Where Soldiers Come From

When assigned to watch a documentary to study its storytelling elements, I asked a film student friend of mine for a few recommendations. I knew she would recommend a movie that was great from a film perspective as well as told a moving story. I was not let down.

Where Soldiers Come From is a tale of a few young men from Upper Peninsula, Michigan who decide to join the National Guard together and get deployed to Afghanistan. They serve essentially as minesweepers, checking roads in high risk areas for Improvised Explosive Devices and clearing the roads for the soldiers behind them.

Watching the movie was an emotional roller coaster to say the least. There were a few laughs and a lot of tears. The filmmakers did an excellent job of evoking strong emotions from viewers through a variety of story elements.

The plot intertwined the stories of all of the young men, including their families and their other relationships. The best part of the plot was that the climax was not when you think it was. I expected the boys' deployment to be the climax and the movie to end with their return. Instead, their return to the U.S. was the climax of the film and the ending included a lot of their struggle with reintegration into normal society after war. This was like an extra loop on the emotional roller coaster and brought out even more emotional responses from me.

The character development throughout the film was also a huge factor in my emotional responses. One story in particular hit me hard. The most quiet and most reserved of all the main characters went through a huge transformation from the beginning of the film to the end. War truly changed him from a slightly introverted boy into an emotionally hardened man. He also had the most medical repercussions from the IEDs explosions. His story was really depressing because of his major transformation.

Another juxtaposition in the movie was in the setting. There were many direct screen cuts between the snowy or waterfront scenes in Michigan to sweltering desert scenes in Afghanistan. It really drove home the point that these young men were going through a major life change and atmosphere adjustment.

All of these elements coming together is what drew me in to the story. I wasn't expecting to laugh wholeheartedly or sob uncontrollably at a story of a few young men going to Afghanistan, but I did. The fact that this movie could control my emotions so distinctly is what made it great. The lesson I will take from this film and apply to my presentations is to take people on an emotional trip, to appeal to their humanity to evoke feeling. I don't want to make anyone start cackling or bawling during a presentation, but if they giggle or shed just one quiet tear, my job would be done.

How to be a Fan

To become a fan you must first grow several blades all at slight angles so they will cut smoothly through the air. Then you must install a motor and attach yourself to a ceiling. When a slightly hot or mildly muggy day comes along, somebody will turn you on. 

To be a fan of the other type takes a lot more. For me, to be a fan is to really like something so much that you are willing to devote time and energy to it above anything else at a certain time. You can be a fan of really anything, but for my working definition I am going to focus specifically on sports fans.

My dad always used to tell me as a little girl that he was never upset that his first-born child was a girl because he treated me just the same as he would a little boy. While my mom would spend hours in Target and Toys 'R' Us picking out dolls in pink dresses for me, my dad was planning "daddy-daughter dates" that consisted of teaching me how to play street hockey and have a strong handshake. A lot of the time I spent with my dad as a kid consisted of going to sporting events. Luckily for me, growing up in Tampa in the 90s meant that the Tampa Bay Lightning and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (they've since dropped the "Devil" in their name for political correctness) were just horrible enough that lower level season tickets were really affordable. Little did he know, my dad was teaching me how to become a sports fan. He had a few rules that he always reminded me of that determined what made a good fan to him.

1. A good fan always roots for the professional team of the city in which he currently lives.

Sure, you can hold that childish love of the Red Sox games you went to in Fenway as a kid if you grew up in Boston. But, if you've lived in a place longer than a few years and you're planning on staying, you better start loving your local team. You can't have lived in Miami for 10 years and still root for the Giants to win against the Dolphins. 

2. A good fan always loves his team in the best of times and the worst of times. 

This is a basic rule of sports fandom. I'm lookin' at you, bandwagoners. 

