One of the enduring cliches of the advertising business is the brainstorming session, in which ad people bat zany ideas around until genius strikes.

Our agency is comprised of graduates of traditional agencies, so we’ve had to endure more than our share of these time-wasting posturing sessions. Between the agency principal who already thinks he knows what to do, the account exec whining for the safest, most obvious and ineffective route, the hipster art director pushing for something suspiciously like a cool video he found online, and the inevitable aspiring copywriter with literally dozens of bad ideas, brainstorming sessions end up being more like braindrains for the competent people in the room.

We have long believed that truly bright and talented people work best when given some clear parameters then left alone. Then we come together to discuss a few stellar ideas rather than wasting our time and the client’s money separating wheat from chaff. It was heartening to see this article affirm our approach.

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2635-Workplace-Issues-Need-a-good-idea-Brainstorming-wont-help/?SiteId=cbmsnhp42635&sc_extcmp=JS_2635_home1&gt1=23000

Remember when e-mail was new, and direct mail and “fax blasts” got replaced by “e-blasts?” That’s when many marketers learned what spamming was – by unintentionally becoming spammers themselves. Of course soon enough spam filters created another challenge for marketers – how to run the spam gauntlet and get their messages delivered. Marketers were well aware of the inefficiencies of fax blasts and direct mail, but at least when they programmed a phone number in the fax machine or put an address on an envelope, they had some confidence their message at least made it to the target’s office or mailbox.

With the advent of social media, many advertisers came to rely on, for example, Facebook posts, thinking that everyone in their network and everyone in their network’s networks would receive their messaging. To some extent this is true, but it assumes a universe of very active Facebook patrons who see every post in their news stream and Like it. Not a likely scenario.

We find a great complement to social media is our old friend email. Among the many benefits of social media is the ability to gather inquiry and build an email database, maximizing the marketing benefits of social media and also allowing customers to elect to receive email correspondence from our companies directly in their inboxes.

Here’s an interesting post on the subject from a technology venture capitalist:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/05/social-medias-secret-weapon-email.html

We no longer create the advertising for two of the top five master plans in the nation – including several years of Mountain’s Edge being #1 – but having two Las Vegas master planned communities in the top seven nationally might be an even greater accomplishment given the market conditions. Kudos to Focus Property Group, Team Power Marketing, Purdue Marion & Associates and all the builders who have responded so well to the market. We’re proud to be part of this great team.

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