The Marketing Briefing

Climbing the tower and Ted Danson

2006-05-05T08:30:00.000-04:00

Oh some very exciting things have been happening.

The CN Tower climb is over and, good googly moogly, it was insane. Looks like we raised over $800K. That's 17% over last year's event.

There was a 79-year old man who came from Scotland to climb. There was another guy who went up and down the tower 6 times. Someone went up the tower in a wheelchair. I dunno how that worked. I was registering people and didn't see the logistics.

My family and I went up at 6 am on Saturday. Our times looked like this...

Jeremy (14 years old) - 19 minutes
Brad (husband) and Chelsea (10 years old) - 28 minutes
Layne (13 years old) - 40 minutes
Me and Paige (10 years old) - 53 minutes (personal all-time best for both of us - tragic)

Paige and I stopped at every fifth landing so the "acid" could leave our legs. We'd go an extra flight if there was barf on the floor at our scheduled stop. People actually make themselves sick in their quest to break the record for speed (7 minutes and 52 seconds). This is gross and unnecessarily flamboyant.

And we raised $1,430 for climate change. Pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who sponsored us! (Anyone interested still can if you click here.)

In other news........

I have it on extremely good authority that Ted Danson has seen our Aquarium TV spot and thinks it's hot stuff and thinks it should be used in America to raise awareness of the plight of the world's oceans.

Though I suppose the rulebook of cool says I should remain unimpressed by such news, I was pretty schoolgirlish about the whole thing.

In more news..........

Next week I present the detailed marketing plan for our fiscal year '07 to the management committee.

I'm struggling with what to write about it here. Big stuff, big stuff! But I don't want to give away my big secrets. I'm always amazed by who and how many people read this blog. Anyone who thinks charities aren't competitive with one another would be mistaken. We're always helping each other in many ways, but there actually is a line. I figure laying out the marketing plan here is on the other side of it.

Suffice it to say that new channels will be a big part of what we're up to, as I've gone on and on about previously. More big national campaigns will be coming, too. And a lot of behind the scenes things that are operationally focused are planned.

Anyway, we'll see how the presentation goes.

They've slotted me as the first presentation of the day. I'm usually last and I like being last. At the end of the day they're mentally spent and don't give me too much guff. This time they'll be fresh and perky and full of questions.

I'm told I should be pleased with this change in the batting order because it allows me to set the standard for the rest of the presentations.

They are very cagey and know just the right thing to say to me.

M.I.A. (Pam)

2006-04-18T12:03:00.000-04:00

Wow. Two weeks have passed and I'm now back to work.

Let's see. What's been happening......

Got my motorcycle back from storage only to find that it needed a new head gasket...a thousand bucks later, it's now in the parking garage waiting for me to yell, "Yabba dadda doo" and beat it for home.

In more exciting news, I brought home a basset hound named Mona. I've been teaching her all about house breaking. Mona struggles mightily with her manners. She's cuter than hell, though. Here she is.

House training last week was interrupted by a trip to Ottawa to present a marketing/public outreach plan to the feds with the hope of attracting some sponsorship support.

I was most certainly a fish out of water. I am the first marketing person any of the meeting's attendees had really ever met with, so it was very easy to engage them and they were very receptive to our ideas. However, my ability to read the sub-text of what's really being said in meetings such as that is non-existent, having never worked on government business in the past. I'll know how things actually went in the next week or so.

I came in from my vaca to spend a couple days in planning sessions with all the fundraising directors. Absolutely fascinating. I spend my days asking millions of people for $20 or $40. The other directors ask dozens of people and corporations for tens of thousands of dollars. And those people actually say, 'Yes'! The skills they possess seem magical to me.

With the growth targets we've set to 2010 (double our overall revenue), we're really counting on fundraising from areas other than my group to lead the way. Marketing is simply too costly to bear the growth.

Speaking of which, my budget for FY'07 is due on Friday. I've been ruminating. I've been talking, asking, challenging, whining, selling. The plan is now in my head. I need to get it onto some paper.

Meeting with the big brains at FCB tomorrow to show them what I'm thinking. We'll see if they like it.

My first Marketing Awards (Pam)

2006-03-31T07:51:00.000-05:00

Not being one of the cool kids, I approached my first ever Marketing Awards Gala as an anthropological excursion. I've spent the last decade working in direct marketing, so I don't know a whole lot of advertising agency types. It's like going to a wedding and knowing only the happy couple.

