What success REALLY looks like

I was so blown away by this article this morning that I thought I'd share: http://www.fastcompany.com/1826976/the-dirty-little-secret-of-overnight-successes

I have a million thoughts on this, but I have two perspectives on this:

To the business leaders: I think we see fellow business leaders and think their lives are much easier, less complicated, more perfect then ours. When in truth, success isn't easy because if it was everyone would do it. It's comforting to EXPECT that there are many twists and turns to your journey in business. Like a stock market over time, it's never a straight line and such is life in business. It was a relief to know that this is the norm, and for fellow entrepreneurs to know and EXPECT that success isn't a straight line. All you can do is worry about the things that are in your control and make the best decisions that puts the business in the best possible position and accept the environmental factors for which you have no control and move on. Most successful entrepreneurs that I know are also their own worst critics. We hyper-analyze everything we have done, are about to do and think of 100 different and better ways we should or could have done it. That's just in our DNA. But this image and article tells us to expect that the universe will not bend to your will every time and you won't make all the right decisions every time either. But, over time when you look back you'll see bumps in the road, but a blurry line, to success. I love this truth.

To the public: To those who think that people who drive BWM's, Audi's, Mercedes are just the lucky ones or the "preferred". To those who think these lucky people were given a golden opportunity or were just dealt a better hand. To those who believe that there should be some form of equalization of success and a sharing of wealth. This article may enlighten you to the truths of pitfalls, hazards and stress that comes with risking it all. Sure, over time if cards are played right, there is much less risk in business, but I can promise you that there's a more then good chance even Sobeys and Irving had many close calls that could have tanked their business at some points in their life cycle. The public needs to know that without risk-takers, our economy would cease to exist. Jobs are created on the backs of those brave (or crazy) enough to pursue and idea with everything they have. I read the comments on the article in the Herald last week about Rob Normandeau starting Seafort Capital with the Sobeys and McCains and I was extremely angry at the sentiment and ignorance of the general public about this exciting announcement. Perhaps if they shadowed an entrepreneur for a month they would happily return to their jobs with an appreciation for what it takes day in and out to run a successful business. Funny how the harder one works, the "luckier" they are.

Relevance and Robberies

This morning, a friend sent me the following commercial saying how much she loved it. I watched it and the use of emotion was raw and overwhelming. It had all the boxes checked: casting, music, production, storytelling and continually drew me in more and more. As I consumed it, I kept asking myself, who could possibly be behind this? Harley Davidson - "Ride free"? Life insurance - "live life"? When I got to the end and the curtains raised, it was... a bank. A bank?? "For people with Extraordinary Dreams," was the shallow connection they forced into the idea to try and own the emotion they created. And worse, can a bank ever own a dying man's final wish or a widow's deep sorrowful loss? My reaction was the opposite of what they were trying to accomplish... it pissed me off. I felt used. Another spot immediately came to mind that conjured the same feelings I had just experienced. After some searching, I found it and here it is. See what I mean? The connection was weak and a telecom can't and shouldn't own that kind of message.

My point is, "raw human emotion" can be one of the most powerful and compelling ways to create a meaningful connection between a brand and a consumer. This kind of emotion can personify a brand and let a consumer share together a truth or an insight. A shared experience between a brand and a consumer can be powerful. However, be very careful of that fine line. People aren't stupid and we certainly don't appreciate being "used" by a company if you uncork that kind of emotion. You better be able to demonstrate a connection to the brand and it better fit with the industry. Here’s a spot I saw years ago. So emotional, I couldn't fully watch it again. When the commercial finished taking me for a ride and I got to the end, happily the connection was there and even though a telecom company was behind it, it felt right appropriate that it came from them. What do you think? Ever felt used before? Ever share an emotion with a company before?

The passing of a titan

The headlines lit up everyone's computer screens today at the news of Bristol Group's demise. For 30+ years, Bristol Group has been a fixture of the Atlantic Canadian region. My first impression of them when I started Extreme was, "Holy shit, they are huge and even more importantly, they are connected!" Their size and rolodex was something I purposely chose to ignore day to day for fear that the intimidation factor would paralyze me and keep me from moving forward. But as time went on, I had the pleasure of meeting Rick Emberly on several occasions and he was anything but intimidating. He's a very dynamic and charming guy. I have always been a fan of him. If I saw any chink in the armour there it was the creative that came from the agency. I figured Extreme could find a niche by doing work that got talked about. It was a strategy that paid off and eventually all agencies found a nice equilibrium in the market focusing on our own respective visions. Fast forward a few years and the scene has changed dramatically. For evidence, tally the number of people working in the agency business today in Atlantic Canada versus ten years ago. Almost every agency employs a fraction of what they used to and several agencies don't even exist anymore, with virtually no new thriving start ups. Pork Pie Hat, SGCI and now Bristol are casualties of a shrinking market. Bristol saw this trend a few years ago and like ourselves, chose to venture beyond their borders in search of new revenues. Though personally, I never got expansion to Doha, Qatar literally halfway around the world, but I understand the prospects given it's (then) thriving economy and lack of agency presence, all of which made it attractive for Bristol.

