Social Media Lessons From Mad Men -

Social Media Lessons From Mad Men:

In the sixties, when Mad Men ruled, creative content took a long time to produce.  Agencies concepted, polished and pitched. Clients reviewed.  Agencies filmed, edited and delivered.  It took months for print and television ads to see the light of day. In the age of real time marketing, whether you engage an agency or not, day-to-day you are the agency.  The people you talk to online are the clients. Every post is a pitch. Every post is a chance to win the hearts of your clients. Yet, when your Facebook or blog post gets published, it’s just the beginning.  In real time there is only the community manager  to concept and polish your post before it is public. courtesy infographiclabs via Flickr We don’t think of social media conversations like an agency pitch to a potential client, but they have a lot in common.  Both show who you are and what you can do for potential customers.  Every tweet, post and video is an opportunity to make a lasting impression on the people who are judging us.  In social media, you are like an agency pitching to thousands or millions of clients … constantly and over a long period of time. At any moment, the people you are talking to are hearing pitches from your competitors.  Always on, real time marketing means that your clients are deciding whether they want to stick with your “agency” every day. In the book,  The Art Of The Pitch, much of the guidance offered to agencies when pitching clients could easily apply to social media.  Peter Coughter advises agencies pitching to clients to “give them the gift of you” which is an eloquent and summary of a good social media strategy. Here are two examples of pitches from Man Men that illustrate the difference between a bad pitch and a good–whether it’s a pitch to to the suits at a major brand or the people in your online community. What A Bad Pitch Looks Like In this season’s premiere of Mad Men, Peggy pitches a T.V. ad for baked beans to Heinz executives.  She tells them, “We take advantage of the new micro-photography high speed camera,” to film baked beans that appear to be dancing a ballet. Then she presents a storyboard as her partner softly hums a tune, where (by the miracle of this new technology), baked beans appear to be dancing a ballet. She ends with the supposedly dramatic tagline “the art (pregnant pause) of supper.” The pitch does not end well.  The Heinz people tell her, “It’s got no message.” Don Draper shows up late and apologizes for not getting it right. Heinz wanted to change the way people feel about baked beans from associating them with the Depression to a cool food for the “Coca Cola kids.” At the end of the pitch the concept had to be explained to them. They didn’t get it. What Great Pitch Looks Like Compare this to Don’s pitch to Kodak to sell their new circular projector, they called, ‘The Wheel.”   You can see it in this clip of one of the best the Mad Men episodes. They were concerned that the technology was not exciting enough. Don begins his presentation with this line: “Technology is a glittering lure but . . . the public can be engaged with the product beyond flash.” “While ‘new’ is the most powerful word,” he says, “one must develop a deeper bond with the product.” He goes on to share a personal story about advice he once received that was meaningful. Don then uses the projector to show poignant slides of his own family over the years, and ends with this: “It’s not called the wheel, “It’s called the carousel.  It lets us travel the way a child travels—around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.” When he was done, there was no need for explanation.  You could almost hear hearts pounding in the room. These lessons taken from the difference between bad and good agency pitches are true of social media as well. Don’t be remote the way Don Draper was for the Heinz account. Put your best people forward in social media.  Make sure the community manager represents your top talent.  Your CEO or CMO can participate too.  If you want to know the kind of heart it takes to be the face of a brand on social media, read this. Get off your high horse.  You are not a corporation talking to “the people.”  You are a person talking to others like you. Peggy was preaching to Heinz. Don was being open and authentic in the Kodak pitch and speaking from the heart. People buy from people.  Success in social media means completely rethinking the corporate mindset. Buying decisions are based on emotion.  You won’t get hearts to pound with every post, but the sum of your conversations must hit an emotional chord before people choose you. It’s not about the technology.  Wordpress, Pinterest, Apps or Facebook provide limits and opportunities.  Don’t lean on the technology to do the work.   It’s a blank page and the creative is up to you. Remember that you are the “creative” talent in your own agency. Put the energy, passion and imagination into your conversations in social media the way an agency puts its efforts into a pitch. Your client list is what’s at stake. Have You Registered For Explore Nashville? Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. H&R Block’s Scott Gulbransen, The Now Revolution co-author Amber Naslund, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Return on Influence author Mark Schaefer, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, Friday, April 13 in Nashville, Tennessee! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

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