Peter George

What’s the big (great) idea?

We’ve all heard the famous McLuhan phrase “the medium is the message.” Unfortunately, it seems that many advertisers now feel that not only is the medium the message, but that they don’t even need a real message to begin with. 

New media choices — such as social media and other digital channels — are attractive to marketers because they promise high degrees of interaction and message exposure at low cost. Regrettably, in many cases prioritizing these new channels has changed the focus from “generating ideas that connect and sell” to “trying to think of things to say two or three times a day.”

Successful ad campaigns are built around a central idea — a compelling and memorable insight that captures the audience’s attention, sticks with them and influences them to act. This is the basic principle that has built successful brands on a local, national and global scale for generations. New media has not changed this basic principal of successful selling.

How do you know if your advertising is built on a great idea?

• A great idea will seem obvious once you see it — and you’ll be surprised you didn’t think of it before.
• A great idea can be articulated in one sentence. If it can’t be, then it’s likely that you’re just talking, not persuading.
• A great idea will get you excited. It’ll put a knot in your stomach and make your skin tingle.
• A great idea will work in all media — from a brochure to the web to Facebook to television to mobile to outdoor. 
• A great idea is not dependent on a specific typeface, image or creative style. It can be expressed in many different ways.
• A great idea will not tire easily — it will last through multiple campaigns over multiple seasons and grow with your business.
• A great idea can truly transform your business. 

Creating a social community online can be a great way to connect with customers. But the effort to do so is wasted if there is not central selling idea around which the dialogue has meaning and the brand is built. If you don’t have one, you’re not selling, you’re just talking.

 

Go Town Go

There is no question that Winnipeg has struggled with an image problem. For many years now the rest of the country (and I daresay a good part of the world) has associated us with long, cold winters and hoards of hungry mosquitoes. It’s how we start every conversation about our hometown (including this one) making us in many ways our own worst enemies.

However, with Winnipeg’s recent reentry in the NHL it seems we may have turned a collective corner. Optimism is high, and a sense of communal euphoria seems to pervade. And all of this positive energy appears to manifest itself in two of our favourite things — football and hockey.

So on a summer night when the news was all about the crashing North American stock market, European fiscal woes and violence on the streets of London, this positive and sunny little piece about Winnipeg on the national news really stood out.

 

On a hot, slow day in July...

I was pleased to have the opportunity to get my hands on a small design job here at the agency. These sorts of projects come up for me infrequently because it’s just not my job any more and we have so many talented designers at MCG. But when the opportunity arises and I have the time, I still love doing design work.

The task at hand was a poster promoting a fight card Pan Am Boxing is mounting in early August. With no time and no budget, I had to use resources at hand, so the photos were all taken with an iPhone. Thanks to club volunteer and fighter Garret Munch and Nick George (my son) who are the boxers in the picture, shot during a practice sparring session at Pan Am this past winter.

The event itself is a “must-see” — an outdoor, evening boxing card in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, featuring amateur and white-collar boxers. Pan Am’s neighbour — The Winnipeg Free Press Café — is presenting partner for the event and providing a VIP seating section on their patio.

Pan Am does a great job of putting on these high-caliber events, and all proceeds go to support the exciting and important PAN AM PLACE project — a residence and boxing-oriented fitness facility for at risk youth.

 

Old makes good

Here's an interesting article from the Globe and Mail, that says basically that television — one of the pillars of "old" media — is still a great way to reach specific audiences.

http://tinyurl.com/64o36d9

As we've been saying at MCG for months.... there is no need to panic in the face of all this new technology. Traditional media still works, and new media is simply another way of doing what you've always been doing.

 

The story of boxing

Photos: (Above) Ali and Foreman, near the end of their epic RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE in 1974.

I read an interesting article in the Globe and Mail this past Saturday titled Requiem for Boxing. The article postulates that Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has overtaken what was once the most popular sport in the world; boxing.

No one can deny that boxing has declined over the decades for a variety of reasons. In 1974 it's estimated that more than 1 billion television viewers around the globe watched Muhamed Ali and George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle broadcast via satellite from Zaire. This is outstanding for 1974 if you consider it was an era when global satellite broadcasts were relatively rare, and you had to stay up well into the morning in the Americas to watch the fight. It's doubtful that any combat sport would draw that kind of audience today.

Nonetheless, I was curious to see if I could find some statistics to bear out this claim about the popularity of MMA. So I had our media department run some numbers. Recent PMB research indicates that 8.1% of Canadians have watched MMA on television in the last year, compared to about 10.4% for boxing. The boxing audience skews older. There is some duplication between the  audience for the two sports, but  55% of MMA fans don't watch boxing and 65% of boxing fans don't watch MMA.

So it seems that statistically, they're about even with boxing just a little ahead. So it's interesting that the hype has mixed martial arts as far more popular and growing. Neither sport draws an audience anything like what boxing used to command.

I think the Globe article correctly identifies that part of the reason boxing has declined in popularity is that — as a sport — it creates and requires story and romance. Boxing lore is filled with stories of underdogs and the underclasses achieving victory through grit, determination and hard work. Two recent popular movies — THE BOXER and CINDERELLA MAN - epitomize these kinds of romantic, underdog-makes-good legends.

Any great story needs a hero with whom the audience can identify. I don't see that in the boxing world today, or the UFC. There are talented athletes to be sure, but the romance is gone. And so to most people, all that remains is the technique, athletiscism and violence. Seems that this has appeal for roughly 10% of the population. Including me. But I don't see these sports achieving the mass audiences boxing used to command without some kind of compelling, character driven story to capture our imaginations.