3. A good fan never forgets his Alma Mater.

Granted, this rule only applies to the fans that have attended college and those who haven't still have the the right to root for whichever college team has the prettier colors. What really matters is for those of us that have been to college to never ever root against your own team. It doesn't matter where your parents went to school or where your kids are studying. Rivalries are especially important for this rule. You can't root for your rival no matter what. If you went to UF, the word Seminole should make you shudder. If you go to UNC, you should know the correct way to spell dOOk. When you chose your school, you choose your team for life. There is only one exception to this rule: if you have multiple degrees from multiple institutions. Generally, my father always said you should go with undergraduate. 

These are the simple rules my dad taught me for being a good sports fan. They have been really engrained in me, and I even have instilled them in some of my friends. For me simply following these rules is what makes a good sports fan. 

Giving Creatives That Warm, Fuzzy Feeling

Just last week I heard a creative from a prestigious agency speak at an event about the divide that exists between the creative department and the account teams in an ad agency. He gave a few reasons why this divide exists and a few ways that we can all try to fix it. While he was speaking on the topic, however, I couldn't help but keep thinking about the role that a planner might play in this high school clique-esque environment. When it came down to it I just felt like the number one thing to do was to always work to give creatives that warm, fuzzy feeling they get when they feel inspired and appreciated. When it comes time to create new work for a client, the place to start is with the creative brief. Planners have one sheet of paper and a few minutes of briefing to give a creative team the same feeling they get when they dig their toes into the sand while drinking a Mai-Tai on vacation.

I found one brief while browsing Pinterest that really seemed to encompass all of the positive brief qualities that are consistently discussed amongst planners and creatives alike. It's a brief for a fruity soft drink brand in the UK, Tango, and it's great.

The brief first assesses the problem the brand is facing with e brand proposition: "Tango is a sleeping giant". That serves as inspiring because it encompasses the potential opportunity for the brand while still creating a sense of urgency. The what do we need to do sections are filled with clear, attainable goals. Then, the real fun begins.

This brief is one I really enjoyed especially because it is chock-full of insights both about the market and the consumer. It clearly states to the creatives that the brand must build its personality to build consumer relationships while addressing the health issue currently being propagated by the media. That's a lot to work with.

After the insights, the brief really begins to envelop its own personality. A specific tone and voice is developed that resonates with the Tango brand. The words resistance, revolution, empowers and assertive all really express the image and tone that the brand is looking for without doing the creatives job for them. I feel that a brief like this is very inspiring and would probably really get the wheels turning in the creative teams' minds. The colloquial-ness of the phrases like "Join the revolution" can really give a creative team the first push into a really productive creative brainstorming.

All in all the brief is sure to give a creative team that aforementioned warm, fuzzy feeling and eventually produce great work.

Take a closer look at the brief here: http://www.graphics.com/article-old/what-does-inspired-creative-brief-look

My Really, Really Boring Yet Awesome Creative Process

I grew up my whole life thinking I was not a creative person. I was the kid who colored specifically in the lines in a coloring book. There was no such thing as freestyle art when I was 6. I would trace the images from books ever so carefully as not to miss a thing. When writing notes to my parents or friends in crayon, I would first draw lines on the page to keep my writing straight. My mother used to tell me I barely had a creative bone in my body.

This belief was engrained in me through childhood until I began to realize that "creative" didn't really mean what I thought it did. Creative wasn't necessarily about art or music. In fact, I was and am a creative person. I am a creative thinker. My creative lives in the world of ideas, of words written in straight lines on paper or scrawled on a whiteboard.

In her book, Twyla Tharp speaks about walking into a white room. My white room is usually more of a blank page. I recently took the full length Meyers-Brigg test to find my personality type. I discovered that I am an ENFP which means I am extroverted, intuitive, feeling and perceptive. Generally the intuitive part means I am a big picture person, and that is the beginning of my creative process.

1. I see a blank page. I see the big picture. I title said blank page with said big picture.

Then comes the most difficult and agonizing part for me. I have to find out how to make the big picture happen. This is generally when I have to stop myself from getting too wrapped up and carried away with one big idea. I had a professor once who was in creative advertising. He told me he had the same problem. His solution was to go see a movie or two to clear his head and come back to the problem. I prefer to try my best to not think about the project or big picture at all.

