I recently attended the PIMA 2012 Annual Meeting at The Hammock Beach Resort in Palm Coast, FL. Watch the video below to hear what I learned.

Email me at jfecher@skmgroup.com to learn more about Insurance Marketing.

There are so many celebrities – how do you narrow it down and find the right talent for your brand?  We’ve worked with celebrities ranging from “Mr. Hockey,” Gordie Howe, to Troy Aikman and Terrell Owens. We recently explored hiring a national celebrity for one of our clients.

Here’s the answer – follow the process. You must first start by committing to the decision to hire a celebrity/talent.  Then work with your agency and a talent procurement company to find the right talent.

The talent procurement company’s job is to help find the ‘right’ talent that is going to match your brand, identify with your target audience and help your sales grow.  They represent you and your brand, not talent, and seek out the best talent for your strategy through all Hollywood representatives (agents, managers, publicists, business managers, lawyers, etc).  Because they do not represent talent themselves, they are not biased and always look to procure the best talent regardless of whom their representation is, again, always ensuring your brand’s best interest.  These companies have strong relationships with the celebrity community and significant experience in orchestrating a celebrity deal from initiation to execution.  What hurts their business is not having firm offers of intent from brands to ultimately use a celebrity.  So, many of these companies won’t even talk to you unless you sign a contract committing to their services.

As part of their process, they first start with gaining a thorough understanding of your business.  Your agency can provide much of this information.  Then, they initiate a casting. This allows them not only to put the “idea” out to potential celebrities, but also provides input on talent interest, availability, their projects to potentially collaborate with, conflicts with related brands, budget feasibility, issues working with certain talent, etc.  The research the talent procurement company provides is invaluable.

From the casting, a list of viable celebrity options is gathered and provided to the brand.  This list includes talent who are within the budget, are available, not exclusive within the category, and have an interest in working with your company. And, more times than not, there are talent on the list that you would never have thought of on your own.  The talent will match your brand and resonate with your target audience.  The brand decides on whom to make an official offer from this list.  It is then that the talent procurement company negotiates the services and fees with the interested celebrity’s representative and upon an agreed deal, they will provide the brand with a standard celebrity contract to tailor and put in front of the talent.  The procurement company assists the brand’s legal in negotiating the contract with the talent and is onsite at the shoot, event, media day, etc. to ensure everything runs smoothly and all contractual obligations are fulfilled.

If you follow the process, the likelihood for success in finding the right talent to boost your sales is much greater, and the road to get there will be that much more efficient and seamless.

If you have any questions, please contact Micky Farber at 716-989-3222.

I’m always looking for ways to grow, and I often look to our Chief Creative Officer Mike Mathis for advice. Even though I get plenty of specific advice on developing campaigns, I’m always open to insights gained by listening to someone’s personal views. So I stopped by his office to ask a few questions. He was kicked-back in his signature “Creative Pose,” feet up on his desk, relaxed and ready to reveal his secrets.

LC: How did you get your start in this business?

MM: I degreed in Television and wanted to work in TV news, but it’s a tough business for beginners to get into. I was living in downtown Milwaukee at the time. One afternoon I was watching TV and noticed how terrible the commercials were. And it hit me: people got paid to write those commercials. I could do better. Looking out my living room window, I could see the tallest building in Milwaukee a few blocks away (U.S. Bank). I contacted the marketing director and asked if they needed a copywriter. They did. I was hired even though I hadn’t taken a single advertising course in college. I literally went to the library and studied for days to teach myself how to write copy. Two years later an ad agency contacted me saying they’d heard good things about me. I joined them as an associate creative director and worked with agencies ever since.

LC: What is it about agency life that you enjoy?

MM: Communicating. I love figuring out who we’re talking to, what we want to say, and expressing that in an effective way. The first creative director I worked for said, “Our job is to get people’s heads nodding up and down” (meaning, “Cool, I get it”). When you do that, people respond. And that makes communication complete. It’s a two-way street. With such a huge amount of advertising hitting us every day, it’s essential to craft your communications in an interesting, engaging way. That adds a whole new layer of fun and creativity to the process.

LC: Who inspires you to create?

MM: My audience. Period. Communication is a gift you give to them. You’re offering helpful information; you’re sharing positive emotions.

LC: Name one of your favorite projects while at SKM.

