Ignited - El Camp

Had the pleasure of being at 'El Camp' for our final agency visit for the term! I am in awe that such a place even exists, which simply provides a venue to foster creative thinking that can trigger great outcomes! It was great to meet Eric Johnson, the founder of Ignited USA, who played a vital role in supporting M-School in it's initial years.

We were at El Camp to finalize on our final presentation outlines and learn some valuable presentation skills! 

A valuable tip to remember would be:

• Tell the audience what you're going to tell them in the beginning of the presentation.
• Tell them.
• Remind them what you told them at the end of the presentation.

There! Simple enough. People have short attention spans and get bored easily - it is essential to remind them and keep them engaged without being redundant.

Other tips to remember would be:

• Unexpected Openings
• Effortless transitions between speakers
• Pacing - not too fast, not too slow
• E-N-U-N-C-I-A-T-E

Confidence is critical and you need to identify your style! But don't worry, if you don't have one 'Fake it, till you become it'! - And that's my best take-away.                                                                                            

Tom's Shoes

I must say, when I found out that we were going to Tom's Shoes, I was confused. Isn't Tom's a shoe brand? What does that have to do with advertising? branding? marketing? Unlike Dollar Shave Club, Tom's doesn't have an in-house marketing agency integrated within. So what's the connection?

The cool thing is One for One, in fact, is Tom's marketing. Yes, it may not be marketing as what it used to be perceived as in the traditional sense. You don't see too many commercials or ads from Tom's. However, you do see One for One plastered everywhere in Tom's branding. 

I believe that the main reason that people buy Tom's is that they are actually good looking, versatile and overall well made pairs of shoes. They offer a variety of designs and options. However, a typical customer comes out feeling great from a Tom's purchase because their purchase enabled someone underprivileged to receive a pair of shoes (One for One). Which is why I believe that Tom's model is successful - people genuinely come out feeling good from the purchase.

It is also harder for a different brand to copy Tom's model because Tom's already has these value chains established in various under-developed nations. Therefore, 'Bob's' is not going to have the same appeal and brand loyalty as Tom's.

It is, therefore, crucial for Tom's to make their message and cause known to as people customers as possible as this is what drives their sales (people who are aware of this message are more likely to purchase from Tom's). I was taken-aback when we were told that only 50% of Tom's customer's know of the One for One message - how is this possible? their message is plastered everywhere, including the insoles of their shoes. 

We concluded that, in order to make more of their customers aware of their message, they would have to incorporate it in their packing in a more obvious in-your-face fashion. For example: Finding a scroll in your shoe box with the 'One for One' message including imagery that makes it obvious.

Tom's office looked very much like an ad agency's office! Lots of creativity around and the most random things laying around everywhere including a pink stuffed bear just chilling in one of the cubicles and a turbo tube slide that can bring you down to the first floor from the second floor - which I obviously took to get downstairs!

Turbo Tube Slide @Tom's corporate office in Playa Vista.

Universal McCann

Our session at UM was great - they are wonderful hosts and treated us to a nice meal of salads and pizza! So before I begin, thanks UM!

UM in Los Angeles is at a great location - right by LACMA. They primarily handle the SONY account - including SONY Theatrical, Media, Electronics and Content (I was so thrilled to know they were involved in Breaking Bad).

We talked a lot about the marketing world today. I was surprised to learn that the average attention span of a human being is 8 seconds - lower than that of a goldfish (9 seconds). So we were told how important it is to grab someone's attention and convey the message in as little time as possible!

In today's world, people spend more time on media than on sleep. The internet culture is here. Media sparks conversation and great marketing is synonymous with great conversation.  We learnt how essential it is to have a media strategy to effectively navigate towards achieving your objectives through the use of media.

Electronic Arts

I had mixed feelings about visiting EA - primarily because gaming wasn't a huge part of my childhood. And yes, although everyone has played Mario and Pokemon, even those I didn't get into it enough to the point where I was hooked for a long time.  

However, somehow, EA's brand - the logo you see above, is so recognized around the globe, that I knew what it was as far back as I can imagine, even in India,  before I even got to know some of their products.

Of course, soon enough I was acquainted with FIFA - literally every guy I knew was constantly playing the same - I remember the first time I saw my cousin playing it, I thought there was a real football game on TV, it wasn't until a while after I realized it was a game - the visuals were amazing, everything to the rain pouring down the stadium was perfect like it was actually happening. 

