So the other day I read with interest the AdAge article called “Do Campaign Failures, High-Profile Firings Signal the End of Social Media?” It chronicled the downfall of Pepsi’s Refresh Project and Burger King’s many failed social media attempts, and it was the talk of digital and social media agencies everywhere.

Now let me be clear – I do not subscribe to the conclusion of the article that social media is a failed experiment when it comes to affecting sales. However I do believe that these examples are case studies in where we’ve gone wrong as an industry.

But let’s back up a bit and talk about how we got here.

Back in the days of paid media, you forked out big bucks to get the audience you wanted – be it print, TV, whatever. You were guaranteed roughly 30 million households watching your commercial every time you bought the Cosby Show. That meant the number of eyeballs were not a metric, they were a given. The metrics ad agencies were actually held to were real business results. Did the client see a sales bump from the campaign? Did product move off the shelves?

However with the rise of social media, the audience was not a given. We had to build an audience from scratch – it wasn’t as simple as writing a check. And so suddenly, metrics for ad agencies went from hard, real sales goals to things that had no direct connection to selling.

Video views, “Likes,” number of fans or total reTweets became the ends instead of the ends to a means. We, as an industry, forgot what we’re really here to do – sell shit. And clients, in their attempt to quantify their efforts to their bosses, latched onto the easiest metric everyone understood. Both sides voluntarily lowered the bar and now we’re all paying the price.

Burger King has continued to fall behind McDonalds despite industry-lauded social media efforts. Diet Coke trounced Pepsi and knocked them into third place despite tens of millions thrown at Refresh.

Social media fansboys will shout “But Refresh was to build brand affinity, not sell more Pepsi!” If you can show me a company that is loved but doesn’t sell anything – I’ll show you a failed company.

I’ll also show you a failed industry.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as we’ve seen the rise of social media, we’ve also seen the rise of client dissatisfaction and the drop in marketing campaigns that have actually affected the bottom line. When we celebrate videos for hitting a million views instead of selling a million shoes, we’ve lost our way. When the number of “Fans” we get on Facebook is more important than the number of people who actually buy our clients’ products, it’s no wonder we’re seeing results like we’re seeing.

Now it might not be as fun to create some crazy video that millions of people will “Like” just to see… and then have them never think twice about buying your product. But there’s nothing to say that social media can’t be used in the same way all other advertising should be used: to communicate a consumer benefit, convince them why they should choose you over the competition and get them to actually buy your product.

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Matt Morin is a freelance creative director in San Francisco and the author of The Dog & Pony Show blog. This piece was cross-posted from The San Francisco Egotist.

This editorial originally appeared in the Denver Egotist

The client has a problem. He has to show results. Now. The average tenure for a CMO is 23 months. If the campaign doesn't work, your client will have hell to pay.

If you consistently fail to solve this problem, your agency will be pitched under the nearest bus. You will be let go. A few of your friends will lose their jobs.

The agency has a problem. It needs to do work that makes it famous. That gets on the blogs. That wins awards. Because great work is an agency's main tool for bringing in new projects, new clients and new talent.

If you consistently fail to solve this problem, you will be fired before you drag your whole agency into a self-defeating downward spiral of boring work that attracts timid clients.

The consumer has a problem. He's numb. He looks for inspiration, joy and meaning. And finds Charlie Sheen and Jersey Shore. He is assaulted by so many ads and logos that they've become nothing but the paper that covers the walls of his world.

If you consistently fail to solve this problem, nothing much will happen to you. You will go on winning awards and your clients will shake your hand heartily. But at the very deepest level, you'll be a failure. You were handed the chance to talk to thousands, maybe millions of people. And you passed the opportunity by. In your soul, you'll know. You're part of the problem. You're making this world worse. Not better. You're putting up wallpaper instead of kicking open windows.

Every brief you get has three problems hidden inside it. Average ads solve one. Good ads solve two. Great ads solve three.

This piece is cross-posted on Matt Ingwalson's blog.

This interview originally appeared in The Denver Egotist

A nationally acclaimed copywriter with a 30-year track record, Luke Sullivan is Senior VP/Managing Group Creative Director at GSD&M. He helps manage a creative department of 70 while continuing to work directly with Norwegian Cruise Line, L.L.Bean and the American Legacy Foundation.

Luke is a self-described “ad geek” and the author of the best-selling book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising. Offering practical advice with an irreverent eye toward the history of advertising, the book was ranked by Advertising Age readers at #5 on the list of top 10 media and marketing books of all time.

Luke’s experience includes 10 years at Fallon and five at The Martin Agency, with work for Miller Lite, United Airlines, Toyota, Black & Decker, BMW, Porsche and AT&T. He has more than twenty medals to his credit in the prestigious One Show and has served as judge for many creative award shows.

