Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

I wrote about the 2012 Budweiser Superbowl commercial briefly yesterday here on my blog. As I walked around the office, I saw it on a number of co-worker’s screens throughout the day. It was shared all over Facebook and Twitter. Clearly, it’s been a hit online and it’s not even Superbowl Sunday yet!

But a coworker of mine has been going on since yesterday about how he thinks this commercial is a fake, or staged. I’ve been brushing him off, laughing at his accusations, telling him to JUST BELIEVE in the ad because it is all that is good in my world right now. But no, he had to go and find proof of his theory.

So impressed with his dedication to the truth, I offered up to him the option for me to showcase his theory here on this blog. The following comments are his thoughts (and his alone – I take no responsibility!) on this commercial, along with the evidence he has carefully collected.

I like the Budweiser Super Bowl ad. Please, don’t get me wrong.

I don’t like being mislead.

Immediately after watching for the first time I knew that this spot was staged. Maybe not the initial introduction of the flash mob or announcers, but once everyone was in place, the spot was set up.

No one seems to believe me.

Obviously I needed to find concrete proof.

The announcers indicate clearly that a portion of the spot is overtime. We see number 22 break free of a defenseman, just over his own blue line, in the middle of the ice, into what looks like a two man breakaway.

The player with the puck has now shifted to the top of the circle on the right side of the ice getting ready to take a slap shot, on net.

The player has now shifted to the right side of the net, shooting a slap shot (indicated in photo 2) to the top right corner of the net.

First issue: You can see clearly through the first three photos that the player is a right handed shooter. As any hockey player who shoots right handed can tell you, to execute the slapshot indicated in photo two and three, you would have to open up your body completely to direct your shot into the top right hand corner.

Second Issue: It is indicated starting with photo 1 that the player with the puck on the two man breakaway is #22. When you look at photo 2, you can clearly see that the player getting ready to take the slap shot is wearing Nike hockey pants – clearly indicated by the giant swoosh on his pants. However, earlier in the spot, there is a clear photo of the player wearing #22 with Bauer hockey pants.

Still don’t believe me?

Keep the spot rolling and you will see the player, presumably who scored the goal. Yet, I don’t see a Nike swoosh on his pants, nor a Bauer logo.

How did this goal most likely happen?

I’d venture to guess that player #22 and player #10 were on a two man breakaway and player #10 scored the goal – not quite as compelling as a slap shot from the top of the circle.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said earlier – I like this ad.

I don’t like being mislead into believing that this was a real game that happened organically.

So, what do you think dear readers? Is this a case of careful editing? Or do you think throws the whole authenticity of the spot, the idea that Budweiser actually executed a flash mob without the team knowing it was coming, into question? I would love to know your thoughts.

(And don’t shoot the messenger.)

Edit: Want to update anyone who reads this blog post. Briar, Manager Corporate Affairs of Labatt Breweries of Canada has reached out to me via email to set the record straight on this blog post:

Just read your blog post and wanted to set the record straight! I can assure you that the ad was not staged at all. There was a great deal of planning that went into place to make this real, authentic and genuine – the fans and some production crew did not know what they were filming until the day before. As for the players, we told them we were filming a documentary on hockey and needed some footage.

I was actually there that night in the stands and saw the entire event unfold. Every minute was a complete surprise and we didn’t reveal to the teams that it was a Super Bowl ad until two weeks ago.

As I said in my email, I’m incredibly happy to hear this. I thought it was a fantastic spot and I think the team at Labatt and the ad agency responsible for this did an amazing job.

Thanks again, Briar, for reaching out and providing additional information on this spot.

I was listening to Eric Portelance‘s podcast, Attention Surplus, last night and they were talking of the idea of ‘vocation’ with Pat Thompson. In the podcast, Eric and Sean mention this quote that they found in Pat’s book that I thought was really interesting:

“Vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s great hunger.”

Following some discussion on this, Eric brought something up that I’ve thought of a lot as I progress through my career, which is: What if doing something that makes you happy, that you’re good at, is something that some would consider a ‘not good thing’?

