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Award shows always create controversy. If they don’t, then the subject matter is too niche or the community involved has little or no passion for their pursuits.

With a record number of entries and a strong live turnout last Thursday at the Arcadian Court, there is no concern that the Promo Awards are too niche or the promo community has no passion. Put on by Strategy Magazine on behalf of CAPMA (of which I’m a member), the awards celebrate the best Canadian brand activation programs. Whether you love or hate award shows, you should never discount the value in spending two hours viewing the best work of your best competitors and the best work done by the competitors of your best clients.

So while I enjoyed my evening and celebrated our Bronze Award for Best Small Budget Campaign for work we did for Hot Wheels, I do have a tiny question and a large observation.

Okay tiny question. How did the WestJet Christmas Miracle video not win Best of Show? All I can tell you is that until the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge came along, this was the number one client reference for their desired campaign. In fact our Chief Creative Officer Graham Lee started keeping track of how many times the WestJet video came up in client briefings!

But it was a great piece of work…kudos to WestJet and Studio M, and the results were astounding. It has won every award you can imagine including a Cannes Lion. But not the Promo Award’s Best in Show. The winners were amazing programs, but I don’t think they were on the same once in a lifetime scale of the WestJet campaign.

Now onto the bigger stage. If you have a moment check out the winners gallery from this year’s awards. Notice anything?

Check again.

I have news for my industry colleagues. In a world where marketing has been transformed by digital channels, consumer interaction, community engagement, and live experiences; it’s not the below-the-line agencies that are winning. It’s the Advertising Agencies. The alleged above the line agencies. The massive behemoths that for years we mocked and predicted could never do what we do. More importantly we expected they never would or could afford to.

But if the Promo Awards are a leading indicator, they have got it figured out. Or are starting to at least.

That should concern small independent shops like us. The “advertising” agencies have deeper pockets, more creative resources, endless research, and international client assignments. They have channeled that might into digital, social, content, Experiential, PR, stunts, viral, and even brand curation.

If you don’t believe me, look at the winner’s showcase. I didn’t do the math, but I would be curious as to the winner split by agency primary discipline. It sure feels like the Mad Men have taken over.

So what’s an independent activation agency to do? My advice is to continue to do what you do best. But do it like an ad agency would. Start with Strategy. Understand your clients business better than ever. When I started out as an AE in the “fax era” (just clarifying my age), I prided myself in knowing more about our clients business than the newest ABM who showed up on the desk every ten months. Today I don’t believe our industry spends enough time learning the ins and outs of our client’s business. Partly clients are to blame. Ratcheting down fees to commodity pricing makes it impossible for agencies to dedicate billable hours to non project time. That’s a shame.

Build your entire platform on Creative. True creative thinking takes talent, time, and toughness to pursue great work. Too often our industry has sold itself on speed and price. I’m not sure that’s a sustainable model. The leading activation firms out there like the Mosaic’s and B-Street’s have creative excellence and it shows in their work.

Invest. Innovate. Invent. If we don’t invest in experimentation, trial and error, new ideas; how can we ask our clients to? We have been spoiled in the activation world. In a good economy clients utilize our services. In a bad economy, they have needed us even more so. But a healthy industry can build complacency. Today we have a threat. The advertising agencies are on to us. We need to respond.

My last advice? Sleep with the enemy. We are very fortunate to have several blue chip clients that have created excellent environments for us to work on an integrated basis with all their agency partners. I consider that to be some of the most valuable time of my week. We learn from each other. Inspire each other. At times battle with each other. But collaboration has to be more than just a client mandate. It should be a key business strategy.

I am not suggesting that winning awards is what we should be about. But at the same time I see a lot of value in them. Winning is not only good for your brand, but for galvanizing your staff, inspiring your clients, and motivating even better work. But today award shows provide much more than shiny hardware. They point a light on the path to the future.

I was a Jonathan Dwyer fan.

Loved the way he ran at Georgia Tech. He had some nice moments for my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers. Didn’t love that we let him go, but thought his landing in Arizona was a good place for him and his young family.

