Hold the presses. Hold the Mayo!

Can a boy do a mann's job? Not without a fight.

Never before has mayo—and the manifestly philosophical quandary of what is and isn’t mayo—been such trending news.

Surely you’ve heard about this. Call it the mayo wars. Or maybe it’s a David v. Goliath story, one of Big Mayo against a lilliputian “maybe” mayo.

In this corner, we have Just Mayo,  a Bay Area condiment upstart/startup, producing a sandwich spread that looks like mayo, purports to taste like mayo...but lacking eggs, it begs the existential question - Is it really mayo?

And in that corner, Hellmann’s, the mayo-magnate division of food giant Unilever. They’ve filed suit against Just Mayo’s parent company Hampton Creek, taking issue with nothing less than the condiment’s very name. If it doesn’t contain eggs, says Unilever, citing the FDA’s definition of mayonnaise’s proper ingredients...then Just mayo just ain’t mayo.

So what do we have here? At first glance we might have a corporation, a familiar brand, standing up for truth in food labeling—a boon for us all.

And we also might have a bit of self-preservation, certainly not a bad thing. A Unilever spokesman, commenting on the suit in early November, frankly admitted the case was not just about protecting the consumer, but “also our brand.” Hellmann’s is the #1 mayonnaise on the supermarket shelf, and there’s an argument to be made that Hellmann’s has a right to protect itself when a competitor enters its market with a fundamentally different product.

But hold that mayo. We’re willing to ask the questions that Unilever should have, but evidently didn’t, before they called in the lawyers.

First: does the truth-in-labeling argument hold water? From a legal perspective, sure it does. But no rational observer really thinks that Hampton Creek was trying to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes. Just Mayo lacks eggs because eggs tend to turn your arteries into pointy little sticks. Some folks don’t want that as a side-effect from their sandwich spreads. Other folks don’t worry about it, and will probably keep buying Hellman’s. But neither group is going to rush to thank Unilever for defending the cholestoral-centric definition of mayonnaise. Not a bit of p.r. cred will be had there.

And protecting their brand? We’ve always been the first to argue that a brand is the most precious of assets, and needs to be protected accordingly. But we also know that one must choose one’s battles carefully. So swatting that Just Mayo fly with a corporate-sized sledgehammer—is it worth it?

Before Unilever sued, we’d never heard of Just Mayo. Had you?

If Unilever wins, then Just Mayo changes its name. Maybe...Almost Mayo...or Just Mayo Minus Heart Disease—there are plenty of options (Hampton Creek: Call Us!). But in any case, the legal headache will go away. And in its aftermath? Just Mayo has received more free advertising than they could ever have hoped for.

Seems like Unilever just didn’t think this one through. We predict they’ll find themselves in the pyrrhic position of winning their lawsuit, but still getting egg all over their face.

The C4:
1.  Just the facts: according to the Food and Drug Administration mayonnaise must include “egg yolk-containing ingredients.” Just Mayo is made from canola oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. If you want to make the argument that Just Mayo isn’t, in fact, mayo...well, you’ll get no argument from us.
2.  Likewise, we got your back when you say you need to protect your brand. Business ain’t tiddlywinks. You’ve got to use every tool at your disposal (you’ve got to break some eggs, you might say) to keep your brand profitable.
3. Oh, but you’ve got to pick your battles, man. Do we really need to tell you that? Didn’t Old Mother Hellmann’s teach you that when you but a wee little jar?
4. Hampton Creek/Just Mayo are in the unique position of being very lucky to get sued. Unilever/Hellmann’s has pretty much turned Just Mayo into a household name. Don’t want to say this but we can’t seem to stop...Looks like the yolk is on them.

C is for Creativity

(Sometimes)

May we call your attention to the large and swoopy black and white capital ‘C’ we’ve placed prominently on this page? If you’ve even a passing familiarity with our company you know we prominently place that ‘C’ logo on all our pages, electronic and otherwise, not to mention abundantly throughout our physical environs. We’re closely invested in a lot of companies’ logos, but this one is pretty special to us. You can guess why.

Or can you? Chances are, if you’ve been blessed with that passing familiarity, you think you know what that ‘C’ signifies. And okay, you’re at least partially right.

