Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

33 Things 33-Year-Olds Don't Get

As a 34-year-old, I know what it's like to have been 33. My months of experience as a 34-year-old makes me so wise that I can impart my wisdom to 33-year-olds. Now, you can learn from all my mistakes and wisdom. And I'll add in some GIFs that may or may not have anything to do with the column.

1) Pants. Wear them.

2) It beats being 32!

3) Palindromic numbers are amazing. Love that palindrome.

4) The 33rd best movie in the world on IMDB is The Princess Bride. Amazing, right?*

5) Michael Jordan wanted his number to be 33, but was denied this because he wasn't tall enough.*

6) It's the last year you should be eating Froot Loops. Eat them every day.

7) Wow, all those weddings, huh?

8) Aren't your friends' babies cute? 

9) 32-year-olds can't dance as well as you.*

10) Dustin Hoffman's fling with a 33-year-old convinced him to star in The Graduate.*

11) You could probably get more riboflavin.

12) You should see 33 places you hope to see before you die. And then try not to die right after that.

13) Something about your job will remind you of Office Space. 

14) Hey, did movie ticket prices go up again?

15) Drink Scotch. Bourbon is for 32-year-olds. 

16) A lot of people say Jesus was 33 when he died. Not sure why that matters. But it needs to be in a list about 33-year-olds.

17) You won't remember anything that happened when you were 31. 

18) These lists are really tough. Who has time to make up these things? Oh, right, bloggers.

19) The Cosby Show. Cabbage Patch Kids. Transformers. Back to the Future. Don't those cultural references from the 80s make you so nostalgic?

20) Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and stuff. There you go. 1990s covered. I also recall a lot of big Will Smith movies.

21) You should probably have a passport by now.

22) Remember all that crazy stuff from college? Great!

24) By the time you're 34, you will forget how to count.

25) Radiohead wanted to record 33 albums and then call it quits, which is why the original name of the band was Radio33head.*

26) If you feel gipped by there not being a number 23, there will be two number 26es.

26) When you're 33, you will feel so much better reading a list that you know has 33 things on it. This will speak to you. Be one with the list.

27) How about them cola wars?

28) Speaking of which, do you still remember all the lyrics to We Didn't Start the fire? 

29) Making lists about people of a certain age is a great way to pick up people who are that age. Unless you're married. Which you might be by 33. But it's totally cool if you're not. 

30) Almost there. Hey, remember Almost Famous? Great stuff, right? What about that scene on the roof. Amazing!

31) When you're 66, it's going to be twice as hard to come up with stuff like this. Oh, and 66-year-olds seem really old now. About as old as a 33-year-old seems to a 22-year-old. 

32) No, really, the 20-somethings you work with won't understand anything that you're talking about. Sorry. 

33) After saying a couple really depressing things, these lists should end with something happy. Yay, GIFs to the rescue.

*Anything with an asterisk denotes something I totally made up. 

What CMOs Can Learn from Technologists

In recently taking on a role as an agency CMO (thanks, MRY), one of the stories I found interesting about the move is that someone with a role that focused on scouting emerging tech was moving into a marketing management position. Now, I've never been a technologist by a classical definition - "a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems," as I've been more of a resident technophile. But nonetheless, the technologist title has been used more broadly, so I took a broader look at which values technologists embrace that translate well to marketers. That's the theme of the latest byline in Ad Age. 

The article begins:

Chief marketing officers will always need to craft strategy, communicate effectively and manage a team. But now, and in years to come, they will benefit from paying close attention to technologists. Here's what CMOs should learn from them:

Rapid prototyping. 3D printing is the best known form of rapid prototyping, creating physical parts from digital data. The name is much more fitting than terms like "optimization" or "experimentation" that try to capture the challenge of constantly adapting and innovating. Rapid prototyping means coming up with an idea, bringing it to life and then conceiving the next idea while the first program is hatching. While it has been around in some form since the 1980s, rapid prototyping is just starting to enter the broader professional lexicon, and it may move into popular parlance from here. Current tools and technologies allow anyone to engage in rapid prototyping. But relatively few will do it well.

There's much more, including:

• Collaborate in a zero-sum game
• Stay up on the skills that matter
• Live in constant beta

Read the whole piece at Ad Age, and let me know what else you think marketers can learn from technologists.

