The ad has a single line, “It’s hard to concentrate on a good book with a wet diaper on your mind.” The rest of the copy is made up of one letter, “p”.

Who do you think the line is for? For the baby who cannot hear anything except “p” as you read him/her the bedtime story? Or is it for you who finds it tough to concentrate when you know junior’s diaper is soaked again?

Any parent - especially new parents - will know that it’s hard to concentrate on anything else unrelated to the baby when you got one in the house. Having a baby means you got a lot to learn, from the whims and fancies of the baby to the new products and technologies that supposedly make parenting an easier job. Honestly, some of these things are not stuff that you really want to know. You just need to know you’ve got the right product to deliver the results you want. So it is a small wonder that harassed parents prefer to reduce the the number of new learnings by deferring to the professionals. And that becomes the responsibility of brands not to abuse that trust.

Pampers is just about the best known brand in the baby business. So whatever this market leader says about disposable diapers, we are willing to take it on faith that they are right and their products are cool. In all honesty, we don’t really want to read a thesis or listen to a 30-second voice-over why one type of disposable diaper absorbs more pee pee than another or how it’s design properly fit the baby’s bum so snugly that there’s no leakage, etc. etc. We choose to believe them. I bet Pampers know that too.

So Pampers decided to forgo the Product A-Product B comparison advertising and the boring “oh-the-diaper-is-wet-again” story, and chose to focus the attention to the lovey-dovey parent - reading bedtime stories.

The talents behind this charming Procter & Gamble (Cincinnati) ad:

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, USA
Chief Creative Officer:Tony Granger
Global Creative Director: Barbara Boyle
Art director: Peter Cohen
Copywriter: Jay Taub
Illustrator: Tim Jessell

Click here to read more GREAT ADS at this blog.

More reading on this ad: Adweek

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From young, I was told by parents, teachers and friends to think carefully so as to make the right decisions on all things. I’m sure you’ll have gotten somewhat the same advice.Nothing wrong with that, right? After all, our decisions are made based on what we believe to be logical, sensible and appropriate. Yet T. Harv Eker made one statement that really shook me:

The problem, however, is that your right choice many not be a successful choice. In fact, what made perfect sense to you may consistently produce perfectly poor results.

I honestly thought I have made the right decisions to reach the right choices in my life. Yet, when I look at the outcomes and results, some were lacklustre and a few were disappointing. Results don’t lie. No matter how I want to look at it “the other way”, I cannot white-wash the facts.

I realized to my horror that I have made the “right” decisions but I didn’t make them because I think, feel or believe they were the most viable option.

I made them because of Read the rest of this entry »

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People will remember “It’s Miller Time” as it is one of the more memorable beer slogans of all times. However, I reckon that “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer” is worth a special mention. This 1971 slogan revolutionize how a beer campaign can work.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the average Joes thought that all beers were made from basically the same stuff, under essentially the same brewing processes and cost almost the same. The only distinction is the taste. So you can imagine all the advertising guys focused on the importance of flavour. Naturally, “how good the beer tasted” formed the foundation of all creatives and copy for virtually all the beers.

Miller Beer changed all that in January 1971. Beer distributors from around the country attended the Miller Brewing Co.’s national sales meeting at Boca Raton, FL. The highlight was Miller’s launch of a nationwide advertising campaign revolving around the new slogan, “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer.” With this slogan and the advertising campaign, a new lease of life was given to the stale beer advertising scene.

The new advertisements still depicted tough and rugged macho guys (the typical Joe-Six Pack) drinking Miller Beer. The difference is these guys are drinking not because they enjoyed its delicate balance of flavors, they are drinking because they deserved a great beer after a hard day work. In essence, it’s Miller Time. For once in the past 20 years, beer advertising focus Read the rest of this entry »

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There were times others approached me to work together on a project. Yet there were times I sought others’ help in the same manner.

The project is just too big and on our own, the weight is simply too much to bear. Taking it on our own is suicidal and it will certainly jeopardize the client who entrusted us the work.

