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To be a “somebody” in advertising you have to do two things, continuously and cautiously.

1. Push the limit—meaning, do something out of the ordinary, whether through humor or shock. You have to catch the viewers attention and then do something to keep it. Most of the time clients push back and resist, though there are a few willing to take a chance, and even then it’s still hit or miss—and the viewers will always let you know when you’ve gone to far. But at that point it’s too late, you’ll always lose the consumer battle.
2. Be at the cutting edge of technology. There’s a reason why there’s so much money being spent on figuring out consumer and viewer behavior (why people do what they do). It’s so the advertisers can find a way to manipulate it. Mobile advertising hasn’t struck it big yet, but YouTube will be making sure that you get your 30 seconds of ad love.

A lot of people have misnamed our current time as the “Information Age,” but in today’s society it’s more of an “Attention Age” (not my term, but not as defined by this guy). Advertising and blogging hold true to this notion more than ever. Just because you put your product out there and provide information, doesn’t mean anyone is paying attention.

Though Respond2 is traditionally a DRTV agency, we too toe that line, as long as it makes sense for the client and has a positive ROI; all the while we are being cautious of our viewers attention span. We’re forging new ground in DR and making a name for ourselves along the way (FreeToCompete.com).

Okay, off the soapbox. The fusion of the above-mentioned notions is why I love ShaveEverywhere.com (Philips Body Groom) so much. ShaveEverywhere.com definitely pushes that line metaphorically and literally. It tackles a taboo issue with humor and education—it’s able to grab your attention, and makes you laugh at yourself and push yourself to rethink some of the ideals that you and your buddies in a damp locker-room forged in the 6th grade after a mini-sword fight.

I applaud Philips for being able to trust their agency and allow this to be pushed forward. The topic is as chuckle-friendly as they come, but could have been doomed from the start had Philips decided to keep the reigns too tight. This is evident in a lot of ads that we see on television and the web. It’s almost great, but something is holding it back. Typically, that almost is a result in someone, somewhere who is risk-phobic.

The execution, design, user navigation and interaction are flawless. The site is clean in design and simple in understanding, but gets the point across without overwhelming or turning you off. They knew their consumer, the consumers behavior and language. It’s almost as if they were a hesitant 13-year-old boy with a can of shaving cream, locked bathroom door and a hysterically screaming parent/sibling (I’ve said too much). Here’s to pushing the line, however gently it may cut that edge! CHEERS!

A few weeks ago I attended the first annual Inverge Interactive Convergence Conference (IICC) here in Portland. Usually a skeptic of local conferences and networking events, I was reluctant to accept my invitation to attend the two-day interactive extravaganza. It wasn’t until after researching the scheduled speakers that the excitement set in. After all, it takes something truly special to pull me away from my home-ten-blocks-from-home, the Modern Media Building.

All that being said, my expectations were met and exceeded by Inverge 2007 and relevant knowledge was gained from each of the conference’s guest speakers. Of the eight or nine speakers, with backgrounds primarily rooted in marketing and advertising, there were four whose lessons I found particularly interesting. So, in no particular order, here are just a few Inverge 2007 moments worth mentioning:

Dr. Joshua Green of MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium kicked off the conference with enough energy and insight to ignite a large new media fire on stage. Green’s approach of conveying the collision of old media with new was refreshing in the sense where he taught by example. In explaining the concept of bridging the gap between grassroots creativity and mainstream media, Green used the following:

• Trailer for a PG version of “300″

• Quentin Tarantino’s “Star Wars”

Later that day came Chris Van Dyke, who’s not just the offspring of Dick, but the President and CEO of Nau, the lifestyle clothing company that’s rethinking the way in which consumers shop. Nau is utilizing technology to minimize its ecological footprint while simultaneously creating a stellar shopping experience. Sure their price points are steep, but they’ve substantiated this with unparalleled design and quality. Nau is like Patagonia on steroids with Mother Teresa as the CEO.

Inverge’s second day boasted a number of great speakers, from MTV’s Jeff Yapp to Interpublic’s new media guru Lori Schwartz. But, arguably the most entertaining was Wieden + Kennedy’s Director of Global Digital Strategy Renny Gleeson. All product placement aside, Gleeson’s presentation provided a realistic outlook of how the web is evolving, and what W+K is doing to pioneer the ways in which brands can be built in the post-modern digital world.In summary, I’ll definitely be spreading the word about next year’s edition of Inverge as I believe it’s a great opportunity for Portland to stand out on the map of creativity. Like most first-time events, Inverge’s attendance was low; however, I’m confident the majority of attendees will spread the word and next year’s event will be even bigger and better.

