Big Ideas Make Big Ripples

“We are lacking a big idea.” That is what our pr team has been saying for the last month. Up to this point, we strategically put together an amazing public relations plan. But, it was missing that special something. That creative cherry on top that will make the client salivate when we present it. We’ve had three creative brainstorming sessions to try and get to this elusive idea. Our first session was with our advertising partner, another was with our entire agency and the last meeting was with our core pr team. Like most great ideas, this big idea started with a small thought and snowballed into a whopper

We called our partner agency as quick as possible and shared the good news. This big idea was like a meteor falling in the Atlantic Ocean. The ripple effect started to pulse across our integrated marketing plan. Quickly, it was evident why integrated marketing is such an important tool. Years ago, this big idea would have only effected our public relations plan. This is because public relations lived on one planet and advertising lived on another.  However, when you are truly working collaboratively on an integrated marketing plan, a big idea has ramifications.

Our partner embraced our idea and they are moving quickly to try and integrate it into their part of the plan. This experience has taught me a few new integrated marketing lessons.

Here are my big takeaways:

1.) When you work on an integrated marketing campaign, remember that a great idea can come from anywhere and anybody. Be flexible and embrace great ideas.

2.) A big idea will have a ripple effect on all pieces of the marketing plan. When all the pieces are connected and overlapping, one idea always affects the next.

3.) Due to the ripple effect big ideas can have on integrated marketing plan, you will always need more money to work new ideas across the board. Hopefully, your big ideas will come early, but I have been around long enough to know they rarely do.
In the 11th hour, would you change your entire marketing campaign due to a new “Big Idea”?

More doing, less talking!

This blog headline sounds like a New Year’s pledge, but it is exactly what I have been up to for the last three months. I have been blessed to be apart of two integrated marketing projects, for two very well known brands. The first campaign is a new branding initiative, along with a three-year integrated marketing program. For this campaign, I have been integrating our agency with our advertising partner to put together a seamless plan. This is my first opportunity to utilize all of my talents in one project and I truly believe that I have learned something new everyday.

Here are a few tips I learned from this project:

1.) Two agencies and one-client means three distinct cultures. Don’t think any of these cultures are going to change. You need to learn how each operates and be flexible to work with them.

2.) Face to face meetings are essential when trying to build an integrated team. Although it is not good for the environment and profitability. It is a must, until you can build a bond of trust.

3.) Brand is the base for any integrated marketing campaign. With out that base you are just dancing in the dark. (Bruce, what!)

4.) Be honest and transparent with each other. It will always come back to bite you if you try to hide something.

5.) Have a POV, passion and a plan. Don’t ever go into a meeting not knowing what needs to get done. Every meeting is precious time.

The second project that I have been working on is more of a design project. That is to say, that my portion of the project is graphic design based. It is still an integrated marketing project, but I am one piece of the puzzle. In this project I have had to direct a photo shoot, put together a style guide, work with 10 regional photo shoots, edit over 100 photographs and design a 40 page brochure.

Here are a few tips I learned from this project:

1.) Even if you have a major brand, you still need a design style guide. It assists all integrated marketing agencies keep the look and feel standardized.

2.) Always have a timeline for your project and be truthful with yourself about how long it will take you to complete each task.

3.) Delegate as much of the work as possible. You can’t do everything and you need to be as good of a manager as you’re a designer when working on large design project.

4.) Make sure you are thinking about all the other components of the integrated marketing campaign when you work on your piece of the plan. If you don’t you might take your project in the wrong direction and have to start over.

5.) Have fun with what you are doing. Remember that great projects don’t get come around every day.

Sorry for the short amount of posts over the last three months, but I have been doing a lot of “doing”. It hasn’t been easy, but I love my job and I am learning something new each day. How many people can say that?

IMC Roundup

Just checking up on my IMC Google reader tonight. Here is your IMC Google roundup.

Since I have a love for travel, Adidas and IMC this post was particularly fascinating. I would make sure to RSS this blog. Helen Todd is an IMC masters graduate from Emerson College (oh snap) and is taking her gift to the world!
http://tinyurl.com/58x52v

Here is a post from American Shelf Life on my favorite subject: Me! (JJ)
http://tinyurl.com/5kr69z

Check out the the 2nd Annual Atlanta Integrated Marketing Summit
http://tinyurl.com/6p2c5y

Now introducing IMC on Oprah!
http://tinyurl.com/5hho4g

Raise a pint to this job offer.
http://tinyurl.com/5trv7g

Reader’s Digest gets Integrated.
http://westovermedia.com/blog/archives/509

RT:80% of marketers say social media is not a fully integrated component of their marketing programs
http://twitter.com/mgrimaldi/statuses/993419482

Well that is a good round up for tonight. I will leave some for tomorrow.

