Posts Tagged ‘anoroc agency’
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Many of you know of Anoroc’s recent building of endless air miles as we’ve been hopping around this beautiful country of ours from the sunny West Coast, to Bean Town, the lovely Cape and from the South to the North on our own East Coast. I had to stop quickly today, I am almost late for another ‘road trip’, but I must share our excitement. We talk a lot at Anoroc about ‘redefining hospice.’ And by that we mean working to improve end of life care in America. We so believe in hospice’s unique role to profoundly improve the quality of life for those facing advancing illness. We’re not happy here unless we’re game changing – that’s why we’re so intent on research, strategy, incredible graphic design and social media. So what is this excitement that makes me pause to write this post as they honk at me, car waiting, time clicking? It’s the incredible hospice agencies that we’ve met with that want to change the landscape of end of life care. When I met with them it was hard not to slam my fist on the table and shout, “That’s what we’re talking about!” So we’ve entered these incredible partnerships with hospice providers who, like us, think that it’s time for hospice to tell a new more engaging story, to improve understanding and access to care, to shake it up, so to speak.
We are so excited to find partners who are smart, progressive, brave and as enthusiastic as we are to communicate in a new way.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, anoroc health, healthcare social media, Hospice, hospice and social media, hospice marketing, hospice social media
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Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
One of our recent SnoopBlog posts begins: It’s hard to tell exactly how many air miles Anoroc has clocked over the past several months. We’ve been jetting around the sunny West Coast to Bean Town and onward to the Cape. We’ve learned to travel light, light with suitcases but relentless packed with landscape altering ideas.
We’ve been fortunate to be invited into several organizations; all of who are working in one way or another toward the common good. I am constantly moved by my clients. I am not sure how rare it is for an advertising agency/branding company to say that. But at Anoroc we know how good that feels. Recently two of our clients shared their journeys to Africa with us. One just back, one leaving in two weeks. Another has been emailing from Columbia and Haiti.
This morning at our Wednesday Round Chair Meeting, after the current projects were discussed, time tables reviewed, deadlines set. After Cindy share outcomes of her recent trip, the studio share concepting on a new brand, and we laughed at someone’s story about going to the wrong room in the hotel they were staying at, we talked about how much we loved what we do. We do that a lot here.
I think it is a combination of a couple of things. One we simply have a blast working together. We have an amazing team at Anoroc. It is also the nature of our business, one that takes us from intense focused strategy to sheer boundless creative. But at the end of the day it comes down to our clients. Our clients have a rare combination of vision. They welcome us really pushing ideas. They harbor the ability to think beyond what has been done before. They combine almost a renegade out look with keen business sense. And they care about the world outside their boardroom. They devote time and energy to proactively trying to change things for the better. For us, it’s the icing on an already quite luscious cake.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, anoroc health, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media
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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
We took bets tonight on how late we’d be in Anoroc’s studio. We’re putting the final touches on a big brand re-invention. Someone just made a fortification run to MoJoe’s, food and beer always helps at this point. We’re almost to the printing stage. Just finished final proof reading. So printing and binding are next. As we crank up to print I have a spare moment so it is blog time.
It’s always such a team effort at Anoroc, literally everyone pitches in. We even just got a call from one of our AE’s husbands, with an offer to drive everyone to the airport tomorrow. That’s one of the many things I love about this company, how everyone feels it is their company, everyone’s commitment and dedication right down to our team’s families. Someone else is calling to make sure we have a dog sitter. I like to say we’re family here, and I believe we are. And that just feels good. So maybe we’ll be here to midnight or til later, but it doesn’t matter. Beatles are playing loudly. The food has arrived, the dogs have been walked, and someone is laughing hysterically. Yep, that’s Anoroc.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh media agencies, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, raleigh web design
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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
My last couple of blogs I’ve mentioned another one of my hereos, Bill Bernbach. Been quoting him a lot lately. And though many of us have read the letter below numerous times, I just really love what he expresses, it still rings so true. So with the risk of being repetitive here are words of wisdom, again.