But it also signifies so much more. There are the Core values, that we find in common with each other, and with our clients, and our community. There are the Connections which ensue. There’s Communication, the two-way kind (our very favorite), which we strive to build and nurture and propagate.

It’s about our Clients. Their Culture. Their Customers. And—their Challenges.

Hopefully you get the idea. And if you do, you’re probably wondering about another ‘C’—one you’re thinking must be our guiding star…

Creativity.

We can’t deny it. Creativity is our life-force—it’s the spark our team relies on to find innovative ways to tell our clients’ stories. It’s the tool we use to break through the static, to get attention, to stand out, and to get results.

Only thing is…that tool has to be wielded correctly, if the results attained are to be the ones we’ve aimed for. Creativity has to be targeted, according to the clients’ needs. Failing that, creativity can actually be counterproductive.

Marketing guru Drew McLellan raised that point recently, in a blog entitled, “Is Creativity Bad for Marketing?” He makes a fascinating argument, but we’ll go ahead and unleash the spoiler: the answer to his titular question is — No, creativity is not bad for marketing...with a few caveats.

Unrestrained, undirected creativity looks great on museum walls and in private collections. In a marketing portfolio, though, it just speaks of self-indulgence on the part of the agency, and wasted money on the part of the client.

This should be self-evident, but it remains a pox on our industry. How many billboards, TV spots, and glossy magazine ads have you seen that were breathtakingly creative…but did little or nothing to actually sell the product? Or worse — how many ads have left you perplexed as to what exactly was being sold, or by whom?

We are artists and writers who’ve taken on the vocation of marketing. Which means the creativity we wield is wielded for our clients. End of story.

If the messaging required by our client calls for us to dig deep in our creative wells, to compose some soaring prose and render images that’ll make strong men weep, then we’ll do so. Happily.

But if that client requires old-school, boiler-room marketing that spells out features, benefits, and contact info with no added fluff, then we’re on top of that, too. Just as happily.

For every client there is a correct marketing mix, and a correct way of presenting it. It takes savvy, experience, and yes, a certain amount of creativity to divine that optimum strategy. And then it takes a certain amount of creativity, an amount that’s commensurate with the strategy, to implement it.

That’s what we deliver: precisely the level of creativity needed to meet our clients’ goals. Doing so is always rewarding, no matter how inspired or unexpected or creative the work actually is.

Don’t worry about us, though. On those rare days when we haven’t flexed the creativity muscles quite as much as we’d like, we just go home and scribble on the walls. Works every time.

The C4:
1. We really like that big, beautiful “C.” It’s so forcefully, confidently rendered. It is balanced, delicate, yet demanding of one’s attention. It speaks to us. We hope it speaks to you too.

2. Its messages are myriad. It is more than an initial. It is a sigil, a messenger; shorthand for the characteristics and codes that are central to our collective.

3. It also stands for Creativity.

4. But creativity is a heady ingredient. Sometimes just a dash is needed. Sometimes even less.

Coda: We’re connoisseurs at calculating how much creativity is called for, and how cunningly it should be conveyed. Call us. Let’s chat.

Blown Away By Restroom Hand Dryers

Speak volumes with simple truths

Artists and designers tend to notice beautiful images, and beautiful imagery. That’s understandable — it’s a natural and irrepressible aspect of their being. You wouldn’t want to change that instinct, even if you could.

Writers, by the same token, have their feelers out for words, phrases, whole blocks of text, that for them typify the prosaic music that set their hearts to soaring. We’re all fans of our peers and colleagues, you might say.

Marketing writers are no different, except perhaps in one small way: we’re all on the lookout for that one perfect line.

You know what we mean. Or rather, you know it if you’ve seen it. Maybe it’s used in a marketing context, then again maybe it isn’t. It could be used in marketing, regardless of its actual utility, because it’s pithy, direct, and compelling: the very definition of powerful marketing copy.

Most marketing copy is, in fact, pithy and direct and is aimed to compel. But is it all emblematic of that one perfect line? Oh, if only that were so. Truth is, we’re all trying to create that line, that one line of textual punch that sets the tone and carries the banner for all the related marketing efforts that are to follow on.

