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Today’s remark – “LRTH”

– Posted on Feb 13, 2012 by Margie

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and, after almost 30 years of marriage, I am fortunate to still feel my husband truly loves me. (Happy Valentine’s Day, Hal. Sorry I won’t be home to celebrate with you!)

Granted, the feelings a husband and wife have for each other are very different from the feelings we have for our advertisers and co-workers. But there are (or should be) some similarities as to how we treat each other. Here are a few as we focus on customer (and co-worker) success:

Listen – do we really listen to each other and force our own thoughts to stop while they are sharing? It’s impossible to think and listen simultaneously. Do we do our homework to learn about our client’s business and industry and ask thoughtful, researched and provocative questions? And do we really hear what they say and understand or are we busy thinking about what we are going to sell them?
Respect – do we treat each other with dignity and try to learn from each other? Do we truly admire each other for our abilities and achievements and leave jealousies and competitiveness behind? Do we show respect? Even to those advertisers who show limited respect for us?! Their achievements and challenges may not resonate with us but that is irrelevant. It’s about them.
Thoughtfulness – do we dig deep inside and put ourselves in their shoes to better understand their thoughts and feelings from their point of view. Do we look for ways to fulfill their needs to be successful, cared about, and important? Isn’t that what we all want? Do we provide great and pertinent information to our advertisers and co-workers? Are we “full of thought” when it comes to them, their needs, challenges, accomplishments?
Help – do we set aside our needs (to make budget!) to address their challenges? To we look for solutions? BTW, people buy solutions, not products. And do we try to help each other by setting aside pettiness in the office? Do we offer praise and encouragement to each other even when it is hard? Do we stay close with our advertisers and go the extra mile to sincerely help them succeed? Do we provide them with resources and attention unselfishly?

LRTH may not spell anything but, to me; it stands for the true meaning of Valentine’s Day minus the romance and flowers. I’ll take LRTH over roses any day!

And this will make us all re-markable.

Today’s remark – great “encourager”

– Posted on Feb 07, 2012 by Margie

One of my Broadcast client’s AE’s referred to me yesterday as a great “encourager.” I immediately felt great but got to thinking about what that actually meant. If you look up the word “encourage” you will find it means “to give support, confidence and hope or to give advice.”

Nowhere in the definition is the word “courage.” I got to thinking and, to me that means “taking action despite fear.”

Let’s face it. We are all fearful – fearful of rejection, of appearing ignorant, of making a bad mistake, of being embarrassed, of being discovered we really don’t have a clue what we are doing most of the time, etc.

But finding an “encourager” or someone you can be yourself with without worry, someone you can take risks around without fear of retribution or humiliation, someone who will help you find your courage (no one can actually give that to you) is a real gift. Being called a great “encourager” may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Ever! Now I have to live up to it.

Hope you find a great “encourager” or, better yet, hope you become one to many. That will make you remark-able!

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Today’s remark – Ad Agencies, Digital GRPs, oh my!

– Posted on Jan 31, 2012 by Margie

There are articles all over the internet about traditional ad agencies and digital ad agencies. Are they really different? Well, they were for awhile but I’m watching them getting closer and closer to each other every day. That is good news and bad news.

The good news is those once considered traditional agencies are seeing the value and need for expansion into other ways to reach consumers on the consumers’ terms. Remember, consumers now have more control than ever as to how they will consume information. The awake agencies are not depending upon what they know best and embracing all the tools available to them to get their clients’ messages out. Here is a really good article featuring several agencies and how they view their world today. Many of them say the message delivery systems may be growing but good ideas and creative will always be timeless. Here’s another good interview featuring David Sable, CEO of Y&R. His take is a bit different!

Other good news is digital agencies are beginning to see the value awake traditional agencies bring to the table and are allowing themselves to participate in that arena. I predict many more mergers in the near future.

The bad news is I just read an article where internet ads will be measured by “effective GRPs.” Yes, the same GRP we have used and hated in TV forever! The internet experience is so different from TV but the advertising community is so trained and comfortable with the GRP and wanting to compare TV to internet it is falling back on this archaic measurement even knowing how inaccurate it is.

Digital buyers will be as detached from customer results as their traditional media buying counterparts. And sellers will, again, become commodity brokers rather than solution providers. When will we learn to measure based on our client’s results?

Need your remark-able thoughts on this before I explode! And a special shout out to Park Howell at Park & Co for inspiring today’s remark.

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