Month: Aug 2019

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Disney and Comic-Con Chicago

DISNEY+

Disney is on fire. They have owned the box office for the last couple years, with 2018 worldwide sales being $7 billion. This year sales are expected to be higher thanks to an amazing lineup featuring Captain Marvel, Avengers Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, The Lion King and later this year Frozen 2 and Star Wars IX.

Building on that momentum, on November 12, Disney+ launches, which will rock the streaming world as we know it. Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo and Pixar programming will now be centrally located within this streaming service. At D23 (the official Disney Fan Club and named after 1923, the year Walt Disney founded the company) the stars came out and discussed the launch. A ton of new content is coming: Star Wars spinoff the Mandalorian, Marvel She-Hulk, Marvel Moon Knight, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, and What If?, live action Lady and the Tramp and Obi-Wan TV series are just a few highlights. And more to come….

Comic-Con Chicago

On the heels of Disney+ convention was Comic-Con Chicago last week as well, which I had the pleasure of attending. Disney+ was a hot topic given the Marvel connection. Stars came straight from Disney23 convention like Jeff Goldblum. He’s launching a new series on Disney+ called The World According to Jeff Goldblum. Comic creators, like Mike Watson, speculated on the impact of the move to Disney and where the Marvel franchise is going coming off the Marvels EndGame. Several theorized that women heroes will become the primary focus like the Captain Marvel movie. Another hot topic was what the impact will be to Spiderman, with Sony (Spider Man rights holder) and Disney supposedly not getting along. The concern is Spiderman not being in future Marvel films. I assume money wins and they will figure out a solution.

Given that this was my first Comic-Con, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But it was actually a lot better than what I was envisioning, with the highlight being Zachary Levi, most recently the star of Shazam. He had an open ended, fan Q&A session where nothing was off limits. He touched on being typecast from the Chuck series, how he loves the Shazam role (being able to play a 14-year old kid who turns into a super hero), to his struggles in his personal life. At one point he got choked up and was very genuine. The audience appreciated his openness.

If you have debated attending a Comic-Con, I’d recommend going. Chicago is smaller than the main one in San Diego but still a ton to do – talented artists with amazing illustrations, anything and everything comic related for purchase to Q&A, trivia and meet and great of celebrities – from Rookie of the Year to WWE wrestlers, to this one having John Travolta (ha).

Some topics and stars don’t have a natural tie in to “comics” but just shows you how this comics are no longer just a niche, it has truly crossed over to mainstream. And here to stay.

Impact on our Space

The importance of Disney will only grow as they become bigger streaming content creators. If there is anyone who knows how to do content, it’s Disney so I am fully confident they will be successful. The impact to Netflix is already ongoing, losing several series that were unique to Netflix. And their stock price is trending down as of the last several months. It will be interesting to see their response as well as consumers – will people now pay for both, drop Netflix for Disney+. It will especially be interesting to watch what parents do as Disney+ is not going to have programming higher than PG-13. Also, the impact to ESPN+ and Hulu connections all being figured out as well.

As the streaming space continues to become more and more fragmented (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and now Disney+) and still some favoring traditional cable, what is the breaking point?

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Top 8 Learnings of Working Remotely

I’ve turned into a coffee drinker (if you consider hot skinny venti vanilla lattes coffee….). I never thought it would happen. But working remotely, bouncing from client to client, I find myself working out of coffee shops, mostly Starbucks, and drinking coffee.

And I’m not alone. The amount of people working remotely is higher than ever before. One major factor is the “gig economy”, defined as a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. Intuit predicts that by next year, 43% of the American workforce will be attributed to the gig economy.

The benefits of working out of coffee shops are high, including the noise helping be more creative, escaping day-to-day distractions being able to focus more, and the rub off effect of seeing others there working hard.

So now being a coffee aficionado and spending a lot of time at Starbucks, below are my top 8 learnings:

Store Layout

Just like types of drinks, there are a ton of different store layouts. Seems like every location is just a little different, which is a good thing. Explore to find which one you prefer best (large/small/narrow, etc.). Given the diversity, I like to rotate between different locations.

Use the App

The Starbucks app is fantastic. As a loyalty member, you get free drinks/food once you hit a certain threshold. It also helps speed up the ordering process. I haven’t attempted to use the pre-order functionality, preferring to order from a human.

Dress Warm

Even in the summer, plan to bring a sweatshirt. They kick up the air conditioner, which they say is due to helping prevent the employees from getting overheated. Be prepared.

Comfortable Seating

All about personal preference but most have several different options for what type of seat/table to work in. The key is finding one that you like as you’ll be there for awhile. Really nice are the tall bar seating along the window.

Power Up

Another key is finding a great location that is near power cords. Kind of amazing that more table locations don’t have accessibility to outlets.

Stretch

Make sure to walk around and stretch your legs. Don’t recommend longer than about four hours at one time.

No Conference Calls

Don’t be that person. If you need to take or make a call, go outside. Or go sit in your car. No one wants to hear your conference call.

People

You never know who you will run into. A lot of great people work there. Able to choose to converse with others or tune out with ear buds.

Yesterday at a local Starbucks while waiting for a client meeting to start, I looked up and someone was talking to me, saying “Yea, I’m homeless“. Not sure what to say to that, just uttered ok. Obviously down on her luck. Ended up getting a gift card that said “You’re Awesome” and then had an employee give it to her after as I left. Hopefully it helped make her day a little better.