Seemed like it until yesterday, when it was Dwyer’s turn to be charged with domestic assault. In a case so terrifying his young wife left the state that should have been the scene of a rebounding career for her husband.

Football is a game of repetition, routine, and preparation. Unfortunately the daily routine in the NFL right now is assault, deny, and ignore. The players signing bonuses are lining the pockets of their defence lawyers, the pursues of their victims they are attempting to silence, and the accounts of the charities they use as image blockers. Given the daily arrests and accusations of its players, it seems that the NFL is proving they like routine.

But it’s not a routine that I like. Or society likes. Or the NFL’s sponsors as we now are hearing from. Can’t imagine it really is a routine the NFL likes.

The good news is that it seems like the sponsors have decided that if the league can’t referee itself, than they will step in. Kudos to the Radisson hotel for suspending it’s sponsorship with the Minnesota Vikings. Nike followed by terminating their deal with Adrian Peterson, as they had done with Ray Rice. Anheuser Busch, Pepsi, and even the Governor of Minnesota fired stern salvos at the league’s braintrust.

Kudos to the sponsorship community for standing up. All too often we see major corporations sit quietly while corruption infiltrates sport at the international level. Bribery, match fixing, unethical behaviour by officials all seem to get ignored due to the power of the marketing opportunity.

The NFL is the marketing conglomerate it is only because of the value of it’s brand. Right now that brand is deflating not only by the day or hour, but by the second. You can only imagine how many lockers that TMZ is digging through right now in a well-founded attempt to turn up some genuine dirty laundry. I am personally willing to bet there is at least a dozen more domestic violence scandals to come.

Sadly the Super Bowl is the number one day for domestic violence in the United States. Today presents an unbelievable marketing opportunity for brands to take a stand. They have started and I can feel that more will jump on board, perhaps even more quickly than they embraced the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Blowing the whistle can’t be a short-term play. Marketers need to ensure the NFL makes wholesale changes that impact society. From now until Super Bowl Sunday and beyond.

Winning a Pee-Wee football game does strange things to an old coach.

It makes the sun look brighter. The sky look bluer. A long walk to work a little shorter.

My cute dog looks cuter. My friendly barista even friendlier. Strangers on Yonge Street not so strange.

Even being in the office on a Sunday feels like a sanctuary not a cemetery.

Oh did I mention we won last night?

My Greater Toronto Jets, 18-0, over the Niagara Storm. It’s been a while, maybe nine games counting our Spring league, since we posted a W. Let alone a shutout. Forgive me for being ebullient.

But this isn’t a story about winning.

First of all it’s a story about how I need to follow my own preachings. One thing I am constantly on my players about is to worry about themselves. Don’t worry about the refs calls. Or opponents cheating. Or even your own teammates mistakes. Worry about you. You are all you can control. Do your job. Lead by example. Motivate by your actions. Inspire by your words.

Wow, what wisdom from MH3. Start engraving my surname on the Nobel Prize for youth coaching right now. Except it’s a crock. I too often get distracted by the refs calls, good and bad. Or the other team’s coaches. Or even my own player’s parents. (Confession, I yelled, yes yelled, at my own team’s parents last night. In unison they had shouted instructions to one of my players which directly contradicted what I wanted. But still…I’m an idiot!).

In fact for this game my distraction, and hypocrisy, started weeks ago when the schedule came out and I saw an 8:30PM road game scheduled in St.Catharines. I wondered how any adult could think that getting 11 & 12 year olds home after midnight from a football game was sound parenting.

I got riled up. Complained to our Program Director. Fired emails to the league convenor. Groused about it to parents. Countless joules of energy were misspent when I could have been focused on preparing my team.

I knew how wrong I was when the players arrived. Bounding out of the night sky across the well lit field, the prospect of “Saturday Night Football” had them energized and motivated to a level my best oration would never have. When my starting tailback announced he was ready to rush for a THOUSAND yards, I knew there was some Saturday Night Fever in the air.

So the first moral from this story is to eat my own cooking.

The second came right after the game. It went down like this. Just as I was about to deliver my stirring post-game speech, one of my players interrupted and me and said “Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

Even as I write this I get goosebumps, a lump in my throat, and am honestly typing through teary eyes.