He holds a degree in Psychology from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and lives in Austin with his wife and two boys. He reports that he “enjoys the indoors” and likes to spend a lot of his time there.

Luke is one of the main reasons we got into advertising and, to this day, is one of the guiding lights in our daily work. He speaks here this Thursday as part of Ad Club Denver's Outside Voices Speaker Series.

Q: You wrote one of the most famous advertising how-to books, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. Are you sick of it yet – or at least those ad boners who still reference it?

A: Hey Whipple has been a constant source of joy for me because so many young people write to me and say, “Hey, your book is what got me into the business.” That does NOT get old, I assure you. Feels great, knowing you had a positive effect on someone’s life (if luring someone into the dark alley of advertising can be described as positive). It’s in five languages now and the publisher just asked me to do a 4th edition. You’d think writing just a few new chapters and updating some of the work could be done quickly, but it’ll likely take me most of the year to get that done.

Q: You’ve worked in a number of cities across the US during your career. Do you believe in “creative hotbeds” and the momentum they carry – or is that a thing of the past since the advent of the internet?

A: Back in about 1980, yeah, there were lots of articles in Ad Age about the “rise of the regional agencies” – Fallon, Wieden, Goodby, the usual suspects. But you’re right when you ask, “Did the internet change all that?” Sure did. The internet did that to the whole damn world (see The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman).

Q: What are the top 3 reasons you've never started your own agency?

A: 1.) I liked doing the work too much and didn’t want to disappear in a Black Hole of Meetings. 2.) It’s a lotta damn work. 3.) Lazy.

Q: What, in your opinion, is career suicide for an ad professional? Is working in-house or going client-side frowned upon?

A: Beyond getting soft or stupid or compliant, I don’t think there is any particular career move that’s career suicide. I’ve got a buddy who went client side and I know any agency would snap him up in a minute if he wanted to come back. How about Goodby’s Mimi Cook, now a big shot at Apple? Think we wouldn’t love to hire her? As long as you’re in the game, thinking, pushing for better, cooler….who could fault you? I sure wouldn’t.

Q: How do you think the role of the copywriter has changed, considering the present advertising environment that is predominantly visual-based?

A: It has changed. Big time. And the best answer to that question is a great new book by the editor of Creativity magazine, Theresa Iezzi, called The Idea Writers: Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era. I can’t say it any better than she said it.

Q: You talk about “craft” a lot and clearly take words and writing seriously. In your opinion, has social media turned us all into a bunch of half-literate monkeys?

A: This is a question that goes back to, I dunno, the emergence of comic books. Comic books were supposed to turn teenagers stupid, then it was radio dramas that were supposed to do that, then TV, then rock and roll, then MTV. All these things were supposed to have turned us stupid. Which is silly. We got stupid on our own. We got “half-literate,” as you describe it, by not reading and not writing.

Q: Speaking of craft, how do you bring it to digital?

A: When writing on paper, you try to write well. Am I right? So do that when writing for online publication. When you’re art directing graphics for a TV spot, you try not to suck, right? So, don’t suck when you do that in digital. When you’re casting for a radio spot, you pick just the right voice, right? So, do the same for an online video. Seems to me craft is portable. I’m sure there are some crafts unique to online, but they’re probably about stuff like coding, or faster downloads, and compressions and a buncha stuff I don’t know. But as for all the other crafts associated with the creative business, aren’t they the same?

Q: We noticed you have a relatively new blog, Hey Whipple. Convince those CDs and agency heads who think blogging is a waste of time that social media’s actually worthwhile.

A: Nope, I refuse. Fact is anyone who can’t be “convinced” that the world is changing needs to be left behind. When you think about it, it’s kinda like that scene in old war movies, you know, where the guy is wounded but he doesn’t know it and his buddy has to leave him behind, so he gives him his canteen and maybe a handgun with a coupla bullets. Anyone who’s talking like that (“social media and all these dumb web things”) anyone talkin’ like that, they’re wounded and you gotta leave ‘em behind. (“Go on! Save yourself, kid.”) Give ‘em your canteen, wish ‘em well, and head out.

Q: Which current campaigns do you wish you’d had a hand in?

A: Apple. It’s always Apple that has me goin’ “Damn, I wish I did that.” I wish they hadn’t retired “Mac vs PC” but I always say that about good stuff. I’m sure they’ll do something extremely cool soon.

Q: In all your years, what campaign were you the most stunned to have sold through and how’d you convince the client to buy it?

A: Good question, to which I have a definite answer. It’s a radio campaign, for a teeny little client that we had at Fallon McElligott in 1995 and 1996. It was a technical school called Dunwoody. And they trained kids in what they once called “the trades.” You could get a degree in, say, heating and air conditioning, architectural drafting, computer repair, … you know, REAL jobs. I had a great client who never changed a word of copy, trusted that I had their best interests in mind, and just let me at it. I’ve posted my fave spots from this campaign on my blog.

