#adnuance

[rohynal]

Camelot vs Startups

It's true that people have insights and realizations in all kinds of situations. Ours came while watching the TV series, Camelot.  A quick run down on the series; Camelot is a tale of legendary (may be mythical, according to wikipedia) King Arthur and his rule from equally legendary (and mythical) castle Camelot. The series starts from Arthur's ascension to throne, to establishing his rule across all of Britain. We couldn't help but notice that building a kingdom and becoming a respected king is no different from starting a company and being it's CEO/ Founder/Leader (whatever the title). This is an analogy of Camelot vs Startups

 So here you go:

A King and country is an idea, believers manifest and enforce it. Similarly startup is just an idea and Founder is just an originator. Bringing an idea to life by getting those believers to signup is the challenge we see as a parallel.

A king needs his champion, he cannot fight all the battles. A startup CEO needs his champion who might be a cofounder or a founding team member to fight a few battles. A CEO has to pick and choose his battles and not fight them all, is the lesson we see here.

Arthur needed Merlin to navigate him to power via a careful planning and strategy. In short finding a Sean Parker (yes of the Napster and Facebook team) to lead us to those investors, negotiate deals and advise is really important.

A Kings team needs its first true warrior whose allegiance is pledged to him. This clearly means finding your first rockstar developer. Just as in the series we may have to tolerate arrogance, rejection and even dismissal but the idea is to never give up, because to win we need that first "true warrior".

Ability to judge and make decisions cognizant of the big picture is always a King's /CEO's burden. A lesson we thought important was not to delegate decision making to a committee of people.

Arthur reclaims the legacy sword in the stone, known here as the sword of Mars, to prove his worthiness as king, and becomes a legend. Though the sword is a legend planted by Merlin, Arthur risks his life trying to retrieve it. So as a leader of the vision we believe it's essential to do the one difficult task to accomplish. That one important thing that will lead people to believe in a person (although the mischievous part of planting a legend is also an equally interesting idea).

In the series Arthur inspires people about the cause, the future, a new way of ruling and governance under one country. We believe asa Leader it's important to always pitch the vision for the company to employees and people around us. Inspire them to be a part of something big and filled with hope (not discounting the salaries and equity).

In conclusion we aspire to hit all these 7 points in our startup journey and hope to meet our champion, warrior and advisers. If you think you fit the bill of Merlin/Sean Parker, Champion or the true warrior, please drop us a line in the comments. We look forward to talk to you. What do you think of the cinematic analogy of Camelot vs Startups? 

[rohynal]

Blogging - The Art of Conversation

Hi All,

We are back with another thought leader series post and yes we decided to make the title a little more interesting. We are excited about this post as it’s all about blogging and with this context we present to you Scott Yates, CEO and cofounder of Blogmutt, the best crowdsourced blog writing service on four legs. This is Scott’s third startup that he has run, in addition to others he has advised, consulted with, or commiserated with.

  Blogmutt is a startup that came out of Founder Institute, a global incubator, of which even AdNuance is a part of. You can know more about Scott here.

Why is Scott a thought leader?

Scott with his new blogging service has set out to create new paradigm of crowdsourced blogging for business. For businesses that are struggling to build a dialogue with their customers, blogmutt offers an innovative way to engage them via blog. For all these reasons and his unique value proposition in blogging we consider Scott a thought leader. Scott has some great and important insights on the subject of blogs and why it should be an integral part of any business. Let’s find out more below...

  Q1. Why is blogging important to small business and how can it help them?

   Scott: Blogging is the way that you let the universe know who you are.

  Part of that is the hard cold reality of Google, which has a search engine so exquisitely sophisticated that it can detect all kinds of tricks. What it can tell is if real people are writing to describe a site, so the more genuine, original content you produce the better Google will know what you are all about.

The other reason is that people have just come to expect it. If someone refers you to them, they often go check your site. A few years back if the site looked clean and worked, people figured you were in business. Now they know that a site that looks good may be just that, and not a part of an ongoing business. Blogging keeps your site genuine and current, and the potential customers know that you are more than just a site.

Q2. What is crowdsourcing a blog and how can small businesses use this?

Scott: We use crowdsourcing in much the same way that 99designs or Trada use the concept. Basically it eliminates the hassle of trying to hire one particular person to write blog posts for you. We have a crowd of freelancers that know how to write a blog that will be all original, will help you with your keyword performance, and perhaps most of all that it will give your blog a voice that's clear and regular.

