Sustainability Sucks And Needs New Strategies

I for one love the word Sustainability. Some people want to do away with it and replace it with something 'cool' and 'sexy'. I completely disagree. It's not the word's fault the majority of this term's users are Caucasian, and are above average wage earners. The problem is Sustainability sucks when it's stuck and lacks new strategies developed by Strategists for the movements decision makers and Brand managers (or lack of interest in new strategies) to increase adoption. Either way, I will present a variety of new strategies whether anyone listens to me or not.

1. Change The Messengers: Hiring Black, Latino, Asian, and others of mixed races (and better yet, women of color) specifically to staff "face-time" roles and duties in the Communication department will be the biggest, most noticeable change in the industry. Even a Spokesperson for commercials would be a game changer! Image Method Home hiring Majora Carter (@majoracarter) to be the National Spokesperson for their new line of Ocean plastic products. Both of there missions with align and her face, her words would penetrate barriers to adoption. Today, Method's website (the majority of Sustainability) lacks this strategy. Now, can anyone name three Communication rep for any of your favorite Green, Sustainability Brands off the top of your head who are not Caucasian? Good luck. Even Sustainable Brands, the leading "strategy and ideas" conference in the industry has an all-Caucasian Communication staff (kudos to SB for staffing a large number of woman in general). My goal is not to fire Caucasians or call out names? My goal is to rock the boat, shake things up, and advocate for new strategies that will #MoveTheNeedle. I credit Triple Pundit for publishing the telling blog post in 2011 titled "Sustainability Movement is in Dire Need of Minority Outreach". Trust me, not much has changed. Read more here:

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/10/sustainability-environment-minorities/

*Note: Ford just did Strategy 1. Change The Messenger: http://t.co/glrgfKW6gJ

2. Shift To Digital-First: It's time to take a deep breath and let go of the past. Moble won! Digital is it! Nike is perceived as the absolute pinnicle of Corporate Giants going green, adopting clean technology, implementing a sustainable supply chain, and investing in Biomimicry! It's also the perceived leader in shifting to Digital-first, especially digital marketing. What else is there? Digital walls in corporate lobbies, digital displays at retail, the Internet of Things such a Wearables, and mobile advertising! Now, this digital-first strategy is not an easy strategy, but who says winning is easy?! Spotify is one of the hottest mobile advertising opportunities in the Country lead by one of Nation's most formidable Agents of Disruption, Sean Parker, and the potential for a Green Brand's reach is staggering. Flipboard is also a dominating digital force for all major Green Brands that struggle with content distribution and readership. 

Have I ever pushed for these changes instead of just criticize? Yes, I have.

I will probably get in trouble for posting this but last year, I requested to pitch some marketing ideas to Sustainable Life Media for their up-coming Sustainable Brands Conference in San Diego. I supplied some ideas for free over a conference call, but I requested a pitch to offer services because I questioned features, benefits, and reasons to believe vs the price of admission. I think they were expecting me to pitch a really big street team or flyer drop strategy. They were surprised that a pitched a rebrand of the Expo, from the Sustainable Brands Solutions Expo to SBDX (Sustainable Brands Digital Experience). The idea of providing digital walls and interactive displays for Brands to do next-level digital storytelling (replacing cloth backdrops and black table clothes) as part of the exhibitor fee was too disruptive. I doubt it will happen. Hopefully someone from GreenBuild is reading. GBDX! 

Where's my supporting data you ask? Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts that the U.S. mobile ad market will grow from $3.6 billion in 2011 to a whopping $18.3 billion in 2015. Tablets will only continue to propel ad spending. Read more at http://www.business2community.com/infographics/phenomenal-growth-mobile-advertising-infographic-0826220#g2Vo6ECQtYzoz4BB.99

3. Make Loss Leader Products - Poor people need Sustainbility, too. And I don't mean get cheap and make crap that falls apart. That's not Sustainable. I mean strategically take a loss, a really big loss, at the chance of gaining a profit in the future. For some brands they're already in trouble, but good solid strategy attacts investors, especially if the strategy dramatically improves what investors like: Cash Flow!

