What is creative?

By Michael Mark, Creative Director & CEO @ NYCA

The first question I ask all NYCA candidates in all departments is this question, right after what they are passionate about. Makes for a good conversation and lets them know two things: that they are responsible for being creative and the answer “something cool” will get them a job next door. Not here.

For us the answer is simple. Not easy mind you. It’s what the agency is built on.

We create growth in the marketplace. So any idea or execution that is powerful enough to help that to happen is creative.  It’s not about pretty pictures, not about engagement, or the plan, or the insight or even if we like it or the client thinks it great. All those are roads to getting to the destination for sure. But it’s about the growth.

Now much as we think and sweat over them not every idea is what we call a grow! idea. The odds are stacked against each one as it struggles for life. Compassionate as we are with each other – you have to be if you’re going to be so tough on ideas – we are merciless when it comes to a grow! idea. 

Here’s a check list to see if you have the makings of one:

To be grow! work it must be powered by a message that is highly relevant to the target.

It must be true to the core values of the brand/product/service.

It must be executionally inspired.

If you get all yeses you have a well intentioned grow! idea. And once it performs dramatically well in the marketplace then you have creative. 

Simple. Impossible. It’s what we do.

I don’t run my business. Values do.

By Michael Mark, Creative Director & CEO @NYCA 

I had my doubts but I’ve come to believe I am a good businessman.  I have no formal business education, no MBA.  I haven’t endured a single course in accounting or management.  I have trouble with spreadsheets; actually they bore me. Math and I are allergic to each other.  I have the title CEO but I don’t pore over the stock pages.  I feel less than at ease with the corporate set when I try to be one of them.  I don’t care about the cost per square foot of our offices.  I do realize it’s important but it doesn’t touch me.  I don’t get emotionally involved with leases – though the fact that they have my personal guarantee does make me wince randomly.  I do care greatly about health care as that is taking care of my staff and their families.

 By all traditional measures, we are a successful enterprise. We have grown most of the seven years we have been up and running, with some natural dips and spurts along the way.  My success metrics – they call them KPIs these days — are based on customer satisfaction, employee quality, a thriving culture, profitability and a consistently excellent product. 

But I don’t really run the business. Values run my business.  And they have been the reason for getting us where we are today.  And as the chairman, I elect them to the board each annual session.

We value integrity – doing what we say every single time.  We value honesty – the truth must be told loudly.  We value compromise and flexibility – people need to make room for each other; you get more ideas and have more comfortable days that way.  We value acceptance – we celebrate the mutant idea and mutants in general.  I just have to make an NYCA t-shirt with that on it one day.  We value the grow! idea – the rare idea that is inspired enough to positively move a client’s business in the marketplace.  We value openness, transparency – let all see all; truly, my door is always open and I hope our hearts and minds are just as wide.  We value the present and the future – that’s why we launched the Learning Grove, which teaches grade schooler’s sustainability.  We value courage – we’re brave enough to tame our egos and determined enough to take on the demon of convention. We have value flexibility so, as Dylan says, we “have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.” 

I was told, “You won’t be good in business, Michael, because you’re not competent in the intricacies of running a business.”  It scared me so I went to learn as much as I could.

My teachers are many and are always working on me. 

I learned fairness from Rabbis and Priests with whom I studied.  I learned love from my family; I got a graduate degree from my grandmothers. Generosity came from lessons by my friends.  My wife teaches me patience, though we agree I am a slower learner and need to wear the dunce cap often.   My staff teaches me forgiveness – they forgive me every day.  My clients school me on listening – hearing the message between the words, around gestures, inside the pauses.  My competition teaches me perseverance.  My dog gives me daily lessons in loyalty during our long walks.  My garden teaches me about hope in the face of darkness and cold.  My heroes in history show me how to stare down fear, and travel shows me there are miracles everywhere.  My children teach me humility.  My partners teach me trust.  My reading teaches me that I am never alone, that I will never get it perfect and that there’s always another page to learn from.

My business education is classroomless, deep and broad, and I am indebted to all my great teachers as I continue to be a student. 

I am still earning my MV, Masters of Values.

Creative Director is my title, not my job.

By Michael Mark, Creative Director & CEO @nyca

What does a Creative Director do? 

I know Director isn’t Dictator but it’s my experience that one can misinterpret that title.

It can become all about you.

I like a title that is more appropriate for the job. 

Like Creative Conduit.

A Creative Conduit uses his or her talents, sensibilities and experience as a bridge.

Between words and pictures.

Between strategy and execution.

Between good ideas and great ones.

Between consumer and brand.

Between vendors and agency.

Between agency and client.

Between creatives and other departments. 