Case in point: Advertising.

I’ve had so many people say to me in different ways, “Well, you know. You’re not like out saving the world or children from hunger. How can you justify this job to yourself?” (OK. Maybe not a lot of people have said that. Maybe that’s largely been an internal dialogue with myself. Some have said it to me, definitely. But I do wrestle with the question a lot internally more so than the world poses the question to me.)

To me, I love advertising. There’s no other industry I would want to be in. I think I’m well-suited for the work, and the feedback suggests that the work is well-suited for me. But I’m not necessarily doing good in the world, right?

The way I’ve been currently justifying it, is that advertising will happen whether I’m involved or not. It is not something that will go away should I turn my back on it. So if it’s going to happen, what can I do as one person to make it better? Because I strongly feel that I will make it better.

Advertising to me is a service. It helps consumers make better informed decisions. It helps raise awareness for solutions to a need that consumers wanted (or didn’t know they wanted until that very moment). It helps drive this economy. And sometimes, when done right, it can help touch you, emotionally… In a way that you are rarely touched. In a way that spurs you into action. That makes you want to do something to right this world.

This ad, which I saw last week in the Cannes Lion Award reel, is one such ad. I can’t watch it without wanting to 1. cry, 2. do something about it.

To me, this is why I’m in advertising. I want to be a part of inflicting emotional beauty on the world.

This. Is. Awesome!

A couple weeks ago, I applied to The 2011 Notable Awards, an award that recognizes Young Professionals in Canada who take a “360° approach to: success in business, a well-rounded social life, and, of great importance, giving back to the community via charities, not-for-profits, and NGOs.” I applied because I felt I fulfilled these criteria and fulfilled them well.

I got the email this morning I have indeed made it to the next round in the Media and Communications (including Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations) category. HURRAY!

The way it works is the top 4 Nominees in each respective categories with the most votes by October 31, 2011 will move onto the final round, where a panel of judges will select one person from each category to receive the 2011 Notable Award.

I’m not the biggest fan of voting contests because it really ends up boiling down to who has the biggest audience or who is the best at nagging their friends. So don’t expect me to bugging you all the time for votes. Just not in me! At least Notable is at least trying to mitigate that with offering the final round as a judging panel only.

However, if you feel I am deserving of such award, I would really appreciate it if you could throw a vote my way. You can vote for me, Emma Brooks, in the category of Media and Communications, here.

If not for me, vote at least to make Sad Cad less sad:

Anyone who is a long time reader knows I have talked a lot about net neutrality. It’s a frustrating issue for me, simply because I feel I can talk about it all I want but it doesn’t really change much.

But we’ve hit a point in Canadian history where we actually have the chance to help impact how issues surrounding net neutrality get shaped in the years to come with the upcoming election. If you’re looking for a quick cheat sheet on which parties support what when it comes to the future of digital in Canada, I highly urge you to check out the following link: Digital Future Survey: The Parties Respond from OpenMedia.ca. This is a great guide for anyone needing to get an understanding of where each parties’ interest lie.

And please, do yourself a favour, and vote on May 2.

Well, if you use Facebook ads to do it, apparently the answer is: $17.46.

Yes, this is what I do sometimes when I’m bored: I geek out with advertising. I buy ads to promote my own awesomeness.

I mean, c’mon, that ad was pretty freakin’ spectacular:

This ad does not lie. One. Bit.

Let’s look at some of the “Emma is Awesome” campaign facts:

• I ran this campaign from March 24-31 and spent a total of $17.46.
• I got a CTR of 0.066%. If you compare this to the recent Webtrends whitepaper, “Facebook Advertising Performance Benchmarks & Insights“ - the paper indicates that in 2010, Webtrends saw an average campaign performance CTR of 0.051%. Yay! My ad was compelling! [I mean, cough, of course it was.]
• I spent an average CPC of $0.58 – higher than Webtrends overall 2010 campaign performance CPC of $0.49. #EmmaFail

My thoughts on these results:

• For $17 essentially, I got 45,000 impressions. Now, as we all know, impressions don’t really mean much these days. Impressions mean, essentially, there’s a chance that maybe someone saw your ad. And we all know ad blindness is increasing. But still, I’d pay $17 to promote my blog for a fraction of 45,000 users’ attention! In my personal opinion, this is a good deal for my blog.
• AND! I got 30 clicks. That means 30 Facebook users (assuming 100% unique clickers) visited my blog. So how did this impact my traffic? Well, I pulled a graph of my traffic for the week before, the week during and the week after the campaign ran.