My emotion is so strong because his comment wasn’t about some trickery laced touchdown pass I called or a menacing blitz we implemented. No, he was referring to the fact that with 2:54 in the game, and a safe 18-0 lead in my pocket, we kneed out the rest of the fourth quarter. Four times I had my QB let the play clock wind down and take his time running a dead ball play. With the help of the refs, who realized our plan, the game metered itself to a victorious conclusion.

But that’s not the plot twist. The key to this story is that when we first got the ball we were on our opponent’s 1 yard line. First and goal. Easy touchdown coming up! First time in twenty years of coaching I have taken the ball over at the opponent’s 1 at any time during a game.

I toyed with punching it in. There were several deserving players on my team who would be thrilled with a TD. Even a gimme. I could have let one of our new players run it. Or allowed one smallish lad who aspires to be a QB, but hasn’t called a snap yet, maybe throw for it and thrill his Dad who drove so far to see him play. My son would probably bring me breakfast in bed if I let him crash his way in. Anyone of our linemen would have loved the glory.

But at the risk of sounding like I am still campaigning for that Nobel, I didn’t want to rub salt in the flesh of my wounded opponent. I’ve had it done to my teams and it sucks. This past spring we were down by 40 to a team and they ran a flea flicker on us for a late score. Who benefited from that?

So my only intention was to not to be rude. Instead I got a gift that I will last much longer than one more TD. I got those words from my young player…”Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

Even if it was only that one player who learned something about sportsmanship last night, I am now an even happier old coach. The memory of him looking me in the eye, from so deep inside his own developing young mind, will stick with me forever.

The goosebumps are back. My throat is even a little tighter now. I need to end this story. Not because I have now exposed my emotional fragility. It’s because those words helped me catch Saturday Night Fever, and I don’t want to lose it, or them.

Trust me, I won’t. Ever.

“Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

For seven months all of you knew the truth.

The Atlantic City prosecutor knew.
The NFL Commissioner knew.
The Ravens coach knew.
So did the Ravens owner.
Ray Rice’s agent knew.
The NFLPA knew.

You should all resign. Sell your team. Quit your jobs. Admit it.

That’s the verdict Rice’s wife deserves.

Summer is over and done with. Not to throw an ice bucket on your mood, but it’s true. As I write this, the clock turns to Autumn.

Personally I couldn’t be happier. Fall is my favourite time of the year. You don’t need three guesses as to why. But here’s three answers:

Football. Football. Football.

I just walked off the field from coaching my son’s Pee-Wee team. Week I of the Fall season and the Hamilton Jr. Tiger-Cats squashed us 26-0. But my kids played great.

We dressed 19 players, to our opponents 36, and five of ours had never played before. So more accurately it was fourteen against the world. That’s how they played. Like a spirited band of soldiers, outnumbered on all sides, endangered but unwillingly to wave the white flag.

Exhausted as my charges were their tackling was surprisingly good. Even to the end. Not surprisingly their blocking was quite poor. I find blocking is the hardest thing to coach. It requires selflessness, commitment, and determination. Yet for young players they don’t see the reward. It’s a rare day when you hear kids chirping about a great block they made. You always hear about the runs, catches, kicks, passes, and most definitely the bone crunching tackles. But unless a block went Aunt Jemima for a massive pancake, they go truly unsung.

I’ve got to find a way to make blocking a priority. I need a method to convince my players of its value. It’s the most fundamental key to any offence. No system in the world works if players don’t block. Even the referees from today’s game commented that if we threw a couple of blocks we would have scored a couple of times. It’s that obvious to all at field level, except my would be path clearers.

The unsung, the behind the scenes, the backbone are the key to any team, business, army, government, or community group. Motivating 11 year olds that these roles matter is no easy task. Share with me your thoughts. Your ideas. Your techniques.

Fall Ball is erupting across North America this week. Labour Day classics. NFL, CIS, NCAA kickoffs. First week of practice for my high school team. One thing the winners will have in common. They block, block, block, block.

Fundamentals are never over-rated.

It’s an odd week here at TrojanOne.