Once at EA, the place looked awesome, but I wasn't surprised - it's EA after all.  We met Dominique McAree who is the Director of Media Solutions in the West! Dominique was high on energy and enthusiasm - he seemed to take a great interest on us 'millennials' as we signify the future of this planet *no pressure*.  

I was surprised at how he seemed to value our thoughts and contributions in ideas - in my mind, we are just juniors in college, who don't know enough about the real world outside the bubble called LMU - but Dominique, in spite of being far superior than us in terms of experience, was really interested in our inputs during the session. 

Dominique also showed us some facts regarding the gaming industry - who'd have thought it is bigger than Hollywood?! That's just crazy in my mind. Yet this makes sense, as gaming seems to be a part of most people's lives in some way, just as movies are - it doesn't have to be in a PS or a Nintendo, it would be in your PC, your phone..ranging from FIFA, Assassin's Creed, World of Warcraft, Pokemon Go, Candy Crush, Super Mario.... the list is truly endless. 

Not surprisingly, corporations want to get in on gaming as a portal for advertising their products to their consumers. A significant portion of any corporation's target market are gamers - specifically if you want to target millennials. These advertising revenues do form a significant income source to companies like EA that make games..

At the end of the session, each group got a corporation and how the corporation could get into competitive gaming for the purpose of advertising. My group got Hyundai, the car company based in S.Korea. We decided the best way for Hyundai to get involved in a competitive gaming event, such as FIFA (football) would be through half-way events through the involvement of the athletes with the audience and distribution of the 'Hyundai Cup' for participation. 

Dominique loved our idea - but he loved every other group's idea on some level - he told us that he would be tough on us, but nope, he was super nice. :P

DONNA LAMAR

This week we got to meet Donna Lamar & Javier Castillo who have made a niche for themselves in the marketing and visual content industry!

Upon stalking her website , I could see what my professors were talking about regarding Donna Lamar's video content. It's got a certain quality to it, a certain mood. Love her short films & documentaries -  be sure to check out Paper & Walking Drawings (my favs).

I was early to class for Donna Lamar, which gave me the opportunity to introduce myself to her, which was great. She seemed like a very introverted and chill person - the opposite of loud and obnoxious - that was my first impression of her. Javier Castillo embodied a similar vibe.  They seem low key yet have phenomenal work to their name. Donna also loves to surf! And for some reason, I take an instant liking to people who surf!

Once the session began, we had the opportunity to watch Donna's new short film based off a poem - which I would describe as sassy yet melancholic - being from India, I could somewhat relate to the mood of her film. 

However, perhaps a crucial take away from the session IMO were the video presentation tips which we are to use for our own team's video for the final presentation at LMU.

The tips are as follows:

• Clarity of Communication/Concept
• Originality of Content
• Financial Feasibility
• Informational & Evokes Emotion
• Social Media Currency - better be high!

I found it quiet interesting that the less budget you have, the more creative you can be - because there is less pressure to come up with something great and nobody is holding you by the neck. We also learnt about account led agencies and creatively led agencies and how creatively led agencies can be more competitive and demanding!

My top take-away however from the session is, however, Donna's tip:

'Work with people who are similarly creative' - or as I'd like to call it 'Let your vibe attract your tribe'. 

Pitch Day @ Dollar Shave Club

The much awaited moment of my M-School Journey this semester just happened this Monday - Our Dollar Shave Club pitch event, where we pitch our Marketing for Good Project ideas to a special panel of Dollar Shave Club employees and none other than THE BOSS - Michael Dubin himself in flesh and blood, for funding to kickstart our project ideas.

This pitch couldn't have come at a worse time - all of my teammates were out of town that weekend with two of them going through serious family issues. Furthermore, the idea we had been working on for the past couple of weeks just got shot down due to implementation and measurement difficulties arising out of LMU's logistics. 

Let me start off by introducing my team : Team Water

We were first in line to present (which depending on the kind of person you are.. could be a great news or not so great). I was nervous. The lack of sleep studying for my finance mid-term which was on the same day had me down copious amounts of coffee which almost always makes me jittery.