Alone, I am without leverage. Alone, I might become discouraged and disillusioned.Eventually I might even quit. Horror, isn’t it? Robert Allen shared in his “One Minute Millionaire” book that there are at least 6 forms of leverage: mentor, team, network, infinite network, skills & tools and systems. So, getting help is the only sensible thing to do.

Still, even with extra brains and hands, taking a project bigger than we can manage can be really frightening. And there lies one of the biggest differences between successful entrepreneurs and the not-so-successful ones. The successful entrepreneurs are willing to act in spite of fear. The not-so-successful entrepreneurs let fear stop them.

I’m in the marketing & advertising industry for more than 20 years, still, there were times I could feel numerous butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Some of my peers and my team didn’t quite believe it until I “collapsed” with exhaustion and relief when a big project was successfully completed. Successful wannabes have fear, doubts and worries, so do the more successful folks.

We are creatures of habit. This is exactly why T. Harv Eker emphasizes these 4 words, “act in spite of“. To be successful, we have to take action in spite of fear, in spite of doubt, in spite of uncertainty, in spite of our moodiness, etc, etc. One of the concerns to act in spite of is the “face” issue. What would others think of me if I say this, do that? The fact is people did not notice and mind as much as we do for most of the time. We can be our worst enemies. I know I am my own, my friends always said I’m too hard on myself and I beat myself up senselessly.

During T. Harv Eker’s “Train a Trainer” programme, there were 2 nights of “Outrageous Night” where more than 400 of us were challenged to dress, sing and dance outrageously. Basically, perform something we had never ever dreamed of. Many played it safe. They dressed really nicely and picked a safe song (including Happy Birthday and Ba Ba Black Sheep). Our friend wasn’t at all amused. He took to the stage the next morning and gave us a solid dressing down. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s with great pleasure that I introduce this month’s guest writer, Jef Tan.

Jef is a dear friend of mine. Not only that, he was my colleague when we worked in Pounds and Jordan. On top of that, he has been my boss. After he left P&J to start his own agency, he invited me to head his account servicing department. Those were exciting days where adredalin was perpetually high as we kept clinching coveted accounts over the big boys. It was with regrets that I left his agency to join the client side. Jef went on to make it big in the creative scene and won 3 awards from Creative Circles. However, it will be a big mistake to see Jef simply as an outstanding designer. To me, Jef is no ordinary designer. He can write excellent ad copy effortlessly to match his creative idea. He will unreservedly contribute his opinion on marketing strategies and tactics during brainstorming sessions. He is an asset in any team.

I enjoy working with Jef. When I started Versa Creations a few years, he was the only one I could entrust with the design of my corporate logo. I had expected nothing short of good work, still, he surprised me with the originality of his idea. Until now, my ambigram logo remains one of the most talk about features on my business card. Recently, David Airey - the popular designer-blogger - short-listed Versa Creations’ logo in his Logo Design Love Award.

Jef Tan is currently freelancing as an art director in Melbourne and is working on his first book. In his own words, “thankfully not about the creative industry”.

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Clients are a funny lot of people aren’t they? They are the reason why businesses like ours exist. But for most of us with the odious task of coming up with design solutions or any kind of creative work (and by that I mean, a unique genre of service where human emotion is a deciding raw ingredient), clients can sometimes force us to evaluate why we were ever in the creative business in the first place. After having spent a decade and a half in this trade, I should like to say that I’ve seen them all: clients who can bring us to the moon and back and of course, the ones that send us to the psychiatrist’s chair.

I’d like to offer a quick categorisation of the various kinds of clients that creative folks have encountered at some point of their professional lives. These are all pigeon-hole categories of course, common sense could never draw distinct lines between them all. I do this in the hope that for the younger lot of us, it might serve as some sort of an umbrella, you know, for when shit hits the fan.