What a fantastically weird evening.

Awesome venue, the Liberty Grand. There was a smoking room. Very civilized.

Finding food was a bit perilous. Like trying to fight a bunch of fat kids for the last Smartie. I did come away with a martini glass filled with Sunday dinner -- a carrot, mashed spuds and roast beef. Oddly cool. I saw servers walking around with paper cups filled with what looked like brown Special K. I passed.

The manner of dress varied wildly, from Holt's chic to same-thing-I-wore-yesterday-and-slept-in-it-too. It was a contest of cool. I lost. If only I'd try harder at these things. I'm a fashion tragedy.

I was quite surprised by the ceremony itself. Although it was very slick looking, so well put together, I couldn't hear it. People were talking...loudly. What's up with that?

Maybe this rudeness was a big passive/aggressive "up yours" to those same five agencies that seem to win everything every single year. I dunno, but it's not cool. I mean really, aren't we there to pay homage to the art? To give some credit where it's due? To lay some love on the people who, through their genius, make all of us involved in the profession look good? Can we not shut up for just one hour?

In order to hear the show, I was forced to cup my hand around my ear. It's not a good look and I resent being forced to resort to it. It contributed to my failure in the contest of cool.

Now, about those same five agencies. The Big Five Creative Shops. As I watched the same few people go back and forth between the dais and their seats, I had a thought.

This award show is about the power of brands -- agency brands. Could it be that these same five agencies win all the awards (not just Marketing Awards) every year because of their agency brand? Could the judges be influenced in the same manner that consumers are?

"I want a safe car, so I will buy a Volvo." "I must pick the best creative, so I must pick a Taxi piece."

I'm pretty sure no judge would acknowledge that there could be any truth in that. But that's the same thing as a consumer denying that they are affected by advertising.

It's just a fun thought upon which to ruminate for a few minutes. All the stuff that won was brilliant. What a bunch of rock stars they are.

I did share this fun thought with a friend of mine at the show who had her own thought that I thought was a very insightful thought.

She is a very senior person at a big multinational agency. She said that when the senior people at her agency have their regular meetings to review the business, they talk about financials. Only financials. They never talk about creative. When they review their accounts, it's about how much money comes in, not about the quality of work that's being done for them.

She thinks this emphasis is reversed at The Big Five Creative Shops. I think she's probably right.

In fact, in a couple of cases, I know first-hand that she is. I've spent time with a couple of The Big Five talking about WWF's business. There's no question that agencies like Taxi and Rethink are all about the creative in every aspect of how their business is managed.

It's like any brand. If you want to be about something, you must live that something. You can't fake it. Saying it doesn't make it so.

This is why the same five agencies wear a path on the carpet to the podium every year.

I bet if the awards were for the biggest bag of money couriered to New York, you'd see five different agencies winning every single year.

And good for them, too. I guess.

I'm back! (Pam)

2006-03-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

Okay. So I didn't quit smoking. But no children were injured by me on the 24-hour drive to and from Sarasota. Fair trade, I'd say.

Stopped for some Marlboro Lights in Ohio, right around the time I realised that I'd forgotten to charge my iPod.

So, I'm back. Got in on Monday to look at results and figure out what we're going to do with the site to improve conversions.

FCB has recommended some very smart creative tweaks that will be implemented next week.

The CN Tower climb is moving at a screaming pace with just 6-weeks left before d-day. We've doubled the numbers of climbers and teams registered by this time last year. Nothing new in the marketing approach for this event, so I just gotta believe we're benefitting from overall awareness due to the climate change campaign.

I'm presenting this whole campaign at the CMA's Not-For-Profit conference next week. Have you ever tried to condense a year and a half of your life into a power point presentation? It's not easy.

Was just interrupted by my cell phone...child sick at school with very bad tummy situation. Must leave. Will write more this evening.

The friends you make (Pam)

2006-03-27T11:26:00.000-05:00

The first thing that I do when I join a company is to make friends in two places. One - the EA of the biggest cheese. (For access and any skinny one can get.) Two - the IT guys. (To find out how much snooping into my Internet activity goes on and access bitchin' new computers.)

I had a prob with my computer (don't ask me what). My whining (executed with great charm) resulted in the awesome new machine upon which I am currently typing. It's so super fast that the IT guy was just in my office giggling, literally, about what a monster he has built just for me. I LOVE IT GUYS!

So. That latest. Well. Not much.