Uhhhh. Pretty much no effect on my traffic. So what does this tell me?

Options:

1. Facebook has sucky users!

2. The ad was misleading.

3. My blog wasn’t very interesting.

It’s my expert opinion that the only true answer is clearly Option #1. Because Option #2 and #3 just simply aren’t valid arguments. My ad was amazing and my blog is pure awesomesauce. That said, there may be some bias in those last two statements.

Even with an attempt to filter for the following interests:

• Live in Toronto
• Between 18-40
• Likes advertising, digital media or Publicis Groupe
• College graduate
• Speaks English

Facebook didn’t drive what I would consider quality traffic. Though if I’m to be honest, the ad didn’t set up user expectations well. Anyone who clicks on an ad like the one above probably isn’t looking for the advertising musings of some 25 year old redhead living in Toronto. You know who is? You! (Congrats on having excellent taste, by the way.)

Anyway, it was a fun little experiment to see if I could drive further traffic to my blog. I can tell you I won’t be using Facebook again to create interest in this here blog. But perhaps in the future I’ll play around and see how I can continue to bring additional interest to my sometimes-updated blog.

So, what about you? How do y’all feel about Facebook Ads? Ever tried them,  for professional or personal reasons? Success or failure stories to share? Would love to hear in the comments! Cheers.

Once we get over the question of, “What does a Digital Strategist do?” the next most asked question is, “How do you get a job as a Digital Strategist?”

So, I present Emma Brooks’ “Top 5 Tips for Getting a Job as a Digital Strategist”:

ONE. LEARN
The first thing I would recommend is to read, read, and yes, read. Try to find out as much as you can about the digital ecosystem (oh, did you like my buzz word there? I made it myself. WINK.), both here in Canada and abroad.

I’m talking general information, just to help you get a good lay of the land. Ask yourself questions like:

How many people are on Facebook?

What are brands doing on Facebook?

How many Canadians are on Twitter?

What’s their favourite reasons for using Twitter?

What’s the next up and coming app? Why?

On average, what’s the penetration of broadband internet in Canada, compared to other countries?

What are some factors affecting consumer trends in digital (UBB, Netflix, Groupon, etc.)?

Dig. Get a sense of what’s happening out there. And continue digging. (You’ll be doing so for the rest of your career…)

TWO. DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

OK. Now you’ve got a good overview of the world we’re living in and the important thinking starts. Start looking at what brands, advertisers and marketers are doing out there in the digital world. Do you like their campaign? Was it smart? Did it drive business objective? (Can you guess what those objectives were?) Why or why not?

Form your own opinions about this. I guarantee you, you will be asked some kind of question about the latest and greatest campaigns out there in an interview. Have several campaigns in your head and your own opinion on them. And don’t worry if you’re hyperventilating at this big scary idea of coming up with insights all your own. Start looking around. What are other advertisers/digital strategists saying about the campaign? Read their thoughts to help start your own forming.

THREE. TALK TO OTHERS

All right! You’ve got a good idea of how digital is moving these days, you’ve even got some great thought starters on that last “viral hit” for Old Spice. Now what? It’s time to hit the streets, my friend. If you don’t have a lot of connections to the industry (like me, coming out of school, native to Nova Scotia, heading to Toronto on my own for the first time), don’t panic. There are two secrets to getting your foot in the door and I’m going to share them with you:

1. Cold calling
2. Hit up your connections

1. Cold calling: Seriously? Yes. Seriously. Yes, it’s the digital age but it’s much, much easier to ignore an email from an overzealous newbie than it is to ignore your phone ringing. Call around and do so until someone answers the phone. And here’s the secret sauce, ask for an informational interview. I will say it again, just to make sure you got it: Ask. The. Person. On. The. Phone. If. You. Can. Come. In. For. An. Informational. Interview.