Either way, having the guts to expand anywhere beyond Atlantic Canada is a move I applaud. I have witnessed the success of great Atlantic Canadian companies who didn't know any better than to stay put like Moosehead Breweries, McCain, Sobeys, Emera, Irving Group and a ton other smaller and recent examples. I would go so far to say more companies in Atlantic Canada could take a page from their book. But success from expansion comes with heavy risks... like these aspirations taking your business down. This is sadly the case for Bristol.

A comment someone made on CBC.ca about M5 taking on the "failed management from Bristol," particularly irked me. Let's put this into perspective: the ad business is insanely volatile at the best of times. You name me more than a dozen Canadian agencies that are still around after 30 + years. The point is, they went down trying to grow their business. For complicated reasons, it didn't pan out. I don't look at Bristol Group as a failure, as a matter of fact I feel quite the opposite after the run they had. Kudos to you Rick and company for trying to grow the region. We won't soon forget your legacy.

The "not-a-van"

My good friend, Robbie McClosky and I were out playing golf a couple years ago talking about my favourite topic, cars. He and I were trading stories about our current personal inventory. I laughed out loud (lol'ed) when he described his family car as a "not-a-van". "What's a not-a-van?" I asked? He said, it didn't matter. The fact was that whatever the car, most importantly, that it was not-a-van.

I think this sentiment is well engrained in my age group. See, at 38, we all seem to think that we just got out of high school a couple days ago. But in fact, my 20 year reunion is coming up in a few weeks. Sure there's indications that I'm a bit out of touch with the younger crowd which I believe I still belong to. Like for instance, I was driving my wife's convertible sport car last week, when an 18 year old hung out of his car yelling, "You's a balla" while making on he was bouncing a ball in the air. I looked back through my front windshield as was like, "what the fuck is a balla??". 

Ok, so maybe I'm not as young as I think I am, but here's the truth: Yes, I'm a little older; Yes, I have kids; and hell no, my wife and I will not drive a minivan. Heck, she told me I "gave up" when I bought a 4 door sedan a few years ago, so there's no chance you'll see her in a minivan. But why? Minivans are convenient and are more perfectly suited to a young family than any other automobile. But alas, they are a minivan. The minute you take the keys to one, you concede and give up a big piece of your youth, image and soul. I doubt that young dude at that light is yelling "balla" to any mom's and dad's anywhere in the world right now. Minivans have a stigma attached. Sure, we sometimes chose function over form and buy them. But begrudgingly. 

Enter Toyota's newly redesigned Sienna which is actually pretty cool looking as far as vans go. Now, I get they have had their fair share of negative press lately, which is why I'm that much more impressed with this new campaign. They aptly named it the campaign, "the swagger wagon" and built a youtube channel for it. http://www.youtube.com/user/Sienna 

To get right to the heart of the stereotype, they introduce the premise with a hilarious rap video. The cast is comprised of a couple average looking parents and children (well, I think the dad married up if you know what I'm saying). Everything is bang on as they replay the truths of our lives at this stage. They also have a bunch of other videos (that fall short of the rap video in my opinion), but the whole package does something miraculous: It is trying to redefine the image of a minivan. With almost a million visits and hundreds of comments to the site, it's also doing what most brands strive for today, which is interacting with their audience while influencing perceptions.

Isn't that the job of our trade in a nutshell today? Change perceptions and induce conversation? I say, "well done" Toyota. You may not ever see my wife in a car lot giving away a piece of her soul in exchange for a set of minivan keys, but I'm sure there's tons of other fence sitters that will.

Tiger, dad and Nike

Well, enough people have emailed me wanting to talk about Nike's new controversial ad for Tiger Woods. If you haven't yet seen it, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIYejgkqd0o

The first thing I'll say is that the fact that we're all talking about this ad has done what very few marketers succeed in doing these days, which is "be talked about".