New changes to the site will go live end of day tomorrow, I hope. We'll get the MSN activity off hiatus and see what happens.

CN Tower Climb registrations are going insane. The trick is...are these new registrations, or just migration of paper registrations to on-line? Don't know yet. Haven't done the data work.

Can't do the data work because I've put our data guy into chains and have swallowed him up into a dark and enless pit of data queries and analysis so I can finish my initial planning for next year. Donor base composition by channel. Value by channel. Attrition. Retention. Gift values by type. Tenure. Acquisition spend analysis. All very nerdy, but endlessly fascinating.

The people in my group are tiring of me interrupting their work to regale them with obscure facts about our business.

"Did you know, my fair maiden, that while 61% of our donor acquisitions have come from DRTV over the past 5 years, this group represents only 31% of our current base? Have you any idea the implications?" (Seriously, that's huge.)

Over the next day, I'll have all this data pulled into one bad boy of a document that will point the way for planning. Then it's off to the marketing committee of our board with a straw dog of a marketing plan for them to tear through.

This is my favourite part of my job. Taking gobs of data and finding the nuggets of gold that I can use to move the business where it needs to go. Trick is to bring everyone along with me.

(Update on tummy turmoil from previous post. Daughter suffered from nothing that some Pepto Bismol and SpongeBob SquarePants couldn't cure.)

Who's next? (Pam)

2006-03-28T12:54:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a break from putting the final touches on my CMA presentation. You know when you get to the part where you have to animate the thing? A boring task from which I need some reprieve.

So?

Who's going to take over this blog? Are you not bored with me by now and looking for some new tales of triumph, failure and motorcycles?

Surely there's someone out there pining to share with the world some great new marketing venture upon which they are about to embark?

If so, look no further. I think if you just email Paul Ferriss, a big cheese editor at Marketing Mag, he'll talk to you about it.

Why don't I share with you some thoughts as you ponder whether this is the thing for you?

DO THIS IF...

1. You have a story you think people can learn from.
2. You can commit to posting at least once a week. (Unlike, ahem, Bill Baker.)
3. You can write.
4. You have permission to reveal ancient Chinese secrets. Or at least some. It's no fun if you can't share results.

DON'T DO THIS IF...

1. You're crashingly boring. (Look deep within yourself to know the truth of this matter.)
2. You're afraid of people "judging" you. Confidence helps.
3. You think "nuclear" is spelled n-u-c-u-l-a-r.
4. You have a prob with strangers emailing you about their products/services/how they'd be so much better at your job than you are.

So!

Think about it. It's fun. Besides, everyone's dying to hear from someone new already.

(I'm guessing that's true. Maybe I need more confidence. Was it something I said? Did I say anything to offend anyone? Oh...my...gawd. What if people didn't get that I was joking when I said that Joe Piccolo wanted to punch me in the face? Cause I really was! Oh man. Now everyone might think I'm so awful that people want to hurt me. But it's not true! Chris Taciuk's shoes really are weird, but that doesn't make him a bad person. I didn't mean it! My good gravy, what have I done?!)

Big swissy news (Pam)

2006-03-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

NEWS UPDATE: Turns out Joanna Wiseman has indeed been offered and accepted that on-line marketing job in Switzerland. I'm sad for us, so glad for her. And, I am officially on the hunt for a replacement.

When the news came through, there was a bunch of girlish squealing and such. We're all so thrilled for Joanna who's embarking on yet another life adventure. She came to us after an 18-month around-the-world bender. Maybe it was a year. Anyway, she travelled Africa (where she almost had to have her leg chopped off because of some sort of vile infection), Australia and all over South America. Now it's Europe she'll take on. Too great.

So, anyone know any smart, fun, on-line marketing types? Looking for someone at the manager level who wants to save the planet using the power of the net.

On another note, I don't think I've ever mentioned one big part of our climate change fundraising campaign.

It's the CN Tower climb that we do every year. This is our 16th year. Anywhere between 5,000 and 6,000 people climb 1,776 steps from the bottom to the top.

It's our biggest fundraising event. The ads for it just went up on the street-level recycling bins around Toronto. Eucan, CTV, Standard Radio and the Toronto Star are our big media sponsors.

We've been working on the event since August, but now my entire team is consumed by it full-time until it happens on April 29.

The web work for this event has been competing with the work we're doing on climate web site. Juggling our slim resources can be challenging, particularly on the web.

