Since I left for my Euro-trip, I haven’t been able to stay current with my Mad Men episodes. I purchased the first two episodes on iTunes and will buy the rest before my flight back to San Diego.

I love the stories about advertising life in the 50/60’s. During my trip to Amsterdam two weeks ago, a friend of mine was smoking Lucky Stripes. That is a brand featured on the show. I’m not a smoker, but I haven’t seen that brand in the US. Is it still around? Anyways, I look forward to catching up on the series. Stay classy Donald Draper!

Joe Duffy is one of the world’s most accomplished designers. His client roster is really whose who in the world.  Joe was in town for a meeting with Jack in the Box representatives and gracefully accepted the invitation to speak.

Joe Duffy started by talking about his history.  Five years ago, he decided to simplify his life and started Duffy Design.  Duffy and Partners, his previous agency, had been around for a long time.  He talked about how the internet has brought new choices to consumers.  Joe said that we have to give our consumers what they want instead of pushing it down their throat. Nothing really too deep there…

Joe gave examples of the creative process behind some of his new campaigns.  Key learnings:

• Your most important client is yourself. Promoting yourself is more effective than cold calling.
• Nothing in design is ever permanent.
• Process: insights, essence and visual brand language.
• Don’t surprise the client, have visual briefs that guide you towards the final decision.

It was very interesting to see the creative process behind the re-branding campaign of Fresca and the Bahamas campaigns.  For both campaigns, they got their clients involved from the beginning to establish ownership on their part.  The Jack in the box rebranding campaign’s theme was “jack as the challenger.” Joe mentioned that the personality of Jack wasn’t coming across in the stores like it does in commercials. They changed the menu boards, logos and packaging.

1. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Sports Bigs program.
2. I started this event three two years ago, making this our 3rd combined Holiday Party with the PRSA New Pros. The Rotaract Club of Downtown San Diego joined in the festivities in 2007.

The combined holiday party in 2006 was my first official Ad 2 event as Programs chair. In all honestly, the party didn’t end up very well, as attendance was down. However, we rebounded last year and had an excellent show. I’ve handed off the reins of programs to some very competent Ad 2′ers and I’m confident that tonight will be a good time.

When I started my presentation, I asked the students why they work in advertising. The best response was from a girl who said that she “would like to help portray women in undeveloped countries.” I was really motivated by the purity of their career goals.

Mark showed pictures of McDonalds logos over the years and McDonald’s very first commercial. Surprisingly, Williard Scott was the first actor behind Ronald McDonald. He pointed out that McDonald’s advertising is great because of the elements of fun, funny, clever, exciting, poignant, surprising, etc…

McDonalds new marketing strategy

In the 21st century, McDonalds incorporated a new business model. They needed to improve their operations and update their marketing strategy. On the operational side, stores are being redesigned to have a “fast casual” feel, like Panera Bread. Marketing wise, their commercials are up to date with alternative sports and include starts like Tony Hawk.

Mark Carlson’s major responsibility at McDonalds is to make sure that his brand has consistency through the different advertising tactics.  McDonald’s has 75 pr firms, 60 ad agencies and 70 vendors and suppliers. He showed some examples of commercials that were axed because they didn’t hold up to their quality control standards. One example video had excessive calls to action. He pointed out that national headquarters is in charge of brand and local does retail. To help the retail operations, McDonalds provides branding guidelines.

McDonalds and controversy

McDonalds has numerous controversial issues that they have to deal with. These include nutrition, obesity, brand appropriateness, and celebrities gone wild (Kobe Bryant, Justin Timberlake, etc.) To cut through the gray area, McDonalds has a “Golden Arches Code” book that provides guidelines for the brand. It’s 120+ pages!

Since McDonalds are so big, they are behind the times in interactive media. McDonalds media buys are 75% on prime time television. DDB Tribal is their interactive agency.

As far as the AAF presentations, Mark Carlson put on the best show. He was an engaging speaker, had excellent visuals, and gave gifts!

Shelley spoke about performance reviews for advertising agencies. From the evaluators perspective, good questions to ask are:

1. Are you a good problem solver?
2. Do you have a strategy for the account?
3. Are you providing a high level of leadership?
4. Are you engaged with the client at every level? Are you contributing beyond just advertising?
5. Are you creating an atmosphere that is fun and inspiring? Do people want nto work on your accounts?
6. Are you training, developing and supporting your people?
7. Are you taking financial stewardship of your accounts?
8. What are your short and long term goals right now INSIDE or OUTSIDE of work? How can you and your employer help you achieve them?

After her training and development presentation, she showed some commercials that Wieden + Kennedy created. The Old Spice Commercials were really funny.c

Shelley gave a good presentation, but I don’t think that it was appropriate for this type of conference. The attendees at the AAF Western Region Conference are all either Presidents or upper club management. It would have been perfect for a student advertising club or maybe an AD 2 meeting.

Read more about yesterday’s AAF Western Region, Day one summary.

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.

For the 2nd damn event, our microphone went bad right before the event.  Fortunately, Tom was able to project and it didn’t seem to be a problem. Tom was an excellent speaker. He spoke about his career path in the brewery and how he has risen up the ranks. Tom is a down to earth guy, and associated well with our audience. He started out working at a distribution facility, and then hooked up with MillerCoors.

Tom’s presentation ended very strong, as he showed slides from the San Diego Padres – MillerCoors activitation plan. These included pictures of joint branded products. I was really impressed with how MillerCoors promotes the Chargers, who are a Coors brand.

Now that it’s over, I’m handing down the event planning rains to the new programs chairs – Mike McGinnis and Ashley Warren. This will free my time up on Presidential duties.

Pictured from left: Chris Rothwell, me, Cheri Reeves, Jenn Baker, Stephanie Lyndon and Kyle Henley.

These happy hours are the best networking events for San Diego Young Professional’s who are looking to advance their careers. Hope to see you on Thursday.