Let me also say that I completely get the divide for people on this ad. We put this around the agency last night and almost exclusively, the women detested it and the men applauded the principal of the message. The other divide was on the use of Earl Wood's (Tiger's late father) voiceover taken out of context for the purpose of the commercial.

Nike was one of the few sponsors that stuck by Tiger during he and his family's very public and humiliating events. The fact that they aren't swishing (pardon the pun) the situation under the carpet and are brave enough to stand beside him with their brand and this message speak volumes about Nike as a company, in and of itself. Great work takes courage and sometimes controversy. Nike demonstrates this in spades. But is it right?

For me personally, this is one of the best ads I seen in a long time. It humanizes Tiger and Nike even though it's wrapped in a commercial message. Though I don't know the background (which I'm sure is soon to follow), my guess is that Tiger endorsed the use of his father's voice as a payment of homage and respect to his father who died before this all came out.

But suspicions aside, the thing I am convinced of is that Nike is the most courageous company in America at the moment and Tiger (a famously shy and quiet individual) has decidedly taken centre stage in a compelling way. He looks sad but determined as the camera slowly pans in and the message from his father, ends with "And, did you learn anything?" My take away from it is that yes, he's learned from it and in front of his father suggests to me, he's going to be a better person for it.

The only critique I would offer is that they should have only aired this spot once and let the social media drive it from there.

We're all no doubt over-analyzing this, but I think that's the point, no?

What do you think?

My war story

Hello and welcome to my blog.

There are two things you should know about me. The first is that I really love the marketing industry. The second, that I'm a typical entrepreneur that has more than just a touch of A.D.D. So, if I finish writing this post, I've done well and should be fed grapes and fanned with palm leaves.

Since I will no doubt be spending the vast majority of my time blogging about the marketing industry, to satisfy my entrepreneurial persona I want to dedicate my first blog to my war story of growing this agency for the past 13 years. Most enjoy a good war story and the older I get, the more I reflect positively on the challenges we faced as a business and how we overcame them.

To begin, the year is 1996 and I was 24 years old. I had just sold my cellular phone business to Mickey MacDonald and had a few greenbacks in my mattress (Note to self: excess greenbacks + a 24 year old is a recipe for disaster!) Time took good care of this issue however and 6 months later I found this newfound nest egg, well, diluted in things like beer, trips, cars and other such meaningful investments.

The one thing my previous career taught me was that I probably couldn't work for anyone again. It was with that revelation that a friend fatefully dropped off a manilla envelope with contents that inspired me to get into the graphic design business. The guts of the envelope demonstrated how I could make millions designing personal brochures for real estate agents. I would take their picture, write their bios and lay it all out for the low, low price of $5,000 for a set of 1000 brochures. Sweet! So, I bought a PC (my first of many mistakes in this industry) as well as Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark and a shit load of graphic design manuals and began to ply my newfound trade. I then moved into my fathers carpet cleaning business to set up shop. Since all my money was eviscerated... I mean "invested," I bought some plywood and built my desk in the back corner of my dad's warehouse. Men's men (that smelled like, well, men's men) walked in and out all day with carpets over their shoulders while I worked away feverishly in the corner. Soon after, I felt I was adequately versed in the science of using the tools and had confidence in my design skill, so I went out knocking on every real estate agents door in Halifax. But no one bought the package from me. Not one! I guessed I missed the fine print in the manilla envelope that real estate agents were cheaper than dirt. Alas, my new business and three months of rigorous training had a grim outlook.

But wait, I thought... wouldn't companies need brochures, posters and the like? My business wasn't dead after all! I cracked open the yellow pages and invaded the Burnside Industrial Park for prospects. I actually found a few brave corporate souls that gracefully allowed me to fully understand how bad I really was at design. So, I learned my first and best rule in business expeditiously which was to hire people smarter and better than myself. The product got better and soon after I moved into my first permanent location on the Dartmouth waterfront.

From 1997 - 2000 I grew insatiably curious about this thing called "advertising". The lines blurred from what was graphic design and what was advertising. I was smitten. I felt like I had to devour anything and everything that had to do with it. I went to award shows all over Canada and the Northeastern United States. I called everyone who was a someone in advertising in Canada and went to see them all. The "TSN turning point" in these 30 or so encounters was a fateful meeting with a guy that had just opened his doors in Toronto from Montreal. The first thing I noticed when I got to that agency was the energy and vibe that this 20+ person agency gave off. These people wanted to be there. They had purpose and they really liked each other and I therefore had to assume, they liked their jobs. Next, I get ushered into their funky boardroom to watch their demo reel while I waited for my host to arrive. I was laughing out loud (lol'ing) at the content of their tv spots. I was so engaged with the tv that I barely noticed a man who had walked in. I looked over and here stood a guy in a pair of jeans and a sweater, shaved head and looked to be 8 feet tall. I greeted him and sat down. With no pleasantries exchanged he dug right in. I was gripped. He talked about this industry like a prize fighter before a fight. With passion, vigour and purpose. He didn't tell me what I needed to do, but in turn told me what he loved about this business, what he hated about it and why he was going to change it. That guy was Paul Lavoie from TAXI. I'm indebted to him for that 30 minute talk that altered the course of my future. That meeting was at the end of 2001 after which we had gone from being known as Extreme Design Group to Extreme Communications to reflect our new advertising positioning.