MM: I’ve always loved television. I’ve filmed babies that were literally four hours old. Dropped a new Jeep into a shopping basket in a grocery store. Shot in San Francisco for a week. Made snow fall on a postcard-perfect house (indoors on a soundstage in New York in the middle of August). That doesn’t mean any other project or medium is less important or interesting. It just means TV is always fun for me, so it’s a personal favorite. It’s the most powerful medium available because it has all the elements to work with – the closest thing to being there in person.

LC: What do you like to do for fun in your free time?

MM: Love motorcycling. I love to write for funsies. A few years ago I finished a novel called “The Median Man.” Signed with an agent in Beverly Hills and he pitched it to the biggest publishing houses in Manhattan. Lots of rave rejections but no sale – I kept hearing, “It doesn’t fit our standard genres.” The book is about a simple guy from Indiana who mows highway medians for a living. He’s chosen by a Chicago ad agency using supercomputers as the most statistically average man in America. The agency figures he’s the ideal guy to sell products for them. The hero (named Joe, of course; the average Joe) is reluctant at first, but his aw-shucks nature and good sense of humor make him a big hit. He travels the country, gets into trouble, and realizes like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” that “there’s no place like home.” Several publishing execs said, “We’re not going to buy this, but this man can write. Please send us his next work.” That inspired me to write a sequel. It’s about a woman who loses the ability to sleep, has about a month to live, and takes off on a cross-country journey to visit the home of her childhood hero. The title is “Going to Graceland.” Fiction writing involves really intense preparation because it’s no simple task to organize 333-pages and keep plots, subplots, themes, storylines and character arcs straight. You have to engage and delight your reader from start to finish (like advertising). But it’s also 100% creative because once you’re organized and start tapping the keyboard, the feeling is free-form, open-water, jam like a jazz band, go anywhere you want to go. If you’re a creative person, that’s going to light you up.

LC: Whom do you admire most both professionally? Personally?

MM: Does it count if he died 175 years ago? Professionally, Beethoven has always fascinated me. He wasn’t a prodigy like Mozart. He was from humble origins and worked like a dog to achieve what he did. He was incredibly passionate about his craft. I’ve never heard anyone capture the emotions of life like Beethoven. The beauty of nature. The sadness of war. The triumph of right. The joy of brotherhood. Not sure I’ve ever watched a performance of the 4^th movement of his 9^th Symphony (with 200 singers on stage) without tears in my eyes or my mouth open in awe at some point. The craftsmanship and emotion of the music are nearly as dazzling as witnessing a live birth (and I’ve seen 3). My soul can be found in that movement. Beethoven was also a one-of-a-kind character who didn’t take crap from anybody. He earned his place and knew his value. Proper dress? Politically correct? Perfect piano technique? Mere annoyances. Beethoven was always sharply focused on the integrity of your motivation and character. In Beethoven’s day, musicians were servants; to play in palaces for aristocrats, they had to go around to the back entrance. Beethoven literally banged on the front door and said, “If you want to hear me play, I’m coming in this way.” They always let him in. One day he was scolded by a soldier in the entourage of the Crown Prince – it was expected that you bowed your head when passing the future King. Beethoven responded by saying, “Prince?! What you are, you are by accident of birth. There have been thousands of Princes and there will be thousands more. Generations will come and go, but there is only one Beethoven.” Love it. Personally, I admire my Mom, hands down. She wakes up cracking jokes and doesn’t stop until she sleeps. Always thinking of others, always has a kind word, a smile, a good insight about life and people. At the age of 19, I asked her, “What’s the secret of life?” She replied, “Faith and a positive attitude.” It’s worked well for her.

LC: What’s your favorite movie and why?

MM: I don’t have a single clear favorite. A favorite to me would be a movie that comes on TV and I immediately drop what I’m doing to watch, even if I’ve seen it a dozen times before. A few that come to mind are “Kill Bill 2”, “Goodfellas”, “Oh, Brother, Where Are Thou?” Guy-oriented movies made by great directors.

LC: Name one challenge you’ve had to overcome professionally.

MM: Never worked for an agency in Manhattan even though I never doubted I had the talent and dedication to do very well. It just never felt like the right place to raise my kids. So the challenge would be regret, but that’s easy enough to deal with. You accept it and move on.

LC: If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Jesus. Beethoven would be second.

