AgencyThink

Here’s What I’m Saying: Flexible, Scalable. And Groundbreaking.

posted by Greg Batiansila @ September 16th, 2008

Marketing Thinker David Meerman Scott is sick of all of us using the same terms which mean nothing.  Can we cut it out?

Probably not. It reminds me of my days in graduate school, when fellow grad students seemed to be making references to the same canon of uppity books and self-indulgent authors. “Did Bronte write Jane Eyre, asked one thinker, or did Jane Eyre write Bronte?”

What?

In his most recent blog post, Scott noticed the following usage of baloney and gobbledygook in some big-time press releases:

HARTFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sep 15, 2008 - Aetna (NYSE:AET) has been awarded the prestigious “Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care Award” by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for its prospective randomized study to determine if a telephonic culturally competent disease management program can improve the health of African American members with hypertension. Members in the study who received culturally competent disease management outreach and educational materials achieved a higher percentage of clinically acceptable blood pressure levels, increased their frequency of self blood pressure monitoring, and greater medication compliance when compared to a control group of members who received a light support program.

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Campus Advantage, a world-class student housing management and development company, today announced its partnerships with the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) and HeadCount, a non-partisan organization dedicated to facilitating voter registration and participation through the power of music, to educate students and their advisors about available voting resources.

DALLAS and DUBLIN, Ireland, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Trintech
Group Plc (Nasdaq: TTPA), a leading global provider of integrated financial governance, transaction risk management, and compliance solutions, today attended the 2008 Sibos Conference in Vienna to promote its innovative LCM Payments solution developed using Microsoft technology.

If you didn’t make it through the above, why would anyone else? How about we write something that’s readable?

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AgencyThink

A New Idea: Priceless

posted by Just A Nick @ September 16th, 2008

At the Milwaukee zoo this past weekend, I was innocently eating lunch with my family. When I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that read “Got Freedom?”

I skipped over trying to figure out what social/political statement he was trying to make, and went straight to rage over the excessive use of the phrase “Got [insert something here]?”

Don’t get me wrong, the Got Milk campaign is arguably one of the greatest of all time. And the fact that it’s constantly parroted means that it has crossed the line into the lexicon of pop-culture slogans (it’s not just selling milk any more). That being said, can we please kill it now?! The campaign was launched in 1993!

Poor Apple has suffered the same fate with their ground-breaking iPod ads. Marketing campaigns sporting silhouettes of people dancing over brightly colored backgrounds were winning awards in Southeast Wisconsin as late as 2006! I hope the winners at least sent a thank-you note and a Starbucks gift card to the apple team atTBWA\Chiat\Day.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe “nothing is original” as someone said when I self-righteously scoffed at the notion of an award winning rip-off. But if nothing is original, where did Apple get it?

I can tell you that when brainstorming campaign concepts, being influenced by great ideas is not only acceptable, it’s necessary. Understanding conceptual trends is important, and finding ways to modify/advance those ideas in order to communicate with the right audience at the right time is what geniuses do. However, aping a concept wholesale is a cop-out. Even if it does immortalize of the influencer.

Let us marvel at the cultural impact of great ideas. Let us be influenced by them. Let us produce great campaigns. And let us never belch the phrase “Got [anything]” again.

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