In our client relationships we typically have two types of business models.

One model is that we become the Marketing Department for the business we serve. We meet weekly with the client—meaning key decision-makers like the CEO, CFO, COO, GM’s and DM’s or sales directors, depending upon their company structure. We work as a team to establish marketing plans for each quarter of the year and have active discussions on how our decisions affect operations, purchasing and sales. In this model everyone has input and helps establish the direction and goals together so there is no question what will be developed and executed. And that saves the client money in the long run through planning and clear direction.

The second model we often encounter is one that involves a Marketing Director or Chief Marketing Officer. We have several clients with CMO’s in place and in this model, our relationships vary.

Many of the CMO’s bring us in early to develop plans in accordance with senior leadership goals. The goals have been established and they ask for our ideas, strategies and experience in the implementation of these goals. Once we understand the “mission,” it is our job to figure out the most efficient use of their marketing dollars to get the most bang. The glue that holds this together is collaboration.

Unfortunately not all Marketing Directors are created equal and we find that some are often more concerned with protecting their turf and even presenting our ideas as their own (to their superiors) to guard their "value."  They keep us separated from operations and sales. And when we are not in the room when the strategies and tactics are conceived, it’s hard to be held accountable. We become more like a vendor than a strategic partner and you’ll never get our best work under those circumstances.

CurrentMarketing works best when it is invited to the “big table” to assist with the strategic planning necessary to achieve corporate goals. We want to get input from the folks actually working in the business and have found their ideas to be as important as the CEO’s vision for the company.  I can’t tell you how many accounts we have acquired and discovered that marketing dollars were being spent without the valuable input of operations and purchasing. “Let’s develop X and make them implement it right away!” Never once considering if X will create more challenges—than benefits or “butts in seats”– upon execution.

Teamwork is the best way to come up with the most effective strategies for just about any challenge in your business and we are thankful at Current that our clients get this!

I posed that question to the CurrentMarketing team this week, and while there was no consensus on what the emergence of Google Buzz will mean for Facebook, I got some very interesting responses. One one end of the spectrum was this:

"Sorry, Google. There's already an App for that. Facebook, twitter and Gmail all have their place, and I'm not sure they can effectively invade each other's territory. A Swiss Army knife does a lot of things, but isn't the best tool for everything."

The other end: "I can see switching, since I already have a GMail account."

One team member saw Google Buzz as the beginning of a slide into irrelevance for Facebook, in much the same way that Facebook's arrival presaged the decline of MySpace. Whatever the reality eventually turns out to be, it's clear that Google has thrown down the gauntlet. It's Facebook's turn to respond!

Just in time for the 2010 Olympic Games, The New York Times is partnering with the mobile application Foursquare to bring “2010 Olympic Tips” to the fingertips of those attending the games in Vancouver.

From The Times’ Foursquare page: “The New York Times is celebrating the 2010 Vancouver Olympics by sharing tips on what to see and where to go in Vancouver and Whistler. Follow The Times on Foursquare to receive recommendations on dining, nightlife, shopping and attractions. Check in to two recommended venues to unlock our Olympics badge!”

So far, The Times’ travel and entertainment writers have added over 40 tips to the network. Recommendations range from the fun “@ General Motors Place: Canucks fans call this place the Garage” to the fact based “@ Cypress Mountain: The 22-foot halfpipe here is the largest one to ever appear at the Olympics” to the very useful “@ Core: Try the nightly Climb & Dine program for kids — three hours of supervised rock climbing, as well as a pizza dinner.”

What a 10.0 score for Foursquare. During a time of such rapid growth, partnering with a name such as The New York Times will add further clout to the platform. It should also bring about increased visibility and somewhat of an international introduction for the brand. Kudos to The Times, too. It is great to see a newspaper nimble enough and brave enough to experiment with a young social application while also providing a nice space for The Times to test Foursquare.

