Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Presentation delivered by
@hankwasiak at the 2010 South By
Southwest Festival held at the
Convention Center in Austin Texas
March 11-16, 2010& the 140Character
Conference in NYC, April 20,2010.
Contact:
Hank Wasiak
646 236 9014
hank@conceptfarm.com
@hankwasiak
Why Madison Avenue Should Love Social Media
Sorry, I’m not Don Draper from Mad Men. But, I am an ad guy. I teach advertising in the
graduate school at USC’s Marshall School of Business, I am a big fan of Mad Men and a
twitterholic. I’m also an Asset-Based Thinker so I look at what’s working and possible
rather than what’s not working and problematic in order to make the most of the upside
of business.
My career in advertising started in the Mad Men era and I am fortunate to still be doing
what I love at The Concept Farm. A very cool creative company located on .85 acres in
the heart of Chelsea in NYC. I’ve gone from a Mad Man to a Happy Farmer and along
the way have lived through just about every shift and change in the advertising business
over the past five decades.
And, coincidentally, I spent the past year putting together a syllabus for my class, picking
a text book, and selecting case studies. It became obvious pretty quickly that the way
business schools are teaching advertising has not caught up with actuality and in many
ways can serve as a metaphor for where the advertising business finds itself today. All of
this has mashed up in to a point of view and perspective on where Social Media is taking
the advertising business that I hope you will find interesting and helpful.
Today, most of the conventional wisdom is doom and gloom and predicting the death of
advertising as we know it. But I can honestly say that my enthusiasm for the future of
advertising has never been higher. This enthusiasm and optimism is fueled by Social
Media. Social media is the game changer, the killer app that is reshaping the advertising
business at its very core in three major ways:
1.The fundamentals of the marketing mix
2.The nature of how advertising is supposed to work
3.The measurement metrics of success
This is big time change. It’s powerful exciting stuff. It’s all happening at once and it’s
happening fast. Rather than lamenting the downside, advertising should be reinventing
itself by relentlessly pursuing the upside opportunities opened up by Social Media. And,
to do this we have to change the way we see social media. The term itself has become a
self-limiting frame of reference. To put help put the possibilities into perspective it’s
helpful to look back through the lens of Mad Men.
Treating social media as a subset of Promotion might have been ok initially, but it
certainly isn’t now. Because this happened.
“People”
Today a marketer must have a People Strategy developed in concert with and sometimes
leading its Product, Price, Place and Promotion strategies.
Tony Hsieh from Zappos is a person I admire. He is a visionary who saw this potential
long before everyone else and he nailed it with this quote.
For decades, we have used a simple four letter shorthand for what advertising has to
accomplish to be effective. A.I.D.A. Attention. Interest. Desire. Action. Not bad then but
not good enough now. Social Media has added two other dimensions that are critical to
success. The First is the letter “E” for Engagement. Consumers welcome getting involved
with products and brands on many levels….on their own terms. People want to talk
amongst themselves before they interact with a brand or a business. The other dimension
is the letter “S” for Sustainability. Today ideas and messages must be crafted to also
encourage shareability so they sustain themselves well beyond their initial delivery and
media contexts.
So now the shorthand looks like this.
A+IDEAS that live in a Transmedia
world of storytelling and conversations
with multiple entry points and numerous
opportunities for convergence of both
content and consumers.
This also means that creative people must get comfortable with
giving up control of their ideas in order to gain confidence and
traction with consumers. If the programs they create are built on a
strong positioning, deliver what they promise and are presented
with transparency and truth, there is nothing to worry about.
The challenges and opportunities inherent in this hierarchy need to be embedded in the
way creative people think about and develop marketing communications. Unless creative
ideas and programs organically lend themselves to this construct, they miss the mark.
And again, Social Media has been the catalyst for some of this change.
This really came into dramatic focus for me in October of last year when I
had the opportunity to be a real- time blogger embedded at the World
Business Forum in New York City. CEO after CEO and some of the best
Global thought leaders talked about the future of business. Here are the highlights
relevant to this discussion.
The Hard Assets that are traditionally used to gauge the strength and value of a business
are as important as ever. However, they are the “table stakes” of today…. costs of entry.
Soft Assets are increasingly seen as the business differentiators of the future. Here’s a
sampling of the descriptions and comments that permeated their talks and filled the blogs.
Values Based Business – Culture
Purpose Driven Marketing – Passion
Trust Built on Transparency - Truth
Corporate Responsibility That Fosters Collaboration
“Healthy” Companies That Act “Human”
If these words sound familiar, they should. This IS the language of Social Media. And,
these differentiators are changing the way Socially Responsible businesses see “Profit”.
Now it’s a three tiered Enlightened Profit that matters.
These are major, important, shifts that are taking place in big, medium and small
businesses everywhere. These are our clients. We can lead by listening to them.
This wonderful quote from advertising legend Bill Bernbach rings truer than ever today.
“An idea can turn to dust or magic depending on the talent that rubs
against it.”
I don’t know about you, but I want to work with the magicians.
Finally, I know that Mad Man Don Draper would not like what he sees on Madison
Avenue today. But I sure do. We are on the cusp of big transformational change that’s
exciting and invigorating. Moreover, experience tells us that this kind of bolder and better
transformation usually doesn’t come from the established center. It rises up from the
fringes and is lead by creative thinkers like you who believe that the business of
tomorrow will belong to the bold and the brave. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
ABOUT HANK WASIAK
Hank retired as Vice Chairman of McCann Erickson WorldGroup and served on that
company's board playing an integral role in the management of McCann's global clients
including Nestle, Johnson and Johnson, Sony, Bacardi, L'Oreal and Boeing. Prior to
McCann, Hank was President of London based Geers Gross Advertising and President of
Ketchum Communications. Hank also has had a stellar career on the client side as
President of Brown Forman's prestigious Jos. Garneau Division, COO of Somerset
Importers, and EVP of Charles of the Ritz. He now serves on the National and Founder’s
Affiliate Boards of The American Heart Association and First Ireland Spirits Ltd.
In 2005 Hank teamed up with Dr. Kathryn D. Cramer, Ph.D., author and sought after
business consultant, to create one of today’s most innovative and powerful business - self
help book series based on Asset-Based Thinking. Running Press has published three
books in the series….”Change The Way You See Everything”, “Change The Way You
See Yourself” and “Change The Way You See Everything – For Teens”.
Hank is executive producer and host of The Concept Farm’s Emmy award TV show "Cool
In Your Code" and he won three consecutive New York Emmys for his on camera
performances in his innovative interview Series, "Back on The Block" and “Code Read”.
Hank has also had extensive experience teaching Marketing Communications at a number
of prestigious Universities. Hank currently teaches in the graduate school at USC’s
Marshall School of Business. He has held an Adjunct Assistant Professorship at Pace
University, and has taught at Eckerd College, the University of South Florida and the
University of Louisville. Hank is frequent guest lecture at Pepperdine University.
Hank earned a Bachelors degree in Advertising from Pace University, an MBA from the
Baruch School of Business and he resides in Los Angeles and New York City.
“Hank is that rare ad guy who grew up in the old media, Mad Men world and
totally “gets” the new digital world of social marketing and media. He masterfully
converges his past experiences and expertise with his immersion in and passion
for the “state of now” world of new media to provide great insights and a very
special perspective on the future.” …..Jeff Pulver. Founder 140Conferences
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