POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — During the first half-hour a special website for Vassar College early decision applicants was live this past Friday, January 27, a computing error caused mistaken information to be posted on the site about the admissions status of a number of these applicants. Before the error was corrected approximately 30 minutes later, 122 applicants logged onto the site. Of those, 46 read a correct letter from Vassar stating that they had been offered admission to the college. The 76 other applicants read a mistaken letter stating they had been accepted for admission, when in fact they had not been admitted to the college. A little more than two hours after Vassar corrected the error, the college had determined who all of the affected applicants were and apologized to them via email for the error.     -info.vassar.news, January 29, 2012

I learned a lot at Vassar but since then I’ve learned the importance of thorough quality assurance or QA. Due to the seven sisters college’s recent embarrassing admissions mistake, I expect there are 76 young people walking around with very bad feelings about Vassar - not to mention their parents and BFFs. I feel sorry for the person or persons who didn’t check their code that one last time, or who didn’t QA the site once more. And I will remember this story the next time I feel insanely pressured to call something “done” when I don’t feel it’s quite ready. Every time a mistake goes out under your name, it does some damage to the trust and good faith you have worked so hard to gain. And some mistakes you just can’t undo.

My takeaways:

1. A five-year-old can identify the logos of many products she doesn’t use: Nike, Starbucks, GE. The fact that she connects the GE symbol with her grandpa’s work shows the deep roots logos have in our culture.

2. Your logo speaks volumes. A shooting star with a planet. A beachball. Baby toys! And the Monster energy drink logo, well, it does look like worms.

Sometimes people just need to get together and talk.

Hello “Cake Day”.
At 4 o’clock on the first Thursday of each month (or as close as possible) we get together to enjoy something sweet. We chat about movies and music. We joke with one another (Robert and Kevin seem to be the focus of that) and generally have a good time.

It’s always appreciated.

This month we took it to a new level when Jessica and Lauren made Chocolate Fondue! See the recipe below.

D2 Creative’s Decadent Chocolate Fondue:

• (6) 3.52oz bars of Toblerone Swiss Milk Chocolate
• (2) 5oz bars of Hershey’s Symphony Creamy Milk Chocolate
• (2) 3.35oz bars of Hershey’s All Natural Extra Dark Chocolate
• ½ Pint of Heavy Cream

Here’s how we made it
First we broke the chocolate into pieces and melted in sauce pan on low heat.  Slowly we added the heavy cream while continuing to stir until the chocolate was smooth and creamy.  We then poured our chocolate into our electric fondue pot and voilà!  For dipping we used strawberries, bananas, pretzels, marshmallows and cubed pound cake.

Check out our D2 Cake Day photostream of the team in action

I am a big proponent of “say what you mean” in clear simple language, so I was kind of embarrassed in a meeting today when I was asked to explain a bullet point in a presentation we were developing for a client.

The bullet I had written said:

“Our campaign will contextualize product offerings, demonstrating value.”

The client immediately asked:

“Could you explain that bullet point?”

My response was something along the lines of, “Well, what it means is that the site will clearly explain how your products offer value. We’ve noticed that the language on your competitors’ websites tends to be jargon-y, vague and difficult to understand.  They use phrases like ‘creating a new commercial model’ and ‘maximizing brand potential.’  We will use more straightforward language with examples that clearly demonstrate what we mean.”

The client replied:

“Well, perhaps the bullet should say that instead of, ‘contextualize product offerings.’ “

:”>

(that’s blushing for the “emoticonially” challenged)

When trying to schedule an email campaign, think about when you check your own inbox and actually click through to things. There’s not really a “magic time” where people are opening all their emails, but it does vary over the course of the day.

A lot of companies try the “first thing in the morning” approach, and when you look at research from MailChimp, this might not really be helping. Email open rates peak between 12PM and 4PM Eastern time. It’s probably because this is when the largest possible population in the US and Canada are awake and at their desks.  Emails will be fresh in their inboxes when sent around this time of day. People on the East Coast are taking afternoon breaks, customers in Texas are eating lunch at their desks, and those on the west coast might be in their late morning lull.

The day of the week also matters in terms of open and click-through rates. Wednesdays and Thursdays have the highest open rates of the entire week. Why? Think about it: on Mondays, you might not have looked at your email over the weekend, and there’s probably lots of emails you’re automatically hitting “Delete” on just to get through the pile. By the middle of the week, you’re ready for a little break, and that 50% off sale email that just arrived from your favorite store, or newsletter from your alma mater starts to look really good. When timing your email, think about when is the time you’d be most likely to open it.