Everyone knows the feeling a person gets when they have something on the tip of their tongue and they simply cannot come up with it until their mind is miles away and then it just pops up. That is how my creative process works. My subconscious does my best thinking.

2. Let my subconscious thinking handle the idea-making.

People often say they get their best ideas in the shower. For me, my best ideas have the nasty habit of coming to me right before I fall asleep. Luckily, I always have my iPhone handy to write down the note to myself.

3. Try to fall asleep. Wake up to idea. Write it down. Spend next hours trying to get back to sleep.

Once ideas start flowing and I become sleep deprived enough, I add all of the ideas together under the big picture and fill up the blank page. Then it is just a matter of prioritizing, reordering, discussing with others, etc. and the best ideas will come to the forefront and Voila! 

4. Organize and prioritize.

It may not be the most interesting creative process. It involves a lot of napping. However, this is my own way of coming up with the best ideas and thinking creatively. It's just a matter of following these steps without getting too distracted or discouraged.

Asking the Right Questions

Being a researcher is not easy. Finding the important and insightful nuggets from research conducted is even harder. All professional researchers encounter situations in in-depth interviews, focus groups and other interactions where they seem to reach a dead end. When in these situations, a good researcher will know how to navigate away from the one word answers to get what they really want from an interviewee or focus group participant: a good story. Here are some examples of how to turn a dead end question into an open-ended one.

Have you ever sent me a text message while driving?

• Tell me about a time you or a friend have texted while driving.
• How do you handle your cell phone when you are driving?

Would you say you travel abroad frequently?

• Where do you like to travel to?
• Can you tell me about a time you've traveled abroad?

Do you post a lot of pictures on Instagram?

• What is the best photo you've posted on Instagram?
• How do you use Instagram on a regular basis?

Do you prefer to shop at big boxes or locally owned stores?

• Where do you usually shop?
• Tell me about your shopping habits and/or routines.

Do you have an iPhone or an Android phone?

• What kind of phone do you have?
• How do you feel about smartphones? Do you have any favorites?

How often do you eat sweets?

• What are your favorite sweets to eat?
• What habits do have when snacking?

Do you tend to buy things on sale?

• Can you tell me about a time you bought something on sale or got a a really good deal?
• Can you tell me about a time you spent too much on something you really wanted?

Of course it seems obvious that in conducting research, one should ask good questions. The more important thing to ask is why is it important to ask the right questions?

It's important to ask the right questions because if you don't, you won't get the answers you need. You may get the answers you want to hear, but necessarily anything that will help you come up with a great idea. If you don't ask the right questions, you could easily miss something that could lead to a good insight. Questions should be geared to get as much information as possible with the lowest risk of confirmation bias which makes open-ended questions ideal for research.

Besides the above-mentioned obvious reason of not getting the answers you will need to gain a good insight from the research, there are other things you may miss in not asking the right questions. For one, you might miss a great story. A really great story that even just one consumer may have could uncover something that other research may have missed. Also, stories are more than just quantitative information. They give the consumer, target audience, brand and even the point of purchase a personality. They can set the tone and add an element of emotion to the research. If you ask a simple yes or no question, you can miss all of these aspects of what you are trying to find. If you don't ask the right questions, you won't get stories. If you don't get stories, you probably won't get a great insight. And if you don't get a great insight, you will encounter a lot of problems in the next step in the process: sparking the creative. 

Fact: Lysol Kills 99.9% of Germs

Fact: Lysol kills 99.9% of germs. Insight: When cleaning their homes, consumers are concerned about the health of their families. Fact: When eating Cheetos, people get the powder on their fingers and rub them on something. Insight: Adults get a feeling of mischief and youthfulness when eating junk food. Fact: Women and girls are falsely portrayed as perfect by mass media. Insight: Women and girls have an innate low self esteem in reaction to how they see women in media around them, and they want this media to reflect more realistic body images.