Dear:
Our agency is getting big. That’s something to be happy about. But it’s something to worry about, too, and I don’t mind telling you I’m damned worried. I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap of bigness, that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance, that we’re going to follow history instead of making it, that we’re going to be drowned by superficialities instead of buoyed up by solid fundamentals. I’m worried lest hardening of the creative arteries begin to set in.
There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this sort or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there’s one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.
It’s that creative spark that I’m so jealous of for our agency and that I am so desperately fearful of losing. I don’t want academicians. I don’t want scientists. I don’t want people who do the right things. I want people who do inspiring things.
In the past year I must have interviewed about 80 people – writers and artists. Many of them were from the so-called giants of the agency field. It was appalling to see how few of these people were genuinely creative. Sure, they had advertising know-how. Yes, they were up on advertising technique.
But look beneath the technique and what did you find? A sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas. But they could defend every ad on the basis that it obeyed the rules of advertising. It was like worshiping a ritual instead of the God.
All this is not to say that technique is unimportant. Superior technical skill will man a good man better. But the danger is a preoccupation with technical skill or the mistaking of technical skill for creative ability.
The danger lies in the temptation to buy routinized men who have a formula for advertising. The danger lies In the natural tendency to go after tried-and-true talent that will not make us stand out in competition but rather make us look like all the others.
If we are to advance we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy and not have the advertising philosophy of others imposed on us.
Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.
Respectfully,
Bill Bernbach
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, branding agencies, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh social marketing
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Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Depending of course on numerous client dynamics, we often, very often choose emotional branding over conventional branding when creating or re-inventing brands. I just personally believe in the power of storytelling to inspire and captivate. My opinion is not solely based on the fact that I am an admitted sap. It’s also based on close to two decades of calculating ROI ‘til my hair hurts. We’ve seen how impactful story telling has increased our client’s market share by 300%. In any book that is a home run. And we’ve hit those balls out of the park most of the time. Emotional branding’s strategic objective is to forge unshakable and meaningful bonds with consumers. Through these bonds brands become a significant part of a consumer’s life story, aspirations, self view and an important link in their social network. Do you know anyone who owns a Harley?
What I recently found interesting is the history of emotional branding and how to a very real degree a history that is repeating itself. Though the term “emotional branding” officially arrived in the 1990s, it has its roots in public relations campaigns of decades ago. Who can forget Edward L. Bernays’ 1923 Torches of Freedom march.
In the 1920’s, working for the American Tobacco Company, Bernays sent a group of young models to march in the New York City parade. He then told the press that a group of women’s rights marchers would light “Torches of Freedom”. On his signal, the models lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of ‘Freedom’”. This helped to break the taboo against women smoking in public. Bernays actually sponsored my application into PRSA. That was a great day.
Jump forward to the 1930’s and the Great Depression. Job loss, savings loss, bankruptcy and displacement made citizens feel that corporations could not be trusted, were greed driven and needed supervision – sound familiar? Almost overnight they needed to find ways to regain trust and bring consumers back. Companies like Standard Oil (now Exxon) hired PR strategists to help them reposition themselves as “identifying with the average American vs Wall Street”. Standard Oil continued their foray into emotional branding when they hired Roy Stryker to work on their public relations documentary project from 1943 to 1950. In selecting photographers for the project Stryker looked for those who possessed an “insatiable curiosity, the kind that can get to the core of an assignment, the kind that can comprehend what a truck driver, or a farmer, or a driller or a housewife thinks and feels and translate those thoughts and feelings into pictures that can be similarly comprehended by anyone.” Emotional branding at its best.
Jump to today. Once again companies are shuffling to gain trust and position themselves as ‘one of us’. Here’s one of my favorite examples – Chrysler Group’s campaign for the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee (http://www.jeep.com/en/2011/grand_cherokee/sitelet/). The ad focuses on the spirit and craftsmanship that once made the United States the country it was. The campaign, created by the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, also introduces a new tagline for the brand—“The things we make, make us.” How’s that for generating warm feelings of community? It even has cowboys for God’s sake.