If you’re not sure when is best, try dividing your list and doing some delivery-time testing. Split your email list population in half and try sending at two times that are a few hours apart. When you have a clear winner, try the winning time and a time later in the day. Since there is no agreed upon best time to send email, you should find the best time for your own audience through testing.

In my next post I’ll offer insight into the number of emails you should be sending to your lists.

The first step to developing an e-mail marketing campaign is making sure your campaign is legally compliant. This might seem like a “no-brainer”, but it’s incredibly important and failure to follow the rules can result in a $16,000 fine with your name on it.

The CAN-SPAM act applies to all email messages, this includes promotional (sales, special offers, etc.) and transactional emails. Since so many of our clients use email as a promotional vehicle I’ll focus on the laws for those:

• From: and To: lines need to be accurate and reflect the name of the business sending the email.
• Your subject line needs to match the content of the email (unlike those messages in your spam folder with a subject line about watches, and content about contraband pharmaceuticals).
• Your physical location must be somewhere in the email. This can be either a street address or a P.O. Box.
• You must include an unsubscribe link. Recipients must be able to easily find the link, it has to work, and it has to be Internet-based. You can’t require people to send unsubscribe requests in the mail or to call. This article has some great do’s and don’t’s for unsubscribe pages.
• Unsubscribe requests need to be processed within 10 days.
• If you are using another company for your email marketing, both parties are responsible for complying with these laws.

In general, these are fairly easy rules to abide by.  Most will be addressed because they will be part of an email marketing template you’ll develop for your campaigns. For more information, check out Gmail’s Bulk Senders Guidelines which offer some additional tips on how to help your e-mail reach inbox’s instead of landing in the junk bin.

In my next post I’ll discuss the best time to send emails.

I often get the impression from people that all of this is new.  We are in uncharted territory.  I’m not convinced.  I suspect that like Greek tragedy, the basic themes of human nature are pretty universal.

At D2 Creative I spend most of my time working with open source software.  Most people think open source is a new concept.  After all, it’s designed specifically for developing software, right?  It turns out that’s not entirely true.  In 1895 a guy named George Seldon bought the rights to a patent for a kind of automobile engine.  He didn’t make cars; he just sued everyone else for patent infringement.  Soon all car manufacturers were paying him to get off their back.  Today, people like that are still around. They are called patent trolls.  It’s pretty much the same business model as the mafia, only with lawyers instead of guys with pinky rings.

Henry Ford fought back against this patent troll and won. To make sure it never happened again, he set up the Motor Vehicle Manufacturer’s Association, where members could share their patented innovations for the good of the industry.  Like a lot of things we think are new, open source is a lot older than we think.

Things move faster, not necessarily different.

Statements made by the head of the agency, the Arnell Group, and particularly the release of  this supposed branding document, caused a lot of anti-branding backlash.

With hindsight, it might seem that the million dollars plus that Pepsi probably paid the agency was a gross overpayment. Consider, however: BrandZ top 100 values the Pepsi brand at $12.7 billion. It’s enormously important to get that image right. The problem isn’t that the fee was too high, it’s that they goofed. (And I’m not actually sure about that - talk to me in 5 years when this tempest in a teapot is forgotten.)

It’s a big mistake to think that because of an occasional big blunder, branding isn’t valuable. Your logo, your tagline, color palette, brand names, brand architecture, how your brand goals and vision permeate your entire company, are all vitally important, whether you are Pepsi or Joe’s Meat Market. Senior executives who realize this can and do more easily shepherd their companies to success under a unified vision.

In my experience, many executives downplay the importance of good branding, and I think I have an idea why. The process of developing or revising a visual identity or a tagline is difficult to define. From the outside it can seem like the process is a black box:  a bunch of creatives lock themselves in a room for three days and come out with six taglines, a couple of logo ideas, and a rationale.

In fact, developing branding elements takes very special talent and is a lot of hard work.  Of course there is a process, but the central core is still to some extent creative brainstorming, and lateral thinking, which by definition means “jumping the tracks” on typical thinking processes. This is any executive’s worst nightmare: how can you manage an antiprocess? Many are understandably suspicious of both the results and their value. (And can you forgive the creatives who have to “sell” their ideas to a boardroom full of suits, if their rationales sometimes sound like spin?)

