AAF Western Region, Day 1

Scott Bedbury, CEO of Brandstream Inc. was the featured speaker on day 1 at the AAF Western Region Conference. The conference is held at the Seven Mountain Resort in Bend, Oregon.

Scott Bedbury has worked for several major brands, such as Nike and Starbucks. He started by talking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how they relate to advertising. The categories that he mentioned are to:

• feel safe
• feel recognized
• feel welcomed
• feel valued
• feel part of something bigger
• feel reward for your effort
• feel loved
• feel love for someone else
• feel empowered
• feel successful

Scott mentioned that if you go through these categories with your eyes closed, it will help you visualize and really experience your thoughts.  He also emphasized video to tell your story. Scott showed an internal video of Starbucks that was produced 13 years ago.  The video emphasized the history of cafe’s and how they have inspired dreams for centuries. The purpose behind the video was to remind Starbucks employees that they are a people company who happen to serve coffee.

Advertising Epiphany’s

Scott Bedbury mentioned a couple of “advertising epiphany’s”. My favorites epiphanies are:

• The worlds best brands connect themselves to timeless human needs in the face of emerging trends.
• Be a great storyteller: Connect the brand to the consumer to create a compelling communication.
• Everything matters. You must have the complete experience for your brand to be successful. This means customer service, pricing, clean facility, etc.
• Never stop learning or you’ll get passed by!

How to create great advertising

Scott Bedbury also gave a list on how to create great advertising:

1. Irreverence, childishness and impatience are often linked to creative genius.
2. Keep your creative briefs very loose. He once saw a 200 page creative brief. Nike’s creative brief’s are 1 page.
3. Plus the boards: If you need to spend more money to make the campaign better, go for it!
4. Learn to play with wild cards: Don’t over brief campaigns.
5. Big ideas are better than too much frequency in the media.
6. Having edge means someone will inevitably get cut. Not everyone will be receptive to your ideas.
7. You can only wear so many clothes at once.
8. Focus groups are for illumination, not for covering your ass. Don’t use focus groups to reconfirm your ideas.
9. Someone needs to be accountable.
10. Be open to new ideas, speak up – but back it up, and convene to the nearest bar when in a rut. The “Bo Knows” campaign for Nike was formed at a bar, after normal meetings proved to be unproductive.
11. Don’t confine your relationships to presentations in conference rooms.
12. Monitor your brand and do something with the results.

On a whole, I thought that Scott put on a good presentation.