A Splash Of Color
We just wrapped up the second in a series of 9 artists completing their artwork on designated portions of the automobile. That means 7 more local artists will be given the opportunity to render absolutely anything they would like on a mobile canvas. During next year's One Spark, the car will be raffled off and the artists' work will be showcased to the masses, with all proceeds being split evenly among the 9 artists. If you haven't seen the artists in action, I would encourage you to come out to Art Walk next time and experience the live music, crowds, and libations surrounding this evolving piece of modern art. The artists have a limited amount of time to finish their work, so it's very fast-paced and exciting to see things take shape right in front of your eyes. The event happens right in front of Mad Men Marketing on 111 E. Bay St. in downtown Jacksonville at what has been collectively dubbed “The Elbow”.
New Fall Season Changes Media Buying
New fall shows, mean new ratings. New ratings mean new places to spend your money and a new audience to see your product or service. The new fall season will definitely shake up prime time, although I don't foresee CBS relinquishing the cobra clutch they have on Thursday nights. I encourage everyone to get excited, step out of your box, and break with the norm a little. You might be glad you did.
For those of you who advertise, rest assured that Mad Men Marketing will be their every step of the way, monitoring viewing habits with NSA-like precision, down to what people DVR. We are the only agency in the market to implement Rentrak, a service that gives us an extensive breakdown of what viewers watch based on innumerable sub-categories and demographics. While Nielsen utilizes an archaic journal-entry style system with less than a thousand people in the Jacksonville market participating (less than 1/8 of one percent), Rentrak uses 68,000 set top boxes that you're already using to gather data (roughly 8 percent). This is what sets us apart among agencies, being well-informed of where to spend YOUR money on advertising and being ahead of the curve with a research-oriented approach.
Research And Why We Love It
Research in marketing is utilized to discover consumer insights which, in turn, drives business decisions and the strategy that is to follow. The world is quickly beginning to quantify and track EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything). This is fantastic news for marketing and advertising. We can use these metrics to our advantage. As a matter of fact, we better use them because it's adapt or die out there.
Fortunately, Mad Men Marketing is ahead of the curve. Not only did we become the first in our market to begin using Rentrak, (a wonderful little tool that lets us target the appropriate media buy to your target audience) but we also offer customizable research delivery and custom-tailored case studies.
Why case studies, you may ask? They explore CAUSATION to underlying principles which allows us to tweek our approach. It is empirical research that investigates real-life phenomena. So while every other agency is out there telling you to “trust them”, we do not remain static in our approach like so many others. We are not so overzealous to think we get it right all the time. NO! We are dynamic. We will get you results, quantify them, and show them to you. We will constantly refine and improve our approach, guaranteeing the highest level of efficiency possible.
In 1985 Michael Porter attempted to improve upon Ricardo's comparative advantage and suggested his own theory of competitive advantage. This emphasizes production, efficiencies, and the acquisition of attributes that can be utilized to outpace the competition. Think of Mad Men Marketing as your Swiss Army Knife or the ace up your sleeve because we are delivering our clients comparables, measurables, and demonstrating causative reasons for market change utilizing a number of inputs.
In short, when you perform research, and you can deliver the goods to your client, you're allowing them to track progress….no matter how small it may be. This keeps clients abreast of changing market conditions and keeps them competitive in their industry.
New Grad’s Guide on How to Transition to the Real World
Everyone is going to give you “advice” and “tips” on how to get the perfect job out of college. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to tell you my story about how I had absolutely no plan after college and eventually ended up finding my passion and working in a job I love. No advice, just experience.
Graduation
The day I graduated was an exciting day! It was also a scary one. With peers getting jobs from their internships, I’d be lying to you if I didn't tell you I felt a little behind the curve. I spent 4 years with professors giving me “advice” that the competition is high today, and you need to be the best of the best in order to stand a chance in the real world. There was a lot of pressure to be employed quickly.
After Graduation
My story doesn’t start out with countless interviews and finding the perfect navy blue suit, (because statistically, you have a higher chance to be hired in a navy blue suit.) The truth is, I was at a party. I was talking with my fellow new grads about their new internships and jobs, which I mainly just listened to due to the fact that I hated the question “Hey PJ what are you doing now?” I met one of my friend’s older brother, who by chance was looking for a copywriter for his web development company. I said “I can do that!” By Monday, I had a job!! Part-time, but hey, I had an answer to the dreaded question.