But the on-line pledging technology is up and running. It's pretty cool.

Check it out.

Where the campaign's concerned, we've perhaps had a breakthrough on the climate change web site front. Bill and his team are pretty convinced that we need to create more off-line awareness in channels we haven't addressed as yet. I'm not sure precisely where this leading, but have a wide-open mind, waiting to hear what they've got up their sleeve.

I'm going to have to wait for about a week to find out, though. I'm off to Florida tomorrow night...in a van...with four kids...with plans to quit smoking cold turkey on the trip. I'm told this is going to be fun. I'm fairly confident, however, that I'm being lied to.

I'll let you know...........

Conversion, polar bears and Phyllis Yaffe (Pam)

2006-03-07T17:42:00.000-05:00

Jeez, Louise. It's terrible, this sitting and waiting. Waiting for new things to work. Have made a few revisions to the site to see what is going to help our conversion rates.

With the new MSN deal, we're getting a ton of click-thrus. Problem is conversion.

Our best conversions seem to be led by messaging around the fact that polar bears are drowning. It pretty shocking actually. Because the ice has melted so fast up there where the polar bears live, they have to swim sometimes up to 100km to get to their food sources. Some of them just can't make it. Stunning, given that these animals are the best swimmers with four legs.

So, we're working on integrating this messaging into the opening animation on the site, making the link between the plight of the polar bears and putting one's name in the sky.

We'll see.

I met with the word-of-mouth guy. Very, very interesting conversation. I think about how I make purchase decisions and how so many of those decisions are made by with input from my friends and colleagues. It just seems like a no-brainer that if the power of personal influence can be harnessed to save the planet, well then, colour me interested.

Will be talking about this and a couple of other ideas I have up my sleeve with the marketing committee of our board of directors at the end of the month. At that time, I'll be presenting a straw dog of next year's marketing plan.

The chair of this group is Phyllis Yaffe, the smartest woman I've ever had the luck to work with. A giant in Canadian business, sufferer of no stupidity and all-around great lady. We'll see what she thinks.

FYI, we just finished the month of February up 14.6% over last year (July to end of Feb) for revenue for my team. Smashing, I say. It would appear that we're doing lots right.

It's going to be 11 degrees on Friday. I want my bike.

3 names went into the sky while I typed this (Pam)

2006-02-27T09:32:00.000-05:00

It's been a week since last I whined about my need for speed and breeze.

In the meantime, we've launched an online campaign with MSN using a variety of different channels and creative executions, all text-based. The impact has been interesting.

Our acquisition rate has quadrupled, which is fantastic. But, we need it to gajillion-uple. The process of optimization is quite interesting and terrifying, particularly if you've got tracking issues and don't have all the answers. Each day, results improve.

Apparently, I need to be more patient.

The response to our acquisition direct mail is insane. We've got 58% more monthly donors than we would have expected. All that action is coming from our house lists. Looks like the reason is some sort of combination of the urgency of the issue and the creative.

Overall, we've raised close to a couple hundred thousand dollars so far. Still a long way to go from here.

On another front, one of my staff is in Gland, Switzerland, trying to get a job at our international headquarters. I know that once they get a load of her, I can kiss her goodbye. Very sad for me. Very good for her. All she wants to do is save the world, and working for our international team gets her one step closer to Kofi Annan's job.

Looks like I'll be needing a mid-level on-line marketing-type person real soon.

Woeful longing for wind and nausea (Pam)

2006-02-19T21:47:00.000-05:00

This is a totally personal post, apropos of nothing except my longing for summer.

I miss my motorcycle. Was pretty bad on those days in January when people were jogging in shorts and I saw so many bikes on the road.

Mine is in storage, so I can't just wheel her out.

Just thought I'd share. My misery is in search of company.

This is me with my Vulcan 800 Classic in July last year. She's so pretty, all pimped out in chrome. Here, we're on our way to Orange County Choppers in New York (about a 10-hour ride from Toronto). Went to see them about commissioning a WWF chopper that we would auction. The money didn't make sense, though. I saw Paul Sr., but didn't talk to him. He's huge.

This is me on a rented Harley Fat Boy at the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park in California in October. My husband and I took this trip to celebrate our first anniversary. It was almost our last anniversary. Just a few hours after this pic was taken, we were up in the mountains where my concentration broke as we were riding through a blind, hairpin turn and I wandered into the on-coming lane. Right after, I pulled over to have a smoke and consider my immediate future as a motorcyclist - how the hell I'd get off that mountain without ever getting back on a motorcycle again. I wanted to cry, but chicks on Harleys don't cry, so I didn't. But, I did ride back down that mountain, only to relive the incident in my nightmares for some time after. I feel nauseous whenever I think about it.

