made many of these myself, and have witnessed millions of others.

As a result of sitting through so many of these things, I have developed a hypersensitive allergic reaction to "the set-up."

The set-up -- the front end of the presentation before you get to the work -- is supposed to prepare the client for what is coming by reviewing the assignment and calibrating her expectations.

Instead, what it usually does is annoy the shit out of her by repeating to her all kinds of stuff she originally told you; boring her with planning claptrap that she's heard five times before; reminding her of stuff she hasn't forgotten; and trying to inoculate her against evil thoughts she hasn't yet had.

Most set-ups are way too long and way too full of bullshit. The true purpose of the set-up should be to demonstrate that a) you see the problem from her perspective, and b) you have a sensible strategy that informs the creative work. This can usually be done in under two minutes and under 10 sentences.

Do not stand there holding layouts while you explain your philosophy of life. Do not lecture her on what consumers think or say. Do not let account people or planners confuse the shit out of her or put her to sleep before you even get to the ads.

The set-up should go something like this:

• "The purpose of this advertising is to ____."
• "Our strategy is to _____."
• "What you are going to see today is _____."

Then quit tap-dancing and show her the stuff.

Oh yeah, and once she says yes, sit down and shut up.

Ungratefulness Runs Deep

Dear General Motors,

I hope you are happy with the 50 billion dollars that I and my friends gave you a few years ago.

Are you enjoying it? Do you have nice offices? Have you been out to a few yummy dinners recently? Are your kids nicely dressed?

That's great. I'd hate to see you unhappy or uncomfortable.

Just one thing. I noticed in the newspaper the other day that you had a 3 billion dollar contract for media that you did not give to an American company. Funny that there is not an American company you could use. I always thought we had a pretty good advertising industry here in the USA.

Just a comment here -- it doesn't look good. There are a lot of people who didn't get bailed out by me and my friends in 2008, and they still don't have jobs. It would have been nice if you placed the contract here.

You could have said, "We are very sensitive to the pain of so many Americans during the ongoing recession. We are bringing 3 billion in business back to the US in the hope that this will put some of our deserving fellow citizens back to work." Even if the reality is that much of the 3 billion will be spent elsewhere and the contract would only create one more job, every job is valuable these days. And it would look so much better to the kind, generous people whose money you are currently living on.

People less magnanimous than myself might even say that GM is unwilling to do for us what they asked us to do for them -- a little sacrifice for the good of all. They might consider this a slap in the face by an arrogant, clueless, unappreciative corporation. That would be unfortunate for you.

People will remember how much money we gave you. And we will remember what you did with it. Ungratefulness runs deep.