Portland-based VP’s Dominga Ramirez and Ashley Fullman joined by Sr. Account Supervisor Rian Merrill presented at the AMA-PDX May Luncheon on Tuesday, March 14, at Bridgeport Brewery. Here, these Edelman experts shared best practices for today’s media landscape and their experiences executing modern communications for a broad range of clients.

Consumer Behavior Has Changed

Ashley kicked off the presentation by discussing shifts in consumer behavior and how they react to brands, which she referred to as “a seismic shift in consumer behavior.” Today’s consumers are much more action oriented then they were in the past. They are moving from simply buying what’s sold to co-stewarding purchases. Instead of relying on critics to help them make purchase decisions, consumers are the critics, sharing their own options and reviews on social networking sites.

So how can brands shift their strategies to account for this change? Edelman starts by helping brands understand what makes their consumers tick and then engaging with them in a thoughtful way.

People Are More Than an Email Address

Most important, Rian stated that, “It is important to know that you are dealing with real people. People are PEOPLE, not just an email address or a phone number.” People are what you need to purchase your products or influence decision makers so it is critical that you treat them as more than just lists.

Get the Right Impressions

Another way Rian discussed how the media landscape is changing is that advertising is not about getting a high number of impressions anymore, it is about getting the right impressions, otherwise it’s just a waste of resources (you wouldn’t want to pay to advertise an Amish dating site to married people in San Francisco would you?).

Mobile is Important

Mobile is significant too, because now marketers have to consider devices and screen sizes. Also, where are they using their device? The “where” becomes almost as important as the “what” when considering content for mobile applications.

The Power of a Brand Story

Dominga lead us through some very interesting case studies regarding campaigns they have worked on for clients such as Norton Cybergeddon and the Axe Apollo Space Academy. The consistent theme Dominga emphasized throughout the presentation was to make sure your brand has an authentic voice. Know what your story is and what you are trying to say because it becomes a foundation for everything that you say and do.

No matter how big you are or how small you are, as companies evolve, things change. This is why you need to revisit what your lexicon is and make sure everyone is speaking the same language. Consumers want consistency and authenticity, which is why Dominga encourages us to ask ourselves, “What’s my story?”

Learn more about Edelman’s Story:

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Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) Co-founder Rick Turoczy and Program Manager Kirsten Golden were our guest speakers at the AMA April Luncheon on Tuesday, April 9, at Bridgeport Brewery. PIE is a partnership among leading brands, technology innovators, and Wieden+Kennedy — the largest privately held advertising and communications company in the world. PIE serves as a hub for community, entrepreneurship, and creative thinking.

Rick has been in Portland for the last 20 years working in marketing, communications, technology, and start-ups. Prior to co-founding PIE, he specialized in consulting with well-funded start-ups, helping them establish an identity. Rick did this for 6 or 7 companies successfully before he started looking for a new challenge. After wondering what would he be able to accomplish for start-ups with no marketing budget, Rick started consulting with really small, early start-ups, particularly in the technology field.

Shortly after, Rick decided he wanted to set-up a space where small start-ups could work and collaborate together. Coincidentally, Wieden+Kennedy had extra space in their office they were looking to lease. Rick partnered with Wieden + Kennedy to form PIE, which started predominately as a co-working space. There was no set program in place at the time; they simply put everybody together to see what happened. Once the space opened, Rick observed the people in his co-working space were naturally inclined to pool resources to help each other out.

This natural reciprocation was exciting for Rick who wanted to nurture it by finding new ways to engage Wieden+Kennedy and really help these companies grow to a whole new level. With the help of Wieden+Kennedy, Rick created a program to give start-ups a leg-up through mentoring, funding, branding and creative power from the largest private advertising firm in the world. That is how PIE went from a simple co-working space experiment to a full-fledged start-up accelerator. PIE’s program only has two requirements, products must be ready to launch within 3 months and entrepreneurs need to be able to tell their story within 6-8 minutes.

Kirsten Golden works for Wieden+Kennedy and is the current Program Manager at PIE. Kirsten explained that most of the employees at Wieden+Kennedy are so busy working on big global brands that they don’t get many opportunities to work directly with clients hand-in-hand. They enjoy having personal time to interact with their clients at PIE and they also enjoy having full range over the creative process.

As much as the team at Wieden+Kennedy and PIE enjoy the creative process, us marketers know it is not always all fun and games when it comes to rebranding. This process can be exhausting and emotional at times, particularly when you are working with a tight deadline and a client that has a strong attachment to the existing brand. Kirsten humorously compares the process to telling a new parent they have to rename their baby because “there are already too many Sarah’s in the world.”

