Acclaimed interviewer and broadcast journalist Charlie Rose engages America’s best thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business leaders, scientists and other newsmakers in one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions.

Mr. Joel Kotkin

An internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends, Joel Kotkin is the author of a new book, THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION: America in 2050, published in February by The Penguin Press. The book explores how the nation will evolve in the next four decades. It has received rave reviews from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Globe and Mail, and National Public Radio.

Mr. Kotkin is Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange, California and an Adjunct Fellow with the Legatum Institute based in London, UK. A highly respected speaker and futurist, he consults for many leading economic development organizations, private companies, regions and cities. Joel is also a Senior Fellow with the Center for an Urban Future in New York City; and a Senior Consultant with the Praxis Strategy Group in Fargo, North Dakota.

The Charlie Rose Interview

Praxis Strategy Group is a partner with the Flint Group of Companies

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt on Flickr

Recently I started reading The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft. It brings to light one of the universal truths of advertising: everything depends on the big idea. Today, with such a fragmented media environment, those ideas matter more than ever. A sharp, strong, well-executed idea will cut through the noise and stay with you.

The first chapter of the book is an interview with William Bernbach, one of the founders of DDB. He makes many striking statements in just 14-pages, but this quote stays with me:

“We think we will never know as much about a product as a client. After all, he sleeps and breathes his product. He’s built it. He’s lived with it most of his life. We couldn’t possibly know as much about it as he does. By the same token, we firmly believe that he can’t know as much about advertising. Because we live and breathe that all day long.”

Here’s the tough part. To do good work, you’ve got to bind that client and agency knowledge together. Here’s something else from Bernbach:

“Your cleverness, your provocativeness and imagination and inventiveness must stem from knowledge of the product… And you must be as simple, and as swift, and as penetrating as possible. And it must stem from knowledge. And you must relate that knowledge to the consumer’s needs.”

Clients and agencies need each other. One must play off the other’s strength. That’s easy to understand. However, it’s hard to achieve this synthesis of knowledge and imagination, because there is no formula for achieving it.

But like any good copywriter, I’ve got some ideas.

At the risk of reducing creative professionals to a tankful of sea monkeys, here are some ways to feed them. These tips aren’t magic, but I think they’re helpful:

Figure out “the thing.”

One of my favorite things to do is listen to clients and wait for “the thing.”  Sometimes it’s a carefully crafted mission statement. Sometimes it’s an off-hand comment. Either way, it’s always something simple and unique. It sums up perfectly what  the business cares about and what its customers care about. When I hear it, my brain says, “That’s the thing!” Then I write it down, and our creative team can try to do something awesome with it.

You could also call this the differentiator. Figuring out what it is can be hard. Here are some places to start:

• Define why you do what you do. This won’t only help your marketing. It could give your company a new outlook and sense of purpose. Write down your beliefs, motivations and desires. Why do your employees come to work every day? Hint: it’s not just to build great products or deliver great service.
• Bring the creative team into your place of business. This is where you’re comfortable. If you feel like the expert you are, you will inevitably say something brilliant. Believe me. I’ve seen it happen.
• Ask your creative team to take a stab at it. As outsiders, they might have an easier time seeing what’s really different or appealing about your company. It’s not a perfect process, but the observations they make could surprise you (in a good way).

Tell them everything your products and services do… and I mean everything.

You’ve tackled the big, inspiring question of why!  Now, how about a bit about the product?  “It saves time and money” is good, but not good enough. Maybe your product is so easy to use that it makes you feel smarter than you really are. Does it give you an excuse to avoid doing something unpleasant? Perhaps it makes a noise that sounds like the guitar riff from Purple Haze. Maybe it just looks cool.

These  facts could build a great campaign, and they say a lot about who you are. Get it all down on paper – and hand it to your account executive, pronto.

Give them everything you’ve done before… and I mean everything.

Your website, old brochures, even user manuals can give creatives a sense of what you can do for a customer. But be careful. If your materials are hard to understand, outdated, incomplete or just plain wrong, your team will need some extra guidance.

Put your product in their hands.

Pictures and brochures are fine, but nothing compares to holding that thing in your hands, feeling it, smelling it, pushing the buttons, reading the instructions, hearing it and seeing what it can do. A client of ours, Bobcat, gives its communications vendors opportunities to operate its equipment. Besides being one of the highlights of the year (who doesn’t love playing in the dirt with a skid-steer loader?), it’s an inspiring experience. I learn a lot from trying things out on my own. Not only that, I generate a lot of ideas for when I return to my desk.

Set a comfortable deadline.

Bringing a creative idea to life can be ugly. Good ideas rise from false starts; dead ends; awkward, silent brainstorming sessions; gallons of coffee; and possibly some whining. It’s important to have enough time to get all that in!

It’s possible to send ideas in 24 hours, but it could still take a week to find the right idea. Creative ideas come out of nowhere, and usually after the subconscious mind has had a while to chew on it. If you’re like me, it might not happen until you start mowing the lawn.

“Comfortable” means you should be happy with the timing as well. Still, if you have the luxury of time, consider the difficulty of the task, and its impact on your brand, before setting the deadline.