I tried to like this year’s crop of Super Bowl commercials. I really did. I kept waiting and hoping for the spot that would light me up, knock me back two steps, make me say, “Holy cow, did you see THAT?!” A spot like last year’s Darth Vader kid for Volkswagen. Or the Bud Light commercial where the pilot jumps out of a plane chasing a six-pack. Or the Doritos spot where a man holds a crystal ball and predicts free Doritos for everyone in the office – then hurls it into the vending machine. Even a great new Career Builder monkey spot or an eTrade baby would have sufficed. In previous years, I’d seek these spots out online the next morning and watch them again and again, studying every word and cut and note and nuance.

But a spot like that never aired this year. The monkeys and the baby were back, but they just weren’t funny. Jerry Seinfeld and Matthew Broderick showed up at the party looking old. Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” was nothing more than a warmed-over version of Hal Riney’s brilliant “Morning in America” commercials for Ronald Reagan (what’s next? “It’s Dinnertime in America”?) In the end, Doritos won the #1 ranking according to USA TODAY with a commercial that probably wouldn’t have cracked the top 5 in previous years. So where did the magic go? Why have so many critics – both amateur and professional – summarized this year’s Super Bowl commercials as mediocre at best?

I think I know the answer. They forgot the most important word in advertising: you. As John Caples wrote nearly a century ago, “When you create an ad, you must write it for one person. Imagine that person receiving it and reading it” (or viewing it, since John wrote long before TV existed). The Julliard School of Music has a beautiful expression of this thought for their music students: “When you play for everyone, you touch no one. When you play for one, you touch everyone.” It sure looked to this viewer like the Super Bowl commercials were playing to everyone. “Wheee! Look at me, I’m a Super Bowl spot!” It’s easy to imagine the conversations in boardrooms from Manhattan to Los Angeles when the final cuts were previewed for top execs. I’d bet there were a lot of questions like, “How will this compare to the rest of the Super Bowl commercials? How will we rank?” and very few queries about, “Will this really connect and engage the viewer? Is it written for them (not us)?”

Good communication is a two-way street. There’s a sender and receiver. When the receiver gets the message and responds, the loop is complete. You’re communicating. But when the sender simply struts and crows and preens for attention, completely oblivious to what the receiver feels or thinks, that’s a one-way street. There’s no connection, no involvement. It’s no wonder why Dorito’s “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, which features homemade/no or low budget spots made by amateurs, consistently rank among the most highly rated commercials. These spots spend every second trying to connect with the viewer: they make you understand, they make you laugh, they delight you – or they die, eliminated from competition. I can only hope that future Super Bowl advertisers will shift their focus from themselves to the viewers. The result will be commercials that are far more enjoyable and engaging. But hey, at least the game rocked.

Logo design can be one of the most challenging tasks for a designer. When a logo is created it has the potential to be the single constant identifier of the company it is associated with. Marketing campaigns, themes and product identities can change but the corporate logo will remain the same for years. You can’t think of Nike without the swoosh or McDonald’s without the golden arches.

How do you create a visual representation of a company or product? This is not an easy task and can range from being as simple as the initials of the company name in stylized way, to an abstract way that represents the company or what they do. Sometimes the client will want very specific things represented. For example I recently worked on an orthopedics logo. The client wanted the orthopedic medical symbol of a bent tree tied to a straight post, a buffalo, and something that represented motion. After many different ideas, the final logo was an orthopedic tree with the leaves making the shape of a charging buffalo.

In a less elaborate example, the Nike swoosh is a very simple visual that represents the wing of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

You also do not need an icon with a logo to represent something. The logo can be just type, or the type can create hidden symbols like the arrow in the FedEx logo. Whatever elements are used to make the logo, there are specific meanings behind it, whether obvious, hidden or abstract.

Whatever the visual of the logo is, the type, even if it is the only element of the logo, must be chosen carefully. The typeface needs to be aesthetically pleasing when associated with the other elements of the logo and represent the company appropriately. An elaborate, scripted font does not represent a technology company or a bank, but it may work well with a boutique clothing line.

Likewise, the colors used need to represent the company or product in the correct manner because the colors in a logo often create the basis of the corporate color pallet. These colors need to be able to be reproduced in a functional way. Metallic and neon inks might make a logo that stands out and looks great under the right circumstances, however they don’t reproduce that effect when printed with a 4-color process or on web-based applications. The design of the logo can also not be carried by the use of color because a logo will need to be able to be reproduced in grayscale and one-color applications.