I am going to end now as I need to go to Lowes so we can build something together. Think I’ll take the Audi instead of the BMW cause I prefer winning to loosing.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, branding agencies, emotional branding, Greart Depression, Public Relations, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media, The History of branding
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Again I am up on my soapbox. I know no one is surprised. Forgive me in advance. But I just read a blog post by a company who claims to be ‘experts’ in social media. The post was reviewing a Web site with what they claim is “an impressive amount of social media integration and with social media connectivity built into every page.” The site they were touting had the ‘now usual’ links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the compulsory blog. Sorry – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and simply having a blog does not qualify as an impressive amount of social media interaction. Especially when these tools are one-way conversations mainly about the company, mainly a sales pitch, and void of strategy to meet end user’s needs, wants, desires, or concerns. In fact, it is difficult to tell whom the site is speaking to. This is not interaction. Let’s look deeper: the company’s Facebook page is full of typos, Discussions (tab) has no discussions but spends the real estate telling you how great the company is. There is no link to resources, no interaction and the posts are mostly again about the company. In addition, page set up is one Facebook offers for stores, not for brands or service providers. Their Twitter page attempts to give advice but there are no links for more in depth information and the posts are condescending. Nor does it ask: What are you concerned about? How can we help you? The Tweets are directed as one way communication. Blog topics are not centered around providing useful information and the blog is faceless offering no level of affinity between author and reader, who is writing this? Not to mention poor site design, unbalanced page layout, poor typography for the target, confusing copy, grammar and spelling mistakes… What put me up on the soapbox is not so much these common missteps in social media (companies sometimes are simply doing the best they can with limited resources, time and budgets). What made this SBM (soapbox moment) is a ‘social media’ company blogging the world that this is how it should be done while trying to sell you a one size fits all social media package for $2999.99
So world, let me tell you about a company who is doing it right. And it did not come in a shiny branded online community $2999.99 package but most assuredly was developed from strategy, end user research and knowledge. Check out Caregiver’s Corner, San Diego Hospice blog (http://sandiegocaregiversblog.com/). This is a lovely example of a resource strategy. The design is clean, the end user is directed immediately where to go by their self interest/need. The posts are personal and informative. The end of each post carries a short description of its author. Note the Twitter feed on the bottom right. Though some Tweets are about their organization (and a limited number should be) many lead the reader to more in depth info. They share useful information from other hospices, communicate with followers, and seek input on topics (what do you think about this). This is interaction.
Their Facebook page is equally well done. Here’s how they describe the page: We made this page to connect with all the families who have been a part of San Diego Hospice, to honor the people who support us & to talk with anyone who wants to know more about what we have to offer. And they’re right. Boxes house a long list of Useful Resources from caregiver resources, legal advice to networking opportunities. The posts are interactive and contain droves of useful information.
It took many words to get to my point but I am finally there. Impressive social media is not about the tools you have but how you use them. If you are in a service industry that provides healthcare, eldercare or personal care services your social media strategy should be focused on being a true resource, connecting with the gatekeeper, building affinity and establishing trust. Forget about ‘selling’ your services and instead start with these simple words: “If I was my target what would I want.” And if some vendor wants to sell you a package complete with a ‘strategy session’ – RUN FORREST RUN!
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, eldercare providers and social media, healthcare and social media, healthcare social media, Hospice, hospice and social media, hospice marketing, hospice social media, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, San Diego Hospice
Posted in Anoroc, Brand Value, Customer Loyalty, Healthcare, Hospice, Marketing, Purchase Intent, Social Media Influence, Social Networking | View Comments
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
As we said in Part One, to understand the potential positive impact that social media can have on those who are providing care to a loved one, we first need to truly understand the caregiver. To move the hospice gatekeeper through the decision cycle your social media platform must resonate with her on an emotional level and provide the resources she seeks.
So who is she? What does she want? She will likely be working at least part time and taking care of children. She sees herself as the ‘caregiver’ to the family. She is a nurturer both to herself and others but mainly to others. She is emotionally driven in her purchasing behavior and looks for benefits/outcomes rather than specifics. If she does not have direct experience with hospice she will have heard of hospice through the media. She will not have a complete picture of hospice most particularly in regards to pain control, symptom management and bereavement support.