No, supporting data there. Just common sense.

4. Edit The Marketing Plan. I just finished writing a new e-book titled "#BeSuperSocial - A CMO's Guide To Leveraging Social As A High-Level Marketing Strategy" (coming in April) and in the book I advocate for Brands to go Super Social. Now some in Sustainability might be upset that I didn't target and classy this book for Green Brands ONLY but the support facts for my idea are staggering. IBM recently reports that only 20% of CMO's leverage social channels to engage with customers! In my book, I advocate for CMO's to take social from a low on the totem pole, small piece of candy in the mixed bag of marketing tricks, and elevate social to the highest strategic level possible. This would lead to employee advocacy, social selling, social customer service, and Executives using social media. My ditigal ad agency also just launched a new ground-breaking service, Twitter Chat for Brands (#TwitterChats4Brands), to improve engagement, increase brand exposure, and generate leads with sophisticated Twitter ads and lead generation cards. 

I point out in the book two companies who are close to reaching this new social stratosphere and whether you believe me or not, some brand will go Super Social. My question is will someone listen to me and will it be a brand representing Sustainabilility? 

Must Read: Jill Rowley (Social Selling Evangelist) Discusses Her Social Selling Superpower! https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/industry-solution-partners/entry/jill_rowley_social_selling_evangelist_discusses_her_social_selling_superpower?lang=en

Study: Only 20% Of CMOs Use Social Media For Customer Engagement 

http://t.co/87NNFcuj5e

If major strategy changes aren't made soon, Sustainablitity will really suck.

Visit my agency's website to learn more: http://www.bigbikegroup.com/#!About/c1t53

 

Be Amazing, A Poem Written By Creative Director Yeves Perez

Be Amazing #Poem

Fortify your mind today with these indelible truths

Bold is the new beautiful

Bricks are the minds who think otherwise

Terror breeds in the hearts of those without encouragement

Pain is experienced by all in this journey 

Laughter helps

But greatness belongs to those that decide to be amazing

So when your lover rejects you for any reason, be amazing 

When your friends lose sight of who you are, be amazing

When your job shows you zero appreciation, be amazing

When your surroundings are grey, dress amazing

And when your life is ready for the next chapter

It will be amazing

A Poem Written by Yeves Perez, #CreativeDirector #agencylife

My Secret Swag Sauce for Advertising Electric Cars

I don't pretend to ignore that great advertising campaigns heavily rely on impeccable timing. However David Droga and other #dangerouslyawesome Creative Directors got sauce! Yes, I said "got sauce!" Sue me.

Personally, I believe that being a social media addicted extrovert with great fashion sense (who's also great in bed) does add to the brass I bring when I bring it! The chanllenge is consistency. That's why making sauce and recipe testing is critical to winning over critics without credentials. Yeah I said it!

I've got sauce in my back pocket which makes me hot at one thing: my ads are different then what the others are doing! 

Example: Who agrees that car ads are all the same nowadays? I'm not sorry for saying what needs to be said. Car ads are all about unrealistic stunts, flash, and the illusion of top %10 status. Ok! Been there, done that, so what's next?

What if there was a car ad with no car in it? Given the opportunity I would make an electric car ad with my basketball hero Scottie Pippen! 

Why Pippen? Why hasn't it been done already?!

Pippen is without a doubt the ultimate symbol of performance, dependability and the number one asstistant to Michael Jordan! Without Pippen, Jordan would not be the greatest! To make that connection that your electric car assistants you to "Be Jordanesque" is different. And I would have the ad appear during the NBA Allstar Weekend and run all through the NBA finals with a deferent series of achievement like a TV show. Each new ad is an event.

Pippen is one of the greatest that ever played and his swag is influential. Influence works in this business, and so does social media! 

I totally respect Jeep for tapping another hero of mine, Baron Davis, but the execution was definitely missing sauce.

Now, I'm not gonna layout my entire Creative Brief and spell out the execution that I'd bring, however if you see this ad next year at the NBA Allstar Game... Just know that my sauce will do what it do...

Sell electric cars!