And in no time, we had to take up the stage to present! We went on to talk about our project - which is based on conservation of water. Water Conservation is not an interesting topic to most people, despite it's crucial nature - Life wouldn't exist without water. Not you, not me, not anyone you know, your pet, roses, video games, candy - nada. Does that give you the chills? Are you still indifferent?

If you are still mostly indifferent - then that's fine. You're only human - in order words, humans are a creature of habit and are simply lazy to take action when it involves making notable changes in their lifestyle. Just like how they tell themselves that they're going to gym the next day but more often than not, end up skipping it. 

Which is why team water has the perfect solution! One which doesn't require you to make any changes to your lifestyle at all - but you still get to play superhero and conserve water. 

And the solution looks like this.

A mason jar.... you can fill it with anything you like! Coins that you have laying around, beer caps, sand from the beach, old aquarium gravel, you name it!

I know you might be scratching your heads right now, but this is how it works...

Find a mason jar - just rinse out the jar your pasta sauce came in, if you don't already have one laying around - and fill it up with anything you like ( anything is fine as long as it doesn't decompose).  Now what?

Place the jar in the water tank of your toilet and save water with every flush! And how much water do you ask? It adds up to around 450 gallons of water per person a year for every 26oz jar dropped! Enough water for a person to survive off of for a year.

Talk about the tiniest action causing a huge impact. And it only takes one drop of a mason jar!

Or a brick - if you want to do it the old fashioned way which may discolor the water, dissolve over time, or even break your toilet, who knows! Or make it personalized, like the stuff you put in your mason jar. Because we believe that everything that goes in your home must be creative, aesthetic and personalized - and with a mason jar, this can be easily achieved. 

Save the planet - one jar drop at a time. Because #everydropcounts .

I thought we did a pretty decent job given the last minute change of plans and prep! And although we didn't make our full ask, and the competitive nature in me was a little bummed knowing that the Banana Bread Team and MyCycle Team made more than we did, I think $500 is more than enough for us to make an impact on at least 140 people with a tangible product and many more through social media, which was our goal!

I am thankful for the experience - this was my first pitch event EVER and it was at DSC! Which is a pretty sweet deal. And the feedback we received was the most valuable as this is a learning experience - and I got to understand what impresses people the most and what they lookout for. 

BIG THANKS TO DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB FOR HOSTING US FOR OUR PITCH EVENT! And of course the razors and the pizza too :)

Update: We visited Dollar Shave Club again and learnt lots about their own in-house marketing agency/team! We learnt about the benefits of having marketing vertically integration as opposed to outsourcing it to an ad agency and saw a lot more DSC ads - all of which I found exceptional!

Here's one that I love and is relatively less known:

And as always, thank you DSC for letting us take some goodies - I am definitely subscribing the following year for my boyfriend. I like him better clean shaven!

Radical Media

How do I begin with RadicalMedia? They create the most stunningly mesmerizing visual content that is in existence currently and have won numerous accolades including the Academy Awards, The Grammys, Golden Globes, MTV Awards, Critic's Choice Awards, The Palm D'or and numerous others - it just seems too good to be true. 

I couldn't be more thrilled to meet with Frank Scherma - the Founder & President.

Upon research, I read an interview of him where he said that his kids aren't allowed to say 'I can't do ...' but rather 'I don't want to do....' which is so telling about a person and such a beautiful way to bring up your children IMO. 

Frank spoke about how everyone wants to target the younger people, although younger people aren't the ones spending the money - it is interesting to note that the young will soon enough take over and will be the ones spending the money and ensuring the survival of these brands. It is therefore, critical to target them at the most opportune time in their lives to get the most impact!

There I was - awkwardly sitting at RadicalMedia - unable to contain the excitement that I was at the company that had a hand in Sia-Chandelier, Disclosure, Iconoclasts, Ed Sheeran - Nine Days & Nights, Made in America - the documentary,  Blue Valentine, The Toyota Tundra Documentary, Chanel and....... Glade.

Wait a minute... Glade?

Frank was pretty sly - he gave us a project  requiring us to change Glade's image from being perceived as cheap candles used in the bathroom to being perceived (especially by the younger generation) in a more exciting light. Of course, we can't beat their absolutely captivating, stunning and interactive art installation at The Museum of Feelings in NYC. 

Here's what RadicalMedia did to Glade's brand image - it went viral on Social Media, and the participants did not know it was advertising till the end - which made it a better experience for the participant as well.

