Now here's a well-thought, comprehensive overview of our industry today. Thanks to Rich LeFurgy for forwarding this.  A summary:

For digital publishers and agencies, here's what I hope this conversation leads you to do:

1. Motivate greatness among your best creative people, for their work inspires consumers and customers alike.
2. Collaborate -- creative agencies and publishers -- with each other and within yourselves to develop outstanding advertising and communications products.
3. Assemble writers, designers, and technologists into teams that can engage the intellect and emotions of audiences and individuals across all channels, toward the goal of creating enduring brands.
4. Prove to your customers that causing the heart to beat quick is at least as important as making the mouse click.

Marketers and media companies are troubled and faced with a conundrum. How do you deal with the realities of a depressed economy and falling sales? How can management both meet short-term revenue demands and invest in the future? How do we "disenthrall ourselves" from the models and business demands of the past when we depend on these models for our day-to-day survival? And how can we possibly invest in new strategies and approaches when there is not sufficient budget to support the barest minimum of what we require day-to-day to meet our most basic goals?

 

In a long-ago blog post (that I can’t even find in archive.org), I remarked on the Livermore Centennial Light Bulb that is still burning after 106 years, and I wondered what technology that we use today will still be plugged in and running a hundred years from now.

One of my favorite effective TV ads was for Philips Marathon light bulbs. In the span of 30 seconds a college freshman arrives at his dorm room, and the first thing he does is screw in his Philips light bulb. Four years of college ensue, then graduation, then he packs up his dorm, unscrews his light bulb, and leaves. I can’t seem to find this ad online either, but you get the idea, and I would tend to believe them.

I thought of these when a light bulb burned out at my house recently. When I removed the glass globe and unscrewed the bulb, I read “Handicapped Workers – Long Life". We bought those bulbs before we moved into this house 20 years ago. I was skeptical when my wife bought them, but I didn’t have the kind of critical information sources (other than this) that we have today that might have convinced me one way or the other. I replaced the bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb that is supposed to last over 12,000 hours (compared to 4,000 for the old bulb, or 750 for a standard incandescent). I’ll let you know when I have to change it, if our archive is working as it should.

The recently-passed U.S. Energy bill phases out the sales of incandescent bulbs by 2014. I can already see the entry in the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2036: "They never saw an incandescent light bulb for sale." Which brings me to one last question. When you learn something, does the light bulb go on or does the light bulb go off? Spellweb gives the edge to the light bulb going on, but only by a 3:1 margin. So it depends on whom you ask:

"That’s the beauty of teaching, watching the light bulb come on. When you help a student grasp a difficult concept they’ve been struggling with, it’s the best feeling in the world." - Lois Kreitzer-Housler, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford

or

"Seeing the light bulb go off in a student’s eyes when a key concept or idea is understood makes all of the preparation worthwhile." - Stephen Jones, St. Edward's University

I'm going to post these snippets from Adweek without comment. It's a perspective on the rise of user generated content by Phil Dusenberry, former chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America. He was inducted to the One Club Creative Hall of Fame this month. He is currently battling cancer, and I wish him the best.

Q: What do you think of the state of copywriting, given that we have user-generated content and consumer influence in the creative process?

A: As far as consumer-generated content, I think that's a joke because you should leave it to the pros to get something done. You may luck out and catch an idea from some amateur, but that's not really the way to go.

Q: So, you think it's a fad.

A: I don't think it's going to last, and you're going to see it take a powder very soon.

Q: Even though "consumer engagement" is the phrase of the moment?

A: The whole idea of consumers generating ideas is like pulling your own teeth as a dentist. Leave it to the professionals. That's what they're paid for.

Forbes.com ran a story this week by a couple of marketing-strategists, Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak, on the surging popularity of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, a philosophy centered on rational egoism. Yaron Brook has been doing an amazing job running the the Ayn Ran Institute, especially in his drive to put copies of Rand's novels in high schools. The article calls out a tripling of resources since 2000 (to $7mil), but I would draw the real surge to 2001. I'm sure many people felt the way I did that September, that the ARI was an organization that could best fight for my values in a time when it seems to be so desperately needed.

But this post isn't a advertisement for Objectivism, rather it's about advertising Objectivism. The article is particularly interesting because it offers advice on how to improve the promotion of the philosophy. They are (paraphrased):

• Pick your demographic: conservatives who are fed up with the religious right
• Ask for help from those who already agree with you: business people
• Use traditional mass media: get on TV and in movies (Atlas Shrugged starring Angelina Jolie comes out next year)
• Be positive: state how things ought to be instead of complaining about how things are wrong
• Pick fights: imitate the Republicans by using wedge issues to keep people talking
• Use the Internet: communities formed around blogs are increasingly driving political debate, and now virtual worlds like Second Life are having an impact