And we create some pretty good stuff in the attempt. We’re persuasive and informative, and we’re as witty or as serious or as sophisticated as the occasion demands. Our words team with the designers’ images to deliver a multi-media message from our client, the marketers, to the audience they’re engaging with. And in that sense, all is well.

But in the midst of that conversation we’re not always delivering that one perfect line.

On the one hand, it hurts to admit that. But on the other it leaves us ample room to strive. And it gives due honors to the rarity and majesty of written perfection.

So where can you find that line? Expect to see it in the most unexpected places. Public restrooms, perhaps?

High-speed energy efficient hand dryers are now being used instead of paper towels.

Chances are you've seen that phrase so many times it’s become well-nigh invisible. You can no longer recognize, if indeed you ever did,  the elegant truth and beauty inherent in the words.

Shall we break it down? At first glance, it seems strictly utilitarian — a yawn-worthy public notice. There are layers, though, to this onion, this gem, this orchid. Thinking it over, you come to realize there’s a hint of hubris there: a subtle suggestion that hand dryers are on a march of conquest, supplanting paper towels all across the land.

But no, read it again. All that is claimed is that in some cases, in some places, there are hand driers. It is nothing less than the simple truth.

Inside that truth, however, lurks the suggestion that this place, wherein you’ve been lucky enough to find high-speed air and not paper towels, this is the place to be. Those other places, anachronistic hosts to towels made of pulp, they evidently haven’t received the good news about hand-drying efficiency. You might want to skip those places until they get with it.

Some genius writer or a team of them crafted those words, piled those layers, and they knew what they needed to spell out, and what could go unsaid. They knew what you know about the environment, about efficiency, and about the simple yet oh-so important act of hand-washing. They knew they had limited space and time to harness that knowledge and make a profound statement (and a profoundly subliminal one)...and they delivered.

The one perfect line isn't trivial, and it never addresses a trivial subject. It carries loads of information, subtle and overt. It is the pinnacle of the use of language in sharing ideas and swaying opinions. It is to be celebrated, in awe and yes, even envy, wherever it is found.

The C4:
1. We live in the era of one-liners and sound-bytes. Just about everyone is composing pithy zingers in support of their ideas, their ideals, and their hobby-horses of the moment.
2. Some are more successful than others. Some go viral. Most are nothing to Tweet home about.
3. Exceedingly rare exceptions pack a cerebral wallop in relatively few characters. They’re like Zen gardens in the form of words: every element carefully chosen, carefully placed, working together to create deep meaning.
4. Does that really add up to perfection? We’ll allow that perfection is subjective, and perhaps objectively unobtainable. Nevertheless we think there are uses of language that come as close to perfection as humanly possible. We know them when we see them; we admire them no matter who created them, or why. And they always inspire us to seek the same.

Can Creativity Come Out To Play?

The solutions to all your business woes lie right above everyone’s nose

It's not complicated — just let loose the creativi-whee!

Need solutions for ongoing business worries? Need great ideas for uncovering new business opportunities? No problem! The insights needed to conquer all these issues and more are right there, close at hand—locked up inside the heads of the good people you work with every day. All you need to do is find a way to shake the creativity loose. 

Exactly how much elbow grease will it take to liberate the genius that silently surrounds you? That is dictated by institutional culture; some groups just don’t have the history or inclination to suborn themselves to the ethereality of mind-magic.

While others, let’s face it, are just drunk on the stuff. These are the companies that eschew stairs in their office suites in favor of bouncy slides and fireman poles. They’ve got massage chairs in the power-nap room, and foosball tables on the ceiling. They reckon that a workday has to resemble a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, if you’re to have any hope of coaxing out the elusive creative mind.

And to some extent, you have to give them credit for success. This is arguably a proven formula for the creatives of the entertainment industry, Silicon Valley, and, we can assume, the wizardly boffins at ARPA and DARPA.

But what about the rest of us? What if we haven’t the square-footage for an employee Romper Room in our leased storefront office spaces? Are we to be denied the fruits of creative labor just because we lack the budget or penchant for sumo suits for everyone?

A bouncy-slide salesman would never tell you this, but we will: Creativity isn’t that hard to coax out. Creativity is the child gazing out the window, desperately hoping for an invitation from the other kids in the neighborhood to come play. It wants to come out.