Got it?

Good. Here’s why, as my friend Jon Perry so eloquently said yesterday on Twitter: “Informational interviews are like taking employers down the candy isle. If they see something they want then they’re probably gonna buy it.”

Look. No one can really say no to an informational interview, provided you ask nicely enough. It’s not like they’re promising you anything, except a little bit of their time. And people in advertising are really nice, generous people (most of them, at least) who remember what it was like starting out. Generally, they are more than happy to sit down for a beer and talk about their experiences. Or a phone call, if distance is an issue.

So, you meet and wow them, and then suddenly, they know they need you on their team. They’re not going to let some other agency snap you up! They will fight for you. This is how you get a job through cold calling.

2. You also need to hit up your connections. “But I have no connections!” you may whine. Shush. You do. Assuming you’re coming out of university with some kind of related degree (marketing? advertising?), your professors are your connections. I did this exact same thing 4 years ago with my Marketing Strategy professor, Dan Shaw.

I went into his office, politely asked if he had any connections in Toronto and he was kind enough to hand me a bunch of names and contact information of people in marketing/advertising. And, because they knew Dan, they graciously granted me some of their time for an (you guessed it!) informational interview.

But, here’s the trick: At the end of the meeting, whether it will result in an actual interview or not, ask them if they feel comfortable passing along some of their contacts. This is how you expand your contact network and it can work wonderfully. Trust.

FOUR. SHOW YOUR PASSION

So you’ve got your informational interviews set up with a number of agencies and people in the community. Remember your stats! Make sure you have your opinions! And one last thing? Don’t forget your passion.

The reason a lot of us get hired – and I think especially at Publicis – is because we show our passion for this amazing, crazy, frustrating, exhilarating industry. There can be some very long hours in this industry and at the end of the day, the only thing that will keep you standing is your passion. So you better show it. People will recognize it, get inspired by it, and want your passion to infect the rest of their agency.

You come off as apathetic (or worse – underwhelmed) and you can bet you will never get a second meeting.

FIVE. START ELSEWHERE

I firmly believe that any Digital Strategist should work first on the creative or accounts side of an agency as their primer role. It can offer a viewpoint you won’t get in all your years as a Strategist and one that I think is incredibly valuable. It helps you understand where the creative or account people are coming from, and the kinds of challenges and frustrations they deal with on a daily (hourly) basis. It can help you develop empathy, which will do wonders when they’re in your office, completely stressed out about a project.

My first 6 months at Publicis, I worked as an Account Executive. Working on the account side offered me the chance to learn skills I continue to use, as well as helped me understand the process of an agency much better. So if you’re not finding much luck getting hired as a Digital Strategist right out of school (and generally I would say most agencies don’t hire Jr. Digital Strategist – someone correct me if I’m wrong), think about whether you can get in with an account or creative position.

So, these are my tips to you, future Rockstar Digital Strategist. How did you find them? Helpful? Confusing? Out of date? Beyond awesome? I would love to hear what you think – and if you have any to add to this list – in the comments.

When you get into advertising, you sell your soul to the devil.* Didn’t realize you sell your opinions too.

I’ve been a huge supporter of net neutrality for a long time here on my blog, with most of my wrath going towards the CRTC. Recent decisions by the CRTC have allowed for UBB (usage-based billing, or if you’re on Twitter #UBB); I’m not going to get all ranty and CAP-LOCKSY on you about this – though I strongly desire to. Many others who are quite more informed than I have done and are doing so, so I shall save you the misery. However, I was tweeting quite a lot today about this. It upsets me, it angers me, and I feel powerless, which makes me feel even more angry and upset. Vicious cycle, you see.

