So who's in charge?

I don’t like indecision-by-consensus, and I've seen it too often. I am a huge believer in having someone in charge.

Much business success comes from the ability for leadership to make a decision and act on it. Yes of course you may need to socialize the decision in your organization and have a strategy for getting it implemented. But that is different from not being able to make the decision stick in the first place.

Having said that – if you have partners, by all means consult with them and show them due respect. One of the strategies I recommend is to have each partner responsible for making the decisions in their own specialty area. But there still needs to be someone who will have the final word, someone who is managing the budget or whatever is the constraint. One person: the GM, the President, whoever – but someONE.

And for that one person here is some valuable advice: make the decision and move on. If you are at all smart, most of your decisions will be right. Yes, some of them may be wrong, but most of them will be right. And if you put off your decision, the percentage of right to wrong will probably be no different. And you will have lost all that time when it hadn’t been made and all that time when you were sweating it.

So:

Have someone in charge.
Make the decision and move on.

Try it – you might like it.

Know what you do best

When you want a great pizza you go to the best pizza parlor. When you want a good steak you know where to go. That great steak and the great pizza are certainly not found in the same place.

Your clients view you the same way. They are looking for the best of something in particular. So you have to make choices and be clear when you express them. Emphasize your strengths and be clear about the value you offer. Decide how broad or specific your niche is. (are you Target or Waterfilters.com?) Some of this decision will depend on your what you like doing and what you're good at. But a big piece of it must depend on a good understanding of how your client thinks when he/she’s buying. If you don't know how or what your client is thinking, then finding that out is your Marketing Job One.

At Pollock Spark we say we serve "leaders of creative businesses, large and small". Is this too broad? Too narrow? We've helped partnerships made up of creatives and business guys. We've helped film directors and film editors where the company is just one person. What they all have in common is that they are creatively driven businesses. What do you think?

Your brand is ...

Your brand is the result of 1000 small gestures.

I met recently with the head of a company who told me how their brand had been blue and yellow, but last year they changed it to blue and brown.

“Blue and yellow” is probably not their brand. Their brand is the picture of them that their clients, investors and staff hold in their heads and their hearts.

Your company’s brand is the sum of the way your phone is answered, what is found on your website, how you react to a complaint, the quality of your ideas and work of course, your positioning and value proposition, your pricing, what your clients say about you, the cleanliness of your coffee room and on and on and on.

The ideal is for all those things add up to the picture that you want your clients, investors and staff to hold. If they don’t, then you have 1000 things you can tweak to get to where you want to be. One of them may be the color of your logo – but it is almost certainly the first one you should be thinking about.

Celebrate Everything

When I was purging my files for the New Year I found those two inspirational words on an otherwise blank sheet of paper: Celebrate Everything. I commend them to you - the positive feedback can have a truly excellent effect on you, your people and your business.

A talented artist/businessman I used to work with would smile wryly when anything went right – anything at all – and say quietly “it’s the small victories, the small victories.” In fact I am celebrating the finding of this note even now with a cup of tea and a blog entry.

Celebrate everything. Celebrate when your receptionist buys flowers, and your creative teams are excited. Celebrate the purging of your files and the call from a prospective client (one came in as I am writing this), celebrate the rewriting of your website and celebrate having a new idea.

You will feel good, your people will feel good - and all those small victories will start to add up to some really big ones.

Current TV - Entertainment v Message

It turns out I inadvertently addressed a real issue for the folks at Current TV. I was asked to make a promo for them as part of their New Icons series: I had to go to Current.com and then tell a webcam about my experience on the site.

I had expected to become engaged with videos about the global warming situation (well it is Al Gore’s company) or with some other deeply meaningful cause. But instead I was completely entranced by a video of a fellow in The Netherlands who has a pocket full of remote controls and who surreptitiously uses them to turn off TVs in public places – during the soccer finals. Chaos and desperation ensues as the fans try to figure out why their match has disappeared and our hero just moves anonymously on to the next set of victims. Yes it was irresponsible – but it was utterly hilarious.