Her psychological purchase prices (what she must overcome to choose hospice and ask for that referral early on in the caregiving cycle) include:
Am I giving up on a cure?
Am I abandoning hope?
Will my loved-one feel that I am not fighting for them?
Will the care be as nurturing and as compassionate as I would provide?
Will I have the support to really handle this?
Worry about opinions/feelings of other family members.
In the process of creating social media strategies for specific demographics we also need to determine the wants and needs of the on line community end-user. Our hospice research determined our caregiving female’s tangible wants and needs to be:
Information and resources
Knowledge – answers, understanding of benefits
Support
Helping hand in a relevant way
Quality of life for a loved-one
Options
Solutions
Quality of care – physical and emotional
Balance
Her intangible wants and needs include:
Connection
Rational replacement for guilt
Understanding and empathy
The most successful social media strategies that a hospice can engage in are ones that support this key demographic by enabling her to move beyond her psychological purchase price, and that meet both her tangible and intangible wants and needs. More to come on doing just that in part three.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, healthcare, healthcare social media, Hospice, hospice and social media, hospice marketing, hospice social media, north carolina social media agencies, raleigh social marketing companies, raleigh social media, raleigh social media companies, social marketing, women in social media
Posted in Anoroc, Brand Value, Customer Loyalty, Decision Cycle, Healthcare, Hospice, Purchase Intent, Social Media Influence, Social Networking, Women | View Comments
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
I just read a piece on ‘Why Positioning Fails’ that I basically agree with. But it fell a bit short. As I read it I was coining a piece along similar lines about internal communications. And I thought about it just a bit, and decided that my piece was right… and so was theirs, but not all companies can be as ours. Our brand, and many we serve, are about one simple thing. The truth.
And by that I mean your external positioning must be the truth. If you’re the good guys – then be the good guys. Be good to your customers and your own people. If you’re supposed to be about equality and partnership – then practice it with your people and your vendors. If your brand is about compassion – then be compassionate to your clients and your employees.
While the ‘Why Positioning Fails’ piece urged you to take a few basic steps regarding positioning that are certainly not incorrect – Involve staff in process, Give your team direction, Promote the positioning internally, Help your team become evangelists for your firm – I submit, that there is an easier way. And hence, I present my take.
‘How Internal Positioning Works – considerations for internal communications.’ We’ve positioned numerous companies – externally – but only you can position your company internally. And if you don’t, it won’t take long for the truth to come out.
Involve your staff in the process: That’s not good enough. Make it known throughout your entire company what is important about what your company does… what is the end result? This needs to be a ‘why do we come to work at all’ level, a basic understanding of standards and principles. We can all earn a paycheck doing a variety of other things. Why do we choose to do it this way?
Give your team direction: That’s not really adequate either. All of our roles combine to generate whatever you’ve directed your company to generate. Is that something as good as the next? Something passable? Or are you in pursuit of excellence? Those are not funny questions by the way. Some companies strive to be the cheapest – some to maintain a short term profit and quit –some strive to be the best. Decide which it is, I have a hard time with not reaching to be the best. I’m striving for a level of personal satisfaction, and I believe every one of us knows when we achieve a bar that makes us proud.
Promote the positioning internally: You might do this by accident, and if you don’t do it at all you need to close up shop right now. Encourage and support passionate work. Tell someone they did a great job – say THANK YOU – point out why their bar of excellence made a difference. (I remember the first time I called a particular designer and mentioned the project they had just mounted for presentation – I could feel her tense up on the other end expecting a problem. I told her that I was proud to be able to present work of that level at our meeting – thank you. She didn’t know how to respond – no one had ever treated her decently in the workplace before.)
Help your team become evangelists for your firm: This step is not necessary if your company has heart and you’ve accomplished the previous three steps. And if it doesn’t have heart it’s an enormous challenge to fake it.
So the moral of the story is you have to care and have heart if you expect your company’s “truth” to support positive external positioning.