A couple of my Tweeps (that’s Twitter + Peeps for you, Mom) reached out to me to ask how I felt about tweeting about something that directly involves one of my agency’s clients. I have been on this account since I was hired waaay back as a wee Account Executive in June 2009. I understand their concern (curiosity?) but here is my take on this:

First off: I absolutely believe that companies that wish to structure their product offerings how they see fit are perfectly within their rights to do so. This is capitalism; they are running a business, not a charity.

Secondly: My anger is directed at the CRTC. What I am tweeting about is how a commission that was set up to protect the interests of the consumers is resulting in decisions that do the complete opposite. Do these decisions affect my client? Sure. Does this mean I have to support those decisions? Well…

The quote above I wrote today. Working in advertising, you tend to question your moralities every now and then. Are you creating a better world? Would your efforts and resources be used for the greater good elsewhere? Are you truly providing value for the world? I deal with this internal monologue every few months. But I love what I do and view it as the cost of doing what I love. What I didn’t realize was that working in advertising may mean I’m not allowed to publicly share an opinion of mine. As someone asked me, “Wouldn’t it be higher ground to refrain from entering the fray in personal comments?”

My gut feeling tells me no. This is not the time for higher ground. It’s a now or never intersection right now with net neutrality. We need to do what we can to support this incredibly important idea. Right now.

But these discussions got me thinking: How far does that client arm reach?

Are we supposed to also be brand ambassadors in our personal lives, as we work on their campaigns? Can we not separate our business life from our personal? Or are these two inexplicably entwined when it comes to advertising? I remember a coworker of mine at a lunch with me once. She grabbed a Pepsi from the shelf, then thought better of herself and took the Coke instead. “We are working on their campaign,” she explained. “It would be bad if anyone saw I was drinking Pepsi.” I thought to myself, “Really? Why?”

I love my job. I’ve said this a million different ways. I love this industry and I love the work it produces. And we are in the service business, absolutely. My clients are lovely people and I enjoy working with them on a daily basis. But I don’t believe it means I now need to fully support my clients’ business in everything I touch. I will where I can and where I feel comfortable, of course. I think this is perfectly acceptable for most people.

The question really is, then: Should I tone my opinions down in order to ensure good standing in my company and with my clients? Is this another cost of the job; an unforeseen one that I had yet to encounter? Maybe my gut feeling is wrong. Certainly, I can do no harm in taking advice from those who have been in the business longer than I. As my boss put it to me today, “You can have your opinions. Just ensure they’re not recorded anywhere.”

So what do you think? I would love your input on this.

Hey ladies!

You know what I wish I had?! A date with an absolutely flawless man who talk to me in a completely condescending way about something they will NEVER GET – literally and figuratively: Periods!

Yes, you’re a man, Brad, Ryan and Trevor. And only men can be the experts on feminine hygiene, according to BBDO Toronto. Because us women? Well, according to these ads, we’re mute and dumb! We don’t get complicated things like menstrual products. It’s just too HARD to understand what products we use every month and you never do. My brain hurts! All I want to do is watch you take off your shirt and educate me on what it’s like to be a woman.

Let me show you what I mean:

Oh yes, and there’s two more ads like these that are JUST as creepy, ladies. Yaaaay.

First of all: What the fuck were the planners thinking on this one? Did Stayfree even GET planners for this account? Let’s be clear about this: This strategy? This direction? Completely missed their target. Like, you missed this SO hard that I’m surprised you even know what a man is and a woman is. If you’re not sure, they are COMPLETELY SEPARATE GENDERS. OK? OK!

BBDO Toronto, I ask you seriously: Did a man come up with this (creative) strategy? Because it reeks of man.

This infuriates me. It creeps me out. I’m bored! And I’m not even angry I’m bored at these terrible, terrible ads and that you wasted 7.5 minutes of my life because I’m too pissed off at everything else about these commercials!!

Look: I’m a woman. I try really fucking hard some times to be everything society tells me to be. I try to be cute. I try hard to keep my weight down (because apparently I love “thinness”). I try hard to be a great cook (and succeed! I make a mean pasta dish, seriously). I try to volunteer and then feel guilty about not giving enough time or money. I can’t even try to like chores.

