Slater's Garage Ads & Audio

Put Down the Duckie

Brett — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:14:17 +0000

This clip from Sesame Street first aired back around 1988. I first saw it at Boston University in Walter Lubars‘ “Writing for Broadcast Advertising” class in around 1992. Yeah, we watched Sesame Street in college.

Apart from being really catchy, and having a great celebrity cameo roll call, there’s a great lesson here.

Each of us carries stuff with us that prevents us from doing our best work. Call it “baggage,” distractions, a preoccupied mind… It could be something as simple or mundane as a chore you have to do later that’s on your mind now. If you hang on to those distractions, if you let them occupy the forefront of your mind, and steal your attention, it will be MUCH more difficult to do the other things that need doing.

So, in order to give yourself fully to whatever task is at hand, be it your job, a class you’re taking, your family, your spouse or partner, you have to lay those distractions aside. As the song says, “You have to put down the duckie if you want to play the saxophone.” You can’t play the sax with a duck in your hand, and you can’t do your job, or do well in school if you’re holding on to other worries in the meantime,.

The cool sub-lesson comes toward the end of the video, when the owl tells Ernie that he can just pick the duckie back up when he’s done with the sax. No one’s saying you have to forget the other stuff. Just set the distraction aside for now. It will still be there later — most likely, just as you left it.

It will make you a better employee, a better student, a better spouse, a better everything if you give all of yourself to the task at hand, at least for the time being.

Good luck! *squeak! squeak!*

By the way, how many of the celebrities in the video can you name?

At Slater’s Garage Ads & Audio, we help small businesses put a unique voice to their marketing through a combination of audio, video and social media. To find out how we can help you bring your marketing to life, contact us today.

“I Saw/Heard a Great Ad Yesterday…”

Brett — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:04:30 +0000

“…but I don’t remember who it was for.”

How many times have you had that conversation with friends, family or co-workers? Happens a lot. Too much, if you ask me. For example, here’s a pop quiz (and don’t cheat):

That TV campaign with the adult sitting in a kindergarten classroom asking kids which is better, fast or slow, bigger or smaller, doing two things at once or doing one… What Brand is that campaign advertising? If you know the answer right off the bat, good on ya for paying such close attention. It’s for AT&T.

You may have thought it was for a bank or investment company. It sure feels like a bank ad, doesn’t it? Maybe because Ally ran a similar campaign a few years ago. If you said, “I think it’s for a phone company, but I’m not sure which one,” you were close. But my guess is, the average viewer isn’t really sure.

Think of all the times you’ve seen or heard an ad that made you laugh, made you cry, made you feel something… and you remembered the feeling, but not the Brand.

From an advertising standpoint, that’s an ad that hasn’t done its whole job. Establish the emotional connection, check. Memorable creative, check. But that’s not enough. The listener/viewer has to walk away from that message knowing who said it. That’s the very definition of “Brand awareness,” and it’s what leads to increased market share. It’s why ads work in the first place.

Here’s a great example of an ad that I believe does this job well:

Maybe you found the ad funny, maybe not. Humor is subjective, as they say. But there’s no mistaking who that commercial is for. Because the product is such an important component to the storyline of the spot, there’s little chance anyone watching could say, “I think it was for some kind of candy, but I’m not sure which one.”

If you’re a small, local business, making that connection is even more important. National brands like Skittles and AT&T have the benefit of being able to throw millions of dollars into an ad campaign, so even if the message is weak, the spot can air enough times to eventually get viewers to remember them. However, most local businesses don’t have that luxury. The advertising budgets for your local small business is probably in the thousands, or even in the hundreds of dollars monthly. So each ad you run has to be as effective as possible. The message must be meaningful to the viewer/listener, and the viewer/listener must be able to recall who told it to them. Otherwise, you’ll have no chance to turn that viewer/listener into your customer, and the money you spent to write, produce, and air that spot has effectively been wasted.

Making a memorable commercial is crucial to the success of your business’ ad campaign. Just make sure people who see or hear it remember you, not just the ad.

Good luck!

“Is This a Good Ad?”

Brett — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:48:07 +0000

This question can’t be answered until after the ad has run, and we go back to the client to find out if sales are up, or foot traffic in the store has increased, or web traffic has improved.

If the ad worked, it was a good ad.

That’s the only measure.

Share vs. Give Away

Brett — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:19:19 +0000

Over the last five or six years as a freelancer, I’ve submitted a lot of spec work to various contests, projects, and assignments – mostly in video, but some in copywriting and audio as well. Work done “on spec” means there’s no guarantee of payment out of the gate: You submit the work, and if the client likes it, they buy it, usually at a price they set, not you.

I’ve walked a fine line doing work either for free or on spec. On the one hand, why do the work without the pay? Some say when you “give it away,” it devalues the work itself, as well as the person (or team) doing the work. And that’s true, when you give it away. However, to me, even unpurchased spec work has value.