The Copywriting Days
I worked on writing blogs, social media content, copy, and SEO meta descriptions for a small web development company. It was a team of four of us and I worked about 15 hours per week. The best part about it was the creative freedom I could apply to the work.
Eventually though, I found that I really needed something more full-time. I applied for a copywriter position at a big corporate web development company, and got it after the 2nd interview. This had me excited at first, my first “big boy” job was a huge national company. I saw myself climbing the ladder to CEO status, hopefully by the time I was 30. A long shot? Yes, but hey you got to dream big, right? Well that dream slowly diminished as I learned the difference between a small company and corporate. Simply put, I found my skills to be a lot more valuable outside of the corporate world.
I quit. Everyone told me I was being foolish to quit a steady job without another job lined up. I didn’t care. People also told me “your twenties are a time to screw up and bounce back”. So that’s exactly what I did. It felt like the right thing to do, so I took some time and re-evaluated what I really wanted out of a career. The bills never stopped however, and I was eating Easy Mac and ramen for a while.
Discovering Accounts
Sometime later, I got a call from the first small web company about W2 information. It ended with, “Oh, so we were picked up by an ad agency, there’s a sales position open if you’re interested”. It just so happens that I just finished watching the movie “Yes Man” and I was all about opening myself up to new possibilities. I got the interview, made it past the second interview, and got hired.
My first day, I felt completely overwhelmed, but I surprisingly picked up the pace pretty quickly. This experience was different. I didn’t feel like I was doing meaningless tasks that no one else wanted to do. I was thrown into important meetings, large deals, and big clients all at once. After a while, you become comfortable in this realm. Before I knew it, I was the one hosting the important meetings.
I learned how to speak to potential clients, how to negotiate a quote, how to close deals, how to manage projects, how to work with a budget, how to produce results, and most importantly how to love what you do for a living. Working in accounts has been challenging and exciting all at the same time, and I feel like I have something that a lot of people don’t find in life, career passion.
So I didn’t get a prestigious internship that led to the perfect job. I made mistakes, opened the wrong doors, and fell into the right place. My only advice to someone stressed about graduation is to never be afraid to fail, because you will. You ARE going to make mistakes, so it’s better to learn to roll with the punches than to avoid the inevitable. Life throws curveballs and you can only plan so far, so make sure to never lose the courage to change, it could be the best change you ever made.
Real Mad Men, 1960 vs 2013
Creative
One of my favorite aspects of the television show, is how they nail the creative process. The research, development, execution, and pitch. Sometimes no matter how hard you want to magically have a great idea, it just won’t come to mind. Other times you can think your idea is ground-breaking, but the client isn’t onboard with your direction. As far as the business world of a career in the creative industry, Mad Men is spot on.
Office Culture
Always watching their back from their coworkers, the cast of Mad Men are consistently out for themselves. Everyone is trying to get ahead, and willing to go to extreme lengths to be at the top. Today, this would be the perfect set up for a failing business. Burning bridges won’t get you far as an agency, as well as taking the time to lend a hand. A successful agency is sustained by good relationships, not only with clients but also with the entire team. Going the extra mile rather than cutting corners is what makes a great agency stand out from a good agency.
The Power of Advertising
In my opinion, this is the biggest change to advertising due to technology. In the 50s and 60s, the media had a certain control that it no longer has. With so many product options, advertising clutter and noise, ways to order, and convenience of the internet consumers’ brand loyalty is nowhere near where it was in the past. Being able to search for the best prices around allows consumers to be fickle with their purchasing decisions.
The power today is in the hands of the consumer. Rather than creating a marketing plan that you think is effective, it is important to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Would I benefit from paying attention from this ad, or is it just feature dumping like the other 3,000 advertisements that I see on a daily basis?
Conclusion
So, would an agency like Sterling Cooper be a top agency on Madison Ave. in 2013? No, just as the world evolves over time, so must agencies. Technology has pushed agencies to become more consumer-driven in their strategies. While Sterling Cooper would wine-and-dine their clients into their ideas, it was mainly their way or the highway. Today a lot more listening needs to be done rather than talking.
As Don would say “If you don’t like what people are saying, change the conversation.” However Don never had to deal with Yelp reviews. Sorry Don, your persuasive words might not make the cut in modern advertising. Time to work on your people skills!