POPULAR PHRASES WE'D LIKE TO CHANGE #3

There’s a not-so-new four-letter word we love to hate, one that the media (and our professions) are all over.

In one word?  Icon. 

At least five times a week, sometimes more (depending on the news and featured celebrity), headlines and Web copy label a style as “iconic” or a recently deceased personage, an “icon.”  Now, please don’t misunderstand us:  Elizabeth Taylor, for one, was the ultimate Hollywood icon, an enduring and classic symbol of the acting industry.  And Ralph Lauren could be deemed an iconic designer who popularized that certain je ne sais quoi of preppie-dom.

As communications stylists, we liberally toss around the word as representative of our ideas.  Developing a series of icons, for instance, enables us to communicate in a pictorial shorthand a desired action, a behavior, a brand to a set of stakeholders.  Geeks, too, have seized on these images as signaling quick entrances or exits into different computer programs and files.  [Steve Jobs, we thank you.]

Too, don’t forget that our favorite four letters originated with the Greek meaning “image,” associated at that time with a religious work of art from Eastern Christianity.  As defined by art historians, icons are usually flat panel paintings – also carvings, castings, embroideries, printings – picturing a religious being or objects such as angels.  Colors in these artworks also had iconic (ahem!) meanings, with red used for divine life; gold, the radiance of heaven; blue, human life.

With all that serious history, it’s difficult to call even the moderately famous “icons.”  [Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen’s late and great saxophonist, does fit that bill, in our opinion.]  Or describe a popular style, like the wearing of Uggs, as iconic.  [Add your own two favorite icons here.]

Maybe we’ll know it’s time to retire the word when Fox re-brands “American Icon.”

THE RISE OF E-SELFISHNESS

The Japanese symbol for respectOnce upon a time (and not so very long ago either), the “reply to all” button in email was rarely if ever used.

A year or so ago, The Wall Street Journal chronicled the public humiliation of an agency copywriter who did just that – in a fit of pique and critique.  [No, that individual wasn’t relieved of his position but he did embark on a face-to-face apology tour ‘round the office.]

Perhaps that’s why well-crafted emails – in fact, any missive requiring a reply - no longer evoke a considered response from the receiver, within, say, a day or so.

If you the sender are (pick one or several):  1) unknown, 2) separated  from the receiver by more than six degrees, 3) asking for a favor,  and/or 4) simply keeping in touch, chances are greater than 50 percent that your correspondence will fall into a dead email office – or better  yet, be classified as spam.

We know all the standard answers: 

“I’m overloaded with email.” 

“There aren’t enough hours in every day.” 

“I only watch for specific names/addresses because I’m on deadline.”  [Please feel free to add your own.]

Those same e-laggards holler when their messages aren’t returned.  Grumbling and crankiness ensue; after all, how can they get their work done without the critical information?  There’s much fingerpointing and quoting of numbers like “83 percent of knowledge workers say that email’s critical to their success and productivity at work.”

Regardless of the reason for non-response, from email fatigue to a truly packed calendar, ways do exist to let people know what’s going on.  One’s called the automatic out-of office reply:  “Hey, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can; my monthly report was due a month ago.”  Or:  “If I don’t queue up my credit card charges in my expense report, I won’t be going anywhere.  Ever.  I’ll get back to you in two days.” 

[A more brilliant individual than ourselves declared e-bankruptcy, wiping himself out of the Web-verse in one act.]

Another is called the telephone.  You might be avoiding the world, but it just makes a whole lot of sense to change your voicemail indicating Xtreme busyness or to sneak in an apologetic response in the earliest of a.m.s.    Even other options, texting or Twittering, are far preferable to silence.  Dead.  Silence.

It’s all about communications, ensuring that your personal and professional brand transcends the pettiness of deadlines and annoyances and overload. That you use the right communications with the right speed at work and at play. 

And it’s all about courtesy, the cyber-decency to rsvp to no matter whom, no matter where.  Wonder how NASA’s Space Shuttle and Space Station astronauts handled their e-replies?

FREEDOM OF CHOICE? NOT SO MUCH

Food shopping, to us, is always a plus and minus activity.

The minus part:  It’s gotta get done, usually during the time (i.e., on weekends) everyone goes supermarketing.

On the plus side, meandering down grocery aisles satisfies our need for visual stimulation.  There are always new products to pick up, packaging that grabs our eyes, and new claims to read and ponder. 

That’s where we invariably get lost.  Because with the amazing amount of products in store, it’s hard to choose, for instance, among 350-something types of toothpastes.  [And that number has been reduced by nearly 20 percent from the previous year, according to market research firm Spire LLC.]  We sigh and then pick the same-old same-old. 