Q: Award shows – do they still serve a purpose, or are they outdated and unnecessary?

A: I’m all over the map about this one. I grew up positively insane about working the awards circuit. I think that’s probably pretty normal for younger creatives.

The reason? I see ad careers in terms of three stages. Early on, it’s about GETTIN’ FAMOUS. That’s what awards help do. Then, once you’ve got a bit of a name goin’, that’s when the juniors say, “Man, I oughta get paid more if I’m doin’ so great” which, of course, is when the second chapter kicks in – GETTIN’ MONEY. Then, when the final third of a career comes around, maybe when you got kids to worry about, a house, a spouse, when you have a life … well, but then it’s all about GETTIN’ STABILITY. You want a job that will last. You don’t wanna have to move your family around. So, with that sort of career track in mind, I get the whole awards thing.

On the other hand, if you get too into awards, it’ll start to effect your work. Because now, instead of sitting down to solve a business problem and to write to a particular audience, you could be writing with an award show audience in mind. It’s conceivable one could begin to work with a sort of Super Bowl “How-can-I-amaze-everybody” kind of mindset, one that may not be right for the problem at hand.

I’ll close with a several different paragraphs related to awards I wrote in Hey Whipple, Squeeze This:

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If there's ever a time to study the awards annuals, this is it.

Study them. Read, learn, memorize. Don't just concentrate on the most recent issues either. Dig up old annuals. Design fads come and go, but the classic advertising structures endure. See what makes the ads work. Take them apart. Put them back together. Some of the ads are humorous and work. Some are straight and work. Why? What's the difference?

Avoid trends in execution.

Don't take your cues from design trends you see in the awards books. (For one thing, if they're in the books, they're already two years old.) But this is about more than being up-to-date. It's about concentrating on the soul of an ad instead of the width of its lapels.

Leafing through the awards annuals is okay, too. Get some inspiration, but don't stay there too long. The shows are a good learning tool, early in the business; they're a good starting point, early in the ideation process. But at some point, they will begin to steer your thinking. Sooner or later, you're going to have to unmoor and sail into the unknown.

On the value of awards shows.

I shouldn't talk. In my younger days, I was a pathetic awards hound. Just around April, you'd find me lurking in the mailroom pining for "the letter" from the One Show announcing accepted entries. "Is it here yet? . . . Well, check againnnnnn."

But I won't be too hard on myself. Our work isn't signed. And when you're new in the business, there's no better way to make a name for yourself than getting into "the books." Awards shows allow tiny agencies to compete with the behemoths. They serve as great recruiting tools for agencies. And they expose us to all kinds of work we'd not see otherwise. So I recommend them. With some caveats.

Don't make the wrong name for yourself by entering too many campaigns for easy, microscopic, or public service clients. They might get in.

Don't talk about awards shows around clients or account executives. You'll devalue yourself in their eyes and make your work suspect. ("Is that last ad she did on strategy or is it just another entry into Clever-Fest?'")

Don't enter every show. As of this writing, there are 39 different national awards shows in this industry. No kidding -- thirty nine. And that's not counting the local shows. Only a few of them have merit. In my opinion, the best are The One Show and Communication Arts. And, in England, D&AD.

•••••••••••••••••••••••

Q: What do you think of the Victor & Spoils “crowdsourcing” agency model? How do you think it will affect the industry as a whole?

A: Good question but I do not know the answer. Too early for this one to tell.

Q: You have a magic fairy wand. If you wave it, you can change one thing about advertising that you hate. What do you change?

A: Clients would no longer ask agencies to do creative for new business pitches. The clients would simply pick a few shops based on the kind of work they’ve done previously. Then the clients would visit each agency, get a feel for the people, and make a choice. I can think of no other business where we give away our product for free; where we work ourselves to the bone, where we lose weeks, weekends, holidays slaving away with limited information in a crunched time schedule, as we try to quickly throw together solutions for complex marketing problems…. and doing it all for free. I think it’s just an absolute shame. But until the whole industry locks arms and just says “No,” it’s gonna keep happening.

Q: Your Thursday-nigh talk for Ad Club Denver is called “How Not to Suck” – a topic near and dear to our hearts. Can you give us a little more insight into what we’ll be hearing you discuss? Why should we spend our Thursday night at your lecture instead of at the office working late like every other night?

A: The title of my speech is actually “How To Suck Less,” not “How Not To Suck.” A very important distinction. We ALL suck from time to time, ain’t nuthin’ you can do about it. But we can all suck LESS. So, yeah, come on out on Thursday and I think you’ll get some information you can put into practice the next day. No kidding.