Facts are not insights. All of the above examples show that when it comes to advertising, facts are important, but insights are key. Finding the motivational factor that can change human behavior is the difference between a good advertisement and a great one. Lysol found that a major concern for household cleaners is staying healthy. Cheetos found in focus groups that when adults eat junk food such as Cheetos they consider it indulging and thus it brings out their mischievous sides. Dove didn't have to look too far to figure out that across the board, women and girls feel inadequate in comparison to the portrayals in mass media and by the beauty industry. Research indicated in all three cases that there was an emotional motivation that could be tied to their products and lead to increased purchase considerations for these products.

But emotion is not necessarily the only key to finding a great insight. There is one overarching principal that applies to finding insights and separating them from the facts. While facts are truisms about a product, brand, consumer, etc., insights are the WHY. Insights in a way explain something that was already inherently true. Jeremey Bullmore of the WPP Advisory Board once wrote, "Why is a good insight like a refrigerator? Because the moment you look into it, a light comes on." An insight really explains the why, the true nature of something.

Bill Bernbach said, "At the heart of an effective creative philosophy is the belief that nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often can camouflage what really motivates him." This still explains what an insight is today.

Insights are hard to define but the above can serve at least as working definitions of the term. Another concern though, is about where do insights come from? Who finds them and how and where? This is where planning comes into play and shines in the spotlight. Forbes describes, "the job of the planner is to ensure that the work produced by the agency is effective, digging up consumer insight and refining it so it can fuel creative ideas." The role of the planner is invaluable to finding the best consumer insights and making sure they are executed as to have the best effect.

Sources:
The Heart of Effective Advertising
Why is a Good Insight Like a Refrigerator?

Anchorman Press Tour Represents Fragmented Media

“Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean that really got out of hand fast.” Ron Burgundy has never spoken truer words. These words are also apt for describing the far-reaching press tour launched for the release of the highly anticipated sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. In the months preceding the December 18^th movie launch, Will Ferrell infiltrated many media outlets, in character, to promote the film.

From March 2013 to September 2013, Ron Burgundy recorded YouTube videos on topics such as the American Football League and Australian elections, focusing on foreign markets. Burgundy also appeared at the San Diego Film Festival to honor producer Judd Apatow.

But the real impact began with the October 4th launch of the Ron Burgundy campaign for the Dodge Durango. Seventy versions of the 30 second spots were recorded. The ads first appeared solely on YouTube but later aired on multiple TV networks. Dodge boasted a 59 percent increase in sales during the month of October.

On October 30^th, Burgundy promoted his autobiography Let Me Off at the Top! My Classy Life and Other Musings. The November 19^th release of the book was complete with book signings and it can still be purchased on Amazon for as little as $7.99.

The next couple of months were rife with Ron Burgundy appearances across multiple platforms. The New Yorker published an excerpted chapter of his autobiography; he presented an award at the MTV EMAs, hosted a contest to join his news team, appeared on Conan, starred in a local North Dakota newscast and released a slew of YouTube videos.

Popular blog Grantland hailed the multifaceted campaign as genius: “..the full realization of Ron Burgundy apparently has some smart minds behind it who understand the importance of making the cartoonish jazz flutist and charming buffoon as real as possible. It’s working…”

Although the portrayal of fictional character Ron Burgundy as a real entity was key to the campaign, it can also be seen as a reflection of the fragmented media in a digital age. We are past the days of releasing a movie trailer and calling it a day. If a brand or, in this case, a film wants to penetrate the lives of those in its target market, it has to be everywhere. The original launch of the Dodge Durango ads via YouTube alone is just the beginning of major multi-platform campaigns moving to a more fragmented and increasingly digital presence. Even the traditional aspects of the Ron Burgundy campaign were inevitable designed to gain traction with online audiences by “going viral”. The local news broadcast from North Dakota exemplifies this. There are several versions of the video on YouTube, garnering over a million views. As media continues to evolve in a digital age, more and more brands will follow in Ron Burgundy’s footsteps.

Vulture Burgundy Press Tour
Grantland Burgundy Press Tour