Creative Director is about the creative. Creative Conduit is about bridging creatively.

It’s a promotion. Not self-promotion. 

Still, Conduit doesn’t sound as cool as Director. I’ll ask the agency to come up with a better word. In my job, I can do that.

“I see,” says the blind man.

By Michael Mark, creative director & CEO @ nyca

I notice that when I take my glasses off I see more clearly. 

Due to my 200/250 vision, without the lenses I need to get much closer to the object in question and  use my other senses to decipher the contents. I will touch it not just to hold it but to receive it through feel, giving me a new perspective, enriching my understanding. And then, when I lean nearer, I will take in the smell, more information, deeper learning. 

Lenses, it seems, both enhance and detract from my naturally limited sight. The wide vista between seeing and attention.

With my glasses set aside on my nightstand, the data comes in from all portals, including sound and taste. Careful on this one. It’s best to know the general makeup of the object before ingestion but my mother’s fish pie is even tastier in the misshapen haze of nearsightedness than under the clinical light of her kitchen. 

When the familiar becomes foreign I instantly see them fresh. It’s a reintroduction and, if I can put my knowledge aside along with my glasses, then I can truly know it again, for the first time.

The opportunity to see things for what they are, not what I knew them to be, works on people, pets, even brands. It’s good for the health of the relationship, wiping out the crud of the past and promoting forgiveness, understanding, love, or at least, acceptance.

I have tried this in the morning, still wobbly with dream to meet the Michael I am that day. Lopsided before the mirror, I lean forehead to forehead with my reflection, and tell myself I look pretty good, lost weight, grown some hair since last I saw me.

I have had glasses on my face for 40 years, every day, every waking hour, traveled around the world, lived with a woman for 30 years in them, raised our kids, written books, ran and started businesses, saw presidents in them.

Amazing to think what I have missed.

Love what you sell

by Michelle Edelman, President  @ nyca.com

NYCA is absolutely abuzz right now with work. For new clients and old, and a slew of new prospects. Not surprising, the best work in the agency is for products that are easy to believe in.

Why do people believe in brands or products? Market leadership, killer features, fresh consumer insights, inspiring design – I’m sure you can think of more. These are the reasons NYCAers get excited about their clients as well. But there’s something else within our walls too. 

Not all brands are the market leader. Not all products are best of breed. Sometimes the reasons consumers should care about a product is not obvious. Sometimes the communications themselves are what make a brand great. 

The truth of NYCA is that we don’t just sell what we love. We love what we sell. Our own quest to find passion within our assignments brings out new reasons for consumers to buy. We don’t stop till we find that property of value – that thing that’s worth a consumers time and attention – proving our clients’ products are worth the money spent – that’s what pushes us harder.

In that way, we’re more like part of the sales force. We know that every minute, we have to earn the consumer’s dollar. We know that each sale is earned and not to be taken for granted. Metrics tell us that a current customer is up to 8 times easier to sell than a new customer. We approach our thinking believing everyone’s a tough sell. And that’s why it helps to love what we sell. There’s a “never let up” mentality to our work – and that’s a key ingredient in why we have grown every one of our clients.

The world needs a jingle.

By Michael Mark, creative director/ceo @nyca 

Something happy and simple – catchy and upbeat. One that drives you crazy ‘cause it stays in your step after you’ve put your tired feet up.

The world needs hope in the face of reality, and jingles are sweet and sticky and mindless enough to melt the rigid walls of this moment to let us see possibility. Because on the outside they are silly, sunny and self-admittedly stupid. But beneath the sugar coating — if it’s a good, hard-working jingle — is a targeted selling message that plays again and again in your inner buyer’s ear. And the frequency mixes with the beat and makes you move, tickles your wiggle, the whimsy gives you a shimmy in the direction that it strategically intended. It controls you. 

It’s not sneaky as much as it is cajoling. And who here, after being bombarded by the blogs, searching the job sites, chatting with friends, listening to the radio, watching their 401k disappear, couldn’t use a peppy bit of cajoling? 

The economy needs a three trillion dollar stimulus package and the world needs a 90 second ditty. 

Oh, I know it’s not cool to do jingles in advertising any more – but cool won’t get us out of this. We need a syrupy, incessant hook to get our entrepreneurial juices going. And while we’re at it – gimme some cowbell. 

Let the music mavens begin. Let the chirpy voices rise. Let the grade school rhyme schemes be heard and winced to. 

And let iTunes make it a free download to pick us all up.

Doubt kills more companies than incompetency.

By Michael Mark, creative director & CEO @ NYCA

I believe this is the first headline I wrote for any client at NYCA, some seven years ago. It was for a company called HNC that four months later got bought by Fair Isaacs. And it is one of my favorite lines because it is true and I’ve used it to help run our company.