We’ve had a thrillingly busy summer, with what has seemed like an endless season of live activations potently mixed with 2015 program planning. The hint of a brief calm pervades the office, but only a hint as there are RFPs to be finished and major Labour Day weekend events to be executed. This fleeting moment before the back to school storm is magnified by the absence of most of our summer interns, who have already decamped for their next wave of education.

Our intern program is a source of pride for me.

In this day and age the concept of interns is being globally and rightfully vilified for corporate abuse. The word itself has become a metaphor for overworked, bullied, ignored, abused, coffee-fetching, filer, underpaid, poorly trained, a managerial nuisance, and free labour. I think several years ago our program may have been guilty of some of those sins. In fact I can remember when full-time staff complained that having an intern was too much “work.”

No longer!

Today we have a sophisticated recruitment, selection, on-boarding, training, and supervisory system for our interns. We fully expect them to contribute to our success and they fully expect we will contribute to their success. It works.

But I would be foolish to suggest it’s all about our system. What the system has really done is allowed us to attract the best and the brightest. But these young people have talent beyond their years and we are merely fortunate they chose us. Today was a celebration of our summer intern crops. Announcements were made surrounding our hiring on of a few young talents. As excited as they are to be earning full-time pay, I am equally thrilled about the value our internships provide us in finding amazing entry level talent. To cap our celebration we presented the Matt Ludlow Spirit Award. It’s a special internal recognition to the intern who best represents Matt’s spirit, one of our former interns who died much too youngly three years ago.

This term’s winner represents all that is amazing about internships done well. In fact, he is so great I am not sharing his name because I want to keep him. Problem is he is only 19 and so I have to wait a few years.

Yes that was no typo. This kid is nineteen years of age. But he is already a legend in our shop.

I first took notice when he presented some background work he had done for an RFP. Not only was the work thought-provoking, insightful, and comprehensive; but staff members in attendance were in awe with his presentation.

In the span of a few months this youngster, who I don’t think shaved once during his tenure, went to client meetings, wrote pitches, led concept brainstorms, dealt with senior purchasing people at our clients, and never once lost his smile. To say that I trusted him like a five year vet was an understatement.

Maybe I’m biased because he gave me such a nice “Thank-You” card before he departed, but my experience with this youngster dispels all the myths that young people today don’t get it. This kid got it, as did our entire crop of interns this summer.

Our team feels fortunate to have had them. Hope they feel the same about us.

My kids spent last week at their grandparent’s cottage.

What do kids do when their parents aren’t around?

Do they stay up late and lie about their regular bed times? Do they justify sugar as brain food? Do they watch every Entourage episode ever produced? (Apparently my 11&13 year old did just that…requiring some parental commentary that Entourage isn’t “real life”, to our young boys dreaming of celebrity life in Hollywood!)

Do they and their temporary guardians subscribe to that old joke? (Q. Why do kids and grandparents get along so well? A. They have a common enemy!)

Hopefully they spend their days swimming, fishing, and skipping stones, followed by an evening of campfires, singing, and making smores, in my Rockwellian spin anyway.

My guys did almost all of that and more. The more consisted of staying up and watching the news with their grandmother. Not just watching, but discussing current events, and seeing the world’s issues through the wisdom of her eyes. They went fishing, not just with their beloved grandfather, but together, forging a brotherly bond over the one that got away. For those pisces who didn’t slip their grasp, they were subject to a grilling flavoured by a secret recipe from my older son’s summer camp. When they weren’t on the water, they helped spread a half-ton of gravel on the lake road, meeting my parent’s neighbours who had joined in for a Saturday cottage association work party. They also spent magical hours in Papa’s workshop handcrafting a beautiful end table for our patio.

I am grateful, fortunate, and potentially even underestimating the power of these life lessons my children are receiving. The most powerful form of learning is not from what you are told, but what you are shown. Great teachers, leaders, mentors demonstrate their wisdom through actions.

The lesson for all of us is to seek out the pairing of mentors with youngsters in our workplace, our teams, our associations, our families, and even within our circle of friends.

 

 

I have some bad news for you. But please, don’t shoot the messenger.