The Devil

Let’s start with the worst type of all and why not? The Devil is the type of client whom you’ve come to depend on for the most part of your balance sheet. The kind that might even possibly pay well and provides enough work to keep your younger colleagues away from Facebook. This client will most likely be the one whom you’d reschedule appointments at the drop of the hat. And get this: the Devil knows all this and the evil thing is the Devil will use it to his or her advantage each and every time. Sounds familiar? You know it’s the Devil when Read the rest of this entry »

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Those who know me would know that I believe in building wealth through smart marketing with limited budget. Even if you say you don’t have a single cent in your marketing war chest, I will still say you can market, advertise and promote yourself, your product and your services. Email marketing, viral marketing, referral marketing, word-of-mouth marketing are just some great methods that you can “DIY”. If you don’t know, there are plenty of websites offering good and free advice that works. “But you can’t do print advertisement!”

Print advertisement is easily the most expensive after TV and radio commercials in among traditional media. A quarter page full colour advert in the news section of The Straits Times (in Singapore) during the weekend is S$16,600 (or USD11,900). A full page, full colour right-hand page ad in the leading periodical, Her Word, is S$5300 (or USD3800). That’s a lot of money for small business owners. And that’s exactly why many of them give print advertising a miss.

Print advertising, comprising largely of press advertising and magazine advertising, are extremely important to create and shape, or even to change and correct the perceived values of your target audience. They are even more important if your products/services are targeted at a niche that sees internet and multimedia stuff as unreliable. Not incorporating print advertising within your marketing campaign will be a bad idea.

Barter trade is not big in Singapore and very, very rarely do we even hear from the grapevine that a publication is willing to barter advertising pages. Folks in the United States are more fortunate in the sense that they can actually bid for advertising space in print media. In other words, they don’t pay the standard rate card rates. They bid and if successful, can save as much as 90% off rate-card rates. This is something I wish we can have in Singapore. But I honestly don’t see how it can be feasible due to our small collection of local publications. USA is big and size does matters. Because the many media will be vying and fighting aggressively for a slice of the advertising pie. As an advertiser, you will stand to gain somehow. If you doubt what I have just shared, go visit this media paradise Read the rest of this entry »

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I was having dinner with my friend, Betty, and was chiding her for not contributing articles to a health blog where she is a writer.

“It’s not that I don’t want to write. The perfectionist in me wants to get everything nicely straightened out before I start writing”

This is “Ready, Aim, Fire.”

I handed her my laptop and got her writing on the spot.

In business, time is of the essence. Precisely because of this “Ready. Aim, Fire.” attitude, some of us miss the opportunities that come knocking at our doors. Not so much because we were too obtuse and didn’t quite realize that it is Midas that came calling. Neither was it because we were procrastinating. For most of us in the creative industry, our Achilles’ heel is our perfectionist mindset. Even I, as an account servicing person.

We must be fully prepared. We must be well rehearsed and only then will we present to our client - with a big bang.

Sometimes, I want to scream at our design head. The clock is ticking away but until each tiny crease has been smoothened and ironed out, he simply won’t let us have the creative draft to show the client. Even after he did give it up, he would lament that it could have looked better if only he were given just a little bit more time.

Our copy guy wasn’t any better, all the “i” and “t” must be nicely dotted and crossed and every bit of research must be checked and cross referenced before he feels he is covered. Until then, the copy sits on his desk and not ours, and definitely not the client’s.

On the one hand, I am deeply appreciative and take great pride that my team is so passionate about their work. On the other hand, they can be so fastidious that it is tough to refrain myself from wringing their necks.

Finally, we reach a consensus. Get the client to give a nod on the “big picture” concept first and thereafter, they can go tweak, fix and oil everything until perfection.

If the hunter waits until the ducks fly in a single file before he “ready, aim and fire”, he probably has to wait for a long spell. The point is birds don’t ever fly in a straight line! Never.

Being prepared is crucial. Calculating the risk involved is critical. Going through each stage to ensure nothing is amiss is admirable. However, a million multiple by zero is still zero.

I like to tell you a story that happened some 15 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

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