Green, green, we’re green they say…

When you’re still in the midst of it all, who’s to say when a tipping point has been reached? Twenty years, or maybe fifty years from now, we’ll know—but from this particular vantage point it seems we’re finally reaching a mass awareness of global environmental issues.

It’s been a long time coming. We had the Energy Crisis in the 1970s, significant concern over acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, and yet somehow it seemed that we never quite put it all together and took it seriously. Whatever happened, and it was undoubtedly a long, long series of various issues and events, there is now a mainstream green momentum that seems unstoppable.

“Wild Snowman” by Avenue A | RazorfishIt can’t be a bad thing that many, if not most, of our major ad agencies and their clients are looking for ways to get involved. Sure, we might sometimes sneer a bit at everyone jumping on the bandwagon. For example, last fall Brian Morrissey of Adweek posted on AdFreak: “But of course advertising, at its heart, is about feeding mass consumerism, which is the main cause of the pickle we’re in with global warming to begin with. The same agencies that are preaching about green initiatives would, I’m sure, fall all over themselves the next time there’s a review to make ads promoting gas-guzzling SUVs.” However, there’s no question that every agency has significant personnel who sincerely care about global warming, animal extinctions, resource depletion, and future generations. And now we’re starting to put some muscle into marketing the environment.

One real danger is that we’ll overdo the effort with a flood of showy but minimally effective marketing initiatives, effectively overdosing the public with too many servings of environmental awareness junk food. If so, we might find that like any sudden fashion, the interest will wane and give way to the next shiny distraction.

How do we use our considerable marketing expertise to tackle the problem efficiently? Will more and more websites, television ads, posters, and movies do the job? Is more always better? Or is that approach how we created the problem in the first place? More, more, bigger, bigger, until the audience just doesn’t care anymore?

Take any one promotion or campaign by itself and yes, we’re impressed. Good work. Today I saw the very clever and professional Wild Snowman by Avenue A | Razorfish. Beautiful. I sent the link to several co-workers. And I know it took real energy, talent, time, and money to produce that piece.

I also thoroughly enjoyed this ad from the “Unscrew America” campaign (a project of GSD&M’s Idea City):

http://www.metaconverse.com/flvs/2008/reubens_lightbulb.flv

But what if we have dozens and dozens of websites, ads, etc. like these? Too much of a good (or feel-good) thing? I think there’s a real danger here, with so many agencies all pounding away at the same message. The challenge is to recognize that we’re all on board, that there are a lot of us and that we need to focus on more directed efforts to have maximum effect.

For example, what if one ad agency offered to work with school districts to create environmental education promotions and activities? This would require working with teachers to determine approaches that would fit into and complement the existing curriculum and thus actually be used. Another agency could research the best ways to save energy in a variety of workplaces (offices, stores, factories) and provide employers with posters and other materials to help educate employees about practical ways they can contribute at work. These are just samples of ways in which any agency might specifically direct and achieve greater impact by not duplicating the work of others.

The bottom line is that environmental issues are important and we finally have the public’s attention, but we shouldn’t all spend our time producing award-winning work about turning off light bulbs.

The disappointment of the stork

In so many ways, this is a beautiful, affecting, and probably very effective television ad. Before I say more, take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbNc7GzRSqM

The story, visuals and music seduce the viewer, until the bittersweet ending delivers the payoff. The stork drops his head and the raindrop tears flow down the glass. How many of us watch and then wonder about ourselves and what we’re doing with our lives? Are we just disappointment and wasted potential? Might not any of us just for a moment consider how much more we’re worthy of?

It worked for me. I’ve been there—late nights, sometimes all night—yawning through the extra hours to get the job done, just grinding away at my computer, coding, testing, fixing. No-one there to appreciate the effort. Testing, coding, testing. There’s nothing at all glamorous about it. Sad, really.

But then I realize… I’ve created some of my best work and felt the greatest sense of accomplishment after those all-nighters. It’s what I do. When push comes to shove, I push on through to do the job right. I’m a Flash guy. I earn my pay and I’m proud of what I do.

Nothing wrong with that.

Whoa. Advertising Age also did a review of the Monster “Stork” ad—Yawning Production Flaw Keeps Ad Half a Second From Genius. I think perhaps they bent over backwards to find the fault they did.

A Twitter experiment — part 2

I started with 20 names—people whose books and sites had some influence on my own development as a Flash and website developer. Just over half of them were Flash people. Of the 20, how many would I find on Twitter?

The results surprised me:

What does it mean? If nothing else, it shows significant participation by people whom I’d describe as knowledgeable and influential in the world of website design and development. God knows there are many more options online than any of us have time for. A lot of folks might play with Twitter for a few days or weeks, but most of my test group who are on Twitter seem to be regular users.

I’d call it a pretty strong show of support from a group that knows the Internet intimately.

And, yes, I did sign up as a “follower” to the 12. A few of them are now following me. The experiment continues.

A Twitter experiment — part 1

Right. I was saying Twitter turned out to be surprisingly useful. Lately I’ve been following a few people who have a sincere interest and involvement in advertising and every day they come up with a few links or observations that I normally would have missed.

140 — Twitter’s character limitSo I began to wonder about other people I might like to follow. Would it be as easy as thinking, “Ooh, [insert name of well-known person here], I bet s/he’s good on Twitter”? Face it—most people probably couldn’t be bothered. Then again, there are probably some interest groups with a much higher likelihood of taking part.

I’m into website development and standards, Internet usability, and Flash programming. I’ve been following some thought leaders in these areas for years. How many names can I list right off the top of my head? How likely is it they’d be on Twitter too?

Here’s the first set of names I came up with:

That’s 20. Seemed like enough to start with. And so far I’ve checked the first 10 on Twitter. How many did I find there? Are they active?