In fact, you should hug, cuddle, or even smooch the bearer of bad news. Because sometimes there is nothing better than knowing.

Ever had something go wrong in a hotel room and had the service desk tell you they would be ‘right up’ to fix it…only to arrive an hour later? You’re pretty angry right? It happened this weekend to friends of mine at a resort we were all gathered at. In fact it happened more than once. Unfortunately for this vacation destination they had a slew of issues. A power failure. A water outage. Inadvertent fire alarms. You name it.

I felt sorry for the staff. They were scrambling. Tired, wet, harassed. It was a long night for them. But management wasn’t making things better. Not only was their service response quite poor, when you did connect they made it worse by over promising.

Even before the pounding weather descended, management was demonstrating their over-promise, under-deliver mannerisms. Personally I wanted a cab to take us to a golf course for lunch. We planned to walk back from lunch (which we did), but it was a two hour hike, so we weren’t up to a four hour round trip on foot! After calling the front desk five times to no avail, we showed up in person to book a cab and told to wait ten minutes. Some thirty minutes later we were on our way, but understandably incensed. Same thing happened to a friend when the alarm in his room went off. ‘Right up’ turned into a forty-five minute delay.

This place was not cheap. But it seems management there could use a few client service reminders that every young person in our business probably knows by heart. I am not suggesting I was great at this, at a young career age, but I had enough mentors who taught me:

1. The best time to share bad news is right away. It doesn’t matter how late it is, where you are, or how bad it is. Bad news travels fast, so win the race and deliver it right away!
2. There is no spin cycle required. Facts are facts. Sometimes I listen to myself rambling on when trying to dimensionalize the impact of an issue with a client. “Shush” says my oft-ignored inner voice. Just serve up the facts and save the polish for my shoes.
3. If it’s by email, put the issue in the headline.
4. Unless it’s past bedtime, use the phone.
5. Say sorry. Once.
6. Definitely come with an action plan to solve, but go one major level further and recommend a communication roll-out. Offer to deal directly or in tandem with key stakeholders of your client. In essence, take one for the team. Offer up to jump on the grenade, potentially taking some blame that shouldn’t be shouldered by you.
7. Stop saying sorry and show your remorse through your actions, efforts, and emotions.
8. Follow-up as soon as you can, 1:1 with everybody involved, and ask your boss to do the same. If you have dealt with the issue and solved it by the time your boss calls, she will be doing quality assurance calls with a now happy client.

Ironically this resort stands on the grounds of a campy family/convention lodge that I used to work at, during my university summers. My first week there I inadvertently tossed an entire carafe of red wine down the back of a very nice white dress shirt. Mr. Button (the victim) probably hasn’t forgotten me. I can tell you I haven’t forgotten the situation.

The bad news traveled too fast in that case! But at least he knew…

 

I’ve come to a simple conclusion about email. I should never send emails when I first wake up. I should always wait until I have:

• Worked out, or…
• Eaten, or…
• Showered, or…
• Had my cappuccino, or…
• Had my smoothie, or…
• Expended yesterday’s meals, or…
• Read my morning papers, or…
• Driven to work, or…
• Walked to work, or…
• Run to work, or…
• Biked to work, or…
• All of the above!

The thing is I have realized that while I don’t believe I am a grump in the morning, I must be a grump in the morning. Because some of the emails I write are downright stupid, mean, inappropriate, uncalled for, cowardly, unfair, and totally misguided. A friend of mine says “you read email in the mood you are in.” He’s right. I told him I was going to steal his quote and I just did.

The good news is I actually told him that today, so he can’t accuse me of stealing. Because if he did I may write him a nasty email. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

It’s not that I believe I am grumpy in the mornings as much as I am wound up. I actually love the mornings. This morning (July 21st, 2014) was blindingly amazing. The weather was perfect. I snared the primo parking spot at Starbucks. My gym wasn’t too crowded. Even the old guy who interrupted my workout (there is one every day at my gym), had something interesting to say.

But I am wound up.