Start by fostering an environment where input and creative suggestions are universally understood to be welcome. Ask for advice and opinions, from everyone and on every subject. Ask lots of follow-up questions, to make them deeply examine their own ideas and thought processes.

For your thorniest issues only—don’t want to pull out the big gun too often—convene brainstorming sessions, peopled with as many of your SMEs you can fit in a room. Brainstorm your own way, there are endless ways to structure the sessions, but always follow the two cardinal rules of the storm of brains: No ideas are out of bounds, and no one gets criticized.

Lastly, don’t try too hard to control the creative process. Set it in motion, encourage it to continue…then get out of its way. Creativity will rise to the occasion, so long as it’s not stifled by close-mindedness. Your team wants to perform; they’re pining to put on their thinking caps. Sure, they’ll take a ride on the bouncy slide if one’s being offered—but if not, they’ll still amaze you with their creativity. All you have to do is ask.

The C4:

1. There are three ways to solve any problem and to unlock any door: Muscle your way through, buy your way in, or think your way around it. Can we all agree the third is preferred, if only for the bragging rights?

2. Leaders are accustomed to hogging all the thinking for themselves. That’s a habit we need to break. Intelligent, engaged people who want to lend their brainpower to the common cause surround us. Shame on us if we’ve got resources like that available and we’re not using them.

3. So, foster creativity in your workplace. Create an environment where deep thought and unexpected solutions are not just welcome, but expected.

4. Nothing against bouncy slides. If you’ve got the space and the budget, by all means bounce away. Just don’t think that’s where the creativity comes from. Slide or no slide, the creativity is already there.

Baader Meinhoff?

Baader Meinhoff!

Let’s start with a history lesson.

Once a new element is introduced,
our penchant for patterns makes something new,
seem not so new after all.

The Baader-Meinoff Gang, later re-branded the Red Army Faction, was a Marxist-Leninist urban terrorist group, active in West Germany in the seventies and eighties. They were named for two of their founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff.

Of course, German communism is as outdated as Marx, Lenin, and West Germany itself, so this little trip down memory lane is probably irrelevant to you. But it might become relevant, maybe in a day or two, if the Baader-Meinoff Phenomenon holds true.

The Baader-Meinhoff Phenom gives appellation to some weirdness we’ve all experienced: You’ve just learned about something, or heard an odd word or term for the first time, then suddenly you find it cropping up again and again. Not surprisingly, the name was coined by someone who reported, in an online discussion forum, that they’d recently heard about the Baader-Meinhoff Gang…and then heard another random reference to the same, the very next day.

That thread took off, they say, because everyone can identify.

So is it as spooky as it seems? Is it some eerily specific type of synchronicity, diabolically designed to shoehorn ephemera like the Baader-Meinhoff Gang into our consciousness?

We kind of wish that were so. The truth is a little more pedestrian, but much more enlightening as to opaque workings of the human mind.

It’s called frequency illusion, and it’s related to the pattern-seeking bias we’re all programmed with. We’re creatures constantly on the lookout for recognizable patterns, even though we hardly realize it, because it’s a pretty reasonable survival strategy. After all, if you’re able to quickly, subconsciously espy a pattern within the willowy savannah grasses, one that suggests the lurking of hungry teeth, you just might buy yourself a valuable head start. These days the urgency isn’t quite as great, but the tendency remains.

Our brains are pretty good at editing, too. Via our senses we’re constantly bombarded with information and stimuli, most of which we instantly deem irrelevant, so we ignore it. But this tendency is at war with the previously mentioned one; within those terrabytes of ignored data patterns exist, or at least they seem to. And we’re watching for them. If some random bit of chatter makes it through the censor, like “Baader Meinhoff” for instance, we’re alert for that chatter to repeat itself—even though the whole process is happening outside our conscious awareness.

The truth is, we’re perceiving the world as persistent, mostly meaningless static. And you know how it is with static: you can either ignore it, or you can listen close. If you do, you can swear you hear within it creepy whispers. 