Drew Mitchell, President, Fathom Creative

A few years ago, an expired lease gave my business partner and me the opportunity to explore the option of purchasing a new property for our company, Fathom Creative. For environmental sustainability (and general coolness), we looked to renovate an old building rather than contract new construction. After scouring DC, we set our sights on historic Logan Circle, a neighborhood just east of Dupont made more affordable by its reputation (at the time) as a still-developing area. We soon found our new home in the form of a perfectly beautiful, dilapidated brake shop sandwiched between a liquor store and a sex club. We had arrived.

I clearly remember the moment I first walked into Jensen’s Brake Service. A quick visual inventory revealed 6 or 7 cars in various states of repair, a few pieces of heavy old-school machinery, several witty hand-painted signs covering the walls and not an empty seat to be found. An elderly gentleman sporting a blue jumpsuit and a mile-wide grin soon appeared. He wiped off his hand, extended it and said “Lee Jensen. How may I be of service?” Little did I know that Lee Jensen would forever alter my approach to business.

After running his family-owned shop for over 50 years, Lee was contemplating retirement. Several commercial developers interested in his space had approached him, but the idea of passing the torch to another small business held great appeal. Lee’s decision to choose character over the highest bid was strikingly refreshing in a city often identified by ego and obsessed with the bottom line.

In addition to his commitment to small business owners, Lee wanted to hand over his building to someone who would continue the community responsibilities inherent to owning a piece of this special block. In our initial conversations, Lee asked about my long-term goals and although I didn’t realize it at the time, Lee was auditioning me for a much bigger role than I bargained for.

Up until then, my boisterous mix of designers and developers had built a fairly insular culture. Like many urban creative agencies our former office occupied an upper floor of a small building, so our doors were rarely open except for the occasional client visit or FedEx delivery. We enjoyed each other’s company and rarely engaged with our neighbors. To us the word “community” was most applicable to open source developers or the online community at large.

Conversely, all of Lee’s neighbors knew him and he had accumulated a great deal of respect. He was steadily engaged in local affairs and his storefront was always open and welcoming to friends and strangers alike. It was easy to see why there was always a long line of cars waiting for Lee. In addition to delivering quality work at a fair price, Lee had earned a reputation for offering expert, practical advice free of charge. He believed that if you gave away enough, eventually it would come back to you in spades.

That’s when it dawned on me. Lee’s “bricks and mortar” behavior was exactly what we tell our clients to do online: put out accessible content that’s valuable, establish yourself as a thought leader and contribute to the community!

The close parallels between our two companies suddenly became obvious. Whether repairing tired cars or sputtering websites, both revitalize something critical to clients. As our friendship grew I learned more about his business—how he managed to thrive for half a century through riots, recessions, and the change in administrations of 11 Presidents. Aside from standard business adjustments, he credited most of his stability and success to the carefully planned, strategic relationships he built and nourished over the years with his suppliers, partners, customers and neighbors. This brake shop owner had mastered the now familiar online/social media strategies decades ahead.

It became clear that the next step for my company was to apply the best of Lee’s world to ours. Moving into the brake shop wasn’t just about Fathom Creative finding a new physical office. It was an opportunity for us to reevaluate our company’s identity. We began to turn our offline focus outward and truly connect with our immediate community. It was a small step toward filling the very large shoes Lee left behind.

The vision began to take shape: what if we actually designed the interior of the building as flexible, heavily used, interactive space that fosters community interaction? We loved the idea of creating an offline setting that would act as a breeding ground for innovation and spark a continuance of these conversations and ideas online, via blogs, tweets, Facebook updates and so on.

Having won Lee’s blessing (as well as the bank’s), we closed the deal and finished renovations a little over a year ago. We worked with our architects to painstakingly preserve as much of the original character of the brake shop environment as possible. Like Lee, we wove in clever typographic statements reflecting our culture and personality throughout our space.

We even used a combination of wide and thin planks on the roof deck above the studio to spell our tagline in Morse code. The large retractable garage door in the front of the building was replaced with pivoting all-glass panels that communicate our expanded conversational mindset in an attempt to invite all those interested to enter.

Throughout 2010, our flex-use space has served as a supportive venue for a large number of community and industry-related functions such as creative panel discussions, emerging artist exhibits and technology forums, even a handful of gay weddings. Washington National Opera, AIGA-DC and PinkLineProject were among the several local creative organizations we’ve supported and next month, we are hosting a 2-week gallery event showcasing the artwork from N Street Village, the women’s homeless shelter at the end of our block.

And Lee was right, of course: the more you give, the more you get. For instance, donating our space each month to the local PHP and WordPress groups has allowed us to become active participants in helping further the success of open source technologies that are vital to our business.

For Fathom Creative, 2010 has been a year of community engagement and conversation. Although our business undoubtedly benefits from this better-rounded approach to communication, we also believe that in order to be relevant, we have a social responsibility to the community that we aim to engage. Lee Jensen was the example upon which this philosophy was built and for that, I am forever grateful.