Yet still, I long for the wind to make a bird's nest of my hair and my goggles to make big, red, semi-permanent indentations around my eyes as I ride my bitchin' machine.

Oh, and our big Internet push on MSN starts tomorrow. Having serious tracking issues on the net. Something's getting lost between our ads and Web Trends. A major worry that, I'm hopeful, will be sorted out one way or another tomorrow.

Consuming thoughts (Pam)

2006-02-17T15:19:00.000-05:00

As you might imagine, I get lots of calls from suppliers who think they can solve all of WWF's problems.

Just got off the phone with a fella who does "word-of-mouth" marketing.

Here's the situation for WWF. We don't have a lot of money. (The bean counters at FCB have recently figured this out. Ahem.) So everything we do has to be smart, really smart. What that has meant for me in recent weeks, as I begin planning for our next fiscal year (which begins in July), is that I'm reconsidering every single channel we use.

Direct mail. DRTV. Advertising. Internet.

What are we doing and why? What's missing? What's on the decline? What's new out there that we need to investigate?

The sky has been falling on traditional marketing channels for a long time. Or so we've been told. (And have experienced in some cases.)

In a previous post, I talked briefly about these new/newish marketing channels called "viral," "experiential," "buzz," "word-of-mouth". Lots of hype. Lots of interesting little one-off case studies. But once you scratch the surface, you find, well, just some more surface.

This "new marketing" growth industry suffers from too much Anna Nicole Smith, not enough Einstein.

Yet, I remain intrigued. I feel that if I dismiss it, I do so at my peril. Seems to me, just intuitively, that there's something there. There has to be, right? Right?

Here's a scary thought. What if it's all bullshit? What if technology and how consumers use that technology eradicate our ability to get our message to our people?

(ponder....ponder....ponder)

Nah, can't happen. Just because the consumer is in control, doesn't mean they don't want to hear from us. I read Star Magazine. I read The Enquirer. Consumerism is alive and well. Consumers are called consumers because they consume stuff that we give them to consume. They're never going to stop. They'll just do it differently.

So those who figure out this "new marketing" will be the winners.

I think I'll give it a go and just hope for a little Einstein along the way.

Eyeballs needed (Pam)

2006-02-13T11:22:00.000-05:00

Something wonderful is happening.

Our direct mail responses are coming in at fairly good pace. What's interesting is that about half of them are for monthly donors. Usually, for every 20 one-time gifts, we get a monthly donor.

Not this time. At least, not so far. There aren't enough responses yet to know why, but I will. Is it the issue, climate change? Is it the creative? Who are these people who are donating monthly? Fascinating.

www.saveourclimate.ca is still seriously in need of eyeballs. To see what we can do about that, we've got a pretty cool little plan in place that starts on Thursday. All Internet-based.

Making our revenue targets for this fiscal year (ends June 30) now rests squarely on the shoulders of this site.

A magical moment in time (Pam)

2006-02-09T07:43:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to work where I work at this particular time. There's this magical moment in time where every eye is on the same prize.

For about an hour or so I took the management team through the intricacies of my plan and budget and answered many, many pointed and smart questions. I was tested and challenged. There were many questions that I couldn't answer as I forgot my crystal ball at home. In those instances I relied on the fact that this group of people has vision and trusts me.

It was a good meeting. It looks like we're going to move ahead according to plan.

Circling the wagons (Pam)

2006-02-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

Well, today I go before the Management Committee in order to save my budget.

It's that time of the year. The end of the first half of our fiscal year.

I'm particularly concerned because I need approval to spend a fair amount of dough on getting some eyeballs to www.saveourclimate.ca. Still, the site is not getting enough activity. Conversion rates remain pretty solid. We're testing headlines and are seeing a bit of improvement.

So, I've built my case and am ready for them to bring it on. (And I'm wearing some kick ass footwear, so I feel good.)

Elusive viralness (Pam)

2006-02-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

It's been two weeks since our launch. We don't have enough names in our sky at www.saveourclimate.ca.

Conversion rates are holding strong. Not getting enough traffic.

