Adland Book Review

Picture this…

You stumble into your local bookstore and head over to the business section.

You’re getting ready to hunt down that book you’ve been looking for. You glance to your right and notice a young man, easy on the eyes.

But there’s something strange about this young chap.

He’s seems to be clutching a brightly covered advertising book like he’s afraid it’ll launch right out of his hands.

And he’s crying.

That was the scene you would have found yourself in a couple of weeks back.

The young man…me.

I can’t remember why I had picked up Adland by James P. Othmer. But once it was in my grubby hands I couldn’t put it down.

And the whole crying thing?

Real, honest to blog truth.

I couldn’t believe it myself.

But there I was, standing in the middle of the business section in “The Worlds Biggest Bookstore” in Toronto crying. Or really I should say, trying my best not to.

If you’re into Mad Men you’ll definitely be into Adland.

Adland gives you a behind the scenes look into the advertising industry. It reveals the good, the bad and the in between. Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Here’s what Publisher Weekly had to say about Adland:

The life of an advertising executive couldn’t be further from the glamorous world of Mad Men, according to this entertaining, albeit meandering, memoir.

After a giddy beginning banging out copy for a small ad agency, Othmer, a longtime creative director and copywriter, worked his way to the top in 2000 only to discover that his traditional agency was being abandoned in favor of forward-thinking brand stewards who wanted hip new ideas from smaller shops well-versed in new media and digital marketing.

Fascinated by groundbreaking interactive campaigns like the 2007 Nine Inch Nails Internet Easter egg hunt and Burger King’s Subservient Chicken gag, he found his love for advertising reinvigorated, and his book is an effort to better understand the inescapable industry’s influence on culture.

Though there’s no particular conclusion drawn, and the story itself wanders, the humor and genuine excitement that shine through may keep some media-world readers interested—most tellingly when, at a swanky party full of advertising executives, the author wistfully observes that even real life has begun to feel fake.

I loved this book!

It was a fantastic find and a great story. It even gave me some creative ideas for advertising campaigns for myself and my clients.

Check out Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life On  Branded Planet for yourself on Amazon and see what other people are saying about it.

Be sure to read the chapter about the 50th anniversary of D Day and the campaign James worked on for it. But have some tissue handy. You may be surprised that you actually need it.

You’ve been warned.

Have fun, make money, and change the world!

Ian

She started junior kindergarten and she loves it. And according to her teacher Mrs. Lockie, Eavan’s been breaking hearts since the first day of school.

She is quite the charmer.

On Wednesday I opened up her napsack and found a big ziploc bag with a folder in it. The front of the folder was labeled “Communications”.

So I tore it open. I was excited to find out what a beautiful little angel my daughter has been since she started school.

But that’s not exactly what I found inside.

It was a sales magazine for scholastic books. There was a note in there as well, a sales letter.

I sat there for a moment thinking about all the correspondence I’ve had with the school so far. And I realized that most of the letters and info that I’ve received from them has been some variation of a sales pitch.

No really it’s true.

Everything from fundraisers to the importance of voting for candidates who were in line with the schools values.

These guys were pimping it hardcore.

Robert Louis Stevenson said that, “Everyone lives by selling something.”

And it’s true we’re all selling something. Be it products or services.

And selling doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

Especially if you believe in your product or service, it’s of good quality, and helps to fill a need or a want.

Staring at the sales material lying on my dining room table made a couple of questions pop up in my mind:

1. Does the schools get a kick-back from scholastic books?
2. Does this process actually work?

I haven’t had the chance to get an answer for the first question. But the next time I see my daughters principle I am definitely going to ask him. I don’t have a problem with the school board getting funding from the sales either. I may even end up buying books from them if they do.

And does this sales tactic actually work? It has to or else I wouldn’t have received the material.

• They have an avid and eager audience. Parents who want to make sure their kids do well in school.
• They’re selling good quality books at reasonable prices.
• They make it super easy to buy from them. All I have to do is send in the order slip back with my kid in her “Communication” folder and in 2-4 weeks the books will show up at my house.

So the next time you’re feeling a little shy about selling something just think of the Catholics. They’re selling all the time. So why can’t you?

Last night I was at the Toronto premier of The Last Exorcism during the Toronto After Dark film festival.

This is really a miracle because I hate scary movies. My wife loves them and she sweet talked me into going with her. Dear ole’ Grandma watched the kids.

And yes it did take me about two hours to fall asleep last night. Every little noise in the house was transformed into a 16 year old possessed girl coming to smash my brains in while I slept.

Gives me goosebumps just thinking of it now.

I do have to say that I actually loved this movie. No really I did. Fantastic script, great actors, and the whole evening was supercharged by hanging out with 800 horror geeks.

And to top it all off there was a Q & A with Eli Roth (producer), Patrick Fabian (lead), and Ashley Bell (possessed girl).

It was the charismatic Eli Roth that taught me a couple of things about kick-starting a word of mouth marketing campaign.

4 Keys To Launching A Word Of Mouth Marketing Campaign

Offer Sexual Favors or Engage Your Core Audience

It wouldn’t surprise me to find thousands of little Eli Roth shrines in emo girls rooms all over North America. He’s good looking, makes great creepy movies, and is super charming.

Playing up to his fans, he offered to go down on, and have sex with them in exchange for tweets about the movie. He’d have to get his girlfriends permission first though. And I can’t see that happening unless they’re in one of those “open” relationships like Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

But all the sex talk aside, what Eli was doing was engaging his core audience.