Yet, there’s no question that when a brand gets the right image or a campaign has a great tagline, it’s awesome. Think of the great logos: Target, FedEx, Apple. The great taglines: “Got Milk?” “Intel inside.” “Think different.” “Impossible is nothing.”

How do you get there? It’s a scary thing, letting a bunch of creatives loose on your brand. But the result can be, and should be, a highly valuable asset to your organization.

Yesterday I was cruising the technical forums, trying to diagnose a problem with my new phone. Inevitably I ran into an exchange between two posters that got a little heated. So, here it is 24 hours later, and I’m still thinking about that exchange and how between-the-lines snarky it was. Since “0 of 11 people found this post helpful,” it obviously had a similar effect on others. Negative writing can bring you down. I am sure when they were focused on each other, those writers had no idea the effect their writing would have on others.

Buddhists believe that our actions, and even our thoughts, have effects that spread far outward, like ripples in a pond. Certainly this much is true of writing, and not just of your written comments on forums and articles on the Internet. (I have no idea how many people may read this post, but Google Analytics suggests it’s a lot more than I want to contemplate.)

As a writer it can sometimes feel like I am being sucked into a vortex of meaningless corporate speak (”creating synergies” and “spurring world-class innovation”). I have to remind myself that there is an audience, that it matters what I say to them, and it’s larger than I think. In fact, the Internet has made it virtually unlimited. My audience needs first and formost to understand what I write, but also they have to get some “spark” from the writing. Whether they’re motivated or just get that “aha” moment, something should click. Who knows how often I am successful, but that’s what I’m aiming for.

Keep thinking about those ripples.

This isn’t just something Seth says. His statement is supported by lots of research. It follows that we can create more powerful communications by opening up space for others to make those connections.

Of course nobody wants their well-crafted message to end up like a MadLib, and so we resist allowing others to fill in the blanks.

Yet, those who can make it work for them get results. I’m making efforts to bring this idea, not just to advertising taglines but to:

• All marketing communications (from Web copy to Web site concepts that allow users to make connections)
• Communications with clients (in proposals, meetings, one-on-one interactions, creating more spaces for others to draw connections)
• Interpersonal communications at work (can I be a better mentor if I open up a dialog rather than giving my opinion?)

It may be hard work but _______________.

With their hands tied by regulatory minutiae, pharma’s media is traditionally several steps behind other industries from a storytelling perspective.  It is in the area of technology where pharma is much more free to flex its creative muscles.

A huge, international meeting like ASCO is exactly the type of showcase where one would expect to encounter the latest, greatest media wizardry.  Granted, ASCO attendees are an unusually learned audience who are most interested in the science, but they interface with technology just like the rest of us.  And when technology enters the fold, the importance of usability—and the user experience—cannot be ignored.

3D MOAs

ASCO booths presented a veritable smorgasbord of 3D animations describing the mechanisms of action (MOA) of both marketed and investigational compounds.  The meeting provided the perfect setting for this type of educational eye candy.  But there was so much of it that it became difficult to stand out in the crowd.

Enter 3D.  Steroscopic presentations required audience members to don 3D glasses.  While on first blush this might seem to be an obstacle to garnering attention, having to wear the glasses encouraged viewers to stay through an entire presentation.  In such situations seating was wisely provided, adding to the theatricality of the experience.

Touch Screens

Too often I noticed that the content being presented at ASCO was difficult to navigate due to poorly designed user interfaces (UIs) and/or poorly functioning touch screens.  Here are a few guidelines designers should consider:

• Make it immediately clear to the user whether they are looking at a display monitor or touch screen.  Several times I found myself touching a screen to see if anything would happen.
• Some sort of sensory feedback is useful so the user knows whether their selection has actually registered.
• Observe design conventions.  When users see large icons on a HOME screen, those icons are recognized as buttons.  I selected several icons on one monitor before I realized that all of the icons were taking me to the same place and that the icons were not actually buttons.
• Test the program on the equipment that will ultimately display the finished piece.  One very large monitor had forward and reverse arrows so far out to the edges of the monitor that they were outside the region where one’s eyes would naturally scan.
• Consider the placement of touch screen monitors relative to other monitors/users.  Two monitors were touching at a 95-degree angle.  Had two users tried to use the two monitors simultaneously, they would have been forced to get very personal with one another.
• Vertically oriented touch screen monitors are most satisfying when the screen real estate is broken out to present video content at the top of the monitor, menu selections at the bottom, and ISI, referencing, and additional messaging in between.
• Beware of small touch panels below larger monitors.  These can be disorienting, making the user unsure where to look; particularly when the two monitors are displaying different content.