Each spec submission, whether bought by a Brand or not, has:

Allowed me to hone my skills in animation, videography, editing, writing, etc. Whenever I write and produce a piece, I exercise my Creative Muscle. Want to get stronger? You have to exercise.
Added to my marketing footprint. My storefront is my website, and my “foot traffic” is users of the internet. Each piece I’ve produced that’s viewable online is part of my portfolio, so when I’m courting a potential customer, I can say, “Visit this website and see what I’ve done in the past.”
Allowed me to share a bit of who I am with colleagues and with potential customers. This is an important one, because in the huge and faceless ocean of “Internet Freelancers,” sharing what’s unique about you is what will draw customers to you. It’s easy to find quality work online nowadays. But it’s not as easy to find people with whom you work well — who share or can understand your Brand’s philosophy or vision. When you share your work, you share yourself, and open the door for a more personal connection – a quality business relationship that transcends more than simple work-for-pay. In such a vast marketplace, those lasting connections are crucial to a freelancer’s success, and make you even MORE valuable than just the fees you charge for your services.

The difference between sharing your work and giving it away is that when you share, there’s still something of value left for yourself. When you give it away, you’re left empty-handed. While there was no cash for many of these projects, there was still value. I still got something out of the transaction, in the form of experience, skill, and/or exposure.

But eventually, the scale tipped the other way. The more experience, skill, and exposure I got from those early spec projects, the more inquiries and referrals I got for later paid work, which was the ultimate goal. Now that paid work is more abundant and time is more scarce, spec work is less valuable to me, so I do less of it.

There are still occasions when I’ll help a friend or colleague with a quick for-free voiceover or animation piece, but those are the exception, not the norm, and they’re done mostly in the name of kindness and good karma. But when I need a voiceover from one of them, I always try to make sure they get paid, at least something. That way, a track record of some universal value is established, so that a future client can’t as easily say, “Well, you did it for free last time, so why can’t you do it for free now?”

So should you do a “freebie” for a colleague, or a project on spec? That depends. If there’s no pay, but there’s still something valuable to you in the transaction, I’d say go for it. Otherwise, I’d pass.

Share often. But never give it away.

Photo Credit

A Social Media Success Story

Brett — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:28:20 +0000

For business owners who are new to marketing through social media, or who may be thinking about making the leap, one of the most popular questions that gets tossed around is, “How does all this Tweeting and blogging and Facebooking and podcasting translate to sales?”

It’s a question that’s not always easily answered, at least not right away. It’s akin to the similar question that’s often asked of conventional (or old-school) media: “How do I know it’s the radio spots [or the TV spots, or the print ads, etc.] that are driving business?” Much of the time, you don’t know, specifically. As I wrote in an earlier post, if your sales are up, and you’re advertising, then your advertising was effective as a whole.

Well, this just in: Last week, I obtained from one of my clients irrefutable evidence of a sales lead directly sparked by their social media campaign.

The Latimer Group works with executives, organizations, and teams on a global level to teach and improve strategic communication skills. We’ve been working with them since early 2008 to make social media and content marketing a large part of their overall marketing effort. Blogging, podcasts, and video are all part of the campaign, supported by a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

On Friday, I got this note from Dean Brenner, The Latimer Group’s founder and President:

“Hey Brett:

Wanted to share another quick success story on the social media front… Got an email last night from a guy I have known from the world of sailboat racing, known each other for many years, but are not close. He works for a major investment firm with a global presence.

He emailed me and asked me to call him, and got straight to the point. He said ‘We are connected on LinkedIn, and I get all your stuff. I don’t read everything you put out there, but I read a lot of it, and your post last week on ‘the executive voice’ caught my attention.’

We talked for a while about our capabilities, and he’s now requested a major proposal for a significant amount of work…”

Conversion through social media isn’t always so transparent. Usually, it works very much like advertising through conventional media: You provide a steady, frequent, and salient message to your target customers through those channels where most of those customers are, which eventually will prompt a sales inquiry when one of those customers needs your service.

The key in any marketing effort – including social media — is to assemble a campaign that makes YOU the one they think of first.

If you’ve thought about it, but haven’t yet made the leap to social media with your business, it would be our pleasure to talk with you about what such a strategy might entail.

Photo: Matt Hamm

6 Cartoon Songs Whose Names You Probably Didn’t Know

Brett — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:00:42 +0000

Not unlike Jerry Seinfeld, most of my exposure to anything resembling culture has been from cartoons. Here are some classical pieces that, for most of us, are probably more well-known from their use in animated shorts over the years.

1) Powerhouse by Raymond Scott — Carl Stalling, the musical director of all those Warner Brothers cartoons got a ton of mileage out of this piece.

2) Morning (Peer Gynt Suite) by Grieg — The classic “waking up at the barnyard” music.

3) Romeo & Juliet Overture by Tchaikovsky — The “falling in love” piece. Thanks, Spongebob.

4) Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Liszt — Tom & Jerry’s version. Bugs Bunny had one, too.

5) The Thieving Magpie by Rossini – This one’s been around the block a bunch, too, from Ren & Stimpy to A Clockwork Orange. Right, right, droogies?