He was speaking to them in their language.

He told the story of “A boy and a dream.” and how they had kept the film independent during the creation of it. That way they could have complete creative control. And once it was done they sold it.

He went on to get the audience involved in the marketing process. Sharing that their asses we’re on the line if it didn’t do well. Telling the crowd that this was now their movie. And that if they liked it, to get out there on Twitter and say something nice about it.

Find Your Hungry Fans

Eli could have debuted the Last Exorcism at a megaplex multi-screen complex but he didn’t. He chose a very targeted niche festival to screen the movie. The After Dark Film Festival.

Toronto holds a special place in his heart. His debut movie Cabin Fever premiered at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, where it was snapped up by Lions Gate for a fall 2003 release. So when the organizers sent him a letter asking him if he would consider being a part of the freak fest he jumped at the chance.

As we walked up to the theatre, we had to zig-zag our way through a line-up that wrapped around the block. It was a sea of black clad misfits dying to be one of the first people to see the flick.

Luckily for me I had a festival pass courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada which magically let me zip past the line. Thanks so much guys! Anchor Bay is getting ready to release I Spit On Your Grave and will be premiering it at the festival as well.

Ask Ask Ask

I lost count of how many times Eli asked the audience to tweet about the movie. But he did it a lot. It reminded me of how Gretchen Rubin from the Happiness Project promotes her site with Word of Mouth Wednesdays.

At the bottom of her Wednesday posts you’ll find the following:

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
– Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 45,000 people get it)
– Buy the book
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
– Watch the one-minute book video
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.

It’s OK to ask for some help with your word of mouth marketing campaigns. Sometimes we just have to break down some internal barriers that we’ve set-up for ourselves. Other people are doing it so why not give it a try?

Have A Good, Maybe Even Great Product

For any word of mouth campaign to really work you need to have a good product. A great product makes this even easier. And I have to say that the Last Exorcism was one of the best scary movies I’ve ever seen. And I hate scary movies.

Seth Godin calls great products “art”.

And art is subjective. It touches us on levels that we don’t even realize. It’s personal. Profound in ways that are beyond measure.

But when you’ve stumbled onto something that’s great you have a natural tendency to want to share that experience with others. You want them to feel what you’ve felt.

So there you have it. Four keys to launching a successful word of mouth marketing campaign.

Word of Mouth Marketing Campaigns – The Takeaway

• Engage Your Core Audience
• Find Your Hungry Fans
• Ask for Help
• Have A Good or Even A Great Product

I never thought I’d get a free marketing lesson from going to a movie I didn’t really want to see.

Have fun, make money, change the world.

Ian

p.s. What’s worked for you in getting the word out about your product or service?

Share everything.

That’s the number one rule of life that best selling childrens author Robert Fulghum learned in kindergarten.

You make more friends when you share.

But the real question in this marketing 3.0 world is, “Can sharing other people’s stuff really benefit you in the end?”

Valid question.

And the answer is yes. Sharing is marketing.

A marketing method that’s really subtle. So discreet in fact that you may actually miss it at first glance. But it’s there.

How Sharing Is Marketing

When you share great stuff with your tribe you’re actually positioning yourself as a resource. As someone who can be trusted. Someone who’s opinion matters. A person that’s in the know. Connected. With a finger on the pulse of what’s going on within your niche.

And don’t think that your sharing goes unnoticed.

When you share other people’s posts for example, if they’re serious about their online presence, they’ll be checking to see where their traffic is coming from using programs like statcounter or google analytics. Or they’ll be monitoring their @replies and retweets on twitter. Or doing searches on facebook for their post titles. Or they’ll have a google alert set up for mentions of their name in the blogosphere.

And when that person sees you sharing their stuff they’ll get curious about you. Who you are? What your about? And inevitably they’ll go to your site. And if you have something valuable to say, and it’ll benefit their tribe, they’ll share it.

Take for example this post about search engine optimization. It’s a visual guide to help you understand search engine marketing a little better. I just posted it. And it was my one and only post on the site. Intuitive Impact is pretty fresh and still has that new website smell to it. So when I was checking my stats I was astonished to see that the site was actually getting some traffic.

I was like “Wha?”

So I wanted to see where this traffic was coming from.

It turns out that the article was posted on stumbleupon and when I checked my @replies on twitter I saw it there as well. I really couldn’t believe it.

So who was this person sharing the love?

It turned out to be Tom McEwin from Affiliate Playground. I had come across his site last week and his amazing piece on the Top Ten Article Directories to submit your content to.

I loved it, left a comment about it, and shared it on facebook. He then came back here and checked out my site. Which is pretty naked. But he liked the SEO visual guide post that I had up and shared it with his tribe.

The sharing wheel goes ’round and ’round.

5 Ways To Integrate Sharing Into Your Marketing Strategy

• On twitter use a sharing ratio of 10/1. Share ten stories/posts from other people to every one of yours
• On facebook set-up a fan page and start to share there
• Set-up a stumbleupon account and stumble great content for your niche
• Get on delicious and start bookmarking great content
• Encourage your tribe to share great stuff with you

Get sharing into your holistic marketing strategy somehow. You’ll make friends, learn tons about your niche, and start to position yourself and your business as one that cares and is in-touch with what’s going on within the world.

Have fun, make money, change the world.

Ian

p.s. Why not share this article with your tribe?