control Archives - Steve Sammartino

The tale of two offices

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

I once worked in a consumer goods company which went from Individual offices to open plan.

I now work in an advertising agency where we have moved from individual offices to open desks.

What happened at these two firms is interesting. The first office (consumer goods marketing) sent out a mass email banning iPods (and any other brand of personal music device – this is seriously what the email said). Claiming that the idea of open plan was to encourage open communications, and it was rude to listen to music while working. That we couldn’t do our jobs while listening to music as it was distracting. While at the same time the directors had offices with doors.

The second office (advertising) did something much different. Firstly, all the directors have the same size desk and space as every employee. On our first day in the new office we all had a gift on our desk wrapped beautifully with a ribbon. Inside the pack was free coffee vouchers (for the cafe across the road) and a brand new iPod nano. And it had a note which said the following:

“The iPod nano – this is good for a few things. Moving to open will at times be challenging. If you feel it is getting on top of you, then feel free to bung in your iPod and listen to your favourite tunes. We’re also into the idea that we can all play part in creating our new vibe. So we’ll be asking you to supply the music each day. We’ll place a sign at the reception that says “Today’s music thanks to Ant Shannon.” Please make your playlist and get it on the dock. The iPods you’ve received also take video – get in the habit of recording the stuff you like or think about. Keep it, play it, share it.”

A massive difference in attitude, culture and resulting creative output. The culture we create in our startup or any business is a result of what we do, and we can change it at any time with a bit of effort and humanity.

Old Spice: Campaign of the decade?

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

Everyone loves the Old Spice campaign, how can you not, he’s on a horse! But the reasons why it is so great are probably more important than how great it really is. For anyone who has been living under a rock, the original advertisement deservedly won the Gold Lion at Cannes this year. You can watch it below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE]

I think we can all agree it is brilliant. The reasons are many and include the fact that the only promise is what the product will actually deliver, it pokes fun at the category norms and general communication, yet the humour and idea is inextricably linked to the product. In addition it’s one of the few product types where a global message can actually work. In general most global campaigns are obviously made for multiple markets and banal as a result. This was an exception.

The next iteration of the campaign is what put into the consideration set for campaign of the decade. The lead character in the advertising campaign AKA the ‘old spice man’ had a voice and tone which was was unique. He didn’t cannibalize the brand idea, just extend it and give it strength. The actor playing the role Isaiah Mustafa personified the brand, to the point where he could almost say anything and it would work. Knowing this the brand team and advertising agency decided to embark on a semi-live advertising campaign featuring his monologues.It involved setting up studio for a two-day session creating a series of humorous, personalized YouTube videos, with Mustafa reprising the character from the original Old Spice commercial. These were directed at members of the public and celebrities, who had asked him questions on websites such as Reddit, Facebook and Twitter.

It was so slick, so entertaining and brand extending it took a lot of convincing before I believed they were shooting it live. I even tweeted that there was no way this could be live. Just too slick. I was wrong and stoked to be wrong. What they did was set up a studio with Mustafa some props and the copy writers from the agency and they pumped out a TVC every 11 minutes, answering questions posed by key influencers on a few core social networks. Extreme trust by the brand owner Proctor & Gamble was given, which is a massive hat tip to such a large organisation embracing chaos, opportunity and potential risk. Let’s hope that other equally conservative brand stewards take the lead from P & G and let set boundaries instead of requiring approval. You can read more about how they did it here.

The proof of the success goes beyond eyeballs. Of which they generated plenty, in fact the dominance they had over the Youtube most watched page is something I’ve never seen in the 5 years Youtube has been around. They did have well over 110 million views of various executions.

But far more importantly Old Spice has doubled it’s sales since the campaign hit the web. Up 107% currently (Nielsen) though I’m not sure if much coupon or price activity is behind it, you’d have to say the campaign was the biggest driver in a category that has growth below 10% per annum.

What does this all mean?

If any old world marketers have any doubt about the power of the web as a tool should stop and consider for a few moments what has just happened here. It also tells us that old media and new media are clearly ‘better together’. And lastly, brands who want to get the best results have to let go, forget about control and understand that moderating a message will only ever dilute the results.

No 1 reason being an employee sucks

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

The number one reason being an employee sucks is this:

You can’t sell your job.

No matter how good you are at what you do,

–   you don’t own your output
–   you are building other peoples brands and empire
–   you are at the risk of hierarchy
–   you are not servant to customers, but wage earners (the fundamental issue)

What this means is that as an employee you are not serving those who actually pay your wages – your consumers. Instead you become servant to people who are best at ‘internal politics’. So for you to succeed in this environment, you too must excel at internal politics. Which takes you always for important real world skills entrepreneurs develop. And then the final reality is that at some point in your ’employee career’ someone will not like you, and dispose of you. At this point you instantly lose any good will or employee equity which was built. Even if you are a stock holder, you still have no decision making authority.

employee-silhouette

The point is, if you want to build assets, being an employee makes it difficult because you lack control. If you want control, then you must have the courage to build something independently, like entrepreneurs do.