That’s all for now. What types of activities and information feed your creative brain?

Welcome to another edition of 5 Question Friday! Today I sit down with Phil Hunt, Flint Communications Copywriter. We manage to discuss his work, what inspires him and the trials of writing music for his band. Happy viewing!

Flintsters and family at the YWCA Women of the Year event.

The 37th Annual YWCA Cass Clay Women of the Year event was held this week in Fargo. Each year this event honors outstanding women whose lives, talents and passions shape our community. Some of our Flintsters attended the event, and we’d like to congratulate the amazing nominees!

Flint would also like to thank the YWCA for continuing the tradition of honoring these amazing women and the contributions they make to the F-M community. One of our core values at Flint is to put our families and our communities first. With that in mind, we encourage the women and men of Flint to emulate the women that were nominated.

Here are the 2010 award recipients in their respective categories:

• Patricia Patron (Advocating for Equality)
• Kay Hilde (Arts & Communication)
• Danette Nicoloff (Business)
• Vogel Law Firm (Business/Organization that Empowers Women)
• Cindy Miller (Community Service)
• Penny Andrist (Education)
• Paula Mehmel (Faith Community)
• Shelly Richard (Volunteer Service)
• Dr. Tracie Mallberg (Wellness)
• Amanda Cashman (Young Woman of Today & Tomorrow)
• Adair Grommesh (Youth Advocacy)

Kimberly Wold Janke sits down to talk about what brought her to Flint Communications, her educational background, and what keeps her ticking everyday. She shares insights about working with clients and balancing work time with family time.

In the ever competitive world of business, companies are constantly seeking bigger, better, faster, more. Trouble is, many companies lose focus while trying to attract more business and more customers. You can see the evidence bleeding from marketing materials every day.

While clamoring for more customers, some marketers make the grave mistake of trying to appeal to a wider audience by broadening their marketing message rather than zeroing in on what truly differentiates their business from the competition – all the while diluting their message and brand perception along the way.

You’ve seen and heard it before, “For all your [so and so] needs,” or the exhaustive list of specifications or services. What do you suppose sticks in the mind of the consumer when they are exposed to such generalizations? Absolutely nothing.

So what do you need to do to get your marketing message to stick? Find the “one thing” that sets you apart from the competition, zero in on it and make it the absolute focus of every aspect of your business. If you are a low-cost supplier selling low price, completely own the “low price” category in everything you do. If you believe your service differentiates your company, let “service” prove itself by being at the center of everything you do. Own the category so hard that no one else can duplicate what you do.

The key here is brand differentiation. Do one thing and do it well. Take Bobcat Company for example. Focused on providing the toughest, most reliable compact equipment and tools, everything they communicate is “tough and agile.” You will never see Bobcat market a BIG piece of equipment. Or how about Disney theme parks? Completely focused on “family fun” (When was the last time you saw Disney LIST all their theme park rides vs. Six Flags? You won’t!) And there are local examples all around you – the furniture company that has touted “best selection” for the past 20 years, the restaurant that serves “open pit steaks,” the broadcast station that is the “region’s new source.”

As a marketer, if you want to truly grow your business, broaden your appeal by differentiating your brand CLEARLY in the marketplace. Choose what sets you apart, then live, breathe and communicate it through everything you do. Don’t muddy your marketing materials with a mix of messages. Say ONE thing, say it loud and clear and say it often. By giving customers fewer things to process you’ll be giving them more information than ever before.

What local brands can you point to as great examples of clear brand differentiation? Or others that you think might be failing at differentiation? It’s always great to learn by observing others.

Colin is a senior strategist for The Flint Group. Follow him on Twitter @colinnclarke or on Facebook at Facebook.com/cnclarke.

A public policy news and information website published by Praxis Strategy Group of Grand Forks, N.D., has been named as a top site for 2010.

Grand Forks, ND (Vocus/PRWEB ) March 16, 2010 — A public policy news and information website published by Praxis Strategy Group of Grand Forks, N.D., has been named as a top site for 2010.

Planetizen, recognized as one of the world’s most popular urban planning websites, included newgeography.com on its 2010 list of the best planning, design and development websites for 2010. The sites named to the annual list are said to represent some of the top online resources for those interested in planning, design and development.

Websites are nominated by Planetizen readers and staff and judged against a common set of criteria including content, design and usability.

In citing NewGeography.com, judges commended its fair and balanced content, even though it sometimes goes against the grain of popular thinking among planners: “It was inevitable that certain voices that reject the current belief system of urban planning – people like Wendell Cox, Joel Kotkin, and Michael Lind – would band together. What wasn’t inevitable is that their collaboration would be readable, fair, and dare we say, balanced. With a bent towards the libertarian, Kotkin and crew cover urban issues, housing, politics and the suburbs with a hefty dose of demographics and GIS maps.”

Launched in 2008, NewGeography.com includes analysis and commentary on economic development, demographics, economics, politics and other public policy issues. It features writing and research from authors across the U.S., Europe, China and New Zealand and publishes an annual “Best Cities for Job Growth” in partnership with Forbes.com.

Praxis Strategy Group is a partner with the Flint Group