Doubt causes second-guessing, fear, discontent and slowness and that is death for a company. We have to be brave to be creative. We have to believe that we are going to make nothing into something and good into great. 

Doubt undermines that boldness. Adversity is often real but it always needs to be turned into opportunity.

The best way to deal with uncertainty, I have found, not being the smartest guy, is a steadfast commitment to values and principles. Knowing what you believe to be true at its core and acting on it with complete discipline stares down creeping doubt. Clinging to those values gets you through the cloudy place that doubt leaves you to muck through. Principles are tools that help you see beyond what appears to be a wall and it opens roads on which to break speed records, as well as do some sightseeing. 

One night I sat down to jot down some thoughts and when I got up I had written 64 expectations for our agency. Each statement is something that I believe in deeply. I give the booklet out to each new NYCAer at our one-on-one orientation. It helps guide us all. Here are a few Seeds: 

 ”grow! work is powered by a message that is highly engaging to the target, is true to the core values of the brand/product/service and is exceptionally inspired so it performs dramatically well in the marketplace.” 

This is our purpose. If you are unclear as what to do, do this.  

“We are a team. Wonderful as we are as individual talents, we are more powerful as a team.”  This is about how we do what we do.”

“Take your good ideas and sweat them, prod them, tough-love them, tickle them into grow! ideas.”  This is about work ethic and believing the extra effort is always worth it, so when you think maybe it can be better, it can be. Go at it again.

Our belief system speeds us past doubt right into action.

To perform better later, perform better now.

By Michael Mark, creative director & CEO @NYCA

Golf Pros — and these are the best in the world, physically and mentally — score better on Thursday than on Sunday. The average score at a PGA event on Thursday is always lower than on Sunday.

Why the difference, why is it higher?

It’s the same course, the same equipment, the same competition.

The players themselves are the ones who change and obviously not for the better.

It’s because the players are thinking differently on Sunday. They are adding another element beyond playing the game well: winning.

Thursday is the day the tournament begins and it ends Sunday.

You cannot win or lose the tournament on Thursday but on Sunday you will.

As they get closer to the final hole the golfers think beyond the hole, beyond the shot – no longer about just hitting the ball in the direction they want or even getting a low score which, as you know if you play golf, is hard enough.

Maybe it’s the trophy, the jacket, the check, the fame, the approval of their peers, their parents – all this comes with winning and not if they lose.

And so the act of hitting the golf ball becomes so much different than the act hitting a golf ball.

And the scores reflect it.

Their need to win saps them of their ability to play well enough to win.

They are getting ahead of themselves. They are thinking about the results of the tournament and putting their energies outside ‘the ropes’ and so diluting their powers to affect the outcome which they care so much about.

Winning is not part of the golf action: the back swing, the down swing, the contact, the follow through. It is another state entirely, and when the two are forced to combine, it causes confusion and distraction and inefficiency and unhappiness, as well as errant golf shots.

This is true in all endeavors, personal and professional. The more we encumber ourselves the less well we perform. We restrict ourselves under the pressure we put on ourselves unnecessarily.

We must stay in the present moment in all we do.  If we just hit the best shots we can we have the best chance at winning. It’s all we can do. And anything else is harmful to the cause.

My son, Alex, wants to be a CFO of a multinational corporation.  Today he is an undergraduate at a prestigious university’s business school. If he wants to run that big, complicated company, the best way for him to do that is to pay full attention to his studies today. That focus on the professor, the assignment, the studying will get him eventually to a place where he can do a good job leading the corporation when that time comes. Not before. This is difficult for anyone with a dream, especially a young energetic entrepreneurial person like him, to understand. He must succeed now in his school work in order to succeed in the now of his CFO role once that now comes.

The golfers can not pick up of the trophy until the final shot is completed. So best to complete the final shot first, completely, and then pick up the trophy and then kiss it completely. In that order. And then cash the big check…. No confusion or distraction here. Simple as back swing, down swing, contact, follow through on Thursday. Certainly there is happiness in the flow. Oh, and less pressure because you accept the moment’s offerings.

In my profession we have award shows – hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Awards are nice and recognition is vital for self esteem. But when you think of winning an award as you create, you dilute your ability to do great work. Your energy is going to two distinct channels and not doing justice to either.  

So focus on the task – stay in the present. Enjoy the shot, the memo, the PowerPoint, the conversation, the hand-holding, the salad, the view, the moment, yourself, life.

And Thursday will be just as great as Sunday as Monday as 9:33am as Now.

Can negative viral marketing have a positive effect on sales?