Q3. What is your advice for businesses that don't have a blog and how should they go about creating interesting content?

Scott: Well, it's pretty clear that every business should have a blog for the reasons mentioned above. If you can carve out a couple of hours every week, it's great if you blog. 

  What should your content be? Don't worry too much about this!

  I think of blogs for small business as being a bit like small talk. You don't need to be a thought leader in the same way you don't need to be brilliant in every conversation you have. Sometimes you just need to have a relaxed conversation.  So, just blog about something that you saw that has some relationship to the business that you are in.

  This clearly won't work if you are writing content for the sake of the content, like if you are a newspaper or a blog trying to build a following of that blog. If you are in business, you know that blogging is not what you do, but it can help let people know what it is you do, little by little every week.

  If you can't carve out the time to write every single week, then check out a blog writing service, like Blogmutt!

  AdNuance: Thank you Scott for sharing these wonderful insights and taking the time for this interview. Are you struggling to start a conversation with your customer? check out blogmutt, might be a good way to get your blog going today...

  Have tips or suggestions on our next post? please drop us a line below.

[rohynal]

3 Great Ads I Wish I Had Come Up With

In the midst of a creative drought (don’t worry, they don’t last long and only hurt a little), I decided to find some inspiration.  So of course I locked myself in the house and turned all the lights off, leaving only the soothing ambient light of my monitor to keep me company.  I did have a goal, and it was to find three, yes three, wildly successful ads and kind of dissect a little of what each did right.  And for variety’s sake, I divvied these monster ads into three- there’s that number again- different categories: print, web (viral), and television.  Alright, here we go….

Print Ad I Wish I had Come Up With

Volkswagen’s Lemon.                        

Dreamed up in the 1960’s when a German made car was still a tricky sell, Helmut Krone of Doyle Dane Bernbach revolutionized advertising, utilizing overwhelming simplicity with audience connection in a way that made viewers take notice.  The ad (shown above) features a perfectly fine looking Beetle, with the word LEMON underneath, and an explanation that the ‘chrome strip on the glove compartment is blemished’ and that inspector Kurt Kroner couldn’t let the car pass.  The contradictory nature of the ad stokes curiosity, and the eventual humor that readers hit was easy enough for anyone to feel a little clever afterward.  The Lemon ad is a great example of knowing who the audience is, not hiding the drawbacks of the product being sold, but instead accentuating the simplicity of it all, and of course using that oh so important aspect of humor correctly.                                                

This one is admittedly a little dated, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still influencing ads today.  Think about the Force ad, it hardly even shows the car in motion, only displaying one not so exciting feature.  And it was huge.  Das Auto?  More like Das…whatever the German word for clever advertising is.

Viral Ad I Wish I Had Come Up With

Old Spice & Terry Crews for Body Blocker

It started with the “I’m on a horse” guy and evolved into this strange concoction of stimuli, which if you think about it, is perfect for the web.  The ad, with over 52 million views and counting, according to adage.com, features the right amount of absurdity and bright colors for a generation of overstimulated yet desensitized brains with minute attention spans.  On the web, you’ve gotta work quickly, grabbing your audience fast and making your point, otherwise something like 4chan will come eat you.  And who better to assign to this task than the guys from Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show.  If you’ve ever seen that, you know what I’m talking about.  Oh yeah, it’s also hilarious- just like the Old Spic ads. 

Absurdity never made me want to buy a once old man deodorant so badly.  The deodorant went from being just a hygienic necessity to a talking point among endless social circles.  Way to go Old Spice, for being just weird enough, and for hiring Tim & Eric. 

Television Ad I Wish I Had Come Up With

Sussex Safer Roads, Embrace Life

This one takes a turn for the emotional, and not in the direction of humor.  Many people in the US probably haven’t seen it, but it’s mesmerizing to watch, especially the first time.  Plus, it’s not an easy sell- getting people to wear their seatbelts, that’s not the most exciting topic to grab attention with.  This one works because it captures the fragility of life in a, frankly, pretty beautiful manner.  Family, existence, decisions, it can all come down to one second.  And although this ad takes a bit longer to get the point across, it does so in a way that can knock you in the chest with its message.  Back to reality…

So those are my roller coaster of emotion ads. I would summarize by saying that it’s never wrong to veer far outside the box when cultivating creativity, just make sure you can find your way back eventually.  Otherwise, you might end up looking like Salvador Dali; which, I guess isn’t so bad either.