We're in market with TV (doing okay, not great, but okay, with our PSA pick-up), radio (doing very well with PSAs), transit in Toronto, magazine (full-page in Macleans election issue and a bunch of insertions in Dose, Today's Parent, etc.), some on-line ads.........all not driving to web in numbers that we need.

As we have experienced with our past campaigns this year, we're getting a lot of feedback from our donors and Canadians from all over. Almost all positive. People are seeing it and understanding it. It's building awareness, but it's not making people go to that web site.

So we have to look to the success of our Do Not Drill campaign (which just won at New York Festivals, ahem), where tens of thousands from all over the world went to the web site and signed a petition.

What made the difference for that campaign?

Well, there was a lot of coverage in the press about the U.S. legislators' vote on drilling in Alaska. In that coverage, our campaign was almost never mentioned, though. There's lots of press coverage right now about climate change, but it's not making a difference to our site visits. So press coverage doesn't seem to be the issue.

Offline media support for Do Not Drill was less than we've got for this campaign. So that's not a factor.

Creative. Well, the creative approach was very different. The Do Not Drill campaign was about the issue. The climate change campaign is about how WWF works to solve the issue. Very, very different. It was absolutely necessary to take a different approach this time for branding purposes. Canadians do not have any idea that we are active on climate change. We had to tell them that and tell them how we do it. Canadians already know about what climate change can do to the planet. We couldn't rationalize investing resources telling Canadians what they already know about climate change over telling them something about WWF and why they should donate to us.

It's an interesting question though. Would Canadians donate to us in greater numbers if we just scared the hell out of them? Or are they more rational and need a reason to donate to WWF specifically?

Or are we simply expecting this creative to do something it can never do -- drive traffic to the web?

We've always known that absolutely none of our offline creative units are built for direct response. We've always known that for www.saveourclimate.ca to succeed, it must have viral qualities. People have to tell their friends about it.

THAT'S what happened with the Do Not Drill campaign. It became viral. It did it on its own. This viral phenomenon is terribly disturbing to me because I can't control it. I don't know, for sure, why it happens, so I can't make it happen.

(Anyone who says they have the answer to this viral stuff is an artiste de merde boeuf, pardon my French. I've seen all those books out there about buzz, viral, experiential marketing. I admire these authors for their tremendous skill in packaging common marketing sense and making it look like it's something new. Props to them.)

Viralness (my new contribution to the industry's lexicon), as it is commonly defined, can only happen on the Internet, so the Internet it is.

Have set up a meeting of a SWAT team of Internet industry gurus who are going to help us get more names in the sky at our web site.

Will tell you what comes of it.

Cagey creative (Pam)

2006-02-02T11:57:00.000-05:00

I drive our receptionist mental.

Every morning, at 10 or so, I call her to see if the mail has come in. She knows my next question will be, "How many you got there, lady?" She's aware of my mail count obsession. I think she might feel a bit sorry for me and wonder what in my life might make me happy aside from Canada Post. I can see it in her eyes sometimes.

Today our first responses to our climate change direct mail came in. The next four weeks will give me a pretty good read on how well we'll do.

The package for this campaign is the best of my career...at least I think so. We'll see what the results are. DM is so fickle. Just when you think you know how people will respond, they do something different.

(People who are direct mail specialists like to talk about how scientific DM is. Well, maybe measuring it is scientific, if you call spreadsheets and databases "science". Otherwise, I'm pretty convinced that it's no less art than brand advertising is.)

Anyway, check this bad boy out.

The outer envelope has a giant window through which a personalized brochure is showing. On the brochure are a bunch of name tags of people at an international global warming summit. In the foreground is a name tag on which is lasered the recipient's name...on an angle and centred in the middle of the tag. The personalized name tag image is repeated again on the letterhead.

Genius!

Believe me when I tell you that this kinda fancy lasering gets DM production wonks all hot and bothered.

Me, I think it's a real cagey use of personalization. The power of one's own name is actually very profound. Much as one might profess differently, it's all about oneself at some deep psychological level. The ego must be fed and seeing one's name on a full-colour hunk of mail gives the ego a belly full. Here, the use of a person's name paints a mental picture where the recipient can envision herself at an international summit. She wants to find out what the hell she is doing there.

That's right. People are going look inside this package.

It was the brain child of FCB Direct -- led by the best dressed creative directors in the city. (Dean Maruna and Scott Pinkney wear suits every single day. Abnormal. Vaguely unsettling. And the suit thing is weird, too.)

