Bliss at 30,000 feet

I had the most marvelous encounter today. A transportation, really. It seemed an angel all clad in billowy white descended from the blinding heavens, grasped my hand, and carried me up to the lofty heights of pure delight. An angel named Alaska Airlines.

At least, that’s how my flight from Portland to Chicago felt today.

In contrast, my US Airlines experience of a few weeks ago was Dante’s field trip to the deepest, most sulfurous levels of air travel hell, where winged Gila monsters bite your limbs and tenders while two fiery demons bugger you with a spiny lobster.

At least, that’s how it felt.

Oh, yes, US Airlines could have gotten me to Chicago cheaper. But I was resolute, paid my slightly higher tariff, and took the path of righteous customer service.

It’s hard to believe that both companies are in the same business. It was such a staggering difference.

Thanks, Alaska. Begone, US Airlines!

– Doug

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Our reading list

Here’s a list of some of the books we love most right now. Just in case you’re looking for something to inspire you or stuff in your carry-on.

Built To Last. Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. By Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras. This one’s a monster, importance-wise. One of the top two books we recommend to our employees.

Two Stanford business school profs did a six-year study of 17 of the most successful companies in the world, along with 17 also-rans. The companies have an average age of nearly one hundred years and the successful ones outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926.

Collins and Porras build a very strong case for the importance of values to the winners. A vital must-read.

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The greatest human invention

It’s wine. No question.

Fire was a good discovery, but we didn’t invent it. It just kind of happened naturally and we learned to repeat it. The wheel’s pretty rocking, but not nearly as satisfying. (Except maybe when I’m riding my motorcycle.) Sex…that was invented by some crawling mud things way before we came along.

Wine is one of the few human inventions that became a god. And it is the greatest thing we ever did for ourselves. One reason I love the business I’m in is because we get to work with both the Oregon Wine Board and Adelsheim as clients.

Which means drinking wine is work, really.

Here’s a nice article in the NY Times that talks about some Oregon wines. I love what he’s saying about boring American wines. We don’t make many up this way.

Yeah…I’ve got some work to do at home tonight.

Again.

– Doug

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The NYT hearts PDX

OK, terminally hip potential employees. Next time ID Branding comes calling and you have any doubts about whether you should move to Portland, read this and drool.

– Doug

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The Most Interesting Man rocks on

Few advertising campaigns actually go beyond advertising and begin shaping an ethos and a worldview for a brand. But that’s exactly what Euro did for Dos Equis in the still-running and still-brilliant campaign, The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Ever since I blogged about the campaign and posted videos on the blog, we have had a steady stream of visitors who come via search. They’re using search terms like “Dos Equis,” “Most Interesting Man,” “I don’t always drink beer,” “I prefer Dos Equis,” etc. They’re even misspelling “Dos Eqius.”

Since August, 2008, we’ve had 1887 recorded visits to that post. It’s our second-most popular on the blog. And lately the numbers have been growing. (48 people just yesterday.) Crazy.

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If you cut a worm in half it just dies

No matter what Buzz O’Halloran told you on the playground, it doesn’t work. A worm needs all parts of it’s body to be a worm. Cutting it in half with a broken Pepsi bottle just makes a small, tragic mess.

Same with strategic and creative work.

I’m not sure what makes people think, on both the agency and the client side, that you can severe these two things between two different agencies. I’ve seen it tried too many times.

We have a saying here. “Creative is just as strategic as strategy.”

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100% of what we do works

Many of you know the famous saying of retailing magnate John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

This once-true statement is based on an old model of branding which looks at advertising as essentially a cattle prod to spur sales. It’s a model based the now out-of-date and very dangerous sort of mechanistic notion of how a brand works. You zap the consumer with advertising, their nerves twitch, and they buy your product or services.

This used to be true. You just never exactly knew which ads were going to twitch the right nerves in the right people.

So making advertising, which, apart from a logo and some packaging,

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Advice for the grads

Hello, about-to-graduate future branding person. Whether you’re hoping to be a creative, an account manager, an interactive type, or a strategist, here are some tips on how to launch your career and get your first job.

I’m telling you all this because other people told me when I needed to know, and I firmly believe in passing it on. Also because I want the best and the brightest to think of ID Branding with some fondness. (Fondness never hurts.)

First, you need to decide where you want to work – specifically, which kind of place . And there are only two.

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The JFK Experience

So, imagine you’ve just had a bad customer experience with US Airlines and you’ve got four more hours to kill at JFK and the security person points out an electrical outlet and encourages you to move a comfortable chair across the room so you can use your laptop despite its low battery and suddenly you’re loving the security person and JFK for taking care of your simple needs rather than stubbornly holding to rules.

And you’re happy.

So often it takes so little to make people happy. Knowing someone actually wants to help you solve your problems, even if at times the problem can’t be solved, is sometimes enough. And if they are able to help solve your problem, they’re a hero. Either way the brand, represented by one human, has just forged a relationship with another human, and once there is a relationship, so much is possible.

– Doug

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The US Airways Experience

Imagine arriving at a check-in counter at Kennedy International Airport after an hour and a half taxi ride in rush-hour traffic for a flight that leaves in half an hour, which you know you can catch, and being told that you are five minutes late checking in and therefore will not be allowed on the flight, and the next flight is in six hours. And your service representative could absolutely care less and wonders why you’re still standing there. And then you discover that the woman who’s been yelling at you from the other end of the counter the whole time is the supervisor.

That’s when you know you have committed some unspeakable and obviously unpardonable sin, in this or some other life, and you have been condemned to US Airways, also known as Hell.

– Doug

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