Accelerator graduate Little Bird had the most difficult time with the program’s rapid branding process.  When the company founders discovered that they had to change their business name because someone else owned it, their mentors at PIE got to work to come up with an alternate name. However, PIE almost had to scrap the project during the renaming process because the client had such a hard time relinquishing control. The process took much longer than it should have simply because the trust wasn’t there. Trust is critical for any collaboration to be a true success. Once the rebranding and PIE’s accelerator program was complete, Little Bird landed $1 Million of funding and is now one of PIE’s great success stories.

Rick and Kirsten believe that the biggest take away from the accelerator program for most start-ups is simply learning how important trust is. While the Wieden+Kennedy name is trusted, what it comes down to is, a designer is just one person that still has to gain the client’s trust. This trust wasn’t proven for most companies until the first round of comps started coming in. When the designers showed their comps most clients would react by saying something such as, “those are cool.” However, it was only after the designer explained how the comps tied into the company story that the clients started to truly trust the designers. In addition to learning trust, PIE’s accelerator graduates also learn how to drill their business down down to its core essentials. Founders then learn how to tell their story in an emotional way that makes people want to connect with them.

Connect with PIE:
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Blog
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Twitter

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AMA PDX is looking for entries for Portland’s premier Marketing Awards of Excellence (MAX) event. Do you or a client have what is needed to take home the prize? The only way to know is to enter:

Go to www.maxaward.org/enter/ to get more information and enter your project. Have your work reviewed and judged by top Portland Marketers, and on display at the MAX Awards event – GREAT exposure and recognition for your work and your company.

2013 MAX Award categories include:

• Integrated Marketing Campaigns
  One is awarded in each of the following sectors:
  -Business to Consumer
  -Business to Business
  -Nonprofit
• Public Relations
• Single Medium Advertising
• It’s Beyond HTML
• Being Social
• Marketer of the Year
  (Selected by peer group of past AMA Presidents)
• Rising Star
• *NEW* People’s Choice

We look forward to seeing all the great entries – early entry deadline is April 26^th.

Also, mark your calendars for the MAX Awards event on June 13^th at The Nines Hotel: www.maxaward.org. There are some exciting things planned to make this a night to remember! Let me know if you have any questions, and I will hopefully see you on June 13^th!

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Andy Catterick, the President and Creative Director of PixelPool, was our keynote speaker at the AMA March Luncheon on Tuesday, March 12, at Bridgeport Brewery. Andy shared insights into the often-challenging task of getting a product vision to the marketplace ahead of the competition.

Andy has 20 years of industry experience working with brands large enough to make any marketer tingle with excitement. He worked with Nike in London, Disney in Orlando, and the Yankees in (where else?) New York City. With award winning projects in more than 12 countries, the list goes on and on. One thing that is certain is Andy has definitely established himself as an industry expert.

Andy joined PixelPool in 2010 specializing in computer-generated imagery (CGI) sales and product marketing. When PixelPool was founded back in 2000, they utilized CGI technology to market architecture projects. CGI is excellent for architecture because in addition be being more cost-effective than a clunky wood block modeling prototype, it is also easy to make changes and completely portable. You can show a new building design to a potential investor in Japan and Switzerland at the same time. Revisions and changes can be made in a matter of hours and there is no need to have a photographer reshoot anything, which can drastically save on expenses, freeing the photographer to concentrate on art direction.

PixelPool realized industries other than architecture could benefit from CGI technology and they eventually expanded their reach to market retail stores, automobiles, and products as well. Many businesses these days have shrinking marketing budgets and need to get products to market fast and ahead of their competition. PixelPool creates visual effects so their clients can begin marketing their products before their production is complete by utilizing 3D renderings and animation.

Andy often hears concerns from others that consumers will not respond to a product without having the ability to interact with it first but for most consumers this is no longer the case. With the success of companies such as Amazon and the increase in online shopping, many consumers have become accustomed to purchasing items without being able to try them out in-store first. The iPhone Gen 1 was pre-ordered 270,000 times in just 48 hours before any consumers had ever even touched one, and the Gen 1 iPad had 300,000 pre-orders in only 24 hours.

Andy believes that storytelling is one of the most important aspects of product marketing. Many times a product will have a great story in the beginning of it’s lifecycle but by the time that product gets to the marketplace, it has been revised so many times the story gets lost along the way. Andy utilizes CGI technology to bridge the gap from dream to market.

Andy’s work is best described by the stunning imagery and special effects in his show reel. Please click here to see a sample of the magic created by our friends at PixelPool.

Connect with PixelPool:
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