“It’s boring to talk simply about the tools because the tools are just a way to reach people. We can argue the details endlessly (I don’t believe much in Klout, for instance), and we can announce the premature death of Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook and whoever. But it doesn’t matter. When we talk about restaurants (the tools), we mostly talk about the food (the content). When we talk about bands (tools), we talk about whether the music resonates (the content). When we talk about a good book (the content), we never ask what type of computer it was written on (the tools).

Should you put ads on Facebook? If that’s the worry point, you’ve got bigger worries. Is Pinterest worth your time? Who knows?”

This paragraph, from Chris Brogan, sums up my feelings on the matter completely. It’s time to be done talking about social media as though it is content or a thing in itself. It’s time instead to realize that it is simply a channel for content. A channel, as in a strait connecting two different bodies. Because that is all social media is. A tool, a channel, a strait, connecting different bodies because of their shared interest in a specific piece of content.

People often ask us about using social media and how we have leveraged it to find success for our clients. One project we are asked about quite frequently is the launch of the BMW 1 Series…click here or Google “Rampenfest, BMW” to get up to speed. Clients and prospects wonder what the magic mix was…what was the plan? What tools did you use? Was it Facebook or YouTube that did it? But I would argue that while there were certainly some smart plans in place, and there certainly need to be, it was the CONTENT that created the success. It was the feel good, humorous, fresh approach to the subject that caused people to view this phenomenon ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Bob Hope wasn’t famous because he was on TV. Bob Hope became famous because of his heart and the fact that he could deliver one-liners like a machine gun.  Just like Michael Jackson didn’t become the King of Pop BECAUSE he was on the radio. Michael Jackson became the King of Pop because he brought us something new…he made us think…and he could sing and dance like he was from another world.

It is the content that connects us. The tools, just make it possible.

No, wait.

Facebook just sucked the living soul out of Instagram.

The blood-sucking began soon after Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion back in April 2012. First, it was the integration of Instagram feeds into Facebook timeline. Then, it was the unlinking of twitter handles and Instagram shares. Now, it is the implantation of Facebook’s timeline layout DNA into Instagram’s soul, a la web profile pages.

Facebook just sucked the living soul out of Instagram.

I fell in love with Instagram’s “speakeasy” element. It was a mobile-only experience, focused on capturing and enhancing the beauty of photos. It had an underground artist meets artist feel. No one could Google my name and find my Instagram feed. It wasn’t a popularity contest or self-promotional. Users gathered on Instagram to partake in a shared joy, unseen to the World Wide Web. It was all about non-curated and non-judgmental self-expression, discovery, art, inspiration.

That was exactly what made it cool. And, now it’s all gone.

Firstly, the Instagram web profile pages look just like Facebook’s timeline. Templated or copied designs never, ever earn cool points.

Secondly, it’s now available on the Web, which means anyone can view my photos. Prior to this, I was never concerned about what photos I should or should not post – I posted what I felt was art. But, now that the World Wide Web has access to comprehending my shots (and because we should all manage our digital reputations), I am forced to censor my definition of art.

And, that, my friends, is the first step to diminishing creativity and self-expression. Congratulations, Facebook. You just sucked the living soul out of Instagram.

What does this all mean?

My theory is that Facebook and Twitter friends and followers will now be duplicated over onto Instagram, creating three hugely homogenous pools of indistinguishable followers. The duplication already exists for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn connections are Facebook friending me. Twitter followers are connecting with me on LinkedIn. Next is adding Instragram into the mix.

It is certainly a smart move for Facebook as they can now begin chipping away at Twitter’s competitive user numbers, but it sure does demolish my ever-so-carefully crafted organization and segmentation of network-specific use.

Currently:

Facebook – widen my network, and keep up to date with acquaintances

Twitter – the Advertising TLC channel of my life; people I nerd out with

LinkedIn – professional networks of friends and acquaintances

Instagram – private art galleries where no one can bother me

In the near future:

Facebook – moshpit of people

Twitter – moshpit of people

LinkedIn – moshpit of people

Instagram – moshpit of people

See. Facebook just killed Instagram. Who’s next?

Creative ideas take many forms. These days, a lot of creative work is digital and social. But at GSD&M, we still love making things by hand whenever we can. And nothing is quite as satisfying as the happy little accidents you get from screen printing. We’re lucky to be in a town where that craft is alive and well. Here are a few of our friends who are doing it every day.

Thanks to our friends at Industry Print Shop, Coronado Studio, Sanctuary Printshop and Nakatomi Inc for letting us in on your craft.

