Marketers could learn a lot from trial lawyers.

I spent last week as a juror on a criminal case brought by the Federal Government. It was a technical case involving a lot of complicated tax law–not the sexiest case for a jury, but I found myself fascinated. I was amazed at the strategic discipline exhibited by the prosecutor who had to “sell” the jury his evidence. Naturally I let my mind explore what it would be like if us marketers were forced to adhere to the same strict discipline.

Prosecuting a case before a jury is a lot like developing a marketing strategy and subsequent creative campaign. The win–conviction in a trial, sale for a marketer–only happens if you stick like glue to the facts and relevant principles surrounding whatever you are selling. You need to completely understand your target market and you have a very small window to convince them that they want or need your product.

In advertising, our opening statement consists of a creative strategy, a statement that sets the tone of the communication, establishes the objective, gives an overview of supporting evidence and identifies the target market. In this stage we can be opinionated and site hearsay, but our true challenge lies in the evidence we present to support the charges about our product.

Once you start presenting your evidence, the ultimate challenge is to prove it is authentic and relevant. Stay on message and communicate clearly in a way that will move your target to take the desired action.

Throughout the week, I found myself fantasizing about how many times I would have liked to stand and “object” when myself, a co-worker or a client got off strategy.

“I object your honor, please have the creative director state the relevance!”

“I object your honor, client has not admitted any evidence to support that statement.”

“I object your honor, this evidence is outside of the scope of the original intent of the case the client brought in front of our creative team.”

Advertising teams are challenged with the burden of proof when charged with marketing objectives. Our marketing campaigns are the production of evidence to support our positioning and make it relevant to our potential customers. We have to be very careful not to mislead our target market into believing that they will be getting something that our client’s product or service cannot deliver. No matter how badly you want to believe that your brand supports your positioning, it must rest in a verifiable truth.

All of us marketers could benefit from a judge overruling our imperfect strategic plans. Because like a courtroom prosecution, the judge and jury have the right to throw out the case (read: abandon the pursuit of your product or service) when you have not proven that you can pay off (prove) your brand positioning.

Insanely Great vs. Insane

This seems to be the most fitting tile for our going virtual endeavor. Over the last month as I have been talking to people about going virtual, I seem to get two different reactions. There are those that think the plan is ingenious, and there are those that think we are insane.

The fact is, there is only a hairline of a difference separating the two. At Estipona Group we’ve made doing insanely great work a corporate mantra. That leaves us very little room for error. The rewards, however, are plentiful and worth the effort for both our clients and ourselves.

While saving money played a role in the decision, going virtual wasn’t simply a cost cutting measure. It was also part of an historic evolution of our industry and this company. In 1993 when I founded the company, the advertising industry was just starting to embrace the computer. While the computer had played a role, it really didn’t take hold until that year. I saw a lot of talented people lose their jobs as staff needs were diminished and some refused to change the way they worked. Suddenly, a senior art director, art director, junior art director and production artist could be one person. That worked to the advantage of my one-man agency just getting started and using technology as part of my strategy for growth.

In the 90s the Internet, like the computer, was a major game changer for our industry. It has replaced or supplemented many of the traditional media such as TV, Radio and Print. These media have traditionally provided these agencies with the bulk of their income, media and print commissions specifically. As their share of the marketing budget has shrunk to support online marketing, agency revenue derived from TV, Radio and Print has also shrunk.

Fast forward to today. About 50% of our services revolve around the Internet. Consequently, our revenue from other media has decreased. So, even as we grow, the work we do has lower margins in comparison to traditional media. One might conclude that we just need to charge more for our services. But I don’t believe across the board fee increases are prudent, sustainable or even possible in the current economic climate.

Internet and email, web-based servers, ichat, video chat–communication and collaboration technology has evolved to the point where now we can work very effectively in a virtual world, and it is pretty much seamless for our clients. We can even do interactive presentations over the web as if the client was in front of us.

At the end of the day, the choice to go virtual seemed logical. Still does. I do not have a crystal ball to tell me what’s around the corner. All I have is history and experience to go on and everything points to another major shift in our industry. While going virtual may not be the only answer it is at least a new strategy and course. A course I’m willing to try for the next 6 months because as you know insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I now know why I haven't moved in 14 years

I had hoped that I would begin my first blog talking about how we came to the decision to go virtual. Unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to talk about that right now. I realized that after 14 years in one place, a business can amass a ton of junk. Somehow we were able to store junk in every nook and cranny. The little here and little there has taken three weeks to clean up. I hope this weekend will be my last tour of duty at 777 Sinclair as we remove the furniture that we were lucky enough to sell.

Aside from the cleaning and clearing, dealing with new the technology has been challenging. As Brian mentioned in his post, we've instituted about four major pieces of technology. In each case we've had some challenges implementing them. Nothing major, but all in all, it has caused me a huge amount of stress. We had the opportunity to test it out in our office for the last week and a half and we believe that all the kinks have been worked out. The technology now appears to be working great.

While the new technology is going well, the connectivity from home has been a bit slow and that is why this blog is late in posting. A couple of us, myself and Brandi, have been experiencing technical difficulties to say the least. Brandi as we speak right now, is waiting for AT&T to come fix her dsl line. It's frayed and is causing on and off connectivity issues. I, on the other hand, found myself up until 2:30 am this morning wrestling with a new modem that wouldn't talk to the router. At the end of it all, the culprit was one small field that I had filled out that apparently should have been left empty. I figured this out around 10:30 am. Needless to say, it's been a long first 24 hours of being virtual.

I want to thank all our clients and vendors for their support in this endeavor. We were concerned their might be some opposition or concern with our move, but we have received nothing but well wishes from most and envy from some. I also have to thank my staff for the insanely great work they have been doing. Last week was a crazy week. We had three major creative presentations, a major proposal, packing and working with new technology. Despite a month's worth of work crammed into one week, I am proud to say that not a single ball was dropped. I'm definitely thankful for this team and the work they do.

I know this post sounds a bit whinny, but I'm entitled to whine a little bit, as I have been working endlessly for the last three weeks. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am extremely happy about that. After moving for the last three weeks, I hope that I don't have to do it again for another 14 years.

Tele-commuting; day 1

Day 1 of the 6 month experiment went well. I already had a workspace set up at home as you can see in the photo. Fitting another computer in there wasn't a problem.
I was able to get quite a bit of work done and keep in contact with coworkers and clients via phone, email and ichat. The technology is living up to the hype.
We've have: Google calendar to keep on top of everyone's schedule, Egnyte for online file storage, FunctionPoint for agency project management, a VoiceOver IP phone, email and ichat. That pretty much covers all our bases.
The personal benefits of working from home are already bearing fruit as I did some laundry and made a batch of granola this morning.
The only downside, so far is the barking dog next door.

Brian