Sociable Communications was a strategic planning, communications and media production agency based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The business was renamed Kazolu in 2015 - please visit www.Kazolu.com.
After two years in business, Sociable Communications has recently moved “out of the house” to an official office space at the Granbry Innovations Centre on 130 Research Lane, Suite 7B in Guelph, Ontario (just inside the east entrance, down the hall from AdFarm).
All other contact information, including our Post Office mailing box (PO Box 1684, Guelph ON) will stay the same – we now just have a formal space and a boardroom for conducting business on behalf of our clients and partners. Come on by and say hello!
Contrary to popular belief, Sociable Communications is not, and never has exclusively been a social media agency.We are an integrated communications agency, and we are extremely conversant in social media best-practices – but it is just one piece of a bigger integrated communications picture with us.
The root of the company name is in Atlantic Canada.If you have ever toasted a table of friends, a band or a full-house of revellers in a Halifax, Fredericton or a St. John’s pub (or kitchen party), you won’t say “Cheers” – you’ll say “Sociable!!”Our company aspires to a style of branding that supports this idea: we believe that successful branding should be engaging, personable, fun, and… well, ‘sociable’.Oh, and our Chief Communications Officer and co-owner is a Newfie.So, that’s the story.
Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea - nothing to do with us, really - just a proud Newfoundlander.
Truly great marketing communications must be simple, easy to understand, and evocative. They must provide a clean, simple articulation of extremely big ideas: they need to reflect where a brand has been, where it is going, and must acknowledge all the impressions people have about the brand. The product isn’t the only thing a brand represents: Rice Krispies are so much more than just breakfast cereal, aren’t they?
I am legitimately awestruck by Chrysler’s new positioning: “Imported from Detroit”. With three simple words, Portland-based Wieden + Kennedy have evoked the history and legacy of the American automotive industry, and even America itself. They acknowledge the power that imported vehicles now have on the auto industry, but remind us that America is a big country - Detroit may as well be on the other side of the world from Texas, California or Oregon. Detroit is positioned as a nation unto itself - for better or worse – and it kind of is if you think about it.
Furthermore, the folklore of Detroit is wrapped into a modern, relevant package by engaging a Detroit-based spokesperson in Eminem. This is a man who, if nothing else, is one of the most credible, respected people in American entertainment. He has also had his own ups-and-downs before coming back on top. He brings authenticity, immediacy and legitimacy to Chrysler’s born-in-Detroit positioning. They couldn’t have done better if Sinatra came back to life – and had been from Detroit in the first place (and never left).
Detroit has famously been in decline for decades, but if there’s one thing America loves, it is an underdog story. What greater underdog is there than Detroit, this faded colossus in American mythology? Chrysler has laid claim to one of the most significant anchors in the evolution of the American dream – the Motor City – with all of the baggage, dreams, fortunes, and tragedies that go along with that. It seems risky, but I don’t think it is: if Detroit is positioned as a rising Phoenix, then Chrysler will also catch fire and burn brightly.
America loves positive stories of National pride, and this positioning taps into a deep well of American passion: “it's the hottest fires that make the hardest steel.” It is genius in its simplicity – the same kind of sharp understanding of human nature that built the Motor City in the first place.
I bet the folks at Ford are kicking themselves (or are undertaking an agency review). The most simple, effective marketing solutions often remain the most difficult to articulate, but Wieden + Kennedy nailed this one for Chrysler with evocative, effective positioning.
Footnote: Wieden + Kennedy are the folks behind my other favourite brand re-positioning of last year, the now-legendary Old Spice campaign, which also turned an old-and-tired brand with significant baggage (Eddie Murphy’s ‘Delirious’, anyone?) into a new-and-vibrant brand again. If Wieden + Kennedy folks are reading, and want to open a Canadian office, we need to talk….
I fell victim to a common mistake, and it took me two years to notice. I was so busy helping other people that I forgot to heed my own advice.
I have spent the past two years recommending strategic, integrated communications – best practises to spread a unified message across multiple available platforms. As an illustration, I recommend that if you publish a newsletter, you should break the individual articles apart and repurpose them as blog posts. Those blog posts can be automatically fed to Facebook and Twitter accounts (if it’s appropriate for your brand). This can help to drive traffic to your website, and the circle can be completed by allowing easy access to your social media sites by providing quick links on your website.
I missed this last part.
The simple act of inserting clickable social media icons on my own website has eluded me until this week. The new-and-improved Sociable Communications website now includes direct links to the social media accounts I have been populating for years. This not only offers more communications functionality, but I think it looks better too. I consciously went for a minimalist design on my site, but the added splash of colour works for me.
It’s a common mistake to overlook the simple things in life and in business, even if they are elements that you recommend to others each day. Still, it’s a reminder that we all need to spend a bit of time and attention re-examining our own daily approach to the way we present ourselves and our business. You can always find a way to improve things and evolve your processes for the better.
I always liked a quote from The Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” My interpretation of the line is that it’s always in your best interest to seek self-improvement and growth. The challenge is that with a bit of ambition, you are often looking for the forest and the trees, forgetting to prune the bushes at your feet. It’s sometimes hard to see what’s right in front of you. We all need to stop and look down, even when we are running ahead.
A well-rounded professional career can benefit greatly from the experience, connections and mutual value that volunteer commitments can provide. However, your primary focus should be on providing value to your chosen community: you provide no value whatsoever in your volunteer role unless you are fully engaged and fully committed.