6) Dance of the Hours by Ponchielli — No, not the guy from CHiPs. That was Poncharello. This one was made popular with its use in Disney’s Fantasia. Lots of recognizable moments in this piece. Most notably the “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” piece that starts around 2:03, and the fast paced bit with the alligators at around 11:24.

Animation Solution for Education

Brett — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:43:56 +0000

Last year, Slater’s Garage undertook our most sizable project to date. It took just about all of 2011 to complete, and it was a huge success for us. The Illinois Real Estate Education Foundation had initially asked us about updating their educational website, which they’d developed to teach middle- and high-schoolers about fiscal responsibility. This was before we knew very much about web design, so we offered another solution.

We developed a 6-part cartoon series covering topics like Debt, Long-Term Saving, Buying a Car or a House, and the implications of frivolous Credit Card use:

People in their 30′s and 40′s may find these videos quite reminiscent of the old Schoolhouse Rock shorts from our childhood, and that’s by design. I always loved those pieces, because they worked so well as educational material. They were memorable, short, entertaining, and most importantly, they aired constantly amidst Saturday morning cartoons on ABC. And “catchy and frequent” is always a formula for “memorable.” So our goal with this project was to emulate those traits as much as we could while still making sure the lessons were clear and concise.

Special thanks to John Hill, who partnered with me on this project

How to Deal With “Difficult” Clients

Brett — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:18:45 +0000

Have you ever spoken with or met with a potential client who had a reputation of being “difficult,” but after the meeting, you found that was not the case at all? That the perception didn’t fit the reality?

At least in my business interactions, no one has ever been as “difficult” as other people had warned me about. If you’re running into “difficult” clients, maybe the difficulty is on your end.

When you talk to that difficult client, are you talking about their “thing,” or your thing?

Are you interested – genuinely interested — in them, their business, and their challenges? Or are you trying to interest them in yours?

Are you talking about what’s important to them, or are you talking about your sales package, your features, and yourself?

Like Mia asked Vincent in Pulp Fiction: Do you listen? Or do you wait to talk?

I think you’ll find the more you listen, the fewer of those “difficult” clients you’ll run into.

Photo Credit

$5,000,000 Worth of Free Advice

Brett — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:04:48 +0000

Since launching in 2007, video crowdsourcing company Poptent recently paid out their 5,000,000th dollar in awards. I was one of the first freelancers to start working with them when they started, and I also happened to be the recipient of that five millionth dollar when Olivieri Pasta purchased an animation I did this spring.

Even though I’ve lost more than I’ve won over the last five years, I’ve learned something new with every Assignment I’ve entered. And whether you’re a “real” working freelance videographer/producer, or even if you’re an amateur who likes messing around with a camera, there are many advantages to getting involved with the Poptent community. Why? Well…

1) They pay you. That is, the brands they work with pay you if you submit a piece that they like and want to use. And they pay handsomely. Typically $7,500 for each video they select, but that figure may vary.

2) The Poptent staff – everyone — is incredibly responsive, approachable, and active in their online community. You need help? Ask in their discussion forums and “Townhall” space, and someone answers promptly and amicably. Whether it’s a technical question, a question about the creative brief you’re working on, or feedback on a submission, they’re all supportive and easy to work with.

3) Participation is good, even if you never win. With each submission you enter to a Poptent assignment, you have the chance to sharpen your skills as a videographer, build a demo reel, and see what other Creatives are doing in the space. The more you participate, the more people you’ll meet, and the more you’ll be visible.

4) You’ll exercise your creative muscle. There can be periods of “down time” for freelancers, when the paid work is scarce, or maybe you’re between projects. It’s times like this that Poptent assignments can help you keep your creativity honed. I’ve always said that creativity is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. So it’s nice to be able to have a place where you can noodle with some ideas when you may not have other irons in the fire.

5) It could lead to more paid work. Your work, when posted on Poptent and other places online, is left behind like footprints for people to see and follow. If you’re showing (and sharing) that work in the right places, and if that work is compelling and interesting, people who want to work with you will seek you out.

6) You get to be yourself. Brands come to Poptent because they’re looking for a unique voice for their marketing – an approach they may not have thought of. As a freelancer working on spec, you can let that unique voice of yours be heard. Of course, there’s a Creative Brief for each assignment, with guidelines that the Brands will want you to follow. But when you’re not beholden to an ad agency or client who’s paying you (yet), your creative freedom is a little less restricted.

7) It will make you a better creative. There are some REALLY talented people who are members of Poptent’s community. I’m continually blown away by the level of work that people turn in. And it always makes me want to step up my game on the next go-round.

Good luck!

Ravioli Speed Dating

Brett — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:07:17 +0000

Just wanted to take a quick moment to thank Maple Leaf Foods, Inc. of Montreal. They selected our animated “Speed Dating” video as one of two winners of their Olivieri Pasta “Mondays Made Special” assignment, hosted by the awesome team at Poptent.

I’m now able to say, unequivocally, that Slater’s Garage is an international company. Thanks, you guys.