NOTE:  While these guidelines address the user experience, check out Judy Minot’s blog on content and strategic considerations in touch screen development.

Gadgets

Early adopters may be the first on their block with the latest gadget—but there is a price to pay for this privilege, both financially and in terms of reliability.  The same is true of the gadgets unveiled at meetings and trade shows.

Think twice before introducing a technology that requires some sort of tutorial or instruction.  Very likely, the user will never again need to operate such equipment and that instructional time is chipping away at valuable product messaging time.

It is better to wow an audience with a cleverly presented message in a cleanly functioning medium than to introduce a technology not yet ready for primetime.

The Big Takeaway

When it comes to med ed communications, content is clearly king.  But it is critical to take into consideration how this content is actually communicated to the audience.

I just finished reading “Better” by Atul Gawande, a frank yet compassionate study of the question of how physicians can do a better job of providing care. I highly recommend it for anyone who is a doctor, might ever want to be a doctor, or might ever visit a doctor.

At the end of the book Gawande provides some recommendations on how physicians can begin working to close the gap between best intentions and best performance. He calls them “Suggestions for Becoming a Positive Deviant.”

My work does not have life-and-death consequences and yet Gawande’s suggestions resonated with me. So, here they are, with my own commentary related to business communication and marketing:

1. Ask an Unscripted Question. It’s an old truism that the best sales people are good listeners. But listening is important for all of the things we do in the world. Part of listening well involves asking questions that initiate full responses. Start asking open-ended questions and you may find out more than you wanted to about your client’s summer vacation in the Poconos, but ultimately you’ll know each other better.

I actually play a couple little conversational games: one is to try to come out of the conversation having said nothing about myself. That’s good evidence that I asked, listened, and asked follow-up questions. My other game is to open up conversations with people I might not normally think of talking to. (Who knew that the UPS driver has a son who’s a chess champion?)  When you work a little harder to ask questions and listen to the answers from customers, suppliers, the woman who sits near the copy machine, and that quiet guy in your yoga class, you may be surprised at the new ideas and perspectives you hear.

2. Don’t Complain. My boss is big on this one, too, I wonder why ; )  Still it’s true that although work (and life) are often frustrating, if we complain we get pulled into a kind of negative conversational gravity, bringing others down with us. After a session of kvetching about everything that’s wrong with the world, do you walk away feeling better? Of course not! “It’s boring, it doesn’t solve anything, and it will get you down,” as Gawande writes. Find something else to discuss: a problem you are trying to solve, an idea that interests you, a joke; but resist the impulse to gripe.

3. Count Something. A friend of mine used to say, “50% of my marketing budget is wasted - I just wish I knew which 50%.” How often are we or our clients engaged in an initiative, and 6-12 months later we have no measure of its success? Gawande proposes that, “if you count something you find interesting you may learn something interesting.” Maybe you can find ways to count what was formerly uncountable.  I recommend that you build measurement into your plans from the start of a project.

4. Write Something. I am a huge proponent of blogging. I agree with Gawande that you shouldn’t underestimate the effect of your contribution, even if you think it’s small. Also, the act of writing is very powerful, even if you don’t publish. When you write, you’re forced to step back and order your thoughts, think about the big picture, and even check your facts. Gawande hints at how writing for an audience affects the writer. “An audience is a community. The published word is a declaration of membership in that community and also of a willingness to contribute something meaningful to it.” In an individualistic culture, we often lose sight of how satisfying it is simply to communicate with others.

5. Change. We talk about early adopters (Brian in our office had an iPad the first day they were on sale), late adopters (Robert just got his first smart phone), and resisters (Mike prints all his emails).  The point is not to become a different kind of person, but rather to think about why we resist certain ideas and practices, and to stay open to new input, even if you think you’ve already made your decision. We all like consistency, but take a tip from Albert Einstein. Try something else. Actively look for inadequacies in what you do - even ask others for positive criticism. If you are open to change, solutions may come more easily.