 

Update: TNT’s presentation of last night’s NBA All-Star Game was watched by eight million viewers, a 13 percent increase over last year’s telecast, reports TVbytheNumbers.com.

They don't call me the #FreshPrinceofCleantech for nothing!

Follow me on Twitter at @frshprnzcleantc.

Being @SDADman - Inside The Life of an Advertising #CreativeDirector & The #AgencyLife Via @Instagram

I go by a lot of names in my business, but today I'm focusing on me the ad man. The mad man on Instagram known as @SDADMan. I'd prefer to be called @ElJefe, but of course that handle was taken by a wannabe alpha male who takes absolutely zero risks to contribute anything to better this world (Pardon my distain for machismo bullshitters who think their hustlers).

My advertising agency is a very small shop that I started on a shoe string and the logo is a hashtag: #BigBikeGroup. When hashtags do go out of style like the Rolodex, I'll be that old guy with a hashtag on my business card. But until then, I'm the 33 year old Blaxican "cool" kid that's passionate only about making Sustainability cool. 

I genuinely hate that Creative Directors aren't celebrity, iconoclast types in our popular culture, so hopefully I make the B list and make it the movie business, too! Therefore, today I want to be brave and say whatever I want about the agency life. And trust me, the agency life is very desirable!

First things first, I need a dirty martini. 

Second, I need to send a tweet (under a different handle that many social media ppl hate and ask me to change a lot)!

@frshprnzcleantc: "There's something wrong with me. I need to write to feel better about myself." #CreativeDirector @AgencyQuotes #thingsyouhearinagencies

Anyway, I'm bullish about what I want to achieve and I'm not afraid to walk into a client's office and pitch them what I believe is my best work to #movetheneedle! I would be lying if I said I'm not interested in winning awards, but since I won best paid advertising campaign of the year in America's 8th largest City (San Diego) by taking a risk on a chef who fired me twice and took me back and fired me again (and blocked me on Twitter plus unfriended me on Facebook), I think I'm a little entitled to blog about the agency life!

So what did I do?

I used that award to do something really crazy and apply for a Director of Digital Communications position for a company I wanted to win business and I thought that if I were hired, I'd be a Creative Director, ad man from the inside! 

Wrong... Didn't happen. But I went in there for an interview and told them what's up!

I hope that tells you something. I'm a mad man!

"Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen." - Emile M. Cioran #MadMen #advertising #ambition #potential #CreativeDirector #pfsfeature #agencylife #hustle #swag #freshprinceofcleantech

I'm on my Fresh Prince tonight since my I'm not out on a date tonight as planned, so I'm gonna move onto some pet peeves in the world of advertising.

First, if you knew what you wanted, and could do it on your owe, then you wouldn't fucking need me! So don't pretend like everything is all gravy!

Second, it's not my job to tell you what you want to hear! It's my job to tell you what you need to hear! So don't pretend like you're comfortable with where you're at today!

Third, if you don't like social media and think it's a waste of time and money... Well, then goodbye! 

I'm the kind of Creative Director that doesn't just come up with ideas... I like to get my hands dirty... I put my money where my mouth is! And in the case of my award winning campaign, I was more that willing to go to jail and get slapped with misdemeanor graffitti charges for spray painting 35 hashtags around Downtown San Diego. In fact, I did it during broad daylight and on a baseball game day with a shit ton of cops driving around... But that's precisely why I did it! My fucking ungrateful client needed to feed his family and I needed a shit ton of new eyes to stop, take a pic on Instagram, tag #SDpopup, and take a second to learn about him and his Popup restaurant! 

 

Guess what else I did?

 I stole a sign from a nearby construction site and graffitied on that bitch and carried that shit 9 city blocks on my head to put out front of Analog (the venue), just to prove a point! I'm not just a Creative Director... I'm the muthafuckin Creative Director who went H.A.M.! Hard than A Muthfucka!

And I don't play!

Do I regret anything? Hell no! I go to bed every night knowing I was crazy enough to try to win for this guy. This brilliant, misunderstood chef that was "Exiled by the Malarkey Empire" only a few months before. He won and I won! Period!