Congrats to Senior Accounting Specialist, Nancy Ciepiela, for being selected as the Missionary Award recipient for the month of January.  Nancy’s dedication to helping wrap-up year-end accounting work, earned her the infamous gnome.  Thanks for all of your hard work Nancy, we appreciate it!

At the conclusion of every quarter, one of the three monthly winners from that quarter is selected by the leadership team as the quarterly Gnome winner.  This person gets bragging rights (not to mention the giant gnome pictured above), until the next winner is announced three months down the road.

Angela’s hard work and positive attitude paid off this quarter and we couldn’t be happier for her.  Nice job Ang!

To learn more about our Gnome, click here.

Professional Group Aims to Keep Young Advertising Talent in Region

If you’re looking for proof that people, once again, are spending money to make money, look to the local advertising and marketing community.

Charlie Riley, president of the Advertising Club of Buffalo, an organization that counts practitioners, as well as students, among its roughly 250 members, said this year looks strong.

“The industry in general, I think, has been pretty prosperous locally,” said Riley, who has worked for agencies here and elsewhere. “You’re starting to see numbers come back. You’re starting to see budgets increase.”

Sue K. Meany, president of SKM Group in Depew, agrees.

“From our perspective, business has been good,” she said. “We, like many other businesses, went through the recession and had to deal with cutbacks.”

Those budget cutbacks affected clients and agencies alike.

Now, “we have seen clients spending again and we have been able to pick up a few clients,” said Meany, whose agency employs 40 people and may be hiring more.

Eric Mower and Associates is the region’s largest agency, employing more than 200 people in six offices in upstate New York and the Southeast.

Other large shops, employing dozens, include Travers Collins and Crowley Webb, whose leaderships include several who honed their skills at national and international firms.

There also are a host of agencies whose manpower can be counted on one or two hands, as well as a thriving pool of free-lancers.

Regardless of size, most firms offer a wide range of services and have joined the digital age to remain viable. In fact, digital was the trend of 2011, according to Riley.

“You’re starting to see more money spent digitally. Mobile marketing is starting to see some significant dollars,” Riley said. “It’s going to get more so.”

The roots of SKM Group — which has been around for 25 years—are in old-fashioned, typeset direct marketing for clients in financial services, such as banks and insurance companies. In the early days, two banks dominated the Buffalo market, so SKM built its client base by reaching beyond.

While Tops Markets is SKM’s largest local client, Meany said 60 to 70 percent of them are outside of Buffalo. They include SunTrust Banks, based in Atlanta, and California Casualty.

The health of the local advertising and marketing industry is so robust that freelance copywriter Crista Geary said she’s had to turn down jobs, sometimes handing them off to other free-lancers.

Geary, a mother of four who lives in the Southtowns, said she got a job within weeks of graduating from college in 1994. She worked for local agencies for years, trying to maintain the balance between career and home life, before going the freelance route in 2010.

“I started seeing that people were having really good success doing freelance work,” Geary said.

But it was that agency experience upon which her freelance career was built.

“That’s where I grew up,” she said. “That’s how I cultivated my contacts and nurtured my talents.”

Her freelance assignments come from agencies, as well as directly from clients. She’s done work for Canisius College and Mentholatum.

“This year [2011] far surpassed last year for me, in terms of business,” said Geary.

The health of the local advertising and marketing industry, both for agencies and free-lancers, should be good news for students considering careers in those fields.

One focus of the Advertising Club of Buffalo is to keep them in the area. The club offers career guidance to its college student membership and is looking to reach out to high schools students, to educate them about turning their interests in writing, photography and drawing into a career.

“We want to keep as much local talent as we can in Buffalo,” said Riley, the club’s president. “We’re trying to make as much effort as possible to help students break into the business.”

Today, we continue our series of profiles of SKMers with Executive Vice President Bryan LeFauve. Bryan is the leader of all the agency’s “logical left brains,” and as a creative right brain, I wanted to come up with a fresh, interesting approach to describe Bryan.

I called on a one-man focus group to help me get the right angle on our EVP: Bryan’s eight-year-old son, Burke. Burke was able to provide some excellent insights into SKM’s head geek. Check out what Burke had to say on Bryan:

SPK: What does your dad do every day?