You can find more about the designs from GSD&M and other local Austin artists on our Pinterest boards here:

http://pinterest.com/gsdm/gsd-m-poster-designs/

http://pinterest.com/gsdm/screen-printing-in-austin/

I heard myself saying these words yesterday, “Well, really, it’s advertising. It’s not as though there is a right or wrong answer. Advertising is subjective.” And for whatever reason, those words stuck with me throughout the day, and I began to question whether this statement was actually true. Is advertising subjective? Am I actually in a business with no right or wrong way to address problems? No real discipline required for problem solving? I have always enjoyed the fluidity and creative freedom that comes with this industry, but yesterday I felt a bit depressed about it, honestly.

If advertising is completely subjective, can one ever really be an expert or even an esteemed representative of the field? Probably not. If it’s all guesswork and sporadic, unexplained hits, with a lot of misses…what AM I spending the majority of my days thinking about?

And then it occurred to me that advertising is only subjective when the consumer isn’t considered or understood. Because advertising actually shifts from subjective to objective when consumers are identified, evaluated and understood.

And when this happens, when you are able to identify your users (or personas), there becomes a clear methodology for identifying problems and providing the right solutions. Yes, I did say the “right” solutions…

And that, my friends, is where data comes into play.

Oh man, did she say “data”? Blech. Boring. Overwhelming. That’s probably what you’re thinking…. But listen, if I get the value of data and understand (roughly) how to use it, then you certainly can, too. I’m not a statistician. I just understand that if you want to deliver something of value to someone, you better figure out who that person is, what they want and why. And DATA…data enables us to do just that.

Through the collection and amalgamation of data points—from tools like MRI and Simmons to ethnographic research, social audits, user testing and even existing data from assets like sites or applications, we’re able to understand our consumers better than ever before. We’re able to take the most relevant data points and learnings, paint a picture of the most common and most important user groups and develop products, solutions and messaging that is highly relevant to them. Some call these paintings personas. And all call this type of insightful and thoughtful planning successful.

Why? It’s like Roy has always said: “Go to the consumer. The consumer is always right.” That’s really what data enables us to do. And that’s really all that persona development is…going to the consumer, identifying them, evaluating and understanding them…and making decisions based on this information.

Because it’s only through consumer understanding that we’re able to turn the corner from subjectivity to objectivity. And being objective, versus subjective, is a good place to be in an industry full of flash-in-the-pan brands and agencies.

By Kathie Haydon

Data and large amounts of it is nothing new to anyone who works in media. I can remember sitting in the media lab as an assistant media planner on a big DOS computer with its blinking yellow cursor typing in code lines for MRI from a 1,200-page binder.

Yes, the digitization of pretty much every channel has opened up the floodgates when it comes to data, and we in media, the original number geeks, are embracing the fascinating evolution of our practice. It makes us smarter in everything we do, from audience development to channel planning to instantaneous optimizations and closing the loop with business results.

But then there is the dangerous side of this data influx: the tendency to lose all constraint and become a data hoarder just for the sake of having it, as well as the darkness that can follow as you climb into a deep hole for days (even weeks) trying to make sense of it all. The cardinal rule of data is quality over quantity. It’s only as good as the actions that come from it. If you’re spending 80% of your time compiling and sifting through the data and only 20% of your time thinking about it, then you have the ratio all wrong.

The good news is that with the sophistication of data comes a whole set of tools that are helping us rewrite the 80/20 rule. The most basic example is Clear Decisions—this tool has transformed the act of entering MRI codes into a DOS computer to get one set of simple demographics against a brand into sitting at your desk and being able to drag and drop coding from multiple sources, as well as manipulate it to build complex audiences while creating crosstabs against thousands of data points with the click of a mouse.

But it’s not just about the existing industry software solutions that are being rolled out to keep pace with the data available; it’s about creating your own tools to fill the gaps or overcome subpar products.

We are working on the next iteration of our longstanding engagement tool, ALLI Plan. Simply put, we are refreshing an already powerful product to better account for changes in how people are consuming media. The key measures of attention, loyalty and lifestyle will remain, but expanding those measures to pull in the deeper data out there—ranging from social chatter around TV shows to time spent with magazines on their tablet editions. This expansion of data is only valuable if it can be layered on our existing baseline measures in a way that makes sense and is easily updated.

GSD&M’s proprietary dashboard, Telescope, is transforming the way we report to our clients. It’s made us faster while reducing propensity for human error, the net being better results. Why? Because reports that used to take us 14 hours to compile now take less than two. We can get to the more actionable insights more quickly, and the tangible outcome is substantial improvement on key performance indicators—in some cases 70%.