So what turns me on now? 

Solar! Cleantech! The unsexy shit that's cold and dead! The shit that usually has a bunch of flowers in the ads! LOL

I personally want to lead the charge to kill off #GoSolar! 

Seriously! Go Solar?!???!!! That weak shit deserves disruption!

Is that the best we can do? I'm sorry, but that shit will never be Goodby's "Got Milk" nor will anything ever be! You can't drink Solar, so stop trying to tell people to go drink it and like it because it's the right thing to do!

Let's go for the Creative Gold for Solar! Let's shoot for the Moon, and miss and hit fucking Mars! I'm that guy who's willing to risk it in order to reach new customers like ever before and propel a company's product into iPhone status!

I don't want to wake up tomorrow thinking "what if..." I want to wake up and do the damn thing!

I want my kids to look up to me and say my Daddy helped stop Climate Change! 

And of course, I want to look pretty fly doing it. Cheers to the Agency Life!

Check out my crazy agency life on my Instagram acct today at @sdadman and follow me on Twitter at @frshprnzcleantc Also nominate me as your #KloutHero using my @frshprnzcleantc handle here: http://blog.klout.com/2014/02/do-you-know-klouthero/

#EpicFail: @FourSeasons Social Media Manager Fails To Tweet Apology To NBA Star @Baron_Davis For Racial Profiling

I normally don't go looking for controversy on Twitter and suggest people get #fired, however I follow @Baron_Davis on Twitter as I'm a huge fan of his new show #HowIRockIt on @ESQTV! I also consider myself an up & coming fashion stud and follow @Esquiremag. And I sincerely believe that what happened to him yesterday was wrong and if @RealDonaldTrump were the CEO of @FourSeasons he'd tweet this pic below directly to the Social Media Manager...

Why you ask?

Yesterday, #MLKday2014, was supposed to be just a relaxing day. I was simply minding my own business preparing for all my regularly scheduled Twitter chats about social media marketing, when Baron's Tweets come into my feed! 

It was if a bomb dropped! He was so mad he used the wrong handle, which should have been @Fourseasons or @FSVancouver. No matter. The only tweet he recieved was this:

Every major lessons I and all the Pros I know have spent all year chatting freely about via #MMchat, #SocialChat, #AtomicChat, #KloutChat, #CMMinds, #RonR, etc. were shattered yesterday afternoon! This is seriously a tweet by tweet, real life #StreetMBA lesson for social media community managers:

What do you do?

My first thought was hopefully the Social Media manager tweets him an apology within the next few minutes. He's clearly upset and the man has 874K plus Twitter followers and this could get ugly! 

Well, guess what happened? The social media manager sent nothing. No apology = #Fired! Seriously, if it were Jordan or Tiger, would you apologize then?

Fact: @Fourseasons only has 99k followers. He has more influence than you on Twitter!

As an accomplished Creative Director, I would be furious if @Fourseasons were my advertising client because I would be scraping to earn not just his business but his influence to make my campaign successful! The best mobile, native advertising campaigns in 2014 are heavily interconnected with influencers and earned media and the results to drive sales are in my scope, not this Social Media Manager! The lesson to avoid here: @Baron_Davis could easily go on to @CNN and crush my campaign (if I were the agency of record)! 

In fact, I would have scheduled a meeting with the CMO and the PR staff to offer the man a deal:

- Offer a written (and tweet) apology

- Insist an investigation and policy review

- Donate $10,000 donation to his favorite charity 

In exchange, I would request @Baron_Davis tweet the following:

Thank you @Fourseasons for doing the right thing! I accept your apology and generous donation to my favorite charity! #imhappynow

Goal: Make his #MLKday!!!

Superior social media engagement should be the aim of every luxury brand around the world and this blunder servers  for the rest of us as an opportunity to watch in horror and decide:

Apologize or Not.

It's your move @Fourseasons.