A recent addition to the R2 team, I am most interested in the development of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and the ways that it will change both entertainment and advertising. For those of you who aren’t techno-geeks like I am, IPTV essentially is television that delivered to the home over a broadband computer network infrastructure, much like the way that DSL currently works. It differs from traditional broadcast, cable or satellite TV in a few ways. First is that the video signal is digitally compressed, most likely using the MPEG-4 codec (much like the audio MP3), and is then delivered to the set-top box via the IP Multicast protocol. This allows both push/pull functionality to TV, much like the experience of surfing the web. Traditional TV is entirely a push format, viewers are simply passive consumers of the video content with no ability at all to interact with what they are watching. Imagine the ability to look up a players stats during a live sporting event, to download the recipe for that yummy looking chocolate mousse or to purchase that absolutely fabulous pair of shoes Jessica Alba is wearing on the red carpet, all without having to get up off the couch. The implications that interactive television will have on traditional push advertising are tremendous.

Second, IPTV is relatively lightweight, from a network resource point-of-view. Unlike cable television, which sends all 300 channels of video content to the set-top box simultaneous, requiring tremendous amounts of bandwidth, IPTV only sends the content that the viewer is currently watching, creating a system that is more energy efficient and less complex technologically. In the long run, IPTV will be much cheaper for the providers to maintain which should result in cost savings for the consumer.

Additionally, IPTV can offer triple and even quadruple play—TV, Internet access, VoIP and in some cases, cell phone. While some cable companies have been moving into these services as well, save cell phone service, IPTV providers again will be able to leverage their lower operating costs to provide lower fees to consumers.

While it is still early days in the world of IPTV, I truly believe that it will come to dominate the marketplace much as cable TV came to displace broadcast TV over the past couple of decades.

Back in the day, and by back in the day I mean five years ago, campaign kick-off meetings were a fairly predictable procedure.

Of course there were your account people, who explained the product or service, presented the creative brief and gave an overview of the challenges and opportunities within the marketplace. Then you had your creative team, who was being challenged to come up with a campaign concept that built both brand and response. You had your media team who was looking at years of relevant data and consumer research to increase the odds of executing a successful media test and rollout. The web folks were sitting right next to the creative team, trying to build a brand- and campaign-consistent website that converted at a high rate. And let’s not forget the agency producer who was busy telling you that whatever idea you might come up with was way outside of our budget.

Oh, and the operations team. But they probably didn’t show up to your kick-off meeting, as they were busy training call center employees, all while finalizing the RFP process to select the perfect fulfillment partner.

These same sets that we’ve all come to know still play an important part in a successful campaign launch today—but they’re sitting next to some new faces. Considering that 41 percent of consumers research products and services online before making a purchase decision, it comes as no surprise that a number of these folks carry the word “web” in their titles.

Once online, 80 percent of Internet traffic begins at search engines. Our search engine marketing team presents us with the clients’ current search presence via relevant keyword analysis, and what it will take in the short-run (paid search) and long-run (organic search) to achieve high search engine ranking , in turn driving the consumers interested in our products and services to the site.

More and more people are basing their purchase decisions on social commerce channels, such as Amazon reviews, Yahoo Answers, blog reviews and shopping engines. Our social media teams are giving us an overview of what people are saying about our products—they are informing us of what questions are being asked, and what concerns are being raised. This level of knowledge gives great insight to our creative team, as they’re tasked with explaining product features and benefits. Also, our operations team (currently en route to Ajjampura) uses this information to train call center and customer service employees.

Last but not least, there’s the newest member of the social media department—online PR. The PR person has identified the most influential industry players (bloggers, journalists, frequent posters in forums), who will be contacted prior to launch to review our products and give feedback. This can result in a lot of positive buzz around our products and brand, which oftentimes is the foundation for a successful campaign launch.

While properly planning a successful direct response campaign has become more complex, a multilateral approach usually uncovers a lot of opportunities that can grow to become major tools and acquisition channels for the smart DR marketer.

And where is our operations team? No one seems to know.