It should also be a hit with the Olympic’s attendees. I don’t have specific research, but I’m willing to bet that the majority of attendees carry smartphones. Foursquare should not only be useful to them but also bring a fun element of competition and gaming to those attending “the games.” Sounds pretty win/win to me. And I don’t know about y’all, but I’m ready to fly out to Canada to unlock some spiffy new badges!

I'm not sure what transgression I have committed to inspire such bad Super Bowl ad karma. Maybe it was all those years of prohibited rebroadcasting or retransmission or accounts of NFL games, without the express written consent of the National Football League, but my assignment was the 4th quarter and this year there wasn't much to pick from.

Let's recap: Not one, but two really creepy Denny's chicken ads, another talking baby ad for E-Trade (a cringe-inducing pet peeve of mine) and an Audi ad that butchered one of the anthems of my youth, Cheap Trick's Dream Police. But all of that pales in comparison to the Taco Bell ad featuring the "Round Mound of Rebound," Charles Barkley rapping the virtues of a $5 box of tacos. Sadly for Chuck, it was less Dr. Dre and more Dr. Seuss. I have a feeling Charles just lost some serious street cred with this spot.

There were two bright spots in the quarter for me: the Vizio spot and the funniest Bud Light ad of the night, "Book Club."  It wasn't so much that I loved the Vizio ad, but seeing Beyonce manhandled by a robot is always good. And when I saw the same robot drop a zombie into a pit with her, I thought to myself, "If this zombie bites Beyonce, I don't care what they are selling...I'm in."  And the Bud light ad was one of the few to actually make me chuckle all night. "I'd like to hear you read some words." Indeed.

For me, the 3rd Quarter ads were mostly a disappointment, but maybe that was just because my Colts were starting the slide down to defeat. I'm going to break it down this year into three categories: Horrible, Boring, Awesome. Very fine-grained, right?

Horrible

E-trade Milk-A-What Commercial. I admit that the baby Lindsey popping out with "Milk-a-what?" is pretty funny, but then I realize e-Trade is suggesting the male baby cheated on the other baby he's trying to hide Lindsey from. Baby hook-ups are disturbing, that's all I'm gonna say.

Both Beer Commercials. One with Lance Armstrong and one with floating beer . I'm very disturbed that during the Super Bowl's third quarter, both beer commercials that ran touted how few calories they have. It's beer dammit!  The fact that a low-calorie beer exists already offends me, but then to have the audacity to advertise it is a slap in the face. If you go out to get a beer and the first thing that crosses your mind is "I wonder how many calories this is?", you shouldn't be drinking beer.

Boring

Google's "falling in love abroad" commercial. You know how much fun it is to watch someone else surf the internet? It's not. So much so that I don't think I really can say much more about this one.

Round up's commercial was just .. meh. Did they even know they were showing on the Super Bowl? They literally did nothing cool or worth talking about the next day. Sure, their product was a bit animated, but they've done that before in non-Super Bowl ads too, so it was nothing new at all. Seems like a waste to me.

Awesome

VW's punch buggy ad took me back to being a kid. Who DIDN'T play that game? Hitting people in commercials is funny, first of all (just look at the Dorito's kid commercial everyone is talking about). Then a few key strikes were the best: kid looks like he punches his grandpa in the crotch, pregnant woman punches her husband and the Amish dude punches the other guy in his buggy. But nothing, NOTHING beats Stevie Wonder punching Tracey Morgan and calling out "Red one." I'm pretty sure I have to go buy a VW now -- it is a miracle car!

And though there were no special effects, no flash, no jazz .. THE GRISWALDS WERE ON TV! To be honest, the commercial actually made me want to check out the HomeAway website (I did) and go back (I will). But just for the fact that the Griswalds were in the commercial made me sit up and take attention, and I hope to all that is holy that this becomes a series of commercials. I really see the potential for them to tell a small "Vacation" story across several months of spots.