So each day is different. Different environments. Different experiences. Enjoy!

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Are You Ready for Some….AI?

Football is upon us. And if you are like me and are one of the over 40 million+ people who have a fantasy football team(s), it’s draft time. So you are probably prepping for your upcoming draft. No matter how you prepare, you’re probably tapping into AI to help aid your selections.

Artificial intelligence is now engrained in fantasy sports. An example is last year’s ESPN and IBM Watson partnership. More and more fantasy sites are following suit. From predicting boom/bust to player and weekly scoring, artificial intelligence is improving the accuracy of predictions.

https://frntofficesport.com/ibm-watson-espn-fantasy-football/

AI is also used to create those weekly recaps that are customized content that reviews how your team performed that previous week. It is amazingly detailed, to the point you would think a writer creating them.

So good luck this year. And just know you are leveraging AI every week to beat your peers.

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Developing a Client Portfolio Strategy

All clients are important. They should be made a priority, respected and given 100% effort to help them solve their business problem(s).

Each client is different. Maybe they’re focused on consumer communications. Or B2B. Maybe they’re looking for more strategic help or creative or having a production focus. Some have smaller budgets and some larger. Some are focused on blocking and tackling deliverables and some on winning awards. Much too often a one size fits all treatment is used by agencies. The agency solution must be customized to each client’s needs. These differences should be a consideration when building and managing an agency.

Another consideration is diversification. In today’s climate, the importance of diversifying continues to grow. With the average client relationship lengths decreasing, in-house studios growing and total budgets shrinking, having a diverse client set of clients to mitigate the risk of loss is important.

One way to view diversification is by looking at the agency client roster as a portfolio, just like the stock market. We all took an introductory finance class that talked about putting stocks into four categories:

  • RISING STARS:
    High market share in a
    growth market
  • QUESTION MARKS:
    Low market share in a
    growth market
  • DOGS:
    Low market share in a
    slowing market
  • CASH COWS:
    High market share in a slowing market

The same approach can be used for analyzing your client roster: 

  • STARS: established clients that want/expect award-winning, breakthrough work. Ability to create great work to propel them upwards.
  • COWS: stable clients that have a large volume of work, potentially needing blocking/tackling support and where the ability to do breakthrough work is less common. They are a known brand and are of good size.
  • QUESTION MARKS: less established clients that with breakthrough work, could springboard their business to become well-known. 
  • DOGS:  hopefully you don’t have any of these but it could be a relationship that is trending the wrong way. Or there aren’t a lot of opportunities.

So to develop a client portfolio strategy:

  1. For each client, determine which bucket they fit into. Be transparent/realistic.
  2. Once done, look at how diversified your offering is as across the total agency. 
  3. Determine where there are gaps (in general, it’s good to have a few in each of the main three categories).

This strategy can help you manage your resources and agency effort, as well as when tied in with your new business strategy, help identify areas of growth.

So, what does your agency’s client portfolio look like? 

For more marketing thoughts, please see my blog at: brianphelpsconsulting.com/passion

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Are you a “Specialist” or a “Hybrid”?

We have been trained to think we must be specialized in something. To focus all our energies. Because the belief is, to excel you must have a singular focus. Even at a young age. Look at athletics. Kids are told to choose a sport rather than enjoy multiple. 100% focus on baseball rather than enjoying other sports like football, tennis, and soccer. Or to specialize in one instrument rather than experiencing and enjoying a range of instruments.

The same is true in the workplace. Are you an account person or strategist? Business or creative? Art director or writer? So that the goal is you can do that function over and over again and excel at it through repetition. And thereby make more money.

Well, it’s a myth. Empirical evidence shows that “hybrids” or “generalists” (a term that itself is poor, giving the feeling you are an expert in nothing) are stronger, better for organizations, and will be more successful. They’re more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see. 

A great new book and one on the #1 on the New York Times Best Seller’s list dives deep into the power of hybrids, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and details the inaccurate stereotypes. 

Taking it a step further, with AI and the power of machines, specialists will be replaced by automation, making the need to have deep generalists only continuing to increase.

We are starting to see the growth of hybrids being recognized as a positive in the advertising industry. One tangible example is the “growth” of Chief Growth Officer. Adweek recently discussed this role, as the name implies, to drive growth—but in ways that serve internal functions (build cross-functional teams) and external (keeping an eye on customer demand; what does the consumer want from us?).

As you probably can tell I am a big fan of hybrids. I’m a little biased as I consider myself a hybrid, having played different roles throughout my career – from account to operations, new business, and strategy. Knowing and excelling in a wide range of areas, in my opinion, is critical to having a successful team, especially in a leadership position. This way you understand what it takes and you should have more empathy towards the team members who do the work.

However, I’m not completely dismissing the role of specialists. I think they have value, with the key being developing a ratio/balance of hybrids and specialists for the greatest success. For example, 70% hybrid with 30% specializing in specific tasks, like SEO, etc.

From an efficiency standpoint, it’s also better having one person that is can do more topics rather than having to pay for several people.

So the questions for you is: are you a specialist or hybrid? Do you agree in the power hybrids? And what is the ratio across your team?

Check out more business thoughts at: brianphelpsconsulting.com/passion

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