Three Categories for IMC Society

I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to set up IMC Society as there seems like a million directions I could take it. Integrated Marketing has the possibility to be everything to everyone and we all know why that won’t work. After talking to lots of people during the fall, I am starting to think that IMC society would be best broken down into three categories.

The first category is: Brand Communications
The primary audience for this category is brand managers and all those communications professionals that work with brand managers. This would include advertising, public relations, interactive, social media, branding, marketing, graphic design and industrial design. This group is usually external facing and are the integrated teams that communicate directly to consumers.

The second category is: Innovation
The primary audience for this category is company executives, research & development, sales, HR and brand managers (sometimes the external integrated marketing team is also included). This group is an internal facing integrated team and drives innovation at a company.

The third category is: Community
The primary audience for this category is the consumer, but the community represents the consumers, company and brand(s). This category represents the dialog & relationship that consumers have with the company, brand, product or service. This integrated community represents the future innovation and the possibility of a brand, product or service.

My big idea for IMC Society is that we would break down the association into these three themes. In future panel discussions, society conferences and possibly the blog, we will focus in on these audiences and these themes.

What do you think? Do you feel that the themes are two big? Do you feel like I left something out? Would you be interested in the society based on these categories.

The Future of Integrated Marketing Is In It’s Own Branding

I was listening to the Chris Brogan/Radian6 Twebinar today and someone used the reference of blog scrappers. The definition was actually about bots that scrap blogs and re-post. I felt like that was what I had started to do here on this blog. To set the record straight,  the reason I have been re-posting other blog entires is I have been re-thinking Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) and what it truly means and why it has not reached a critical mass in the communication industry. Re-posting others articles was a way to immerse myself back into thinking on IMC. So this is my first post where I want to lay out the vision of what I hope to be the future of IMC.

To start, I need to go back a few weeks to a conversation I was having with friend and Integrated Marketing Emerson professor Doug Quintal. I spent half of my Emerson grad program under the tutelage of Doug so it was easy to jump right back into a debate about IMC. As we spoke about the profession and the future of industry we started to explore the problem with integrated marketing is it tends to fall under the “all things to all people” category. If you want to tell your client that you can produce PR, Advertising, Social Media, Branding, Marketing and Graphic Design all under one roof, it’s easy to throw the IMC label on your service offering.

In thinking about this issue my thoughts were you need to be a specialist in at least one discipline to put a point of view on your offering. Example: Schneider Associates my current employer are public relations specialists, but we have the creative and strategic talent pool to assist our clients in all aspects of integrated marketing. My group assists the agency in rounding out our services in graphic design, branding, advertising, marketing, interactive and social media. I was mulling over this idea for a few days before I met with Doug. So when Doug laid out the idea that integrated marketing should be based in the speciality of brand management it really struck a cord. Doug suggested that integrated marketing communications should turn into integrated brand marketing. I pondered this idea for the last few weeks while on vacation in Maine, running with my wife and staring at my computer screen waiting to write my next Twitter post.

Today, I officially changed all my online profiles to reflect the idea of integrated brand marketing as the future of IMC. I truly believe that all communication and marketing professionals deal with brand at the heart of everything we do. Weather it’s human resources, sales, marketing or management the integrated efforts of all companies revolve around the company and product brands.

Do you believe that brand should be the base of integrated marketing communications?

Ben Cohen tells the brand truth

This was a nice interview and post by FuelNet with Ben Cohen. I love this quote from Cohen the most.
“I personally believe that communication is an art. Those of us who practice that very powerful art have a responsibility to use it for the common good. At some point you have to ask yourself, in whose interest am I using this tool? Is it propaganda? And who is it benefiting and who is it hurting?”

To read the full interview click here.

The single P&L for Integrated Marketing Communications

It’s never been easy for companies to change. One of the major reasons for that is due to money. The traditional methods of compensation are butting up against true integrated marketing organizational change. To work in a truely integrated team, one must look at all the communication tools available and select those that best fit the objective at hand. However, the past ways of doing business are to sell what will make you the most money. Marion Arathoon explores this in her post on the pros and cons of the single P&L on LiveMint.com by the WallStreetJournal.