NYCA president, Michelle Edelman, contributes to Progressive Grocer’s report on Baby Boomers

…”Recent research has uncovered a trend called ‘boomer bummers,’” notes Michelle Edelman, boomer expert and president of NYCA, a Solana Beach, Calif.-based integrated marketing and ad agency. “As [older] boomers pass into the typical retirement ages — as they get their AARP cards and turn milestones — they start to get depressed.”

Edelman, also a contributing author/editor for two baby boomer-related books, notes that the rates of suicide and clinical depression for these older boomers are rising. After all, they were part of the generation that wanted to change the world, but now are facing realities they cannot alter.

“Much is not controllable,” she adds, “particularly as age affects health and appearance.”

In contrast, younger boomers are still in the “family forming” stage, Edelman says. Many still have children at home; they are actively pursuing careers and were not greatly impacted by the turbulent times of the 1960s…

To read the full article, click here.

Michelle Edelman featured in Ad Age

By Michelle Edelman, President @ NYCA

Want to Move Your Agency Forward? Try Moving – Adventure in Real Estate Leads to Reflection on Our Business Practices

At our small agency, we want to be bigger. We’re restless characters. We like to solve different problems. Our metabolism is just built that way. Growing ourselves is a big part of what we think about during the 16 hours we aren’t at the office (OK, maybe more like 12).

So surprisingly enough, one of our greatest growth spurts as an agency came when we decided to move our headquarters location. When I read that last sentence, it sounds like there was some sort of grand plan. Far from it. We looked at our lease renewal price, looked at each other, and said, “Well, I guess we better go then!” It’s what happened after that ball started rolling that grew the agency.

Read the full article here.

The propulsive power of do.

By Michelle Edelman, President @ NYCA

Yesterday we closed the agency and got everyone up to speed on our evolved agency process. Our workloads are fast and furious right now. All the more reason to catch up to each other.

You see, NYCA doesn’t work “assembly line style” like many agencies. We work in a circular fashion – in grow! teams. Every member of the team has a stake in every part of the process. It makes our strategies more creative, our creative more media oriented, our media more productions, our productions more strategic. And everyone is pouring their passion into each client from day 1 and forever.

It’s not easy to work like this. You don’t experience that lull after the campaign goes out, that many agencies get to have. Grow! does not allow you a lull. It’s a painful itch that is not easily scratched, that asks each of us – now what?

The pain of grow! can only be mitigated by the fun and passion that each of us bring to this place. Lynne made up a cheer so we could remember part of the process. I don’t think anyone will forget it. You can ask our accounting team to do the cheer, and even though they aren’t part of the creative process, boy do they know the steps now. James made us play Process Twister. If you could not remember the steps, then you were in compromising positions that make me glad we do not have an HR department. Lisa took us through our new media process – it was bursting with creativity. Dave showed us what we should be aiming for creatively – and opened the door for it to happen.

At the end of it – everyone was singing this song – a reminder that we invent because we love it. A new NYCA burst forth from the existing one today – and though our work can be draining of time and energy, that energy is renewed in a second with a new idea, a new employee, and with every new client.

We’re proud to be a sales agency.

By Michelle Edelman, President @ NYCA

Some think that sales is a low-brow profession. We are proud to claim it as our profession.

At NYCA, we work as hard on our clients’ sales meetings as we do on their consumer marketing campaigns. The sales force is a key constituent. If they don’t believe, retailers won’t. If retailers don’t believe, our product will be competing with the cacophony of others for attention in already-crowded stores.

Working on sales meetings gives us a completely different view of products and the people who make them. We understand the insight and motivation of our brands so much more as a result. We hear the first questions, firsthand. If the sales force doesn’t understand what we’re saying, the consumer definitely won’t.

We’re honored that our brands trust us enough to engage us in sales meetings. The motivation we deliver in a short few hours or days, needs to last a whole selling season. Lots of our campaigns build up impressions over time. Sales meetings have but one chance a season to deliver the goods.

Top 5 things to remember while executing for sales meetings:

• Excitement is at least as important as ideas. Motivation is contagious – it exists in the skin, not really the brain.
• 1 idea, repeated many times. So much information flies around that having simple takeaways makes them embed better.
• Element of surprise – sight, sound, motion, change of venue, or people acting out of character keep the audience a bit out of balance. This heightens awareness – and adds to comprehension.
• Ask “what’s in it for them” – bring it into the language of the sale, not the product. They want it to be easier to sell and have less retailer complaints. How does the product compete – what’s that elevator speech that will make all the difference given 5 minutes with a key account?
• Follow up – what does the sales force receive when they get back to business as usual, that reminds them of those few key things you need them to do and remember?

It’s sales meeting season – and we’re in our element. Call us and we’ll help you out next time around.

Manufacturing a Conversation

 How to message to more than one target audience

From one of our resident geniuses, Michelle Edelman: President @ NYCA

Most good marketers stayed awake during the class which discussed that “targeting” meant what it sounded like: not being all things to all people, but finding one part of a buying population that you could own and driving a single message toward that group.

And then they graduated, only to discover that many brands have more than one target. In fact, many brands have more than one target to accomplish a single sale.

Take business-to-business purchasing, for example. The guy who holds the purse strings is typically different than the guy who has to use the product, and those guys are different from the guy who performs the side-by-side evaluation of the options. Sometimes none of these guys knows each other particularly well, nor do they work together. There are more “no” opportunities in this sales cycle than “yes” ones.

Typically, multi-constituent decision processes are not impulse purchases. They are longer timeline, considered purchases. When working on a multi-constituent marketing plan, the key points to keep in mind are:

Know the roles of the target within the sales cycle. Map out the distinct phases of the sales cycle, flowchart style. Think about how decisions get made in each phase. Who is involved in each part of the cycle? What is their role? Where are the points of interaction between the parties?