Burke: He just sits down and types at his computer all day.

SPK: What do you think is his favorite part of the job?

Burke: Making commercials.

SPK: What do you and your dad like to do for fun?

Burke: We wrestle. Mostly just fool around.

SPK: What do you like to do when you visit him at the office?

Burke: I like to go to the lunchroom because there are beanbag chairs there.

SPK: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Burke: SWAT team guy.

SPK: What kind of music does your dad listen to in the car?

Burke: Pearl Jam, usually. I like it, but I like to listen to the song “All Star” by Smash Mouth and other stuff, too.

SPK: Your dad coaches your baseball team. What advice does your dad give you on the field?

Burke: Be focused.

SPK: And what if you lose a game?

Burke: “Good try, we’ll do better next time.”

SPK: Does your dad ever call himself a “geek” or talk a lot about strategy?

Burke: [long pause] Sometimes. Not always.

SPK: How did your dad get so tall?

Burke: He was born tall, just like me.

SPK: Will you grow to be taller than him?

Burke: No. I don’t think so.

SPK: What’s your dad’s favorite Disney movie?

Burke: “Cars 2” because we watch it together.

SPK: What’s your dad’s favorite food?

Burke: Pizza, I’m pretty sure.

SPK: What’s the coolest thing your dad has ever done for you or your sisters?

Burke: Well, actually this summer we’re going to Detroit to see a Tigers game. I think that will be the best when it happens, but we went to Waldemeer Park once.

SPK: What was your dad’s favorite ride at Waldemeer?

Burke: Wipeout. I call it the “penny drop” because it spins around like those things that you put pennies into.

SPK: Thanks, Burke. You remember how to get back to your dad’s office right?

Burke: [Nods, runs away]

As I was leaving the agency, Bryan and Burke were enjoying some McDonald’s together in Bryan’s office. They both looked happy; that’s the product of good analytics and forward-thinking strategy, if you ask me.

1. Tweet often – Tweeting regularly is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your followers. If they’re following you, they’re already interested in what you have to say. Tweet every couple of hours about a wide range of topics. This will help your current followers get an idea of who you are, promote your brand and grow your follower base.

Disclaimer: Do not tweet every 30 seconds. Your followers will most likely get annoyed seeing you pop up in their feed every time they refresh their page

2. Tweet smart – When creating a tweet, make sure you know what you’re talking about. Followers may respond to you with questions or comments and it’s important that you are able to support your opinion, and discuss it or defend it.

If you’re simply sharing a story, be sure you have all of the facts and can reference them with articles, websites, etc.

3. Tweet simple – Avoid confusion or questions by using everyday, simple language. Common words and phrases will resonate with your followers. In social media, you want to communicate, not impress.

4. Tweet short – When tweeting about a story you’ve read or published, make sure to include shortened links. This will help keep your tweet within the 140 character limit. I suggest using the HootSuite dashboard or bitly. Both allow you to track the number of clicks your link received.

5. Retweet – If you see a tweet that makes you think , whether good or bad, retweet it. There is a good chance that your followers will share the same sentiment and reaction that you did.

Keep in mind that although retweets are encouraged, you also have to be original and tweet about things that are important to you. Quoting or commenting on someone’s tweet will help make your feed unique. So, remember to retweet, but do not become a puppet.

6. Tweet hashtags – Hashtags (#) are a great way to target a particular audience. When you include them in a tweet, you are reaching all of those people who are following that same hashtag. For example, if I tweet a link for an article that relates to cancer research and include “#cancer” in it , my tweet could potentially reach all of those who are following “#cancer”, increasing my reach and likelihood for new followers and retweets.

7. Tweet nice – I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. People are not going to be interested in what you have to say if you’re offensive, vulgar or downright mean. If they do, chances are they’re responding to your comments and forming a negative opinion of you. Think of the playground in 4th grade. If someone was a bully to either you or a classmate, you did your best to avoid them. The same applies to social media. You will lose followers in your social media playground.

8. Reply – If people take the time to send you a message or mention you in a tweet, take the time to respond. It shows respect. They’ll also be more likely to remember you and what you have to say.

I think that just about sums it up. I hope you find this info helpful in your Twitter experience. Best of luck and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @SKM_Group. You won’t be disappointed.

Now go! Sign on and follow us. We’ll follow you right back!