From a marketing perspective it’s intriguing, but not exactly an easy thing to leverage. Sure, we try to pierce the barrier of psychological editing with repetition and with uniqueness of message—and sure, it often works. But trying to predict which patterns (or more accurately, perceived patterns) folks will find meaningful is challenging indeed.

It’s just too bad the name Baader Meinhoff was already taken, and tainted. Because clearly, that one works like a charm.

The C4:
1. The Baader-Meinhoff Gang were very bad, no-good people. The less said about them the better.

2. But the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon is fascinating. It’s not supernatural, it only seems that way. It tells us a lot about the way we think, and the way we see the world.

3. It’s about pattern recognition, and it’s about thinking you’ve found patterns where none actually exist. It’s why you see faces in the clouds, and it’s why you’re certain to see a ’56 Packard the same week you find out your grandpappy drove one.

4. How useful is it? That remains unsure. We’re just kind of glad the Baader-Meinhoff Gang didn’t have a marketing department to harness their eponymous phenomenon. Those bomb-throwing twits might have been famous, rather than historical footnotes.

A Commercial That Totally Nails It (Totes McGotes)

Sometimes it just comes down to the on-air talent.

Imagine the #throwback status updates on these timelines.

And you know, that’s not easy to admit. We’ve produced enough TV spots in our time that we’re accustomed to sharing the accolades with everyone involved. The whole team contributes to success: the writers, the creative directors, the producers and certainly not least, the clients who green-lit the things in the first place.

But every now and then we see an ad, or a series of ads, that turns that formulation on its head. Sometimes the idea is so simple, or so unexpected, that it’s destined to be a great big clinker unless exactly the right people are put in front of the cameras.

Sprint’s recent campaign, created by the Leo Burnett agency, is a prime example. To highlight and honor the everyday importance of everyday communication, roughly 16 TV commercials (not all have aired as of yet) consist of little more than a couple of actors role-playing other peoples’ phone conversations, texts, and email exchanges.

Which could have generated a lot of shrugs, and maybe a few yawns. But they went and casted James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell to handle the emoticon-y reenactments.

Sheer genius. And putting them both in tuxes, on a spare and darkened London stage? Almost too awesome to contemplate.

So what we got was two veteran character actors, whose bodies of works are nothing less than legendary, taking on the personae of tween girls (to hash out, once and for all, whether Ryan is a ‘Hottie McHotterson’), and a couple of bros pondering whether to go out that night (“Probably not…but I might!”)

We’re not saying other actors couldn’t have carried it off. But with these two, a smash-hit was almost guaranteed. And it’s not solely because of their individual talent, remarkable as they are. No, there was synergy and interpersonal chemistry at work here, and it’s plainly visible on the screen. Industry buzz has it that both Jones and McDowell signed on only when they learned the other was committed. It’s also telling that these were the first TV commercials Malcolm McDowell has ever done.

The results are amazing (or as McDowell-as-‘Kim’ would have it, “amazeballs”). But truth be told, it probably won’t turn our industry on its head. We’ll go on creating ads much like we’ve always done: as a creative, collaborative effort between a team of professionals, with the input and informed consent of our clients.

We’d like to say this is because it’s a proven method that’s served us extraordinarily well, and there’s more than a kernel of truth to that. But this is also true: There are simply not enough James Earl Joneses and Malcolm McDowells to go around.

The C4:

1. Sprint and Leo Burnett swung for the fences, and delivered. Such a simple concept: have a couple of actors play off each other with the content of other peoples’ electronic communications. Similar ads have been tried before. We forget by whom.
2. What made this a winning campaign is very easily identified: James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell. Their vocal and personal gravitas, their commanding presence, their tuxedos, for crying out loud—created a shocking yet delightful incongruity, as they inhabited the vernacular of these 30-second roles.
3. Give credit where it’s due. Just like any marketing endeavor, this one had a lot of champions. Every stakeholder at Sprint and at Leo Burnett shares this success. But let’s not kid ourselves, because they’re surely not; the actors made this work. If anyone else had been in front of the camera, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.
4. We salute this success, but we can’t really see it changing how we work. We collaborate with our clients, and with each other, to create marketing that delivers exactly the right message to exactly the right audience. But having said that—Messrs. Jones and McDowell, you read our blog, don’t you? (Doesn’t everyone?) If so…CALL US.