So this is what I told the webcam - and this, it seems, is Current’s issue (and not only theirs). How to make good and important causes entertaining enough to divert us from such frivolity. You can see my video on Current TV on December 14th.


See the final edited video.

Selling Statement for a film director

This talented film director had left a career making TV commercials to write and direct a Feature Film (which incidentally had some very big stars in it - we were impressed!) and to shoot TV shows.

Now he wanted to find a new balance in his career between feature projects and TV spots. He needed to reintroduce himself to the ad agency and production company market, so he asked Pollock Spark help him to develop a Statement defining his style and to craft a presentation that would get him back into the competitive world of TV spots.

Here’s what the director said of Pollock Spark's work: “This is terrific. I really like the Statement … Seems very sellable to me, easy for a rep to remember and for an agency to repeat to a client.”

This is what we all need - a simple statement of our value proposition. And it is not easy to craft that for yourself - seeing yourself as others see you is very hard.

UPDATE 3/28/08
He's been booked solid for the last eight weeks - see what he says.

Pollock Spark works...

...For a successful 22 yr old animation company.

Under new ownership, this company wanted to know where it stood in the marketplace, how it was perceived by its advertising agency clients and what it needed to do to reach new levels of success.

Pollock Spark was able to reach out to the company's former clients and potential clients. These senior ad agency creatives told this independent interviewer things they would never tell the company or its reps. We learned some things that “surprised” our client and were invaluable in formulating a new strategy. The learning and the analysis, inspired by Pollock Spark's insights, led to a retooled strategy for the company and a new marketing plan.

“I am excited about moving forward” said the owner after spending a day absorbing the results.

Green Clutter or Social Awareness

Most US consumers think of themselves as environmentally friendly, according to an Environmental Leader article citing BBMG's "Conscious Consumer Report."

In addition to being eco-friendly, nearly nine in 10 US respondents self-identified themselves either as "conscious consumers" or "socially responsible."

That contrasts with respondents who self-identified themselves as "green." About two-thirds of respondents in the BBMG study said that the term described them "well," and 18% said it described them "very well."

"In a world of green clutter, conscious consumers expect companies to do more than make eco-friendly claims," said Raphael Bemporad, partner at BBMG. "They demand transparency and accountability across every level of business practice."

Thanks to emarketer who sent us this information. And to Greenpeace for the image.

Barry Diller's Mouthfuls

Barry Diller, recently the nation's highest paid executive, is breaking up his
IAC/InterActiveCorp.

"While we have created a lot of value," Mr Diller said, "I have always believed that our complexity and many mouthfuls of sentences to explain who we are and what our strategy is have hampered clarity of understanding with all our constituencies, including investors."

Could this be true of your company too?

Win-win for a brand and a cause

A powerful and productive partnership was created when our sister nonprofit The Cyrano Project introduced Carissa Phelps and filmmaker David Sauvage to Virgin Mobile.

The no-contract wireless provider screened a special preview of a moving new film about Carissa's harrowing young life on the streets and in the motels of Fresno. Directed and produced by Sauvage and executive produced by Davis Guggenheim (Oscar winner for "An Inconvenient Truth") --it was shown at the Virgin Mobile RE*Generation Art Gallery Auction and Benefit in New York in November.

The downtown art crowd was there, young and beautiful and buying art for the cause of
Youth Homelessness. The nonprofits who work on the streets with homeless kids were there - there are about a million teens and children on the streets of the US today. And VM staffers were there - telling anyone who'd listen that they are so proud to work for a company that does this.

To learn more about the artists whose work was on sale you simply had to dial a number on one of the fantastically decorated VM phones that were on display.

It was terrific branding for VM, whose prime customer is young and who empathizes with the plight of these homeless kids.

The event raised money and awareness for the cause, it was great entertainment and made complete sense as a brilliant branded promotion.

I should add that VM has sponsored Congressional legislation making November,Youth Homelessness Awareness Month and Carissa - a phenomenal woman who is no longer on the streets and has just earned a law degree and an MBA - is their national spokesperson. So this thing has legs.

There must be a perfect cause for your business. Let us help you find it.