Check out the whole package.

The challenge here was to reinterpret the TV concept in direct mail. I had a very difficult time imagining how it was going to be possible and was quite anxious as we waited to see concepts. The second they unveiled it, I knew it was a winner.

This concept came to us in the middle of our struggles with the development of the print ads. I felt so strongly about this creative that the agency indulged me in working this up as a print ad. In the end, we chose to continue working with the original print concept that we had.

Credit to the agency for their lack of inter-departmental rivalry (or at least hiding any whiff of it from me...they kept it in Vegas, so to speak). It's an uncomfortable position for all involved. I've been agency side, I know what time it is.

So! Now we count the mail and see what this super sexy DM does. I'll keep you posted.

The truth about clients and their agencies (Pam)

2006-01-25T09:21:00.000-05:00

I’m going to take a break today from discussing our campaign for this public service announcement. I’ve got something on my mind.

I’ve had an awful lot of conversations lately about the nature of client and agency relationships. Lots gets whispered amongst just us girls, but noone's saying much out loud. So here goes.

The fact is, as I interpret the trends, agencies are on the precipice of becoming completely irrelevant to Canadian business, if they aren’t already.

The reason for this – lack of perceived value. When agency/client relationships are broken, which most are, clients feel like they're being taken for a ride and, as often as not, it's their own fault. Let me qualify this by stating unequivocally that there are exceptions. But, they are few.

Here’s what I see and it’s a vicious circle. Like two cats in a bag.

At least that's how I've seen things play out in my many years in this biz, working on both sides.

Solutions? Yeah, there are lots.

Clients must recognize that agencies require a reasonable margin. They are businesses with shareholders. Agencies must earn that margin by actually providing value. Stop promoting kids before they're ready. How about investing in training and mentoring? Agency staff, particularly junior staff, must accept that earning your chops takes time and it's a mistake to try to rise before it's time. Clients must truly partner with their agencies. They are key to strategic planning. How can agencies have any kind of impact on the growth and direction of a business if they're only briefed project by project? Agencies need the big picture but have to demonstrate that they are good enough to be at the strategy table.

Oh, and then there's having fun. This business is a grinding one. On some days, there's very little to recommend it. So finding moments of pleasure, together, is important. It's pretty easy to do and doesn't have to cost anyone anything.

Okay, that's what I think. Let's discuss.

(NOTE: This discussion bears no reference to WWF's relationship with FCB. In fact, we don't have these problems because we work hard not to. Well, except to say that WWF doesn't pay FCB enough -- but, come on, we're a charity. We do offer lots of other benefits to the partnership aside from money.)

Buzzzzzz (Pam)

2006-01-24T19:13:00.000-05:00

Looks like the site is hovering around 8.5% conversion. Highly respectable. Most people are putting more than one name in the sky.

The majority of users are entering the site directly. 20% are coming from wwf.ca and 3% are coming from this here blog. Inneresting.

Thanks so much for your support, people!

What we need now are just more people going to the site. We learned, particularly for our hugely successful Do Not Drill campaign (80,000 petition signatures), is that awareness takes time to build. We've only just begun, really.

The buzz does seem to be building. One of our staff members was at the CBC studios for the election night coverage. She said that more than a few people were talking about the campaign.

Pretty cool.

How I spent my Friday night (Bill)

2006-01-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

On Boxing Day I finally ditched my six year old computer and replaced it with one with a blistering fast processor. Does it ever change the online experience. I didn't know what i was missing.

Last night I added the names of my three nieces to the sky at saveourclimate.ca for two reasons. First and most importantly, because it supports a great cause; but in close second, because the site experience is awesome.

As I was watching the virtual sky last night I recognized a number of last, but not first names. Clearly, a lot of my co workers and some of my friends are making their contributions in the names of family members. When we were working through the web creative early in the process, we talked about offering special sentiments for special occasions such as Valentine’s Day. Based on what I’m seeing now, it might have been a big idea.

Watching and waiting (Pam)

2006-01-19T20:13:00.000-05:00

Names are going up in the sky! People from right across Canada.

There are also names from the U.S. There's someone from Spain and someone from Poland. (People from over 40 countries participated in our Do Not Drill campaign.)

Challenges so far include:

Very little media coverage of our press conference. We knew this would be a problem because of the election. Our campaign was planned in July. It just wasn't possible to move the launch once the writ was dropped.