To have a man come onto my TV screen, look me in the eye and outshines me in every way does not make me want to date him. I don’t even want to be near him. I certainly don’t want to listen to him tell me about how great Stayfree’s panty liners are in a “just smile and nod, darling” way.

Here’s a better idea for Stayfree: Get to know your target. OK? You’ll find out some interesting things! Like, we’re not fucking dumb! And we don’t look to men to tell us what to buy! I KNOW! DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING!

Just to clarify this for you, this is your target:

Now that we have our target, let’s write a strategy!

“Stayfree’s feminine products work just as hard as I do.”

Stayfree? Call me.

Thanks to my mom for passing this along to me. As you asked, here are my thoughts about it!

Well, I was going to write a blog post about my recent obsession with Tumblr and how WordPress compares but honestly, finding out that someone may have hijacked your credit card kind of deflates the mood to write, you know?

So I took a taxi downtown this evening to go see my good friend, Jon Crowley, celebrate his birthday in style at #loserkaraoke. When it came time to pay the lovely taxi driver, my credit card was declined. Ruh roh, as my lovely Tumblr would say. Not good.

I stood on the street for about 10 minutes, on my phone. I have two Scotiabank numbers in my adress book. Apparently the first one has regular business hours (wha?) and the second one just gave me beeping noises (ummm. ok.). So I grab my suddenly suspicious (and, I might add, new) credit card and call the number on the back. And get stuck in an infinite loop of automated menus. Pressing a bunch of zeros doesn’t even help! Gaaaah.

Finally, in desperation, I grab my bank card and call the number on the back of that! Successfully navigating  the menu this time, I get put on hold… for 10 minutes.

Now, I am a rational person. And it just so happened I was in quite the relaxed mood tonight. But I cannot imagine what someone who is freaking out about the credit card being stolen would feel about that kind of experience. And hasn’t Scotiabank been touting they’ve won awards for their customer service? It’s not playing out well right now for them. I am not impressed.

So I give up, and go inside and enjoy myself for an hour or two. Sadly, and sorry Jon!, I could not stay too long. The first thing I do when I get home is check my balance online. Yep, something is definitely up.

So I call the last number again, and get put on hold for 5 minutes. I don’t really understand why it took so long at 11pm on a Thursday night for Scotiabank to answer. Must be understaffed. Finally! Someone answers. After answering all the questions correctly to identify myself and explaining the situation, I am told that yeah, there might be some suspicious activity and did Scotiabank call me to let me know they’ve possibly locked down my card? Of course not. Seriously, that would have been nice to know BEFORE I got in the cab, you know?

And the kicker? The Scotiabank system is currently updating and the CSR cannot access my information right now. I now get to wait 1/2 hour for her to call me back when the system is ready to deal with me.

This is ridiculous. Scotiabank, I’ve been a customer of yours for a very long time (you know, since birth and all). 24 years of loyalty. TWENTY-FOUR. And up until recently, I would never dare dream of switching to another bank. I like your brand. I like your ads. I like the people I’ve dealt with. Customer service has been pretty good, for the most part, in my experience. But this kind of thing is the kind of incident that makes me take a step back and assess things.

Things like how you still don’t have an iPhone app. That would be nice. Or how you excitedly just introduced text alerts to customers’ phones. Excuse me? Text alerts? Isn’t that so 2004? I’m being serious here. As someone who enjoys the new and exciting things the internet and mobile industry can bring me, your lack of investment in keeping your technology up-to-date is a huge red flag to me.

So please. Call me back. Fix this. And tell me you have something shiny and new for me to play with. Then I think we’ll be ok.

I try hard not to get too personal on my blog here but I think it is fitting for me to look back at this year and review. 2009 was a very trying year for many people I know. It was a huge year of transition for me. Starting this blog was part of that transition to establish myself in Toronto once again after I returned from traveling.

So I’ve decided to do the Year in Review meme that’s going around. This is one of my most personal blog posts I’ve ever written here. Please be gentle.

Read more…