For us, a snow day means meetings are cancelled and many stay home and work, often talking up how much more they get accomplished under these conditions! We are a blessed business in that most of us are mobile enough, with laptops or great workstations at home, that we never miss a beat! We email files for review and approval, we upload them to various media or printers and we record our actions in our web-based traffic system called CurrentTrack. We can even Skype up if some face time is needed for a project kickoff. The only person who isn’t mobile is our in house Director/ Editor. He has so much equipment that there is no way for him to duplicate the set up at home. So, when snow happens and we have to finish a spot or training video, someone with four-wheel drive always comes through and gets Rob into place. Snow? Bring it. We went an entire week without power twice in 2009 and never missed a beat!

The bridge is out! I’m not normally a big fan of Bud ads, but the sight of a whole town of people forming a human bridge to see a semi of Bud safely across a river was pretty funny.

I’m Mark Sanchez. Mark wants the women watching the Super Bowl to hear his heartbeat. What that has to do with CBS caring about women's heart health is completely beyond me.

Worst Super Bowl party ever. Usually the Super Bowl ads with tons of star power come off pretty badly, sort of like the movie Ishtar — so self-aware they’re embarrassing. This ad for the Letterman show was, I thought, pretty fresh and funny.

Casual Fridays — awesome! Unattractive naked people in offices are hot this winter. This CareerBuilder ad would have been funnier if DDB Chicago hadn’t already done the same thing for Bud Light this month.

I wear no pants. Umm…see above. Dockers/Levi Strauss, it’s time for an agency review.

William Tell Overture. The life of a married man in 30 seconds, brought to you by Dove Men Care. It was cute, but I seriously doubt it’s going to do much to get men comfortable buying into the Dove brand. To me (and I think most other guys), that cursive logo will always be about women in bubble baths.

Man’s last stand. This is the second ad I saw in the second quarter with a Zach Galifianakis look-alike in it. The Hangover has clearly made a big impression on Madison Avenue. What was this about again? Oh right, Dodge Chargers.

A Little KISS. I like seeing KISS on TV as much as the next guy, but the mini-me thing with height-challenged musicians in makeup…ouch. Not funny, Dr. Pepper.

Punxatawney Polamalu. We had an ugly naked people two-fer, a Zach Glifiakanis two-fer, now a midget celebrity two-fer. Was there something going on I didn’t know about, or is there a dearth of original thinking out there?

His girlfriend has removed his spine. Speaking of repetition, this was one of many “guy-under-the-thumb”-themed ads I saw during the Super Bowl. This one caught my attention though, because I’ve been wondering how well FloTV will stand up against SlingBox, and who will eventually lay claim to the title of Alpha Male of TV-to-mobile-device streaming services.

Don’t Miss a Moment. Now THAT was a great ad, in a totally different style from the aforementioned FloTV ad, but for the very same product. Interesting strategy on the part of FloTV…to do multiple ads, one in a standard silly comedy vignette style, another in a documentary montage style. Their second swing hit the ball squarely.

What do Betty White, Abe Vigoda and Jim McMahon have in common?
They're all at least 25 years past their prime? Yes.
My mom would love to meet all of them? Yes.
They're all eligible for the senior citizens discount at McDonald's? Yes.
They've still got it? Definitely.

Quick recap of my self-imposed rules for Hyper-Bole:
- Not gonna review movie trailers.
- Not gonna review CBS promos.
- Not gonna touch the Tebow spot.
I can't guarantee the rest of my fellow Hyper-Bole bloggers will adhere to this stipulations. Just putting you on notice there.

Now that we've got that unpleasantness out of the way...my section of Hyper-Bole is gonna be short because the 1st quarter wasn't much to behold.