I think I am like a firecracker. The fuse is lit when my eyes open. The smell of the flame activates my senses. The hiss of the chord rings in my ears. For some bizarre reason I don’t know if the ignition point will be trigger celebratory fireworks or client damaging dynamite? Most days turn into a celebration of sorts. But somehow my paranoia has me looking over my shoulder at the business bogeyman like he’s going to get me.

After all these years.

So if you’re reading this at the break of dawn, hopefully I haven’t emailed you. If I have, feel free to send me back a mood rating. Or if you are reading this in the eve and want to play havoc with my attempt at self-discipline, send me a midnight rant that will subliminally haunt my iPhone all night. Then see how I fare.

It’s time to take more positive control of my mornings. That can’t include a bowl of email to start!

It’s not every day you get to share the stage with Dana White. But that’s where I found myself last Wednesday, when the UFC President headlined the opening day of CSFX 2014. Imagine my thrill of conducting a live Q&A, in front of my peers, with the brains behind the fastest growing sports organization in history!

So while Mr. White may have thought I was innocently conducting a conversation to entertain our CSFX delegates, I was secretly attempting to pick up some timeless sports marketing lessons.

Trust me, Dana, you fulfilled my wildest dreams. Over the course of forty-five minutes you gave me and the 300 CSFX delegates a lifetime of invaluable lessons. Hope you don’t mind my sharing them with my blog followers. They were so good I would feel selfish keeping them all to myself.

With a nod to the genius of the octagon, here are eight things I learned from my conversation with Dana White at CSFX 2014:

1. Fighting was the world’s first sport. Before any sticks or balls were invented, two guys had a fight, and a third guy ran over to watch, claims White. Fighting is in our DNA and he attributes this as one of the reasons for UFC’s undeniable success. I never thought of fighting as the world’s oldest sport, but he does have a point. Wonder if those first two pugilists were on skates?
2. Chuck Lidell is the world’s toughest accountant.  Who knew the Mohawk sporting former UFC great was a Cal Poly accounting grad? I didn’t, but Dana White loves his fighters because they are multi-talented and, unlike boxers, don’t all have the same downtrodden wrong side of the tracks story. New twist on an old lesson… judging a book by its cover is not only unfair, it can be dangerous!
3. Ronda Rousey is a game changer for women. There is no question Dana White knows how to hype his product. But when it comes to Rousey, his belief in her talents eclipses mere promotion. He is convinced that not only will she transform the image of women in sport, but that Rousey will become a symbol of empowerment for women worldwide. He may be right. She’s a dominating superstar in one of the few sports where women “play” by the same rules as men. But her skill, personality, and determination are Tiger/LeBron/Manziel once-in-a generation like. The lesson? Sometimes it’s okay to believe the hype.
4. Embrace your challenges. When White and his partners bought UFC, they faced stiff political resistance and regulation. UFC couldn’t even get on pay-per-view, when porn was widely available on PPV. Instead of fighting a losing battle, White set out to make the sport safer and embraced regulation. Makes me realize the genius in turning your biggest challenge into your biggest asset.
5. Fan loyalty is key to building a sports brand. Access to athletes has been a UFC hallmark and no matter how successful they become, that won’t change, said White. He was incredulous about stars in other arenas who won’t take five minutes to acknowledge the fans that make them rich. It’s called the customer is king and we all need to be reminded of it.
6. Yes, Dana White loves Canada. White stated that their original business plan focused on the USA, Mexico, and England…all great fight markets. But in his own words he never saw Canada coming and has been thrilled by their success here. Despite the business decision to move the upcoming Jones-Gustafsson fight to Las Vegas (from Toronto), he’s bullish on the GWN.
7. There is no finish line. Many people have a belief that when they reach a certain title in their career or revenue in their business, that somehow things will get “easier.” Just the opposite, said Dana. The more successful you become, the more there is to do. His words remind me that it’s worth remembering the journey is the reward.
8. Dana White walks the talk. At the conclusion of our chat, White agreed to pose for some photos with our delegates. After nearly thirty-five minutes of smiles and selfies he was still greeting every delegate like his new best friend. I was amazed at his utmost generosity with his time.

Dana, thank you for this special moment in my career.