By Jason Marchioni, Media Strategist @NYCA

If you are a habitual Ad Age reader, you probably saw the most recent article surrounding PeopleofWalmart.com.  This blog site invites people to upload, rate and comment on photos of oddly-dressed, weirdly-behaving people seen shopping at Walmart.  
 
This site appears to have been created in the name of good fun. It’s the kind of virtual people-watching we all crave. Whether you’re a frequent Walmart shopper, or have only been there occasionally, retail people-watching is a sport we’ve all engaged in. The site brings us closer to Walmart by letting us experience some of its inherent fun from our desks. And yet, some of the content on the site denigrates its subjects.

Should Walmart embrace the site and join in the fun?  Or should it try to put a stop to it and risk being viewed as an establishment with no sense of humor?  Or perhaps, in the advice of Stanley Bing in “Throwing the Elephant,” perhaps they should do nothing —  stand by idle and wait for the next big viral hit to draw the attention away? Difficult as it might seem to refrain from reaction, It appears that Walmart will follow this path. Walmart spokesperson David Tovar has declined to speak to the media by simply releasing this statement, “it doesn’t seem like it’s news that there’s a website that allows people to post photos on it.”   

That’s a pretty humorless response. Walmart probably hates this site. And with good reason. Many anti-Walmart advocates have called for Walmart’s demise due to its notorious reputation of siphoning customers from formerly-thriving local business. And now this site throws pot-shots at its consumers! What’s a brand to do!

Fact is, people are in love with PeopleofWalmart.com. The founders had to move the site to bigger servers to accommodate the influx of traffic.  Walmart.com’s traffic has also risen – probably the back to school shopping wave. But perhaps PeopleofWalmart.com is unwitting advertising for a product we all consume at Walmart: the sheer experience of being there. It’s possible that Walmart will enjoy beneficial effects of PeopleofWalmart.com. We’ll have to watch and see.

What happened September 11, 2001

By Michael Mark, creative director/ceo @NYCA

To those of you who lost loved ones in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, here’s what happened in their final moments.

Your father was a hero.  When the building shook from the blast, he did not concern himself with fear.  He helped unblock an office door which had been barricaded by debris and furniture that had moved. He freed three people.

Your friend who was on the plane being hijacked recognized immediately how serious the matter was and reached to calm the shaking hand of the person in the next seat.

Your wife saw a man bleeding from his head and she tore a piece from her shirt and made a bandage for him.

Your aunt helped her co-workers who could not find the exit through the smoke – they all made it. Then she went back for others.

Your nephew who was the pilot on the plane had only the safety of everyone on board in focus every second.

Your grandfather found a young man pinned under a fallen piece of ceiling and even when the young man said go on without him – he stayed until others heard the calls and came to help.

Your husband took on the hijackers believing it would cost his life. He helped save hundreds of people neither of you will ever know.

Your grandmother who worked at the Pentagon led hundreds who were physically stronger to a secure area, putting them before her own welfare as she always has.

Your uncle gave his water to a choking woman who gave him God’s blessing with every floor they arrived at, arm in arm.

Your brother who always wanted to be a policeman knew without doubt as he followed the cries for help up the stairs this was the moment why. 

Your sister searched her entire floor to make sure everyone was out of there before she began to make her own way down. 

Your friend held the exit door open for his office-mates with his wheelchair, cheering as they moved on that “We’ll all get out together.” And he didn’t so much hold on to those who lifted him down as he hugged them.

Your son would not let the tired woman stop. He cajoled her by telling her she reminded him of you; how you two had to meet. He even called her mom to keep her moving.

Your flight attendant daughter was forced to the back of the plane with all the others on board but stood in front of them in protective defiance; keeping herself between the terrorists and her passengers.

Your sister climbed back up three flights against the crowd and heat, believing her assistant was still there.

Your college buddy’s sense of humor kept all in his voice’s range smiling and moving with hope.

Your niece lent her shoulder to lean on for a man she had seen in the elevator so many times but whose name she never knew.

Your sister-in-law saw a man sitting in the stairwell coughing, and shared her asthma medicine. They moved on together.

Your firefighter brother-in-law helped hundreds of people out, redirecting them to clearer exits as he climbed higher and higher.

Your nephew and his boss carried an older woman 38 floors.

Your cousin got everyone to sing “The Long and Winding Road” as they worked their way down, making up the words they didn’t know.

Your mother’s last thoughts were the same thoughts she’s had as she lay her head down every night since you were born.

You wonder what happened. You want to know what these people you love were feeling, what they were thinking, what they went through in their final moments.  These are actual facts, exactly as they happened. As true as their love for you. As true as their faith in your love for them.