#FreshPrinceofCleantech

Yeves Perez, The Twitter #Bowtie Creative Director

My marketing friends and I were recently tweeting compliments back and forth about the bow ties we were all wearing in our profile pics when something incredible happened. True engagement! We're all Twitter junkies and that's what we do! We're also the cool cats, so I had to share the magic we made together taking men's fashion to the next level!

And before we knew it... We envoked @CrowTheif into the conversation! 

Well, guess what happened next and why Twitter is so awesome? Melissa, the owner of CrowThief jumped in!

The tweets back and forth went nuts!

 

And 100 tweets later... The World's first Twitter made bow tie was born! 

@frshprnzcleantc: "As a successful Creative Director, I thrive on my talent for #trendspotting as well as being a #trendsetter." Yeves Perez, #freshprinceofcleantech

Photo credit: Tessa Dee Miller

Lastly, Andy said it best...

We will definitely do this again... Maybe at a conference to show others how true social media engagement is done!

Why Solar Needs To Win Marketing And Advertising Awards In 2014?

What do we want? Sales!

When do we want it? Yesterday!

Well, if you had met or exceeded your sales goals then you wouldn't need me. Am I right? I'm here to disrupt the industry with award winning work and provide new compelling reasons to lease Solar in 2014.

If 'moving the needle' is truly the objective then it's time to do something different according to where your Solar business is on the adoption curve. See below:

Based in the number of customers most companies currently have, my estimation is that all Solar Companies in the US are in between the early adopters column and barely into the early majority. After years of following the teachings of Geoffrey Moore, author, speaker, advisor, best known for Crossing the Chasm, I am absolutely clear that Solar needs to get more strategic in digital marketing and mobile advertising. 

Mr. Moore's teaching are simple: As you maneuver thru the adoption curve, the compelling reason to buy is not the same bewteen early adopters, the early majority, and the late majority. So what's my solution to do kick sales into overdrive?

Peanut Butter and Jelly:

Marketing solar in 2014 needs to achieve a clear cut "peanut better and jelly" moment where plug-in electric cars and solar are sandwiched together in an effort to create context of: saving lots of money everyday! Context is King in 2014 and branded content needs to drop the hard sales pitch. Once context is established, targeting electric vehicle owners to adopt solar will lead to setting sales records. 

Why electric car owners? With US plug-in electric vehicle sales up 84% in 2013, that means there's movement within the early majority (also known as "Pragmatists in pain") who've discovered their compelling reason to adopt. In fact, InsideEVs.com and the Detriot News have both report:

“In 2013, automakers sold nearly 49,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles — up 27 percent over 2012 — and 47,600 electric vehicles — up 241 percent, according to data complied by Ward’s Automotive.”

And guess what American City is the epicenter of plug-in electric vehicle adoption? Sunny San Diego

San Diego Now Has More EVs Per Capita Than Any Other US City: http://t.co/AV4ap44fOa

Why San Diego? Um, well... Maybe because we endure some of the highest gas prices (high cost of living) in the country, and the majority of drivers commute less than 50 miles per day. In fact, several plug-in owners acquire a second electric car within a year or two after there first purchase after realizing the money saved on a daily basis. San Diego Gas and Electirc estimates there are roughly 5000 plus plugin hybrid, electric vehicles currently on the road in America's Finest City and 2014 is the watershed for pragmatists in pain.

The definition of Pragmatism alone explains why marketing solar in 2014 must adapt: ^[1]Pragmatism is a rejection of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Instead, pragmatists develop their philosophy around the idea that the function of thought is as an instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy.

What's the silver bullet to target electric vehicle owners via advertising? Mobile and Native advertising... Duh!! Fact: the majority of all electric vehicles owners also own a variety of mobile devices and use apps on a dialy basis related to their vehicles especially charging. This also includes news apps. 

Now, I'm not going to give all of my secret sauce away, especially my advertising concepts, however pay attention this year to who's doing what and when because I'm determined to win  lots of these (below) for solar in 2014:

Follow myself and Geoffrey Moore on Twitter. My handle is @frshprnzcleantc. They don't call me the Fresh Prince of Cleantech for nothing!

Geoffrey Moore is a Venture partner at MDV. Chairman emeritus of The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, TCG Advisors.