Tomorrow.

Hey, I just noticed. All 20 of the people listed up there are male. What’s up with that? I don’t think it’s me. Is it?

Twitter reconsidered

TwitterWhen I first heard of Twitter, and for months afterward, my reaction was simple—sounds like a real waste of time. A 140-character limit. What’s that, two or three sentences? I mean, who the hell cares most of the time what you’re doing at this very minute? It didn’t help that most of the examples I heard seemed to focus on the trivial. “I’m having a Quarter Pounder at McDonald’s. With fries and a Coke. Yum!”

Give me a break.

Then I read something or somebody said something. I don’t remember who or what, but it made me reconsider. Whatever, I thought I’d dive in and give Twitter a chance. For the first week I twittered several times a day, but then I tapered off to once or twice a day. I have a few followers, mostly people I know. They follow me, I follow them, and we’re all pretty sporadic.

If that’s all there was to it, Twitter wouldn’t be anything special for me. But after a few weeks, I started following a selection of folks involved in the ad industry, people I don’t know but who were quite active on Twitter and who, it turned out, often made observations that really helped me in my work as a Flash developer for an ad agency. It might be a link to a website or a blog post, or comments on a new commercial or advertising campaign. Whatever, it involved me in a wider world of advertising than I was exposed to in my day-to-day work.

Little things here and there. Nudges. There’s stuff to learn and to be excited about. And it’s fun.

Now I have an experiment in mind.

“Left Vs. Right” — how do you measure success?

Left Vs. RightPatrick’s behind the desk on the left with a blue background and Britt’s on the right with red. They’re waiting for me to ask a question or suggest a topic. Finally she starts flossing.

“Don’t do that here,” he says.

He looks straight out at me. “Please type something.”

It’s Left Vs. Right, a clever, good-looking Flash site promoting Microsoft’s Live Search. You can type in a topic and if it has any relevancy at all to the current political scene in the US, Patrick and Britt will have some witty dialogue in response. At the same time, you’re presented with a selection of more prosaic and useful search results in three categories—”Web”, “Images”, and “News”.

As a Flash developer myself, I have some idea of the amount of money, time and effort that goes into a site like this. All too often the result is not as usable nor as satisfying. Many, if not most, of these sites are little more than a parlour trick. You visit, you try it, and if it’s better than most, you pass on the URL to your friends and co-workers. Then you move on.

Left Vs. Right is good, but is it worth the investment? Beyond the design and technical development, there was considerable investment in copywriting, performance, filming, etc. I wouldn’t dare to guess, but they must have had one hell of a budget. Ultimately however, I don’t find myself terribly encouraged to use Live Search as a result.

On Left Vs. Right your topics have to be “political”. I entered “live search” and they obviously didn’t have anything prepared.

Britt takes the lead with, “If we told you that, we’d have to kill you.”

“And that’s not really our policy here on Left Vs. Right,” continues Patrick.

“Yet.”

“We could make some calls though.”

Usability is a moving target

They are two of the Big Names in online usability—Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug.

I wrote that sentence and then asked myself if there were others who should be considered on the same level. I wasn’t sure. I went to Amazon.com and searched for books on “usability”. The top two results:

I’ve read Krug’s book at least twice, maybe three times. It’s not just informative and packed with good advice; it’s easy and actually fun to read. I’ve learned a great deal from Nielsen’s website over the years, and I’m sure there’s still an awful lot I’ve missed. These guys are real experts and argue persistently for techniques of keeping websites easy to use. Because… a site that’s easy to use is an effective site.

I won’t argue with that.

But then it just so happened that I visited their websites on the same day. Go ahead, take a quick look (but don’t forget to come back):

Those are two butt-ugly sites. You have to ask yourself—does an effective site have to look like that? Or have users evolved over the past decade to the point where we can identify a link even if it’s not blue and underlined? Further, could it be that an attractive design actually makes a site more usable? Let’s say you have a user who doesn’t know who these guys are and this user opens one of these sites. Do you suppose that user might just think, “Whoa, what a crude and ugly site. So 1990s. Can I really count on good advice from someone who can’t do a better job than this?”

Nowadays you can expect visitors to your site to be more sophisticated, and probably more demanding when it comes to design. Usability evolves with the users and we have to keep up.

“Gonna Fly Now” or not?

It’s the day after Super Bowl XLII. We’re all talking about the game and we’re talking about the commercials. As usual, there were some fun commercials, but overall I can’t help but feel disappointed. Okay, nothing new here—every year I feel disappointed. You hear how this is the Big Event and how much it costs to air a 30-second spot and you think they’ve got to be more than just good. They’ve got to be worth all that money and all that hype.

Why can’t the ad industry, or the clients who pay them, meet the challenge? There are some amazing and effective spots out there all through the year, so why don’t we actually see more of the best during the big game?

Maybe our expectations are just too high. Or could it be that the ads are so damn good, we’re quickly sated and nothing stands out?

I don’t think so.

Maybe it’s just me. Apparently even the experts have difficulty agreeing on the ads that did work. David Armano, whom I truly respect, says via Twitter, “Laura Ries picked Budweiser ‘rocky’ for best SB ad? I want whatever drugs she’s on.” She likes it and he isn’t that impressed, though he doesn’t say why. Is this an “in crowd” thing—as in, if you really understood advertising, you’d know why the Budweiser Rocky commercial isn’t so great? I liked it. Apparently a lot of people did.

Or is general popularity an ironic kiss of death when it comes to television advertising?

Update: David Armano comes through again. Via Twitter, he refers us to “The BEST Superbowl Ad you never saw on Superbowl Sunday”. Excellent.