For some reason, almost none of the TV weight we'd expected in the first three days of the campaign has actually aired. I get a report every morning that details the stations and shows on which the spot airs and the times. Lots missing. Trying to figure out why.

The site itself had a problem when a donor used a weird character and caused all the names in the sky to temporarily disappear. The good news is that people were still able to sign up during this technical glitch. It's fixed.

Wins so far include:

Transit is up and looks great.

Our MSN (we love MSN) deal has an ad and content on the first page of the Home and Lifestyle sections.

The viral potential of the web site seems to be gaining traction given that we're seeing sign-ups at a rate we wouldn't have expected based on very little press coverage and media activity.

We keep receiving a great deal of very positive and enthusiastic feedback from people who have seen and/or used the site.

We'll analyze site activity and conversion rates tomorrow and every day after that. Follow up PR efforts are also in the works.

Tense times as we wait and watch. But no huge warning signs as yet. Early days.

It's like crack (Bill)

2006-01-17T23:11:00.000-05:00

I watched over Pam's shoulder as she was checking out the reporting site that gives her real time analytics on the Climate Change Microsite - saveourclimate.ca. During the one hour period when she was presenting the campaign and the Climate Change programs to her organization, thirty donations were made; earlier in the day a Skywriter contributed $500. And Pam knew about within minutes.

We thought we had it good when I was at ATT+T Canada Long Distance and we got each day's sales results by noon the next day - it allowed us to optimize our media placement on the fly (at least in theory). With real-time reporting, Pam could practically pick up the phone and personally thank each donor before they had a chance to put their credit card back in their wallet.

There were moments when the real time reporting was tough to watch - the times when Pam refreshed the screen and there hadn't been any activity; but more often than not, it seemed like it would be addictive. Like crack to a Direct Marketer.

That said, there is definitely a buzz at WWF and at the Agency over this, and the online guys are getting the recognition they deserve - this is a world class website.

And as professionally gratifying as it is to be part of world class work like this, it's even more gratifying to see it deliver results.

Check it out (Pam)

2006-01-17T08:51:00.000-05:00

I just realised that I've never told you where you can find all the work we've been doing for the past four months.

www.saveourclimate.ca

When you get to the home page, roll your cursor over the stuff flying in the sky and click on it and see what happens.

You can see all the creative in the section called "Our Campaign"

Sign the petition in the section called "Do Your Part"

Put your name in the sky by clicking on "Donate"

Advertising people need to fight climate change, too, ya know.

When the going gets tough, the tough think about shoes (Pam)

2006-01-17T08:47:00.000-05:00

The media conference, she is done. I would have written sooner, but I was having beer.

Where to begin? All guests arrived on time and were in great spirits. Logistics were flawless. Content was flawless. What was less flawless was the technology.

When Mike Russill, the prez, introduced the web site, the computer froze. That's right - it didn't work. Worked fine the four times we tried it before.

No worries. Show must go on. Mike explains what the site does and the speaking continues. As that's happening, the computer gets rebooted and the site then performs as previously advertised.

Funny. I wasn't speaking at the conference, but it's amazing how it was I who riveted the audience when the computer crashed. Everyone looking for my reaction. Feeling my pain.

What can a person do at a moment such as this? Grace is what's called for. Grace comes from knowing that no matter what's going on around oneself, if one is wearing great shoes, one can deal with anything.

I was wearing great shoes. The elevator lady at the Tower told me so.

Launch Day II (Pam)

2006-01-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

Everyone's getting ready to leave for the media conference. It's happening.

Looked at the web site demo for the conference at 9:00 this morning. It was wrong. No idea how that happened. Will worry about it later. It's correct now.

Nothing like dangling off the side of a cliff to get the blood moving first thing in the morning.

Had a chat with the prez this morning about his speech. We need a rousing, emotional delivery. Not his usual style.

Talked to him about something he said to me when we were reviewing the direct mail copy.

He said that all the work that WWF has done over the past decades -- protecting forests and oceans and our endangered species work -- will be lost if we don't stop climate change.

That brings it home. Talking about that gave him a real spark. He'll do what we need him to do.

I'm going to drink some Diet Coke and medidate over a cigarette.

We have a show to put on. Wish us luck.

Launch Day (Bill)

2006-01-16T08:43:00.000-05:00

I just went to SaveOurClimate.ca to see if the Website is up yet. It is not, but there is a holding page announcing the launch today.

It feels like opening night.