This applies to any committees you may choose to join, and it particularly applies to Board positions. For all intents and purposes, Board roles (including voluntary Board positions) mean that you and your Board colleagues oversee other people’s careers, expectations, goals and lives. As such, you are honour-bound to step up and do your absolute best. The root of any Board position is that it should never be “about you”.
If the commitment feels like a duty rather than a privilege, then please do your final duty and source an engaged individual who can fill your chair – and then get out of the way.
So many people join Boards for the wrong reasons: they are fulfilling employer expectations, or worse, they are padding their resume. If you are one of these people, do us all a favour and quit your position RIGHT NOW. You may not respect the magnitude of your Board position, but the staff of your organization certainly do, and you owe it to them (to say nothing of all other stakeholders in your organization) to give your volunteer role everything that you can give.
If you can’t, then please get out of the way of everyone else’s progress.
It can be a strange thing for a business owner or manager to present themselves on behalf of their company - where should the lines between a professional profile and a personal profile be drawn? It comes down to the level of comfort you have with "being your brand". If you own a store on Main Street, then you probably should "be your brand" - your friends will also be your customers (or should be), and your customers should become your friends. In person-to-person transactions, the best way to build repeat business is to build "sociability" into each professional transaction.
However, if you are selling "professional services", then you may not want personal details associated with your work life. Do you really want to know about your Doctor's weekend habits? Do you want your clients to know about yours? It's a tough call.
I personally couldn't care less what people know about me, but I still try to keep some distance between my personal and professional lives. At the end of the day, my clients are extremely important to me, and I count many as great friends, but other things are equally (or more) important than business stuff, and I choose to try to keep things partitioned - if only to remind myself when it is time to stop working. That's a big one - and it is a tough line to draw in the sand.
I spend a lot of my time talking with people about strategy, but it is important to have a life-strategy too - and that strategy should start with knowing where to draw the line between work and the reasons why you work.
One of the key criteria of any ad campaign is the number of views any ad receives – literally the quantity of pairs-of-eyeballs any ad receives. As such, viral advertising should be judged for its quality for sure, but viewer quantity is also a key criteria. As such, I present my favourite viral video advertisements for 2010, with my humble commentary.
Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
This is (and will always likely be) legendary. It added “I’m on a Horse” to the lexicon. I laughed my ass off to everything the Old Spice guy did (including the brilliant ‘Twitter Responses’ campaign). And more to the point, I personally purchased Old Spice deodorant for the first time ever – I never would have considered doing so without this ad, and that call-to-action made the difference. I appreciate the Axe ads, but they weren’t for me – the Old Spice ads did hit the target though – until I ran out of Old Spice, and went back to my old habits. They may want to address that…
Arcade Fire – The Wilderness Downtown (Featuring “We Used to Wait”)
This is a game-changer in the world of music marketing and promotion – and a stunning example of how free web tools can be manipulated and embraced to create new (and shockingly personalized) works of art. And, the “video” is so damned good that you almost don’t notice how great the song is until your second pass through the “video” process (and let’s face it, didn’t everyone try it a few times??).
Maybe it’s just the place I’m at in my life, but this ad blew my mind. There’s a whole series of viral ads with these characters, and I kind of want to hang out with these folks. This honestly makes me want to buy one of these vans, if only to support a company that could be this funny and cool.
Also, “Dare to dream – you could be this!!”
Transport Accident Commission, Victoria, Australia – Twenty Year Retrospective
The TAC in Victoria, Australia has been making deeply impactful conventional (as it were) television ads for twenty years. The Aussies don’t screw around with metaphors like us North Americans – they go for the throat, and get proven results with significantly reduced fatalities from drunk driving. This ad went global on the internet, and may hopefully make a global difference in the same way TAC’s television ads have had in Australia.
Axe – Clean Your Balls
From the divine to the inane… OK, this ad is a bit easy, but what the hell – an ad like this is designed for a viral space, and a brand like Axe is the one to do it with. Check out the long close-up on the golf balls – the tension is palpable. This kind of writing and direction takes some thought, and a bit of courage from the advertiser’s point-of-view. “Cleans right through the prickly surface”. Funny, well-cast, and smart (in spite of the over-the-top stupidity of the concept).
Adidas – Star Wars Cantina
Yeah, what can you say – awesome digital effects, funny, relevant celebrities, and Star Wars. Nerd heaven. Jedi Snoop-Dogg, David Beckham and Jay Baruchel (in particular) are genius. Baruchel sniffing the blaster is perfect – wouldn’t you do the same if you could?
Nike – Write the Future
This puts the aspirations of anyone who as even played a sport into a global context, and allows everyone to dream big, alongside their sports heroes. Ergo, if you wear Nike shoes, you can live your dream. Or something like that.
Tipp-Ex White and Rewrite – NSFW - A Hunter Shoots a Bear
This was a first – something I hadn’t seen before on YouTube, let alone in advertising, online or otherwise. The first time I saw it, I was legitimately surprised, and then delighted. I was even led to wonder about the technology itself, though I suspect YouTube was instrumental is adjusting their interface to allow this to work. It also had people trying new variations over and over – I bet the average viewing time was close to ten minutes – unbelievable for any advertisement. I just wonder how much it translated into purchase – I’ve never heard of (or seen) the product, and I almost worry that their product distribution didn’t match their impact. Still, the sheer depth of thought they put into this execution is stunning.