Too many choices also afflict many of us who work in communications and design.  In our heads, there’s the tug between the new media and the tried and true, the weighing of short versus long content, the options provided by brand palettes, differences in tone and voice, use of metrics, just to mention a few.

When actual content is factored in, the number of “I don’t knows” expands exponentially.

So does bewilderment.  

How many retirement savings or health care plans will need to be understood – before employees pick their benefits?  Do senior managers truly care about three or four new identity alternatives?  Will decision makers be swayed or confused by all the options that might help realize more revenues, save costs, attract new customers?

Today, many marketers are beginning to recognize the wisdom of the fewer, the better.   Whether it’s foodstuffs or news channels, car models or restaurants, the consumer (and his/her wallet) decides.  Enough, after all, can be too much. 

As for us?  We just might vote for Hobson’s choice. 

AISLING FOR IDEAS

Pardon us while we indulge in one of our favorite pastimes:  Visual stimulation (also known as retail therapy).

Seriously.  Contrary to our loved ones’ opinions, we’re not exercising our shopping jones.  Rather, we’ve been deliberately spending time in our favorite retailers in search of something, well, inspiring. 

Today, our visual stimulation hobby has turned into a cache of ideas, many of which are extraordinarily relevant to the issues we’re solving today. 

Take some recent statistics about women buyers, for one, hailing from a Surrey, England, retail consultant.   Shoppers who use fitting rooms have a conversion rate of 67 percent; in other words, they eventually buy what they try.  Compare that rate with consumers who don’t try on clothes in store (10%).   [No chauvinism intended since men buy without using fitting rooms, for the most part.] 

Those findings have prompted the likes of Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Bloomingdale’s, Ann Taylor and others to spiff up back-of-store dressing areas, adding;

• Comfortable communal areas for waiting companions. 

•  Spacious rooms and great lighting. 

•  Buttons that alert ever-hovering sales associates to a specific request and call for one-on-one assistance.

Getting employees to engage with change – and the company - is not so dissimilar.  [Though we don’t advocate sprucing up media for design’s sake alone.]  Try these on … if you haven’t already: 

• Installing channels to answer requests and acknowledge concerns. 

• Ensuring that managers and influencers get the kind of help (read: information and face time) they need to inspire their staff and colleagues. 

• Showing them the change – not just in flattering light, but also from all angles, up, down, and sideways – so they make the right decisions. 

Our analogies can continue.  Old Navy now features quick-change areas and labels – e.g., “I love it” and “Not for me” – to help overloaded shoppers organize their haul during try-ons.  Finally, one we especially like:  Anthropologie writes consumers’ first names on the fitting room doors, so sales staff can start to engage more personally.

Next time you’re strolling in any aisle – supermarket or department store, warehouse club or discounter – compare those stimuli to your employees’ experiences.  Do they register? 

C'EST NE PAS UNE AGENCIE ...

Color us shades of oxymoronic.

Despite all the attention lavished on Mad Men, its depiction of ‘60s’ ad life, and millions of viewers (not to mention Netflix rentals, streaming options, and re-runs), professionals in and out of the agency business flat-out refuse to use the word “agency.”  Or as the trade pubs report:

“It doesn’t describe what we do in this digital age.” 

“We’re so much more all encompassing than just advertising.” 

“Our business is about ideas.” 

Part of the word’s repugnance today has to do with monetizing and revenues.  In the face of rocketing tech IPOs like LinkedIn and Facebook, the plain old agency, sans product and other non-service dollar streams, looks puny. 

Another revolt against the term centers on procurement’s increasing role in selection.  If we’re not actively promoting our chops in digital and word of mouth and PR and creative and broadcast, or so the thinking goes, we won’t make the short list.

Other reasons for eschewing the straightforward “agency” descriptor range from branding and an ever-increasing crowd of competitors to stockholder/analyst perceptions. 

Is this a ploy for publicity and extended notoriety or an honest complaint?  Give us a break.  Because few are focusing on the raison d’etre of firms, shops, studios, even consultancies.  Which is, without customers, we’re nothing.  

There’s no better feeling than nailing the right strategy (and creative) that will do a company good – and meet its goals.  Than figuring out, with the client, what tools best support its consumer conversations.  Than partnering with a whole bunch of talent, from digital and design to PR to broadcast and cultural anthropologists, to develop the right road to value, in and outside the company. 

To be fair:  My colleagues and I have considerable agency-side experience – in addition to our specialties.  Now, our joy and payback come from working with customers we respect and trust who share, listen, and do the appropriate thing for their companies.  That’s the heart of a service business, no matter what you call it.

Prefer more poesy in your moniker?  Then listen to Hillaire Belloc’s words:  “Be kind and tender to the Frog, And do not call him names, As 'Slimy skin', or 'Polly-wog' …”