Glade was probably my favorite work by RadicalMedia! Their Chanel installation was pretty stunning and captivating as well (visit www.radicalmedia.com for more on that), but for me personally, Glade's campaign outdid Chanel's

Among my other favorites, are Sia - Chandelier & what they did at the American Express's Unstaged Disclosure concert in LA where they used 'Disclose your Face' as a part of American Express's Unstaged mobile app to create personalized face outlines that Disclosure has come to be known for, and these outlines were later used in the concert as a part of the display! - Phenomenal! 

What I will take away from the session at RadicalMedia - Always be able to tell a story!

Team One

We're at Team One this week! Some of their clients include Lexus, Haagen Dazs, 2K, Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, HSBC and more. But it seems like they mostly do a ton of Lexus stuff! 

Team One identifies themselves as working with 'remarkable' brands and to move people with 'remarkable' ideas. A remarkable brand isn't driven by status or mass appeal - they strive for the unique, as this is what truly excites people.

Our speaker at Team One is Chris Graves - who is the Chief Creative Officer. 

Here's a fun picture I found of him on Twitter.. GoT reference on point.

Before we move on to how the session went, can we talk about food? 

Team One knows how to spoil their guests..

I had skipped my lunch before the session as I had been running around all day working and this was such a treat! Team One knows how to do a quality cheese, cracker and fruit platter. Thank you TeamOneLA for being a great host!

Now that I've gotten the most important part (my stomach growling) out of the way, let's talk about the session.

The session was one of my favorites so far! Chris Graves is such a captivating speaker and he talked about several successful marketing campaigns that centered around water - the primary focus of my team's Marketing for Good project. 

Gave me the chills..

The video above says so much about the positive impact marketing could have on the world that we live in - it's not always about buying a product but goes way beyond that. It gave me goosebumps on how marketing can stir change - and how I could have a part in it. This is the kind of stuff I want to be involved in.

Here's another innovative initiative to provide clean drinking water from air humidity in Peru:

We also got an incredible opportunity to meet with the creatives in TeamOne to discuss our project briefs! We learnt time and time again that the best briefs are the ones that carry simplicity, clarity and creation.

What the world needs currently is creativity & innovation. Be it marketing, or elsewhere, everybody needs to be a creative problem solver - this deeply resonates with me and is what I will take away with my session @TeamOneLA.

Marketing is a business of influence and moving people with remarkable ideas is how you add value to the world!

Pitching 101 with Invisiplug

We got to hear Bryan O'Connell (who is one of the founders of Invisiplug in a class session) on how to Pitch to an investor. 

Bryan and Invisiplug's other co-founder, Michael Barzman, were in an episode of Sharktank & Lori Greiner ended up investing in it.

Thanks to this session - I ended up watching my first ever episode of SharkTank which later turned into binge watching!

Watching Bryan talk about his experience on Shark Tank gave me my first insights on how Reality TV worked from the perspective of a participant. I was surprised to know that their pitch took well over two hours to film - although, you only see five minutes of it or so on the episode.  (WOW) That's a lot of editing!

I learnt that the most successful pitches are the ones that are clear, concise and simple. The pitches that ended up winning the investor's confidence were the ones that:  

(1) Had a simple product that fulfilled a basic consumer need, made an ordinary task more convenient or in this case an ordinary item more aesthetically pleasing

(2) Had a clear executional idea (looked more favorably upon if they had already begun executing the idea and the product was yielding returns/results)

(3) Had a clear understanding of the funds that are required to get the business growing and profitable and the estimated allocation of the funds

Invisiplug was successful raising capital as they had a simple product and had already started executing their ideas - through partnering with Costco etc and had a clear idea on how to grow their business.

Also learnt from watching this episode and other episodes of Shark Tank : Have a tangible product sample (assuming you are not trying to sell a service) to show/demonstrate to your investors. 

I found this session very helpful in light of the pitch we are about to have at Dollar Shave Club in a few weeks & gave me several insights into what a pitch was and how to pull it off effectively in order to achieve the desired outcome (funding).

TBWA/CHIAT/DAY

This week we visited the renowned TBWA/CHIAT/DAY! The interiors are the best I've seen yet - almost like yellow fever in a good way. This giant warehouse environment is one giant open space with each cubicle having a distinct character to it - be it the furniture, the beautiful display of lights, art, you name it - it's in there!