In 2001, the East Coast was a backwater of Canadian advertising. A sleepy and dormant region controlled by large established agencies that had deep connections into the commercial landscape. After my fateful meeting at TAXI, all that was about to change and change fast. Fatefully, I met Shawn King in 2001. Shawn's "interview" lasted 5 hours and ended up at his place over beers. We hit it off immediately and discovered we had the same belief that we could forever change the landscape on the East Coast. Next, I went to a client, Jamie Davison, who then was the Director of e-commerce at Clearwater Seafoods. We convinced each other on the back of a napkin to open Extreme Interactive together. We inked the deal that would see him owning 50% and myself owning 50%. Then, 6 months later in June of 2002, I went to another client Andrew Doyle who was a Marketing Manager at Coke at the time and convinced him (also on the back of a napkin) to join me in opening Extreme Public Affairs, where he would own 50% and I would own 50%. By the end of 2002 we had three companies operational under the Extreme brand.

The obstacle of storming the established agency strongholds, setting fire and taking their clients was ominous. The only way we could do this was to prove to the marketers that we would give them something no one had ever given them before... creativity. To do this, I started an award show along with a client at the time, Giles Crouch, called the Ice Awards. We conspired that if we built an East Coast award show, the work would get better, the talent would come and clients would get far better results and maybe compete beyond our borders. Secretly, my motivations were darker and more sinister; to put Extreme Group on the map and become synonymous with creativity. Though we bombed the first year at the newly founded Ice Awards, giving birth to this award show had a halo effect for the agency.

From 2002 - 2005 we exploded. We won almost every major account in Atlantic Canada including Aliant, Moosehead Breweries, McCain International, Workers Compensation Board, Atlantic Lottery Corporation and Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion. We grew from 9 people to almost 60 by the end of 2005 and had been recognized for our work dominating the Ice Awards, the Bessies and then got a nod as far as the Cannes International Awards. We were unstoppable and I was having the time of my life building Extreme with the most amazing and talented people I knew.

In 2005, for a host of reasons we merged the three companies together to become Extreme Group. Jamie Davison left the fold to pursue his vision of a new interactive world and Shawn King earned his place in the ranks of partnership. We moved into our 13,000 sq foot digs in the Alezander Keith's Brewery and spared no expense building an office that would positively impact our culture that included a full gym and shower, beer keg, Xboxes and a cafe/ lounge. But something else happened in 2005 also which was an epiphany: we had amazing clients on the East Coast, but they were limited. With no means to backfill a client when (for whatever reason) they leave, there's only one way to go... down. I became obsessed with expansion. Bringing the "secret sauce" we discovered to new frontiers. Not just being a great Halifax agency, but a great Canadian, if not global agency.

It was with that motivation that we set our sights on Toronto. So, with a ton of planning and looking at several options to enter the market, I moved my pregnant wife April (who was originally from PEI) and two young daughters to Toronto. It was January 3, 2007 that the crushing reality struck me while I sat in a sublet office space on Dufferin Street, surrounded by 14 empty desks and computers and silence... "what the fuck did I just do??" I didn't know a sole in Toronto, had no revenue, no clients, no staff or contacts. But here I sat at my desk looking out over the expansive, cold city with it staring right back at me challenging me to even try. A city with a dozen amazingly talented agencies with contacts everywhere but with me. With the arse of the economy falling out of it's pants, that was a big moment. Thankfully the meds kicked in and I began the perilous journey ahead.

By the end of 2009, we had managed to gain a few great clients like Grand & Toy, Quiznos Canada, P&G, RIM, Sony Canada and BDO. We moved into our permanent new Toronto office in Liberty Village, had 17 people, and grew our revenue from nothing to one-third of our total revenue at Extreme.

I've never been more excited about this business and our place in it. I hope you dig my blog and take something away that helps you understand where your place is inside the "Blender".

Paul