Tags: anorac, Anoroc, anoroc agency, engagement marketing, raleigh advertising agencies, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh social marketing, raleigh social media agencies
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Monday, February 8th, 2010
It was a high-five kinda week last week. We had two refreshing meetings, both with new clients. They’re the kind of clients we know will make great partners. The kind of clients that make our job easier.
We begin a lot of relationships at Anoroc with this sentence: “You’re not paying us to tell you what you want to hear.” We mean no disrespect. We simply mean to build a brand that has a chance, you got to get out of your own head. So when clients do this naturally (this is a tough one for many) when our relationship is only a nanosecond old, it’s exciting in our world.
Marketing Soap Box Moment (MSBM): After 20 years in branding, I can quickly narrow down failure to one major cause (obviously they’re others, but this is a big one): assuming others will behave the way you do. Don’t do it, not ever. You are not your customer. I grant you that you may be right when you tell us you know more about your product than any customer could possibly know. Or that you have strong opinions about what you think your customers should do, or want. But if that’s how you develop your marketing strategy, then you have a strategy based on what customers should do instead of what they actually do. And that’s a strategy that will fail.
So back to our refreshing meetings. Here is what ranked the first high-five:
Client: “So we had our logo for a while.”
Us: “Great, what do you think about it.”
Client: “Well I like it, but that’s not what matters. I want to know what you think, how it works in the market. Same with everything else, I’m not paying you to be nice, tell us how it really is, can you do that?”
And the second high-five:
Us: “So we tested your site and people seemed a little confused as to what you were asking them to do. They did’nt really understand the action that needed to happen.”
Client: “Wow, that’s incredible. It makes sense to us, but we’re too close to it and we’re not the client. So we’re ready to re-think all of it, to any degree your research determines.”
Yep, we’re a little expressive. So if you seen any of the Anoroc team running around high-fiving you can bet your Play Doh, a ‘brand’ is about to happen.
Tags: anaroc, anarok, anoroc agency, branding, branding agencies, north carolina social media agencies, raleigh advertising agencies, raleigh marketing, raleigh social marketing companies, raleigh social media, social marketing, social marketing companies, social media
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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Brands have long understood the potential to build affinity through ‘good will.’ It’s great PR. From Tide’s Loads of Hope, Trident’s Smiles Across America and Burt’s Bees volunteer hours to Hard Rock’s signature T, brands gain from giving.
Enter social media. Never before have brands had the opportunity that exists now to really leverage their good will efforts. And make those efforts more boundless. Check out The Pepsi Refresh Project (www.refresheverything.com, http://www.facebook.com/refresheverything), Pepsi’s goal to ‘refresh the world’ is a fresh take on a very old PR idea.
The Refresh Project, a groundbreaking effort to foster innovation in social good, will award more than $20 million this year to fund great ideas that refresh the world. The program launched on January 13 and has already exceeded expectations by receiving the monthly limit of 1,000 submissions in less than seven days with at least one from each state in the U.S. Joining this effort are actors Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon, who have generated their own ideas for Pepsi Refresh and are competing for support in the Pepsi Refresh Celebrity Challenge. Social Media tools include Twitter, Youtube, Facebook. Those submitting ideas to the site are asked to use their social media channels to promote their ideas and gain votes. Did I mention share of voice?
What is in it for Pepsi – consumer involvement, gaining a deep connection, media attention, share of on line voice. And the big payoff – working to make the world a better place and associating the brand with that goal.
Their Facebook page already has over 300,000 fans. A post made just yesterday gained 101 ‘likes’.
This is about a brand thinking different. Shelving old ways of marketing and embracing new media to tell a different story in a different voice. Here brand voice is not focused on telling you how many blind taste tests they’ve won or vying for the funniest Super Bowl spot. It’s about positioning their brand as the vehicle that makes good causes happen and lives change. “Could a soda really make the world a better place?” their YouTube video asks. I betcha Coke is dying to know.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, brand values, branding agencies, north carolina social media agencies, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, social media agencies, social media
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