Similar to our visit to 180LA a week earlier, we started off with meeting our speaker for the day - Scott Stanner, who is the Planning Director @TBWA.

There he is.. Do all marketing professionals have interesting LinkedIn pictures? So far, it appears that way.

We started off with some of Chiat/Day's notable works whose clients include Airbnb (a company that I love as I am a 'Superhost' currently and have met a bunch of interesting people through the portal), Disney, Buffalo Wild Wings, Gatorade, The Grammys, Netflix, Twitter and many other notable brands that any marketing professional would be honored to work with!

I love this agency's philosophy of 'disruption'. The philosophy works this way - there are a set of conventions surrounding a brand/activity/idea that makes it difficult for it to move forward. And then there is the vision, that the brand is trying to achieve - this may be a certain specific way that the brand wants to be viewed through the perspective of their current/prospective customers.

And how to get from 'convention' to 'vision' is through 'disruption' of the convention and setting in an idea in the consumer's mind that moves the brand to it's vision.

Stanner gave an example of Buffalo Wild Wings - how they beat the convention of it being just another wings & beer joint to positioning it more as a sports bar where people meet to enjoy a game together where they can also get the most sort after food for such occasions - beer & wings.

Another example would be Gatorade's ad, targeting athletes saying 'it's what's inside that matters' then moving on to the athlete drinking/chewing Gatorade. The ad shifts the focus from physical workouts which focus on what's outside to what goes inside.

Two thoughts I found interesting from this session were:

1) People are most likely to be artificial when they are being watched.                                                              2) Be a good actor.

I found Scott Stanner's approach of 'living the brand' very inspirational - in context to his Best Buy client - and is something I will always keep in mind when encountering a marketing issue going into the future. 

For more on Scott Stanner's journey in Best Buy : http://projectblueshirt.blogspot.com/

180 LA

We were at 180LA this week and this is the first advertising agency I have stepped into in Los Angeles - so it was very exciting! 

And what a beautiful workspace it was, right on Ocean Ave with a beautiful view of Santa Monica Beach!

1733 Ocean Ave

Our speaker from the agency was Duco Muller who is from Amsterdam (wonder what his creative concoction is!) and also the Head of Creative Service and Operations.  He worked on Adidas' very successful 'Nothing is Impossible' campaign. Being familiar with the campaign made me feel like I was almost meeting a celebrity! I watched the ad when I was a kid in India and remember it pretty vividly - it was BIG.

In case you're wondering what he looks like... Yes! I stalked his LinkedIn page. 

Reason #108 why I love the idea of working in advertising - you can have LinkedIn profile pictures such as above instead of the plain old boring 'professional' headshot in your business professional outfit. 

Duco started the session by giving us two qualities that you need to have to make it in the world of advertising.

BE ORIGINAL & BE INTERESTING.

I have always wondered that about myself - Am I interesting enough to make it in advertising? (Advertising always fascinated me but seemed like a profession where you'd have to be a hardcore extrovert to be successful at - and I don't think I have enough extroverted traits - but does that make me uninteresting? Hmm..) 

Once the session began, we started by seeing a video on 180LA and some of their prominent works - including my favorite - their work on The Academy's Logo. Then, we progressed into a group project where we are assigned in groups to come up with an innovative way to market a generic product on the basis of features such as key benefits, target, target insight, tone, deliverables and execution. 

Some of the products present included a brick, a paper bag, a condom, a pencil, a banana and a stapler. My group was assigned the paper bag - yes, we thanked the sweet lord for not ending up with the condom.

We passed around the paper and were involved in coming up with different aspects of each product - so the project kept us thinking on our feet! Some of the ideas were.... pretty out there. But viola! Finally ended up with our beloved paper bag again and decided to market to bodybuilders and fitness freaks at a gas station campaign (that wasn't our choice, if you're thinking why on Earth..but hey! got to have an open mind for marketing).

We presented our idea and Duco loved it! He didn't have much to say to critique us - which tells us something was done right!  Prof. Stefl always tells us chase our ideas rather than money and not be above any job or work because learning is everything! And going through this exercise made me think about that a lot. 

We took a short break and guess what guys? Duco got us PIZZA! 

I just cannot express how much I love Ad Agencies! 

One thought I will take back from my trip to 180 LA and probably never forget is to fall in love with change! Because, like it or not change is constant.