Welcome to the new world—where we spend 20% of our time compiling information and 80% thinking about. That is a powerful new ratio.

By David Hughes

Our client Katie Livesay (Senior Analyst) talks about L.L.Bean’s largest issues with analyzing data and how implementing the Telescope platform helped automate data flow/changed the way she views reporting.

What is the largest hurdle when it comes to analyzing your data?
The most difficult aspect of analyzing our digital data was being able to get a quick snapshot of program performance. Data was coming in from various sources and required manually pulling and aggregating. This took eight to 10 man hours each week in addition to equal, if not more, agency time.

GSD&M recommended implementing Telescope to help automate your data flow. What did you have to do differently to get ready to use the tool?
We worked with the team to show how we wanted to connect our site-side analytics with the ad-serving data. I set up an automated nightly report to be delivered to them, and that was it. They figured out how to show the data in a single view, and that was it.

How has Telescope changed the way you view reporting?
Telescope has enabled us to view program performance daily (vs. weekly) and has freed up staff hours to focus on optimizing program performance and to proactively respond to the marketplace. Telescope simplified not only the reporting process but also reporting deliverables, which can now be easily shared with senior management.

Has Telescope taken the manual burden out of reporting?
We no longer need to pull data from multiple sources. Automated reports are sent nightly to Telescope, and they handle the rest. It just happens.

In business today, many feel trapped by the amount of data that is created by the marketplace interacting with our brands. We feel compelled to measure and have a desire to understand every ounce of data, every tweet and every line of a report. Data is real time, complex and a seemingly uphill battle in regard to the exponential rate at which it is created. More data was produced in 2011 than in the entire history of mankind through 2010! What do we do? How do we give our data relevance and meaning? Is it possible to transform our data into information? Ultimately, how do we produce actionable business insights from data that allow us to make decisions to move our brands forward? To get a handle on the fire hose of ones and zeroes, we must define success, categorize data into relevant groups, integrate analytics into every department, use the correct tools and automate this process.

Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts.” It is easy to want to measure everything, but it takes true talent to show that what you are measuring is important. This is the single greatest thing to focus on and will allow you to filter out the noise. Concentrate on segmenting your data to expose a possible insight into understanding a specific persona that aligns most appropriately with your brand. Invest in the time to understand what data you can access and choose tools that allow you to quickly transform that into bite-size portions of information. Additionally, one must be patient, because it takes time to correctly set up a process to understand and process your data.

The sun has set on October and we’ve quickly moved onto the month of letting your facial hair grow in a way that makes people say, “What’s with the Mo?”. That’s right – Movember, the 30-day challenge for the men of the world to grow moustaches to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues. Last year, all the men of Movember raised over $100 million in one short month. Amazing.

GSD&M’s Team Mopack is back for our fourth year and this year we are NOT messing around. We have 16 men at the agency who are partaking in this year’s grow-off, including long time rivals Bill Bayne and Jefferson Burruss. Who will raise more money this year? Only time will tell.

Pictured below is newby Arthur Stewart Jr who shaved off his 3 year old Mo to grow a new one for a great cause (beyond just looking good). Also pictured is first-timer Lucas Potter seen here clutching onto product from our newest client Barbasol.

It seemed appropriate that we get more use out of our barber chair to kick off ‘stache season, so we hired Master Barber Grant Gomez from Wooten Barber Shop to come in and take care of our men.

Team Mopack is now clean shaven and the Mo’s have already begun to grow in. We ask you kindly, beloved blog reader, can you help out the Mopack? Last year we raised over $10,000 and this year we plan to raise even more. You can learn about our men and their Mo’s at our Mo Space here: http://us.movember.com/team/439513.

Shout out to Mopack Member Stephen Rockwood for designing the team poster.

Today’s the day. You’ve been putting off cobbling together a Halloween costume for weeks.

Fear not. Visit your local Walgreens store for any of these costume ideas:

1. Hall(s) & (Quaker) Oats: Grab both logos and pin to shirt.

2. Chip on the shoulder: Hit up the game aisle and secure one poker chip to a shoulder.

3. As Seen on TV guy: The merchandise you always avoid. Wear a Snuggie, carry the 11×17 TV remote and handout PedEggs.

4. Hallmark aisle: Pick out a handful of your top Hallmark cards and secure to clothing. Getting emotional just thinking about it.

5. All your eggs in one basket: Venture into Walgreens’ food section, purchase a dozen eggs and a basket. Easy.

Now, have fun.