There are only two ways advertising can move me: humor or tears. Tell me a story that elicits either response and I'll at least take a hard look at the product. That being said, only 4 of the 24 ads in the first quarter deserve recognition:

1. Snickers: You can't pick up a bat and beat a pick-up football game with Rose Nyland and Tessio. I'm allergic to peanuts and I almost sent my husband out for a Snickers for me.
2. Boost Mobile: As a child of the 70s and 80s, I assume this spot is targeted at me. Bullseye. Only one issue - didn't see Refrigerator Perry. Ditka and his 'stache compensated well.
3. Doritos: The majority of the Doritos ads (and there were plenty of them) didn't impress me. I get it - they're addictive. But, the spot with the kid and his mom's blind date hurt my side. Maybe it's a gall bladder or acid reflux problem, but I pretty much tasted Dorito's after that spot.
4. Bridgestone Tires: Humorous payoff - bachelor party. Tearful payoff - saving the whales. Consider that a touchdown and extra point, rolled into one.

Honorable Mentions: Simpsons Coca-Cola spot and Bud Light T-Pain Autotone spot (only because I love the autotone effect)

Honorable Let's-Not-Ever-Speak-Of-Them-Agains: GoDaddy (Note to GoDaddy - there ARE women who handle tech too), Monster.com's animatronic beavers and Doritos' funeral spot

The latter part of 2009 marked a time of massive growth for marketing within the social media space, so it should come as no surprise that advertisers are revving up their social skills when it comes to the grandaddy of all things advertising, 2010’s Super Bowl. Even the NFL has gotten in on the action with #SB44, the official NFL hashtag of Super Bowl 44.

Leading up to #SB44, there has been quite a lot of online buzz about the brands who are going the social media route this year - Pepsi, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Monster etc. But to be quite honest, the people who are buzzing about this topic are the same social media nerds who buzz about social media all year long (myself included).

I’m anxious to see if the brands will make any significant impact in their social media spaces beyond the nerds. And since the Super Bowl is really about mass appeal and making an impression on such a large scale, I’m going to study the social media side of Super Bowl advertising from a casual user's perspective. This means that I’m not going to over analyze what the big brands are doing before Super Bowl Sunday - not for this case study, anyway.

I’m thinking about my cousin Tad in Tulsa who enjoys watching the Super Bowl for the game and, yeah, a little for the commercials too. He has a Facebook page and has fanned a few official pages, but he’s not out there hunting down his favorite brands. On a whim he set up a Twitter account but he’s only tweeted “Trying to figure this thing out” and “Haha, did you guys see that video?” Tad is definitely not sitting at home trying to see who’s doing what today in prep for their Super Bowl advertising.

So to understand the effect of any impact, I need to do a little Saturday digital sleuthing before #SB44. Consider it a social media nerd’s version of pre-gaming. I’m going to look at the heavy hitters and take note of Facebook Fan counts and Twitter followers and search results. And whatever else I might stumble or digg or delicious upon.

On #SB44 Sunday, in between making a roux for my gumbo and painting my face black & gold, I will casually monitor the social media shout-outs from television. I’m not going to seek out, rather I’ll see what comes my way. The goal will be to keep my head in the game from Tad’s perspective. I want to see if I feel compelled to seek out social media in addition to traditional advertising. I think that will be the best approach to determine if social media marketing will make an impression on the average American.

Then next week, once all of the turf has settled, we’ll meet again to hash over the hashtags and follow up on the followers. I’ll bring my numbers, you can bring your comments and together we’ll see if social media made any impact on #SB44’s advertising prowess.

Oh, and #WHODAT!

Psych!

It isn't. In fact a little time spent defining your company's brand will lead to big time (and money) savings down the road. How so? Well, by distilling and formalizing your company's key traits, value propositions, personality and values, you take much of the guesswork out of communicating. That means that every time you sit down to craft an email, a press release, an ad headline or a major campaign, the hard work of deciding how to present your company has already been done.

Because let's face it, marketers burn hours — days even — trying to decide whether this or that message is too serious, too silly, too creative, too sappy, too young or too stodgy to represent their company. Good branding works by establishing a set of rules by which all your communicators (staff, firms and vendors) play. The result is better, clearer, more consistent and more effective communications — and a lot of dollars saved in meeting and creative time.

So in summary: why brand? Simply to ensure that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you set out to speak to your customers, stakeholders or employees. Try it, you'll like it.