 

6 Prescient Maxims on Advertising from 1918

 

In 1918, Claude Hopkins published Scientific Advertising. It's written with so much certainty, and yet 95 years later, we're still just realizing or grappling with some of what Hopkins knew to be the absolute truth back then. 

Now, much of it was dated. This is a book that, tactically, is about mail orders and door to door salesmen. But enough of it needs to be read by marketers today.

Here are a few excerpts that are particularly timely:

On the consumer-centric approach:

The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else.

On job safety:

The correct methods of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic law. Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest business ventures.

On who to hire:

Many of the ablest men in advertising are graduate salesmen. The best we know have been house-to-house canvassers. They may know little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric, but they know how to use words that convince.

On American consumers:

We learn that cheapness is not a strong appeal. Americans are extravagant. They want bargains but not cheapness. They want to feel that they can afford to eat and have and wear the best. Treat them as if they could not and they resent your attitude.

On data-driven marketing:

...An advertising campaign is usually preceded by a very large volume of data. Even an experimental campaign, for effective experiments cost a great deal of work and time.

And then there's one of the greater understatements ever said about the profession:

...This is no lazy mans field.

 

Advice for a New CMO: 23 Marketing Leaders Share Candid Wisdom

I'm excited to share a new publication with you, something that I think is a pretty amazing collection of advice and wisdom from 23 of the smartest marketing leaders. They're all answering the same question: "What advice do you have for a new CMO?" Their advice for chief marketing officers is all gathered here, and I think if you're even remotely interested in marketing, this should be something that you'll want to bookmark, download, and share. If you do share it, and if you have advice of your own to share, join the conversation with the #newcmo hashtag.

Here's what really wound up being an e-book; read below for more of the story.

Advice for a New CMO from David Berkowitz

 

 

Where did this advice come from?

In June 2013, I joined agency MRY as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). It’s my first time in such a role.

On my first day the job, I posted a note to a private community asking some friends from my professional sphere, “What advice do you have for a first-time CMO?”

The responses were inspiring. Right away, I knew I had to share them, and soon I had permission from everyone to post their advice publicly. I was hungry for more though. I reached out to some others who held marketing leadership roles, worked with CMOs, or have given me great advice in the past. Many of them fit all three criteria. More advice poured in, representing hundreds of years of executive leadership experience.

While this advice originally started as some private pointers for one agency’s new CMO, it’s relevant to marketers in a range of industries, and to people who aspire to marketing leadership positions. I know I’ll be learning from this advice for years to come. Maybe you will too.

As for you, if you have advice to contribute, share it online with the #newcmo hashtag, and you can email it over to me at david.berkowitz @ mry . com. Perhaps there will be an updated or second edition as more comes in.

Who are the advisors?

These executives represent major brands such as Comedy Central, Cox, Ford, and PepsiCo, along with startups such as Causes.com, Collective Bias, and LocalResponse, plus some running their own consultancies. Follow them, and in the e-book, the notes field has their LinkedIn profiles as well so they're even easier to find. 

• Marc Barach - @MarcBarach
• Richard Binhammer - @RBinhammer
• Toby Bloomberg - @TobyDiva
• Valerie Brown - @valeywood
• Joe Chernov - @jchernov
• Toby Daniels - @tobyd
• David Deal - @davidjdeal
• Aaron Goldman - @aarongoldman
• Rachel Happe - @rhappe
• Larry Harris - @glarrisharris
• Max Kalehoff - @maxkalehoff
• Peter Kim - @peterkim
• Dave Knox - @daveknox
• Joe Kutchera - @joekutchera
• Charlene Li - @charleneli
• Nihal Mehta - @nihalmehta
• Scott Monty - @ScottMonty
• Mark Naples - @markanaples
• B.L. Ochman - @whatsnext
• Ted Rubin - @TedRubin
• Shiv Singh - @shivsingh
• Don Steele - @donsteele
• Zena Weist - @zenaweist

Thank you Marc, Richard, Toby, Val, Joe, Toby, David, Aaron, Rachel, Larry, Max, Peter, Dave, Joe, Charlene, Nihal, Scott, Mark, B.L., Ted, Shiv, Don, and Zena!

And thank you for reading, sharing, and perhaps even contributing.